Mellanie nodded anxiously. The guards grinned at each other.
“Ignore this lame-ass bullshit,” Murdo said. “These two dickbrains couldn’t hit the side of a skyscraper from twenty paces.”
The guard showed him a vigorous hand gesture.
Murdo gave him the finger in return; he and Mellanie walked off down the corridor. He steered her into a locker room. Three nurses were getting changed to go on shift. They stopped talking at the sight of Murdo and one of them scowled.
“Most of the staff use this place to change,” Murdo said. “Except for the doctors and management; they just wear their own suits.” He walked along one of the locker rows. “This one’s yours. Use your thumb on the scanner to open it. Those morons on the desk should have updated the network by now.”
Mellanie pressed her thumb to the small scanner patch, and the locker opened. It was empty. “I thought I got a uniform?”
“I’ll requisition one from supply. Just wait a minute.” He walked away around the end of the row.
Mellanie took a good look around the locker room while Murdo got changed, bringing her inserts on-line one at a time. There was no active sensor, only a couple of cameras looking down from the ceiling. She fed a scrutineer program into the locker room’s array, cautiously examining the structure of the clinic’s internal net. There were an impressive number of security systems and programs, especially on the upper floors. They were all protected by encrypted gates that she didn’t have the skill to circumvent. However, the reception array with its open connection to the Illuminatus cybersphere was easy to access. Her e-butler rode in on a Trojan finance transfer, and began to search admission records for five days on either side of the date that Michelangelo said the lawyers had arrived.
The three nurses all left. Mellanie instructed the scrutineer to follow their progress and record what it could of the security protocols as they went upstairs.
“Hey, Saskia, come around here, I’ve got your uniform,” Murdo said. “I knew I had a spare somewhere.”
Mellanie was intrigued by the way he’d waited until the nurses had left. She held her hand up, palm outward toward the locker doors as she walked along the row. Her basic scan revealed some very interesting items stored inside.
Murdo was wearing a dark red boiler suit with his name on the chest pocket. “Put this on,” he said. One hand held up a small garment of some shiny black fabric, while the other had a frilly white apron.
French maid’s outfit, Mellanie realized. She almost laughed. Murdo wasn’t just a stereotype, he was an absolute cliché.
“I have located three possible admissions compatible with your search parameters,” her e-butler said. The files popped up into her virtual vision; there was no reference to the nature of the treatments they were receiving, only the cost, which surprised even her. Each file did include the room they’d been allocated, for billing purposes.
“Come on, my dear, this is what all cleaning staff trainees wear,” Murdo said in a reasonable tone.
Mellanie activated a second batch of OCtattoos, then infiltrated a restriction order into the room’s array, preventing anyone from using its communications function. “Humm. I don’t think so.”
She clicked her fingers. One of the lockers she’d just passed popped open.
***
The scenic cable car station was at the eastern end of the Northern Crossquay. Alic, Lucius Lee, and Marhol escorted Robin Beard through the ticket hall and onto the embarkation platform. They didn’t manhandle him, nor did they say a word, but he was always in the center of the little triangle they formed. If the Agent was as good as Beard claimed, he would have observers in the crowds heading out to Treetops restaurant.
The platform was raised several meters above the top of Northern Crossquay, a simple metal mesh with the cables running above, which intruded against a huge tree whose boughs curved overhead. Alic could look back and see Tridelta City gleaming a few kilometers away on the other side of the river.
A cable car slid out of the radiant jungle, pausing briefly on the disembarkation platform opposite, where a couple of staff hopped out. Then it disappeared into the engine house that loomed above the station, before reappearing a few moments later and coming to a halt in front of the little group of passengers. It swung in slow pendulum motion from the carbon cable as the door slid open. Then the stewards were ushering everyone inside.
There were seats for ten people arranged in a ring around the central load girder. Alic took the one closest to the door. Beard sat next to him.
