“They’re doing this from inside the research lab?” Kandara said. “How did they get in there?”
“They didn’t.” Tyle’s smile was growing broader. The others in the office had all stopped working to look at hir from inside the cages of glowing hologram icons. “We don’t have a huge amount of security up here, but the critical areas are all covered with restricted systems the Bureau maintains. Someone cleared the standard coverage around the lab, but they didn’t know about the additional Bureau systems.” Sie pointed as a projection formed beside hir desk.
It was a standard digital services crypt, filled with row after row of equipment stacks—geometric galaxies of twinkling electronics encased in dark glass, altars devoid of worship. Except for the man walking along the narrow aisles, his stern features illuminated by diffuse blue lighting, a silver-white insulated coverall providing him with a little protection against the icy air.
Everyone watched him slide a glass panel open, exposing the tight-packed racks inside. He ran a hand down them, eyes shut as if he was communing with the systems. Kandara realized that in a way he was; his fingers must contain scanner peripherals, analyzing the racks. He stopped and slid one out, exposing the bundled optical cables along the side. What looked like a bar-code label was applied to the top of the electronics, then the rack was pushed back into place. He stood there for a minute, watching whatever graphics were being splashed across his tarsus lenses, before closing the glass cover.
Kandara pursed her lips. “Physical intrusion,” she said, almost admiringly. “That’s real old-school. You need a lot of balls to attempt that.”
“We’ve all got ’em,” Oistad said, grinning at Tyle, who groaned in dismay.
“Onysko’s vulnerable to that kind of operation,” Jessika said. “It was a smart move.”
“They analyzed your systems and found the weak spot,” Kandara said. “That’s a professional team. I don’t think they’ll be the fanatics; all they’re interested in is the money.”
“Here you go,” Jessika said. A projector above her desk was showing the man’s face, this time with a lazy smile. “Baylis Arntsen, a botanist from the University of Phoenix, on a two-year research exchange scheme; his specialty is developing the synthetic biology of desert flora. We have two habitats under construction scheduled for arid-climate biospheres.”
“Go back through all the restricted security files,” Kruse demanded. “Find out what else he’s done to our networks.”
“The Bureau’s G8Turings are running it now,” Tyle said.
They had to wait another ten minutes before the next sensor recording materialized; another man in a different services crypt. Identified as Nagato Fasan, immigrated to Akitha seventeen months earlier, an enthusiastic convert to the Utopial ethos. Then a woman, Niomi Mårtensson. According to her file she had a physics doctorate from München University—knowledge she was applying to build synthesizers to create organosilicon life. She was on secondment from a North African open-source research institute.
Jessika took one look at her thin face and nerdy pale hair. “Son of a bitch!”
“What?” Kruse asked.
“That’s Cancer!”
Kandara focused on Niomi Mårtensson’s bland image, ignoring the way her skin temperature seemed to have suddenly dropped a couple of degrees. “Are you sure?”
“Goddamn right I am. I spent a year working on a case when I was with Connexion, trying to track her. She’s changed her hair, and the eyes are a different color, but I know her.”
“Everyone, stop right now,” Kandara said abruptly. “Nobody is to ask any Turing for a check on Niomi Mårtensson. No file to be accessed, understand? Cancer will have loaded monitors into the network that’ll spot any reference to her.” She glanced around the office, half expecting to catch someone in the act of making a warning call.
“So what now?” Oistad asked cautiously.
Kandara turned to Kruse. “First, shut down all Onysko’s portal doors.”
“All?”
“Yes. Not just the pedestrian hubs back to Akitha and the other habitats; I want the cargo portals, too. Everything. We need to isolate her up here.”
“I’ll…ask.”
“No. That’s not good enough. Talk to someone—Jaru, or Emilja. Shit, both of them if you have to; whatever it takes, but get the authority without making a big deal of it. No committees, no standard procedures.”
Kruse gave a determined nod. “Okay. I’ll get it done.”
Kandara turned to Tyle and Oistad. “When Onysko’s isolated, and not before, we need to fix their locations.”
“The Bureau Turings can run a visual search,” Oistad said. “We’ll have them straight away.”
Kandara pulled a face as she studied the projections floating above Tyle’s desk. “As soon as the portals shut down, they’ll know they’ve been blown and we’re hunting them.”
“I can find them fast,” Oistad insisted. “Their altmes will be linked to the network. I can run an interface check; it’ll register as a maintenance ping.”
“We can go old-school, too,” Jessika said. “Just call their colleagues, the ones they’re supposed to be working with. Actually ask them to confirm who’s in the room.”
“Okay,” Kandara said. “Go wide. All the methods of confirming their location, trigger them together.”
