Cyborg Strike (4 page)

Searching, he found an emergency hatch
leading up into the structure, with a convenient stairway.
Deliberately unlocked in case someone needed to come in quickly,
Spooky accepted his good luck and the probability that karma would
make him pay later.

The bill came due much sooner than he
thought.

After listening for a moment, he lifted the
door, hoping to close it immediately and then quickly blend in with
the usual heavily clad run of base personnel.

Instead, he was greeted with mocking
applause, delivered by a woman whose hard-face prettiness did
nothing to conceal her delight. Two armed figures on either side of
her covered him with squat, ugly weapons. “Well done, sir, well
done. We didn’t pick you up until you were fifty meters from this
building.”

Spooky put on a deliberately pleasant smile
before lifting his faceplate, then removing his whole helmet.
“Hello, Cassandra. How fast was I moving?”

“Oh, maybe five seconds per meter.”

“Do you think I have forgotten how to count?
Or to crawl.”

Her face lost a bit of its triumph. “You
might have frozen if you’d done that. The ground is eighty below.
Unless you have a fusion pack on your back, the Antarctic will eat
your heat if you lay on it for a solid hour.”

“I might have. Then again…I might not. It’s
no matter. It was a friendly contest, nothing more, and I salute
you.” Spooky raised his fingertips to his eyebrow and winked. “Now
do you mind showing me to quarters and a shower? It’s been an
uncomfortable trip.”

Cassandra snorted, apparently declining to
belabor the obvious, that his discomfort was of his own making.
“Sure. Is an hour enough? Daniel would like to see you at
1400.”

“That would be fine, yes. Do you mind having
your people point their weapons elsewhere? I’d hate to have to
injure anyone.”

One of the figures snorted as Cassandra waved
them down. She rounded on him, an iron-chinned hero type straight
out of a recruiting poster. “You might want to keep that crap
secured, mister.”

“Sorry, ma’am,” the man replied, not looking
sorry at all.

“Spooky,” she said without unlocking her eyes
from her subordinate’s, “you may embarrass him if you like.”

“Spooky?” the man replied, his jaw
slackening. His face turned white as the snow outside.

“I don’t think that will be
necessary…anymore,” Spooky responded with a faint smile. “Sometimes
it’s enough merely to have a reputation. Lead on, Miss
Johnstone.”

The security detail gave them both a wide
berth as they walked through their midst, then fell in behind at a
respectful distance.

It wasn’t long before the highlander stripped
to his skinsuit and scrubbed off in the hot shower. The high-tech
material dried almost instantly, wicking away all moisture, and
Spooky found a standard set of trousers, tunic and boots that fit
well enough. Jauntily he waved at the inevitable camera watching
him dress.

Let them wonder
, he thought.
I
didn’t bring any weapons with me, which will make them worry all
the more, wondering why they cannot find what I surely must
have
. He laughed aloud.

***

The call came in to Brigadier Alkina’s office
a quarter world away, routed directly to her desk by a well-trained
COMINT collector.

The fact that the heavily encrypted traffic
the man had been analyzing had suddenly become transparent, his
near-real-time supercomputer decryption easily breaking a simple
eight-bit scramble, surprised him, of course. That the message
itself had begun with a recorded loop that said, “Please patch this
secure voice feed to Ann Alkina,” had startled him, but he had
wisely decided that anyone that could feed into his intelligence
system at will should probably be listened to.

And, if the boss did not like his decision,
he was sure his career would survive it. She’d never, to his
knowledge, been less than scrupulously fair with her subordinates.
On the other hand, if it turned out to be important and he
delayed…that might be less survivable.

“Alkina,” she answered. For a moment all she
heard were crackles, pops and echoes, a sure sign of a call
originating off the continent. Then her phone switched of its own
accord into secure mode, indicating that the other end had
initiated a synchronized encryption that ensured no one between the
two devices could decipher their words.

When the line cleared and the green light
came on, she heard a female voice, half-familiar. “Ann Alkina? My
name is Cassandra Johnsone. I work for Daniel Markis.”

