Crossover: (Cassandra Kresnov Book 1)

Several times she woke. It was exhausting, being awake. Sleeping was just as bad. Her interface rebuilt itself, no longer needing the external feeds, and her sleep was delirious. She dreamed dreams that made no sense, of dark, shifting shapes and flooding, incoherent emotion. It washed her like a tide and left her scoured and bare. She lost all track of time, and struggled for sanity.

Awoke once more, and discovered after several searching minutes that she was face down on a bed. She had no access to her links, completely shut out, and something was hooked into her access. Reading responses, private things, like pain, and basic sensation. It registered that she was awake.

‘Ms Cassidy?’ came a voice, distantly, from across a vast, unbridgeable distance. But that was not her name and she ignored it.

‘April?’ the voice tried again, many times. Something was pressing at her feet, she was vaguely aware … and found time to wonder at why feet should be significant enough to trigger a surge of unthought relief.

‘Cassandra?’ the voice tried again. Finally, the right name. She applied some effort, and tried to open her eyes. Her vision was dark and she shifted spectrums, trying for regular light … shapes remained indistinct. Further adjustment, and light drowned everything. She could find no in-between and moved instead to infrared, merged with motion-sense … it hurt her eyes to hold it there, but she could at least make basic sense of her immediate surroundings, as regular light alone could not. Sounds echoed badly. Of smell or taste she had no hope, her tongue swollen and dry, her sinuses blocked. ‘Cassandra Kresnov?’

She tried to speak, but nothing came out. Forced air from her lungs with an effort, and managed … ‘that’s me.’ A small, dry whisper.

‘Can you feel your feet, Cassandra?’

‘…a little…’ Pause.

‘Does that hurt?’ Stupid question.

‘… never does … short of bullets …’ She felt terrible, all over. She wanted to go back to sleep.

‘Cassandra, you’re going to be fine. We’ve fixed everything, the incisions were very precise and everything fit back together very easily. It was much easier than a normal human. So don’t you worry. You’re going to be perfectly okay.’

She didn’t feel perfectly okay. She felt like shit. Being patronised made her feel worse.

‘We’re going to put you back to sleep now. I’ll see you again when you wake up.’ She had just enough time to decide she didn’t like being turned on and off like a light switch, before the darkness hit her once again.

The next time she woke she was alone in a room. A big room with big, sunlit windows. She realised she felt much more clear-headed, and could see better. She could certainly see the sunlight. It was beautiful. The windows went all the way around the room, and everywhere were the spires of tall buildings in a gleaming blue sky. Aircars passing. Light reflecting from glass. Light splashed over the lounge suite and pot plants, and she realised that it was not a regular hospital ward. More like a live-in apartment, her bed settled over in a corner behind the chairs, a dresser at her side. And an IV drip, with computer monitor.

After an indeterminate time watching the sunlight, some people came in. She heard a double-lock clack before the door opened and deduced with light-headed surprise that it was a secure room. Like a prison, really. But a nice prison.

‘Cassandra?’ said a man. She shifted her head minutely to look, and discovered that there was a plug in the back of her skull, connected to a cord that ran to the computer bank. She stared at it stupidly for a moment, feeling no real surprise. ‘Cassandra, these men are from the CSA. That’s the Callayan Security Agency. They would like to have a word with you. Do you mind talking to them?’

A question. Questions required answers. She remembered thinking so. How to answer … she strained her memory. Do you mind? It wasn’t much of a question, really. Since when did it matter if she minded or not?

‘Cassandra,’ said a different man with an interesting accent. The sensor plug cord on the pillow beside her head finally lost her interest, and she looked at him. A heavy, brown-skinned man. Indian, she recalled. Long, unruly hair. That was unusual. ‘We are directing a very important investigation, Cassandra. We are trying to catch the people who did this to you. They were FIA, Cassandra, Federal Intelligence Agency. Would you like to help us catch them?’

Another question. It was asking too much of her, in this state, to answer questions. And they were blocking her view of that lovely sunlight through the windows. She wished they’d move a little, all three of them.

