Originator (28 page)

Then up stairs and into a basement garage, empty of vehicles, just utility pipes and the ongoing echo of hammering gunfire nearby. And a FedInt agent atop the stairs, who gestured frantically for her to come, and then as she got close, abruptly swung a gun to her head. Sandy slammed the woman back against the doorframe with a forearm.

“Fight it!” she yelled. “Stay autistic, dammit! Don't let them in!” The woman's stare was confused, no telling what mental state she was in, half in and out of VR . . . but if she could see her . . .

The shriek informed her of an incoming round and she hit the floor, covering Kiril once more as the explosion tore through a far wall and peppered the halls with debris. These were beachfront houses, lightly built holiday homes . . . her fine-tuned hearing caught the howl of the cruiser. . . . She smacked the woman's head back against the wall, and she slumped unconscious, but at least the Talee would no longer be targeting through her eyes. Then the hacked air defence emplacement next door began to blast through the walls, and she ran at a big window and jumped, turning her back to take out the glass and sailing to hit a dune on the far, downward slope. She slid, shielding Kiril all the while, as staccato shots shredded the house behind them like paper.

A glance at Kiril showed him in shock, clutching her frantically, all sandy but not obviously hurt, but she couldn't ask if he was okay, as the cruiser circled in, one gull door lifted in flight, a weapon scanning ominously out the window. She'd barely scratch it with a pistol, she knew, before that door gunner took her out. He'd be a GI, perhaps as unlikely to miss as she was. She had to jump, from an angle the gunner couldn't hit, and take them hand-to-hand . . . but the pilot was being smart and careful, not getting too close. If he kept circling, he'd see her, and with this soft sand beneath her she wouldn't have the leverage to jump that far. . . .

A shot hit the cruiser. She could barely see it, but from somewhere behind came fast, accurate rifle fire. Five shots a second, slower than weapon-auto, but faster than unaugmented human fire—a GI then. The cruiser veered, wobbling as its rear gens took all the damage, and fleeing before it took more.

“Come on, Kiri, just a bit farther.” She struggled along the dune, horrified by how slow the burden of a child could make her, now she couldn't just leap and crash through and over things. She did leap the next house's low wall, an easy enough thing to calculate without a great impact, then up the side of the property to the rear, then paused at the carport exit to peer out. Running up the road was Ragi, clutching his damaged forearm. A little inland, and up the hill overlooking the beach, came a crackle of fully automatic rifle fire—her guardian angel again. Was one of the FSA's GIs out here, looking out for her on Ibrahim's orders? She couldn't use uplinks to find out.

She pointed uphill for Ragi's benefit, then ran that way, along the road, then the first left, heading sharply upslope. Return fire was coming in from the cruiser now, but only rifle fire, hitting a house near the crest. Again the sniper fired, from a different window, changing positions before new fire came back. Aside from a few dogs barking, there were no people to be seen or heard—the beachside suburbs were sparsely populated on weekdays, thank all the Hindu gods.

And here, parked by the side of the uphill road, was a groundcar. Sandy put Kiril down beside it, fished in her pocket for the cord that was always there, and plugged it direct into the insert socket at the back of her head. Connected the other end to her belt unit, unhooking it to press it on the door lock . . . flash, it felt as though her head had been grasped in a giant vice, with pressure about to split her skull.

She tore the unit away from the door, gasping . . . the short wireless distance between unit and door lock had been all it took for Talee GIs to access and reverse-hack the most sophisticated combat GI yet commissioned by humans. Dear god.

“Sandy,” Kiril protested, “we need an aircar, not a groundcar.” If she'd had time to feel anything, such lucid thinking from her little boy under pressure would have made her the proudest ever.

But, “Cruisers use air traffic command,” she said, and smashed the window with her fist. “It'll get hacked and flown into something. Groundcars don't.” She got in, plugged herself directly into the console, and got an override two seconds later. “Get in.”

She dragged him over her lap and into the passenger seat, as downslope Ragi came running, with one of the asura loping panicked circles about his heels. Kiril scrambled to try and open the rear door for him but couldn't reach. Ragi did it himself, tumbling in as the asura followed, and Sandy gunned the car into fast reverse and a skidding one-eighty. If the sniper was as smart as he seemed, he'd have seen this and would know exactly what was going on.

