Originator (30 page)

“
So Sandy got away
,” said Rhian. Relief didn't always translate through uplink formulation, but it was clear enough here. “
And Poole was guarding her kids this morning, so I guess they're safe too
.”

“
Can you check?
” Raylee asked.

“
Can't check anything. Talee can hack anyone—if we know where Sandy is, they'll know. We have to stay ignorant on purpose
.”

Made sense, Raylee supposed, stopping by the headless body in the kimono, still upright in the chair. And to think that higher-grade uplinks had recently seemed like a good idea. The FedInt spies were watching her now, from over by their wall. God save them from these childish little games.

“
Asura
,” said Rhian. Raylee looked, and saw the hindquarters of what had once been an animal of some kind. Perhaps a dog.

“
Asura?
”

“
Fed Fleet used them against GIs in the war. Hearing and smell combined means they can tell if a GI's near. They still don't understand how it works. And they can detect transmissions
.”

“
They're uplinked?
”

“
No, it's natural. Their brains just detect some kinds of wireless transmissions, it's like natural radio reception. Again, no one understands it, it's pretty spooky
.” Rhian,
Raylee recalled, had an advanced degree in child psychology, of all things. A lot of which overlapped with basic psych, so surely she'd take an interest in brains of all kinds.

A FedInt agent arrived, Asian, dark glasses. “FSA's so short they send for homicide cops?”

They knew who she was. If FedInt were as involved in Operation Shield as FSA thought they were, damn right they knew. “Tell me this,” said Raylee. “Your boss was nearly killed here. A couple of your best people were killed here. FSA nearly lost Commander Kresnov. Yet all you guys are standing over there . . .” indicating the far wall, “and all the FSA are standing over here?”

“Ask your own people,” the spy said stubbornly. Japanese accent, Raylee thought. She'd seen enough old samurai movies to know.

“I already know what they say.”

“And somehow,” the spy added darkly, “it's never their people who get killed. Only ours.”

Raylee glanced at Rhian. Rhian looked sombre. “You think this is some kind of FSA setup?”

“If it were,” the spy replied, “do you think you'd be the first to know?”

Commander Rice heard. “Hey, asshole. She brought her own kid here. You think she'd set this on her own kid?”

“For all we know about Kresnov,” the spy replied, “she's using those kids as a cover to get everyone to trust her. She's a machine. He's a bag of meat to her, we all are.”

Rice took a step forward. Rhian pulled two pistols, Kresnov style, and gave each side a nasty look, tensed for threats in both directions. Everyone froze. Rhian was the only GI in the room. With weapons drawn, it made her the automatic center of attention. Rice and Ari stared, in disbelief.

“I'm in the odd position here of being an outsider from both sides,” Raylee told the room. “FSA gives me independence to form judgements as I see fit, given the value of an outside opinion. What I see here is dysfunction, two groups of people fighting over a pile of bullshit. And I think our enemies are using it against us, like that League GI used me, to get you lot to hate each other more than you already do. This is exactly what's killing the League. You want a good look at Compulsive Narrative Syndrome, you've got it right here, all of you.”

Rice was unimpressed. “And you took it upon yourself to march in here,” she said coolly, “and inform us all of your lofty judgement?”

“Not hers,” said Rhian. “Ours too.”

“
Ours
?”

“GIs. All of us think you're nuts on this FedInt thing. All of us. No exceptions, Sandy, Amirah, Poole, Kiet, everyone. Me too. Vanessa, Ari, you're my friends, and I love you both. But pull your fucking heads in before you get us all killed.”

She glanced at Raylee. Raylee nodded, and they headed for the door.

“
They're very quiet, aren't they?
” Rhian formulated as they left. It was definitely irony, Raylee decided. A calm, understated variety, rather than Ari's sandpaper-dry brand. They emerged into sunlight, cordons, guards, and clustered vehicles.

“
Haven't seen a room so stunned since I was a beauty queen contestant in junior college
,” Raylee offered. Rhian raised a curious eyebrow at her. “
A bit of cunning sabotage in the swimsuit contest caused my main rival to um . . . disrobe, right onstage
.”

“
I'd thought that means she wins
.”

