The Orion Plague (8 page)

“Uncuff him,” Repeth ordered, “then get
out.”

The guard looked askance at her but decided
not to argue. Perhaps it was the blast marks and bullet rips that
showed on her body armor. Perhaps it was the icy cold in her eyes.
Or perhaps it was the way her fingerless-gloved hand kept flexing,
unconsciously clenching and unclenching on an absent handgrip and
trigger.

“They treating you okay?” she asked
perfunctorily.

“Yeah, never been in a better prison. This
place smells weird, though, like cheap whores. Stale perfume and
sweat under the new paint. You got a cigarette?”

“Sorry no, but I’ll see what I can do. And
you don’t want to know too much about that smell. No, maybe you do.
Some of the buddies of the people you work for kept a rape house
here. Sex slaves. They put me in here too. So you weren’t far off.”
She didn’t bother telling him she had not been abused. Let him
believe what was useful to her.

He paled. “Uh…sorry. I had nothing to do with
that. And I’m out now, all right? So you take care of me like we
agreed, and you can drain me dry. Come on, I’m an Eden, you know I
won’t betray you.”

She laughed without humor, leaning in close
and quiet. “You may have the virus but you’re no Eden. You’re a
G–,” she choked off a blasphemy, “you’re a Psycho. I know. I’ve
looked in your eyes. But I’m willing to ignore that if you spill
your guts as we agreed. In return, I’ll make sure you get to the
right people that will interrogate you with minimum suffering, and
maybe they’ll even give you a job. Or maybe they’ll send you to
Australia. But all I want right now is information on this Pax
River place.”

He sat back, rubbing his face. “All right. I
could really use that cigarette though.”

“Fair enough. Guard! Rustle me up some smokes
and a lighter, will you? And a pad of paper and some pens.” Once
they arrived and he lit up, she sat down across from him and
started the debriefing.

***

Repeth tossed copies of Bill’s debriefing
notes onto Colonel Muzik’s desk. “Intel has the originals, and I
kept a copy too, but I thought you should have one. The short
version is that Winthrop Jenkins – yes, one of that clan, Jervis’
brother – he was an Under-Triumvir in the last year or two before
nukefall, and he ran a black program named Septagon Shadow. It was
a competing effort with Tiny Fortress. He was afraid of a military
coup from Tyler using nanocommandos, so he poured billions of black
money into a cyber-wetware project. Laminated bones, rewired
nervous systems, servomotor-assisted strength, bionic mods like
claws and fangs and more.”

“How could the candidates survive?” Muzik
asked. “I mean, they could use Edens but I don’t see them wanting
commandos who will refuse to kill for them. They’d make great
bodyguards but it’s the same old virtue effect.”

Repeth nodded. “Once I knew Bill was a
Psycho, it all fell into place. I mean, what are the odds of a
Psycho working there? They’re one in, what, a hundred thousand? He
was hoping to become a Shadow. He still may be. Psychos are the
ultimate survivors, willing to betray anyone. That’s what he did,
and he will bide his time and make the best of things. That reminds
me, we need to get him turned over to the intel folks and tell them
how dangerous he is.”

“Okay.” Muzik made a note on a pad. “So these
Shadows are cyber-augmented Psychos, you think?”

“Either that or they have healing nano. They
have to have something to survive the procedures. The way he
describes it they are stripped down and rebuilt from the inside
out.”

Muzik tapped on his pad with a stylus, his
brow furrowing. “Should we be worried, Jill?”

“What do you mean, sir?”

“You hit them pretty hard there in Lorton.
They have to believe there will be a follow-up operation to clean
them out. In fact, off the record, there is. I asked Tyler to use
his influence to get a cybercommando team out here ASAP and,” he
looked at his watch, “they should be landing at AP Hill any time
now. Tomorrow they lead an assault on the place, backed by armor
and infantry to secure the perimeter.”

Repeth shook her head. “It will be too late.
As soon as we got away I’m sure they were tearing the place down,
sanitizing everything. They’re probably over in Pax River by now. I
blew up Bill’s office and half the building, so I’m hoping they
don’t know we got him.”

“Maybe. But if they suspect, do you think
they will come after us here? Send some Shadows, try to break Bill
out?” Muzik touched a key, then input a code into his computer.

