Crossover: (Cassandra Kresnov Book 1)

The underground car park lights shed an artificial glare from the broad, featureless ceiling. Mahud walked soundlessly, eyes scanning. Level 14 was a long way down. On this Saturday evening it was deserted. Nearly.

There was a van in a park beside the exit ramp. Navy blue. The size made sense. He walked toward it, hands in the pockets of his sports jacket, fingers wrapped about the handle of his pistol. The van’s suspension was compressed a little. There were heat readings from inside. Multiple sources, he guessed, striding quickly the last several steps, and recognising the man in the driver’s seat, past the darkened tinting. Pham, a tall Vietnamese, watching his approach. He slid the side door open and climbed m.

Six of the usual ten were there, plus Pham in the front. They paused in their serious conversation, looking. Mahud dropped himself into an available seat behind the driver, settled sideways with his legs extended, watching the meeting. The four men and two women went back to their discussion. Different from before, Mahud knew. They did not look at him, but they were aware. They always had been. So many weeks with these people and still they looked at him like … what was Sandy’s expression? Something the cat dragged in? Mahud had never seen a cat, but he got the idea.

‘Where’s Shimakov?’ he thought to ask Pham in the front seat, as the discussion continued behind. Tactical details. Frequencies, barrier protections. It always changed. The corporate encryption protected them from government detection mostly, but things were serious now, and they were taking no chances.

‘Coming,’ replied Pham. It was about as much as Pham ever said to him. His companions weren’t much better. Mahud watched them through half-lidded eyes. Sandy, he knew, had some success at reading stress levels on infrared, watching the bloodflow. He himself was not so accomplished. But he could hear the seriousness of their conversation, and see the hardness of their expressions.

‘What’s the com specs on the van?’ he asked Pham, unperturbed by the lack of enthusiasm. He knew that Sandy worried about that too, wondering how he’d managed for so long serving with these FIA types who so obviously disliked him and all that he was. The thought nearly made him smile. Sandy worried about so many things. Truth was, he didn’t care. Sandy had always needed a degree of emotional contact. Mahud only cared that those he liked thought well of him. These people … well, at another time, in another place, they would be his enemies. He had killed FIA before. The last thing he wanted was their friendship. He just did the job, as he’d always done, and so long as the FIA did their bit, all was well.

Pham reeled off a technical answer and Mahud accessed the van’s CPU. Read sensory equipment, displays, reception, frequency coding … it was standard civilian, hired as always under an encrypted alias, briefly modified with their mobile add-ons. It was not particularly sensitive to reception. If he was sensible, he could interface and not be detected. He did so, and received an answering click … familiar frequency, familiar connection …

‘Mahud, what’s going on? I’m getting bored.’ Mahud kept any trace of a smile off his face with an effort.

‘I’m in a van, Cap. In an underground car park beneath that big main tower in middle-Tarutao.’ He leaned his head back against the side window, legs crossed and extended, pretending to rest as he waited. The conversation continued, unaware. ‘It’s a Hindustan Caprice, twelve-seater in the back, navy blue with adjustable window tint. Eight of the regular eleven are here, including me. We’re waiting on Shimakov‘

‘Thank you very much,’ Sandy pronounced. ‘You’ll make an undercover man yet. Any idea of a target?’

‘They don’t give me the time of day, Cap. I reckon I’ll find out when I get there. There’s at least one more van, maybe two … twenty-five including me, remember? They’ll be out there somewhere.’

‘Thank you for jogging my horribly defective memory Mr General Sir.’ The sarcasm was dripping, even in silent-acoustic. Mahud kept the twitch from his lips with difficulty. ‘Any hint you might get as to a location would be lovely. You wouldn’t believe just how big this city looks until you have to pinpoint a single person or vehicle — it’s like finding a grain of sand on a beach. But don’t do too much. If you give yourself away it’s all worth nothing, you got that?’

‘Yes, Almighty One.’ Chortling laughter from the other end. No other GI made a sound like that. God she was weird. ‘How many of you guys are out there?’

‘You mean CSA?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Heaps. Not so many that they stand out among 57 million people, but enough.’

‘And what about that political stuff? Guderjaal and Dali, you heard anything about that yet?’

