Crossover: (Cassandra Kresnov Book 1)

It was a Friday, as Callayan calendars went. Sandy gazed down on the evening crowds along Ramprakash Road in Velan. The train was crowded, the carriage a mass of stylish clothes and hairstyles, glittering jewellery and flamboyant extravagance. The wide road they cruised above was even more colourful. Everywhere were lights, flashing holographic displays erupting along the broad sidewalk, flaring down the sides of buildings from twenty storeys high.

President Pital Ramprakash, Sandy remembered hearing, had been a connoisseur of expensive parties, the more extravagant the better. He would have been very proud, she thought now as she gazed down at the street that now bore his name. There were other roads like it around Tanusha, but Ramprakash Road was the one with the reputation. Road traffic was heavy and the wide sidewalks were crammed with a constant, flowing mass of humanity. The train made a stop, exchanged one crowd of people for another and moved on silently. Did the same at the next stop, and the next, and still Ramprakash Road continued, with not a bend along the way.

Finally they came to her stop, and she eased past her neighbour and into the shouldering masses in the aisle. Emerged onto the platform connecting to a main pedestrian walkway running parallel to the rail line. It too was crowded, and she merged carefully into the semi-orderly flow. Marvelled at the aesthetic planning as she walked by the pedestrian rail, at the way walks and elevated rail lines merged into the streetside buildings, and at the clever use made of open spaces and transparent materials. And even here there was always a view, she realised as she walked, trailing a hand along the railing. Tanusha was definitely the least claustrophobic mega-city she’d ever seen.

A level below, walkways crossed the road every few hundred metres. She headed for one, down a broad stairway, past a busker with some form of robotic mimic/sculpture that amused a gaggle of watching pedestrians, and crossed the road. Down into the teeming street amid the shouts and laughter of excited nightlifers, the whine of car engines and the thump-and-shrill of many-sourced music. Colour assaulted her vision, shiny-smooth outfits in synthetic or leather, wild hair in many colours, short skirts, transparent skirts, heels, high boots, traditional outfits of many different cultures … all walking shoulder to shoulder amid the flaring lights and displays, soaking in the energy.

Despite her serious business, Sandy found time to be fascinated. There were nightclubs, restaurants, holographic cinema complexes, bars, VR gaming joints, full immersion VR with plush interiors and loud signs that offered ‘simulated sensory experiences beyond your wildest dreams …’ Sandy wasn’t sure about that — some of her dreams were pretty wild, but she got the idea. Display screens broadcast the action inside as living advertisements — massed dancers on nightclub floors, dizzying robot battles on sims, movie-clips, lasciviously dressed couples or groups doing lascivious things … Olfactory replicators throwing ‘real time’ food smells into the sidewalk air outside the fancy restaurants with the intention of making the mouth water … it worked too. Sandy firmly told her stomach to be still and moved on through the pressing crowds.

‘The Waterhole’, the club was called. There was a patterned glass atrium, several storeys high, a double layer of walled glass and falling between, a shimmering curtain of water. Hologram light flickered and danced across the glass-painted palms, swirling figures, dancers, patterns, alive as falling water. A queue lined at the double brass doors, and Sandy walked along it, through a clutch of oncoming pedestrians, a very drunk, hysterically laughing group she took to be a work party, and shouldered up to the front. The two big, turbaned Sikhs looked stonily at her … she drew the CSA badge from her jacket, waited as the nearest bouncer’s eye-enhancement tracked the S-seal, nodded and unclipped the rope to let her pass.

‘Are you on duty?’ he asked curiously, as some annoyed exclamations rose from the queue.

‘Would it matter?’ she asked pleasantly.

‘No, of course not. But we just like to know … you know …’

‘Nothing’s happening,’ she assured him. ‘I just arranged to meet someone on business. Lucky you,’ and gave the big man a pat on a bulging bicep as she passed, tucking the badge back into her jacket.

She wondered, as she passed through the water-wall, what kind of regular jobs those two bouncers would have. And what kind of business they’d be concerned about … she knew there was some underworld activity in Tanusha. Naturally they’d be concerned about any security actions going down in their club. She wished Vanessa was with her.

Through a hallway, corridors branching to either side, then out into the main club … The place was massive, the ceiling over ten metres high. The entire joint was shaped like a giant arch, with herself at the apex looking down. Aisles curved away to either side of her past lines of table-booths, low walled and stylish, screened by palms and greenery. The tables circled the dance floor in ascending rings, shielded by an excess of flashing dance-light and by the balcony roof overhead. The balcony ran right around the walls, and beyond the side rails more tables. Out on the dance floor, a surging mass of humanity, waving arms and tossing heads, illuminated in lightning flashes of kaleidoscopic brilliance in the inky darkness. On the far wall, a good eighty metres away, a stage, and a band. What they were playing, Sandy did not know, but it was loud, techno, aggressively rhythmic and it reverberated in her bones. The combined assault of light, sound and vibration was almost overpowering, and she reflexively modulated reception as she went down the central aisle. Retinas adjusted for multiple intensity shifts, hearing tuned down the thumping bass and cut disruption … she couldn’t help but stare at the throbbing masses on the dance floor, though. She guessed maybe twelve hundred people, all pressed together, blending in motion, staccato movement in the flashing lights. Around the tables another three or four hundred, talking, drinking, eating … the damn place was a restaurant too. More hundreds on the top balcony … maybe twenty-four hundred people all told. Jesus.

