by Devin Hanson
“She doesn’t look under duress,” he muttered. “Tabitha, can you compile all video of Matriarch Everard and see if Matriarch Romaine is in evidence?”
“Already underway, Dennison. I have alerted the other ainlif and ordered a meal delivered.”
“Good. Uh. Keep me appraised of the search for Alana.”
“Of course.”
Dennison took the time to brush his teeth and made it to the room they had set aside as a command center a minute before the other ainlif. The Everards had a look of giddy relief about them, and Dennison couldn’t help but feel a stab of jealousy.
Without being asked, Tabitha was running through the footage of Cynthia Everard as she made her way about the Basement in reverse, skipping from camera to camera as the AI correlated time stamps and angles. Dennison poured himself a mug of coffee and joined the other ainlif in watched the monitor fixedly.
It didn’t take long for the AI to backtrack Cynthia’s progress to the closet where she had been held before Wharton came and got her.
“Any sign of Alana?” Edison asked.
“I’m showing you what I have discovered so far,” Tabitha said patiently.
The shot of the closet door was focused on a walk-in freezer, with only the corner of the door visible. The image seemed to vibrate as Tabitha ran it in reverse. Figures came and went in a blur, then the image froze on a still frame of Cynthia and Alana being hustled down the corridor, their arms bound and tape over their mouths.
Dennison let out a sigh of relief as he recognized his mother, then felt a sudden flash of fury as he took in Alana’s bruised face and torn clothing.
“She lives!” Bryson breathed.
Dennison bowed his head and clenched his teeth. “Those bastards,” he ground out.
“I have something,” Tabitha announced. “An encrypted packet was sent out at 1700 hours yesterday. Giving the timing and destination routing on the packet, I believe it to be the ransom request to Horizon. I am in process of decrypting the packet but have no guarantee of success within a reasonable time frame.”
“That’s not good,” Evan said quietly. “If Horizon received the ransom, we should have heard back from Alec and Garrison.”
“They may not have been in a position to be informed of the message’s reception,” Ferguson said.
“We have a timeline, then,” Evan announced. “It’s current three in the morning, so Horizon has had the ransom request for seven hours. Flight time from Horizon to Nueva Angela is…” He paused and reached for his tablet.
“Eighteen hours,” Tabitha supplied.
“Okay. Assuming they scrambled a dirigible immediately, that gives us eleven hours to affect a rescue. After the marines land, if we aren’t assisting them, then we’re obstructing and will be treated as complicit.” Evan scowled. “Mother was stationed on Horizon for several decades. I’ve seen how the marines operate.”
“Eleven hours isn’t much time,” Dennison grunted. “But it’s better than nothing, and right now I’ll take every minute we can get. Tabitha, can we get a workup of the Basement and the areas the extras have barricaded?”
“Certainly, Dennison. I will begin processing immediately. Would you like an architectural wireframe to begin with?”
“That will work for a start, but we know they retrofitted the space. It’s not going to be very useful without your updates. We need someone who has been there.”
“I may have a possible target for you,” Tabitha suggested. “They are nearby.”
Dennison paused outside the doorway. Voices were speaking in the room within, tight with anger and emotion. The earpiece in Dennison’s ear clicked and Tabitha’s voice came through.
“This is the place.”
He glanced back and nodded at Bryson and Evan. The induction mic taped at the base of his throat was itchy where a corner of the tape poked at his skin. “I hear two inside.”
“That is correct,” Tabitha responded.
“Follow my lead,” he said softly. “These people aren’t a threat.”
Dennison didn’t wait for the nod from his companions before coming off the wall and stepping into the room. There were two people in the prep room, a young man, undernourished and boney with high cheekbones and ragged sandy hair, and his companion, a middle-aged woman, her hair a riot of blonde frizz. Both looked up in surprise as Dennison, Bryson and Evan entered the room.
“This is an extra staging area,” the woman said flatly, a hint of anger in her voice carrying through from her interrupted conversation. “Authorized personnel only.”