Raylee grinned. “
It's not that kind of contest
.”

“
Maybe it should be
.” Still with just that faintly bemused eyebrow raised. Okay, Raylee admitted to herself—for all her misgivings about GIs in Tanusha, she was coming to like Rhian a lot. “
Did you do it?
”

“
The sabotage? Of course not. I've always been a good girl
.”

“
You're not built like a good girl
.”

“
Neither are you
.”

Rhian's amusement faded. “
Why would Sandy bring Kiril here?
”

They reached the cruiser and got in. Raylee waited until they were sealed in before replying, for the relief of not having to formulate. “She would have been trying to protect him, I guess. Keep him with her. Which means she thinks the Talee are after him.”

“That stuff in his head,” Rhian murmured. “Shit. Even Sandy can't fight the Talee. I saw what Cai did at Pantala, it's crazy.”

“Cai?” As the engines fired up once more.

“I'll fill you in.” With a cautious glance. “You believe that stuff the spy said back there? Sandy not caring?”

“No. Of course not.”

“But you're no fan.”

Raylee frowned. “She's very powerful, Rhi. All GIs are, and now you're all in the one place, which is making FedInt nervous.”

“And you.”

Raylee pointed to her right arm. “Last time we had a civil war here? I lost this arm.”

“But we're not the ones making trouble with FedInt. GIs, I mean. You regular humans are the ones falling for this stupid narrative syndrome. GIs are seeing through it. So why are you scared of
us
?”

Raylee powered the cruiser into the air as the field gens reached full charge. “Don't confuse me with your logic,” she muttered, plotting a course and allowing the com to find her next call.

It connected. “
Hello, ladies
,” came Steven Harren's voice on the cruiser com. “
Nice work, we already have some good data running
.”

He and SuperPsych had been listening the whole time. With herself and Rhian on the inside, they'd been able to run a large enough infiltration program, using FSA constructs against themselves, to let them monitor the entire confrontation in the house. That, Steven had insisted, would be enough to run the voice stress analysis, along with visual data, required to establish the last data point against which all other data points could be measured. A face-to-face confrontation, FSA against FedInt.

It was also very illegal and could land both her and Rhian in jail, not to mention unemployed. But they'd all agreed that the stakes made it worth the risk.

“What's the deal?” Rhian asked.

“
Swing by and we'll show you
.”

Sandy strolled the Harihan tech market with cap and shades on, as rain poured on the transparent awnings and plunged down pipes between stalls into drains underfoot. Lights strobed the interior stalls and crowds, kaleidoscopic on wet plastic, making electric puddles gleam on the tarmac floor. People moved between shelves and displays, teeming hundreds, examining the latest gear, uplinks and AR glasses bombarding them with specs and advertising.

The kids loved it here, and it was a good place to hide—a natural rendezvous. Svetlana could no doubt steal her way into a serious juvie record in a place like this. Sandy scanned the commotion, her own AR glasses just a disguise, as usual for her in public. She didn't dare uplink here, or anywhere, internal or external. Her uplinks were firmly on autistic, completely disconnected, and impossible to access remotely. Her head felt empty without the cacophony pressing on her awareness. That swarm of electronic context, giving shape to every fact.

There was a tree amidst the market stalls where food stalls continued brisk sales despite the downpour, awnings redirecting runoff toward the tree in a curtain of silver water. Normally to find the kids, she'd have bet on food. But now the food courtyard seemed too obvious a central gathering spot, and a quick scan did not reveal them. Every body shape was heat and colour, her combat mode augured up to reflex maximum. She was finding it easier to stay here, one sudden motion away from instant violence, than to confront what lay outside of it.

She walked past rows of robot helpers, one of them juggling to entertain an audience. Another mimicked passersby, like a street performer begging for coins in his hat. Sandy detoured and glimpsed a girl up the far end. Beret,
short hair. About Svetlana's size, but disappeared about a stall corner and lost amidst the press of bodies. Sandy walked briskly. Audio thundered and boomed from a nearby VR game display, people lying on flat recliners, eyes covered, lost in their dreamworld while their actions were watched by others on displays.

