As I prepared for my role, I couldn’t help thinking about the end of “Hoichi the Earless,” when noblemen arrive at the temple to hear Hoichi perform The Tale of the Heike. Interesting ghosts and powerful women aside, this scene probably was what Nuruddin had been getting at when he suggested Kwaidan would be of special interest. The noblemen who came to view Hoichi’s performance behaved as if they were onstage, too—their attire, their behavior, even the way they positioned themselves around the platforms also seemed like a play.
From lowliest worm to loftiest Executive, that’s how we who live in Olympia enter a situation, with careful observance of attire and protocol. Without those parameters, we feel awkward. Even I, who travel between jobs and personas, feel lost without rules. So I studied to become a Security woman. I named her Anzia Thammavong.
Anzia couldn’t speak with my ruined throat—I reviewed the voice files of several female Security workers to construct one that would please the ear without standing out too much. And I adjusted the color of my artificial eyes from black to amber, which allowed them to blend more with my skin tone. Combined with the absence of eyebrows, this made them less obvious features.
The backstory that I designed for her was from the Aft Sector of Olympia. Worms from Central Sector would not have interacted enough with worms from Aft Sector to know that no such person ever lived there. Any queries about her would be shuttled to Medusa or Nefertari, who would follow expected protocols and return data that backed up her story.
That was the easy part. The hard part would be fooling my coworkers. A review of the habits of Security teams in Aft Sector revealed that although they were formal in the execution of their duties, they could be quite rambunctious off duty. I reported to work on my first day with that sitting uneasily in the back of my mind.
“You’re a quiet one,” my captain said as he marched me to my new station. “The quiet ones are the ones to watch.”
His name was Ellington, so I couldn’t help playing Duke Ellington’s “Take the ‘A’ Train” in my head as he led me through the In-Skin Security complex.
“I feel nervous,” I said. “I hate being new.”
“Just do your job,” he said. “You’ll be okay.”
Probably I would. But moments later, I faced what I thought would be my biggest test. I was introduced to Terry Charmayne. He looked me directly in the face.
“This is Thammavong,” said Captain Ellington. (Security people prefer calling each other by their last names.)
Terry looked up from his workpad and regarded me for several beats. “Your eyes are enhanced,” he said.
“Artificial, sir.” My profile said as much. “I was nearsighted. I qualified for replacements.”
“That’s useful,” said Terry. “You should be able to look at the monitors without a lot of fatigue.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Welcome to the crew.” He returned his attention to his workpad, jotting a few notes with his stylus.
I made myself wait until my captain had led me away to my new workstation. Then I spied on Terry’s notes.
Met new Security specialist. Roster full. His notes would be forwarded to Ryan Charmayne, who would review them and comment if he thought anything needed more attention. I bookmarked the conversation so I would be notified if that happened.
“The work will be much like what you did in Aft Sector,” said Ellington. “Your profile showed you’ve got a talent for observation. I’ll review your notes at the end of your shift and let you know if we’ll be needing any style changes.”
“Yes, sir.”
He led me to a bank of monitors. These revealed access points into the Habitat Sector that were used primarily by high-level technicians and low-level Executives (who were sometimes the same people). My job was to jot notes about what I observed, without making judgments about what I saw. My notes would serve as a backup to recorded data. Although I would be drawing no conclusions about what happened on the monitors, if someone tampered with the recordings, my observations might conflict with them, and that would pinpoint activities that merited investigation. I should also document sections that lost their visual feed, and call for help if I noticed anyone was in distress.
“You’ll stand at this post for two-hour stretches,” said Captain Ellington. “Ten-minute breaks and one half-hour lunch break in between. We find that standing allows you to be more focused than sitting would.”
“Yes, sir.”
He quirked one side of his mouth. “I don’t know if that’s agreement or fatalism, but it works for me. Here’s your workpad. Any questions?”
I accepted the workpad. “Not yet, sir. I may have some after I’ve worked a shift, but I feel good to go now.”
“Good. Carry on.” He turned on his heel and left me to it.
I scanned the monitors. Identity markers appeared in the lower right corners along with time stamps, as soon as anyone entered a frame. I began to jot notes, but I also referred to my own Security overlay to see if the information matched up. Anytime it didn’t, I intended to make private notes about it.
I looked up everyone who appeared on the monitors, bookmarking them for deeper investigation. I suspected all of them would have backstories—but then, so did Anzia Thammavong. I would have to dig for the truth. But I had access to older information—all the records from Titania, which included old reports from Olympia, since personnel often traveled between the two.
If the alien really had been in deepsleep during that time, he or she would not have a cover story older than my records.
Yes, this was not a perfect theory. But it was a starting place. And in the meantime, I saw all sorts of people I had never met.