‘Cassandra,’ the man said after a moment, more forcefully this time, ‘what are you doing in Tanusha? Why did you come here? Why did you leave the League?’ Pause. ‘Do you understand me?’ Then aside to the doctor, ‘Can she even hear what I’m saying?’

‘… are you a Hindu …?’ she asked the man, in the soft whisper that was as much of a voice as she could muster. A moment’s consternation.

‘Yes. Yes, I am a Hindu. Cassandra, this is very important…’

‘… I like Krishna …’ she whispered. ‘… he’s a good god … and Ganesh. Do you have a favourite …?’ Another pause. She wondered if he could hear.

‘I’ve always been very partial to Lakshmi, myself,’ came the reply after a moment.

‘… if I ever had a religion, I think I might like to be a Hindu …’ It seemed an important thought. She had often wondered what it felt like, having a religion. Believing in something. Belonging to it. Now, of all times, it felt important.

‘If you could answer my questions,’ the man replied, ‘maybe I could help you to become a Hindu. Would you like to answer my questions?’

The doctor, she saw, was checking some readings on the bedside screens. Said something to the men. Something about drugs, post-operative procedures and it really being too early…

‘Cassandra,’ the man persisted, coming very close then, ‘I have an extremely important situation on my hands here, I am trying to catch the people who did this to you. These are very dangerous people, Cassandra, and they’re loose in my city. Please help us catch them.’

‘… it’s not my war any longer …’ she whispered. Her vision was all a blur, and she closed her eyes. ‘… it’s not my war. It was never my war …’

‘Cassandra.’ A hand descended hard upon her arm, her reflexes jerked in fast override of the drugs and someone yelled, a rush of jostling commotion, people surrounding the bed, grabbing the Indian man. Attempted vainly to peel her fingers away from his arm, a steel-hard grip through a handful of bedcovers. She realised dimly that she was still holding on, and let go. The Indian man staggered backward, assisted by alarmed colleagues. The room was filled with much alarm.

‘… I’m sorry …’ she murmured, ‘… don’t surprise me… too many drugs … bad reflexes …’

‘I’m okay,’ the Indian man said, shaking them away, ‘I’m fine. She didn’t hurt me.’

‘I think we’d better put her back to sleep,’ someone said warily, and there was movement to comply.

‘… no …’ It was as much of a protest as she could muster, dazed and half blind on her back. ‘… no … please…’

When she awoke again it was dark. Night light shone through the windows. City light. Tower tops gleaming in the surrounding dark, and the blinking passage of aircars. Time had passed. She wondered how much, before remembering that she hadn’t known the time the last time she was awake either.

She felt stiff from lying too long on her back and made to roll over. And found she could not. Her wrists were bound to the bed. Her ankles too, she discovered when she tried to move her legs. Her pulse rate rose and immediately sedative was flowing into her, she could feel it, a cold, creeping numbness from the tube in her arm, up the shoulder and into her chest. Her muscles were going limp. She breathed deep, calming breaths and tried to remain awake.

Succeeded, though barely. Through her bandage-wrapped body, the cold feeling remained, eating at her nerves. It scared her, both the cold and the bandages. Her bedside machine read the fear and pumped more sedative. It left her dazed, numb and only barely conscious, struggling vainly for awareness, for some sense of where she was, and what had happened to her. She remembered, vaguely. Remembered horrible things. But she did not want to remember more now lest the machine put her entirely to sleep.

The discomfort was acute, all through her body. Not pain. Tightness. Wrongness. Damage, slowly repairing itself and being repaired. She needed to move, to get blood flowing, to loosen the stiffness. But she could not. Not struggling was an effort. Staying awake was. She did not want to sleep — she had slept far too long already. But waking was agony. And life itself promised little better. She was scared, and trying to repress it because of the machine, not wanting to sleep, not even free to feel her fear lest it drag her back to an oblivion of delirious dreams and turbulent darkness. Tears rolled from her eyes, wetting her temples. She lay in the light-strewn darkness for a full five minutes, in soundless tears, before the effort grew too great and she surrendered to the machine, and the darkness it granted.

