Cordelia felt unsafe as they went down to the transportation level of the building. She was getting further and further away from David and her STAR, even when, technically, it wasn't hers. Someone she didn't know, a man in a dark suit, joined them there as they got into a transport pod.
Marybeth assured her the man was legitimate. "He goes with me anywhere I go when I leave the building." So he was a bodyguard.
The pod left the building and joined the underground grid where it picked up speed. Cordelia remembered that the factory wasn't very far from the Branson home and indeed, they got there within ten minutes.
"This is Harlow," Marybeth introduced a stern man who barely nodded at Cordelia. "The factory surveyor." They would need this man to access the accounts. Harlow guided them through a short passage and then into an elevator that took them below the ground. That was where the main offices were. The heart of the organisation.
The bodyguard remained outside the office and closed the door, while Marybeth sat down at the huge desk. She explained the reason for their visit to Harlow, leaving out no detail. Harlow nodded and then helped her by switching on the systems and rapidly navigating to the accounts section where she and he then entered credentials and had their eyes scanned.
"Computer, show me abnormal transactions for the accounts of Leo Branson and Merana Branson." Everyone waited for the results but nothing came up.
"That is strange," Harlow said. "This always works."
"So that either means they wiped the records, or everything is so weird in their accounts that nothing stands out," Marybeth voiced Cordelia's thoughts.
"Since when did you ask Hendrix and Parker to find me?" Cordelia thought that was a good start date to work from. "If you pick that date and go back, let's say half a year, and look through their accounts..."
Harlow nodded and worked the system as Marybeth told him what date to start with. The man was very proficient, Cordelia noticed.
Data appeared on the display. Marybeth slowly scrolled through the report until she pointed. "There. That's odd." There were five amounts that weren't conspicuous compared to the other expenses, but they were all transferred to a protected account. Two from Merana's account, three from Leo's. That had to be the payment for the bounty-hunter. Cordelia felt oddly pleased to see she was worth so much - but she still didn't know why.
The three spent a lot of time then to find the moment where they had used credits to purchase the Grey Web locators, but no matter how long they looked and searched, nothing came up.
"The only thing I can think of," Harlow said, "is that they made the hunter acquire the locators." That made sense to Cordelia. Those kinds of people would very easily have access to such equipment.
"So we're back to square one," she sighed. "Damn. It was a good plan."
"It still is," Harlow said. "Since then, we have improved the locators. Please wait here." The man left the office without further explanation. Cordelia was convinced he was going to get one of the latest locators and hoped that it would work.
"Would you like some coffee?" Marybeth asked, who got up and opened a cabinet.
"Coffee. Real coffee? I haven't had any decent coffee in centuries," Cordelia said, making Marybeth laugh.
Harlow returned with a small box from which he took a device Cordelia had never seen before. "This is the latest prototype. Still a bit glitchy," he explained, "but it's the best we've made so far." He put the device on the desk and switched it on. An innocent green light came from its base. Harlow activated something on the main console. "This connects the system intelligence to the locator," he said, "and this way we can get a map of most STARs that are equipped with one."
Slowly, line after line, an overview of STARs and their space-time location appeared on the screen. After a while there were three that looked entirely out of place.
"What are those?" Cordelia asked, pointing at the oddities. "No clear markings, no serial numbers."
"I saw them too," Harlow said, and pulled up all the information on the three units. "All in the same time-space," he said, making sense of the garble on the monitor. "These have to be the STAR units of the two Bransons and probably the one from the bounty-hunter."
Marybeth Orwald nodded. "System. Locate Agent Hendrix and open a voice-line." They didn't have to wait long.
"Hendrix here, Mrs Orwald. What can I do for you?"
"I need you at the factory as soon as possible. With some reinforcements and enough weaponry."
The agent didn't ask any questions. "Half an hour." That was all he said.
"Damn. I left the Skreller-gun in my STAR," Cordelia said. She wanted to have that thing with her if they were going after the bounty-hunter cyborg.