Feigning boredom, Dennison fished his tablet out and spun it around to show the woman his ratings.
She stared for a moment before drawing herself up into embarrassed attention. “Excuse me, sir. I didn’t know who you were.”
“At ease, Chief Nicks.” Dennison eyed the boy, who was awkwardly mirroring Millicent. “And you would be Jackson Harding. How do you like being an extra?”
Jackson swallowed. “Fine, sir. It’s hard work but rewarding.”
“Hmm. That’s good. Chief Nicks, perhaps you could enlighten me. What is going on here?”
Millicent swallowed and her face paled. “Uh. I’m not sure what you mean, sir?”
Dennison suppressed his smile. It had been a shot in the dark, but now he had something to work with. He eyed Millicent and let the silence drag out. He could see the sweat beading on her forehead. It wouldn’t take much for her to crack.
“It’s not her fault!” Jackson exclaimed.
Dennison watched Millicent’s face fall before turning slowly to regard Jackson. “What isn’t her fault?”
“The work orders were canceled,” Jackson blurted.
“I see.” Dennison frowned.
In his ear, Tabitha said, “All external repairs were put on hold, siting an emergency in the lower levels of Stack C.”
“If you have orders directing you to work in the lower levels of Stack C,” Dennison asked, “what are you doing here?”
“I asked him here, sir,” Millicent spoke up. “He’s still my crew, regardless of temporary assignments.”
“It’s okay, Chief,” Jackson said. “I’ll get going now.”
He moved toward the exit and Evan stepped into the doorway, blocking his path. Jackson tried slipping past and Evan caught his arm, effortlessly turning Jackson’s motion into a stumble back into the room. Millicent saw Evan and recognition widened her eyes.
“Oh my god, you’re already here!” she gasped.
“Hey!” Jackson cried out as he caught his balance. “What the hell was that?”
“Jackson!” Millicent snapped. “That’s enough!” She raised her hands and placed them behind her head before lowering herself to her knees. To Dennison she said, “I’m unarmed. We both are. I’ll cooperate with whatever you want.”
Dennison glared at Evan and the other ainlif rolled a shoulder in a shrug.
Jackson stared at Millicent. “What…?”
“Get down, you fool!” Millicent hissed.
Belated understanding bloomed on Jackson’s face. “You’re from Horizon!”
Dennison sighed. “Well. So much for subterfuge. What are we going to do with you?” he asked.
“They are still useful,” Tabitha reminded him.
“Right.” Dennison fought down the sense of time slipping away between his fingers. Tabitha was right. “Okay. I suppose introductions are in order. I’m Dennison Romaine, you’ve met Evan Everard. Bryson Romaine is in the hall outside.”
“You’re here for your matriarchs,” Millicent breathed. Cautious relief colored her words. “The marines haven’t arrived yet?”
Dennison shook his head. He was a little bemused by Millicent’s understanding of the situation, then remembered who she was married to. “We’re trying to prevent the necessity of the marines,” he said. “They are coming, though. And sooner than we’d like. Oh, get up. We’re not going to kill you.”
“Your matriarchs are alive
,” Millicent assured him. “Jackson saw them with his own eyes not eight hours ago.” She let her hands down slowly and climbed back to her feet.
Evan moved to block the doorway, the bulk of his pistol filling his hands. “You sure about that, Den? We can’t let them go. If they send word that we’re here, it could ruin everything. I’m not taking that risk.”
Millicent stepped sideways to put herself between Evan and Jackson. “I understand you have no reason to trust us,” she said, “but I swear, I’m as horrified at what Wharton has done as you are. Well. Maybe not as much, but I will do whatever I can to help you.”
“And what of your crewman?” Dennison demanded. “You have Sari Delacroix to consider, but Jackson has no such loyalties.”
Millicent’s face blanched at the mention of her wife. “Please, leave Sari out of this.”
“That will be up to you,” Evan said grimly.
