A Memory in the Black (The New Aeneid Cycle) (10 page)

"I hate this place," Ondrea whispered.

The building still stood, couched in crumbling brick. Ondrea never cared for it, though that wasn't so much for the building itself as the time in Gideon's life it represented. She had visited numerous times when he lived here to upgrade his old cybernetics, let him try her new designs, and just to check on him. It was something they could have done more comfortably at her place, but he hadn't wanted to put her at risk should anyone trace him to her home.

A
turn-of-the-century apartment on the edge of the University District, it remained a centerpiece in her brother's memory of his old life.

Ondrea looked back down at the tracking receiver that she held on her thigh as
her assistant pulled the car into an open spot on the street about halfway down the block. "He's in there."

Beck
turned off the engine. "Assuming that thing's working, what now?"

"Will you have a bit of confidence in your own designs?"
Beck was a definite engineering talent, but the amount of hand-holding his ego needed often overpowered her patience.

"It's not that.
We just installed the beacon on the chassis. It's not fully tested."

Ondrea ignored the distasteful "chassis" comment.
"We're getting
some
sort of signal. He's in there." It made sense that he would be. Had they no tracker, the apartment would have been her first guess.

"Like I said, what now? Still set on going in
alone?"

She undid her seatbelt
and tucked the receiver into her blazer. "Still, yes. If it's just me I can talk him down easier." She flashed him a warning glare. "And don't call Marquand. Not unless you hear from me first."

Beck
accepted the order with a nod. Eager to please as ever. It was just as well; she didn't want to have to explain her fears to him. Marquand had invested a lot of money in Gideon, that was certain, but she didn't know how well they would tolerate a failure to cooperate. She preferred not to risk it.

Ondrea left the car, waited as a cab passed them by, and then crossed the street toward her brother's past.

The distanc
e at which he tailed the woman had Diomedes rounding the block in time to spot her entering the apartment building. The car she'd arrived in sat parked nearby. One man remained with it. Was she going to meet someone? Was this her home?

Diomedes
drove just around the corner to a spot on the edge of the intersection. He could still see the entrance. It was a key spot: good vantage point, easy to leave quickly. Might be illegal. He'd have to watch for cops.

He
weighed his options. If she did live there, she'd be out soon. The man in the car wouldn't wait otherwise. It left little time to move on her. If she was there to meet someone? He'd have to find out who. How many. How strong. The man in the car would know.

But a car like that.
 . . Luxury car drivers were jumpy. Any move he made against the man, he'd call the cops. Hard to be sure how fast they'd come around here. Too risky. He could neutralize the man from a distance, but he'd be more useful alive, and his shot was blocked.

F
amiliarity nagged at him. He'd been here before, but why? It wasn't likely the woman lived here, either. Too run down, wrong place for her type. Half a block from the building to her car. If Diomedes was careful, he could intercept her when she came out. Pull her in and go. He could sideswipe the car against her if he needed to.

And if she's not alone?

Might be too risky. He could just take her out from the car. Line of sight would make it easy. But then she'd just be gone, without her knowing why. He'd have the rifle ready, though.

The minutes ticked by.
Five, then ten. Maybe she lived there after all. The man in the car might be watching over her. Diomedes could wait longer, or he could break in a back entrance. But the building was big; she'd be hard to find. She might leave before he finished his search. He needed another set of eyes on the front entrance and cursed his lack. Assets. He needed assets. He would wait here longer.

The large
voice began to crawl against the inside of his skull. Diomedes shifted in his seat.

S
he came out. He brought the gun higher, just under the window. He'd keep it hidden until he was ready to fire. His left hand was on the gun, his right on the ignition. As he waited for the best course of action to reveal itself, she stopped in the doorway and looked back.

Someone was coming out with her.
Patience. Another man stepped into view behind her. At once it all made sense: He knew why he remembered this building! He'd left that man for dead six months ago! That night flashed in his mind. That man should be dead!

The vigilante
! Gideon! They'd
both
set him up for revenge! The realization froze him. His weapon was heavy in his hands as they descended the building's front steps.

Kill him!
came the large voice.
Finish the job!

Anger smashed his doubt.
Diomedes fired.