A brief, almost imperceptible pause.

‘No, I wouldn’t be worrying about that. I haven’t heard anything, and there’s nothing we can do about it anyway.’

They’d spoken about it before, briefly. Sandy, Mahud gathered, had made friends with one of the CSA’s best SWAT commanders. She had told Sandy that things were happening at the top level, where command decisions were being made. The President had been removed, but now it looked like the rules that governed that removal might have been broken. And it was up to Supreme Court Justice Guderjaal, to decide.

Exactly why Guderjaal had this power, Mahud didn’t know. Who was in charge in this stupid city, anyway? What was wrong with having just one commander? Why did they have to spread it out between President, Supreme Court and Governor? He supposed he ought to have figured this one out by now — it had been the raid he had planned, after all, that had given the Governor the excuse to kick out the President. There were rules for it, apparently. But hadn’t Guderjaal approved of it? Guderjaal seemed to be the referee here. So how was he going to change his mind now without feeling stupid? And what the hell was it with a system where the right thing became the wrong thing depending upon the circumstances?

God, it was a nightmare. But it worried him all the same … if he and Sandy were relying on CSA people, who were the CSA taking orders from if their leadership was all over the place like this? It was the number one priority in combat operations — the chain of command had to be absolutely transparent and clear-cut. Mahud knew he could always put his life in Sandy’s hands. But the CSA? Sandy had said Ibrahim was on their side, but wasn’t he supposed to be taking orders from Dali? What if someone removed Ibrahim? Put a friend of Dali’s in his place? Would Sandy and her SWAT commander friend be forced to choose whether to obey the new CSA Director or not? And how many CSA people would go with them?

He suspected that Sandy did not think him capable of such analysis. That she thought he did not realise what any of it meant. And perhaps she was right … he knew that Sandy’s knowledge was much more extensive than his own. But he knew enough for it to worry him. Enough to see the potential flaws and problems in the operation. His commanders hadn’t assigned him to this mission for nothing — of the remaining members of their team, he was comfortably their best tactical operator. He did not volunteer as much to Sandy, though. It had been she, after all, who had taught him the first rule of operational engagement — if it’s not helpful, don’t do it.

‘Got that,’ he told her. ‘You just be a bit careful, Cap. I don’t reckon my positions that much more dangerous than yours.’

‘I bloody well do, genius. You waste time worrying about me. I’ll kick your ass.’

‘Got that too,’ Mahud replied, repressing another smile. ‘I’ll tell you when we start moving. Out.’

Tarutao. Sandy uplinked to a regional directory, scanning the street grid as the freeway lights flashed past on either side. Dark again now. An entire day, cruising and waiting, with pauses for meals at roadside vendors. There had been no news of a decision from Guderjaal. And little more from Mahud, who had been concerned that his apartment was bugged. The entire thing was getting on her nerves.

Tarutao was near enough. There was no great rush. She cruised comfortably in the left lane, settled in her slot behind a clustered string of traffic, nose to bumper, nine cars in a line with barely a metre between them. Cars moved in such coordinated groups here on the freeways. Slipstreaming saved power, so the traffic grid stacked cars in nose-to-tail lines, coasting on autopilot. Crouched comfortably low over her Prabati, she barely needed two-thirds of the usual throttle to keep pace, and the slipstream pressure felt noticeably reduced. A turnoff approached and a car in the middle of the group slid sideways toward the exit. The group closed up, reforming a single, smooth line at 140 kph.

She wished, as she scanned the directory display through the moving graphics on her visor, that they could just send in the cavalry now and grab that van in the parking lot. But as Mahud had said, there were twenty-four of them besides himself, and there would be other vans or cars. And Shimakov was not there. He was the one they wanted, more than anything. He, more than anyone, would know the extent of League/FIA biotech infiltration in Tanusha. He would know how far the cancer had spread.

It was possible they would just make a run for it. There would be a pickup zone somewhere outside of Tanusha. Anywhere on the entire planet would do. The Plexus grid coverage, she’d gathered from further discussion with Ibrahim, was less than perfect to begin with, being a civilian system designed to track commercial freight. It was also designed with established space lanes in mind. Coverage of the planetary surface itself was limited, thanks partly to Tanusha’s limited number of population centres from which shuttles would normally launch, and partly to the fact that the system faced mainly outward, away from the planet.