Alkina sat back in her chair and stared for a
moment at the inside of her office door, mind racing. She’d never
spoken to the woman on the other end, though she knew the name and
reputation quite well: Markis’ personal spymistress. Of course she
had seen videos and heard recordings of her counterpart – perhaps,
technically, her superior, as Johnstone putatively ran the entire
Free Community intelligence apparatus.

However, the woman had never tried to assert
such authority over Australian affairs, beyond asking for and
receiving routine political-military intelligence such as many had
access to – the general classified items, not the close-held ones.
The fact that she could and did tap in to easily into Australian
networks, by the roundabout method of deliberately having her call
picked up through intelligence channels, was a clear subtext
intended for Alkina herself, she was sure. Translation:
I can
get in if I want to.

“I know who you are,” Alkina answered
politely. “How may I help you?”

“I just wanted to know that our mutual friend
arrived safe and sound, and is even now meeting my boss in as much
privacy and security as I can provide him.”

Alkina paused again to digest this
straightforward declaration. “But that’s not all you wish to say to
me.”

“Of course not. There are two reasons for my
call. The first is that I have always wanted to talk to you, even
to meet you. As it happened, I was not involved in your preparation
for the
Nebraska
mission, so we narrowly missed each other.
Since then, we’ve both been a bit busy.”

“Then it pleases me to speak with you
directly for the first time, Miss Johnstone.”

“Please, call me Cassandra, or Cassie if you
prefer.”

“I would like that. Likewise, you may call me
Ann.”

“I wish we were closer together. Perhaps I
should come visit? I suspect we have a lot to talk about.”

Alkina took a breath and sighed heavily, a
deliberate message. “I would enjoy such a visit, but I do not
believe that would be wise at this time. The situation for people
such as we are is rather…unsettled. Perhaps when our friend
returns, he can stabilize things enough for mutual exchanges to
become feasible.”

“I understand.”

“There was some other reason for your call?”
Alkina forced brightness into her voice, aware that most people
thought her cold and distant in her professional dealings.

“Yes. I have some idea of what our friends
are talking about. It will help them both if we have a working
relationship, and exchange vital information beyond the ordinary
channels. I thought I’d make the first move by providing all the
intel we have on the Septagon Shadow Program.”

“Ah, yes, the rogue Unionists and their
cyborgs. Are you trying to imply this information is more
significant that we think it is?”

Cassandra chuckled. “I’ll let you be the
judge of that, without trying to lead you toward any specific
conclusion. I will say that I believe that, just as the Eden Plague
revolutionized biology, and the nanotech of Tiny Fortress
revolutionized covert and special operations – and contributed to
beating the Meme space ship – cybernetics is the next frontier of
human development. This forbidden technology is the key.”

An odd turn of phrase, Alkina thought. “I
will take a look at what you send.”

“That’s all that I ask. And you’ll find my
secure telephone number among the message metadata. Your techs can
pull it out, I’m sure, in case you need to reach me personally.
Until then.”

“Yes, thank you, Cassandra. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, Ann.”

The line went dead, and Alkina put the
handset down. A moment later the internal comm on her desk buzzed
to inform her that a triple-encrypted data package had arrived via
their secure network. “Download it to my terminal, store one copy
on the Deep Vault drive, and wipe it from everything else,” she
instructed.

Soon she had it up on her secure terminal,
staring at a box that flashed insouciantly at her:
Provide
Password
. She tried several words and phrases – Cassandra,
Alkina, Spooky, cybernetics – before something nagged at her
memory. Reaching over, she pushed buttons on the recorder that
automatically captured her telephone communications, just for
occasions like this. After a moment she had it play the phrase she
needed.

“
This forbidden technology
is the
key,” she mumbled to herself, typing in those three words.
Immediately the package unpacked and showed her a long list of
files, some text, some graphics. After an hour of study, “Holy
shit” was the least of her exclamations.

***

“Good day, Spooky.” Daniel Markis held out
his hand, which the Vietnamese took firmly, even warmly. “It’s good
to see you.”