‘Lieutenant,’ said Naidu, rising to his feet as Vanessa passed the security door, restowing her badge in her jacket pocket. Behind her, one of the armed security guards saw the door securely shut and locked. Another man was present, she noted. He also stood. It looked like a waiting room, with comfortable chairs, a pot plant and paintings on the wall. An adjoining doorway was open, revealing a complex battery of monitors, multiple screens and displays, watched by several seated operators. ‘I hope we did not spoil your evening. Did you have something planned?’

‘Why me?’ Vanessa asked him, fixing him with a very hard stare. Yes, she had had something planned, something intended to help fix her marriage, no less. Now her work had intervened yet again, and she was not impressed. Naidu perhaps read as much in her expression and got quickly to the point.

‘She has been unresponsive,’ he said. He looked troubled, his longish, grey-streaked hair in a greater state of disarray than usual, his open-collared shirt rumpled beneath the jacket. ‘Obviously she is suffering from shock … the doctors recommend to leave her alone, but right now I don’t have that luxury. The evidence suggests the FIA presence in Tanusha may be far larger than we had first anticipated.’

‘How much larger?’ Arms tightly folded, and not at all surprised at the confirmation of this particular rumour … it had been making the rounds through CSA circles ever since the GI had been recovered three days ago. Intel, of course, had difficulty admitting to a large, undetected infiltration. And she watched, with merciless satisfaction, as Naidu shifted uncomfortably, ran a weathered brown hand through his hair.

‘A lot larger,’ he admitted. ‘There are some very weird things going on in this city, Vanessa … some of them we are already on top of, and a lot more we’re not. Obviously it’s connected to the GI somehow, but she won’t talk. And we no longer have the luxury of allowing her time to get over her trauma. We need answers.’

‘Which goes back to my question,’ Vanessa said impatiently. ‘Why me? I’m a SWAT lieutenant…’ She held up a hand, forestalling Naidu’s predictable response. ‘Yes, I know, I made contact with her, you think she might trust me, et cetera, et cetera … I’m not an analyst, Rajeev, I don’t know what questions to ask. I’m not trained with interviews, I’m not a biotechnician and I’m sure as hell not a psychoanalyst…’

‘So much the better. She appears to react very negatively to anyone smelling of ‘establishment’. You are the closest thing this city has to an indigenous combat soldier, Vanessa, and I feel you might be our best chance of getting her to talk right now.’

‘It’s just another piece of manoeuvring,’ Vanessa retorted. ‘She’d be stupid not to see it. You think she’s stupid?’

‘That remains to be seen, but her false identity documentation would suggest otherwise — it was quite flawless, probably the best I’ve seen …’

Another man entered from the monitoring room, a small man of Indonesian appearance in a dark brown suit.

‘Ah, Lieutenant Rice, I am Dr Djohan, the biotech surgeon. Mr Naidu has briefed you on the situation, ah?’ He came to a brisk stop before her. Small as he was, he was taller than Vanessa. ‘Yes,’ Vanessa drawled.

‘Good.’ He clapped his hands together. ‘Now firstly, when you are in the room with her, do not get too close. Mr Naidu did that and she grabbed him, not hard …’ as Vanessa shot Naidu an alarmed look, ‘… but harder than we’d thought possible with the repressant drugs. Evidently she has some sort of short-term reflexive resistance, so we’ve felt it safer to keep her restrained and heavily sedated. It also lessens the chance of self-inflicted injury and allows her more time to heal free of unnecessary movement.

‘Now, you do know what she is, don’t you?’

Vanessa frowned. ‘You mean she’s not a regular GI?’

‘Hmm …’ The little doctor spared himself a small, amused smile. ‘From what little she has told us, her designation is GI-5074J-HK. Now, that is a most unusual designation. The first two digits typically designate the design type. Most GIs range from the twenties to thirties. Anything higher than a thirty is very advanced, and from the literature I’d read I hadn’t been aware there was anything higher than a forty. But even a cursory examination of her interface capability suggests that her story is probably true — her neural interface patterns are simply extraordinary. We suspect she is an experimental model, which would perhaps explain her erratic behaviour in being here in the first place. Dark Star, as you know, is the most specialised and lethal of all League Special Operations units — their GIs aren’t in the habit of wandering off, usually.