Besides all of which, a planet was a very, very big place. Citysiders, used to universal sensory coverage of their entire environment, sometimes forgot just how big. The less-than-perfect grid had been compromised once. It would be folly to assume they had eliminated all means of further infiltration. A ship, a fast, silent ship, could very conceivably get close enough to launch a shuttle pickup, and get away again, mostly undetected. In all likelihood, such a ship would be in-system now, invisible to all scanners. Sandy knew it was possible. She’d done it herself more times than she could remember. Provided the sensor grid was compromised … nothing to it.

Once the FIA got outside of Tanusha and into the vast Callayan wilderness, they would vanish. Another fact sometimes very easy for Tanushans to forget — most of Callay was utterly uninhabited. To sweep an entire planet, and guard against a covert pickup when the security grid was ineffective … both were difficult tasks, to say the least. Particularly against this level of expertise. And no one knew what aces Dali and friends still held. The only way to make certain of a capture was to grab them here, inside the city.

Sandy’s navscreen flashed, an icon glowing on her visor. There was a vehicle moving into position behind her, joining the slipstream. Sandy indicated, received a clearance, and slid out into the middle lane as the car moved up behind. Wind roared at her arms and shoulders, and she let it slow her down, then eased into place behind the new arrival, rejoining the convoy. More hassle with motorcycles — they broke up the slipstreaming effect created by cars, and not being connected to Central Control there was a risk of collision. Cycles were compelled by law to stay at the rear, and the fines for doing otherwise were harsh.

As to what the FIA were even doing, at this late stage … not even Ibrahim professed to know. Ongoing investigations had revealed traces, but nothing substantial. Some bio-labs that may or may not have been used for experimental purposes. Some databases that could perhaps have stored illegal information. A biotech manufacturer held for questioning whose production line might have been utilised for the assembly of banned, experimental technologies.

The investigations showed that it was widespread, this activity, and deep rooted. Callayan citizens, offworlders, lifelong Tanushan residents … many were implicated but little proven. Everywhere were signs of evidence cleared, data cleansed, damning technologies incinerated or otherwise destroyed. And the operations were all, without exception, hidden within intricate webs of corporate identities and ownership complications that made it very difficult for investigators to determine exactly whom the operation actually belonged to, and where the money came from. Which was typical of Tanushan businesses, with their corporate secrecies and intellectual-property protection precautions.

She glanced upward through the visor as she settled into comfortable range of the new car’s rear bumper. Zoom-focused, looking for airborne activity. She couldn’t see any flyers, up there beyond the lower, cruising aircars and gleaming towertops. That was probably good. A flyer could close distances very fast — there was no need to circle directly overhead and risk suspicion on the ground. They were up there somewhere, waiting for action. That was comfort enough.

‘Sandy,’ came Mahud’s voice in her ear, ‘ we’re moving. It’s still just the eight of us, no Shimakov. He must be in one of the other vehicles.’

‘Okay Mahud,’ she replied calmly within the confines of her helmet, scanning the layout schematic in her head, ‘I’m nearly there. Keep me informed.’

‘Will do.’ The connection went dead. Sandy’s jaw tensed unconsciously as she considered. No Shimakov. Mahud usually accompanied Shimakov. Where the hell was he? And what were they up to?

The directory-grid showed the Tarutao boundary ahead. Towers gleamed tall and bright beyond the flashing streetlights. A turnoff flashed past and she indicated for the next one, attempting a triangulation on Mahud’s last transmission … failed. Evidently Mahud’s van had better sensors than that, and anything as obvious as a tracking signal would risk detection. Her mind flashed on, visualising the Eagle One feed on CSA positions, realtime and updated … about half of them were closing on Tarutao, covering key junction points, main trunk routes. It looked good. She called up Ibrahim.

‘Angel’s moving, eight people in the van, Angel included. No Shimakov.’

‘Copy that. Do you have positional fix?’

