Outpost Tharsis Two
Zealand Prefecture
ANNOS MARTIS 238. 7. 20. 06:29
My father knew he had cancer for over a year before he bothered to tell me. It was the day of his sentencing, after he had been convicted by the InterCorporate Tribunal. He was charged with the murder of hundreds of soldiers—his own and the soldiers of bitter rival Vijaya Corporation—because he released a herd of Big Daddies on them. I know this because I was one of those soldiers, one of the lucky ones who survived. Murder was the official charge, but Father’s real crime was high treason. His goal was total global domination. It sounds clichéd, like something from a story, but he meant it, and he had the resources to make it happen. The thing is, he didn’t want to be the ruler of Mars himself. No, he reserved that honor for me.
I was born—no, designed—to become the Prince of Mars. Father hired an Earther, an astrophysicist with an athlete’s physique, to donate her eggs for in vitro fertilization, then hired a surrogate to carry me for nine months. From birth, I was given every benefit, every opportunity, every lesson he thought necessary to prepare me for my destiny. As an age three, he sent me off to Battle School, and at age six, I joined the CorpCom military. His scheme began to unravel when I chose to become a Regulator instead of an officer, and it really went to hell after his coup failed.
As a child and even later, I had no idea that I was living out a planned destiny. Not until Vienne and I teamed up with a couple of other Regulators to defend a group of miners did I learn just how convoluted my father’s plot was. The man had fingers in every pie, but before I could confront him, he died in prison, leaving me and Vienne to pick up the clues he’d left behind, including a horrifying one that keeps us searching: A hastily transcribed physician’s report mentioned the tantalizing phrases “hive mind,” “cyborg beta tester,” and my name, Jacob Stringfellow.
“You’re being a little hard on yourself,” Mimi says as Vienne and I rocket down the highway the next morning, a couple of hours before dawn. “You may be a cyborg, but you’re my cyborg, and you’re nothing like the Draeu. You don’t even like rare meat.”
“Thanks for that reassurance,” I say. “Glad to know that I’m defined by how I enjoy my chow.”
“As angry as you are about your father’s behavior, you should allow yourself time to mourn his death,” she says. “You are not immune to post-traumatic shock, either.”
“I don’t have time for the dead right now. Just the living.”
“Then why are you still haunted by your father’s ghost?”
“Do a scanner sweep, Mimi.” And get off my back.
“I heard that.”
“Then I hope you’re listening.”
When we can see the lights of Outpost Tharsis Two in the distance, I know it’s time to leave the highway. Vienne pulls the motorbike into a copse of banyan trees. I jump off and run to the road to check for patrols.
“Mimi,” I say, “give me a wider area sweep with a hundred meter—”
“Done,” she says. “Nobody here but us Regulators. Unless you count a few dozen scorpions and the random foraging nutria rat.”
“Those,” I say, “aren’t the kind of scorpions I’m worried about.”
After jogging back to the trees, I help Vienne snap off branches to build a quick camouflage net. We lock our armalites in the bike’s main storage compartment. We hate leaving them, but if a Sturmnacht suddenly showed up toting an armalite, it would be a dead giveaway.
We make some final adjustments to our stolen armor, and I toss a full ammo clip to Vienne. She jams it into Richards’s battle rifle.
“Ready?” I ask. In the predawn light, I can only make out the shadow of her body. I shine a penlight on her neck, which now bears the same tattoo the Sturmnacht wear on their necks, a scorpion’s tail. It’s a henna tattoo, courtesy of Ghannouj, who is almost as good at body art as he is at making tea. I have one on my neck, too.
“Ready,” she says sharply.
“Did I do something to make you mad?”
“No.”
We jog down the road leading to the outpost entrance. The lights grow larger as we get closer and closer.
“Are you sure? You sound mad.”
“I’m not mad.”
Now I can make out the faces in the guard shacks. We slow to a walk. Rifles ready. Trying to adopt the undisciplined shuffle of greenhorn troops.
“Look, if I did something to make you mad, I apologize.”
“If you keep asking me if I’m mad, I’m going to get mad,” she says. “Do you remember what happens when I get mad?”
“Someone gets shot.”
“Do you want me to shoot you?”
“That would be a negative.”
“Then I’m not mad.”
From behind, the yellow light of headlamps sweep across the pavement, a Noriker coming around the bend. We dive into a gulley. Crouching, we wait until the truck is almost on us. It’s a Düsseldorf, built for moving soldiers and armaments as uncomfortably and as slowly as possible.
“Here comes our escort.” It seems that Lyme’s operation has moved up the scale a few notches. He’s got enough manpower for a small army.
The truck rolls to a stop, the brakes squealing like a wounded javelina. Shock troopers in body armor like ours file from the covered truck bed. As the last one exits, I slip into the end of the line, then signal Vienne to join me.