The flow of this work swept me up. I felt satisfied. If my fate had played out a little differently, I would have been good at this job. Then I had to remind myself that Security people were sometimes called upon to execute people at the whim of Executives. And that was a unique situation.
You could argue that Donnie Constantin had earned his fate. But raping his kinfolk and undermining Gloria in the House of Clans were not why Donnie had been blown out of an air lock. He had humiliated and twisted people into cruel machines who expanded his web of blackmail and influence, but he was executed because he embarrassed his clan. It would take decades for them to recover the face they had lost, if they could do it at all, so yes, absolutely—ka-sploot!
But his Security team had liked him. I think the same was true of the people who escorted Bunny Charmayne to the air lock. They dispensed death without malice, impersonally. Someone else made the call.
If I were going to kill, I needed to be the judge. I wouldn’t obey someone else’s order to do it. Anzia Thammavong was well placed for spying, but also for avoiding execution duty. She was a notetaker, not a martial expert. (Good thing, too—because without Medusa to enhance my abilities, my fighting skills were not impressive.)
I watched the monitors and made my notations, congratulating myself for being a smooth operator. I don’t know how long I had stood there before I noticed a reflection on one of the screens. Someone stood in a doorway behind me and to my left, watching me with unblinking eyes. When I isolated his image and enhanced it, I saw a man who might have been in his thirties. His features were unremarkable, and his expression revealed no emotion at all, no alarm or interest. But his military stance was familiar. And then I zeroed in on his name badge.
It said P. SCHNEBLY.
* * *
Nefertari took that moment to enter the conversati
on.
We continued to watch him as he watched me. His eyes must have been artificial, too, because he never blinked. His face was like the undisturbed surface of a pool.
Was that how I looked to others? Bit of a spook, wasn’t I?
I continued to jot notes. The longer we stood there, the less nervous I felt about his proximity. If he were the predator I suspected him to be, that was not a wise reaction.
But then he turned and walked away from the door.
New person shows up to your workplace, so you’re curious about her. And you’re a veteran of Investigations, so it’s your nature to be suspicious. That could be all it was.
But—
But you could argue I had started out there, anyway.
12
But Can She Dance?
P. Schnebly didn’t look in on me again.
Knowing he was there put me on edge. But I quickly saw an upside. Thanks to this encounter, I knew the surveillance that had failed to place him anywhere near the Charmayne In-Skin Command Center was false. So that could be adjusted. I wouldn’t attempt to monitor his communications, but I could use the links I already had to Baylor and Ryan Charmayne without having to create new ones that might pop out at Schnebly. Whatever he said to the Charmaynes, they would respond. That was almost as good as listening in on him directly.
That was what I told myself. Looking back on it, I understand that I had put myself in a bad situation, and I was trying to make the best of it. After all, I was a Servant—keeping a straight face, with graceful movements, pretending everything was all right. That’s how I got through the first day. I didn’t get hustled into an air lock or thrown into a brig, so everything seemed to be headed more or less in the right direction.
Then my relief showed up to take over for the next shift. She smirked at me, which set off a minor alarm, but I assumed she was expressing her contempt for a newbie. I could go home now and start sifting through a mountain of information. But it turned out I was a little hasty.
Captain Ellington met me at the checkpoint. “Come with me,” he said. “You’re not through for this shift.”
I had no idea what he meant, but his demeanor brooked no argument, so I went along quietly. As we walked through tunnels unfamiliar to me, I reviewed after-shift surveillance of Security personnel who spent time together in Aft Sector, a subject that made me uncomfortable. Servants are strictly forbidden to socialize with each other. We’re expected to lead quiet lives that include only our immediate family and close neighbors.
Aft Security employees are a different breed. They drink a fermented beverage called beer; play racquetball, pool, and dominoes; and call each other dude, regardless of gender. The seams of my performance might become apparent under the stress of Central Sector’s version of that behavior. I just hoped my far-ship newbie-ness would be a plausible excuse.
Ellington led me into a gymnasium, which was no surprise since that’s also where Aft Sector Security folk hang out when they’re having fun. But the rest of my shift stood in rows, looking at me, and when Ellington led me into their midst, they closed ranks around me.
It was a gauntlet; I recognized that much. I had never seen the behavior among worms, but young Executives put each other through this ritual fairly often. New people had to walk (or more often, stagger) from one end of the gauntlet to the other and somehow stay on their feet as they were kicked, punched, and shoved. In the most benign version of this ritual, I had watched a boy make his way through a rain of chocolate pudding—and no one here was holding any dessert.
