The Cage of Zeus (30 page)

But Karina never saw the boy again. Any chance of returning to the Summer Dome had been lost forever when she began her fugitive life with her mother.

Such was the memory that had flitted across Karina’s mind as she sat in her room in Europa’s research station and stared at the half-frozen mango on the plate.

That’s right. There was some part of the past worth holding on to. Some good memories.

Karina cut the dewy mango lengthwise first and then into smaller slices. She popped one of the slices in her mouth and felt a freezing pain pulsate in her brain. She grinned at the absurdity of eating something so cold on a frozen rock like Europa. The mango neither tasted nor smelled like the sun as Weil had touted, but the juicy flesh was delicious.

More than the novelty of receiving such an expensive package, the mango had made her acutely aware of the distance between Europa and Earth.

Karina wondered if that boy had waited for her at the Summer Dome. Did he go back to the stone wall where they met and wait for her, until he gave up and eventually forgot that their day in the trees had ever happened?

If the boy were still alive, he would be middle-aged by now. Karina doubted he’d be very happy to see her, especially given the woman she was. A killer of dozens of innocent victims.

Karina heard the echo of footsteps trotting toward her and hugged her body close to the wall.

The memories of the Summer Dome quickly faded as she sharpened her senses to confront the reality at hand. She held her breath and waited in the darkness for the enemy to come to her.

The footsteps stopped. Having sensed Karina’s presence, the enemy appeared to be creeping closer without making a sound. He was a trained professional. It had to be a security team member. In which case, the enemy would be wearing data goggles, as Karina was, to see in the dark.

Karina jumped out and sighted the enemy through her data goggles.

Harding.

Karina reflexively squeezed the trigger on the submachine gun. Harding shot back. She immediately felt the shock of several bullets across her chest and torso. Despite the ballistic suit protecting her, the pain would have been excruciating were it not for the neural inhibitor. At close range, Harding also had to have taken some hard shots.

Karina endured the blunt impact of several more bullets as she continued to fire down the corridor. A strange numbness came over her. The submachine gun felt like a lead weight in her arms, until she could no longer hold up the barrel to aim for Harding’s head. Despite being able to suppress the pain sensors, she was still expending an enormous amount of energy.

Suddenly, she began to fade as if she were about to fall into a deep sleep.

Karina swore and willed herself forward. She was almost to the shuttle. She wasn’t about to die here.

9

SINCE HARDING HAD
not counted on running into Karina en route to the shuttle, he felt his blood turn hot at the sight of her in the dark corridor.
Just my luck. I’ll end this right here.

He set aim on Karina’s head but missed wide of the mark upon taking a spray of bullets from Karina’s submachine gun. Although wearing a ballistic suit, he lacked Karina’s pain-suppression capability, and the impact of the bullets nearly put him on his knees. He fell back against the wall. Despite the dull pain in his bones and muscles clouding his mind, he kept himself from falling unconscious through sheer will.

When she ran out of bullets, Karina threw down the gun and fired her speargun. The tip traced a straight line for Harding’s chest. Harding twisted his body, and the spear stuck his side. As the tip tore through the reinforced fiber of his suit and pierced clean through his back, Harding raised his gun and fired at Karina.

Karina instantly let go of the speargun and dropped and rolled across the floor. Drawing a pistol as she took to her feet, Karina set her aim, but before she could shoot a bullet hit her left shoulder from the blind side.

Harding glanced in the direction from where the bullet had come and saw Calendula. The Round was holding a gun in eir outstretched arms, wild-eyed and trembling.

Damn it!
Harding panicked.

“Stay back!” Harding yelled, but it was useless. Calendula fired one shot after the next in an attempt to finish the job, but none of the shots found their target. Choosing escape over killing Harding or Calendula, Karina spun back out of sight.

“She got away because of you!” Harding shouted at Calendula, who ran to his side.

“You would have been dead if I hadn’t shot her.”

Harding grabbed Calendula by the arm.

“Let go of me!” Calendula said, struggling to get free. “Karina is getting away.”