She walked parallel to the girl's last direction . . . and glimpsed her again, up ahead, one stall over. Again no clear view of her face. It didn't seem right, and suspicion tingled. She pressed on, hand itching for the pistol within her jacket. Some unnamed sense made her turn, to see a woman amidst others standing before a display . . . but only that woman . . . posture . . . body temp . . .

Her uplinks hit her like a hammer blow, her knees folding. Gunfire, screams, and she overrode it in a millisecond, bypassing to the auto-cutoff, rolling up and moving fast through the pandemonium, gun in hand. More gunfire from the left, firing elsewhere, and she aimed straight through displays, expensive screens erupting in sparks and liquid crystal, and dove to a roll and dead-stop by an aisle, braced three-points to the ground and waiting.

Movement down a neighbouring aisle, a figure hurdling bystanders, just the right approach axis to cut her off from flanking her previous target. . . . Sandy exploded that way, through a stall, saw the pistol training on her from the airborne hurdler and shot it, and the arm, then crashed through displays in a flying tackle. The GI was already adjusting as she hit him, twisting to an arm lock even as they hit the plastic wall and rebounded . . . but Sandy counter-pivoted, came down on a leg to brace into full rotation. Locked out the arm as they crashed down, predicted and ducked into the counter-strike, wrenching the arm from its socket as her balance shifted. The GI rolled, trying even now to escape that grasp, but she went with it, coming to a crouch as her grip shifted, and tore the GI's head half off.

Dropped the lifeless bundle of synthetic parts and leaped on a new flanking run. That had been high designation, a Talee-GI, no question. Not invincible then. But damn, if she'd been off by just a millisecond . . .

Shots tore through displays as she ran, aiming at sound and motion more than plain sight, and she slid behind a heavy power unit. Screaming, panicked shoppers ran past. Again the buzzing in her head, activated uplinks trying to swamp her . . . how the hell? They weren't even connected.

More shots, this time from the right, aiming
at
her opponent. Who made the mistake of returning fire, and Sandy was off before the first cartridge hit the ground. And came into line-of-sight as the female GI was still firing, then tried to change direction. . . . Sandy's trigger finger blurred, even as the target flung and twisted aside, tracking to put most of a clip into her head. Still the GI somehow managed to bounce up, face torn and ear hanging . . . to receive Sandy's flying fist through skull, brain and display wall behind. The whole lot collapsed on her and set off chain-reaction sparks and small fires, gantries supporting the plastic walls tumbling down. But Sandy was off again, figuring whoever had fired on that target would now take advantage to make sure she was down. And sure enough, when he came fast down the neighbouring aisle, he froze at a stall entrance as his peripheral vision showed him what he dared not turn and face directly—Sandy already there, pistol aimed at his head. Eyes wide, face speckled with blood, fist stained with synthetic gore.

“Me or them?” she said. “Think fast.”

“You,” said Cai. And amidst the ongoing confusion, Sandy's hearing zoned on a familiar running stride, short steps and light weight. And another behind.

“Sandy!” Svetlana shrieked and ran to her. It would have been the easiest thing to collapse and sob with utter relief. But combat reflex wouldn't allow it, and Svetlana wisely pulled up short in the stall, tears on her cheeks and wanting a hug but not daring. Danya arrived behind and grabbed her to be sure, looking at Sandy's red-stained fist. Behind them, Sandy saw Poole, looking grimly about for new threats.

“Sandy, he saved us,” Danya said breathlessly. “There were others, and Cai killed them.”

“Why?” asked Sandy, staring unblinking at Cai.

“Not here,” said Cai. “Where is Kiril?”

They stole another car from a parking unit and drove in the spitting rain along streets strangely empty of law enforcement. People stood in clusters in the light rain, talking wildly, hands waving, looking about for support and authority. Several police cars were surrounded by crowds, everyone wanting to talk, the cops holding them back and making no effort to advance toward the market. Evidently they'd been told. Exactly
what
they'd been told, Sandy couldn't guess, but it involved leaving the market space clear for a while and
not bothering with roadblocks or other traffic inspections, even when a simple check-and-match of passengers with vehicle registration would have revealed a stolen car. Someone higher up still had her back and left her space to get away the only way she could.