‘Negative.’ As the turnoff lane opened to her left and she slid into it, a sudden buffeting of slipstream. One of the nine-car convoy also moved over, slowly decelerating, and Sandy nudged the brake as she moved up behind. ‘I’ll get closer, I might be able to hack a frequency ID if I can get a visual.’

‘Be careful you don’t get seen. That’s imperative‘

‘Copy that.’ Broke connection, slowing as the turnoff left the highway, eased in behind the low, sleek groundcar, wondering just how much confidence Ibrahim really had that a special-ops killer would truly understand covert surveillance. The lights were red and she stopped. Navcomp counted the seconds for her. Green at zero, the car moved on immediate, centrally controlled reflexes and she followed just as fast with a squeeze of throttle.

This road curved at 100 kph through a landscaped zone of lakes and foliage, then in among the buildings and towers of the main Tarutao business district, and the buffers cut the speed down to eighty. Central tower. She scanned and found it, several blocks away. Lights and sidewalk commotion flowed by on either side. Saturday night crowds, partygoers, dinner groups … traffic was considerable, and navcomp flashed a warning of slower speeds ahead, bottlenecks building as traffic merged and unmerged, seeking side streets and parking lanes.

Damn. She let the buffers ease her speed down, ignoring throttle setting, and cruised for a while one metre from the rear bumper of the car in front, eyeing the nose-to-tail traffic ahead with distaste while simultaneously scanning her linkup-directory for areas of less congestion. Wondered again at the buffers, and the barrier elements that protected the Prabati’s CPU from a simple hack-and-disable. It was tempting.

‘Sandy, we’re out of the car park, heading north-west along … Buschler Road. Bit of traffic, we’re ten below speed limit at the moment. Looks like a busy night.’

‘Tell me about it. Thirty-second intervals or next turnoff, keep me informed.’

‘Copy Sandy.’ She called Ibrahim as soon as the connection blanked.

‘Hello Cassandra,’ came a new, male voice on the other end, ‘the Director’s unable to speak right now. Where’s the target?’ Sandy frowned beneath the helmet. Ibrahim not available? What the hell could possibly be more important?

‘Angel is headed north-west up Buschler Road, 10 kays below the speed limit. What’s Ibrahim up to?’

‘Copy on Angel …the Director is consulting, he’s on the ball nothing to worry about.’ Click and gone.

Sandy thought about that reply and decided in slightly less than half a second that she didn’t like it. It was a silly time to start consulting. And she hated being told not to worry. Especially by some green civilian kid who sounded barely out of secondary school. She didn’t know who Freud was precisely, but she reckoned that was one of his slips. Her vision edged to a reddish tinge and time seemed to slow another notch.

The Eagle One feed showed a CSA unit — a groundcar — headed for approximate rendezvous with Mahud’s van … she accessed, found their frequency and called them up.

‘A-3, this is Snowcat, please inform me if you get a reading on that van’s frequency ID.’

‘A-3 copies, Snowcat.’

The traffic accelerated a bit, she saw the adjoining turnoff approaching and took it, an uninterrupted cruise down a side street and then paused at the entrance to Buschler, indicating. Central control found her a spot, one car slowed and she moved out into the gap as the navcomp instructed. The tower car park was behind her now, Mahud should be somewhere up ahead. But with the regulated traffic flow, overtaking was impossible. She bit her lip, and restrained herself from beating buffer-elements into so much cybertronic wreckage.

Scanned the road further ahead … it ran long and straight through this built-up district, office buildings rising high to the sides, blazing light and only sporadic nightlife, here in corporate-central. Traffic lights changing further along … if she got caught, she’d drop even further back.

‘Sandy, were stopped at the lights. Where are you?’

‘I’m just a bit behind you, can’t see you yet but I’m getting there. Anything more for me?’

‘If I hack this thing’s frequency ID it’ll detect me. Safer if you do it from the outside, I think … you were always better at it anyway.’

‘That’s fine, keep your head down. I … wait, I think I see you.’ Vision-zoom through the visor over the car in front, another set of lights further ahead, cars stacked up, a mass of red tail-lights … a navy-blue rooftop, higher than the surrounding traffic, probably a van. Closing fast.

‘Yeah, I’ve got you …’ The lights went green …

‘Green light.’