T
he bullets struck Gideon's shoulder with little effect. Hard to kill. Instantly, Gideon dove to shield the woman. Diomedes adjusted, fired a second burst that shattered windows behind where they huddled, and then switched the weapon to full-auto a moment before a passing freight truck blocked line of sight.

It passed in an instant.
Gideon was gone. The woman stood, a foolish target, yelling.

Her turn.

He aimed at the bitch and fired again.

Felix and Caitlin were coming from the apartment building's back entrance and into a hallway leading to the lobby when they heard the first shots. Worried glances exchanged, they both rushed to the front as fast as they dared. Another burst rang out and found them staring out the front door at Ondrea and a man in sweats and a dark jacket whom Felix thought could only be Gideon. Shots burst around them again. Felix and Caitlin cursed and threw themselves to the floor inside the doorway.

"Felix,
" Caitlin whispered. She didn't have to say it was Gideon for him to know that was what she was thinking, too.

But who was shooting?

A truck passed and shielded the building for a few precious moments. Felix watched as Gideon pushed Ondrea to safety behind a car and darted forward to jump onto the truck's rear bumper. Ondrea was back up in a blink and yelling after him. The truck continued down the street and passed a parked car up the block. Felix saw the shooter.

Felix hissed the name.
"Diomedes!"

"
What
?" Caitlin burst.

S
he was up and dashing out the doorway before Felix could stop her. Diomedes fired again through Felix's yell as Caitlin rushed to Ondrea and pulled the other woman to cover again in a near-tackle. Felix moved to follow a second later, but gunfire cut across his path and forced him to take cover against the cement wall of the steps.

Caitlin was doing her best to hold onto Ondrea.
"Stay down!"

"Let me go!" she
yelled, struggling. "You don't know what you're doing!" Bullets sprayed into the engine block.

"Stay
down!
" Though momentum and surprise first helped Caitlin get Ondrea down, her smaller size made keeping her there a losing battle.

The gunfire stopped long enough for Felix to risk a look above the wall at Diomedes.
Gideon had reached him. The two grappled through the car window for the rifle.

Tires squealed from the opposite direction as
the sedan in which Ondrea had come pulled up and screeched to a stop in front of the building, its driver yelling. Ondrea wrenched herself from Caitlin's grip and scrambled out to it. Shots rang out again, fired blindly from Diomedes in his struggle a moment before Gideon flung the weapon to the ground.

Felix dashed to Ca
itlin's side, one hand slamming into the fender to stop his momentum and the other grabbing her arm to keep her there. Frantic looks exchanged, they both peered out at the road as an engine revved, tires squealed again, and Diomedes's car bulleted into the street with Gideon clinging to the hood. There was only enough time to see the latter raise a fist as if to smash the windshield before the car barreled out of view.

Ondrea's sedan took off a second later
with a hard U-turn that scraped metal against a parked car and pointed it in the direction opposite Diomedes's escape. Rubber peeled and burned. Seconds later, Felix and Caitlin were alone on the block.

"Christ," Caitlin gasped.
"Are you alright?" She turned to Felix and looked him over for any injury.

"I'm fine, fine.
I should be asking you the same question! God, Caitlin—" He stopped as the words all bunched up trying to get out. He could hardly get angry for acting like the woman he'd fallen in love with but— "Damn it!" he finally burst. "Next time it's my turn to give
you
the heart attack!"

She grabbed him into a quick, tight hug.
"I'm sorry. But I'm okay." She released him. "What the hell is happening? You're sure that was Diomedes? I couldn't see."

"Sure as I am about anything," he
said. "But as for what's happening, I think the question is which one of those cars are we going to follow?"

Diomedes floored the gas, shooting the car past a blur of buildings. He swerved hard, he swiped it against parked vehicles, and still the vigilante hung on. A parking garage loomed on the right. Diomedes hooked the car into it. Gideon gripped against the force that flung him to the edge of the hood and refused to let go even as the car scraped bottom on the ramp to the second level. It catapulted off the ramp, landed again, and bounced on worn shocks with a loss of control that smashed them into a parked van.

The collision bruised a
seatbelt line across Diomedes's chest and flung Gideon onto the concrete. Diomedes watched the body tumble like a rag doll and then stop. For just a moment, he lay there.

