Going Dark (11 page)

“Maybe Tuvalu was just a contingency,” Kanoa says. “Or maybe it was the primary phase of the mission. Either way, Shelley, it doesn’t mean it has anything to do with you, or a mission to Mars. The reason might be as simple as putting Vasquez and Parris in the same room.”

Fadul adds, “It’s natural to want to see what happened as your personal drama. Doesn’t make it true.”

It’s my turn to retreat into silence, because I can’t argue either point. They could both be right—though I don’t think they are.

A familiar voice—one with an unpleasant association—draws my attention back to the TV.

A chill crosses my skin; my heart rate kicks up. Onscreen is a woman identified in a caption as Yana Semakova, CEO and principal owner of Torzhok NAO, delivering an unflinching condemnation of the Arctic hostilities in excellent English: “. . . Torzhok has invested heavily to create supply lines designed to serve development of Russia’s Arctic resources. Thousands of jobs have been created, all of them now at risk . . .”

When I heard her speak before, it was not in English
but in Russian. It was not as the CEO of a major corporation, but as a daughter, annoyed and impatient, struggling to hold onto some semblance of respect for a paranoid old man. It was not with the high-definition audio of a major media broadcast, but with the low fidelity of an old-fashioned two-way radio—one owned by Russian billionaire Eduard Semak.

This is his daughter.

Eduard Semak used his wealth to assemble a collection of nuclear weapons the way other wealthy men might assemble a collection of classic cars. On the mission called Vertigo Gate, I visited Semak in orbit.

And now here is Yana Semakova, drawn into the conflict begun with our assault on
Deep Winter Sigil
. I cannot believe her involvement is just coincidence.

“. . . all could be lost in the next airstrike. Jobs, investments, lives, all lost. This conflict must stop before that happens. It must stop now, or the consequences will be unthinkable.”

“What consequences do you foresee, ma’am?”

Semakova looks straight at the camera. She is middle-aged, on the heavy side, dignified and attractive without the appearance of having ever used the services of a cosmetic surgeon, though she could easily afford to. As she speaks, she’s as fierce as her father, but far more convincing than that decrepit old man. “If this goes on, it will bring tragedy,” she says. “Environmental tragedy. Economic tragedy. Tragedy of historic proportions. Tragedy that will not be undone by this generation or the next. All peoples must rise up against any power that does not immediately participate in a cease-fire. Do not be caught on the wrong side of history.”

The feed shifts back to a studio where a mediot recounts the known losses so far: three fighter jets, two drilling
platforms, a coast guard vessel, and a nuclear-powered icebreaker that was damaged but is still afloat and limping back to port. One hundred twelve lives.

Why? What is it for?

My skullnet picks up the thought and decides to voice it over gen-com: “Why? What is it for?”

“Shit,”
I whisper.

It used to take a lot of concentration and practice to trigger the skullnet to translate a thought to words—but the skullnet is an adaptive system. The embedded AI that does the work has gotten way too good at reading me . . . or misreading me. This isn’t the first time it’s mistakenly posted my thoughts to gen-com.

Fadul is not about to overlook it. She slides her feet off the coffee table, turns to give me a withering look. “Got enough noise of my own in my head, Shelley. Don’t need to hear yours.”

“Yeah. Don’t need you to hear it.”

“But they’re good questions,” Tran says. He’s still staring at the monitor, his caffeine-jacked legs still vibrating. “They’re the kind of questions people should ask more often.”

Kanoa raises a skeptical eyebrow. “Put in more time training the AI,” he tells me.

“Yes, sir.”

I stand up. I need to move. So I pace behind the chairs, waiting for Fadul to track down the reason behind my mental slip. I don’t think she’s aware of this connection between me and Yana Semakova, but I know her well enough to know she’ll look. After a minute I hear a soft, whispered
“Fuck,”
just audible over the mediot’s ongoing monologue. I turn to find her staring at me, her dark eyes shadowed with dark circles. “The cache of nuclear weapons you uncovered,” she says. “Semakova is linked to that.”

