Equinox (23 page)

Sulawayo’s hotel was a half-hour shuttle ride from the mall. It was a narrow ten-storey building squashed in between a row of identical dilapidated hovels. The pallid woman manning the reception desk barely glanced at them as Sulawayo paid for a room.

It was on the sixth floor and faced out onto a long dried-up riverbed. There were two capsule beds in one wall, a tiny bathroom, a table bolted to the floor, one chair and two broken data ports. It smelled of mildew and blocked drains.

Rosie went immediately to the window but it was sealed shut.

“Don’t bother.” Sulawayo turned on the air filter and a low-pitched stuttering hum started. It didn’t do much except move the stinking warm air about.

Rosie dumped her pack on the floor between her feet and sat on the lower capsule bed. All the stim was leaving her system in a rush.

“Here.” Sulawayo shoved a bottle of water at her. “Do you have any food?”

“Yeah.” Rosie pulled the packs of dry noodles from her bag and offered one to her.

“Not for me, for you.”

Rosie wasn’t hungry, but after a moment she decided she should eat something anyway. She ripped open the pack and poked at the noodles with the disposable fork.

“So where is the Freezone?”

“Four blocks.” Agent Sulawayo was at the window. She turned. “So tell me what happened. Why are you here?”

Rosie swallowed. “Started after the bomb at Riley’s.” She went through it all, from her aunt’s injury to the Game Pit, the grunts on the bullet and how she’d ended up here alone. She told her almost everything, except for a few small items. She didn’t tell her about the implant, or go into detail about Pip, and she left out the man she’d killed. There were some things she couldn’t admit, even to herself.

“You don’t know what happened to Dalton and Pip?”

“No.”

“And you’ve come up here to see if you can get some answers about the base from Riley’s contacts?”

“Something like that.”

Sulawayo sat on the chair and watched Rosie with a quiet, thoughtful expression, her perfectly proportioned face difficult to read.

Rosie was about to ask her exactly what Riley had said to her to send her up here when the implant chose to reassert itself. A bolt of pure pain reverberated from her ear to her eyeballs. She screamed short and sharp and pressed her hands to her eyes. Her teeth ground together, every muscle in her face fighting it as numbers and words spiralled around her vision.
Gate, Leviathan, trust, exotic, Pantheon
and more that were merely fragments. It felt like something was clawing open her brain, tiny talons clutching at her mind. She felt her knees hit the floor and heard Agent Sulawayo’s voice calling her name, not harsh and scared, but controlled.

It stopped abruptly with a sensation like a flower curling tight back into a bud inside her skull. Rosie opened her eyes, panting for breath, shaking.

“Are you all right?” Sulawayo had her by the shoulders, her thumbs pushing in hard against the bone.

Rosie stared at the thin brown floor covering. It was stained and scattered with specks of dirt. “I’m fine. Really, I’m good.” She straightened, shrugging out of Sulawayo’s grip, and pushed herself back up onto the bed.

“Are you going to tell me what that was about?”

Rosie licked her lips and looked for the water bottle. She’d knocked it over. She picked it up and drank the remainder. All the while Sulawayo watched her, calm, cool, as though Rosie hadn’t just collapsed.

“Riley put a tracker implant in me, before he left. I think it’s malfunctioning.”

Sulawayo cupped an elbow in one hand and tapped the fingers of the other on her chin. She seemed puzzled, even faintly concerned. “A tracker would dissolve into your bloodstream if it malfunctioned,” she said. “Are you sure that’s what it is?” One hand touched Rosie’s chin, tilting her face up. “That was not good, Miss Black.”

Rosie pulled away. She felt shaky. Even her eyelashes ached, and she either needed to lie down and sleep for a week or take some more stim. It was the drug fading that seemed to trigger the implant. She looked at Sulawayo, hoping it was okay to tell her. “It’s not a tracking implant,” she said. “It’s a cortex implant. Riley put information on it as a backup before he left. It triggered when his house blew up.”