In another instant,
the man was up. Powerful strides carried him away across the garage. Diomedes slammed the car into reverse, pulled back from the van, and then sped forward after him.

Gideon should be dead.
Gunshot, point blank from behind! He should be dead!

An easy shot, and you couldn't do it right.
You're incompetent! "Incompetent freelancer!" Kill him now or they'll all think that!

Gideon still ran
. Fast, but it wouldn't be enough. Diomedes drove the car up behind him on the next ramp up and clipped Gideon with the bumper on a turn that sent the car skidding and Gideon tumbling off his feet into a wall. Diomedes regained control, turned the car again, and saw his prey struggle to his feet once more.

Diomedes remembered Gideon's cybernetics.
Implants, limb replacements, maybe more than Diomedes's own if he could take such punishment. He mashed the gas pedal. He'd pin the freak to the wall, crush him against cement!

Gideon sprang
onto the hood a second before the car hit the wall. The impact threw him back but he didn't let go. Instead, the vigilante raised his fist to smash the already damaged windshield. Diomedes reversed hard again. It kept Gideon from doing more than crack the glass and struggle to hold on.

Diomedes angled the car toward the railing at the edge of the level. He eyed the three-story drop as Gideon regained his balance,
and then launched the car forward. Parked cars became a blur. The railing loomed as Gideon turned to look.

Diomedes stomped the breaks
and bellowed. Tires screeched. The car slammed against the railing. Momentum ripped the vigilante from the hood and spilled him over the side as the railing stopped the car completely. It trapped the car in its punctured mesh. Front tires hung useless over the edge.

Trying to block
the pain of the impact, Diomedes finally pushed himself out of the car and looked over the side. The body he'd expected to see broken on the street was not there.

His prey was gone.

The two terabytes of data that the hackers downloaded from
Paragon
were, so far, mostly incomprehensible gibberish. The ESA analysts called it fragmented code. They cited their understanding of the alien computer's principles as barely rudimentary and threw about simile and metaphor in an effort to define their lack of progress: It was like trying to see the whole picture by looking at a few drops of paint. They were toddlers trying to comprehend Shakespeare with only half the alphabet. They were cavemen peering over Einstein's shoulder, and so forth.

Marette refused
to believe that it was hopeless. After all, they had managed to interface with the computer in the first place. They were not powerless. They were not stupid. They could learn. She would not accept that the data was useless. Lost lives must count for something!

ESA had disappeared
—and by all indications killed—the hackers to keep their secrets. The news reached her via an AoA communiqué, and Marette had nearly destroyed her quarters upon reading it. The hackers had posed no real threat. Their deaths were senseless! Needless! Wrong! Marc's survival was the one thing that let her rebottle her rage enough to face her ESA comrades with a cool exterior that belied nothing of her knowledge of events of which she was not supposed to know.

But she refused to let it be for nothing.
If she could not wring some modicum of meaning from the data personally, she could at least refuse to back off from those who could.

It was five days after Namura's death
that they deciphered the map.

Though not the Rosetta Stone
for which they had hoped, it did reveal something of the interior of the structure. Pathways, hallways, chambers—all appeared to be detailed, quantitatively if not qualitatively. Of special interest was an immense, centrally located chamber adjacent to the few areas they had previously entered. They soon tried to gain access to it via the black material's touch interface, working under the watch of mini-turrets and Geiger cannons to protect against the security drones that once killed an entire team. Coded sequences and symbols found in the captured data were brought to bear, but to no avail. There were no appreciable results for nearly a day.

It was then that they'd heard the
rumbling. It lasted twenty seconds, something distantly faint yet still felt against the boots of everyone within the structure. Then it stopped as abruptly as it started, with no indication of its cause. No change was apparent in any of the explored chambers. No security drones appeared. No other sounds were heard.

It was a mystery that remained unsolved until a sei
smic scan near a still-buried end of the ship revealed a change. A wedge-shaped hatch had folded out from the structure and pushed soil away as it opened.

They had a new point of entry.