She walked along a side aisle, past tables of diners, clubbers coming the other way. Then up a staircase by the side wall. The balcony was much the same, except that the aisles were stepped down more steeply, giving each table row a good view of the dance floor. Along the highest aisle, vision tracking, sidestepping waiters with piled trays of food and drinks, she caught a brief transmission, a flashburst from nearby … eyes flicked across and found him at a table further along the aisle, at the very top of the arch. He’d seen her first evidently. She smiled as she finally approached.

‘Hello darling.’ Mahud rose to meet her and she kissed him firmly on the lips, like one lover to another. ‘Lovely place.’

‘Yes dear,’ he deadpanned past a creeping smile. They sat. ‘You wanna eat?’

‘No no no,’ she said, ‘you’re supposed to compliment me on how I look, that’s how civilians do it.’ Mahud frowned.

‘You’re wearing jeans and a jacket. That’s not very impressive,’ with an indication to the dance floor.

‘I didn’t say you had to mean it,’ Sandy replied with amusement, ‘you just have to say it.’

‘Why don’t you compliment me then?’ He did, Sandy reflected, look rather flash in his colourful sports jacket, track pants and expensive walker shoes. It was a particular, legitimate look, one of thousands in Tanusha. Someone must be advising him on what to wear, she decided.

‘Because the man’s supposed to compliment the woman first.’

‘No,’ he levelled a finger at her, dance floor pyrotechnics half-lighting his grin, outlining his jaw and cheek, ‘you’ve got that wrong. I’ve seen plenty of women going after men like they’ve got bullseyes on their crotches.’

‘I know, but that’s not the traditional custom. I’m trying to teach you the basics … then you can start the advanced course.’ He half frowned at her.

‘What’s the advanced course?’

‘We point you at some girl out on that dance floor, and we see if you can get her into bed without offending her.’ A perplexed look from Mahud.

‘Have sex with a straight? What if I hurt her?’

‘You mean you never did?’ Sandy asked, eyes widening.

‘No way… you were the only one, Cap. You see, I told you you were a nymphomaniac …’

‘That’s crap, I know Raju did.’ Enjoying this exchange immensely. ‘Who the hell was it … oh yeah, you remember Lieutenant Li, armoury monitor?’

‘Raju would screw anything,’ Mahud said with a dismissive wave of his hand. ‘Hell, he was nearly as bad as you.’ Sandy gaped at him, mock horrified. ‘My point is that most normal GIs, Cap, stuck entirely with other GIs. Straights are all soft and squishy … you’d have to have a serious zipper malfunction to want to screw straights, Cap. Raju was a walking penis.’

‘What does that make me?’ Mahud grinned at her. Leaned forward and dusted something imaginary from her shoulder … took that imaginary thing between his fingers and peered at it curiously.

‘Pubic hair,’ he identified it for her benefit. Sandy kicked him under the table — softly, to avoid breaking anything if she missed. But she was impressed at the humour. And very pleased. The Mahud she remembered from Dark Star would never have made a joke like that. Could never. The subtlety would have been utterly beyond him. He was learning, evidently. Seeing the world in a new light. It was expanding his mind, and as Sandy sat there looking at him she just felt … happy. It was just so wonderful to have him back.

‘So,’ she said. The sound was good, up on the balcony. She could clearly sense the nearby hum of repression acoustics, damping the dance floor cacophony down to something manageable. ‘What’s the occasion?’

‘The occasion,’ Mahud replied, ‘is that we’re moving out shortly.’ Sandy frowned. Looked closely at him, searching for clues. There were none to be found in his calm, handsome brown eyes. He held her gaze without effort, matter-of-fact.

‘Moving out?’

‘That’s what my superior says. Tomorrow. Something’s going down.’

‘What kind of something?’ She didn’t like it. Didn’t like relying on Mahud’s tenuous grasp of events. ‘Is the operation winding up?’ Mahud shrugged.

‘Pretty much. But something’s happening. It’s an emergency withdrawal plan … a whole lot of stuff I don’t understand, but I think the CSA’s getting close. Apparently we’ve lost one of our Read Only Matrixes. Infiltration for the Plexus grid. Some SWAT raid.’

‘When?’ Eyes unblinking.