‘Yep, that’s you.’ Her vision retuned slightly, back to normal light, combat reflex fading a touch. ‘If I get a fix I’ll see if I can get your frequency.’

Cruising at 80 kph, sandwiched by traffic, tires thrumming smoothly on a typically laser-planed Tanushan road. Up ahead, the CSA car A-3 turned onto the road behind Mahud’s van. Moved over a lane, traffic making way for him. Strange manoeuvre. Maybe they were trying to catch up. They might have traffic override systems that she didn’t possess on this rented bike. She called Ibrahim.

‘A-3’s got him in sight,’ she said, cruising through the green light of the van’s last stop. A car ahead of her moved across to the slower left lane, and Sandy found herself gaining ground, empty street ahead for a hundred metres.

‘Eagle One copies, Snowcat,’ came that same, young male voice in her ear. Still no Ibrahim. She didn’t like it. The road angled slightly right, corporate offices giving way to mixed commercial, much busier, pedestrian crowds, bright lights and overpasses, gliding past on all sides. Eyes fixed on the visible top-rear of the navy-blue van, she reconsidered the Eagle One feed, saw vehicles shadowing along nearby streets and trunks … navcomp flashing then to indicate a vehicle falling back in the right lane, decelerating.

It was A-3, drifting back at 65 kph while she cruised on at 80 … something in mind, Sandy thought, frowning, seeing that Buschler ended another kilometre up ahead, and trying to calculate where the van would head next, toward what general destination, and which CSA units would follow…

A-3 dropped to level beside her and equalled her speed. Sandy looked across in surprise, not liking such a non-covert manoeuvre that could only stand out on an automated system, and the passenger window dropped on A-3’s side … and found herself staring down at the muzzle of a pistol that she recognised as a stunner. Chemical pellet, a GI neutraliser. She stared.

‘Snowcat, this is A-3, pull over at the next left turn and halt.’ The feed from Eagle One went abruptly dead, terminated. Possibilities raced. The mind overloaded. Came clear, vision shift to combat-scan, thoughts suddenly flat. Calm. Intent and calculating. Time slowed. Fast access, multiple pathways opened, quick penetration, sort-and-scan … quick routing down a Traffic Central branch, annihilated A-3’s CPU barriers with complete absence of subtlety, hacked the Prabati’s own in a second more, locked in … ‘Snowcat, this is A-3, I repeat…’

Executed. A-3’s brakes abruptly locked in a squeal of burning tires, passenger’s heads whipped forward as the Prabati’s own barriers fell and suddenly, wonderfully, the cycle’s performance buffers simply weren’t there any more. Sandy gave the throttle a savage twist and the bike exploded up the road with a howl of hydrogen power, spewing white smoke from the wheelspin as she went.

Made the first cross-street before she could take a breath, slammed on the brakes and the massive sports-bike tried to stand on its front wheel, took the corner with a hard lean at 80 kph, her right knee scraping the road as she went. Accelerated out with the rear end sliding, aiming at the narrow gap between two lanes of traffic-filled road, and turned 80 into 200 kph in three seconds flat down the busy Tanushan street. Navcomp screamed at her, screen flashing red, and central comp tried admirably to adjust — she could see the cars moving over in their lanes just before she whistled by in a blur of speed. There wasn’t much room between lanes and she swerved across the road to aim up the centreline past oncoming traffic, cars slowing and swerving to avoid as central comp took panicked evasive action. The next light was red, but central stopped the traffic for her and she shot through at a shade under 260 kilometres per hour, the street beyond the traffic lights appearing comparatively clear.

Crouched low over the bike, hands fastened on throttle and clutch with fingers tickling the brakes, the speed was immense, but hardly troublesome. Net-linked, she scanned ahead, sorting through the oncoming web of roads, crossroads and traffic, analysing each piece of moving data with computer precision. The bike was fast, the traffic chaotic, but in combat mode her brain was far faster. Time moved at a crawl as she calmly, unhurriedly calculated her route, judging angles, speeds and trajectories, and adjusting her path and velocity accordingly.

