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CANTOR WATCHES THE HUD video on her tablet, glasses at the tip of her nose. The tablet is a few generations old, something I've come to expect from the government's technological resources. Seems to be, at one time, they were the ones ahead of the game. Then they fell behind and never quite caught back up. Could be similar to the Russian problem. All their money got poured into Augment programs. Killcreek must have cost trillions to put in place and manage. All destroyed in an afternoon.
Put that way, I don't mind taking credit for Killcreek. What happened at Pine Ridge with Tomahawk is a different story.
"Keeping him alive," Cantor says, flatly, "would've been ideal."
Xamse and Ayana sit quietly. I don't. "If you wanted ideal, you wouldn't have sent your army goons first," I say. "You wanted him dead, or me. I'm on the fence about which."
"As I've mentioned, I have slightly different priorities from Defense."
She's cool and collected. The words aren't an accusation, but they prod at the frustration knotting through my muscles. "Then I should probably mention my priority is to not be killed by your fucking lab experiments."
"Mr. Steele was no more a lab experiment than your father."
"Listen, bitch." There it is. The seething fire in my chest. "You might've read your share of classified dossiers about the Crimson Mask, but you don't know shit about my father." My hands tremble. If I were in the armor, I might light her up.
"Please." Xamse rises and plants a reassuring hand on the table as though he can tamp down the tension. "The mission was difficult, as we all knew it would be. My pilot is alive and your objective, secured. This is a good day."
Xamse's command of the situation is welcome. I don't want to think. I don't want to feel. All I want is to accept this role; me, the employee, him the boss. Routine. That's what all this is.
"You did well, Spencer," he says, patting my good shoulder and avoiding the one in a sling. He walks to the far end of the room, tilting his head in contemplation. "Mrs. Cantor, have you yet any intelligence on Vulkan's whereabouts?"
Cantor's gaze hasn't wavered from me. "He's gone dark. There's been no sign since Detroit. We discovered a tunnel beneath the theater."
"The basement?" I ask. Another wild flux in emotion and I've dropped my guard.
She regards me with her ever-present calm. "A tunnel Vulkan created, not anything part of the building's construction. A magma vent, I suppose. It ran deep, traveled three blocks south, and burned into a storm drain. He'd already had a week's head start."
Xamse gives me another reassuring poised look which comes across as a genuine We will find him. Fuck, he's right, he does understand this. My partner, my mentor in the ways of revenge.
My shoulder throbs and I gingerly rub at it. Sure, we'll find that bastard, I just hope I'm ready. Although, they found Vulkan's tunnel one week after the incident? I was in a cell for damn near three months.
"And what of our next mission," Xamse adds, lacing his fingers behind his back.
My mind stays in Detroit but begins to wander, past a week, a day, to the very hour my world went up in flames. I've tried my best not to think about Dad. We were at odds for so long. With him always leaving, the memories dredged up are fragmented and never whole. Whether a fight or a rare start at forming some sort of bond, we always got interrupted. What ultimately happened was the only logical conclusion. My attempts to undo his unwitting assistance in the Killcreek Initiative and to save him only bought time which karma cashed in at the first possible fucking moment.
Once, when I was a kid, he walked into my room to see the computer he'd just spent a couple grand on strewn across the floor. He'd been gone on a mission, his return always a surprise. I prepped for the lecture and the barely restrained rage. Never happened.
He sat down, picked up the graphics card and said, "What's this?"
For the next twenty minutes, I held an impromptu class on hardware. I should've been proud or happy, but I worried the entire time his hands would bend connectors or crack the thin silicon wafers. His pager went off. He left again and told me to just make sure I could put it all back together.
I could.
I can.
"Spencer?" Xamse leans across the table, waving away my distant look as though batting at cobwebs.
"Yes?"
"What do you know of this weapon?" He reaches to push Cantor's tablet closer, and she's quick to intercept him. With a perfunctory smile, she pushes it across the table.