They stood around me in ranks, their eyes pitiless. I doubted I could give a good accounting of myself with even one of them, let alone this gauntlet. They must have seen through my act—they knew I wasn’t one of them.
Yet my face was serene. After all, I was a Servant. I had witnessed outrages without batting an eyelash.
One of them stepped forward. “My name is Kalyani Aksu,” she said. “And you are Thammavong.”
“Yes.” I was ready for whatever might come. Or so I thought.
Music blared, the lines started to move, and Aksu sang, “Don’t tell my heart / my achy breaky heart…”
I was bumped by those closest to me, who urged me to move along with them, waiting for me to remember the dance steps—which I had never learned. I stumbled and desperately improvised.
It certainly wasn’t. I didn’t recognize the beat and I didn’t know the steps, but I kept trying anyway. Every time I thought I was getting it, they pivoted into some new steps and I turned back into a clown. Getting punched and kicked might have been less embarrassing.
Just as I was starting to get the drift, the music ended, and my coworkers thumped me on the back, calling me a good sport. Aksu stepped up and waggled a finger at me. “You don’t know the song!” She was incredulous. “How could you not know that song?”
“I—um—ah—”
“If you don’t know that song, you have to pay the penalty,” she said. “You have to sing a song you do know.”
“Now?” I said.
They folded their arms and gave me stern glares. And I, who had a vast music database implanted in my head, went totally blank. For the life of me, I couldn’t cough up one song.
Aksu saw my confusion. She smiled at me. She wasn’t a pretty woman, but her smile was dazzling. It cleared my head.
“There’s no business,” I sang, “like show business / Like no business I know…”
Because even though COUNTRY MUSIC wasn’t included in my father’s database, SHOW TUNES were.
* * *
Line dancing made sense when you considered that we needed to promote teamwork. We were a paramilitary force who could be called upon to defend our ship in extreme circumstances. We could fight together, sing together—and apparently line dance together as well.
“You’re graceful, but you don’t have passion for dancing,” Kalyani said, that first time.
“True,” I admitted. “It’s just—a social thing.”
She flashed that smile I liked so much. “We’d better stick to table tennis.”
Thereafter we did, usually four games, then had quiet conversation with Ellington and a couple of women from Operations named Spencer and Moody while the rest of our coworkers line-danced or played pool or dominoes. This socializing lasted two hours after each shift, and then we all dispersed to our families (or our lonely quarters, in my case). That’s how it went the first week. I expected it to continue that way for several more. I decided I could keep it up indefinitely.
But that wasn’t how long it took to spot the alien.
I didn’t have the benefit of Medusa’s ears while I was Anzia. But no one who saw the alien could fail to notice him. He walked with Baylor and Ryan Charmayne. This was awkward, because they appeared in a place one doesn’t usually see high-level Executives. And they had no Security staff with them, which was a breach of protocol.
They moved quickly through a planted area, as if on a mission, and disappeared behind some flowering shrubs. They didn’t reappear on the next camera.
Even if I hadn’t been a spy, that would have given me pause. Reporting odd behavior from the Executives you work for is
not a great idea.
Before I wrote anything down, I checked the surveillance logs. I discovered their images had already been scrubbed from the record.
So I didn’t write anything about the incident. I had my own secret recording. I finished my shift, hung out with my coworkers for the usual two hours afterwards, then went back to my quarters to review my recording and feast my eyes on the alien.
There are plenty of people on Olympia with pale skin, but not with his particular tone. Likewise, many people have light hair, but only if it’s artificial (or dyed). This fellow had skin with pink undertones, hair that was so blond, it was almost white, and ice-blue eyes. Seeing all those features together on one person was notable.
According to the databases, he did not exist.
I watched the recording several times, feeling an odd satisfaction when I observed the confidence and pride in the way the alien carried himself. Baylor and Ryan looked flustered in comparison, as if the effort of matching this fellow’s stature was wearing them thin. He ignited my curiosity.
I wondered what had lit the fire under them. A deeply paranoid voice in the back of my mind piped up with the opinion that they knew a spy had infiltrated their In-Skin Command Center. A more rational voice replied that if that were the case, they would not have walked right into my surveillance.
Regardless of which voice had the right idea, I knew it was time to make another foray into enemy territory with my favorite cohort.
* * *
When I wore Medusa and we were moving under her steam, she usually wrapped a couple of tentacles around my legs. That way she could carry me in a sling as she pushed us through wider tunnels. Or she could draw me out straight if we needed to slither through narrower spaces. I suppose this could be considered a dance of sorts; I responded to gentle cues from my partner and moved the way she wanted me to. We traveled very fast that way. We would appear as a blur if we moved through a space under surveillance.
Medusa Uploaded_A Novel_The Medusa Cycle Page 12