Tried to contact Mahud, as she began the long, hard deceleration toward a new, promising turnoff, bodyweight suddenly thrust forward upon her arms as the front suspension compressed. Nothing. No Mahud. Something had gone badly wrong, and the CSA operation was compromised. Everything fucked. And now some CSA elements were after her instead of Mahud, she’d lost the van, lost contact with Ibrahim and Vanessa, running like hell to stay ahead of them all, still free, and thus of some use to Mahud, while hoping against hope that Ibrahim would fight a way through whatever had happened, and reestablish contact. Somewhere past the smothering, intense concentration of combat mode, Sandy felt herself in the perfect mood to kill someone.

Indicated a left turn for central comp’s benefit, saw/felt the traffic take evasive action, half slid into the wide, three-lane corner at 90 kph … and nearly lost it as she applied hard power and the rear end bucked, threatening to throw her from the saddle. So, she found time to think as she howled up the highway, dodging traffic, she wasn’t perfect after all. The bike had its own handling characteristics, and if she ignored them she’d crash. Snaked hard left and then right, another twist of throttle as she grazed past a car-side in a hard right lean, rocketing up past 250 in no time at all and passing the next group of cars so fast they might have been parked. She resolved to pay attention and learn.

Realised then that the navcomp was squawking something else at her … cops were after her evidently, even Ibrahim’s promise of protection from the local police hadn’t happened, God knew what that meant. Someone unwanted was trying to access her communication frequency and she diverted them with absent determination … more traffic lights, and the turnoff she’d been aiming for, up to the freeway. Through the lights as cars pulled wide, and up the curbing access ramp leaning wide and low, roadway rushing past at nearly 200 … then upright and through the narrow gap between car and railing, a flash and gone through her peripheral vision, and then she was on the freeway. Elevated, eight-laned, long and very flat. Crackle in her inner ear, and then …

‘Sandy, you there?’ It was Vanessa, her voice hard with adrenalin. Sandy weaved, once and twice at 240 through traffic, making her way toward the outer right-hand lane.

‘Go Ricey.’ Beyond the roaring of engine, tires and slipstream she could hardly hear her own voice within the confines of the helmet.

‘Long story short, Sandy … Dali intervened, we think the FIA are in on it but some of our guys have gone with him.’ Burst through a metre-wide gap, a hard lean left toward another space … ‘We lost uplinks and frequencies, we’re trying to re-establish … SWAT’s still with us, but some are on the fence, it’s chaos, and we’ve lost the van. Where are you?’

‘On a freeway.’ Tight-voiced and tense-stomached at a wide, curving right-hander toward the suddenly available outer lane … every car seemed so much closer to the next at these speeds, and large spaces were suddenly very small. ‘A-3 pulled a gun on me. I’m being chased by cops, I’m not sure about CSA. Get them off me.’

Arrived finally at the outer lane and rammed the throttle as far as it went. Head low and body flat behind the windshield, she quickly passed 300 kph and kept climbing. About her, the slipstream was solid as a wall. Everything thundered.

‘We’ll try, but I’m not sure if we can — no one seems to know who’s in charge. Dali ordered you arrested, Sandy, he knows about the operation. Some of our guys are taking orders direct. We think he’s using some internal leverage with some of them … Ibrahim’s trying to contact them but we’re cut out of the system and it’ll take some time to re-establish — they’ve cut us off. Look …’ distractedly, as if searching through something, ‘… we’ll try and hide you, just don’t get caught and try not to kill anyone, huh?’

‘No promises,’ Sandy snarled, hugging the centre rail through a curving turn at 348 kph. There were no shapes or colours, only motion, a continuous, eye-baffling blur. The sensory assault was vicious. Like her mood.

‘Hello Sparrow,’ said Pham from the seat in front of Mahud, ‘are you clear?’

‘Sparrow is clear,’ came the reply from the other vehicle. ‘Proceeding to target. Good luck.’ Pham turned in his seat beside the driver and grinned at those in the back.

‘Best insurance in Tanusha,’ he said.

‘Damn right,’ said Schroeder, checking her weapon. The van cruised up an on-ramp, onto a northern freeway, slowly accelerating to merge with the Saturday evening traffic.