In a couple minutes, we are part of a long line waiting at the guard shack. The sun has risen, casting everyone in an orange glow. With the light, the noise level rises, and the guards bellow at everyone to pipe down.
“There’s ten times more Sturmnacht than I expected,” I whisper to Vienne. “This mission just got a lot more complicated.”
“More fun for us,” she replies.
“Mimi, give me an estimate of the number of hostiles in the vicinity.”
“Inside or outside the outpost?”
“Both.”
“Hundreds.”
I do a quick visual scan of the entrance. There’s a catwalk over the gates, with a crow’s nest at either end. A dozen guards with shotguns pace the catwalk, and two snipers are perched in each nest. It’s a standard CorpCom guard detail, which surprises me. I expected Sturmnacht to be less organized. “Give me more specific numbers, please, Mimi.”
“More than a hundred, less than a thousand. Sorry, cowboy, the telemetry circuits in your suit just aren’t capable of the kind of precision you’d like.”
“So what’re you saying?”
“It’s you, not me.”
“That’s not very comforting.”
“Want comfort?” she says. “Get a teddy bear.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
All goes well until we reach the guard shack. Three lines have formed. We’re in the one to the far left, with a guard who seems to be checking only two things—that the troops are wearing the right gear and that they’ve got scorpion tattoos on their necks.
“Next!” the guard yells, barely glancing at the soldier two up from us. “Next! Keep it moving! Next!”
Then it’s Vienne’s turn.
“Whoa!” The guard taps the piece of electrostat that I see now holds a duty roster. Then I notice the red light of a bar code scanner on the guard shack. I follow its light to Vienne’s thigh, where it’s reading an embedded chip in the body armor. “You were due six hours ago.”
“We—”
I push forward, acting annoyed. “Got delayed.” I give Vienne an overt wink. “You know how it is. Sorry.”
The guard is not amused. Apparently, he doesn’t know how it is. “Sorry don’t cut it. Archibald’s been informed.”
“Archibald?” Who is Archibald? I wonder. Why not Lyme?
“Yeah, the underboss himself,” the guard says. “Sucks for you. We’ll notify your next of kin, if you’ve got any!”
Since when does Lyme have an underboss?
When we’re clear of the guard shack, Vienne says in a low tone, “Thanks for bailing me out. I don’t know what happened. My brain froze up.”
“You’re just not good at making up stories.” I watch a pack of troops jog past us, cussing and arguing over who gets the last smoke. “I’m a much better liar.”
She slugs my shoulder. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
We follow the other soldiers marching to the barracks. As we round the line of latrines, the two of us peel off and head toward the control building.
“Mimi, find the data center.” I tap my temple and wince at the static discharge that signals my aural display to open. “Project a map of the outpost on my display. Pinpoint the target and show me the quickest route.”
“Got it,” Mimi says. “Your turn.”
I blink twice. A holographic image appears. The data center is two buildings away from the control building. I signal Vienne, and we take a darkened alley between the buildings, staying off the main sidewalks. A few minutes later we reach the back doors of the data center, a squat, two-story building that looks suspiciously like a bunker.
I pull on the door handle. “Locked.”
“Step aside.” Vienne pulls an empty shell casing from a pouch on her belt and a bobby pin from her hair. “I’ve got this.”
“Since when do you wear bobby pins?” I ask.
“Since forever. Don’t you pay any attention?”
“To your hair, yes,” I say. “To what you stick in it? Are you kidding?”
She squeezes the empty casing until it’s flat, then bends it to form a crude torque wrench. Finally, she bends the pin to make a rake. “Count down from ten.”
I roll my eyes. “Ten . . . nine . . . eig—” Click. “Show-off.”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m more than a good shot.” She tosses the bobby pin and casing aside and opens the door for me. “After you.”
“Thanks.” I pause before going inside. “Mimi, scan the corridor.”
“Personnel clear. Four cameras detected. They’re transmitting on an encrypted frequency requiring a key code override.”
“Which means?”
“There’s no way to override the alarms using your telemetry functions.”
“Advise?”
“Smile and say cheese.”
With a signal for Vienne to follow, I enter the building. Then take a right down a long corridor. Noting the four cameras, all of them recording. We move quickly and silently, trying to keep from attracting attention, until we reach two glass doors marked “Authorized Personnel Only.” Inside the brightly lit room is the data center’s massive server farm, which houses the data for MUSE.
Finally, my quest is over.
“Do not pat yourself on the back yet, cowboy.”
“Mimi, it’s a security door.” I note the print pad on the door. “We need the pass code.”
“Just put your finger on the pad, cowboy,” Mimi says. “I’ll handle the heavy lifting.”