There's a picture of a man from the batch of photos at Whispering Pines, one of those mugshots all the survivors of Killcreek got. He's pale, almost albino, and identifiable because of this trait. Xamse could call up Eric's database on the interface mounted on the conference room wall and answer the question himself. He wants me to answer though. Impress our client or wake me up, who knows. Either way, I appreciate the gesture.
"Jupiter. Post-Crimson Mask Alpha," I say, letting the name stay separated from my father by history. "Magnetism on an intense scale, he repositioned a destroyer through force of will if you believe the rumors. Why?"
"Believe them. And it's as I said," says Cantor, reclaiming the tablet. "He's our next target."
"What's he done?" I ask.
Xamse cuts the air with his palm. "These are not the questions we ask. Why is not our concern, only how." He and Cantor exchange looks: his oozing confidence, hers a redacted memo.
I should argue the point. But after that encounter with Tomahawk, the wisdom of his approach is clear. It'll make me strong, keep me alive until I can have the fight which counts. If a few uncooperative Augments end up removed from service along the way, how is that a bad thing?
Besides, it's either me or Ayana in the armor. The Black Beetle flies either way.
"Why don't you see our guest out, Spencer?" Xamse settles into his chair and ignores the look of alarm on Ayana's face. Let the untrustworthy hacker and the spook roam free? I'm as surprised as she is. Must be another of his tests.
"Can do," I say.
"We have one more item to discuss," Cantor interrupts. "Relocating the MANTIS program."
Xamse swats away the matter. "You may fill Spencer in on these details. He will catch me up to the right speed. This will be good practice for our future working relationship, no?"
Cantor hasn't finished her business here, but she takes the cue and collects her things. From the hall, I give Ayana a wink through the glass wall to indicate I am, indeed, “solemnly up to no good”. Her eyes stay glued to my every move until we're out of sight.
Yeah, I suppose if Cantor and I banded together, our powers of annoyance and deception would cause some havoc. Of course, I'm never out of sight here. Given yesterday, I need to find a way to turn the tables on Ayana's constant spying. And no way she even touches the armor again.
We continue silently down the hall. Cantor has her bag over her shoulder and tablet in hand. She's walking and tapping, intently enough I try to look. Her screen is a jumble of characters. No known language, no code, I can't make sense of anything there. I wonder if she isn't just straight up insane. She doesn't lower her tablet until the elevator doors close.
"We'd like to relocate the MANTIS operations," she says.
This makes sense. Who knows what Xamse told the employees about the last launch. We left before dawn. Any noise or vibration could have been passed off as a low flying jet. Maybe an earthquake. But that's his problem.
"Talk to the boss," I say, watching the floors light up one at a time.
"I have. He's not interested."
This has my attention. Her unreadable face has transitioned into one which is plain.
"Why should I help you?"
"We want somewhere less public. Some distance from Nanomech." Her attention keeps drifting to the floor, read-out, her tablet.
"This place is a fortress with its own army. And since you control the news channels, can't you make up whatever you please to cover the launches?" I splash a headline in the air with open hands. "’Eccentric Billionaire Commutes to Moon Base’ or ‘Alien Abductions Spike in Silicon Valley.’ Just lie. It's what you do."
The barb doesn't land, and I get the feeling none ever will. "The spin has already begun. Check FreedomNet tonight. The White House has decided they want everyone to know we're making progress on disarmament. Tremendous progress."
"Pfft. Xamse doesn't want public exposure. He's all about the plausible deniability, as he says."
"Was," she says.
She focuses on the button panel, floors slowly counting down. I've read how intelligence agents groom their spies. Eric of all people drilled this into me in high school. They ask for little favors, something harmless, until you're doing shit which isn't so harmless.
"Lady, I've got one rule I can't break here, and I'm not about to do it."
"Fair enough. But less public means more privacy for you." Timing things just right, she steps through the opening doors first, leaving me hanging.
