Aaron Conners - Tex Murphy 02 (29 page)

Eva walked to the door and pulled out the card she’d taken from the Chameleon.

Inserting the card into a slot just under the door handle, she grasped the handle and turned it. She held the door open and motioned for me to enter. Beyond was a stairwell, with plain walls and metal handrails. Stairs led both up and down. Eva closed the door behind us and took the flight up.

At the top of the stairs, Eva opened the first door we reached. At this point, I had no choice but to follow her, but she did seem to know where she was going. Of course, she could have been utilizing the old confidence smoke screen. It was a ploy I’d used many times, making people think you know what you’re doing when you’re actually baffled and completely at a loss. My motto has always been “What they don’t know won’t hurt

‘em.” Now, however, I was the one in the dark, and I didn’t much like it.

Regardless, I followed Eva out the door and into a long, featureless hallway that looked like an extension of the stairwell. We moved quickly, and every so often, we’d pass a door with a number or letter code stenciled on it. Eva increased the pace until we reached a door marked 28-A-41. She opened it, and I found myself stepping back into paradise.

Again, my sense of smell overloaded with the fragrances of grass and trees. Only this time, I smelled water - not the stinking, contaminated water of New San Fracisco Bay, which now had more pop cans, syringes, and rotten corpses than fish - but the clear, pristine liquid mirror of an alpine lake.

I wished I’d had more time to breathe it in. Eva darted down a small path into the trees. I was close behind, and within minutes we reached the shore of a large lake. In the distance, I could make out the tops of trees. Eva ducked off the path, and we slowly made our way through the underbrush, moving parallel to the shore. Eventually, we reached a clearing and walked to the edge of the water. Hidden in a thicket of bushes was a boat.

We climbed aboard, and Eva started the engine. She guided the boat out of the shallow water, turned it, and we sped off across the lake. I’d never been in a speedboat before, and it was a rush. Bouncing over the surface, with mist coating my face, I felt like we were finally making our escape. With the blue sky above us, it was easy to forget where we were. I moved close to Eva and spoke up over the noise of the engine and chopping water. “Where are we going?”

Eva kept her eyes ahead. “The computer center.”

“This must be the scenic route.”

Eva half-smiled and pulled a strand of hair from the corner of her mouth. “More like the back door. Our only chance of getting in is to use the service access. When they find out we’re missing, they’ll track me down by my bracelet. I hope that taking this route might buy us some extra time. It’s the long way around, but we should meet up with less resistance this way.”

“What do you mean by less resistance? I’m kind of partial to resistance.”

Eva shook her head. “Percival isn’t taking any chances. Security is pretty high everywhere. Luckily for us, he thinks he got the last Winter Chip. I doubt he even suspected you had one.”

“How many are there?”

“There were three. One was in the CAPRICORN building when it was bombed. Another one was found on a CAPRICORN agent and destroyed. Colonel O’Brien had the last one. He was supposed to get it to me before we moved up here.”

I’d always been a slow learner, but things were falling into place. “You were the CAPRICORN mole at GRS.”

The woman looked at me appraisingly, as if I’d unexpectedly identified her very rare brand of perfume, and nodded. I looked out across the lake, to where we were headed.

“How does Voorman fit into this?”

“He was an agent. When the Moon Child was in the last stages of construction, he infiltrated the operation, running a supply freighter to and from the station. He was our most valuable source of information on the cult’s activities. He was also supposed to find and deliver the Winter Chip to me when the Colonel didn’t come through with it. When I’d found out he’d been exposed, just before Sheppard’s speech, I was afraid the chip had been found on him. It was a good thing Percival never considered that you would have it.”

“So what happens with the Winter Chip?”

Eva glanced at me, then back at the water. “Theoretically, it will introduce a rapidly mutating computer virus into the Moon Child’s matrix. The virus is designed to change faster than a virus hunter can identify and delete it. Eventually, it should corrupt the data files to the point where they no longer function. And since all the satellite’s systems are linked into the computer - “

“The Moon Child crashes.”

Eva brushed a lock of hair out of her face. “Yeah. Theoretically.”

“I don’t care much for that word.”

