I couldn’t think of an easy way to distract him, nor to wiggle out without alerting him. So I waited. Something would present itself shortly. I studied him with peripheral glances. Constable patrolman. Decent shape. Young. Quivers of eagerness. This was a low-skill tasking, but for an important suspect. He hoped for some small fallout for his career.
He didn’t ask anything, likely because they wanted to have gear, professionals, and me in prime shape so nothing I said could be excluded. They were losing time, though. Perhaps they had traces on Randall? If so, we’d need to get that information, too.
The something I needed presented itself in about twenty minutes.
Silver walked into the room, in a suit.
She strode in, flipped open an ID folder, and said, “Jeanette Ash, Home Office. I need to interview this detainee, please.”
She used just enough sergeant poise to make it work.
The young constable stiffened and I could see his perturbed expression as he stood.
“Uh, madam, I was—”
“It’s fine,” she said with a smile. “He’s restrained, and injured. I just need a few minutes. I’d suggest tea and a sandwich. You’ll be here for a while after I’m done.”
That was hilarious. Indeed he would.
“Yes, thank you, madam,” he said, as he hesitated, grabbed his coat, and left in a polite hurry.
As soon as he cleared the door, she hit buttons to secure it and opaque the screen.
She flipped open her doccase, tossed a suit coat and lab coat on the bed with two other IDs, slapped a patch on my neck and started pulling restraints.
I gingerly turned and stood with some pain. Whatever she gave me worked fast. I reached for the coat and almost passed out.
She had to pull it up my left arm and help me shrug into it, then repeated that with the lab coat. She snapped the ID badge onto my pocket, and slipped another over her neck. According to those, she was an executive, I was a care nurse.
We slipped out the door, toward the rear of the building, and looked to make a clean escape. My leg wasn’t as bad as my chest, but I had to force myself not to limp. We took an elevator down, then turned through another corridor. Everything was signed of course, and we could have asked for a guide light, but she seemed to have familiarized herself with the map.
It was quiet back here, with only occasional activity in side rooms, but a good cover never hurts. I played my role.
“I am concerned about the patient, though,” I said. I took station on her right, because it was easier for me to face left, and she could protect my injured side.
“The family knows their options, and they are visiting regularly,” she said.
“Yes, and good for them,” I agreed.
Right then we passed a section door.
“Pardon me, sir,” someone said behind me. Male. Probably from that doorway to the left. Hopefully I could bull my way through.
“Yes?” I said as I turned.
It was a security guard.
“Are you new? I don’t seem to have you in my scanner,” he said.
“Yes, I just started today.”
“Not a problem. I just need to scan you into the system and ungh—” he went down as Silver whacked him at the base of the skull, hard and followed it with a patch of something else.
“Let’s go,” she muttered.
We were just in the chute to the dock doorway when the intercom said, “Emergency. Please remain calm. The doors will seal for quarantine. The contaminated area is—”
We maintained pace, walked out as the latches flashed red, and the doors locked behind us. We were out in a light drizzle.
She even had a car waiting, a very plain gray Leyland Econ, and parked with a special marker well inside the official zone. She popped it manually, we climbed in, me lowering myself gingerly with my left arm in an awkward position, and we disappeared into traffic.
Shortly, we were at a different, less visible and more popular hotel, where a nondescript couple wouldn’t be remarked upon. She doffed her coat, pulled a small knife from somewhere and slashed mine since I couldn’t easily move. She unbuckled me and helped me shed the coat. That done, we were two people in pants and shirts going into a hotel.
I moved very deliberately and slipped to the back left of the elevator. She stood right ahead of me, protecting my side. There were three others already in, coming from the pool and spa in the sublevels. Typically, no one spoke, so we reached our floor and grinned and talked about sightseeing for the cameras as we walked.
Once in the room she sighed, the bravado went out of her, and she burst into shivery sweats.
“I think I broke my hand,” she said, wincing and tearing up. “I’m sorry. It’s minor compared—”
“Get it fixed,” I cut her off. “Find a clinic, burn the ID if you must, pay cash, get it fixed. Find me some reconstructor nanos, and we’ll go back to it. Do we still have sandwiches?”
“I can make one.”
“I’ll be fine for a couple of hours. Fix you, then fix me.”
“Right,” she agreed. She wiped off her face, took a couple of breaths, and steadied up. She slapped meat and bread and a smear of mustard together and I took it with my good hand. She turned and walked out, shoulders up and face clear.
I made sure the door was latched and coded, then limped to the bathroom. I generally hate drugs, but I was beat up badly. I took two industrial painkillers and a muscle relaxant with a full glass of water. I eased down on the bed, feeling the bones grate, propped my arm carefully on a pillow as nerves flared, and passed out.
“Dan,” I heard, and twitched awake, and almost threw up from the pain. I never sleep that deeply. Unless drugged, of course. The sandwich was uneaten on the bed, except for one bite I’d taken and dropped unchewed. I’d been out that fast.
I grunted. She held up a tube. I nodded. She poured it into me. Ugh, it was nasty. It also had some kind of narcotic in it. I was back out at once.
