Killswitch: (Cassandra Kresnov Book 3)

Five minutes later she was in Balikpapan Nature Park, ignoring the wide avenues and narrower footpaths to trudge instead through the undergrowth, ducking through tangles of vines and ferns, boots sinking into the mud of recent rains. None of the aircars dispatched to Prasad Tower had followed. She could only assume that Chandaram had not reported her. The foliage obscured any view of the air traffic about the looming tower behind her, and she dared not uplink directly to the traffic net at this time, needless risk that it was.

Without the jacket, her uniform was not immediately recognisable as such, and the military green blended well with anything in the dark. Her blonde hair was more of a problem, but not enormously-she was dark blonde, not snow white. More problematic was that she possessed one of the most famous faces in Tanusha. The media, of course, had been intrigued by the image of Callay’s very own pet GI, when the administration had begun to allow the free distribution of her face and name. Now, as she paralleled the diagonal avenue that cut from one corner of Balikpapan Park to the other, she began to regret that decision had ever been made. Anonymity, she reckoned, was one of those things you never realised you valued until you lost it. But to assume that the newly promoted second-incommand of the CDF could remain anonymous in a free and democratic society was ridiculous-and the public did, she grudgingly supposed, have a right to know.

Somehow they’d all managed to be shocked at how pretty she was. Never mind that among any people who knew anything about GIs, the fact that all GIs tended to be attractive in one form or another was common knowledge. Still the visual impact of her appearance had been profound. Vanessa reckoned that humans were simply geared that way-visually. So much of what everyone construed as reality was in fact subtle, subjective visual imagery that tricked people into value judgements they didn’t realise they were making. That, Vanessa said, was how serial killers always blended into the crowd-they didn’t look like serial killers. No one did. And pretty blonde girls with subtle expressions and an evidently agreeable personality (well she thought so, anyway) were rarely recognised as murderous walking killing machines. It had softened the public attitude toward her, no question about it. Which she still found amazing. But now, her fame kept her off the footpaths and away from casual glances.

The park was three kilometres across. Considering the shocked passengers in the elevator, no doubt someone had reported her plunge off the tower. No doubt also that Balikpapan Park was the obvious place for someone to lose her pursuers, particularly when that someone was an experienced combat soldier who knew how to hide. Equally doubtless her pursuers knew that it would take a massive sweep of the park, diverting all available manpower, to find her. Which would raise questions from media and others, questions she doubted those with the most immediate interest in finding her wanted asked. It was in their interests for all of this to be kept very silent. And in the interests of many more besides, she had no doubt. There was no one she could contact whose uplinks or other connections were definitely not being monitored, particularly if this whole thing went as far up the power structure as she suspected it did. For the moment, at least, she was on her own. At least until her closest friends realised what was up, and took steps to secure their connections.

The reply on the doorway intercom sounded distinctly unimpressed with the interruption … until the doorway camera lens swivelled into focus, and the tone changed in a hurry. Multiple heavy locks clacked and clanked, then the door opened enough to admit the face of a wideeyed man with thick curly hair and a long, sharpened goatee. The man stared at Sandy, then stared left and right along the corridor, seeming somewhat surprised that she was alone. Then he stood aside, and ushered her quickly inside, shutting the door behind and reactivating the automatic locks.

‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ Gustavius Chan asked her with hushed incredulity. He wore a very loud floral shirt, only halfbuttoned at the bottom where a glimpse of hairy navel was evident. Beneath the cuffs of his trousers, woollen slippers. The scruffy, unkempt appearance was offset by several gold rings and an expensive chain about his neck. ‘You’re a CDF bigshot now, there’s nothing here for you! I swear, I don’t want you here, I don’t want no more of Ari’s damn trouble.’

‘You sure opened the door in a hurry.’

‘Yeah, because I didn’t want to have to pay for a new one!’

‘Relax, Gustavius, you’re nowhere near important enough to interest a bigshot like me.’

Gustavius frowned at her. Blinked several times, looking increasingly disappointed. ‘Really?’

‘I needed to hide, you were closest.’

Gustavius blinked again. ‘Closest? What, you mean like serious emergency `closest’? Oh baby, what are you into? What the hell are you going to get me into?’

Gustavius had the shielded connections in his apartment that she needed to make a totally secure call-there was a time when she would have trusted the security of her own uplinks in any Federation city without question. Now, too many important people knew too much about her, and she wasn’t prepared to take any chances regarding how much if she could possibly avoid it.

Gustavius then drove her to Ruiz district near Tanusha’s easterly fringe, muttering and worrying most of the way. It took a conscious effort for Sandy to keep herself from uplinking, as the groundcar sped at nearly two hundred kilometres per hour in automated nose-to-tail slipstream formation along a major, east-bound freeway. Probably Vanessa would be going nuts by now, raising hell with an administration that had somehow managed to lose track of the second-in-command of the CDF, and didn’t know how, or why. Sandy, of course, was not only not answering her incoming uplink calls, she’d completely disconnected them. She wanted the Tanushan network in total ignorance of her location.

Unable to uplink to even a basic street directory, Sandy was forced to find the address she’d gotten from her one brief call on the groundcar’s own navcomp. Florence Tower, it turned out, was an A-grade tower in the central business district of Ruiz. The rest of the address was simply ‘Room 581,’ no floor numbers or other details given.