‘Oh … and the HK at the end is standard League abbreviation for Hunter Killer.’ Vanessa blinked. ‘Just so that you know what you’re dealing with here. Always bear it in mind, Lieutenant — this is a killing machine, designed to replicate human biological function in so close a mimicry that it is most difficult, without close examination, to tell the difference. But however apparently close to humanity she may appear, make no mistake, she is artificial, and she is most indisputably designed to kill.

‘Are you aware of synth-alloy myomer?’

‘I know they use something like it in combat armour suits,’ Vanessa replied cautiously. ‘It’s the most advanced form of mechanical myomer available. It generates enormous power under contraction and can contract to densities in the body-armour range.’

‘Indeed,’ said Dr Djohan, with an impressed little smile. ‘She’s made of it. It substitutes for her muscles. Bone is ferro-enamelous, roughly equivalent in strength to spacecraft hull ribbing … it needs to be to withstand the enormous power generated by those muscles. Make no mistake about it, Lieutenant, even drugged she can kill. Undrugged, the restraints would be as worthless as tissue paper, and she could happily rip us all limb from limb. Now, do you have any questions?’

The secure room was spacious and attractive, Vanessa saw as she entered. A regular apartment, under other circumstances, with wide bow windows following the curving contour of the external wall, a lounge suite and coffee table, and an inset kitchen off to the left. The view of the Tanushan nightscape was typically spectacular, ablaze with sprawling, towering light, alive with moving traffic. The GI’s hospital bed was pushed against the partial wall for the kitchen, a bank of life support equipment beside it. Vanessa approached, feeling distinctly uneasy.

The GI appeared to be sleeping, her shortish loose blonde hair across her face upon the pillow. The full length of her beneath the covers, Vanessa saw, remembering all too well the horror of the last time she had seen her, this GI, this artificial whatever-she-was, if she could even be called a she with any degree of accuracy … The GI rolled her head upon the pillow, and looked up at her. Soft blue eyes in a broad, pale face. Blinking blearily in the soft light. Gazed at her sleepily amid the sprawl of light hair. She looked, Vanessa thought, a most unlikely killing machine. Nearly as unlikely as she herself was as a SWAT lieutenant, she thought wryly.

‘Hi,’ said Vanessa. Folded her arms defensively, uncertain. The GI simply looked, registering no expression. ‘I’m Vanessa Rice. You remember me?’

A flicker of response in the large blue eyes. God, Vanessa thought, startled … she was gorgeous. Stupid to be surprised, was her second thought, of course she was gorgeous — she was artificial, and it would take no more effort to make an attractive GI than an unattractive one. She guessed. And looks were good for socialisation, and thus confidence. Probably that mattered, somehow.

‘… Vanessa …’ A small, hoarse whisper, the blue eyes studied, steadier than the voice. Up and down, with effortless, pondering attention. Vanessa stood, and continued to feel uncomfortable. ‘… I remember you …’ Very quietly. ‘… you were there … when it happened…’

‘Yeah,’ said Vanessa. ‘I was.’ Wondering if she had, in fact, done the right thing in saving this woman. Or whatever she was. Wondering if she’d come to regret it. The GI turned her head slightly, softly grasped a thin plastic tube between her lips, and sipped liquid. Rested back on the pillow, and stared at the ceiling.

‘… I thanked you, then …’ came the small voice. Hushed in the quiet room, ‘… now I’m not so sure …’

‘I can imagine,’ Vanessa told her, eyeing the faint bulge beneath the tucked bedcovers that indicated the restraints. There were a lot of tubes running from beneath the sheets.

The GI looked at her obliquely. ‘… you took a risk…’

Vanessa shrugged. ‘We needed you. The CSA. We needed to know what the FIA were up to. Why won’t you help us?’ A pause. From somewhere came the faint whirr of ventilation, and behind it the distant hum of night-time traffic beyond mostly soundproofed windows.

‘… I don’t know …’ the GI said after a moment. ‘… I guess I’m not feeling very helpful …’ Her eyes appeared damp, staring at the ceiling. Vanessa frowned, looking more closely. Did GIs cry? She’d never heard so.

‘You’re talking like it’s all over,’ Vanessa said, frowning. ‘Like your life’s gone and you’ll never get a new one.’