I woke again, to daylight and a mouth that tasted like a stagnant ditch. I shifted and it only hurt a bit.
She was already awake.
“I’m sorry about last night,” she said. “I shouldn’t have lost it.”
“You held it together long enough to fake ID, get in, get me out, evade ID and get me treated. You did nothing wrong. I’m impressed with how fast it went.”
She smiled.
“Don’t be,” she said. “I made up a folder full of ID. I have police, medical, military, all built on their standard formats. Most of them can even be encoded to be real, long enough to get through a perimeter once. If anyone ever tries.”
“They rarely do. They trust the system. That’s to our advantage. If the ID doesn’t work, they’ll assume it’s defective.”
“I’m starting to accept that,” she said. “I knew it intellectually.”
“Yeah, it’s different in practice.” I sat up.
Shit, that hurt.
“I think my ribs are still messed up.”
“Probably,” she said. “We need to get you to a clinic.”
“It has to wait. Here and now that’s an identifying feature of the suspect. Wait a few days and we go somewhere else. I’ll get by on painkillers.”
“That’s not smart,” she said.
“This is combat,” I replied.
She looked worried, but nodded. I could tell she didn’t agree.
“I was able to get on stage during the confusion,” she said.
“Yes?”
“You did cut him. I have a blood sample. One little drop they didn’t see at once.”
“You are increasingly trif at this,” I said. She smiled again. I added, “Don’t get cocky, though. That’s a fast way down.”
“Understood,” she said. “I’ve acquired enough tracking gear we can do a better trace, but we’ll need to drive around.”
“Then let’s drive. Remember they’ll be doing the same.”
She nodded, and changed outfits. Me
rcifully, I was doped and getting used to it.
“I do need the ribs fixed,” I admitted.
“I know you do,” she said. “I’ll find a distant clinic.”
“We don’t have time.”
“If you die, the mission’s a scrub.”
She was right about that.
I collapsed into the car—a Ford this time— and she drove. I managed to stay with it, but it hurt like nothing had before. He’d caught something there.
I said, “These multiple phones are a hassle. I wish my implant transceiver still worked.”
She said, “I could have come up with something for that before we left.”
“I thought they’d been dumped due to leakage.” Great. That thing still worked?
“Dumped due to compromise of frequency and limited power. Tech has changed. I could run a modern phone into it. If I’d known.”
“Well, crap. Sorry.” I wish I’d known.
She said, “The new implants are better. Lower profile and improved scramble.”
“Also secret enough I wasn’t aware.”
“With respect, I suggested to the boss we use someone younger and more up to date.”
“There’d be advantages to that,” I said. “I’m not sure they’re enough.”
We were quiet for a bit.
At least this wasn’t Earth. We left the metroplex and it got dark and quiet fast. The surface changed from highway to road. An hour later we pulled into a smaller town, and on the south edge was an all hours clinic.
We walked in through the lit entrance, and she pulled out more ID. “I have your wallet, honey,” she said. I didn’t have to feign the pain and appreciation.
“What happened?” the duty nurse asked.
“We were backpacking and he fell onto a stump this morning. Showered and changed and the twit tried to get through it with painkillers and OTC.”
I found it easy to look sheepish and hurt.
They put me in a chair, and in twenty minutes I was ultrasounded, X-rayed, taped, tapped and full of painkillers that let my brain mostly engage. I had a slight piercing and pneumothorax from a rib. He’d hit me good.
There was no bill. We’d paid an insurance charge with our entry visa. I couldn’t recall if that ID had been covered, or if they’d do the books later and get a null. This ID was going away in ten minutes, though.
“Go easy for a couple of days, Mister Carn, and make sure to follow up with your own practitioner. You will need additional treatment to make sure it heals straight.”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you.” I looked at Silver and said, “I guess we’ll have to take the floater ride instead of hiking up the hill.”
We made it to the car, and I did feel significantly better with a valve in my side and the ribs straightened. I would take it easy for a couple of days anyway. I had to track Randall to wherever he was.
I felt guilty about resting, but I had to. Pain, fatigue, medication and age conspired to drop me comatose where I reclined as she drove. I woke enough to be nauseated and groggy as I walked in a haze to a room, then collapsed carefully on the bed to curl up on my good side.
I was so out of it, I remember waking up to see Silver stripped nude, toning her skin. I closed my eyes and when I woke again it was hours later. I realized I’d missed the show. Not that it would have done me any good.
I heard Silver say, “So that stuff destroys your short term memory.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, you told me the story of how you got kicked three times, though the tellings were consistent enough to make you a credible eye witness if you ever get called.”
I wondered what else I might have muttered upon seeing those delicious curves, but she didn’t seem bothered and didn’t mention, so I didn’t ask. Casualties say all kinds of odd things anyway. It’s one of those intimacies of combat.
“That’s good to know,” I said. I checked the time. I’d been out five hours. I felt better, but I was still groggy as hell. Age was catching up on me. At some point, I’d need to work on a schedule that allowed for actual sleep.
I stood up, head a bit dizzy from medication, fatigue and aftereffects of the nanos, but with pain greatly diminished. I’d need some more work later, but this would get me along for the time being.
