A Dragon at the Gate (The New Aeneid Cycle Book 3) (13 page)

Holes registered a blip of evidence of what might be external analysis stealth feelers along the edges of his outer firewall. There seemed to be no accompanying incursion attempts. The feelers vanished as quickly as they had registered.

“I
WILL
DISCLOSE
MY
CURRENT
DIRECTIVES
IN
EXCHANGE
FOR
SUCH
A
FILE
COPY
.”

The feelers returned, then ceased once more.

“Please stand by.”

Holes severed the connection.

“Hate to say it, ace, but I think your cyber-buddy bailed on you.”

Michael scowled at Jade. The power indicator on Holes’s platform remained lit, but that was the only sign of activity. If something
was
wrong with the A.I., what chance did Michael have of fixing it? Was “fix” even the right term? If there was a place where coding ended and consciousness began, even if some computer science experts could claim to offer a theory, it was beyond his lay comprehension.

Michael took hold of Holes’s platform and turned it over, peering at it in search of some miraculous understanding of the problem.

The screen atop the platform blinked to life, concentric circles spinning once more. Michael just barely managed to avoid dropping it onto the tabletop. Jade snickered.

“Apologies,” came Holes’s voice. “My assigned task required complete resource-focus.”

“Did you find anything?” Caitlin asked it before Michael could.

“I have made contact with another A.I. that maintains a presence in the New Eden Biotechnics servers. We conversed at length, by secure proxy. Evidence indicates that this A.I. has knowledge of Felix Hiatt, however I have little specific data at this time. The A.I. proposed an exchange that may bear fruit, however I calculated it prudent to disconnect in order to consult with you on the matter. The exchange may be of paragon importance.”

Had Holes paused for just a moment before choosing the word “paragon?”

“What sort of exchange?” Caitlin asked.

Michael cut in. “Ah, Holes?
Paragon
importance?” Could Holes be referring to the AoA’s codename of the ship on the Moon?

“Correct. There is also sufficient evidence to indicate a direct connection between emails sent to Felix Hiatt from the New Eden source and the emails sent to Jade from her employer.”

Caitlin glared with a palpable fire across the table at Jade. “
Excuse
me?”

HAD CAITLIN’S EYES
been artificial like Jade’s, Michael was certain they would have flared twice as brightly. She held her gaze on the freelancer like the barrel of a gun, unspeaking, as if daring Jade to explain.

For her part, Jade appeared as nonplused as Michael. “This is as much news to me as it is to you, sister.”

“Is it now? Well isn’t that just a bloody coincidence that you’re here, then.”

Jade twisted up a sarcastic smile. “Coincidences are like shit—they happen. You’re the one who called Michael in to help.”

“Oh, and how many times were you in Michael’s hospital room when Felix and I came to visit?” Caitlin shot.

“You think that means anything?”

“Then I should just ignore it, aye?”

Michael had already opened his mouth to interject twice before the words had gotten stuck in his throat. He finally managed, “Jade, can you—”

Focused on Caitlin, Jade didn’t let him get more than that. “Do whatever you want. All I care about is protecting Michael.”

“Aye, so you say. And why does New Eden care about him?”

“Well that’s not really—,” Michael tried.

“How the hell should I know? It’s what they’re paying for!”

Caitlin pressed forward, leaning closer to Jade across the tabletop. Her fingers clutched the table’s edge. “So if they decide to pay for something else when they want—”

Michael raised his voice above them both. “If Felix were here he’d probably want to know more before we jumped to any conclusions, you know.” Caitlin took her gaze from Jade for the first time, her jaw still set as she lowered a waiting glare on Michael. Jade merely leaned back and continued to watch Caitlin.

Michael took a breath. “Jade, can you leave us alone a minute?”

Jade didn’t move. “Oh-my-fucking-god! This is a
bodyguard
job. I’m keeping you
safe
. How is that a bad thing?”

“It’s not—” He could hardly tell Caitlin about Holes’s earlier hack of Jade’s email with Jade there. Michael swallowed, not without guilt. “I just think it’d be better if I could talk to Caitlin alone, to help calm things down.”

Jade’s eyes flicked to him. “I can fight my own battles, ace. I’m not going anywhere and I’m
not
getting pushed out of a job.”