I sacrifice my good arm to the door sensors and try to keep pace with her. She won't slow, or even look my way. Freaky, like most spooks I guess, she's offered exactly what I had just thought I might need. Operating out from under Xamse's thumb and Ayana's watchful eyes could only be a good thing. I know the outside world has been wrecked, but a little fresh air, a change of scenery, might be good.
There's a mild buzz about the lobby. Employees cluster around the space, chatting, made oblivious to the debris of civilization just beyond the campus. Nanomech is running with a quarter of the original staff, but many have moved into the office spaces here, using the on-premises gym for their showering facility. With all their needs provided for right here, productivity has tripled, or so Xamse is fond of saying.
Fresh food prepared in an actual kitchen. Sugary caffeine sodas provided from whatever black-market syndicate looted all the discount chains last. Power. One hundred percent uptime provided by a campus solar farm, wind turbines, and a government approved emergency connection to the grid. Nobody in the country has a better setup.
Why would I leave?
I hustle after Cantor. Nudges and whispers follow through the crowd. Their CIO loosed from his cage and sporting an arm sling to boot. Too many fucking eyes.
"Maybe I'll think about it. As long as I've got a connection, a workspace, and maybe a car. Can't run to the grocery store in... you know." Though, now that I think of it, I totally would.
Partly turning, her eyes go to the security guard who has her in his sights. She gives a half-smile, but there's more pity than humor. "Supplies will be provided so no need to worry about grocery runs."
"Wait up!" She's relentless on her quest for the door. "What kind of supplies are we talking about?"
She's clearly not comfortable answering my questions here and keeps her voice below the buzz of the crowd. "Whatever hardware and munitions you may need. Any food will be military standard fare." She hasn't slowed, but she gages my reaction. "MREs. We can probably add a few specialty items."
"Woah! Woah!" I say, cutting her off. The guard at the desk gets a view of my back instead of our visitor. "Where?"
She angles her head toward the doors and disappears outside. I step out into a cold, gray day, aware the guard has come to stand and stare on the other side of the glass. Even several employees have come to watch this escaped oddity through the transparent windows and doors. Somehow, Ayana's there, too, arms crossed beneath a fierce countenance.
Cantor looks me up and down, reading the entire situation. She not only knows more than she lets on, she sees more than she lets on too. Pulling her tablet to her chest, she steps closer and extends a hand. I shake it, but don't let go. A plain white SUV marked "Department of Energy" awaits her at the curb. With a subtle hand signal, the driver turns over the engine and needlessly spikes the RPMs.
"The old Augment Proving Grounds," she mutters through a convincing smile. "Outside Las Vegas. It's been empty for decades, but we've made every effort to make it habitable."
"Sounds lovely," I say, making my own go at a poker face.
"It's been many years since I've said this," says Cantor, almost too quiet underneath the engine noise. "I look forward to working with you, Mr. Harrington."
She's off the curb and into her ride, not waiting for me to respond to her blithe request. More manipulation and bullshit. Another bunker to lock me inside. Someday, I'll be the one calling the shots about my life.
"What were you talking about?" Ayana's in my face before I've made it to the door. A beefy security guard looms behind her. "At the curb? In the elevator?"
I'm winding up for a heater when her question strikes me as odd. They've got the building wired. The curb, I can understand. The engine noise seemed too well-timed from Cantor's ride. But in the elevator she must have had something installed on her tablet which masked or interfered with the microphones and or cameras. A directional feedback device aimed at the precise spot? A straight up signal jammer?
"Nothing," I answer. "She's pissed about Tomahawk getting rubbed out. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"
Her good cheek crinkles and one eye squints as she scowls.
"Welcome, Spencer Alexander," says the building as I brush past her.
Wait. I look forward to working with you, Mr. Harrington. She's said that before. Cantor wasn't talking about me. She's worked with my father.