‘Few hours ago.’ He gestured to a passing waiter, and ordered two glasses of champagne. Flash of memory, champagne in a bunk-party, smuggled aboard. A good memory. ‘That’s why I wanted to talk to you. We’ve been put on isolation stand down until tomorrow. I don’t know if we’re leaving tomorrow or not … but we’re doing something tomorrow. Morning, I think.’

‘Mahud.’ Firmly, leaning forward on the table. Not liking the deep, cold feeling in her stomach. ‘Mahud … what about what we talked about? Are you going to stay with these people?’

He inhaled deeply. Held it for a long moment, looking at the tabletop, at his hands there, splayed upon the smooth surface. Sandy wanted to hold those hands, to touch him, to help him in whatever he needed her help in … but sensed that this was not the right time. Nor, perhaps, was it the right man.

He exhaled, long and deep.

‘No.’ He looked up, and his eyes met hers. Mild, as if the decision gave him no trouble at all. ‘No, I won’t go with them. That’s why I called you here. I want to help you. If you bring these guys in, you’ll get your citizenship from the CSA. I want to help you get them.’

For one of the very few times in her life, Sandy could not think of anything to say. Her eyes locked with his in a kind of hypnotic bond that neither of them seemed able to break. The two champagne glasses arrived, and the waiter departed. Sandy tried to regather her racing thoughts. It was difficult.

‘You feel you can do that?’ she asked him very quietly.

A nod. ‘I’ll be on the inside, they won’t suspect a thing. We’ve got interface levels they don’t, we can interface without them knowing anything. I can keep you updated on what’s going on, and you can tell the CSA. We’ll get them.’

‘Mahud … that’s not what I’m asking. I know you can do it technically. But… I mean, do you like these guys?’ A disbelieving frown.

‘Like them? They’re FIA.’ Like that explained everything. Which it did, she supposed with dazed logic.

‘So … I mean, you wouldn’t have a problem … bringing them down?’ Betray was not a word she wanted to use. He had always been so loyal. He answered with an emphatic shake of the head.

‘Cap, they’ve made it plenty plain they don’t like me. I don’t like them either. They just keep me around to do the job. And I stick around because I was ordered to do what they say.’

‘It’ll mean breaking that order, Mahud.’ Still quietly. It was a hell of a thing to ask of any GI. Especially Mahud. ‘It’ll mean going AWOL. Leaving the League. Being branded a traitor, probably. Can you do that?’

She gazed at him, oblivious to the pounding music, and the epileptic pandemonium of lights from the dance floor. And was surprised when it was he who reached across the table, and held her hands firmly in his own.

‘Cap … what’d they do to you?’ Looking her over, eyes narrowed with powerful feeling. ‘They cut you up, Sandy. I’ve been thinking about it, and … I mean, I just can’t stop thinking about it. And I helped them do it.’

‘No you didn’t …’ but he held up a hand, forestalling her protest.

‘Bullshit. Of course I did. I planned the assault that gave them cover … cover to distribute their damn database they’d gotten from cutting you up, then hide everything so no one would ever find where it went. I’ve been doing that, that’s what they’ve been up to just now. I go into their meetings, wherever they are, and that’s what they’ve been doing.

‘And … and I’ve been thinking, Sandy.’ His eyes were intent, more forceful than she’d ever seen of him. Like he was taking charge. It was definitely a first and his gaze held her mesmerised. ‘I’ve been thinking … I mean, what’s it all for, anyway? I used to love the League so much, but you know what I really loved? It was you guys, you, Raju, Tran, Chu … that was why I loved the League. Because being a part of the League made me a part of you guys … and that was what it was all about.

‘So what the fuck am I doing here? Helping them cut you up? Trying to kill the damn President … I mean, why? You like her, right?’

Sandy nodded mutely. Frightened to speak, lest this strange, take-charge Mahud suddenly evaporate, like some holographic trick of the dancefloor lights. His hands were warm and strong.

‘This is service to the League?’ he continued, eyes burning with sudden conviction. ‘I mean … sure, it’s service, I’m sure they need it, but… but fuck it, what about me? I’ve fought for them for four years … and that’s gnatshit next to your time, I know … but it’s about damn time they gave something back … and this isn’t what I had in mind. They can’t seriously ask me to choose between you and them, I mean … hell, there’s no contest. There never was.’

‘You’re going to do this for me?’ Sandy asked quietly. Mahud shook his head warily.

‘You’re going to turn this around,’ he said in a faintly accusatory tone, ‘I know you Cap, you’ll turn it around so you’ll make it look like I’m not thinking for myself again … it’s not like that.’ Passionately, his hands tightening upon her own. ‘I want to do it because I’m figuring where my priorities are. And that’s wherever I goddamn say they are. You’re my priority. You see? It’s not just you … it’s just that I’ve suddenly figured out where the damn League’s priorities end and mine begin. I’m figuring what I want to do. You get that?’