‘What if it’s a trap?’ Gustavius asked as the groundcar broke ranks with the freeway slipstream and slid right. They passed over a broad river, one of the many Shoban tributaries across the broad forest delta, the car decelerating as it took the right-side exit to curl along the riverbank. Lightning flashed regularly now in several directions, illuminating entire cityscape horizons with brilliant, darting blue flashes. A few drops of rain spattered upon the windshield.

‘A trap set by whom?’ Sandy asked, gazing out at the blazing of reflections along the river where it wound through the approaching high-rise of downtown Ruiz.

‘Jeez, baby, I don’t know! Whoever you called!’

‘They’re among the most secretive people in Tanusha,’ Sandy replied. ‘Even you don’t compare.’

‘Look, baby, I’m telling you … I’m not secretive! I got nothing to hide, I ain’t been doing nothing wrong since you and An called in on me last year.’

‘I know,’ Sandy said mildly.

‘You know?’ The rain began pelting down, and the groundcar’s speed slowed in accordance with all the surrounding traffic. Cruisecomp displays showed the car adjusting traction control and altering the canter of the rear fin and front airdam, creating greater downforce. ‘Then … then why the hell am I helping you? I mean, if I ain’t done nothing wrong …’

‘Of course, if your old League operative friends do come calling on another courier mission, you’ll be sure to tell us, huh? Because then we can handle it quietly. Otherwise it’ll have to go straight to CSA Investigations, and then it all becomes officially a part of the Callayan justice system, you understand.’

‘Sure, baby,’ Gustavius said reasonably. ‘Sure, I’ll help. I don’t mind helping, I never minded helping ..

The groundcar took another exit, powerful headlights barely penetrating the blinding deluge and the spray kicked up by other cars. But the car knew the way even if its driver did not, and steered them along the riverbank until the next exit, which took them under the freeway and among the narrow roads between residential high-rise by the river side. Then slowing for a right-hand turn across oncoming traffic in the pelting downpour, Sandy fighting hard to resist the temptation to uplink, just briefly, and check out the immediate neighbourhood. Just because Anita and Pushpa assured her no one could possibly know about this place didn’t mean they were right …

The underground garage door opened on automatic as the car nosed down a steep driveway, then the thunder of rain upon the windshield ceased. Traffic Central handed control over to Gustavius, who guided the car between rows of expensive parked vehicles, including one entire row of aircars. Gustavius whistled as his gaze trailed across the accumulated transport … cruisers cost nearly ten times the price of groundcars. As a general rule of thumb, the more cruisers were parked beneath a residential complex, the more wealthy the occupants. Then the car’s dash speakers clicked smoothly to life, the speakerphone activating apparently of its own accord.

‘Hello, Sandy,’ came Anita’s voice. ‘I don’t recognise your friend, but I’ll assume he’s safe or you wouldn’t have brought him, right?’

‘He’s not staying,’ Sandy replied, mildly amused at Gustavius’s wide-eyed expression. Doubtless he’d rigged his car’s CPU himself, and thought its network barriers impenetrable to such easy infiltration. ‘He was just in the neighbourhood, owed me a favour or two. He’s going to go home and forget he ever saw me, aren’t you, Gustavius Chan?’

‘Oh now I know him, he’s one of the old League network suckers Ari closed down in the last sweep. Considering he’s not in prison, I can see why he might owe you a few. ‘

Sandy sighed, as Gustavius parked the car alongside the carpark elevators. ‘Maybe your security would be that much better if you didn’t talk so much,’ she suggested.

‘Oh nonsense,’ said Anita, ‘I don’t care if he knows who we are. As it turns out, I’m checking files here, and we part-own his employer: So if he’d like to k e e p his job … ‘

Gustavius’s eyes widened further as the car’s gull-doors hummed upward. ‘Oh shit, Raj-Bhaj Systems!’ And accusingly to Sandy, ‘I didn’t know you knew Anita Rajana and Pushpa Bhajan!’

‘There’s a lot of things you don’t know, Gustavius. Keep it to yourself or they’ll ruin your life.’

‘Oh baby, I know, I know!’ He nodded vigorously. ‘Hey, my code’s real good, ask anyone on the Basti-Net, I worked for them, did some Razz Barriers and got them out of about twenty-K in network tax …’ Nervously avoiding Sandy’s reprimanding gaze. ‘I mean, if you guys ever need a spare system-wrecker on the fringes, I’m your guy!’

‘The deal was for transport, Gussi,’ Sandy told him, ‘not job opportunities.’

‘We’ll think about it,’ said Anita. Which was enough, Sandy saw from the light in Chan’s eyes, to make him think the evening hadn’t turned out such a disaster after all.

‘Oh great, thanks, thanks … hey, anything, anything at all, you won’t be disappointed, trust me!’

Sandy got out, shaking her head. Waggled sardonic fingers at the enthusiastically waving Gustavius, and walked to the elevator as he drove off.

‘Was that smart?’ she said to Anita as the elevator doors sealed her in, formulating silently in her head on the local building network. It was bound to be secure, if Anita and Pushpa were using it.