"You have a Skreller-gun?" Marybeth raised her eyebrows. "How did you get your hands on that?" Cordelia told her about the brawl that had occurred when Hendrix and Parker had finally found her in Lexington, Mississippi, and how she had taken the gun from them. "That is interesting," Marybeth said. "He never mentioned that."
"I guess he thought it would be safe with me," Cordelia said and grinned at that thought. She sipped her coffee. "What will we do when we find them?"
"If we find them," said Harlow. "The readings might be off, and they can move about before we are ready to go in."
"We? You stay here, Harlow," Marybeth said. "You're needed here; you're too important. I will go along with them. Merana and Leo know me, and they won't set their bounty-hunting friend on me."
"I wouldn't count on that," Cordelia said. "I thought they were friendly with me as well, and look what happened. Do we have acid here that's stronger than hydrochloric acid?" She explained how she had disabled the cyborg's vision partially with her little bottle. "If we have something stronger, we might be able to take her out. Unless you know of a cyborg deadman's switch." Everyone knew that cyborgs couldn't be 'switched off' just like that.
Harlow thought her acid-solution very creative but that there was something better against them. "It requires some skill to use it but..." He took something from a small drawer that was secured with a fingerprint. It looked like a knife until he turned it. Then it just looked like a handle. "This is a metagraphene knife. Only hold the handle," he said as he held it up. "The blade is sharp. It's also just five atoms thick. It slices through anything."
Cordelia carefully took the knife and looked at it. The object was very lightweight and you could only see the blade if you held the knife just right. "Anything?" Harlow nodded. She put the knife on her coffee-cup and gasped as she cut off the handle without much effort. "Jesus."
"Metagraphene, rather," Harlow said with a grin. "Here is the sheath. Keep it in there as not to harm yourself. The sheath is made of the same material, so it's hard to cut through that." He looked at her. "But not impossible. Be careful."
Carefully Cordelia tucked the dangerous knife away in a pocket. "Sorry about the cup."
Marybeth laughed at that. "Let's go down to the STAR area. It's been too long since I was there. Harlow, keep us updated on the location of those three STARs, please."
~
For Cordelia it felt like a strange home-coming when they left the elevator and entered the first rooms of the factory floor. Several things had changed, but the sounds and the smells were still the same. It made her heart jump. Marybeth didn't have eyes nor time for that, though. She walked on into the first factory hall where the nearly finished STARs were located.
"Oh." Three years of development had done a lot, Cordelia saw. The closest STAR was twice as large as the one she had 'confiscated' and it looked beautiful to her. Smooth white, no longer a rectangular box but more egg-shaped, and it seemed to hover over the ground.
"This is the new one," Marybeth said as she waved her hand at it, at which a door slid open. "We'll take this one once Agent Hendrix has arrived."
"Welcome, Mrs Orwald," said the system intelligence. "You have been away for some time." Cordelia was stunned at how sophisticated this one sounded, and how natural. "And welcome, Miss Brown. Such a pleasure. My name is Keisha."
Cordelia knew she shouldn't be surprised. These things knew everything so they would know about her as well. The interior of this STAR was amazing. So much luxury, with proper seats for passengers.
"I suggest you take the pilot's seat, Cordelia. You are far more proficient in using such a machine." Marybeth sat down in one of the passenger seats. As Cordelia sat down at the console and looked over the panels, she was relieved that not much had changed. She'd be able to get this thing moving. The changes she did see were all for the better.
"Mrs Orwald..." Agent Hendrix came in, carrying a large case which he put on the floor. Cordelia knew that case contained weapons. "Miss Lexington. Or Brown." The man nodded and opened the case. "Mrs Orwald, I insist you have this." He held up the same tiny gun he'd given Cordelia. "And I brought this for you as you seem to appreciate it." Hendrix took a Skreller-gun from the case.
Cordelia took it. "Thank you."
"You're welcome. I have noticed you are fond of it and you know how to use it." Hendrix himself took a few smaller weapons that he tucked in various pockets. It was obvious that he knew what he was doing. After closing the case and pushing that out of the STAR, he also sat down.