When all ten seats were filled the steward shut the door, and gave a thumbs-up. The carrier wheels above engaged the cable with a loud grumbling, and the car lurched away into the jungle.
There had been a lot of protests from local environmental groups when the cable car operators were applying for permits. Noninterference with the jungles was actually a part of the Illuminatus constitution, and no matter how much they bent other rules, the citizens of Tridelta respected their unique environment. It was very hard to grow an Illuminatus plant anywhere else due to the complex soil bacteria the trees needed in order to flourish. Potted saplings could be sold in sealed display cases for botanical enthusiasts, but no one was ever going to reproduce the woodlands on another world. So the environmentalists didn’t want big construction machinery chopping down trees to put up the cable car posts, and chainsawing off branches to give the cars free passage through the elaborate canopy.
After a decade of legal battles the operators won their permit, after proving a minimal damage impact assessment. What the environmentalists grudgingly accepted once the cable car was up and running was that the environmental damage was actually reduced. People who used to illicitly walk off the Crossquay and plunge through the jungle, breaking small branches and trampling new shoots underfoot to gain the raw experience, now took the cable car. It was cheap, and allowed them to get a lot closer in considerably more comfort. The jungle along the side of both Northern and Southern Crossquays began to thicken up again after a century of injury and abuse.
There was no glass in the cable car’s windows. Alic could see the glowing leaves skimming past barely a meter away. He did his best not to gawp at the panorama, making sure he checked Beard every thirty seconds. There were also updates from the police team back at the Northern Crossquay, reporting on everyone who got onto a cable car after them. None of them matched Beard’s description of the Agent. Alic had seen the cable car route through the jungle earlier that afternoon, when he and the rest of the team had come out to Treetops to scout around and set up their positions. Jim Nwan was heading up the five-strong arrest team that were waiting around the restaurant, all of them navy officers in full armor suits. Even if the Agent brought wetwired bodyguards there was no way they could stand up to that kind of firepower. Nor was there anywhere to run. The scenic cable car run was ten kilometers long.
It took twenty-five minutes to reach Treetops. Their cable car slid up against a platform that was identical to the one back on Northern Crossquays, and the smiling passengers trooped off. The restaurant and bar was built out of imported wood, big sturdy oak beams from European forests pegged together to form a long raft four meters off the ground. There was no roof, everyone sat directly under the jungle canopy. One side of it was the bar, while the other half was taken up by the restaurant where the tables were booked up weeks in advance.
As agreed, Beard went over to an empty table in the bar and ordered a beer from the waitress. Alic, Lucius, and Marhol sat on stools up at the small bar counter that circled one of the broad tree trunks. Marhol ordered the most expensive imported beer they had. Alic ignored the oafish detective, and sipped a mineral water.
He called Paula and said, “We’re in. Beard’s waiting for contact. The police helicopters are on standby to extract us as soon as we’ve made the arrest. I’ve got Vic with them; he didn’t like it but I made it clear the alternative was to go back to Paris.”
“Good. Sounds like
you’re organized. Bernadette has just gone into the Greenford Tower. There is a very expensive clinic called Saffron in there which provides wetwiring and baseline DNA modification among other things. So unless she’s taking the airship flight we think that might be her destination; presumably either to change her identity or to rendezvous with someone who has undergone the treatment.”
“Does she know you’re still following?” Alic asked.
“I don’t think so. We fell back to long-range observation at three o’clock this afternoon. As far as she’s aware she lost us.”
“All right. I’ll call you as soon as we have the Agent.”
“What’s happening?” Marhol asked. Conversation around the bar was drying up fast. People had surprised looks on their faces.
Alic’s e-butler alerted him to a priority news event. He didn’t even have to access it. The barman turned the portal behind the counter to a direct feed from the Alessandra Baron show. Wilson Kime was standing at a podium making a statement to the Pentagon II press corps. “The fleet of Moscow-class starships which were dispatched to attack the wormhole known as Hell’s Gateway have now returned and are in communications range with the Commonwealth. I regret to say that the attack was not successful. Our missiles did not manage to strike their targets. Hell’s Gateway remains intact and fully functional, as do the subsidiary wormholes which link it to the Lost23.”
