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The smell told Grimes he had arrived.
Even within the silent darkness of a shielded shipping container, the air of Enterprise Station stank of humanity and ozone. Grimes mentally disconnected his olfactory sensors to prevent the competing aromas from giving him a migraine. It amazed him how stale and flat the universe became without smells. Sometimes he liked to stand still enough to bore his sense of touch, turning the activity around him into a dull threedee show of disinterested humanity. The disconnection made him feel even more like an outsider than normal, which used to bother him. Now it was a comfort. He accepted his otherness and turned the sense of alienation into emotional armor. It felt like mushin, though no one with his training would ever mistake the one for the other.
He placed his hands on the lid of the container and inhaled. The crate was sealed and codelocked by a bonding company to the DNA of the intended recipient. There would be no customs inspections of this parcel, nor could it be opened by anyone other than Alex Fleming himself. There had not been time to rig the interior with a release, though Grimes did not need one. He waited until he could neither hear nor feel anyone nearby, then pushed. The container groaned like an old man, the lid deforming and bulging where the assassin’s hands pressed into the metal. When the lid did not yield immediately, he simply commanded his muscles to contract with more force. Grimes did not grimace nor grunt. His eyes were closed, his breaths deep and long. His body responded to his commands without theatrics, and the groan became a scream. With a metallic snap the hinges shattered. The lid twisted free of its tracks and clattered to the metal deck of a dark storage unit. The sound seemed unnaturally loud to Grimes’s ears. He stood stock still, listening in the darkness for signs of alert. He stretched his senses as far as he could. The sound of clerks mumbling through the walls blended with the drone of equipment in the next room. Through the soles of his boots, Grimes felt the vibrations of footfalls and the rolling of wheels. Nothing felt urgent; none of the motion appeared to be approaching his position.
Grimes stepped free of his hiding place. The darkness of his shipping container made the storage facility look bright by comparison. He knew this to be inaccurate. His eyes gobbled up the minuscule light thrown by the lockscreens on other bonded containers while shifting his color sensitivity toward blue for maximum low-light detail. It looked like the room sat awash in bright silver moonlight to Grimes. Though he supposed most other people would be completely blind in the same space. He pulled his container to the deepest corner of the room and hid it behind several others. No one was scheduled to collect the crate for at least ninety-six hours. It would not be checked until it went unclaimed for an additional twenty-four. More than enough time to do the job.
He moved to the exit on silent feet. The stealth might be unnecessary, but old habits were hard to break. Grimes had always relied on his skills to bridge the gap between himself and opponents with physical advantages. Old mantras crossed his thoughts in unnecessary admonitions. Perfection begat success, to be flawless was to survive. He did not mind, really. With his new abilities, the trap of complacency lay piled with attractive bait for the lazy or undedicated. Things that took hours of preparation and careful planning were easy now, his endless regimen of strenuous physical training rendered almost entirely superfluous by his artificial muscles and carefully tuned biochemistry. Grimes refused to be so easily fooled by the majesty of his artificial might. Overreliance upon the tools blunted both skill and focus. MyoFiber degraded over time and had to be replaced. If he let his organic muscles atrophy, his strength might fail him at an inopportune moment. Bio-engineered metabolism could not defeat sloth and gluttony, so Grimes adhered to a strict diet. Reflexes enhanced by cerebral implants could be disabled by a clever enemy. Rigorous training kept his natural reflexes well-honed for such an occasion. The Balisongs had taught him that biotech was a crutch used by the weak and a flaw easily taken advantage of. For much of his career this had been true. Grimes killed dozens of enhanced foes, finding most no more difficult than their unmodified counterparts. Without exception, the technology had made each of them lazy or complacent. Grimes had exploited these weaknesses too many times to become a victim of the same.
At the exit door he cocked his head to one side and listened. He heard the creak of a chair and the tapping of fingers against a screen. Mentally, he adjusted his eyes to filter in the infrared spectrum and peered at the flat panel before him. It revealed nothing. The door was too thick. Grimes did not dwell on this. He pulled a comm handheld from his pocket and began to tap the screen. Satisfied, he waited. Beyond the door, he knew that the clerk just received an urgent missive from a supervisor that would require him to leave his station. Grimes heard the clerk stand, grunt in frustration, and then stomp out of the office. Satisfied, Grimes keyed the door lock and stepped into the office beyond.