Sandy roared uphill and screeched to a halt by the house. And the front gate
opened
, thank you very much, and a middle-sized female figure with a baseball cap and a large rifle exited and closed it neatly behind her. Kiril scrambled between the seats into the rear with Ragi and the asura, as the sniper got in, and looked at her . . .

Sandy's pistol snapped up and levelled at the woman's face. Unremarkable features, though strong, and calm. Shortish brown hair beneath the cap. A combat GI, unseen by Sandy for the past six years. At the time, the very worst of enemies.

“Hi there, sis,” said Jane. “We gonna go, or you want to sit here until they find a new cruiser and kill us all?”

It wasn't much of a signal that Poole received. Just a blip, a heavily encrypted and rerouted nothing, an accidental static transmission from some random function of the network. But it was enough. He clipped the little autistic plug to the back of his head, linked it to his earpiece, and stood up. Walked six paces to Svetlana's desk in the classroom, where she sat with other kids considering the best way to solve a maths problem.

“We have to go,” he told her.

Svetlana stared up at him. “Now?” Poole nodded. “I'll get my bag.”

“Leave it here, the school can look after it.”

Svetlana excused herself from the group, the other kids now also staring. The entire class turned to watch them go, and the teacher came uncertainly to intercept them by the door.

“Can't talk,” Poole explained, not halting. “Have to go.” The teacher, being from Canas high-security school, nodded and asked no questions.

They walked into the empty school corridor. “What's happened?” Svetlana asked.

“Prearranged signal,” said Poole. “I'd rather not say here.” Between these echoing walls, sound travelled. “Let's get Danya.”

He'd memorised their schedules, as there was no way to check Danya's location by uplinks. Danya was in chemistry class, also performing some exercise in a small group, with beakers, white coats, and protective eyewear. Poole got his attention from the doorway, a fast military signal of “leave now, this way.” Danya nodded, took off coat and glasses, and left. The class barely noticed.

“Trouble?” he asked, as they descended stairs to the ground floor.

“Precaution,” said Poole. Danya nodded and walked fast.

The day outside was warm and sunny, barely a cloud in the sky. It seemed
impossible that something, somewhere was less than perfect. The school playing field gleamed green and humid from recent watering as they walked across it.

“We're not going home?” Danya guessed.

“No. Rendezvous with Sandy. Prearranged spot.”

“She never told me.”

“Only came up with it this morning,” Poole explained. “We think it might be Talee.” Through the gate surrounding the playing field and onto the sidewalk beneath leafy trees.

“Talee?” Both kids stared at him. “You mean Cai?”

“Possibly Cai himself.”

“That's why we're not driving?” Danya guessed.

“Not for now. Sandy doesn't trust Canas systems if Cai's involved. The higher the network intensity, the more control Talee-GIs get over it.”

He half expected Svetlana to take his hand for comfort. He'd seen other girls her age do that, when upset. But Svetlana left his hands free, in case he needed a weapon in a hurry. Thank god he was looking after
these
kids. The prospect of Talee-GIs as enemies was scary.
He
was a bit frightened, if he thought about it. Luckily, he didn't make a habit of thinking.

Sandy drove fast along winding suburban roads, tires skidding on sand patches and slopes. The landscape remained wild out here, Tanushan central planners kept wanting to landscape like the main city, but locals resisted, preferring the rustic beach-side feel. She dodged light traffic and a couple of cyclists, heading back toward a trunk road that would in turn get them to the freeway.

“We should slow down,” said Ragi, pale and wincing with his bloody stump squeezed under his armpit. “Traffic central will register us as speeding, and a stolen vehicle. Talee will hack traffic central in no time.”

“Yes, but so will FedInt,” said Sandy. Driving with a direct cord from her head to the dash, she had full access to car systems without risking a wireless hack. But mostly she monitored the cabin rear-view camera, to watch Kiril in the backseat. He was crying, the great, gasping sobs of a child badly terrified. “FedInt know what just happened, they'll be looking for an escaping vehicle. We might get help.”

“Do we want their help?” said Jane, patient in the passenger seat, rifle propped to the ceiling. “Given what we just saw?”