‘What can it hurt, it never hurts to play a sucker, you never know what he’ll cough up. Besides, we were moving the apartment in a few weeks anyway, no matter if something did leak. And it’s not our only one. ‘

No, Sandy thought drily, she didn’t suppose it was.

‘You guys just like this cloak and dagger stuff far too much,’ she told Anita.

‘You can’t talk, Ms. Please-help-me-I’m-in-trouble-again!’

‘I get paid to be in trouble. ‘

‘Semantic distinction, trouble means opportunity, opportunity means business, and I’m a business woman. So, what the hell happened to you this time?’

The ‘apartment,’ Sandy saw as the doors opened to admit her, was actually an enormous penthouse suite that occupied the entire third-fromtop floor. It was far less extravagant than some such places she’d seen, but well appointed all the same, with leather lounge suites, an enormous wall-TV, and modern art on the walls and counters. The entire far wall was in fact a window, beyond which the sheeting grey downpour gleamed multicoloured from the light of surrounding towers. The door automatically closed behind her, and Anita came in from one of the doorways on the right-hand wall. She wore loose, Indian-style salwar kameez pants and shirt, only these were threaded with luminescent stitching and colourful buttons, and a long, filmy sash about her shoulders that refracted shifting colour like gossamer thread. Even the fine hair of her shaven head seemed to gleam in the light, and the butterfly tattoos flapped their wings upon her eyelids when she blinked.

‘Hello!’ said Anita with characteristic brightness. ‘I’m so glad you’re okay … would you like a drink? Something to eat? We’ve got food in the fridge if you haven’t had dinner.’

She gave Sandy a hug, then pulled back to look at her. Sandy’s uniform shirt was torn on one sleeve and stained with dirt, grease from the parking-loader in the Prasad Tower, and several other things she couldn’t identify herself. The boots were worse, though she had remembered to wipe her feet. Then Anita saw the cast on Sandy’s left wrist and hand.

‘That didn’t happen on the way home,’ she remarked.

‘No,’ said Sandy, ‘that was the first attempt on my life today. That was just guns and explosions, I can handle that. The second was the killswitch.’

‘I figured as much when you called,’ Anita said with concern. ‘What happened?’

Anita’s friend Pushpa came out of the bedroom midway through the beginning of Sandy’s explanation, then delayed them further by insisting on fetching Sandy a makani juice drink, and then both women sat and listened to the whole story.

‘You’re sure it was the killswitch?’ Pushpa asked when she’d finished. ‘It knocked you unconscious, that sounds more like an infiltration key. Considering you’re still here.’

Her broad, brown face was creased with serious concern. Pushpa was the other half of the Raj-Bhaj partnership, both in business and life. Anita’s friend since early school, Pushpa was slightly chubby, plain and understated. She now wore a dark blue salwar kameez, and her long, black hair was tied into a single plait down her back. Everything about Pushpa was sensible and practical. Between the two of them, they combined divergent personalities into a single, impressive operation that had made Raj-Bhaj Systems one of the most successful small-scale network operations in Tanusha.

‘The infiltration key is a part of the system,’ Sandy said quietly. ‘Fast access, fast execution. Ari warned me about it last night. I downloaded a breaker circuit this morning just in case; it would disconnect that entire part of the network if I was infiltrated. Knocking me out in the process, but shutting down the network before the killswitch could activate.’

‘So you’re saying that you owe your life to Ari,’ Pushpa said flatly.

‘Yeah,’ Sandy sighed. ‘Bummer, huh?’

‘Wouldn’t wish it on my enemies,’ Pushpa replied. ‘He’s on his way over, hope you don’t mind.’

‘No avoiding it, I suppose.’ And she finally managed a faint smile at Pushpa past the deadpan. Pushpa smiled back that same faint smile reserved for private jokes. Many of which involved her old friend An.

‘And you’re certain it’s someone in the government trying to kill you?’ Anita pressed, far more wide-eyed about the situation than her partner.

Sandy sighed again. Ran her good hand through her dishevelled hair, and leaned back fully in her chair, stretching her stiffening spine. ‘I’m not certain about anything, ‘Nita. Except that it’s very hard to infiltrate Canas security. I can’t do it, you guys can’t do it …’ Pushpa gave a faint, conceding shrug … which was a lot, coming from her. ‘And probably if we all pooled resources with a full dozen of Ari’s old friends, we still couldn’t do it. Which means it probably wasn’t an infiltration.’

‘Someone was just following orders,’ Pushpa murmured, eyes momentarily distant. Then snapped back onto Sandy with intent focus. ‘Then what about this big blowup in the maintenance bay?’

Sandy shook her head slowly. ‘I’m sure I have no idea. It was certainly pretty fucking ambitious, and required inside military knowledge and contacts. So I’m thinking the Fleet’s gotta be in there somewhere. It was also pretty poorly executed … which could still be Fleet, they’re into big-bang combat, none of this fancy sneaking around, it’s beneath them. Mostly.’

‘Seems to me someone would have to be pretty angry to cause all that damage,’ Anita remarked. ‘Maybe it was more of a political statement. Maybe getting you was just a bonus for them.’

‘No shortage of people who hate the CDF,’ Pushpa agreed.

