Vertigo: Aurora Rising Book Two (55 page)

The trek over had been marked by far greater hazards. The streets were nothing less than bedlam, descending toward riotous.

New Babel represented one of the westernmost colonies in settled space and had become the default destination for every less-than-upstanding citizen in the galaxy fleeing the aliens. This was a problem. The colony maintained a rudimentary but delicate ecosystem, and it was currently being upended by the influx of tens of thousands of new people, many of them lacking basic manners and most of them carrying no obligations to restrain their behavior. The lack of a single organized security force, long an asset, was rapidly becoming a liability.

Aiden was waiting on her when she reached the atrium of his suite. He doubtless would have been notified of her approach by multiple people.

He leaned on the door to his inner office, his arms crossed in feigned casualness over his chest. His eyes were guarded and he was not smiling. She expected no less; she had arrived unannounced and uninvited. Here in his domain, she was for all intents and purposes an enemy.

“Ms. Montegreu. I’d say this is a surprise, but you know it is and intended it as such.”

She shrugged with equally feigned dismissiveness. “There wasn’t an opportunity to arrange otherwise.” Mindful of their audience of a secretary, two lieutenants and three enforcers, she maintained a respectful distance. “May we speak in private?”

Instead of answering her, Aiden jerked his head in the direction of two of the enforcers.

As they approached her she offered up a Daemon and a gamma blade. “I needed to protect myself on the way over. If you’ve been outside in the last several days, you’re aware the streets are inordinately dangerous.”

“Understood. Your weapons will be returned to you when you depart.”

“Thank you, Mr. Trieneri.” She was going so very far out of her way to pay him the proper deference in front of his employees. It was revolting.

He only mostly suppressed a smirk as he gestured toward his office. “After you, Ms. Montegreu.”

She stepped inside, then turned in time to see him tap a panel as the door closed. Surveillance shielding, she thought. That damn well better be all it was.

“What are you doing here, Olivia?”

She positioned herself on the edge of his desk. “It’s the end of days, Aiden. I can’t simply want a good lay?”

That earned her a chuckle despite his attempt to be gruff. “Of course you can—but you don’t. Not right now.”

“And how do you know?”

He swiftly crossed the space between them, dropping his hands on the desk on either side of her and bringing his lips within centimeters of hers. “When you want sex, I know it from ten meters away. Now? You don’t
smell
horny.”

Her pulse quickened at the danger of his closeness. He had handed over no weapons, naturally. “Fuck you, Aiden.”

“Ha. Maybe later?” He retreated to the center of the room and returned his arms to his chest. “I’ll ask you one more time, Olivia, then I’ll have you escorted out. What are you doing here?”

“You might have heard, aliens are attacking—” she held up a hand to forestall his retort “—and I assume you no more want civilization to be annihilated than I do. It’s bad for business. Therefore, I’m here to propose a temporary truce between our organizations.”

His expression was completely unreadable. He was good at masking his emotions, assuming he had any. “A truce?”

“Until the aliens are dealt with or we all suffer horrific deaths, whichever happens first. Neither of us should be wasting valuable resources competing against—and in some cases fighting—one another when those resources are needed to defend ourselves.”

He considered her a moment. “There’s more to it.”

She scowled, disturbed by the notion he may be able to read her better than she assumed. “I have an arrangement with elements of the Alliance and Federation governments. Because I don’t wish the human race to become extinct, I’ve agreed to assist them in several respects.”

“You’re working for the authorities? I have a great deal of difficulty believing that.”

“As do I. Nevertheless, desperate times, desperate measures. I’m providing useful supplies to aid in the war effort.”

“And?”

“And I want you to join me in aiding them.”

His eyes narrowed precipitously. “You’re serious.”

“While I easily have access to anything and everything they will need, I admit your organization has its strengths in specific areas. Those strengths could benefit said war effort.”

He did smirk this time, a dark and malicious countenance which reminded her he was, in point of fact, not a nice man. “Olivia, are you asking for my help?”

She shoved off the desk and charged past him toward the door. “This was clearly a mistake. Don’t expect to hear from me again.”

His hand shot out to grab her and wrench her against him. His stare bored into her, only shifting briefly to glance at the blade she now had pressed to his neck. She didn’t acknowledge the gun digging into her side.

Then his mouth crushed into hers. She met it with equal force.

When he pulled back a fraction, a thin trail of blood dribbled down his neck. She hadn’t meant to cut him; he had moved too fast. Such were the risks in their game.

“Olivia. Are you asking for my help?”

“I’m asking for you to help save the galaxy. I realize ‘saving’ anything or anyone isn’t something either of us make a habit of doing, but in this instance it is in our best interest to do so.”

The blade still rested at his neck; she hadn’t yet been given a reason to remove it. “Aiden, don’t lose your business and yourself to this rising tide of chaos. Grab hold of this opportunity with me and we will both emerge stronger and more powerful. We can rebuild civilization atop the ruins. We can reshape the structure of society to our advantage. All we have to do is help them win.”

Ever so slowly a mischievous smile pulled his lips upward. “I do enjoy it when you talk dirty to me.”

ATLANTIS

I
NDEPENDENT
C
OLONY

Matei reclined in his chaise and sipped on a Polaris Burst cocktail.

The afternoon sun warming his skin sparkled on the crystal blue waters and turned the sand to glittering glass. His mood was as light as everyone else’s on Atlantis was dark. The resort world hummed a chromatic vibrato, a dissonant transition portending the coming doom. Gone was the carefree excess and easy joy of a people at the height of civilization who believed themselves invincible.