After removing my smelly outer glove, I touch a symbiarmor-covered fingertip to the pad. A jolt of static electricity from my glove, and the door clicks open.
“Show-off,” Vienne says.
“Just proves I’m more than a good shot.” I hold the door open. “In case you hadn’t noticed.”
Vienne moves inside and signals all clear. “Who says you’re a good shot?”
Ouch. I’m not sure I like this newly found sarcasm of hers. “Give me a hand with the route, Mimi.”
“Follow the map to servers labeled Andromeda fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight. Row nine-C.”
We count out seven rows, then make a left. Most of the boxes are dead dark, but the Andromeda servers are lit up like a foundry at night.
Vienne watches the door while I insert a data chip into number fifty-six.
“Download under way,” Mimi says.
“How long?”
Mimi sighs. “Each server holds a hundred yottabytes of data. It will take oh, just a few days to sort through it all to find the files specific to Project MUSE.”
“Forget sorting, then. How long to download it all?” I ask. “And if you say indeterminate, I’m going to pash an icicle and give us a brain freeze.”
“Five minutes,” Mimi says. “But I think you have pashing on the brain, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t,” I say. “Start download now and keep me posted on the time.”
Vienne takes a defensive position with a direct line of sight on the entrance. “Wish I had my armalite. This gun is such an antique.”
Wish you had it, too, I think. Then I wouldn’t be worried about how we’re going to rescue the hostages. “Time, Mimi?”
“Two minutes, thirty-seven seconds left.”
Halfway there.
Click.
An instant later, the lights go out and backup power kicks in.
When the lights return, they are much dimmer.
“Mimi,” I say. “Tell me something good.”
“Server is still online.”
“Tell me something bad?”
“Access to the data center has been detected.”
“Tell me something worse?”
“Is a security alert worse?” Mimi says.
Much worse.
I tell her to open a telemetry link between me and Vienne. “Heads up!” I whisper sharply into the mic. “Company’s coming. Hold them off till the data’s downloaded, then we’ll drop smoke and bug out of here.”
“They’ll be coming in hot?” she asks.
“Sturmnacht always do.”
She locks and loads. “Just the way I like it.”
“One minute fifty-nine seconds remaining, cowboy,” Mimi reminds me.
Outside the server room, the sound of heavy boots. Then voices, trying to stay low. A few shadows dance across the glass, and I move into position.
The beep of the fingerprint scanner.
The lock clicks open.
Hinges creak as the point man’s head slowly emerges through the gap.
Whump!
The door flies open, and the shooters rush to positions.
I flick my safety off. “Vienne, I count five hostiles. Fire on my mark.”
“Wait.” She makes a slashing movement across her throat, countermanding my order. “Tight quarters, limited sight range, sensitive targets. We need to lure them in first.”
“So which of us is bait?”
She points at me.
“Why am I always bait?”
“Because,” she says, “the bad guys like shooting you.”
I put a hand over my heart, acting wounded, then step into the aisle. “Howdy, boys and girls. We’ve been expecting you.”
Phttt! A blaster shot flies past my ear.
I raise my hands but instead of surrendering, I backpedal. Four guards hustle toward me—and past Vienne’s position.
“Halt!” the leader, a blighter in a blue uniform with chevrons, barks at me.
I cup a hand to my ear. “Huh? What was that?”
Vienne pops out. Flattens two guards with the butt of her rifle. And steps back behind the servers.
The leader spins around.
His men lie unconscious on the floor.
I take the opportunity to thump the third guard and grab the fourth one in a sleeper hold.
“Stop!” The leader spins back to face me. “Don’t even twitch! Tell your friend to show himself, or I’ll cut you in half.”
Smiling, I let the sleeping guard slide to the floor. “Oops. He fall down.”
“Shut it!” The leader notices my missing pinkie. “Dalit? You’re a Regulator? You got some kind of death wish?”
The data chip beeps.
The leader snaps his head toward the sound, and Vienne nails him with a punch.
Face, meet fist.
He joins the pile of bodies at her feet.
I plug the chip into a data port built into my symbiarmor. Vienne gathers up their battle rifles and dumps them in a recycling bin. The blaster, she shoves into her belt.
“Crafty work,” she says.
I snag the guard’s cuffs and lock all their wrists together. “I bet you say that to all the boys.”
“Just the ones whose ass I can kick.”
“And how many would that be?”
“Oh,” she says, smiling. “Pretty much all of them.”
We hit the corridor running. Vienne sprints alongside me as the overhead lights dim and brighten.
Around the next corner and—
“Oh crap.”
A guard at the exit door.
I hesitate for a nanosecond, but Vienne hits the afterburners. The guard glances up as her flying dropkick slams into his solar plexus.
His body hits the floor.
“Next time,” I say, “leave one for me.”
“Next time,” she laughs, “run faster.”