Sandy waved a dismissive hand. ‘So they blew my thumb off, big deal. I’m not as worried about that. It’s the killswitch I can’t defend myself against. If someone in the government wants me gone, and they’ve got that code … well.’

Anita and Pushpa’s stares were sombre. As CDF second-incommand, she was a government employee. A part of the system. If people higher up the system possessed the ability to erase her from the scene through the network alone, bypassing a GI’s best natural defence-her combat skills … the silence said it all. Remaining anywhere within that system was a near-guaranteed death sentence. And until she knew which elements were trying to kill her, and why, it would be unwise in the extreme to let anyone within that system know where she was. Even loyal, trustworthy people might be monitored in ways they themselves didn’t fully appreciate. Of all Sandy’s inbuilt instincts, survival was foremost among them, and CDF/CSA protocols on such matters be damned.

‘Buggered if I was going to let that ambulance fly me to a hospital of their choosing,’ she muttered then, reflecting for the first time. ‘Restrained and drugged. Fuck, that’s what scares me-they should know me better, I don’t like being restrained, least of all in a medical situation. It was like some total, outside ignoramus was giving the orders on where to take me and how to handle me … where the fuck was Ibrahim? Or Krishnaswali? Vanessa doesn’t have command authorisation or capacity to intervene there even if she wanted to … but those two do. Couldn’t they have figured what was happening, and how I’d react? The whole damn thing just feels like … like a setup.’

Now she was scaring herself. She could see from Anita’s expression that she wasn’t alone in that. Pushpa just looked very, very serious.

‘You …’ Anita began breathlessly. ‘You don’t think Ibrahim was involved?’

‘No, I don’t think that at all.’ She took a deep breath. Damn it, the combat-reflex wore off, and now the emotion came in a rush that threatened to reduce her to shakes. ‘It’s just that the evidence tells me I sure as hell can’t rule it out.’

Ari was late, of course, arriving three hours later in a swirl of black coat and boots, darkened by brief exposure to the rain that was still falling gently outside. He strode across the wide penthouse floor toward where Sandy lay back on a reclining leather chair, hooked into various of Anita’s processor systems by the slim connector cord in the back of her skull. Anita sat at her custom-designed, semicircular table, surrounded by monitor screens, a headset and goggles removing her from the immediate world.

‘Hi, ‘Nita!’ An said loudly as he came over. ‘Don’t startle, it’s just me!’

‘Ari,’ Anita replied just as loudly to hear herself above the plugs in her ears, ‘you could learn to be polite, you know, and ask to be admitted.’

‘No,’ said An, ‘you see, that’s the first Tanushan rule of etiquette. Never ask for anything, just take it.’

He bent over Sandy to kiss her on the cheek. The customary Ari Ruben worry, Sandy was surprised to see, was not evident. Just calm, businesslike concern. And he reached into his coat, pulled out an automatic pistol, and handed it to her. Sandy took it, checked the safety, dechambered a round and removed the magazine with rapid, reflex motion. It was nothing fancy-a Rohan-9, similar to what CSA Investigations used. Uplink targeting with armscomp interface and ID … though this one’s ID was blank, ready for her to imprint her own signature. She checked it all with a brief uplink, sighted along the lasertargeting, found it millimetre precise against the penthouse’s far wall.

‘You realise that it’s a violation for a CSA or CDF agent or officer to carry any weapon without formalised signature ID?’ she remarked.

‘That’s … that’s interesting.’ Ari scratched his head, a characteristic fidgety mannerism. ‘I actually realised, on the way over here, that all reality is the dreaming of a single subjective consciousness of which we are all a part in the broader cosmos.’

‘I like my realisation better,’ Sandy said flatly. ‘It’s, like, relevant.’

‘Uninspired,’ An said with a distasteful shake of the head. ‘Unimaginative.’

Sandy tucked the pistol into the pocket of the black jacket Anita had lent her. ‘Where’d you get it?’

‘Why do you always want to talk shop?’

‘Ari …’ Warningly.

‘Sandy.’ Firmly. ‘Don’t worry about it, I’ve got it covered. The less you know the better.’

‘The better for who?’ Sandy muttered, gazing out at the night-lit glow of misting rain above the broad, flat bend of river. Gentle currents stirred the mirror surface, and the drizzle brushed a faint layer of static across the perfect, multicoloured reflections. Above, the overcast sky glowed shades of red, orange and white that became increasingly difficult to separate as she shifted visual spectrums. A grey overcast night was rarely grey, over Tanusha. Just as brown river waters were rarely brown, and clear, starry skies were rarely full of stars.

‘Better for whom, my petal,’ Ari corrected, moving to look over Anita’s shoulder. ‘Speak like a civilised person, not like a grunt.’

‘I am a grunt.’

‘Only in bed.’ Beneath her headset goggles, Anita grinned. Ari gave her a gentle whack on the headset. ‘What happened, ‘Nita?’

‘Whatever it was,’ Anita replied, ‘it went through her defensive barriers like butter. See here …’ she pointed to one of the display screens, ‘… that’s all League network code. Even if you haven’t upgraded for a couple of years, it’s still a solid wall to any Federation infiltration basecode yet invented.’