“Oh, crap,” Marhol grunted.
“The Primes have developed a method of deflecting our Douvoir relativistic missiles while they were still in flight,” Wilson said. “I must emphasize that this setback is by no means critical to our campaign. The navy retains the ability to combat any further aggression by the Primes.”
“Bullshit.”
Alic wished he didn’t share Marhol’s opinion.
“Sir,” Lucius said quietly. “Is that him?”
The Agent walked across the bar as everyone was watching the news. He was wearing a suit of thin leather with a surface that glimmered like crude oil under the soft light of the trees. The girl on his arm was dressed in a small cream outfit with a tasseled hem; she was tall and muscled like a marathon runner.
“Robin,” the Agent said pleasantly, “how nice to see you again.”
Beard looked around from the projected image of the Admiral. His face softened into a forlorn expression. “Sorry,” was all he said.
The Agent’s mouth tightened with aristocratic disapproval. His force field came on, distorting the dark ripples flowing over his suit fabric. The girl extended both arms as small stubby nozzles slipped out of the flesh on her wrists. Blue and green OCtattoos came alight on her face and neck, sending out thin glowing lines to snake down beneath the dress fabric. She started to rotate slowly, covering all the patrons. The ones closest to her gasped and pressed themselves back in their chairs.
“Move in,” Alic ordered the arrest team. His own force field came on, surrounding him in a nimbus of soft scintillations.
“Do you want us, Chief?” Vic asked.
“Wait.”
The girl swung around fast, both her arms lined up on Alic. The skin on her forearms began to undulate in strange patterns. People sitting at the tables between the two of them jumped hurriedly out of the way, creating a wide empty corridor.
“Stand aside,” Alic murmured to the police officers. In a couple of seconds he was sitting alone at the bar. Admiral Kime carried on speaking behind him, voice muted to a buzzing drone.
“No way out,” Alic told the Agent. “Let’s everybody stay calm. Deactivate your weapons. Your bodyguards can walk. You come with us.”
“Was that supposed to be an incentive?” the Agent asked. He sounded truly intrigued.
“I can cut clean through his protection,” the girl said. “It’s just a government-issue suit, after all, weak as piss.” She smiled, showing a long row of silver-white fangs.
“Sounds reasonable to me,” the Agent said.
Jim Nwan landed on the bar’s wooden floor with a loud thump. He was in full armor, carrying a plasma carbine. Its targeting laser splashed a small red dot on the Agent’s forehead. His urbane smile faded. Two more of the arrest team jumped into the bar from their holding positions out in the jungle. Their weapons were leveled at the girl.
At a table a few meters away from a trembling Beard, three men stood up, cloaked in force fields, and targeted the arrest team with their wetwired weapons. The last two members of the arrest team arrived in the bar. And one more lone drinker swiveled around on his stool to aim at the detectives, who had switched on their force fields. The rest of the bar went completely silent as it was crisscrossed with the slender ruby threads of lasers. People were hunched down in their chairs, terrified expressions on their faces; couples clung to each other.
“I believe this is what they used to call a Mexican standoff,” the Agent said. “Now why don’t we all just walk away, and contemplate what the Admiral has been saying. There are bigger issues to consider right now, are there not?”
“No,” Alic said. He couldn’t stop his muscles from tensing up—he’d never known dread like it; during combat, the terror from being shot at lasted mere seconds at most. This was stretching out and out, and he couldn’t see a way to end it cleanly. The bastard Agent just refused to see reason. All he could think about was how long it had been since he’d backed up his memories in a secure store; if everyone opened fire there was no way his memorycell would survive. Even so, backing down just wasn’t an option.
“Chief, we’ve got the firepower to back you up,” Vic said. “We can be there in a couple of minutes.”