‘… well I won’t, will I …?’ Still the small, quiet whisper. ‘… not in the Federation …’

‘You always give up so easily?’ The GI did not reply for a moment, then glanced across at her, a curious shift of gaze. Less impressed, with that comment. It was at least a response. ‘What do you think this city is? You think there’s no free debate here? No due process? If you defend yourself, not everyone is going to want you locked up …’

‘… I’ve seen the news shows …’ A cool, firming of the whisper, the damp eyes hard. ‘… I know what people think of GIs. What did the doctor tell you when you came in? Nice Dr Djohan? Watch out for the GI, she’ll kill you when you’re not looking…?’

Vanessa frowned at her. Pondering that. Snorted in humourless laughter.

‘… exactly. What’s my legal status? There’s no precedent for GIs in Federation society. Even the League wasn’t real keen to let me mix with civvies. Lobby groups here will flip their lid. Rainbow Coalition…’

‘So you’re just going to let them win? You’re not even going to fight?’ Challenging. Feeling herself increasingly irritated by this irrational defeatism. She couldn’t understand it, had never understood defeatism in any form. It baffled her. ‘Dammit … Cassandra.’ It was, she recalled, the GI’s name. ‘Cassandra … Tanusha is a weird place. Politically it’s like a madhouse sometimes … not everyone will automatically hate you. Some may even like you, if you give them a chance. But you’ve got to help us, you’ve got to tell us what’s going on, and what you know. Right now you just look like you’re protecting someone.’

The damp blue gaze was now slightly incredulous. Vanessa exhaled a hard breath, wondering how she could explain this city to a GI, a non-civilian by birth, who had never known civilian life and had no concept of what ordinary people thought.

‘… what makes you think I’m likeable …?’ Vanessa blinked, surprised by that. The GI was wondering why she, Lieutenant Vanessa Rice, was defending her. No doubt thinking it was a ploy to win her cooperation.

‘Aren’t you likeable?’ Which got a cool, effortless stare from the GI. It was unnerving. There was something in those eyes that was not … not entirely human, she supposed. But it did not feel malicious. Not even particularly dangerous. Just intent. But it was strange, and gave her goosebumps. ‘Prove it to me. Prove to me you’re a likeable person. Prove to me you’re decent. You might not be, I’ve no idea. But I’ll listen. That’s the point, Cassandra. Opinions are formed through experience. If you can show people that there is at least one GI in the known universe who is a decent person, then who knows?’

‘… there’s more than one …’ the GI whispered in reply. Took a slow breath, and sighed. ‘… there’s so much more … or was … but people have no idea. People never do …’

‘Hey, don’t write me off. Convince me.’ She grabbed a chair from the end of the bed, and placed it alongside. Not at all certain of what the hell she was doing, or if it was the slightest bit sane … except that she remembered that dive, in the operating theatre, and remembered the presence that she had felt. Overstretched as she’d been, vulnerable in cyberspace, in the midst of a neural structure that was so much more powerful than her own, even in that weakened state … and she was still alive. That in itself had to count for something. ‘Why did you come to Tanusha? You were on Reta Prime before that, right? We traced you back that far.’

The GI stared at her for a long, unblinking moment. Vanessa sat, arms folded, awaiting a reply with stubborn determination. Then, ‘… you’ve seen my software skills. Tanusha’s the largest software and infotech centre in the Federation, outside of Earth …’

‘You were looking for a job, is that it?’

‘… a life …’ came the soft, gentle correction.

‘What was wrong with the life you had? You must have been pretty important in the League.’

‘… far too important. They were so careful of me …’ A distant look, remembering things past. ‘… officers needed a security clearance just to talk to me. Psych analysis. They were never that careful with the others …’

‘Why? What made you special?’

‘… GIs aren’t bright, Vanessa …’ The eyes refocused on her own with tired resignation. ‘… not real smart, as a rule. You’ve read the combat reports. Feds always said their greatest advantage against us was brains. GIs can be smart in straight lines. Rarely laterally …’ Vanessa nodded, she had indeed read as much. Combat reports were a great source of useful material for any SWAT commander.

‘And you are?’ she guessed.

The GI sighed, softly.