‘Yeah.’ Sandy nodded, eyes gleaming with sad, quiet pride. ‘I get you. It’s one of the biggest things they never took into account when they made us, Mahud. Developing sentiences rarely hold to the same perspectives for long in their formative years. Among straights, kids change perspectives and opinions far faster than adults. If we live long enough, we start questioning things. Straights were changed by the war, their personalities altered by the experience. But we’re still building personality at that stage. And small readjustments can reorient our value systems one-eighty degrees in those early stages. We’re kids, Mahud. Really. For kids, rebelling is natural. It’s part of growing up.’

‘I’d like to grow up, Cap,’ Mahud murmured, squeezing her hands. ‘With you.’ Sandy smiled weakly, her eyes moist. Took a hand and pressed it to her lips.

‘I’d like that too.’

Half an hour before sunrise Shan Ibrahim strode across the rooftop landing pad of the doghouse. The wind blew cold, engines howled in the floodlit night. SWAT teams crouched, intent on last-minute consultation. Four special-purpose SWAT flyers squatted diagonally on the pads, dark, angular and brooding. Ground crews hurried purposefully about the massive engine nacelles on preflight duties, or stood with headset and complist, running through final checks with the flight crews.

Captain Hayland saw the Director approach and walked across to meet him.

‘Morning sir. Four airframes prepped and ready. Takeoff in ten mikes.’ Ibrahim acknowledged with a nod, listening to the operational chatter on his headset.

‘Weather looks bad today, Philip,’ he said over the keening engines, ‘I want Eagles Five and Six on five-minute standby for the duration, recovery turnaround asap.’

‘I’m already on it. You’ve got the frequencies?’

‘I have.’ He gave Hayland a pat on the arm as he walked past, headed for the nearest SWAT unit. Lieutenant Vanessa Rice sat on the deck, talking to one of her troops — Agent Devakul, Ibrahim saw — rifle propped butt down at her side, and nearly as tall as she was, seated. Saw him coming and rose smoothly to her feet, mirrored by the others, a whining clatter of armour and heavy weapons.

‘How much sleep did you get?’ was his first question, glancing about to include them all in his query.

‘They got six hours, average,’ Rice replied. Her attractive, fine features looked incongruously delicate above the solid bulk of her armoured shoulders. ‘I had about three, but hey, that’s my lot in life.’

‘Poor baby,’ said Agent Sharma from nearby. Rice smiled. She looked subdued, Ibrahim thought, eyeing her critically. Subdued, but relaxed. The other teams looked tense, businesslike. SWAT Four looked quite calm by comparison. Ibrahim knew very well that Rice could take much of the credit for that — her team adored her and followed her positive example with relentless dedication. Today, he needed them. He needed people whose loyalty he could rely on. He trusted Rice. Her priorities were moral more than technical. Today he needed that of his closest people more than he ever had before.

‘You’re good for it?’ he pressed.

‘Wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t,’ Rice replied. Ibrahim gave her a smack on one armoured arm.

‘You’re in Eagle One with me. Load up.’ SWAT Four moved out with barely a comment, and Ibrahim walked on to the next team, doing the circuit. A minute later N’Darie intercepted him as he strode toward his flyer.

‘Chief, I’ve just had a message straight from Dali. He wants direct uplink access, says he needs to be kept abreast of any new developments.’ Another man might have cursed. Ibrahim thought about it for a moment as they walked, readjusting the com-interface at his belt then rezipping his navy-blue CSA jacket.

‘Tell him we are concerned about the integrity of all outsourced links,’ he said then, half shouting over the engines. ‘Tell him we have evidence that throws that integrity into doubt and we’re concerned about leaks. Give him secondhand reports by the minute, as he requires. No direct access.’ N’Darie frowned, walking fast to keep up.

‘And when he protests?’

‘Quote him regulations,’ Ibrahim said blandly as they passed the port nacelle. ‘Any regulations. And for Allah’s own good sake, say nothing of Kresnov or her information source. Imply nothing, suggest nothing.’ N’Darie nodded her complete understanding.

‘I’ll keep everything as tight as I can. This won’t be easy.’

‘No,’ Ibrahim agreed as they reached the rear doors, ‘it won’t be at all easy. We shall do the best we can.’ N’Darie left, and Ibrahim climbed the rear ramp into the main hold where SWAT Four were already hooked in and waiting.

It was, Ibrahim was well aware, a most delicate set of circumstances. By far the most delicate of his professional career, and probably of the CSA’s entire history. He knew that the quarry was about to act. It was both a problem to be solved and an opportunity to be exploited. But the present commander-in-chief was most likely a part of the problem, and his aides were almost certainly directing the quarry personally, whether Dali knew of it or not. How to conduct an operation against the interests of the Acting President and not let the Acting President know about it? It would not, as his second had stated, be easy.