Marette descended the ladder that rose up the wall of the three-meter tunnel they had carved out to reach the opened section.
The ship's hatch, folded upward, now formed the ceiling of a horizontal passage through the loose soil, beneath which a seven-meter walk led to the ship's new opening. Reaching the bottom, she checked the data recorder on her suit's computer, unsure if it would even function properly. Electromagnetic interference in the immediate area prevented communication with the surface, a fact discovered when they had sent the remote inside. It had rolled halfway down the passage when they promptly lost contact.

Marette called ahead to the tech in the suit just ahead of her. "Can you read me, Officer?"

"That's an affirmative, Chief. Looks like we're in a bubble. I can't raise the complex." Chief Petty Officer Levy stopped at the opening, turned, and pointed inside. "There's the remote. Looks like a dead end in there, ma'am."

Marette advanced to stand beside him near the edge of the opening.
The slate grey of the outer hull continued inside. It formed a smooth, conical passage uncovered by the black material save for a small, rectangular space on the curve of the left wall.

It was the first time they had
encountered an area without the material, and Marette wondered at the significance of its near absence here. The tunnel itself led only to a dead end formed by a grid of openings each barely large enough for a flattened hand to pass through. Midway down the tunnel sat the remote.

"
Might some sort of venting system," Levy said. It was an assessment with which Marette found herself in agreement. Did that have to do with the lack of black material? They had found no non-lunar debris outside the tunnel. If it was a venting system, then what had it vented?

"See what you can do with that panel," she ordered,
and then turned to another tech waiting at the base of the surface ladder. She gave him a hand signal to indicate that they were going inside, and he relayed it in turn up to the surface. Limited by space, only Marette and Levy would be entering for the moment. Ordinarily, Marette would be safely outside, directing the entry team from there, but the blackout made that impossible.

I
n some small part, she was thankful for that. Nearly every life lost in this venture was taken while she was safely elsewhere, observing. Directing. It was how it should be, she knew, how it must be in a chain of command. Her duty as one of the Agents of Aeneas further underscored her need to remain safe. Yet shouldn't she shoulder the same risks as those she commanded? The blackout gave her the excuse she needed to satisfy that. Whatever would be found in that tunnel, the AoA would need a representative. This time she could not do that from outside.

The day was coming when the AoA
would take over the site completely. Perhaps whatever they found here would be vital enough to bring that day sooner.

She followed Levy down the tunnel to the square of black material.

"The panel seems dead, Chief." Levy slid his hand over the blackness with the light touch that would normally activate the interface. "It's not responding."

Marette shifted the weight of the recoilless rifle she carried
and turned her attention to the vent holes. "Keep trying. We have not seen one so small before. Possibly it works in a new fashion."

"They've never been picky about lighting up wherever we've touched
—oh!"

Marette turned.
A transparent panel was folding away from where it sat previously unnoticed atop the midnight surface. The cover became perpendicular to the wall, then slid itself inside as the black material swelled forward a fraction of a centimeter. "I pressed harder. It just started moving, like a catch release. Protective covering, maybe?"

"To protect from whatever it is that is vented here," Marette finished. They had discovered early on that the material was sensitive to radiation.
The cover disappeared into the wall completely. "I want an analysis of that cover plate if we get another chance."

"Yes, ma'am.
The interface seems normal now, though there's a few symbols here I don't recognize."

"Let the
new ones alone for now. See if it will accept any of our opening sequences."

She waited as
Levy accessed menus and submenus that they only half understood. It stood to reason in Marette's mind that an access panel in such a place outside any vessel could grant passage to the interior. She only hoped that it would be triggered by one of the previously discovered sequences.

The first few Levy tried were useless, lacking each time for a key symbol to touch.
Marette eyed the vents once more. If it were her design, venting anything dangerous would be impossible when the panel was being accessed. But who knew if whatever creatures built the ship were subject to the same vulnerabilities? She stood with the rifle trained on the vents, aware of how useless the weapon would probably be against anything likely to issue from them.

"I think I may have something, Chief."

Levy's voice brought her attention back to the panel as he touched a symbol. For a moment, the borders of the panel flashed violet. Seconds later, the tunnel hatch swung down, sweeping fallen debris into the tunnel and sealing them inside. With suit lights shining dimly against the interior, they both waited and tried to prepare for what might occur next.