‘… yeah. For all the good it did me …’

Vanessa blinked, realising something. A possibility. It unfolded before her like a map. She caught her breath.

‘Is that why you left the League? You decided you didn’t like their war?’ Silence from the GI, not protesting the assertion. ‘Hang on, let me get this … the League created a GI capable of lateral thought process as … as what, an experiment?’ Still no argument. ‘But the result is that you think too laterally for them, and decide you don’t want to fight any more. Why would they risk creating a GI who wouldn’t agree with their philosophies?’

A faint, almost imperceptible shrug beneath the covers. ‘… that’s freedom of thought for you. That’s the risk you take when you allow people to think entirely for themselves …’

‘So why take that risk?’

‘… as an experiment. To make me more dangerous. GIs were always getting outsmarted by Feds. GIs were never as effective as people on either side seem to think. Lost thousands in stupid ambushes, kids’ stuff. They figured they wanted a GI with all the perks but smart. Ought to be unstoppable…’

‘Did it work?’

‘… oh yes …’ With great sadness. ‘… an unqualified, extraordinary success …’

Vanessa suffered another chill, more severe than the last. Her mind switched back to what she was supposed to be asking. The information wanted by Intel, and Naidu in particular.

‘So you came here with no ulterior motive whatsoever,’ she said. And let the implied question hang there for a lingering moment, slowly revolving. ‘The League’s expansionist biotech policies had nothing to do with it?’

The GI breathed deeply through her nose, a gentle rise-and-fall of her chest beneath the covers. Flicked a glance up past her toward the ceiling behind, and the walls.

‘… they’re watching me. I feel like I’m in a zoo …’

‘Cassandra, why won’t you …’

‘… I don’t like these restraints, Vanessa. They’re driving me crazy …’ There was pain in her eyes, emotional pain, lips pressed thin. ‘… the drugs alone are enough, you don’t need the restraints. I need to move…’

‘You grabbed Naidu.’

‘Christ, it was a reflex …’ With hoarse exasperation, her thin voice trying to rise above its forced whisper. ‘… I didn’t hurt him. I was drugged stupid, I could hardly think. Look, you can put a guard in here with a tranq, if I move he can drop me…’

‘You’re avoiding the question,’ Vanessa told her.

Light flared in the deep blue eyes.

‘… damn right I am. You think I’m going to help people who treat me like this? With this damn machine feeding me sedative every time my pulse goes up, until you come in for an interview of course? Fuck you…’

It was desperation, Vanessa thought. And fear. She thought about taking the restraints off. Thought about trusting her, despite what Djohan had said. It not only meant disobeying instructions. It meant getting close, bending down to undo the straps. Trust or no trust … synth-alloy myomer, Djohan had said. Unbelievably powerful stuff. Undrugged, GIs could crack a human skull like a nut, barehanded. Human physiology was nothing to them, fragile like gossamer, to break up and fly away on an errant breeze.

‘… look at you …’ the GI whispered. ‘… you can’t do it, can you? I’ve made love with straight humans, Vanessa, they never knew the difference. They enjoyed it. But just one piece of knowledge, and everything changes. I’m still the same. It’s you who’s different. You’re doing it to yourself…’

‘I don’t know what I can do about that,’ Vanessa replied. Shaken, in spite of herself, by the GI’s calm, quiet appraisal. The worst bit was that it sounded like truth. ‘How do you measure trust, Cassandra? I mean … how much risk is worth it? Look at it from my perspective. If I’m wrong, I die. Is that worth any risk? For someone I don’t even know?’

‘… you already risked it once …’ Again, it hit her, unexpectedly hard. Not having expected this calm, thoughtful logic from a GI. She was rattled and uncertain how to proceed.

‘That was different,’ she said after a moment.

‘… impulsive …’ whispered the GI. ‘… illogical. Now that you’ve got time to sit and think about it, you realise it was a stupid risk to take …’ Vanessa blinked, not knowing anything to say to that. ‘… and you wonder why I don’t like my chances here …’

A long silence. The GI gazed at the ceiling, sad and still. Vanessa watched, trying desperately to think of something that would fix it, and make it all better. But there was nothing.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said after a moment. ‘I really am. If you are who you say you are … I’m really sorry. But I don’t know.’