There existed two kinds of people still gracing the beaches of Atlantis. One was composed of families with young children. The parents worked desperately to preserve their children’s innocence for one more minute, one more day. They built sandcastles and frolicked in the shallow waters and beamed at the young ones’ cackles of delight, but terror etched grim lines into their faces. Sunglasses hid the paralyzing fear haunting their eyes.

The other, more numerous kind consisted of those who had decided they were going to exit the universe drunk or high, and often both. Alcohol poisoning or a non-neural chimeral overdose would be all but impossible for anyone wealthy enough to afford to be on Atlantis in the first place, thanks to genetic modifications and regulating cybernetic subroutines…but that wasn’t stopping them from trying. They came from all age groups and near as he had been able to determine, all professions.

Individuals reacted in any number of ways to extreme stress and, relatedly, to impending death. A non-negligible percentage of people reacted in a manner which could be summed up by, ‘Screw it, I’m going out in style!’

Atlantis security was doing its best to keep the two groups separated, but he’d witnessed several bizarre encounters between desperate, frayed parents and persons who were quite obviously out of their minds.

The rules of civilized society were beginning to break down, and on this world where excess and debauchery were encouraged and even celebrated, the first cracks in the wall were on stark display.

He smiled pleasantly and wound his hands behind his head on the chaise. The news feed scrolling on his whisper provided a tableau of destruction and mayhem overlaid upon the bright waters and cerulean skies. The contrast pleased him—

You are too far west to do your job.

He took another sip of his drink. And he had thought the chess game over with the death of Aguirre and general collapse of the man’s little conspiracy. Alas.

“Is there something you require of me, Hyperion?”

Caleb Marano and Alexis Solovy will soon return. They must be eliminated.

“Very well, though I don’t see the point. They no longer represent a threat to the human war, seeing as there no longer is a human war.”

They represent a threat to us. Eliminate them.

Matei gave no overt reaction, but his curiosity piqued. The alien was always enigmatic and often baffling, but it had never before been…testy. He felt the need to prod at the weak spot. Explore it a bit. “How could two insignificant humans represent a threat to you?”

They traversed our portal.

So that was where they went. He was glad he hadn’t wasted much time or effort searching for the pair and instead waited for the intel to come to him. “Interesting, but I’m still not clear how this makes them a threat to you?”

They traversed our PORTAL. They have seen us. They have conversed with us. They have acquired knowledge of us.

Glimpsed the man behind the curtain, did they? He wondered what had been revealed, what the secret might be the aliens remained so desperate to protect. Sadly he didn’t expect either Marano or Solovy to consent to tell him before he killed them.

“Understood. I’ll travel to Romane. From there I’ll be well positioned to move. Besides, there aren’t many places left farther east which still have functioning spaceports.”

This is acceptable. If our units do not eliminate them on their return, we will inform you of their location.

“Your ‘units’?”

Our machines.

“You know, if you’re so anxious to have Marano and Solovy dead, why don’t you simply kill them yourself while you have them on your side of the portal?”

Absurd. We grew beyond such barbarism aeons ago.

He glanced at the vid of the alien ships battering New Maya playing on his whisper. “All evidence to the contrary.”

Your meaning eludes me.

“You’ve killed over forty million people in the last three weeks. Seems to me you’re rather adept at killing.”

No. The machines kill. We do not kill.

“The instrument a killer employs in the act does not kill. The killer kills.”

Spare me your childish logic. You will receive the targets’ location soon.

Then the alien was gone.

Matei took a final sip of his drink, breathed a long sigh tainted with regret and stood. It appeared his vacation was at an end, or at a minimum an interlude.

Though his alien contact had always conveyed the impression of being evolved to a ‘higher’ level of existence, he’d never bought it and now his suspicion had been confirmed. Hyperion exhibited impatience, irritation and, most interestingly, fear.

The aliens were fallible after all. They were flawed. Of course everyone was flawed, if they believed themselves alive. It was a defect of the condition.

59

EARTH

EASC
H
EADQUARTERS

I
T WAS EARLY MORNING IN
V
ANCOUVER
when the
EAS Orion
docked. A bright dawn sun gleamed outside, so far as Noah could tell through the occasional viewport he passed on the way to disembark.

A shuttle would be waiting on them for the trip to wherever EASC Headquarters was located. They were scheduled to meet some important people before handing over the data and materials to other, different important people who would dissect it and study it to determine how yet other important people might use it to fight the aliens.

He was twitchy, approaching nervous. He wanted to help, but having succeeded in getting valuable intel into hands he hoped were the right ones, he didn’t see any particular way he could. And this was not his gig.

He made his living as a black-market tech dealer and a smuggler. He did not belong inside the heart of Alliance military command, even if his genes suggested otherwise.

The security databases shouldn’t have him flagged for immediate arrest, but anyone who looked closely stood a good chance of realizing he was not precisely an upstanding Alliance citizen. Still, since he hadn’t as of yet found the opportunity to flee he would play it cool until he did.

He had hardly seen Kennedy at all in the three day trip. She had been in Medical, after which she’d huddled with Colonel Jenner and some techies studying and organizing the data and material they had. That was followed by conferences with other—or perhaps the same—important people. And if she was anything like him, he assumed she had slept a great deal.