“Please,” Millicent’s eyes glistened with unshed tears. “She’s happy. She’s forgotten. Please don’t remind her of what she’s lost.”
Dennison exchanged a look with Evan and grimaced. “Millicent, you don’t betray us and Sari will have nothing to fear from us. We won’t even look in her direction, and that’s a promise. But your crewman is an unknown. Both of you are coming with us and we’ll discuss your cooperation shortly.”
Evan hefted his pistol and glared at Jackson. “And you, boy, you try to run and I’ll gun you down before you make it three paces.”
Jackson nodded jerkily and ducked his head.
“Good. Now march.”
Jackson Harding walked in front of the ainlif with the gun, Evan, and kept his eyes down and his shoulders pulled in. He walked carefully, terrified that he might trip over his own feet and get a monomol round in the back for his trouble.
Ahead of him, Millicent walked with the leader, Dennison, silent and trembling. It was Millicent’s reaction to the ainlif presence more than anything that scared Jackson. Millicent wasn’t afraid of anything. She stared death in the face on a regular basis, but one look at these ainlif and she was white-faced and shaking.
Were they really that bad? Dennison, despite his hard words, seemed like a nice enough guy. He wasn’t sure about Evan, though. That one seemed like he was just itching for an excuse to shoot someone. Jackson’s mind buzzed with all the rumors he had heard about the ainlif, intermixed with the facts he had been taught in school.
Some of the more far-fetched rumors were clearly false. They weren’t seven feet tall and their eyes didn’t glow red. In fact, other than being extremely fit, they didn’t look unusual at all. They weren’t even particularly handsome, though Jackson didn’t consider himself an accurate judge of such things. Now that he had a minute to look, he could see the family resemblance between Dennison and Bryson. They both had the same sandy-brown hair and the same nose, though their eyes were slightly different. All of them seemed to be in their late twenties.
It was almost a disappointment. He had had daydreams about meeting an ainlif. In his head, they had been genetically perfect killing machines, bred for fanatical defense of their matriarchs. The reality was a lot more boring.
They turned out of the tight inner hallways and out onto the wider, curving outer hallways. Jackson had just enough time to worry about someone seeing them, then they turned again and were walking into a hotel. He saw the name, the Burbank Gardens, then they were hurrying past into a dead-end hallway lined with doors and potted ferns.
“This way,” Dennison instructed, and led them into the last room of the left.
If it had been nerve-wracking being in the company of three ainlif, it was abruptly much worse. There were five more ainlif waiting for them. Two of them had the same sandy hair as Dennison and Bryson, while the other three had the same jet-black hair as Evan.
One of the Everard ainlif turned when they entered and frowned. “So, these are the ones.”
Millicent took half a step forward. “I’m here to help. Any way I can.”
The ainlif grunted and raised a skeptical eyebrow. “And what of you, boy?”
Jackson swallowed and nodded stiffly. Somewhere between the staging room and reaching the hotel, his ambivalence about supporting Wharton had vanished. The situation with their living conditions was dire, but the method Wharton had gone about trying to solve the problem was just wrong.
“I don’t know what help I can be, but I will do what I can,” he said.
“Do you know the layout of the Basement?” Dennison asked.
Millicent nodded and Jackson echoed her motion a moment later. “Yes,” she said. “I know it quite well.”
“And what about the modifications Wharton is making?”
“I left before any of the work started,” Millicent shrugged. “I wanted nothing to do with their mad plan.”
“Same,” Jackson said, “though I have an extant work order in the Basement, likely to work on the fortifications.”
“Out of the question,” Evan growled. “You’re not going anywhere near the Basement until we know we can trust you.”
“They’ll know I’m missing,” Jackson said tentatively.
“Too bad. We have footage of the work they were doing up until around an hour ago. You can help update our model for now.” Dennison shook his head. “Nicks, you stay here. I want to pick your brain about Wharton, try to get a sense of who he is and what his reactions will be like.”