* * *
—
Kruse took seven minutes to obtain the authority to divorce Onysko from the rest of the Delta Pavonis system, using an emergency biohazard quarantine procedure that Emilja provided authorization for. Kandara used the time to summon her bagez and suit up in the office washroom. Her armor was a skintight one-piece, with five individual protective layers; the innermost being thermal regulation, keeping her body temperature constant. Then a self-sealing pressure membrane for biological or toxic weapons, which also allowed her to function in a vacuum or underwater environment. Another thermal layer, this time to resist both high temperature or subzero exposure; on top of that was a radiation reflector, which could ward off energy beams and em pulses. And then the external layer—four centimeters of kinetic protection armor, which was flexible enough to give her full motion, but would harden when struck by bullets or shrapnel; it was also resistant to monomolecule filament. The helmet was a featureless shark-profile, equipped with active and passive sensors, interfaced with Zapata and providing enhanced vision through her tarsus lenses. Her slim segmented backpack provided life support, power for beam weapons, and projectile magazine storage, as well as a field medic kit. Microdrones clung to the base like a cluster of black beetles. Wrist bracelets contained gamma-laser emitters and mini-grenade launchers, while her left forearm had a vambrace mount for a small magrail rifle, with a projectile feed from her backpack.
She clumped back into the office, weighing in at more than eighty kilos.
“Holy shit,” Jessika exclaimed. “You look like a seriously badass fallen angel. Does that thing pack a flaming sword, too?”
“Not today. But nice suggestion, thanks.”
“I’m about to order the shutdown,” Kruse said.
“Wait until I get down to the Gloweth hub,” Kandara told hir. “Then I’ll give you the go-ahead. When you have their locations, close Onysko’s internal hubs, but leave me a route open to intercept whichever of them is nearest.”
“I’m coming with you,” Kruse said.
“No.”
“But we have to deploy our local police. They’ll physically cordon off the area you’re operating in. I’m responsible for minimizing any damage and casualties.”
“Fine. You can create a cordon to stop any of your citizens getting near, but make it very plain to the police that if Arntsen, Fasan, or Cancer exit the area, they are not to try and stop them. I will take them down.”
“Agreed.”
Kandara sig
hed, which went unheard inside her helmet. “The rest of you need to keep a tight watch on events. I’m going to need constant operational intel.”
“You’ll get it,” Jessika said. “I know how to filter for this kind of procedure.”
Kandara left the office and went down two levels to one of the Gloweth hubs.
“The police tactical team is ready for deployment,” Kruse announced.
Kandara wondered if Cancer’s monitors would be telling her the same thing. “Jessika, when we have locations, can you cut network access in each area, please?”
“Sure thing.”
The hub was deserted. Kandara stood in the entrance, running a final check on her medical vitals. She took a breath. Switched her weapon systems to active. “Okay, Kruse: initiate.”
Zapata’s display showed her the portal doors powering down, reducing their twin links to a null-space entanglement. The three hub portals in front of her maintained their integrity. “Tyle?”
“Ping is active.”
“Got them,” Jessika cried.
Zapata splashed the results across her vision. Arntsen and Fasan were together inside a lab in the Eóin research block on Onysko’s other endcap. Cancer was on Bremble, in a silicon refinery module.
A route to Eóin splashed across her tarsus lenses. She moved fast, running through the first portal door, turning sharp left in the next hub, another door. People milling around in confusion as portal doors started to shut down. One remained open. “Nice job,” Kandara muttered as she sprinted through. Twist left again. Four fast steps. And she was out into Eóin’s central oval atrium, lined with a broad ramp that spiraled up from the black-and-white marble floor, looping around eight stories of laboratories and offices.
“Eóin network suspended,” Jessika reported. “All portal hubs closed.”
“Can you seal the laboratory doors?” Kandara grunted as she hit the ramp and started sprinting. Arntsen and Fasan were in lab five on the second level.
“I think so.”
She could see several people on the spiral, leaning over the white balustrade, frowning as they looked around to see what the problem with the hubs was. Several doors were opening, more people coming out. “Do it fast. There’s too many people exposed here.”
“The police are on their way,” Kruse said. “They’ll help clear the area.”
“We’re way past that point.” Kandara said. Her sensors caught hir, with Zapata’s feature recognition routines confirming. Kruse was walking out onto the black-and-white tiles of the floor below.
“What are you doing?” Kandara snapped furiously. Sie must have followed her from Gloweth.
“I’m responsible for this operation,” Kruse replied levelly. “I’ll supervise the police and start evacuating civilians.”
“Fuck’s sake! Just stay the hell back.”
Two people on the ramp ahead of her turned to gaze in astonishment at the squat armor-clad figure pounding toward them. Surprise and fear rose on their faces in a near-comic slow motion. Then Kandara had barged past, with only one half circle of ramp left before she reached lab five.
Her helmet sensors picked up a drone descending fast down the center of the atrium. It was a standard bracelet shape, twenty centimeters wide, with internal contra-rotating fans. She instinctively knew it was wrong. “I thought you’d killed Eóin’s network?”
“I have,” Jessika said. “The only channel in is this secure comm.”
“Then why is there a remote drone in here?”
“What drone?”
Kandara reached level two, the door to the lab seventeen meters ahead, and the drone was drawing level. Her right arm came up and target graphics closed on the little machine. A gamma beam sliced into it.