“We need to get back to it,” I said.
“I managed some punches,” she said.
“Oh?”
She waved at the two comms networked and sequenced.
“I set them to find police protocols, and draw reports. He’s been busy.”
“How so?”
“Well, they have DNA, too. So we have to expect them to come looking for you as well. They are pursuing him, though.”
“I hoped they wouldn’t do that.”
“I gather you expect it to be ugly?”
“If they corner him? Hell, yes. They really don’t want to do that. You have leads, though? Can we get ahead of them?” I felt awake now, surging with mental challenge.
“Possibly, if you know what we’re looking for.”
“Well, they’re looking for both of you. He is identified as prime suspect, mixed race Caucasian-Pacific-African, forty local years, thirty-five Earth years, male, armed and very dangerous, no image available. You are described as Caucasian with some Asian, accurate height and mass estimates, forty-five local, false ID, dangerous, possibly armed, a flight risk and a ‘person of interest.’”
“This was supposed to be low key. That aside then, where do we go?”
“Much of the interest is on the east side of the city, in these three burbs.”
“Let’s go. You drive.”
I felt so-so for the drive. No severe pain, but I still had trouble concentrating through the haze. I’ve always been able to sleep easily. I had to learn to fight it on duty. After all this time, I’d have to relearn.
I was feeling better, though. Modern medical care was something I always appreciated.
She asked, “Are you allright?” She did look a bit worried.
“No, but better than I should be.”
“Good. I managed some additional supplies, and I brought the pistol.”
“Well done. May I?”
She reached under the seat, shifted something, and handed me the pistol.
It was even in reasonable condition. I checked it over again. CanTech brand, which I’d heard of and seen in manuals but never fired, 10mm Alesis, not very concealable, but not overly large. Standard shape frame, typical controls, fifteen rounds in it. I could do a lot worse.
I said, “This is one of the easiest systems to get weapons in, laws aside. There are too many people in the outerland, too many businesspeople wanting self-defense, and a few criminals willing to cash in.”
“Are you complaining?”
“No, just amused. This is a decent piece, just like last time I did an exercise here.”
“Do you have a plan?” she asked, with a faint look of exasperation.
“Not really,” I said. “We find his whereabouts, I go try to kick him up, if I manage, I shoot him, at once, in the back, very ungentlemanly. Then either I E and E and we depart, call the embassy, or I get arrested and Naumann makes some discreet calls. I’m agreeable to more of a plan once I know what we’re dealing with.”
She had earbuds in, and it occurred to me I should, too. I grabbed for my bag, stuck them in, and let her program the channels.
She said, “They found the car from yesterday. So they’ll have DNA on us eventually, though there’s bound to be several others in there. I did give it a spritz with solvent.”
“I assume that stuff’s still illegal here,” I said.
“Yes. We’ll dispose of it before we leave planet.”
“We’ll need to change deodorant and shampoo regularly to help spoof chemical trackers.”
“Got several,” she said. Good. Very good at her job.
She paid attention to the road, and I watched for tails, anything interesting, and the scenery. There was
n’t much. We were heading into the outskirts. As with most settled worlds, expansion followed coasts and river courses due to ease of cheap transport. Progress inland went slower. This wasn’t far from the coast, but was rather quiet. Nonindustrial firms were based here, and a greenbelt, then wealthy estates, but there were also some hotels, eateries and shopping centers. Visitors needed recreation, and it was common to bring the family as one of the perks.
The chatter I heard was largely about traffic control and a couple of accidents causing diversions. If they started channeling traffic here, we’d need to evade. I wished I could drive. She was good enough, but not a trained combat driver.
A bit later she said, “They think they’ve found a bolt hole, as they call it. Industrial space in one of the parks.”
“We need to check it out, then. Much as I want to keep out of sight, we need whatever intel we can get. That also is very much something he’d look for. We spent a lot of the Earth mission using industrial space. I’m not sure he went anywhere else.” I wasn’t sure I remembered the details. That bothered me. He’d stayed at our facilities. Deni and I had reconned and set the safe houses. I think.
“I want a scrap of chameleon,” she said. “I’ve narrowed it down to three. Knowing who he acquired that from will help a lot.”
“Which three?”
“Ours are licensed from Chersonessus. It could be ours or theirs, or Novaja Rossia.”
“Interesting. Yes, that would narrow things a lot.”
Right then I heard a warning. “Be advised of traffic diversion around Parke West. Civilians should be dissuaded from the area by traffic warnings and zone management. Local traffic may proceed. Report, investigate, and be prepared to detain any subject evading zone restrictions if instructed.”
That was interesting. Whatever they were doing, they planned to move in a bit, and wanted to do so quietly. Useful intel for me, and of course, for him if he were listening, which he should be. So I needed to watch for him exfiltrating in case I could get a shot, and then for any intel.
“Any way to narrow down the location?” I asked.
She said, “It’s in Parke West. I’ve got locations on the response units and can estimate an area.”
“Drop me, find a place to lurk, come back when I call. I may need emergency exfil.”