“Hmm…anything’s possible, I suppose. You
could put out an advisory, if you don’t mind letting the word on
this get out.”

“It’s already out, and I already did. RUMINT
is faster than flash traffic. And I had Bill moved as soon as you
left the stockade, just in case. Did he say anything about
Stone?”

“The Professor? No…”

“He’s a Psycho, remember.” Muzik stared at
Repeth until the light bulb went on.

“He’s not a Shadow.”

“Not yet, maybe. But I bet he wants to be.
That’s the connection. He’ll find his way to Pax River and sell his
soul for that kind of power. And Jenkins will welcome him with open
arms, because Psychos are few and far between. So when you find
Stone, you find Rick, I bet. Assuming they’re using his
skills.”

Repeth rubbed her neck, thinking. “How do you
think they control the Shadows?”

“How would you do it?” Muzik responded.

“Punishment circuitry? I’d also put some kind
of kill switch in them. A shutdown code for their cyberware that
rendered them harmless, or even self-destructed them.”

“Sounds like science fiction.”

“We got there with Tiny Fortress and alien
spaceships already, I think,” she said grimly. “I read enough
sci-fi when I was younger. Gibson, Asher, Vaughn Heppner and B.V.
Larson, guys like that. Cyberpunk and combat sci-fi. And it’s
coming true.”

Muzik brooded, staring at his screen for a
while before turning his gaze back to her. “How long before we’re
obsolete?”

“Sir?” She seemed startled.

“How long before Edens become the new
underclass? Against nanocommandos and Shadows with combat
capabilities we can’t handle.”

Her eyes held his, gleaming, hot. She leaned
over his desk, knuckles on its top. “Then I guess we get ourselves
some upgrades.”

“Yeah, I was kinda thinking the same thing.
I’ll ask Tyler if he knows of any combat nano that Edens can
tolerate yet. I’m sure they’re developing it. In the meantime, I
want you to work your contacts and see what you can acquire in the
way of something to handle these Shadows.”

“All right.” She leaned forward. “Sir…just a
few hours ago you were waving me off. Now you’re acting like I’ll
be in on it.”

Muzik poked the report copies with a thick
finger. “This alters everything. You’re now the resident expert on
this stuff, and your team has gotten the closest. So you’re now an
advisor, at least. But Jill,” he went on, “I know how bad you want
this. That’s what concerns me. I’ve watched you change over the
past months, and I’m not sure I like it.”

She looked down at her hands, rubbing them
together. “Understood, sir. It’s been frustrating, waiting weeks to
be let off the leash while Rick is being…being…” She ground to a
halt.

“I got it, Jill. But you won’t do him any
good if you can’t maintain your objectivity. What did you tell that
dog handler? Compartmentalize and get past it? We all have our
demons. We can’t let them take control.”

Repeth looked sidelong from under raised
eyebrows. “As usual, sir, you’re right. Doesn’t make it any
easier.”

“We’ll get him back. And he’s tougher than
you think. I know him better than you do in some ways, all that
time we spent together in Colombia when he was growing up. He’d had
to be strong to deal with the muscular dystrophy, and losing his
dad, and leaving his country, living under threat for years. He’s
still got that strength in him. He’ll survive, and he’ll be doing
what he can to be ready when we get close to him. Have some faith,
Jill.”

“God, sir, I want to believe that.” She stood
up, rubbing her arms. “Thanks for the pep talk. We need to knock
back a few beers together sometime soon.”

His smile was a sunrise. “Sounds good. Just
as soon as things slow down.”

“Next decade then?” she asked lightly.

He laughed. “Get out of here, Jill. Get some
sleep; see me first thing in the morning. Maybe we’ll have
something.”

In the corridor outside Repeth saw Donovan
leaning against the wall, bouncing his back against it with
impatience. “What’s up, Corporal?” she asked.

“Uh, Top, kin I talk to you fer a
minute?”

“Of course, Donovan. Let’s go in the
dayroom.”

Once inside he shifted from foot to foot. “Ah
hate to say this to you, Top, on account of ah really appreciate
everything you done for me and all the times we been through, but
ah jes’ don’t think ah kin work for you no more, beggin’ your
pardon.”