“What? Theoretically? It’ll work. It just wasn’t practical to test it on a computer system comparable to the Moon Child’s.”

“I’ve heard the IRS has one.”

Eva smiled. “Not a bad thought.”

We were getting closer to the shore. I took a seat and left Eva alone as she guided the boat into a small cove. When we reached the shore, I jumped out and pulled the boat in.

Eva even gave me her hand and let me help her out. We went into the trees and walked until we reached an ivy-covered wall. I looked up and estimated the height at somewhere around a hundred feet. This had to be the outer wall of level twenty-eight.

Eva moved along the ivy-covered surface, inspecting it closely. A short time later, she found something in the wall that opened a door. By the amount of ivy, it seemed as though no one had used the door for quite a while. We stepped inside and found ourselves in another stairwell. Eva led the way, and we began to climb. After several dozen flights, my feet were in agony. The too-tight boots were like orthopedic torture devices. I gritted my teeth and kept my eyes focused on Eva’s shapely posterior.

After what seemed like an hour, we reached a landing and a door marked 31-D-07. If my addition was correct, we’d gone up three levels. I leaned over, hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath. My forehead was drenched with sweat, and my deodorant was exhibiting signs of vulnerability. Eva was a little flush, but other than that, looked like she’d just gotten up from the easy chair and gone to the kitchen for a can of Tab.

I tried to pant quietly as Eva leaned her ear against the door and listened. Apparently satisfied, she waited for my heart rate to drop out of the critical zone, then opened the door. Again, we were in a long, generic passageway. We hadn’t seen another soul since we’d been in the elevator, and it was starting to seem a little eerie.

“Where is everyone?”

Eva talked over her shoulder as she walked. “We’re in what you’d call the backside of the station. The only people who make it out this far are the maintenance crews and security personnel. They sweep this section once a day, and we’re in between shifts. We shouldn’t run into anyone until we get close to the computer control area.”

We continued down the passageway for some time. Eventually, we reached an

intersection. A sign showed the way toward the command tower, and we turned in that direction. Gradually, I became aware of increased ambient noise and noticed that more doors were appearing on either side of the hallway. We seemed to have entered a busier section of the Moon Child.

A door up ahead of us opened, and a woman wearing a lab coat stepped into the hallway. She turned and began to walk in the same direction we were. Eva slowed her pace so we wouldn’t overtake her. Strolling now, I began to feel increasingly nervous.

Voices were audible beyond the doors, and we were clearly in danger. Beside me, Eva checked her watch uneasily. I imagined that she was wondering how much time we had left before we were discovered and the alarms went off.

Eventually, we caught up to the woman in the lab coat. She was waiting by a set of elevator doors. Eva said nothing, but also stopped in front of the elevator. The woman smiled at us and resumed waiting. The up button was lit, and Eva made no move to press the down button, so it looked like we were going the same way.

The lift arrived, and the three of us got in. I glanced at the button panel and saw that this elevator provided access to levels twenty-four through thirty-six. The woman pushed the button for level thirty-five. Ten seconds later, the elevator came to a halt, and the doors opened. The woman in the lab coat stepped out, and doors began to close. At that moment, from a distance, I heard a male voice ask to hold the door. I hadn’t planned on displaying any courtesy, but the woman who’d just exited was happy to oblige. The doors reopened, and two security guards hurried into the elevator.

The first was a slender young woman with blond hair and thin lips. The second was a giant of a man, at least six-eight, with a clean shaven head and a permanent scowl. Eva and the female guard seemed to be acquainted and began making small talk. I was leaning against one of the walls, hands behind by back. The behemoth stood rigidly across from me, his eyes focused squarely on me. I smiled at him and smiled politely, but there was no response. The doors closed, and I turned my gaze toward the level display, but I could feel the man continuing to stare at me.

Maybe he was wondering why I was wearing a guard’s uniform, but didn’t look familiar.

I had no idea how extensive the security staff was. A drop of nervous perspiration slid down the side of my face. I glanced back at the big guard. He was clearly suspicious.

Eva seemed unaware of what was happening.