He sank into the command chair with a sharply exhaled breath. Did his restraints, ran his bank of display graphics through a systems check, as about him the rest of the command crew did similar, announcing various systems’ status and safeing their connections.

The FT-750 was a bigger flyer than those used on SWAT’s standard operations, with extended range and payload plus impressive multi-role capabilities. SWAT Four had room enough for weapons-drill amid the harness straps and storage lockers toward the rear. The front half was pure Command and Control, multiple observation posts, systems interface, communications, surveillance, all run by their regular people, familiar faces beneath headsets and eye-wear, bathed in screen light. CSA flyers had been on standard patrol above the Tanushan skylanes every hour since the attack on the President. No one on the ground would notice the change. This was just another standard rotation … only the payload was somewhat altered.

Surrounded by the familiar competent preparations, Ibrahim allowed himself to reflect upon the circumstances that had brought him to this moment. It was so very easy to forget the convoluted history that lay behind the recent turbulent events. Of the two great powers of humanity, and their differing perceptions of what it meant to be human. The League, believing in science as the saviour, charting a new direction for the species. They were the self-appointed trailblazers. The visionaries. The ones who had attained a new enlightenment, out among the new worlds, the new frontiers of human civilisation. They had escaped the shackles of Earth-bound conservatism to pursue their vision far from the intellectual censorship of the Federation. For the great minds behind the League, a ban on scientific research and development was akin to a ban on subversive political ideologies. It was censorship, plain and simple, and they steadfastly believed in intellectual freedom in all its varied dimensions. For its preservation, no cost was too great.

And then there was the Federation. The League accused Federation worlds of being mere puppets of Old Earth, children clutching to the apron strings. But that, Ibrahim knew, was a massive oversimplification. In the Federation, cultural roots remained critical. One only need spend a few days in Tanusha, walking among the historical recreations of its many districts, to see the importance Tanushans placed upon remembering the old, preserving it, living it. The future was not complete without a past. And without a clear understanding of one’s past, there could be no clear perception of one’s future.

Ibrahim could recall with great clarity the various lines and verse from the Koran, and even the Afghani and Iranian folk tales, that his parents had read to him when he was a boy. The tales of morality, of purpose and human dignity. He did not believe such things were insignificant. He did not believe it was right or good for any human society to erase such things from its collective memory and start anew. The path had been walked upon for thousands and thousands of years. There was no ‘new beginning’ There was only the next stretch of path, winding ever onward, building the future upon the foundations of the past.

The League, of course, saw this as a clear sign of flawed intellect. Culture, they reasoned, was so frequently the prison walls within which reason was trapped. And like missionaries of old, they spread their word, the word of reason, to where it was most needed. Knowledge, before which the old ignorance and superstitions would dissolve like ice beneath the summer sun. They were the enlightened. It was their mission and their purpose to bring their enlightenment to all of humanity. And once they saw the light, surely, surely reason and logic would follow.

Even now, as the rear doors closed, and the engine noise faded to a muted whine, Ibrahim had to suppress a shudder of disgust. He was by nature so very, very wary of a Great Cause. There had been people of his own religion, and from his own region of the Old World, who had once had a Great Cause of their own. They had not been so different from himself in many ways, had believed many of the same things and shared the same tastes and values, but with no sense of tolerance or moderation. Their Great Cause had brought much bloodshed and suffering, and all these hundreds of years later their legacy was not one of pride, but of shame.

The League also believed in a great many good, decent things. They were the progressives, the freethinkers, the radicals of their day. History favoured such people. They had brought great change, and great innovation, and the present was all the greater for their inspiration. But now, Ibrahim believed, the pendulum had swung too far. The Great Cause had become merely an ideology, and ideology, Ibrahim knew only too well, was the antithesis of reason. He was student enough of history, especially that of his own cultural roots, to know that for a very certain fact.

And it was Kresnov, he thought now, who had brought it all into focus for him in these recent, difficult days. Kresnov, who supposedly represented the pinnacle of the League’s technological advancement. She was theirs, in body if not in spirit. And yet she had abandoned them, after they had abandoned her. They valued what Kresnov was, but they did not value her. Nor did they value the others of her kind, her friends among them.

It was the Cause. In the face of a Great Cause, the individual was always the first to suffer. The Great Cause consumed individuals as a Southern Plains tornado consumed trees. It did not matter that the Cause was in the name of humanity itself — any such mass ideology, even that conducted in the name of individual rights and freedoms, would sacrifice anyone and anything to further its own grand purpose.

The contradiction was, as always, quite stunning. Especially when this adventure was carried out in the name of logic and reason. But that was not the worst of it. Most ironic of all, to Ibrahim’s mind, was that Kresnov was far more akin, in spirit and personality, to the Federation than ever she had been to the League. She questioned the questioners. She sought to understand the Cause. To dissect and examine the ideology, the reasoning that had given birth to her, the Cause that was her own very existence.