I nod. The purpose of Vertigo Gate was to find the location of Eduard Semak’s stolen nuclear devices. We succeeded in that. The devices were recovered, but no one living was held responsible. Blame was laid on a deceased lieutenant who had “taken advantage of a frail old man.” That was the explanation offered by the family and accepted by investigators. When I heard it, I knew a considerable sum of money must have changed hands to purchase a revised history.

I wanted to blow it open, but there was no way I could do it without revealing my existence and my own involvement. “Let it go,” Kanoa advised me.

It was both easier and safer not to argue. What mattered was that the nukes were in responsible hands and scheduled for decommissioning. More than once since, I’ve wondered if Semakova wasn’t grateful for what we did—getting rid of her crazy old man and relieving her of the burden of his nuclear armaments which she surely had no intention to ever use.

I flinch as the door opens; it’s Escamilla coming in. “Hey Shelley, going emo again?”

I casually give him the finger while Fadul fills him in. “Shelley’s freaking out because the lines of fate are closing in a net around him.”

“Two coincidences that aren’t coincidences,” I say.

“Need to pay attention to that,” Tran agrees.

But Fadul rolls her eyes. “What
does
it mean?”

Someone pops the volume on the TV down to zero. Probably Kanoa, because he’s got gossip to share. Cracking a rare smile, white teeth shining in the light from the TV, he says, “Vasquez lifted two point five billion dollars in electronic currency from Semak’s personal holdings during Vertigo Gate.” He looks at me. “There’s no need to sweat it, Shelley. Semakova and Vasquez worked out a peace
agreement. They’ve met in person at least three times and share some business interests.”

FaceValue tags this as the truth, but I don’t want to believe it. Like all of us, Jaynie undertook both First Light and Vertigo Gate because of ideals. It makes no sense that she would turn around and compromise herself by allying with the criminal empire of Eduard Semak.

“That’s got to be mistaken intelligence. Jaynie doesn’t have anything in common with Semakova.”

“Sorry, Shelley. But I’ve seen their names together in enough DIRs to believe it.”

DIRs—Daily Intelligence Reports—are long, detailed compilations of notable events around the world. I rarely look at them, because they don’t have any real bearing on what we do. We are assigned a mission and we execute it—or fuck it up, in the most recent case.

Palehorse Keep was different, not just because it got fucked up, but because for the first time, the moral imperative of the mission did not compensate for the fallout. I want to believe there is some hidden benefit to what we did, some circumstance spun off from the chain of events we initiated that will make even a war in the Arctic worthwhile.

But I’m not seeing it.

•  •  •  •

The next morning, I wake up hurting. It’s December 25 and we have the day off. No PT, no studies, no training. But I’m up at 0500 anyway, reminded by every organic muscle and joint I still possess that I ran a marathon and topped it off by jumping out of a moving helicopter. It’s not usually a single debilitating injury that ends the service of an infantry soldier. Most of the time, it’s the accumulated wear and tear.

I walk in zombie steps to the bathroom, take some pills, and stand under a stream of hot water until the pain eases. While I’m in there, I check my email for an update on Julian’s status: still in serious condition, but improving.

I sleep for a few more hours. So it’s midmorning before I show my face downstairs.

The support personnel are celebrating Christmas with a tiny artificial tree on the watch desk and a plate of cookies that is nearly empty. The private on duty eyes me warily; they always look at me that way. I don’t know why. “There’s going to be a party in the Cyber Center, sir, starting at noon.”

“Maybe I’ll be there.”

Like last year, I toy with the fantasy of calling my dad. I try to imagine what I would say, what I could say.

Hey, it’s me.

After Vertigo Gate, the Department of Defense issued an official notice that I was dead. No details. Just a statement that the Lion of Black Cross had died in the service of his country. I let my dad believe it, just like I let Delphi believe it.

I’d like to call him, but I know the conversation we’d have wouldn’t do either of us any good. So like last year, I drop the idea. Why tear open old wounds?

Outside, the day is gloomy with gray clouds but no rain. I walk quickly to the Cyber Center. Party preparations are underway in the cafeteria, so after I heat a couple of egg-and-bacon meals in the microwave and get supplied with a plate of fancy cookies, I retreat with my spoils to the office of our on-site intelligence analyst, Cory Helms.