“Your going after her is suicide. Stay out of the way, do you hear me?”

“I’ll be fine. Next time, I’ll shoot her in the head.”

Harding rammed Calendula in the stomach with the butt of his gun. The shock of the impact ran up his arm to his injured side, nearly rendering him unconscious. But it worked on the ill Round.

After laying the Round on the floor, Harding contacted the control center on his implant. “I’ve apprehended the Round that broke out of the special district. Have somebody pick em up.”

“Is Calendula all right?” asked Kline. “What is eir condition?”

“Out like a light, but otherwise uninjured.”

“Good.”

“Good, you say? I lost Karina because of em.”

“You found Karina?”

“And exchanged fire. I had her in my sights, but this one got in the way. Karina got away.”

“What about you? Are you all right?”

Harding cupped a hand around the spear stuck in his side and answered, “I’m fine.”

“From your present location, the closest shuttle is number three,” said Kline. “Karina is probably headed there.”

“Who’s been dispatched?”

“Security personnel from Shirosaki’s team are on their way there now.”

“Tell me which elevator will take me there.”

“You’ll find one just up ahead.”

“Good, I’m heading there now.”

Harding wasn’t about to let Shirosaki get there ahead of him.
Karina is mine.
After ending the transmission, Harding tended to the spear stuck in his side. He felt around his back and realized the tip of the spear was barbed.

Pulling the spear out would seriously aggravate the wound. But there was no conceivable way he would be able to run or negotiate tight spaces with it sticking out of his side. Harding braced himself, gripping the end of the shaft with both hands, and pulled out the spear in one motion.

He clenched his teeth as a flash of pain more violent than when the spear had entered shot through his entire body. The molecular machine inside his body would temporarily repair the wound. He was still able to run. Karina wasn’t getting away from him so easily.

Harding squeezed a hand against the wound and staggered forward.

Karina had to have been injured in the exchange. In fact, Harding had put a considerable hurt on Karina during the interrogation. Though she might have been using something to dull the pain now, she would be the one to tire out first when its effects started to fade. He would put a bullet in her head when she could run no longer. Getting the information about the plague afflicting the Rounds was no longer a concern to him. Harding was going to end her himself, no matter what the cost. Then he would write up a report detailing a successful mission and go on home to Mars.

Back to Mars.
The brother-in-arms with whom he’d made that promise was gone. No matter how Harding might call out to him, Miles would never answer again. He and the Round children were with God now. Harding had made an irredeemable mistake. He had failed as a commander.

No, Harding had lost his fitness to lead long ago. Which was why he burned to lay his life on the line this one last time.

Harding slowly limped toward the shuttle, leaving a slick blood trail behind him.

It was only malice that kept Harding upright.

Karina arrived about the same time the Shirosaki team members were gathering outside shuttle number three. She made a break for the gate, spraying a barrage of bullets at the enemy, and disappeared down the corridor leading to the shuttle. The five security team members chased Karina into the corridor.

Karina continued to shoot as the enemy funneled into the corridor after her. As soon as one gun ran out of bullets, she threw it down and drew another one, gradually inching her way toward the shuttle.

She felt her body going numb, unresponsive. Unable to take down the advancing forces with carefully aimed shots, she continued to pepper the enemy with bullets, until finally she slipped into the shuttle’s cockpit and locked the door behind her.

Although the navigational system was locked, Wolfren had told her the security code beforehand. Karina punched in the fifty-digit code and the navigational program came online.

Karina remained standing as she worked her fingers over the control panel. After setting a course for Asteroid City and firing up the main engines, Karina set the controls on autopilot. The mooring lock was disengaged and the shuttlecraft began to pull away from the bay.

Karina breathed a sigh of relief. Some rest, at last. She fell back into the helmsman’s chair with the gun still gripped limply in her hand.

Suddenly, she heard a voice from behind. “Drop your weapon and get your hands above your head.”

Karina made no attempt to move. “Well, this is a surprise,” she said without looking back.

“I came a little late, so I was able to sneak aboard without anyone noticing. You put a world of hurt on my men,” Shirosaki said, his gun pointed at the back of Karina’s head. “Why did you run? I was prepared to listen to a deal.”