‘… you remember the dive …?’ Glancing across at her. Almost hopefully. Vanessa caught her breath, remembering the VR immersion, the GI’s huge, damaged field, the glowing lines and strands. The danger she’d been in, within the GI’s structure. The presence, weak, but enough to finish her if it had wanted, in her tenuous position. It had not. And she remembered emotions, pain, desperation, determination, longing … The memory assailed her once more, as powerful as a first grade tactile interface, triggers in the brain that recalled the experience as real, which it sometimes did on really deep dives.

She remembered a lot. And she wondered, then, how much the GI remembered of that necessary mutual embrace.

‘… I know enough about you, Vanessa …’ the GI whispered. The blue gaze was back, holding her attention, mesmerising. ‘… I know you’re a good person. I forgive you …’

‘How much do you know?’ Vanessa whispered, half in shock, her eyes wide. For the briefest of moments, a faint smile touched the GI’s lips.

‘… not enough to scare you. Just enough to know you from a vegetable. But that’s enough …’

Vanessa stared at the GI.

‘… and Vanessa? I know all about the League’s biotech infiltration policies, I even helped on a few of the implementations. They do have ties with Callayan biotech firms, I know that much. Encryption here is lax, freedom of network information and all that — it lets the underground shuttle things around out of sight, but you already know that. I never learned the names. But penetration into major Tanushan BT firms is at least eighty percent — that’s from League Intel reports I read three years ago.

‘… no, my being here has nothing to do with it. I knew it was the best place for software, and I wanted a good job. I made such a good civilian. I was better at that than I was even at soldiering …’ With faint humour. ‘… and none of it explains the FIA. Although I do know of a few FIA secrets about their own secret research into very illegal biotech that most Feds won’t know. Would you like me to tell you?’

Vanessa stared. Turned and looked once over her shoulder, at the cameras there, recording everything. Imagined Naidu, Djohan and half a dozen other Intel operatives gathered about the monitor screens next door, leaning forward in tense, nervous anticipation, biting fingernails. And she turned back to the GI, patiently waiting.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes please.’

It was an hour before she emerged, blinking wearily, and wondering if Sav would still be awake. Her husband had become increasingly tired of these late nights. The hopeful part of her mind pictured him asleep and unworried. The realistic part showed him awake, watching TV and grinding his teeth between repeated glances at the time. Naidu and others were clambering out of the monitor room as the secure door shut behind her, Naidu looking very pleased, his eyes alive and smiling.

‘Vanessa.’ He grasped her small hand in his broad one and shook it repeatedly. ‘I think you have the wrong line of work, Lieutenant, you should be in investigations. You were superb …’ Pause to take a deep, disbelieving breath. ‘I don’t know how much you know about League biotech policy or the FIA, but some of that was just… explosive. This is really going to keep us busy. Of course, I don’t need to remind you that nothing you heard in there is to leave this building …’

Vanessa waved him away wearily, detaching her hand from his and strolling tiredly across the floor. ‘You should know better, Rajeev. I’m a grunt. I have the attention span of small winged insect.’ Massaging her face, feeling somewhat unsteady, for reasons that went well beyond the mere lateness of the hour. ‘Call me again if you need me.’

‘She’s growing on you, I see,’ Naidu said, with the glint of a mischievous smile. ‘She is very pretty. For a European.’ Which was facetious too, that a GI should even be credited with an ethnic identity beyond the cosmetic. She frowned at him, as more Intel filed past from the monitor room, deep in hand-waving discussion, examining their copious notes and oblivious to anything else.

‘I am still married, Rajeev,’ she retorted in dry humour, ‘I’m still in the middle of my five-year heterosexual cycle. It’s not due to end for another thirty months. Then talk to me about how pretty she is.’ Naidu looked dubious.

‘Lieutenant,’ white-coated Dr Djohan interrupted with a perky, pleased smile. He shook her hand rapidly. ‘An excellent job. You appear to have established a level of interconnection with her that I hadn’t expected possible for a human. Well done. You do realise, of course, that had you tried to remove her restraints I would have triggered a sedative dose from the monitor booth. I had a finger on the button the whole time, so have no fear, you were never in any danger …’

‘Don’t you think that’s missing the point?’ Vanessa said sharply. Djohan frowned, cocked his small brown head.