Cory is one of the two civilian personnel who make up our intelligence team, and the only one quartered at C-FHEIT. Kanoa brought him in six months ago under a private contract paid by the Department of Defense. He’s
a small guy, a bit pudgy, quiet and thoughtful and a little awkward, whose thinning gray hair is always neatly parted and combed.

Within a week of his arrival, Logan and I, being arrogant assholes, codenamed him Bilbo.

Every four weeks Cory squeezes aboard the van that shuttles regular base personnel to San Antonio on Fridays, returning the following Monday with a fresh haircut. Otherwise, he’s here. Even on Christmas.

His office door is open. Inside, he’s got two cheap steel desks arranged in an L-shaped configuration. On top of one are a pen and a large pad of paper marked up with cartoon doodles; on the other are two magnetic levitation toys, one with a small silver ball floating an inch above the base, and the other, a slowly cycling rocket ship an inch long, traveling in an endless circle. Monitors line the walls, all of them active, emitting multiple voices in a cacophony that makes no sense to me, but Cory seems able to parse it. Something is holding his attention, anyway. He’s leaning back in a rolling chair, staring at one of the screens, with no idea I’m there until I rap hard on the open door.

He spins around with an expectant look until he realizes it’s me, and then his expression shifts to an anxious, appeasing smile. For some reason I’ve never been able to pin down, I make him nervous too. He knows who I am, of course. He knows what we do. But I’ve watched him in meetings, and he doesn’t have the same reaction to Kanoa, or Logan, or anyone else. Not even Fadul, who is a hell of a lot more intimidating than I am.

I put my food down on the nearest desk and invite myself to sit in the empty chair. Cory’s smile fades. “Am I in trouble?” he asks with real concern.

I pick up one of the egg-and-bacon meals. “Should you be?”

“After Palehorse Keep? We all should be.”

Can’t argue with that.

I attack the food, scanning the monitors as I eat. Running on one is a video of the damaged nuclear-powered icebreaker, with a massive cavity blasted in its superstructure and its charred decks torn open. Another screen shows stock footage of Canadian fighters taxiing on a runway with a vast, snow-covered plain beyond them. A third shows stills of the lab on
Sigil
with a bar caption asking,
Was it biowarfare?
Dr. Parris has already countered that rumor, but I guess biowarfare is a sexier headline than pharmaceuticals.

“What can I do for you, Shelley?” Cory wants to know. He’d like to hurry this session along so he can get rid of me that much sooner.

I take another bite and then nod at the monitors. “We started this war. Do you think the Red planned for us to do that?”

He doesn’t hesitate at all. “No.”

“Then you think this war got started by mistake?”

He presses a knuckle against his mouth. “I don’t think it was predicted. We did the look-and-see because we didn’t know what was going on inside—and what was going on was an espionage operation being carried out by a third party without moral qualms.”

“Glover’s security company.”

“The Chinese scrambled a fighter to eliminate evidence of a connection we didn’t know they had. And because we didn’t know it, their response was not predictable. That tells me the war wasn’t planned. But that doesn’t mean it was a mistake. Not in the way the Red processes events.”

“Then what is it?” I ask as I finish off the first meal, swapping the empty tray for the full one.

“A market adjustment?”

The going theory is that the Red evolved out of a program designed to manipulate both markets and consumer behavior to optimize long-term profits. Long-term profits don’t happen at all if the world is annihilated. And that, we believe, forms the basis of the Red’s drive to eliminate existential threats. So I’m having a hard time with Cory’s casual assessment. “No way does a flash war involving nuclear-armed opponents reduce the chances of Armageddon.”

“That’s not what I mean. Look at it this way: Because we didn’t know what we’d find aboard
Sigil
, the outcome was unpredictable. The only predictable result was that the market would shift—and that’s what happened. The Red recalculates and moves on.”

“Why hasn’t it moved to shut this war down?”

“It hasn’t been under way for very long.”

I scowl. “You don’t think so? What’s the death toll so far?”

He frowns down at his hands.

“What is it?” I press.

In a grudging voice, “Two hundred thirty known dead. So far . . . not counting the
Sigil
massacre.”

The Red doesn’t give a shit. I know that. Two hundred thirty is a trivial number and no doubt an acceptable loss on the way to some newly devised goal.