Parker walked along the corridor on level 284 of the White Spear with his arms hanging loose by his sides. His eyes gazed at the floor as he moved with an easy gait until he noticed a red light above the door on his right. He paused, looking at the triple encrypted lock that protected a secure storage room. When he looked up the room's contents through his neural implants he found that the room was marked as classified with no details as to what were held inside. On any other day he might have walked on by, but under the current circumstances he had to be suspicious of everything. Leaning his head to one side, he pulled up the room's full audit trace in his mind. The room had been empty until a few days ago, but then Melanie had changed its status to classified and deactivated all tracking of its contents. She was the only one who had the access codes required to open it. No that wasn't quite right. Rachel had been granted access also. What were those two getting up now? He would make a point of asking them the next time he saw them.
When a small blue light flashed in the corner of his mind, Parker accepted the incoming call. He could tell it was from another implant even before he inspected the comms link metadata because it had been encrypted several times with different keys.
'Parker, this is Beth Pain.'
Her voice sounded out of breath and he could hear the low hum of a Cage Carrier's power unit in the background. The suspension rattled several times so he concluded that the Cage Carrier must be travelling at speed across uneven terrain.
'Beth, where are you?' he said.
'We're on our way to Alma Station but we still have a long way to go. It will be another three hours before we get there.'
'It's a long drive on those rough roads,' Parker said. 'Maybe you should have taken the Wasp Drones?'
'You know the towers can't spare those right now. Markov will need more than he can get his hands on in the days and weeks ahead.'
'Have you hit any problems?'
'Not yet. We're making good progress. I just wanted to call in and see how things were going back at the towers. I tried to call General Markov but I couldn't get through.'
'The General has been taken sick.'
'I didn't think he ever got sick? What happened?'
'One of our prisoners tried to assassinate him.'
'Which prisoner?'
'Riser Trent.'
'I don't understand. He's just a hacker, isn't he? How is Markov?'
'He's very sick. He's been poisoned by a cocktail of toxins, viruses and nerve agents.'
The comms link cut out for a while and then returned with just the sound of the Cage Carrier's wheels bouncing across the ground.
'Beth?'
'I'm here. The link dropped. Is Markov still in command?'
'No. He's unconscious. Commander Drefnig is running things for now.'
'What's the situation there? Any word from the Kamari?'
'Nothing yet. We're just trying to work out how Riser Trent was able to attack Markov. We think the Kamari may have altered him somehow.'
'Let me know if anything else happens,' Beth said. 'I may be far away but I can still help. You know better than most, and implant is never further than a comms link away.'
'I'll let you know if there are any further developments,' Parker said.
'Thanks. I'll check in again when I'm closer to Alma Station.'
'Okay.'
'I need to go now.' Beth dropped the line from her end, leaving Parker standing in the corridor alone.