Mahud clenched and unclenched his jaw, gazing sightlessly out through the windshield at the sporadic cruising traffic that wound onward between the soaring towers. He’d lost all contact with Sandy. The corporate com-network on which all FIA units were operating had cut in a new shielding function, which transferred through to the van’s systems … damn, something had happened, something big, and an emergency system had activated. Something he hadn’t known they’d had. Shit.

‘What happened to the links?’ he asked, keeping his voice deliberately bland. ‘I can’t access my links.’

‘Just a part of the override,’ said Emeagi from the back. ‘Our friends in the Governor’s Office are hooked into Tanusha main. We can access anything we want and they can’t touch us.’ His voice was cool, but Mahud could hear the excitement there. And the tension.

‘Like having God on your side,’ Pham added from the front, less restrained than the others. ‘Unbelievable. The whole damn system is just ours. Nothing they can do about it. Just incredible.’

No comment from the driver, Ramez. Nor from the others. The van sped along in the middle of a growing convoy, speeds approaching 140. Blazing tower sides slid smoothly by and the tires hummed in anticipation. Mahud resisted the urge to fiddle with his pistol and said nothing, gazing out at the curving lanes of tail-lighted highway snaking ahead through the city. Toward their target.

The target. Mahud had some ideas about that. This was the final play before withdrawal. The recovery ship was in-system, undetected by the Callayan security grid, such as it was. The shuttle would launch soon. Just one more op and they would be gone, out of Tanusha and toward the shuttle rendezvous, somewhere in the broad, deserted Callayan wilderness. Away from the Federation. Away from Tanusha. Away from Sandy.

Mahud felt a surge of something that might have been … fear. It was not an accustomed feeling. Not before an op. But there had never been this much at stake before. He’d never thought that there could be anything more important than life and death, live or die. But it seemed that there was. And the discovery was astonishing.

Sandy sat against a hard, bare wall and gazed sightlessly across the empty expanse of car park floor. The Prabati stood idly alongside, its smooth, powerful lines untarnished by its recent high-speed adventure. Artificial lighting gleamed on dark curves, a glint on moulded metal. Not even a scratch. That much to be said for the central Tanushan traffic network’s improvisational abilities. And more to be said for the neurally enhanced, meta-synaptic brain that had guided it through the snarled evening traffic where original, organic models would surely have failed. Failed and died, 300 kays an hour of mangled organic wreckage strewn across the freeway. Wasn’t technology wonderful.

Sandy hugged her knees closer to her chest, the ferrocrete ground uncomfortably hard beneath her rear. She could still feel the shuddering thunder of her headlong plunge through traffic. The bike vibrating between her legs. The howl of slipstream. The energy of speed, and sensation, coming at a rush. And her ability to handle it, whatever the stresses. Her jeans were torn at both knees, thanks to those fast, leaning corners. Her exposed kneecaps were skinned and red to look at, but only faintly. Surface skin would shed, but foundational skin required far worse than friction and temperature. Beneath that, kneecaps of ferro-enamelous bone. The road would break before they did. She knew from experience.

She liked being a GI. It was a singular, revelatory thought, and she stared across the empty car park, considering that monumental notion and its ground-shaking implications. She liked being able to break things. To jump high and run fast. To process information at speeds that made time appear to crawl, like a quarter-pace video feed. To feel invulnerable.

But increasingly, even in Dark Star, she had distrusted that feeling. The feeling that let her enjoy speed and action. Combat was nothing if not speed and action. It was the drug that hooked lesser GIs. The ultimate experience. The moment upon which the rest of their lives were based. The thing that they lived for, their whole purpose in life. Make them enjoy it and they’ll never question what it means. They’ll want to do more. And in the absence of independent thought, and with the League’s own special brand of ‘moral guidance’, they’ll do it willingly until it kills them.

And it had made so much sense. Back then. GIs had special capabilities. How fitting to find one’s purpose in life exercising those capabilities. That was what they were there for, after all. It was all so very logical.

She leaned her head back against the hard wall, and closed her eyes. She felt cold. Cold and empty. People were after her. Mahud was in danger. There was chaos everywhere. Being what she was had caused nothing but trouble. Trouble for herself, trouble for Mahud and trouble for all those civilians killed as part of the operation to bring knowledge of her workings to those underground programs operating here in Tanusha. She attracted trouble like a magnet. She passed through, and people died.