Seeking her roots, she had found them here, in a place that would never have seen fit to create her in the first place. Had found a welcome of sorts. People who acknowledged her individuality, however much it frightened them. Individual rights, after all, were the main grounds upon which the Federation opposed GIs in the first place — all sentient beings had inalienable individual rights, and so the creation of a being whose innate abilities extended beyond what society’s rights were prepared to grant another individual … would be an automatic breach. The Federation believed all people were equal. To create a person who was both more equal (with enhanced capabilities) and less equal (with predesignated social roles) threatened all the shared values upon which the Federation was based.

That any GI was an individual and had rights was something that most Callayans, and Federation people generally, would concede, however reluctantly. That was the greatest irony of all. The League championed Kresnov because she was ‘good for humanity’, but ignored her humanity in the process. The Federation opposed Kresnov because she was ‘bad for humanity’, but in doing so nonetheless recognised her as a real person.

This insight left Ibrahim in no doubt of which side he was committed to, heart and soul. And it made him realise, in a sudden flash of clarity, that he did not oppose the existence of those like Kresnov because it was ‘bad for humanity’ but because it was bad for Kresnov. He felt great pity for her. Hers was not an easy lot. She had never had any choice but to be what she was, and it quite simply was not fair. He did not hate her for the great destruction she had doubtless wrought upon members of the Federation in her past. He only wished that she could one day find some peace, and the happiness that she so obviously craved. She was in the right place for it, that was certain. And here, unlike in the League, she would never be asked to do anything that another human would not do herself.

Equality. It was the oldest of human ideals. And those who forgot their past were doomed to forget why it had become such a grand ideal in the first place.

The rising engine roar cut into Ibrahim’s thoughts as, with a deep thrumming of thruster fans, the flyer lifted smoothly from the pad.

‘I just hope our GI’s got her head screwed on straight about her buddy,’ Agent Chow said over local intercom, the flyer rocking slightly as it climbed clear of the surrounding buildings. There were no windows along the fuselage, but everyone had taken this trip so often that it made no difference.

‘Don’t sweat it,’ Vargas replied, eyes fixed on his monitor bank. ‘She’s the only hook we’ve got right now, just go with it.’

‘No backup either,’ Chow muttered. ‘I don’t like it.’

‘She’ll be fine,’ came Rice’s voice, switching from her usual TacCom frequency. ‘You can trust her — she’s a pro.’

‘Her professionalism isn’t my problem,’ Chow replied. ‘I just want to know the same thing I always want to know if we’re working with someone new — when the shit goes down, whose side is she on?’

‘I said you can trust her,’ Rice repeated firmly.

‘LT, this is her long-lost buddy here,’ Chow retorted as the thrust changed direction, acceleration building. ‘She may like us plenty, she may be trustworthy as hell, but if that were your best friend with his head on the block, and you had to choose us or him, what would you do if you were her?’

Silence from Rice. Chow was a complainer by nature, but on this occasion he was right. They all knew it.

‘Then let’s just make certain it doesn’t come down to a choice,’ Ibrahim told them all very calmly. He didn’t mind constructive conversation on the job. And there had been so little time to prepare, his people’s minds were still catching up with the issues at hand. ‘The goal is to get them both out of this alive and healthy. As long as our goals remain concurrent, we’re all on the same side. That’s the task.’

At that moment, the subject of controversy on board Eagle One was figuring out the intricacies of Tanusha’s road rules.

Sandy was on a motorcycle. Her cashcard had given her ample credit for the rental and her CSA badge had convinced the rental operator of her competence. That she’d never ridden one before in her life was a minor detail she had neglected to mention.

She was cruising now along a highway that her link-access map identified as Rama Five, ablaze with streetlight in the near-dawn. The bike was simple enough to ride — it was a Prabati W-9, hydrogen powered, large, comfortable and lightweight. Navscreen indicators gave a constant head-up display across the low windshield, a 3D projection that interfaced with the helmet visor. Warning indicators informed her of the relative positioning of surrounding traffic, cars behind, to the sides and ahead, with highlighted warning zones and projected movements … motorcycles were, Sandy had discovered from the rental operator, a bone of contention among Tanushan city planners.

All road traffic was, of course, regulated. Highway and freeway travel was an entirely hands-off affair. Manual operated only on back streets, and even there rarely, all speeds and trajectories monitored on the central grid. Motorcycles however, unlike cars, would fall over if driven by remote. They needed to remain under rider control at all times. Many planners, the rental operator had told her, wanted them banned from Tanusha … ‘road toll’ was an expression that provoked horror and disgust in the planning department. More people were killed in Tanusha each year by lightning strikes than traffic accidents. But most of those deaths, the planners pointed out, involved motorcycle riders and pedestrians.