“And it hasn’t been working right,” Sulawayo said. A look of intense interest came into her eyes.

“Yeah, I guess.” Rosie wasn’t sure quite what that expression meant.

Sulawayo sat down on the chair. “Have you been seeing any of the information?”

“Just fragments. They don’t make sense. I’m hoping Nation tech might be able to fix it, make it stop hurting me.”

Sulawayo nodded, watching her thoughtfully. “Yes, good idea.” She tilted her head to one side like she was considering something carefully.

“What?” Rosie said. She was making her uncomfortable.

Sulawayo frowned. “I wasn’t planning on telling you this now, but if what you’re saying is true, it certainly changes things. Makes matters more pressing, if you like.” She inhaled. “That vision of you in the hospital – I sent it to you and released it to the Senate.”

Rosie stopped breathing. Gobsmacked didn’t cover it. “You …” Words failed her.

“You’re surprised?” Sulawayo seemed disappointed.

“But why would you do that?”

“Because I needed you to think about what your options really were, to realise the best choice, the only choice when it comes to creating a cure for the MalX, is to join me.”

Rosie blinked. What the hell was this? Her tenuous feeling of safety disappeared. She began to rise.

“Don’t.” Sulawayo’s tone was quiet but laced with cold threat.

Rosie sat back down, heart racing. “Who are you really? What do you want?” she said hoarsely.

“You can’t guess?” Sulawayo eyed her. “I am Helios, or at least a part of them.”

Rosie swallowed hard. “I don’t understand. If you knew where Riley was–”

“I am not one of those who believes Riley Shore should be neutralised. He is far more valuable alive. I made sure he was aware they were closing in so he could get out. There is a fracture in the organisation, a parting of ways if you like, since your escapade on Mars. Not all of us knew exactly what was going on up there – the killing, the tests. We were lied to. It made us question what else might not be as we thought.”

“Such as?”

She smiled coldly. “Let’s just say some of us think there are other ways of doing things.” She paused. “You’ve heard of the Pantheon, haven’t you?”

Rosie nodded. “The ruling five.”

“Very good. One of them – and I don’t know who, so don’t bother asking – is leading us.”

“Leading you to what?”

“A rebellion.”

Rosie’s mind raced, wondering what this meant. “The base,” she said, “is that–”

“It doesn’t belong to my faction,” Sulawayo said. “But it will.”

“What are Helios building there?”

“That is not your concern.”

“Then what do you want with me? Why did you show the Senate and have them chase me all over the city? And what choice am I supposed to make about the MalX?” Her anger was beginning to outweigh her fear now. “And don’t tell me Helios is the best choice for making a cure after what happened on Mars. You killed people in the name of science.”

“Not me.” Sulawayo’s eye glittered. “Them. The rest of them. We don’t want that. We want to create a cure that will save this planet, without killing the one who can provide it. Can anyone else offer that? We know the Senate and the UEC don’t have the capability to do it. And Gondwana? They may have high hopes but as good as their tech is, it doesn’t match ours. How much success has Pip had up there so far?”

Rosie glared at her. How did she know about what Pip was doing?

“I’ve been listening in on you at times.” Sulawayo tapped her sleeve. “Your aunt was far too trusting. She should have checked your clothes.”

Rosie’s insides plummeted. She must have planted a listener on her at Senate Prime. “Why should I believe anything you say?” she said. “Besides, you’re wasting your time with me. I can’t make a cure.”

“No, you can’t.” Sulawayo smiled. “But you have the ear of the one who can.”

Rosie’s breath caught. “Pip will never agree.”

“I think you could convince him. He trusts you.”

“Which is why I’d never ask him to do something he doesn’t want to do.”

“Are you sure? We are not the Helios he knew.” She gave Rosie a pitying look. “Maybe you don’t know him as well as you think.”

“I. Will. Not.” Rosie enunciated each word clearly.