The light startled him, though his optics compensated immediately, sparing him a few seconds of confused blinking. Grimes would not have slowed in either case. He stalked across the bland tan carpet and into the hall beyond with a stride both rapid yet unhurried. From there, he set his path toward the central hub of Enterprise Station. He trusted the complex biometric cover Fleming had provided to fool the hundreds of scanners littering the station, but he chose a circuitous route that avoided almost all of them anyway. He saw no reason to let the scanners see him moving around, spoofed biometrics or not. Each layer of tradecraft he employed built another level of safety into the operation. Wise assassins always erred on the side of caution. Reckless assassins died early in their careers. It would be five days before anyone even thought to look for his container, and he expected to be long gone from Enterprise in two. If fortune frowned upon him and things took longer than that, at least there would be no clear way to track him around the station. He checked his handheld while he walked. The targets were in a secure section of the garrison level, codelocked and hidden where no one could get to them. Or so they must believe, Grimes corrected himself.
The door would be impenetrable. Between station security and the machinations of Richardson, Grimes assumed as a matter of course that brute force would be the only way through it. This was untenable. Frontal assaults against foes like these was suicide, even if the thought of open combat tempted his pride. Grimes looked with joy upon the moment he might cross hands with the Ribiero woman again. The blond assassin, who he saw as an equal, presented an intriguing opponent as well. He could not let this desire distract him, however, for he did not relish the thought of tangling with Tankowicz. The yawning chasm between their physical capabilities could not be overstated and required careful consideration. The dagger under his jacket rubbed against his side and reminded Grimes that he held a powerful equalizer. The sasori blade would pierce the giant’s armored hide easily, and even with all his physical might the large cyborg was no match for Grimes’s fighting skills. Still, wise assassins did not pick fights with heavily armored cyborg warriors on purpose. Tankowicz could destroy even this new body with the flick of a wrist, should he get lucky enough to land a blow. Grimes hated The Fixer and all his kin, but he respected them too much to let that hate make him stupid. He would either find his moment or make one, but he would not sacrifice any advantages in doing so.
His mind went back to the door, and he seethed at the loss of mushin and its perfect objective calm. He longed to eschew bias, ego, and emotion. He ached to exercise pure thought, and to do it unencumbered by all the distractions of life and feelings. Mushin had been his greatest ally once. Now it deserted him when he needed it most.
No, he thought to himself. It is I who fled. Perhaps I cannot find mushin because I fear what it will reveal.
Something inside Grimes broke when he witnessed the hollow lie of his cause. His mushin had been built upon the unshakable conviction that his cause was right and just. Without that confidence, nothing Grimes did could return him to that place of quiet purpose. Now he faced an obstacle and an opponent that required the utmost care and precision, and he faced it without mushin.
He needed to wait for the prey to leave their hole. They could not stay there forever. A plan began to grow as the assassin walked. It would require the utmost precision, impeccable timing, and flawless execution. Nevertheless, Killam Grimes knew the moment the idea came to him that it would work. Long before he reached the garrison level, Grimes slipped into a quiet corridor and keyed up the gate schedules for the next day. He checked the status of Pike’s corvette to see when it would be ready to leave as well. It seemed safe to assume they would be en route to Earth at the earliest possibility, so he tried to find ships leaving around the same time Exit Wound would be ready. A small frown made his lip twitch while he thumbed through the outgoing vessels. Galapagos was too difficult to navigate; Thorgrimm spawned mercenaries like cockroaches.
Eden’s Burrow and Gethsemane were poor selections as well. While sharing a star, the twin worlds were too close to Enterprise for safety. Gateways Incorporated owned all of Terra Nova, making that a suicidal choice. Grimes settled on Ariadne. OmniCorp had a strong corporate presence there, and the excessive distance would slow any pursuit. He purchased his ticket with the stab of a thumb, though he codelocked the boarding pass to his DNA and not his comm identicator. It was more expensive and would cost him a few precious seconds at boarding, but Grimes did not mind. Richardson’s skill with electronics presented a serious threat, and Grimes fully expected his comm to be sliced as soon as he made his move. There would be no preventing his escape via computer tricks when the pass to freedom was his own body.
The next obstacle to defeat would be the station security itself. Once in flight with his prize, Grimes would have to escape the system. Pike might attempt to seal the gates and prevent any ships from leaving, thus trapping Grimes on board his ship. For that problem Grimes needed a little more preparation. He shoved his handheld back into his pocket and resumed walking. A few twists and turns brought him to the OmniCorp offices on Enterprise. He swept through the doors with the arrogance of a CEO and stomped up to the reception kiosk. A bland-faced android sculpted in the image of an attractive middle-aged woman flashed a plastic smile and inquired as to his business.
“I need to see the regional manager,” Grimes replied
“Do you have an appointment?” The android’s question was of course rhetorical. They both knew he did not.
“Inform the manager that a special contractor from Alexander Fleming needs to speak to him.”
“Please wait,” said the android.