“What deal could I have made from my cell? I had to secure an escape route first. Once this shuttle is safely away from the station, I’ll listen to what you have to say.”

“It’s time you started talking to me. Tell me about the parasitic machine.”

“If you kill me now, you’ll never find out.”

“Do you hate the Rounds that much?”

“I’m not motivated by such trifling emotions. I’m merely here on a job.”

“That isn’t what Fortia would have me believe.”

“Well, maybe jealousy has something to do with it,” Karina said with a cynical laugh. “The Rounds live a carefree life, protected by a security detail, without any knowledge about Earth or Mars. They’re afforded every comfort. I’m not the only one that feels this way. Apart from the conservative majority and the Vessel of Life, there have to be more than a few among those who usually turn a blind eye that hate the Rounds.”

“Their silence merely signals their acceptance.”

“Are you speaking of the silent majority? Just because they say nothing doesn’t mean they accept the Rounds. What proof do you have that they don’t despise the Rounds? If they knew the astronomical operating costs of the special district and the names of the officials skimming off the top, the silent majority would be sure to rethink how they regard the Rounds. They’ll demand that money go into welfare programs, not toward creating bigenders.”

“That isn’t what this is about,” Shirosaki said.

“The ordinary masses think on the same plane. The police are nothing more than an arm of the state—the ruling class. You have no idea what the masses are feeling.”

“You’re not suggesting the ruled masses are always right.”

“That’s a difficult question to answer. There are idiots all around us.”

“The conservative majority is driven by instinctual hate, by the knee-jerk fear of anyone unlike themselves. They want to crush whatever they view as worthless before it acquires any sort of newfound value. There is nothing rational or sensible about them,” Shirosaki said. “They’re consumed by twisted prejudice, pure and simple. They’re afraid of the minority overtaking them someday to become the majority. But if that’s how the tide shifts, so be it. Eventually, there will be another shift and another, like a seesaw.”

“How very radical of you,” said Karina. “Have you been poisoned by Kline’s ideas too?”

Suddenly, Shirosaki felt himself being jerked back as the shuttle thrusted forward. Without skipping a beat, Karina launched out of the chair, twirled around easily in the reduced-gravity environment, and pointed her gun at Shirosaki.

Shirosaki dodged the first shot and fired back. They exchanged fire at close range, the bullets shredding the fiber of their ballistic suits. Shirosaki winced as one bullet grazed his cheek and ear.

Karina’s gun clicked empty. Karina threw the gun down and lunged at Shirosaki. He swept aside her punch and swung with his gun. Karina evaded the attack and unleashed a kick. Shirosaki wrung his body away hard.

The shuttlecraft cleared the station and the autopilot program began to take a flight angle toward Asteroid City.

Karina grabbed Shirosaki’s gun arm. Overpowered by Karina’s strong grip, Shirosaki reflexively pulled the trigger. Several shots hit the control panel, and Karina’s face grew ashen. The shuttlecraft accelerated before the navigational system had fixed course and began to veer from the flight plan.

Karina pummeled Shirosaki in the face, wrested away his gun, and leapt at the controls. The shuttlecraft decelerated per Karina’s command and switched to inertial guidance mode, rendering the inside of the vessel a zero-gravity environment. The reverse thrusters and directional controls were not responding.

Unable to repair the damage, Karina turned to Shirosaki and said, “Look at what you’ve done. We’ve gone off course.”

In zero-gravity conditions, Karina was easily able to yank Shirosaki toward her and shove him in front of the controls. “Get the shuttle to stop.”

Shirosaki quickly scanned the gauges and said slowly, “Give me the data on the parasitic machine first.”

Karina turned her back on the cockpit entrance and aimed the gun at the back of Shirosaki’s head. “If you want to live, you’ll do as I say.”

“In exchange for the data.” Turning around, Shirosaki confronted Karina with a look of calm. “Your move, Karina. If you kill me now, you won’t stop this shuttle. Turnabout is fair play.”