‘And yes, how so?’

‘Does trust actually occur to you as a concept?’

Djohan’s frown remained. He blinked rapidly.

‘She is a GI, Lieutenant. My own personal opinion is that the arbitrary application of human psychological concepts to a non-human is fundamentally flawed and potentially dangerous, and so …’

‘Then what the hell was going on in there?’ Vanessa demanded, pointing back toward the closed door. Another pause of rapid blinking by Djohan.

‘I would say that you did manage to establish a degree of mutual understanding, Lieutenant. Considering the fundamental similarities in your professions, I don’t consider that to be particularly improbable … but I would be very hesitant to ascribe the description of ‘trust’ to the interaction, merely because she did choose this time to share some of her information, much to her own benefit, I might add …’

‘Jesus,’ said Vanessa, and turned away to stretch, running her hands through her short hair in fuming irritation, ‘if we left the world to doctors and technicians, it’d be in a real bloody mess, wouldn’t it?’ She turned back to the puzzled Dr Djohan. ‘Here’s my advice: if you want cooperation out of her, take off those restraints. And take that damn monitor plug out of the back of her head — that’s gotta be shitting her.’

‘Lieutenant … I fear you fail to understand just how dangerous this particular GI is …’ Pointing a sharp finger back at the door. ‘You heard what she said, and it appears to be true from her degree of intellectual and linguistic response to abstract concepts. She is an experimental GI with an advanced capability to process lateral thought, and that makes her dangerous to the most extraordinary degree…’

‘I disagree!’ Angrily. ‘I think it makes her ten times less dangerous!’

‘That in itself is a very dangerous assumption, Lieutenant. This is not a human being to be judged according to human values …’

‘You think I’m not dangerous?’ Incredulously. She had no idea why she was so mad. At that moment it failed to matter. ‘I’m not an entirely natural human either, doctor. I have interface and physical enhancements, not to mention my training. Dammit, I could kill both you and Mr Naidu there right now if I chose to, with my bare hands, and there’s not a damn thing you could do to stop me. So why aren’t you scared of me, huh?’

‘You’re CSA. You are sworn to serve and protect the citizens of Callay, like me.’

‘She’s not League,’ Vanessa retorted, pointing at the door. ‘She left them. She’s now giving up their secrets or what she knows of them. There’s no evidence she’s done anything bad while she’s been here. We’ve got her records, we know where she’s been, what she’s done … she’s been trying to find a job, she’s gone sightseeing. She’s very unlikely to be a spy since she could easily have gone for a higher security level job if she’d chosen, with those qualifications…’

‘Well, we don’t actually know that,’ Naidu cautioned.

‘Give her the benefit of the doubt, why don’t you?’ Incredulously. ‘Face it, there’s no reason to suspect her other than that she’s a GI … it’s bias, it’s discrimination…’

‘Based on extremely sound reasoning,’ Djohan retorted. ‘Have you any idea what she is capable of?’

‘Capability doesn’t equal intent, Doctor. Do you want what she knows or not? Because if you keep looking at her like the caged lab rat, she’ll keep looking at you like the evil bloody scientist with the big syringe.’

‘Your point is well taken, Lieutenant,’ Dr Djohan said coolly, in a manner that suggested he no longer had time to stand around and humour this small, excitable SWAT grunt, ‘but I am in no position of authority to recommend such a course. If you don’t like it, I suggest you take it up with someone else. Good day.’ And he strode off, white coat-tails flying.

Vanessa glared at Naidu. ‘Well, who the hell is in authority?’ Naidu only shrugged. Vanessa folded her arms and glared back toward the door. The whole thing was stupid. She felt claustrophobic enough to sympathise with the GI. Naidu watched her slightly from beneath raised brows, until she spared him another smouldering look.

‘You were saying,’ he said, ‘that you hadn’t noticed how pretty she is?’ Vanessa snorted.

‘Get a hold of your rampaging imagination, Rajeev,’ she said disparagingly as she strode toward the outer door, ‘you’ll split your pants.’