And it was not just politics, not for her. It was … everything. Everything that she was. All her thoughts, hopes and dreams. Every aspect of her personal self, all the things that she’d liked to delude herself were private, and no one else’s business but her own. It was all involved, and she’d been deluding herself if she’d ever thought things otherwise. Just another happy little delusion to comfort herself with rather than face the truth.

She was a contrivance. Some humans had created her. Her very existence had huge implications. And most of them, it seemed, were negative. The recognition was so devastating that she felt numb. She couldn’t cry, couldn’t scream, couldn’t fight the truth. There was only emptiness. And the dark, hollow thought that maybe … just maybe, her entire life, and all that she’d thought she was, had been built on a lie.

Eyes squeezed shut, she scanned for Mahud through the nearby linkups … and found nothing. It was like he’d vanished, cut off from the entire network, like Eagle One and Ibrahim had been cut off when the Governor’s Office had used their central control to undermine the operation, bypassing Ibrahim by ordering in units directly to arrest her. God, there was something seriously wrong with the Federal system if this could happen, if Federation agents could take control of the government and use it for their own purposes. Once this was over, and the Federate committee arrived from Earth, the shit would really hit the fan. Callay breaking away from the Federation. Becoming an independent world. As little as she knew about such Federal political machinations, Sandy thought it was possible. And public opinion, once the present scandal fully emerged, might just demand it.

At that precise moment, however, she could not have cared less. She wanted Mahud back, and she wanted him now. Beyond that, the Federation and the League could both just rot and die.

‘Sandy, where are you?’ It was Vanessa. She sounded calmer now.

‘Safe,’ she murmured. Her voice sounded strange to her own ears, loud against the echoing silence. ‘Car park.’

‘You okay?’ Reception crackled, distorted through layers of ferrocrete, twelve levels below ground.

‘I’m okay.’ Quietly, hands in her hair, elbows rested on her bare, skinned knees. ‘What’s up?’

‘Well we’ve got through to police HQ, we’re establishing a sub-network, new connection points, new encryption. We can talk to a few people now. We’ve got some contacts at HQ and they’ve put a hold on your arrest … we can’t guarantee the same will apply to all units, but it’s bought some time. We’ve got our best people on the network links. We don’t think they can find you, but we’re not sure …’ A hard sigh. ‘It’s just all fucking insane — it’s like the whole CSA just got split straight down the centre and we don’t even know who’s on which side. We’re trying to contact each of them individually to find out. Some are on the fence, others refuse any order that overrides Dali … whole heap of goddamn ass-lickers worried about their performance reviews, refusing to break chain of command… hell, you get the picture.’

‘Busy little democracy you’ve got here,’ Sandy murmured. ‘Bet it wouldn’t happen under a dictatorship.’

‘A what?’

‘Old-fashioned idea. Never mind.’

‘Anyway, point two: we just had a shooting. Werner Associates, small, independent design and consulting firm … guess the industry.’

‘Biotech,’ Sandy said tiredly, rubbing her eyes.

‘Clever girl. Three dead, one security and two designers, both at different locations, both in their homes. Very orchestrated. Looks like the sweepers are clearing away the last loose ends before they leave, anyone who knows too much or might talk … we’ve got security after what suspects we’ve got, but the Chief doesn’t think we’ve found any of the top people yet. And your buddy’s not likely to be on any home assassination job.’

‘You could put out a warning for all biotech industry in Tanusha.’

‘Too many people to target with any accuracy and we cant talk to them anyway with our links all fucked up …no chance. We just have to keep working.’

‘Damn Dali.’

‘No kiddin’. We’re taking steps in that direction right now.’

‘Steps?’ Sandy’s hands dropped from her face.

‘Solid steps, you understand?’

‘That sounds like fun. If I weren’t more occupied elsewhere, I’d volunteer my services.’

‘Be patient, Sandy, you’ll hear from him. Take care.’

Nothing then but the echoes of cars moving a number of levels above, distant tires on rampways. And silent again.

Steps, Vanessa said. Solid steps. Her trigger fingers itched. If she weren’t so concerned for Mahud she’d be over to the Parliament Building so fast…