The explosion turned her armor layer completely rigid and slammed her against the wall. A big chunk of balustrade and ramp vanished in the blast, smoldering debris cascading down onto the tiles two floors below. People who’d been on the spiral ramp were struck by the brutal blast wave, bodies flung into the structure, limbs broken, flesh torn and burned. In the first few seconds’ aftermath, the atrium was claimed by a vacuous silence. Then the screaming started.
“What the fuck was that?” Jessika yelled. “What’s going on?”
“Weapons drone,” Kandara grunted. Zapata splashed a fast suit status for her. External damage minimal, all systems functional. She pushed herself away from the wall and powered on toward lab five. Its metal door had buckled in the explosion. Kandara shot it with a mini-grenade.
Her armor stiffened up again as the grenade detonated, flinging shards of metal in all directions. She skirted the missing hunk of ramp carefully and launched three microdrones through the gaping hole into lab five.
Their images splashed across her tarsus lenses as they flew forward. The laboratory followed a standard layout: big bioreactor cabinets lined up along one wall; benches laden with glassware, tended by robot arms; workstations orbited by complex holographic data grids. A tall cylindrical fish tank stood in one corner. The mini-grenade had reduced the room to chaos: cabinets warped and cracked, glassware shattered into avalanches of shards saturated with sticky chemicals. Arntsen and Fasan were on their knees behind a bench, blood dripping from their eardrums, exposed skin cut by flying glass. Fasan was holding a small black tube that the drone’s sensors revealed as a beam weapon, while Arntsen seemed to be dazed and disoriented.
The drones completed their scan of the lab. There was no one else inside.
Kandara flattened herself against the wall to one side of the ruined door and shoved her hand out across the gap. Three more mini-grenades were fired into lab five, programmed to detonate close to the back wall so the fugitives wouldn’t be shielded by the bench.
The drone sensors showed her the overlapping explosions. She saw the fish tank finally disintegrate, sending water sloshing across the floor, with thrashing fish surfing the churning ripples. Several of them slithered to a halt around Arntsen, who was now facedown, his clothes badly ripped by the blasts. Several of his ribs were visible in the gashes where skin had been flayed and burned from his back.
Fasan, by some miracle, was still relatively undamaged. He was crawling toward the shattered window wall. Kandara selected a projectile for the magrail rifle and spun around the warped doorframe. There were three benches between her and Fasan. Target graphics locked on to his head—a coordinate supplied by the microdrones. The rifle fired, punching the projectile through the benches as if they were holograms. His head exploded in a cloud of gore-vapor and bone shrapnel.
Kandara walked forward as slender white rods began to slide up out of the bruised flesh of Arntsen’s forearms. “Shit!” She shot two mini-grenades at him. His body ruptured, spraying gobs of skin and organ across the laboratory.
Two of his projectile peripherals fired on her as they sailed through the air—one embedded in his wrist, another rooted in a long chunk of humerus bone that spun like a baton. Her armor’s outer layer locked, deflecting the impacts. Even so, they were powerful enough to shove her back toward the broken door. Helmet sensors revealed his peripherals that had survived the grenades, splashing them like a cloud of gold embers across the lab. Kandara’s arms moved as if she were karate-chopping an invisible foe, using her gamma lasers to kill the small devices before they could attack her.
Once they were reduced to smoking cinder points, she went over to Fasan’s headless corpse and began a precision strike on his peripherals.
“Kandara, what’s your status?” Jessika asked.
“Still active. You can restore Eóin’s network now. Arntsen and Fasan have been eliminated. Tell whatever cleanup crew you send to be vigilant. I’ve disabled their peripherals, but they might have left other hostile systems behind.”
“Understood. Kandara, we’re worried about Kruse. Hir altme is offline.”
K
andara walked out of the lab. “I’m not surprised. Sie was completely exposed to the drone explosion.” She scanned around the ramp, her suit sensors picking up the moaning and cries of pain. “There are casualties. You can allow the paramedics in.”
“Opening the hubs to Eóin now,” Oistad said. “Can you get a visual on Kruse?
“I’m on my way down now. Do not open any portal doors to Bremble. It’s imperative that Cancer remain isolated.”
“We’ve got that. But what about Kruse?”
Kandara looked over the balustrade to see police in dark armor entering the atrium in a tactical formation. Debris from the shattered ramp was piled high on the prim black-and-white tiles, while the air remained hazed with dust.
“Kruse is dead. I can see hir. Sie was caught by the blast and the rubble. My sensors can’t find a pulse.”
“Holy fuck!” Jessika cried. “No!”
“Are you sure?” Tyle asked.
“Pretty much. Have you found out how the weapons drone was being controlled?”
“What?”
“The weapons drone in Eóin. You shut down the local network, yet it was being controlled. How?”
“Kruse is dead?”
Kandara cursed inside the privacy of her helmet as she arrived at the bottom of the ramp. This was what happened when the ops team weren’t true professionals. “Yes,” she ground out. “But the operation is still ongoing. Now where’s my route to Bremble, and how does Cancer still have access to the network?”
The police watched warily as she hurried through them on her way back to the hub. In front of her, the first paramedics were arriving, each with a tight cluster of medical bagez rolling along at their heels.