“No. You can’t fire while we’re in Treetops, it’ll be a massacre.”
“Just let us get out to you.”
“Wait!”
The Agent’s smile was constant. “Once weapons this powerful are fired, you can expect an easy eighty percent casualties among the civilians,” he said. “Are you willing to take that responsibility?”
“You can’t leave,” Alic said. “There’s only the cable car, and we control that.”
“For fuck’s sake, buddy,” a man shouted. “Show some sense. You’ll get us all killed.”
“I am,” Alic growled out.
“There are many ways out for me,” the Agent said. “I’m going to start backing away from you now. If you try and stop me, then you will be responsible for the subsequent slaughter. Think on that, government employee.”
For a brief moment Alic considered calling Paula to ask what the hell he should do. No! Not her.
“Chief?” Jim asked. “What do we do?”
“Move and I’ll fire the first shot myself,” Alic said.
“Well now, if I couldn’t see the panic in your eyes, I might just…” The Agent frowned and glanced up.
Alic heard a low roaring sound, which was rapidly increasing in volume. The few sensor inserts he had couldn’t detect the origin. “Jim? Can you see what that is?”
“Three large power sources, directly overhead.”
Alic risked a look up at the phosphorescent ceiling of fluttering leaves. “Helicopters? Vic, is that you?”
“No, Chief,” Vic replied.
“Descending too fast,” Jim said. “Those aren’t helicopters.”
“Vic, get out here,” Alic ordered.
“On our way.”
A plasma bolt slammed down into Treetops, blowing through the fragile canopy of branches and leaves to strike the wooden platform directly between Alic and the Agent. The oak planks detonated instantly, producing a lethal shrapnel cloud of hand-sized splinters. Alic’s force field flared bright purple as the smoldering daggers walloped him, their impact shunting him back into the bar. Flame swirled all around, drawing whorls of black smoke in its wake. The floor lurched down at such an angle he grabbed wildly, managing to hook some fingers around the counter.
Both the arrest team and the Agent’s bodyguard fired back up into the night sky at the intruders. The bar’s patrons were screaming, half from
shock, half from injury as the scythes of wood stabbed into unprotected flesh. More plasma bolts struck the wooden raft, snapping it into ragged sections. People and furniture were flung about by the blasts. The leaves and branches above began to blaze, sending smoke fountaining down.
Alic saw the Agent on his back as the floor continued to tilt over with a violent creaking, opening a wide gulf between them. Flames licked along the edges. The Agent looked down between his feet, calculating a jump to the dark ground below.
“Don’t even think about it,” Alic shouted. He pointed his ion pistol at the Agent.
The Agent started to laugh. A couple of red lasers played across Alic’s eyes. “Kill him,” the Agent yelled.
Twin plasma shots pummeled Alic’s force field. A storm of seething white and purple vapor clawed at him. Tiny localized overloads allowed hot electron tendrils to gouge at his clothes and skin. The fast stabs of pain were incredible, sending him writhing helplessly. He lost his grip on the counter and wilted onto the dangerously angled floor. Roaring sounds broke out all around him as the arrest team fired back on the bodyguards.
Alic realized he was bent around the base of a bar stool. His retinal inserts filtered the glare away to show the Agent hanging on tightly to his own patch of flooring as he twisted to look above and behind.
Three armor-suited figures ripped through the inferno raging above the wrecked restaurant. They were wearing jetpacks, whose exhaust screeched with the energy of a sonic weapon. One landed on either side of the Agent. Plasma and ion bolts hit them simultaneously, sending out incandescent whip streamers to lash at the smashed tables and chairs. Smoke and jets of flame burst out from the contact points. Several of the flaring whips raked across the Agent’s force field, turning it dense purple. One of the armored figures bent down and slapped a dump-web on the Agent’s back. The Agent tried to push himself off the ground, but an armored boot stomped down on his shoulders, knocking him back down. A dark stain was spreading through his force field as the dump-web expanded.