Sandy leaned through a gentle 100 kph turn, eyeing the road ahead through the alert-sensitive display, trajectories and ranges shifting unobtrusively across her visor. Repressed an amused smile at the regulatory overkill. All those silly graphics just got in the way. She could calculate everything she needed with plain vision. She gave the throttle a gentle nudge toward the 110 kph ceiling, a sudden break in power transmission, the engine whine abruptly fading as the buffers cut in. She didn’t like it. Fortunately the bike had an independent CPU with interlink barriers, which would last about three seconds if she wanted them gone. She hoped she wouldn’t need it, but she was not in the habit of taking chances with equipment.

Crackle of mild static on audio … she winced slightly as the encoded frequency locked in, a brief, squeezing pressure.

‘Cassandra,’ came Ibrahim’s voice, internal audio, direct input to her eardrum. It always sounded slightly strange on an unfamiliar frequency, through an unfamiliar code. ‘We have your bike on traffic-scan, you’re doing the near side of legal down Rama Five, left lane, Hammersley District, confirm?’

‘That’s me,’ she replied aloud, voice muffled to her own ears in the helmet. Silent replies took practice, and vocal ones had the same result. ‘The speed buffers look a little vulnerable on this thing, just make sure the cops don’t start chasing me if I have to break them.’

‘I copy that, we’ll kill the alert if it comes, but we don’t want to tell anyone directly who you are in case we’re being hacked … nothing will make bad guys more suspicious than an on-duty CSA agent on a motorcycle.’

It was good thinking, Sandy thought. Like it was good thinking to barrier-monitor the dealership she’d taken it from under CSA identification. The dealer had seemed like a decent guy, but if he flapped his mouth they’d cut him off. Ibrahim’s team knew this city’s network far better than she did.

‘Any word yet from Angel?’ Angel was her idea — Mahud’s codename. She wondered if he’d appreciate the humour. And thought no, probably not.

‘He’s still on standby,’ she replied, edging into a convenient space in the right lane, flash of sensor warning as she crossed the dividing line. Wind roared and flapped at her jacket, pressing her body.

Mahud’s situation was tricky. He was alone. He didn’t know where his ‘team-mates’ were. It was not his operation — he was only along for the ride at this point. When he was wanted, he would be sent to a set of coordinates. What happened then, when and how the team would reassemble from their scattered, covered positions throughout the city, was up to someone else entirely.

Sandy thought she knew who. Remembered cold, hard eyes, shoulder-length dark hair. A pistol levelled at her chest. ‘Get out of this one, Skin.’ The interviews they’d conducted on those FIA personnel they’d captured had revealed nothing … they claimed Federate business and spun a conveniently simple story about tracking a dangerous League fugitive for ‘security reasons’ that CSA personnel could not be privy to under the regulations … and claimed, obviously enough, to be working alone. Whoever that man was, he did not like GIs. Surely he was not happy to be working with one.

She gripped the throttle a little more tightly and tried not to think about it lest her worry for Mahud cloud her judgment. Worry was not something that usually afflicted her on a typical op. But this op was far from typical.

‘You think it’s possible they might just leave him behind?’ came Vanessa’s voice suddenly in her ear. ‘If they’re planning on leaving, that is?’

‘Christ almighty,’ Sandy muttered, ‘I hope not.’

‘But wouldn’t that…’

‘If they leave him here, Ricey, it won’t be alive. I wasn’t supposed to survive my procedure. The League might not mind if the Federation have live GIs running around, but the FIA certainly would. They hate our guts, remember? Meaning GIs generally.’ A brief silence.

‘Forget I said it,’ Vanessa said then.

‘Already have.’ She changed lanes leftwards, ignoring the indignant protests from her navscreen, indicating as she decelerated down a turnoff branch. ‘Any more ideas on what they’re after this morning?’

‘A few,’ said Ibrahim. ‘I won’t trouble you with them now. Our net is deploying quite nicely — you can access on TacCom QB1358 …do you need a lead on that? The encryption’s very serious‘ A brief moment’s concentration as she slowed to a stop, feet down, waiting at a red light.

‘No, I’m in already.’ Clear grid-picture of deployed ground units of CSA personnel, in cars mostly. A few aircars, locked into repetitive transit patterns. And the flyers, Eagles One through Four, well above it all, widely dispersed. Even on grid-scan, the city looked as massive as ever. It took a lot of units to do a decent coverage. ‘That looks like a busy day for you. I’m glad I’m not coordinating that lot. My response trajectories tend to go through things instead of around them.’

‘On this occasion,’ Ibrahim said mildly, ‘please refrain.’

Sandy nearly smiled.