‘I do upgrade,’ Sandy replied, gazing out at the vista of lights. ‘I’ve got my own evolution formulas, I play with things occasionally. Borrow stuff from here and there to keep it fresh, sometimes invent my own. I wasn’t infiltrated because my barriers are obsolete or anything.’

‘And you borrow stuff from Rhian, don’t you?’ An added. Sandy knew him well enough to recognise the note of disapproval immediately.

‘Rhi’s fine, An. She gets the latest League codes, it’s more compatible.’

‘For someone who defected from the League, you’ve become very unquestioning of League assistance lately.’

‘You’re not the only suspicious person in the galaxy, Ari,’ Sandy replied. ‘I check everything.’

‘It had to be League code,’ said Anita, flipping up her goggles to gaze at the actual readout displays, abandoning the mobile viewpoint for a moment. ‘And it doesn’t seem to have left any traces that I can see. Nothing we can give you that might give warning.’

‘Which means I’m vulnerable pretty much everywhere,’ Sandy confirmed. ‘If they know it’s me, and can establish a two-way connection, I can get killed.’

‘Well …’ Anita chewed on her lip, thinking it over. ‘Theoretically maybe. But a breaker code that powerful can’t just operate off a mobile or independent source. And GI barriers are still incredible … I mean shit, I’m looking at your schematic here, Sandy, and considering that it’s all League military-grade code supported by the most powerful neural interface known to biotech science, I’m totally screwed if I can see any way past it. Even independently designed League code work would struggle. No, in order to cut through these kind of defences so quickly, whatever that infiltration code was must have been designed on a parallel-track with your own network barriers, Sandy … and those had to be designed at the time you were being designed. Your brain, I mean … well, that is the only part of you that really counts. I mean, the one that makes you different from other GIs. Special. You know what I mean.’

At another time, Sandy might have raised a semantic argument. ‘Sure,’ she said instead.

‘You’re saying,’ Ari said with a frown, ‘that she was initially designed, from conception, with a pathway integrated into the basecodes of her network defences that would allow for … for … instant infiltration?’

‘Of a parallel-designed infiltrator, yes,’ Anita said with a short, certain nod.

‘Don’t make a poison without an antidote,’ Sandy said mildly. Ari and Anita just looked at her.

‘Anyway,’ Anita resumed, ‘assassins can’t just launch killer infiltrators blind down the network, unless they’re very messy. And if these guys are political, then they can’t afford to make too many mistakes, right? So they’ll need to absolutely, clearly identify you. So the first thing we can do is confuse your ID signature, change your communication codes, that kind of thing. Make them wonder if it’s really you, that should make them think twice.

‘The other thing is that you shouldn’t stay uplinked to the same connection for too long, that’s just asking for them to find you. And be aware of the signatures around you-like I said, an infiltrator this powerful must operate off a powerful hardware system. Those big signatures are the ones you look out for, I doubt you’d be in danger from smaller systems. But if connecting to a smaller system, make sure it’s not proxy-rigged or otherwise location-tracked to another, foreign system. That could just be bait, to lure you out.’

‘Or,’ said An, ‘you could hark back to the many, many centuries of human civilisation when people didn’t have direct neural uplinks, and just not use them. People did manage it, I’m told, for entire lifetimes without going insane or withering mentally away ..

‘They’re lying,’ Anita retorted. ‘History’s always written to make past ages look quaint and romantic. Life without neural uplinks must have sucked, An. You of all people should know that.’

Pushpa emerged from the bedroom, pushing loose straggles of dark hair back into place. ‘Hi, Am’

‘Hi, Push. What’s the neighbourhood look like?’

‘No sign of it yet, news has yet to hit the media.’ She folded her arms, stopping at Ari’s side to gaze at the hemispherical arrangement of screens. ‘I’d say you’ve got three hours, maybe four, tops. That long for the media to do their research, and then go basically nuts.’

An looked concerned. ‘Why so soon? What’s out there?’

‘Independent reports of some commotion up the top of Prasad Tower,’ said Pushpa, with a critical eye at Sandy’s reclining seat before the broad windows. ‘Some security guards chasing a blonde woman into the carpark mechanism.’

All three of them raised their eyebrows at Sandy. Sandy gazed out the windows.

‘Then someone several net-loggers presumed to be the same woman leaping from the top of the carpark exit,’ Pushpa continued. Eyebrows raised higher. ‘And then I did a broad sweep that found someone chatting about, like ‘holy shit, this person fell out of the sky and landed on our express elevator coming down the side of Prasad Tower this evening! Then jumped off and ran away as we reached the ground!’ Several more clever people appeared to be putting two and two together. Straight humans don’t jump out of towers very often. And live, anyway.’

All three were now looking at Sandy with varying degrees of amazement, concern, or in Ari’s case, mild exasperation.

‘Poor Sandy,’ An remarked. ‘It’s just no damn fun being a GI, is it, Sandy?’

‘Shut up, Ari,’ Sandy sighed. ‘I was trying to get away clean, break from the network. I didn’t see another way.’

‘Landing on an elevator full of people on the way down. Very inconspicuous.’

‘Damn it,’ Sandy retorted, ‘word would have got out about the attack in the maintenance bay anyway, I would have had to go underground at some point. This just accelerates the process a few days. I don’t mind the media. I think it might help.’