A series of loud beeps startled me. There seemed to be three sources of the beeps, one coming from each of the security guards and one from a previously unnoticed device on the belt of my uniform. The male guard took his eyes from me just long enough to reach down and press the small device on his belt. “Attention all security personnel! This is priority one. Two intruders at large. Their last known location was on level twenty-eight.” The next few seconds played out in slow motion. I saw the big guard’s eyes widen as his hand went for the tasc gun in his holster. Before he could raise it, a flash went off out of the corner of my eye, and he crumpled. I turned to see Eva step back and pivot toward the female guard, who was backing into a corner. A second later, the woman was on the floor next to her partner. I’d never reached for my weapon.

The communicator continued, oblivious to the carnage: “First suspect is a female - five feet, eight inches in height, one hundred twenty pounds, medium length blond hair.

Second suspect is male - “

Eva bent down and switched off the guards’ communicators, then reached over and did the same to mine. She turned and glared up at the level’s display until we reached level thirty-five. Then she raised her tasc gun and pointed it at the still closed elevator doors.

“Things are going to get a little more difficult now.”

The doors opened - no one was there. Eva led the way out of the elevator, tasc gun in hand. I followed her down the passage, fumbling for the weapon in my belt. We moved as quickly and quietly as possible, periodically checking to make sure no one was behind us.

At the end of the passage, we ran into a barrier: a door marked Top Level Security Clearance Required - No Unauthorized Entry. Eva brought out the card she’d taken from the Chameleon. “I hope this thing works.”

She ran the card through the reader an the door. Nothing happened for several secinds, then I heard a click. Eva pushed the door, and it swung open. Then she slid the card back into her pocket and barely smiled. “If they didn’t know where we were before, they do now.”

She spun around and sprinted back down the hall. I was a few steps behind her and running on pure adrenaline. Under normal circumstances, I would’ve been resting back at the lake and smoking a cigarette. As it was, my toxin-laced blood was pumping through clogged arteries at a rate not seen since my teens.

Ahead of me, Eva slowed down, then came to a stop outside one of the doors. She leaned against the wall next to the door and motioned for me to do the same. My damaged lungs ached, and I tried to control my breathing without bending over or passing out.

We waited as silently as possible for what seemed to be a long time, though it was probably only a minute or two. Then, behind the door, I heard a voice, which suddenly started to increase in volume. The door opened, and a middle-aged man stepped into the hallway, still looking back over his shoulder and talking.

Instantly, Eva had the man’s arm twisted behind his back and her tasc gun pointed at his head. Keeping the man in front of her, she walked through the door, and I followed her inside. The room was very white and brightly lit. It was quite large, but there were only seven people in it, at least as far as I could see. Eva moved her hostage roughly into the center of the room and raised her voice menacingly. “Everyone! Move together! Do anything stupid, and I’ll kill all of you!” The stunned group, five middle-aged men and two somewhat younger women, slowly clustered together.

“Get down on the floor! Hands behind your heads!”

Everyone complied in varying degrees. Some lay face down, others went only to their knees. Eva shoved her hostage toward the group and told him to join them. Then she turned to me and spoke so everyone could hear. “Keep your gun on them. If anyone moves or makes a sound, kill ‘em.”

I nodded and aimed my weapon at the center of the group. Eva tucked the tasc gun into her belt and walked off. I kept my eyes glued on the hostages. Behind me, I could hear Eva working on one of the computer consoles.

As I waited nervously, the men and women looked up at me with expressions ranging from terror to loathing. A part of me felt sympathy for them. These were living, breathing people like me, and I tried to keep from imagining myself in their place.

Technically, I’d already been an accessory in the deaths of three security guards, and killing had never been an easy thing for me.

Then I thought back to the things I’d seen at the penal colony. Whether these people knew it or not, they were abetting one of the most hideous schemes in the history of mankind. These cult members believed themselves superior to the innocent billions living unsuspectingly on the planet below. Somewhere on board the Moon Child were thousands of lethal satellites, waiting to be unleashed so they essentially eradicate the Earth’s entire population. As I looked at the faces before me, I thought of Louie and the mutated gang of regulars at the Brew & Stew. If the cult was allowed to fulfill its prophecies, my friends would die. I tightened the grip on my tasc gun and steeled myself. It was for the greater good that the people on the Moon Child die. Myself included.