‘I’ll try.’ Green light and she squeezed the throttle, curved right and under the freeway bridge, quickly accelerating down the empty road ahead. Even then, buffers curbed the power-application somewhat. She shook her head in mild irritation … the bike would be lots of fun without those damn buffers. After a lifetime of soldiering, she was sick to death of pointless rules and restrictions. But then again, she thought, maybe she’d never liked them in the first place. Maybe that was why she was here now in Tanusha and not back in the League, hunkered in some carrier’s gut, cleaning her weapons.

‘The traffic’s going to get heavy in a few hours,’ Ibrahim said. ‘Chances are that if a move’s being made, it’ll be before or after rush hour.’

‘More traffic will cover their movements,’ Sandy disagreed. The road was now a tree-lined thoroughfare, shops and sidewalks along both sides. She kept the bike to the suddenly lowered 60 kph buffer limit. Everything looked peaceful beneath the pale streetlight. Here and there were joggers, early risers. Past an open park where some martial arts types were already practising.

‘True. We’ll keep an open mind. Tell us when you make contact.’

‘Will do. Ricey, you there?’

‘I’m here,’ came Vanessa’s voice.

‘What’s the latest on the Berndt people?’ Berndt was the district in which the recently devastated mall was located. It was on the news.

‘Still no personnel records. It’s pretty clear they’re offworlders. Beyond that, there’s nothing that I haven’t already told you.’

‘Were they good?’ Decelerating again, indicating for a right turn.

‘I’m not sure, I’m not sure that they’d have done better if they were better soldiers …it wasn’t much of a situation for them, surprised like that and unarmoured against a SWAT team‘

‘Yeah.’ She took the turn and cruised at a gentle fifty up the residential roadway. Quiet houses, close and comfortable, nestled among the many trees. Behind the many blank windows, ordinary Tanushans were sleeping. ‘Considering what hot shit you are as a commander, did you meet much resistance?’

‘Plenty. I can’t tell you how goddamn lucky we were.’

‘Then they were good. The bad ones just dissolve.’ A brief silence. It seemed to Sandy an incongruous conversation, cruising up this dark, leafy back street between darkened houses. Soon the families would be rising, children coming out to play on the first day of weekend, the street filling with comfortable civilian life. No inkling of the woman who had cruised this way only hours before on her motorbike, who she was or what she’d done.

‘Are you okay?’ she asked then. As gently as she knew how. There was no simple way to speak of such things. No guaranteed approach. Nothing that would change the awful reality.

‘Yeah,’ came the quiet, reluctant response. ‘I’m okay at the moment, the adrenalin’s still up thanks to your buddy. It’s not like I’m feeling sorry for those pricks or anything.’

‘That’s good. A bit of vicious, homicidal rage can be a healthy thing, sometimes. Civilians never understand that.’

‘A bit of your flippant irony doesn’t go astray either, I’m sure.’ Sandy smiled within her helmet. Vanessa’s character observations seemed part curiosity, part affection and part defence mechanism. She had an interesting habit of turning words back against the speaker.

It needed, Sandy realised, a degree of emotional perceptiveness that she herself lacked. Perhaps it was because Vanessa was a civilian. Perhaps because she was a straight. And perhaps her bisexuality gave further insights, created certain multi-levelled interactions that others would not have … it was a puzzle. It was the kind of puzzle she found so stimulating, here among civilians.

‘It sure beats staying entirely serious,’ she agreed, slowing for a stop sign. Navcomp blinked green, the central grid reading no cross-traffic and the buffers allowed her to accelerate once more.

‘Hey, that’s my general philosophy of life,’ Vanessa told her. ‘See, I told you we had things in common.’

‘Stop hitting on me, Vanessa. It’s very distracting.’

Vanessa laughed.

‘The com guy’s giving me the windup, Sandy …I forget his name, he’s some dweeby little redhead with a bad complexion. I never liked him.’ Sandy grinned, almost able to hear the indignation at the other end. Evidently she knew him well. ‘I’ll get back to you‘

‘Do that, Ricey. Ciao.’ The link went dead and there was only the muffled hum of the Prabati’s engine, a smooth vibration beneath her. The road ahead was dark and silent. But she no longer felt alone.

Vanessa Rice spared Agent Andy McAllister a sly sideways grin as the connection went dead, grasping the handhold by Chow’s navcomp terminal as the flyer gave a slight shudder and sway. McAllister scowled, pretending to be angry. Her gaze shifted across to Gabriella Razo, on the neighbouring terminal. Razo had been looking more and more incredulous as the conversation had progressed. Not, Vanessa thought, a big GI fan. Or she hadn’t thought she was.

‘Stop thinking ‘cold heartless machine’ Gabby, and start thinking ‘cool, sexy chick’.’ Smiling as Razo’s expression remained blank. ‘She’s a nice girl, you’d like her.’

Razo gave her an intensely dubious look and concentrated once more upon her monitor.