‘The media? Help?’ Ari looked incredulous, and walked around to the front of Sandy’s reclining chair to look her in the face. Sandy looked up, reluctantly. ‘This is Tanusha, Sandy. The media don’t help! Ever! You don’t think maybe the hysteria of having some mad GI loose in the city will play right into the hands of all the conservative morons who said we should have locked you away and shipped you off to Earth when we had the chance?’

‘They don’t know for sure it’s me,’ Sandy said calmly.

‘There just aren’t that many blonde, female GIs in League service in this city, Sandy …’

‘Ari,’ she cut him off, ‘the population’s gotten wiser than you think. Certainly the analysts have. There’s old-guard League active too, we don’t know if they have the odd GI about. Or it might have been new-guard League GIs behaving badly and running around outside the embassy. People will be concerned. They will contact the government, and the CDF, to check on my whereabouts and status. To which Krishnaswali and co. can either outright lie,’ she ticked off a finger on her good hand, ‘or they can obfuscate and mislead, thus creating even more confusion and questions of what they have to hide, or they can tell the truth-that they don’t know, and that someone tried to kill me.

‘There are people in the general public out there who actually like me, An. They’ll question why the government can’t protect me, why I felt I had to go totally underground …’

‘They won’t know that, Sandy, no one will know anything about where the hell you are.’

‘I’ll make a statement.’ Flatly. An was frowning hard, arms folded. A dark, stylish figure, radiating disapproval. ‘To everyone-government, CSA and CDF. If they don’t relay it, I’ll tell it straight to the media.’

‘Damn it, Sandy … you’d … you’d break the chain of command?’

‘When did Mr. Anti-Establishment get so damn conservative?’ she asked him with a faint, creeping smile. An blinked in disconcertion … partly at her words, she guessed, but partly at the smile, too. She knew what that smile looked like, when she was in this mood. It was neither cuddly, nor amused. ‘The establishment is the problem, An, you said it yourself. As long as I played by their rules, I was a sitting duck and they’d have the upper hand. I’m going to let them know that the old rules no longer apply. Let them sweat. Maybe push them a little. Make them wonder just how far I’ll go. Maybe they’ll make a mistake.’

‘And how far will you go?’

Sandy reclined back into her seat, and let her gaze slide back over the broad stretch of river. ‘As far as I need to,’ she said.

Click, and the line opened. Connection established, with Anita’s new ID signatures to confuse the receiver. Sandy waited, reclined on her chair by the penthouse windows, eyes fixed upon the flatscreen wall TV. Rami Rahim was doing his usual show, handsome and flamboyant, in cool clothes on a colourful set. The audience howled at a joke, beyond her immediate attention.

‘Hello.’ A cautious voice at the other end of the connection. A real voice, vocal cords and all, not a simulated formulation.

‘Vanessa. It’s me.’ She spoke aloud herself. Internal formulations could be simulated. Vocals could be too, of course, but good friends could tell the difference in the tones and inflections. Theoretically. Tojo’s fingers massaged her wet hair, the towel about her neck keeping water from running down her spine.

‘Sure it’s you. A little proof please.’

‘I still think you were wrong to dump Rudy. He had potential. You’re just obsessive about small personal details.’

‘Sure, I heard that once upon a time they believed in electro-shock therapy, maybe that’d cure a compulsive dullard. Do you need anything?’

‘I’m fine, thanks. How secure is this reception?’

‘It complies with Ari’s specifications.’ With dry irony. ‘Sorry I took so long to set up, it’s been a little crazy around here. Krishnaswali tried to keep me out of it, but Hitoru told me about the ambulance, and then your new secretary Private Zhang let me hook into his loop. ‘ Sandy blinked in astonishment. Maybe the kid really would have his uses. Certainly he had guts, Krishnaswali could have busted him down to storeroom duty if he’d found out. ‘Then Naidu let slip about the whole thing at Prasad Tower. Apparently his buddy Chandaram told him some interesting things about what you’d said before the skydiving act … I had a look at the map and guessed where you’d end up.

‘Sandy, Krishnaswali dragged me into his office and chewed me out real good. He ordered me to tell you to return to duty at once, knew damn well you’d contact me. Wasn’t stupid enough to ask me to turn you in if you refused, though. ‘

Vanessa’s calm, rational tone filled Sandy with relief. She’d been half-expecting the occasionally irrational, emotional Vanessa Rice, filled with concern and worry. But Vanessa Rice, she sometimes forgot, was also the third-in-command of the CDF.

‘What do you think about Krishnaswali?’ she asked Vanessa.

‘Damn, I don’t know. That’s one of those nasty political questions, right?’

‘Isn’t everything?’

‘Fucking nightmare,’ Vanessa muttered. On the TV screen, Rami Rahim was now doing his Fleet Admiral Duong impersonation … something about having had lunch with him just the other day, only to find he couldn’t have any baartroot on his daal and rice, because the Fleet deemed baartroot too progressive. Most of Rahim’s routines began with ‘I did lunch with such-and-such the other day.’ Tanushans always ‘did’ lunch, even with family. The mostly young audience were in stitches. ‘Krishnaswali’s so busy crawling up various politicians’ arseholes it’s difficult to tell what his actual opinion is.’