“Yes, you will.” Sulawayo sighed and for the first time Rosie saw a crack in her armour. She looked weary, older. “You think you won’t do it, but you will because you’re a smart girl, Rosie. A compassionate, clever girl, and you know he can’t run forever. Things need to change; that’s why I’m doing this. You could be part of that change.”

Rosie couldn’t believe anyone involved with Helios would do something for the good of the world. There had to be something in it for her. Power. Money. Both. God, how could Riley have not known about Sulawayo? It defied everything she knew about him.

Sulawayo was watching her closely, as if she could read her thoughts. “Do you know where Riley is?” she asked.

Rosie jumped. “No.”

Sulawayo pursed her lips. “Well, no matter. If he has put his files in that implant, as you think, you can be even more useful to us than I thought.”

Rosie felt alone and scared and totally out of her depth. She stared at Sulawayo, reminded even more of Nerita, the pilot on Mars. A thought occurred to her.

“Are you related to Nerita?”

Sulawayo was startled. “She’s my cousin. Where did you– Oh, of course, Mars.” She shrugged. “We are not much alike. I hear she’s become a notorious space pirate.”

“Doesn’t sound that different from you.” Rosie glanced at the door. It was barely a metre away and Sulawayo was still on the chair under the window. If she could move fast enough … She shifted her weight.

“Nerita was always rebellious,” Sulawayo said. “I haven’t heard from her for–” Her last words were cut off as Rosie kicked the pack at her and lunged for the door.

“Rosie!” Sulawayo tried to follow but tripped over the bag strap.

Rosie wrenched open the door and flew down the hall to the stairs, almost falling as she jumped down them two and three at a time. Behind her, Sulawayo’s footsteps thundered across the flimsy flooring.

“Rosie, stop!”

Six flights of stairs spiralled down to the reception area. Rosie ran like the dogs of hell were after her. She reached the second floor landing and leaped over the banister as Sulawayo’s hand reached for her shirt. She heard the woman’s frustrated intake of breath as she missed her and Rosie thudded hard onto the floor, biting her tongue. Pain shot up her ankle, but she didn’t stop. There was a bin next to the doors and Rosie pushed it over behind her as she plunged outside and sped down the street.

She weaved through the throng of people, not having a clue where she should go. She just ran, pelting down the street, turning down another and another until her lungs were burning and a stitch began to form in her side. Finally, she had to slow. She was struggling to get air into her lungs. She dropped to a walk and looked behind her, but Sulawayo wasn’t there.

She’d lost her, or perhaps Sulawayo had given up because she knew exactly where Rosie was going to be at eight am. The Freezone Hotel. Rosie took a good look around, to get her bearings, then headed for the closest shop to ask for directions. She was just going to have to get there first.

They were so close to the city now, Pip could see it on the horizon. They were damn lucky the illegal fuel depot actually had some fuel in it or they would never have made it this far. As it was, there was barely an hour left to get there. An hour to see if Rosie had managed to evade the guards. Fear for her sat in his gut, tight and furious. His hands tightened on the bars of the bike. He knew it was possible that Rosie had been caught. Images of what Helios might do to her went round and round his head, driving him nuts.

“How long?” Dalton shouted over his shoulder against the wind.

“Forty minutes till the city limits,” he shouted back. He was pushing the bike as fast as he could. The protective skin was fully extended over their lower legs, the front shield throwing up terrain calculations, speed, wind factor, positioning, you name it. They’d tried to contact Kev again but the com was a cheap piece of crap and wouldn’t lock into the signal.

The main road that connected Oak City with Capricornia was empty when they skidded onto it, but feeder roads from the few coastal towns increased the traffic and by the time they hit the outer limits, the four-lane highway was buzzing. Traffic-jammed ring-roads circled the city and there was no AI interface here. It was every driver for themselves in Capricornia and there was no shortage of handmade transports cobbled together from ship parts, jumpers and solar cars, or whatever was to hand, clogging the main arteries.

Without a helmet, specks of dirt, sand and random particles flew into his face and eyes. Pip hunched down behind the bike’s front shield to avoid the worst.