"All yours, Cordelia," Marybeth said, pointing at the array of equipment.
"Okay, Keisha, open a comm channel to Mr Harlow." Cordelia went into business mode like she would do for her 'customers'.
"Harlow here. The three haven't moved. Sending coordinates." The man was back to his very short sentences. Immediately the coordinates appeared on a small display over the keyboard. All Cordelia had to do was tap a 'copy' button and pull up a map.
"Let's see when and where they are..." She hadn't expected to see a map of Egypt. After zooming in on the exact location where the three STARs were, she was even more astonished. "They're in 1733, inside an Egyptian pyramid!" She looked at the map again. The STARs were in one of the largest chambers of the construction. She needed to find a chamber close to that one, but she also needed a chamber they could get out of, to get to the large one. That presented a problem because pyramid designers had done their utmost to make that hard, if not impossible.
"We'd need equipment to open a few walls," Agent Hendrix said. "I can arrange that. Two portable white-light lasers should be enough."
"And we need to go there twice," Cordelia said. "If you can get the lasers, I'll plan the two trips."
"Twice?" Both the agent and Marybeth looked at her.
"We can cut through the walls very quickly, Miss Lexington," the agent reminded her.
"I'm sure, but we'd be wasting time. We should go there a month earlier, prepare the wall and then go there when they are there. Their 'now'. Then we're much faster." Cordelia didn't understand why these two hadn't figured that out themselves. Clearly they weren't used to the life she'd been leading the past years. This practice had become second nature to her.
"I will be back with lasers in half an hour," Agent Hendrix said as he unbuckled his safety-rig. Cordelia liked how he just went with her suggestion without questioning it. After he had left, she asked Marybeth if they could take this STAR to check on David.
"Of course," Marybeth replied. "As long as we're back in time for the agent's return." She winked. Time wasn't a problem if you had a STAR. She told Cordelia the coordinates of the arrival room.
Keisha, the system intelligence, made sure they arrived next to Cordelia's STAR instead of inside it, and soon they were walking through a corridor to the room where David was being taken care of.
"He's asleep," the nurse told Cordelia. "He had a few broken ribs and several other injuries, but nothing we couldn't fix."
It was a huge relief for her to see David in the bed, sleeping and already looking better. "Thank you," Cordelia said to the nurse as well as Marybeth. "He's kind of important to me."
"I had already noticed," Marybeth said and smiled. "That's good. Having someone trustworthy and important gives you something to live for. And fight for." The woman's face went dark for a moment. Cordelia knew she was thinking of her unfaithful husband. "Let me know when you are ready to go back," Marybeth said to Cordelia.
Cordelia stood next to the bed and took David's hand. "Hang in there, David. We're going to kick some bounty-hunter's ass and we'll be back soon." She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead, hoping he would notice it. He probably didn't. Then she turned to Marybeth. "I'm ready. Let's do this."
~
They didn't have to wait long for Agent Hendrix to return. He carried a small pouch with him. Portable lasers were very portable these days. "I am sorry it took a little longer," he apologised as he sat down and strapped himself in.
"That's fine," Cordelia said. "Keisha, close the door. We're all set." The door hissed and Keisha activated the time-space jump.
After the jump, the outside cameras showed nothing but darkness, but they all were prepared for that.
"Keisha. Outside lights." Quickly they saw walls with Egyptian drawings and hieroglyphs. So far, so good. The trio left the STAR. Cordelia had a tablet with her that showed the map of the pyramid. It would be stupid to take out the wrong wall.
Carefully Cordelia and the agent selected a block in the wall that they could cut away without making the spot stand out too much. After all, archaeologists in the relative future shouldn't find laser marks inside ancient tombs. Then, using one of the lasers, Agent Hendrix carved out the block. That was the easy part. The block was free but it was still too heavy to be moved so Cordelia, Marybeth and he took turns in carefully chipping away layer after layer from the block, using a kind of chisel-mode of the lasers. The work was slow and tedious, but after a few hours they could push the piece of stone out of the way without much effort, and venture into the pyramid's intricate tunnelling system.