“Come on, kid,” one of the Everard ainlif said. “I’ll set you up on a work station. Are you hungry?”
“Uh, no thanks,” Jackson muttered. He followed the ainlif out of the room and watched as the man verified that the hallway door leading out to the rest of the hotel was locked. Jackson wasn’t happy about being separated from Millicent, but it was clear his opinions on things weren’t worth the breath to voice them.
“In here. I’m Chase, by the way. Normally my brothers are decent people, so you’ll have to forgive them. They’re a little on edge right now.”
Jackson nodded uncertainly. “Uh, I guess that’s understandable.” He followed Chase into the room, the closest one to the hallway door. A portable terminal had been set up on a folding table and was connected to a fat cable that ran back up the hallway to the room where everyone else had been congregated.
“This terminal is connected directly to Tabitha. She’ll be doing the bulk of the work but having a human eye to rationalize things makes it go much quicker. And it will help that you’ve been there and can fill in the parts that aren’t covered by cameras.”
“Okay.” None of that made a whole lot of sense to Jackson, but he nodded anyway.
“Good. Hey. If you need something, ask for me by name, or tell Tabitha you need me. Don’t let those muscle brains scare you.” Chase chucked Jackson on the shoulder then left.
Feeling a little nervous, Jackson settled in front of the terminal. Before he had a chance to touch anything, the screen flickered and a program opened. Jackson immediately recognized it as the same software package he had been using earlier in the day to map his surface footage.
There was a long list of footage clips around various parts of the Basement, most only a few seconds long. Jackson opened the first of the clips and found a shot of the lift lobby outside the restaurant. A barricade had been piled across the middle of the lobby, stacked furniture spot-welded together. Automatically, the system started updating a structural wireframe with information taken from the clip.
Jackson didn’t find his input was really required. Whatever automated evaluation routine the ainlif had patched into the software was doing an incredible job. As he started working through the clips one at a time, he found the input needed from him was mostly in terms of scaling and bridging the gaps that weren’t covered by video clips.
He lost himself in the work, and soon had forgotten to feel scared of the ainlif in the other room. Using the mapping software was fascinating work, and seeing the Basement unfold in front of him had an additional interest. Wharton hadn�
�t wasted any time in preparing the levels for throwing back an attack, and through the clips, he was getting a comprehensive understanding of the layered defenses.
After a half an hour of work, there was a clunk outside the door, startling Jackson. The screen on his terminal went black. Fear came seeping back into him, and he eyed the door to his room warily. What had happened to the power? Were the ainlif coming back for him? He still had over half of the clips to process.
He started getting up, and the door swung open. The man who surged through the doorway wasn’t an ainlif. Jackson recognized one of Wharton’s men from the trip to Nova Aeria, before the yawning barrel of a manufactured shotgun swung up on centered on his chest.
“Woah!” Jackson gasped, holding out his hands. “Easy!”
“The hell? Harding? What are you doing here?”
Jackson gulped and tried to think. The gun pointing at him seemed to have clogged his thoughts and he couldn’t focus. “I’m not with them,” he said, and flinched as the man jerked the gun at him.
“Well, what are you doing, then?”
“I’m… I just…” he gestured helplessly at the terminal. “They were making me do some work, but…”
“Were you spilling about the Basement?” the man glowered threateningly. Behind him, several more men were in the hallway. Like man threatening Jackson, they carried guns that looked to be pieced together from pipe and hastily-machined parts, with stocks and grips bolted on.
“What’s the holdup?” one of them hissed.
“Of course not!” Jackson said, truthfully. “Look, they’re all at the end of the hallway, in the last door on the right.”
“We ain’t got time for this,” someone in the hallway said in a harsh whisper. “The net terminal will reboot in a few seconds. We’re losing our window!”
From the corner of his eye, Jackson saw his terminal screen flick back on. “Be careful,” he said encouragingly, “Chase four of them in the hallway!”
“What?” the man asked.