‘We can’t trust him?’

‘Silly question. Sandy, I got a call from your buddy Sudasarno, wanting to know what the hell’s going on. Apparently your friendly President is very concerned. She has a meeting with Admiral Duong and Secretary General Benale in two days’ time, and both of them are going to want to know what’s going on with you. Ironic. I know, since those two bastards are among the prime suspects who’d want you dead, but I’ve yet to see a political operator in this city who couldn’t talk bullshit with a straight face.’

‘I don’t know that they’re the prime suspects, that list is too long to start picking favourites at this stage.’ Rahim was now in a pitched battle across the lunch table with the Admiral over the baartroot grinder. Admiral Duong pulled a gun and shot the baartroot stone dead. ‘Look, I’ve got a few of the usual suspects here helping check leads for me.’

‘That’s nice of them.’ A little warily. Vanessa liked An, Anita and that particular crowd just as much as Sandy did. They’d certainly been frequent enough visitors at the house over the last two years. But, like Sandy, she had her own suspicions about motivations on matters like this.

‘Yeah, well, you know this lot, they like their fun and games. Ricey, here’s a couple of things. First, you take care. If people are after me, we can’t assume they won’t make the connection between me and you, which would make you target number two.’

‘I know, I’m at Hitoru’s apartment now. I’ve told everyone concerned about the Canas security … it’s caused quite a stir, some VIPs are suddenly wondering if they should sleep in their own beds tonight. ‘

‘I know, we’re watching that too. Interesting to see which VIPs are concerned and which aren’t. Those that aren’t might know something.’

‘Good thinking. ‘

‘Ari’s idea. So you haven’t been home? What about Jean-Pierre?’

‘Oh no, I brought him too! You wouldn’t think I’d abandon my baby, would you?’ Sandy smiled. On the screen, Rami had launched into a frothing Fleet Admiral diatribe about the evils of baartroot, tight pants and VR pornography, the right hand occasionally snapping up in a Nazi salute, to be dragged hastily back down by the left hand, apparently without Rami’s notice. Amazing how something as old as Nazism remained an historical reference point so many centuries later. Time faded some memories, and enhanced others, it seemed. His audience, having doubtless bottled up much fear and confusion in recent months about the Fleet presence in orbit, were letting all the tension out in a rush-some of them were nearly falling out of their chairs laughing. It was, Sandy observed, a curious civilian reaction to stress. And a much preferable one to some of the alternatives.

‘The other thing is that you’re now in charge of the CDF on the ground.’

‘I know.’ There was, for the first time, a brief pause. ‘So what are you going to do?’

‘I’ve got some leads. Or I’m in the process of getting some, rather. Some things here don’t make sense, and I think that if I can find out why, it’ll tell me what the hell’s going on.’

‘Sandy?’ Another pause, waiting for a reply.

‘Yes?’

A longer pause. Then ‘. . . Never mind. Take care of yourself. I’ve got some calls to make, all the senior officers need to be rebriefed.’

‘Okay. Love you.’

Again the pause. ‘Yeah, me too.’ Then a click as the line went dead. Sandy frowned. Two years she’d been acclimatising to civilian surroundings and civilian thinking, but still she often had that feeling she’d missed something. Something another natural-born civilian wouldn’t have missed. Tojo had finished rinsing her hair into the bowl on the desk-edge behind her head, and now produced a hair drier.

‘And how’s the lovely Vanessa doing?’ Tojo asked over the whistle of the drier, teasing out her wet hair with a brush.

‘She’s a lot like me-the more dangerous it gets, the calmer she becomes. She’s fine with the bullets flying around, but if she burns her toast or stains a good blouse, it’s best to just leave the vicinity for a while.’

‘You’re too hard on her,’ Tojo retorted, in his characteristic deep singsong. That, plus his taste for personal decoration, had raised the hopes of many a single gay man before … but Tojo, to the great disappointment of many, was married (to a woman) with two children. Still, he was Anita’s obvious first choice for Sandy’s makeover-Tojo was a fashion designer with his own small, exclusive label. There were hundreds of such in Tanusha, Sandy had gathered. They had their own wild, underground scene, private fashion shows for the knowledgeable ‘in-crowd,’ decadent parties and plenty of designer VR or chemical stimulant. The dull, predictable, market-driven ‘mainstream’ were definitely not invited. Although, of course, where the ‘underground’ left off, and the ‘mainstream’ began, was a matter for constant and acrimonious debate.

‘She’s my best friend, I’m allowed to be hard on her.’

‘No, you’re not.’ Tojo gave her a gentle, backhanded whack on the shoulder. ‘You mean so much to her, Sandy, sometimes I just don’t think you realise how much. I mean, just because she’s so confident and gregarious in most things, it doesn’t mean she’s like that with everything. Underneath, she’s really very soft and fragile.’

Sandy tipped her head back to look up at him. ‘So am I.’

Tojo rolled his eyes with a smile, and gave a shake of his head. The penthouse light caught the gleaming gold of an earring, brilliant against his black skin. There were likewise gleaming studs through lips and nose, and faint traces of lavender eyeshadow that shone with holographic depth, a curious effect against the reflective curve of his shaved scalp.

‘That’s a new earring,’ Sandy remarked. ‘That’s a Catholic cross, right?’