“It’s good to believe you when you say that,
Daniel,” the other man responded. “In my world, honesty is a
luxury.” He released Markis’ hand to slide backward onto the table
in the center of the room, where he pulled his feet up to sit
cross-legged, incongruously casual.

Markis sat down in a comfortable chair
himself. “Yes, I’ve been following your exploits as well as I
can…at least until you abdicated your position in Direct
Action.”

Spooky raised an eyebrow. “You are well
informed.”

“I have good people working for me, that’s
all.

“But you did not call this meeting to brag.”
Nguyen looked around the room for a moment, then asked, “Do you
have anything to smoke? It’s one of my few vices.”

“Along with sex, yes, I know that too. I’ll
call for something.” Markis picked up a nearby wired phone and made
the request.

“Sex is not a vice. It’s a tool.”

“What a line. All right, I’m not here to spar
– unless it’s in the dojo, for fun.”

“What
are
you here for?” Spooky looked
up as the room’s single door opened and one of the security detail
came in carrying a tray with food, coffee and a box of cigars.
After the woman left, he picked one up, and its attendant lighter,
and ran it under his nose. “Nice.”

“Havanas…a gift from the Cuban Free
Community. To answer your question…you know I like to deal face to
face if I can. So much of FC business is done over the secure
networks nowadays that I really value personal contact.”

“I don’t remember you being this much of a
politician, Daniel.”

Markis grimaced. “We become the roles thrust
upon us, don’t we? Is anyone completely in charge of his own
destiny?”

“I am, as much as is possible for a man to
be.”

“Yes, that’s what I meant to talk to you
about.” Markis reached across to snag a cigar from the box, and
accepted the cutter from Nguyen’s hand. A moment passed in silent
ritual, until fragrant smoke curled from the ends of both
stogies.

“Go on.”

“All right.” Markis put the cigar down on an
ashtray and poured himself a cup of coffee from the thermos pot.
“You abdicated.”

“I did what I thought was best for humanity.
If not for me, Captain Absen might have been killed, and with him
humanity’s best hope. I don’t think any other officer aboard could
have commanded
Orion
and won that battle.”

“Not even you?”

Spooky laughed. “Absolutely not me. Do I look
like a seasoned naval officer?”

“Just checking for megalomania.”

“You’re the ruler of Earth, DJ, not me.”

“Oh, that. Not all it’s cracked up to be.”
Markis took a sip of coffee, made a face. “What’s so hard about
brewing a decent pot of java here?”

“You’re circling hard around the point,
Mister Chairman. Perhaps you could veer toward it a bit?”

“All right. My sources, and I am sure your
Miss Alkina can confirm this, say that your Committee Chairwoman
Smythe is gunning for you.”

“Accepted. So?”

“So we have less than nine years until that
damned Destroyer comes. Every day counts. You got
Orion
built, not her. You handled your Committee and you made it
happen.”

“A lot of other people were involved.”

Markis slapped his hand on the table, making
the tray jump. “False modesty. Sure, everyone was important, but
you were vital. Without you, there would have been delays, and the
loss of a just few more days might have meant an unstoppable
asteroid wiping out all life on Earth.” He shot his index finger
out, pointing at Spooky. “You know what I fear?”

Spooky shrugged. “What?”

“I fear the same thing happening. I fear that
without you working your magic in Australia, we’ll be a year or a
month or a week or even a day late – and it will all be for naught.
Because, and I have no idea why, or how: nobody will work as hard
at it as you do, nor do it as well.”

“You want to know why, and how?” Spooky
filled his mouth with smoke and slowly forced it through his
sinuses and out his nose, resembling nothing so much as the
stereotypical Asian villain of ancient Hollywood B-movies.

“No. I don’t think I’d like the answer.”

Spooky chuckled. “Dodging your
conscience?”

“A necessity of politics. But knowing your
reasons and methods would not persuade me I’m wrong, it would just
make me feel unneeded guilt. To paraphrase Churchill, I’d make a
deal with the devil himself to defeat the Meme.”