Marette became aware of a faint hissing
. "Check your readings. Is that atmosphere?" Her weapon remained firmly pointed toward the vents.

"Affirmative. All the same, I'd prefer to keep my helmet on, long as we might be standing in an exhaust vent.
Nearly standard pressure. . . now."

T
he surface they were standing on moved. The entire tunnel was rotating to uncover a seamless opening beside the panel. Marette turned her weapon on it as both she and Levy shifted their footing against the tunnel's motion. When it finally stopped, they were staring at a rectangular hatchway that led a short distance into a small compartment. Marette crept forward, able to make out a shaft leading from the compartment down into the ship. They held there at her order, weapons trained on the shaft and waiting to see what might rise up to greet them. Nothing came, but the fact remained: they were cut off from the surface.

"Officer," she said finally, "can you reopen the outer hatch?"

"I'd right better try."

"
Excuséz moi
?"

"Do my best, ma'am."

Levy returned his attention to the panel as Marette tried contacting the surface. "Omicron, this is Clarion, do you receive? Clarion to Omicron Complex, respond please." There was little reason to believe that the interference would be gone with the closing of the tunnel, but it was worth checking. She waited a moment in silence before abandoning the possibility.

Beside her, Levy worked at the symbols on the panel,
slowly navigating alien submenus, when it abruptly went blank. He tapped it experimentally. "Well what the hell."

"What did you do?"

"Not a thing. Nothing that should just shut it off."

"We have found no sequence to shut it off, Officer.
Did you use a new one?"

"No, ma'am.
I tried the one that rotated the tunnel, then I tried the one that we think opened this section in the first place. Midway through, it just. . ." He motioned demonstrably to the screen, and then tapped it a few more times. "Bugger doesn't want to come back."

Doesn't w
ant to?

Marette
inched closer to the shaft and peered down. Unremarkable but for rungs that jutted out from the side, it dropped a good ten meters into another chamber. Descending the shaft was an option. Holding back for those outside to figure out how to reopen the hatch was another. She frowned. The idea of Levy and her moving alone through the ship did not appeal. Remaining trapped inside and waiting for rescue, while arguably safer, did not appeal, either. And there was the additional possibility of some unknown substance venting through the chamber with its next opening.

"Officer," she said, "we are going in."

They began their descent. Rung by rung, they lowered themselves, suits barely clearing the diameter of the walls around them. Levy led the way, as per procedure. Marette came after, regretting her decision to follow that procedure with every other step and trying to ready herself for the next disaster that might befall them.

The spacing of the rungs felt too close together, perhaps designed for a creature of slightly smaller stature.
To her relief, they reached the bottom without incident and found themselves in a narrow passage. Like nearly everywhere else, the walls were coated in black. They reflected the suit lights at eerie angles. The passage was grim, empty, and deathly silent.

"Ma'am?"

"Officer?"

"Suppose we can get the lads back at the complex to work on figuring the code for the lights in here soon?"

Marette smiled in spite of herself. "So noted, Officer. Can you locate our position on the map?" She waited as he checked his screen. The passage led forward several meters and disappeared around the corner. There was no sign of movement.

"Based on where we estimated the hatch, I think so."

"I want the shortest route to the explored areas. The fewer doors we must open, the better."

"Aye, ma'am.
There ought to be a chamber up around that corner. If we can get in there, there's another hallway branching off it that's our best bet."

"
D'accord.
Let us try." She checked her suit readout to verify
Paragon
's air still showed as breathable, then unsealed her helmet and slid the faceplate away. "Depressurize your suit. We should conserve air."

Levy acknowledged and obeyed.
They began their walk through the dark.

Their footfalls sounded lightly,
their impacts absorbed by the black material along the deck. As they neared the corner they became aware of a dim, bluish light ahead. Rounding the corner carefully, their searchlights played across the depth of a new chamber.

T
hey stood on the left side of a narrow balcony that ran the width of the room. A low wall formed the balcony's railing, atop which was a broad, angled surface that, like much of the room, was covered in the black material. The angled surface was at a height that—while perhaps a little low—gave the impression of being some sort of control console. Compounding this impression was the presence of a small, glowing oval, the source of the bluish light, which sat waiting for them in the console's center.