"It's that room," Cordelia said, looking at the tablet. "They will appear here."
"Let's get to it then," Agent Hendrix said. Again they worked a part of the wall free so they could get inside. This was easier though; the builders had used many smaller stones. Cutting those free was easy. When the laser-cutting was done, someone only needed to give the blocks a good kick to create an entrance into the main chamber.
"Good work, Miss Lexington," said the agent as they packed the lasers back into the pouch. "I suggest we go back for some rest and food first, before returning here in a month." Considering the time they had put into making the passages, that was a good idea.
As they were back in Marybeth's headquarters, Cordelia thought of something and asked if it was okay if she ran out with the new STAR for a moment. There was something she had to take care of, she said. Neither Marybeth nor Agent Hendrix saw a problem with that, as long as she brought the STAR and herself back in one piece.
~
A relative month after their cutting work, the STAR appeared in the same chamber. Cordelia quickly shut down the system. She didn't want to risk being picked up by any surveillance equipment the bounty-hunter might have on her. Using only tiny flashlights, the three left the time-machine and located the corner where they had created the exit. Pushing the stone outward was easy. In the silence of the pyramid it seemed to make an awful noise so Cordelia held her breath as they pushed the block away, inch after inch. Finally the opening was clear. They crawled out.
The three moved through the corridor, to where they had made the second entrance.
"Something's wrong," Agent Hendrix whispered. He was leading the group. His light showed that their 'entrance' had been discovered; it was open, the stones lying all over the floor. "Stay back." He lowered himself onto his stomach and carefully moved himself into a position where he could look into the chamber while not being seen himself.
Cordelia and Marybeth waited in the dark. Seconds took forever to pass.
"The chamber's empty," Agent Hendrix suddenly said, getting up and turning his light up high. "The STARs are there but no people."
The three entered the large chamber, all using their lights. The STARs stood near a giant sarcophagus which was pried open. Cordelia felt horrible about that because she suspected this had been the work of the cyborg they were trying to catch. The mummy had been dragged out and mostly undone of its wrappings. The bounty-hunter had clearly been after anything precious hidden inside the wrappings and the sarcophagus.
"Well, well." Cordelia knew the voice. They all turned to find the bounty-hunter at their entrance. The cyborg woman pointed a giant gun at them. Two more shapes, Leo and Merana, appeared from behind her. They too had lights with them, and guns. "As you expected," the cyborg said, obviously addressing the siblings. "Tie them up."
"Oh. Hello Cordelia," Merana said as she approached her. "How fortunate that I get to do this. I hope it won't hurt too much..."
Cordelia winced as the woman tied her arms behind her back. Leo, clumsy as usual, tried to tie up Agent Hendrix.
The agent moved very fast and held Leo in front of him. "Step away from us," he said, "or this man will suffer the consequences of your actions."
"Don't!" Cordelia wanted to say, but at the moment Merana pulled at the ropes and made Cordelia scream in pain.
"Too bad," the cyborg said. "We already counted on at least one casualty. Let him go or the two women die." She sounded as cold as ice as she came closer and pressed the barrel of her gun under Marybeth's chin. "You have three seconds. One... two..."
Agent Hendrix let go of Leo, who turned around and kicked the man on an ankle. "There, you idiot," Leo said as if he had saved himself. "That's for you."
"Leo. Cut the crap. Tie him up and dump him in the STAR." Merana sounded hard and all business as she also tied up Marybeth. "Although I am tempted to throw one of them in the casket and close that up. Would make for some surprised scientists in a while." She laughed, as did the cyborg. Leo was too busy tying up the agent and doing quite a poor job of it.
Cordelia and the others were forced into one of the STARs. It didn't respond by activating its lights when people came in, which told her there was something wrong with it.
"Thanks for making this easy for us," Leo said. "Until never again." He slammed the door shut. From inside, they could hear they put something against the door to make sure it wasn't going to be opened easily. Only a little later did they hear two pop-sounds. The two STARs had left.