Nothing happened. Grimes stared at the machine who smiled back. Behind the receptionist’s artificial eyes, signals flashed across internal networks, informing the general manager and cross-referencing Fleming’s known contractors to Grimes’s biometrics. Grimes withheld his satisfied smile when he spotted two security androids in conspicuous yellow exit a nearby lift. Their faces were blank and featureless except for the ocular sensors affixed where eyes would be on a human. Nominally humanoid, they lacked noses or mouths, and their limbs moved with the telltale precision of carefully calibrated linear actuators. Grimes recognized the model, and their presence indicated that his bona fides had passed inspection.
“Mrs. Haskille will see you, Mr. Grimes. Please follow the security officers.”
The stocky yellow androids stepped up to the desk and a brusque electronic voice ordered, “Please surrender all weapons before proceeding.”
Grimes blinked. “I cannot.”
“Compliance is mandatory if you wish to proceed.”
Employees milling about the lobby stopped to listen, faces twisting with growing concern.
“I cannot,” Grimes repeated. He held out his hands palm up. “For I am them and they are me. However, you may scan me for guns if you like. You will find none.”
The androids paused for four seconds before responding. “You have a VP series CQB cutting implement, model SAS-1, concealed under your jacket. Please surrender it if you wish to proceed.”
Grimes let an eyebrow climb. “Is that what that is? My mistake. Where can I find it again once my business here is finished?”
The yellow security android extended one yellow metal hand. “I will retain it during your visit and return the weapon upon your exit.”
“That is good enough for me,” Grimes said. He unstrapped his sasori blade and handed it over to the android. As long as it remained close by, Grimes knew he could retrieve it from the security ‘bot without difficulty if he thought he needed it. In truth, he did not expect any trouble here. But as with his other preparations, caution ruled over all other considerations. “After you, officer,” he said.
“Please come this way.” The android turned and strode back toward the lift. Grimes followed and felt a twinge of amusement when the other android settled in behind him. This Haskille woman obviously feared whatever she saw in his contractor information, which he supposed was a good sign. If Fleming had listed him as a janitor, convincing her to do what he needed might prove difficult. As an assassin, he expected to wield far more influence. The elevator took the bizarre trio up four levels and opened to reveal a bright lobby. Grimes assumed the endless sea of white marble to be fake. This made the tableau no less jarring or obnoxious to his eyes. The blatant attempt to stupefy with opulence washed over the taciturn assassin like so much fog. One of the security androids stepped out first, then indicated Grimes should follow. In the lobby Grimes found a reception desk with an actual human being this time, and the thin man in company livery manning it met his impassive gaze with stony indifference. “Mrs. Haskille will be with you in a moment, Mr., ah... Grimes, is it?”
“It is.”
“Yes. Please take a seat, and I’ll send you in when she is ready.”
Grimes did not bother to argue or press his haste. So long as Haskille did not drag it out, he felt content to allow her this petty power play. Still, he could not help but reply, “Thank you. I’ll stand.”
The receptionist did not roll his eyes, though somehow his face conveyed disdain as if he had. “Of course, sir. Whatever you choose is fine.”
Grimes nodded as politely as he could. Of all the assassin’s trade skills, acting remained one of the few he had never mastered, so his attempt at courtesy failed. The receptionist did not acknowledge him in either capacity and simply returned to his monitor screens in an act of dismissal imperious enough to impress a king. Flanked as he was by two hulking security androids, arriving unannounced and bearing ominous credentials, Grimes had expected more deference. Trepidation at a minimum seemed appropriate. With his implants, Grimes could quite literally smell fear. There was none to be found here. A bizarre sort of respect for the receptionist emerged within the assassin. He hoped he did not have to kill this man. The galaxy could use a few more people like him.
The minutes passed like melting glaciers. Grimes spent the time calculating different ways to retrieve his blade from the security androids. He had worked through seven promising scenarios before the receptionist looked up and said. “Go on in, Mr. Grimes.”
“Thank you,” Grimes replied. “I’m sorry, I did not get your name.”
The receptionist stood and extended his hand. Only then did Grimes notice that the man’s arms and legs were military-issue prosthetics. “Gaje Ghale. My friends call me Gage.”
Grimes gripped the hand, felt the cold metal beneath fake skin and smiled back. “A Gurkha?”
Gage took his hand back. “Once.”
Grimes tilted his head once more. “Always, I suspect.”
“That too.” Gage sat and winked up at Grimes. “You behave yourself in there, Mr. Grimes.”
“Naturally,” Grimes replied. “Have a nice day, Gage.”
The presence of an augmented ex-special operator at the desk only strengthened his suspicions about his contractor status. Making Grimes wait probably allowed for security teams to be positioned and the completion of thorough security scans. He wondered how many more bionic Gurkhas were hanging around the offices at this point. Not that it mattered. If Grimes found himself inclined to kill this Haskille woman, he certainly would not have come through the front door in the doing of it.
This was going to be easy.