Repeth’s jaw dropped for a moment, then she
shut it with an audible snap. “All right…I don’t understand, but
you gotta do what you gotta do. What’s eating you, Corp?”

“It’s jes’ all that killin’ we done,
and…”

She nodded encouragement. “Go on, I won’t
hold it against you.”

Donovan went on in a worried tone. “Well, the
killin’…and you seemin’ to enjoy it. Ah jes’ cain’t abide it, Top.
It ain’t in mah nature. It never was, really, and ever since you
got me this here virus, ah’m even more sure. Ah was proud to go and
look for Mister Johnstone with you and ah hope you find him and
all, but if you can see a way clear, ah’d like to get that transfer
we talked about. To Medical.”

Jill took a deep breath, then slapped the big
man on the shoulder. “All right. I understand. If it’s any
consolation – any help to you that is, I think that last mission
gave me my fill of killing for a while. But I know that this is
what you want, and thank you for sticking with me this long. Here,
let’s go see Colonel Muzik. He’s a good man, he’ll listen and do
what he can.”

And you know what
, she said to herself
as she brought Donovan into the Colonel’s office,
it’s true. I
found a lead, we have an objective, and we’re moving forward. I
feel a lot better now.

But that doesn’t make it all right.

On her way back to her quarters she took a
detour, to the field chapel set up in a small auditorium of the
Mary Washington campus they occupied. Before the altar she knelt,
pushed her PW10 behind her and began to pray.

She was there for a long while.

Rick came to feeling clearheaded for the
first time in forever. He looked at his fingernails, felt his
beard, but he’d been clipped and shaved; they told him nothing.

Rolling to his feet, he examined the place he
was in, different from either of his former cells. This was a
hospital room, clean, white, crisp, smelling of disinfectant. He
wondered if that smell would ever be abolished, even with the Eden
Plague making antibacterials moot.

There was a high thin window, too small for
anyone but a child to get through even if the meshed glass was
somehow removed. He stood on the chair to look, seeing familiar
pastureland and trees.
I’m still in the same place,
he
thought with something like relief.

Searching his door, he could find no way to
open it, so he took to examining himself. There must have been some
reason for his ordeal, the things they had put him through. He
blushed with shame at what he remembered, and he felt an unwelcome
stirring of desire. Forcing his thoughts away from
Shari I want
you
he stripped off his clothing and turned the cold water in
the shower up to full.

Shivering under the icy blast, he felt his
heart race and his blood pound. Like a sonar ping, this pulsing
sensation revealed things amiss in his own body. Reaching with his
senses, he stepped dripping from the shower and stood in front of
the mirror – a glass mirror this time – and looked at his own
face.

One patch of oddness was in his right eye. He
leaned in closer, probing at it with a fingertip. His Eden vision
allowed him to move in closer and closer, focusing at a range of
just inches, even to the point of seeing the end of his own nose in
sharp clarity. More interestingly, he could see something within
his right eyeball, a hexagonal matrix that hung behind his cornea
like the wire mesh within his cell’s window.

Some kind of camera, or sensor,
he
surmised.
That’s how they knew what I was doing. They did it
that first night when I smelled the pine scent of the gas. But what
else did they do?

Another oddity resided in his chest cavity.
He located the thinnest of scars, something that would soon go away
as all scars did in Edens, but it proved they had done something
there. He had no idea what, but his guesses included tracking
devices or transmitters, deadman charges, even a bomb big enough to
turn him into a suicide weapon.

His left wrist pulsed also, and he felt a
kind of nodule barely beneath the paper-thin skin over his tendons
and nerves there. Digging at it hard bloodlessly popped the living
sheath of his epidermis, and revealed a fine retractable line with
a universal plug on it.

What happens when I plug that in,
he
wondered. More from speculation than feeling, he ran his hands over
his head and was surprised to find week-old stubble. His head had
been shaved, he faintly remembered, and assuming it was done only
once, now he had a general idea of how long he had been under
Shari’s care.

More importantly, he found traces of scarring
there, too. He could see them in the mirror. They had performed
surgery on his skull. What had they put in there? A hard drive?
There was no reason for it to be in his head. It could just as
easily be in his chest.
What needs connecting to the
brain?