“Maybe.” She rounded a fast bend and guessed the best turn ahead. No net access meant no maps, so she didn't even know the way. And no one in an infotech dreamworld ever thought to put up road signs. “They could at least run interference.”

The road looked less promising, turning into a house-lined cul-de-sac. She screeched the car sideways, then roared back the way they'd come, seeking the other turnoff.

“Look,” said Jane, “you can either watch the road or the kid.” Sandy shot her an evil look and screeched into the next turn. “We could use your shooting if they come at us again, you're still a better shot than me.” Though with Jane, they both knew, the margins were so close it would be very hard to measure. But if Jane took the rear seat in another attack, would she use her body to shield Kiril with rounds incoming?

“Take over,” said Sandy, unplugging herself and moving to the rear seat, taking Jane's rifle with her. At speed on winding roads, regular humans would have found it difficult, but she and Jane made it work in barely two seconds. Only now she displaced the asura, who instinctively knew to get out of her way, and squeezed into the just-vacated front passenger seat.

“Hello doggy,” said Jane, scratching the animal's muzzle while steering them into a sharp deceleration and corner through a stop sign.

Sandy hugged Kiril. “It's okay, Kiri,” she said. “You had a bad shock. You'll feel better in a minute.” Thank god he hadn't seen very much, pressed to her chest. But he was well old enough to know they'd both nearly been killed, and others had been, and that was bad enough. “It's okay, Kiri. You'll be okay.”

“I'm fine too,” Ragi said drily. “Save for my hand. Thanks for asking.”

“You're a GI,” Jane told him. “Suck it up, princess.”

“Yes, but I'm not a combat GI.”

“And it shows.” She found a larger road with a bump and Gs pressing them to one side, then a roar of acceleration, and passing several other vehicles.

Ragi looked disbelievingly at Sandy, with a jerk of his head to the front seat. “This is your . . . sister?”

“Same designation,” Jane said calmly. “Different styling. Different tape teach. Different attitude. She tried to kill me.”

“I let you live,” Sandy corrected coldly.

“Don't worry, sis, I learned my lesson. I've changed.”

“That was you before, the day Cresta was killed? The sniper who hit my car?”

“Warning shots,” said Jane. “There was a PRIDE team about to drop the hammer on you guys. I thought I'd break you up.”

“And the informant who gave us the tip on the Pyeongwha terrorists?”

“One and the same.”

“Whose orders?” Sandy demanded. “Takewashi's?”

“Yep.”

“Takewashi's dead.”

“Figured as much,” Jane said sombrely. “I think he knew they'd get him, whether he stayed or came here. He sent me ahead to look out for you.”

“Why?”

“He never said. But I figured it was the Talee, since you wouldn't need protection from anyone else. Only the Talee aren't after you, are they? Or Chief Shin, or anyone else, now that Renaldo's gone. They're after the kid.”

Sandy gave her another evil look, thankful Kiril was still sobbing too much to hear. “Thanks a lot, that's a real help.”

“What are you going to do, keep it from him?” Sarcastically. No kidding she'd changed. There was expression now in Jane's tone, inflection and personality. But Sandy was far from certain she liked the personality she saw. “When those damn alien GIs keep shooting at him, he'll figure something's up. That reminds me, where are we going?”

“We're getting my other kids.”

Jane frowned. “Wait, they've got alien uplink implants too?”

“No. But I've got an evolving psych profile of the Talee running, and they're methodical as hell. When they intervene, they go all in. Anyone with direct personal knowledge of Kiril's uplinks is at risk. Plus they might just want to stretch me defensively by going after multiple targets.”

“Thereby luring you into predictable locations so they can kill you,” said Jane. “Which you're doing, strategic genius that you are.”

“You know, I heard having a sister can be a pain in the neck,” said Sandy. “I'm beginning to see it.”

Danya, Svetlana, and Poole took light rail from outside the Canas gate six
to nearby Ludhiana. Ludhiana was walking distance; they'd all done it after school to visit the markets or the adventure playground in Ambedkar Park, but the rail was much faster. It let them off at the maglev station at Ambedkar Park, and Danya caught Svetlana's glances at the playground's mazes and games as they ascended the escalator. Wondering about normalcy, he knew, and when she'd get to play there again.