‘I don’t suppose there are many other kinds,’ Tojo retorted.

‘But you’re not a Catholic.’

‘Nor even a Christian, I’m afraid.’

‘It doesn’t bother you to be appropriating a symbol of deep spiritual meaning for billions throughout the Federation?’

‘The most meaningful symbols are always the best to appropriate, that’s how artistic statements are made.’

‘So you’ve taken the symbol of humankind’s salvation at the hands of the Christian Messiah,’ Sandy continued implacably, ‘and turned it into a fashion statement.’

‘Of course.’ Tojo shrugged. ‘The spirit of artistic challenge to the powers of the day should know no fear, Cassandra, and no boundaries.’

‘And the fact that there’s hardly any Catholics in Tanusha to get pissed at you is just coincidence, huh? When’s one of your artistic buddies going to do a sculpture of some Hindu deity screwing a goat? In the true spirit of artistic subversiveness? I bet he’d make a pretty cool sculpture himself, hanging from a tree by his heels with his head shoved up his arse.’

‘You,’ Tojo said cheerfully, ‘are such a cynic.’

‘No, I just vote differently to you.’

‘An anti-League, cultural-conservative android,’ Tojo sighed. ‘You know, I think you’re just trying to be complicated in order to impress me.’

‘Uh-uh, I’ve decided I find the term `android’ demeaning and insulting. I’m an artificial person, if you please, or a GI.’

‘You’re a wonderful pain in the arse,’ Tojo retorted, teasing out her last wet piece of fringe.

‘That sounds kinky,’ said Sandy.

‘It is if you do it right.’ Tojo turned off the drier. ‘Come on, up.’ Sandy moved from her seat, following Tojo to a floor-to-ceiling mirror upon the penthouse wall near the entrance, where guests could check their appearance before heading out the door, Sandy guessed. ‘Well,’ said Tojo, with theatrical pleasure. ‘What do you think?’

Sandy looked herself over in the mirror. The first, pleasing thing to notice was that she hardly recognised herself. Her hair, for one thing, was now jet black. The obligatory dark coat came down to her knees-Tojo had suggested the longer, leather one was more stylish, but Sandy had insisted on the one that wouldn’t entangle her legs, and had plenty of strategically located pockets. Beneath that, a thick, dark shirt tucked into comfortably soft, black, hard-wearing pants, made of some denimlike material she couldn’t identify. And light ankle-boots of flexible fit … they were new, Tojo had warned her, and would chafe a new occupant. But Sandy had assured him it wasn’t likely to be a problem for her.

‘Hmm,’ was Sandy’s only immediate comment.

She strolled closer to the mirror, pushing at her hair-she kept it midlength these days, which for her meant just above the collar at the back, but full enough to have body. The black fringe brushed above pale blue eyes that had never known another fringe but blonde … and Tojo, thorough professional that he was, had even done the eyebrows.

‘I mean it’s hardly glamorous,’ Tojo remarked, regretfully. ‘I wish you’d let me dress you up properly one of these days, Sandy. You’re such a pretty girl, it’s a shame to let it all go to waste in drab black and jungle green uniforms.’

‘I’m too broad,’ Sandy replied. ‘You’re looking for a drag queen, all limbs and no hips. Boys make better drag queens than girls; that’s what happens when you let homosexual men define feminine sexuality.’

‘Oh go on, you’d look wonderful in a side-cut hip skirt and a short top.’

‘Talk to Rhian, she’s got the time and the inclination.’

‘Now, how on earth does that happen?’ Tojo wondered, hands on hips, the fall of his sparkling satin-red shirt suggesting an all-toomasculine bulge of muscle within. ‘Two combat GIs from the League come to Tanusha, and it’s the supposedly more advanced, adventurous, lateral-minded one who doesn’t know a blouse from a T-shirt, while the supposedly less advanced, single-minded one becomes this wonderful, glamorous Chinese princess!’

‘Easy,’ said Sandy. ‘Fashion is for narrow-minded people who think appearance is important.’

‘You’d have to be narrow-minded to think it wasn’t! What do you think evolution’s all about, sweetie, all those pretty birds flashing their mating feathers? Survival of the species, Sandy, we’re designed for it!’

‘You’re designed for it. I was designed with other things in mind.’ She wrapped the coat about herself, and turned a calculating gaze on her tall, elegant friend. ‘Wars tend to change your perspective, Tojo. You see things that make you wonder what really matters.’

‘Rhian was a soldier too,’ Tojo objected.

‘Sure. She was a damn good one too, but she never stopped to contemplate what it was all about. She never saw the big picture. She just did it and moved on.’

‘Well, I don’t think of you as a soldier anyway, Sandy,’ said Tojo, placing a hand on each of her shoulders. ‘You’re just a passionate, spirited, darling girl, and to me, that’s all you’ll ever be.’

Sandy hugged him. It was, she reflected with her face against his chest, the nicest thing anyone had said to her for at least a month. Tojo hugged her back, then released her to hold her shoulders once more.

‘So,’ he pressed, ‘what about the outfit? Do I pass the cloak and dagger subterfuge test?’

‘With flying colours,’ Sandy told him with a smile. ‘I’ll take it.’