“But you can understand how this connection might bother us,” Michael tried. “Even without you knowing what’s going on with Felix.”

“Assuming she’s telling the truth about that,” Caitlin said.

Jade bit the inside of her cheek and then tapped on Holes’s platform. “Hey, cyberbox: Are you sure Felix’s stuff and mine are from the
exact
same source at New Eden?”

“There is an approximate likelihood of seventy-five percent at this time.”

Caitlin raised an eyebrow as Jade did nothing to hide her scowl.

“Seventy-five percent
likely
,” Jade began. “Well, here’s what we
know
: I’m as much in the dark as you about Felix’s behavior. I don’t know why Michael gets my protection, but the fact is it’s paid for and he’s got it.” Jade gave him a sidelong up-and-down appraisal that ended with a wink. “And Michael seems worth protecting. What’s more, Caitey, betraying the protectee’s bad for future business. I had a bitch of a time getting him to accept my help as it was. I’m not looking to sabotage what rep I’ve got.”

If Caitlin minded the nickname especially, she didn’t show it. She took a breath. “What’s it do to your rep if your employer gives you an order later that you don’t follow?” she challenged.

“It makes me someone who doesn’t put up with shit orders sprung on me after-the-fact. That’s a rep I can handle.”

Jade took her gaze from Caitlin in what Michael assumed to be both a check of the room and an effort to stay cool. Caitlin didn’t budge. Michael took the reprieve to try to make sense of things, continually coming back to the nature of Felix’s situation. Even if both sets of emails came from a single sender at New Eden, Michael couldn’t be sure it wasn’t linked to the AoA. There were AoA elements working within New Eden, weren’t there? With the Undernet down, so much might have changed. Did the AoA create the A.I. at New Eden with the knowledge they’d gleaned from the
Paragon
ship? Or was the New Eden A.I. somehow the same one that had nearly wiped out the entire ESA group sent to study it? Yes, Felix had given his word to Caitlin, but what if things were so bad that his need to protect her overrode his usual honesty?

And then there was the message from the mysterious “ally” who implied that Michael’s AoA affiliation put him at risk. With everything else, he’d nearly forgotten. How did that fit in?

He would have to sort it out when he could talk directly to Felix. In the meantime, Michael went with his gut. He set a hand on Caitlin’s arm, trying to communicate his thoughts about Jade and everything else in whatever nonverbal way he could manage:
It’ll be okay. Trust her, at least for now.

“Jade,” Caitlin said after a few heartbeats, “will you please leave us alone for a moment?” Michael couldn’t read anything in Caitlin’s tone.

Though Jade appeared to give it enough consideration that Michael suspected she might relent, she did not budge.

“Jade,” Michael tried, “didn’t you tell me that people lie, that no one gets the benefit of the doubt right away?”

“People,” Jade said. “Not me.”

“You’re not people?”

To his surprise, Jade smirked. “I am
exceptional
people.” She wrapped her nails on the edge of the table a few times and bit the inside of her cheek again while fixing Michael with a hard, contemplative stare that ended, finally, in a roll of her eyes. “Hell,” she bit off. “Hey, Holes, if—
if
—I give you access to my email, can you guarantee you won’t share a damn thing in there with anyone, ever, if it doesn’t have to do with this employer business with New Eden?”

Holes’s circles spun. “Yes, if Michael is in agreement with such an arrangement.”

“That works for me,” Michael said.

Jade glowered at Caitlin. “Fine. Give me a keyboard or something. This is ridiculous.”

Holes projected a keyboard on the table in front of Jade. Michael averted his eyes while she typed. Considering Holes’s earlier hack, it would gain them no new information, but the fact that Jade volunteered it might ease tensions.

“There,” Jade said. “Check it for anything that says I’ve got any sort of other arrangement in this besides protecting Michael. I’m telling the truth.” She stood up. “Deal with it.”

Jade strode through the patrons milling about to lean against the balcony railing. With one last look at Michael, she crossed her arms and turned her attention to the crowd.

“
YOU ALREADY KNOW
everything I know, Camela,” Adrian answered. He held the cyberscreen in his forearm in front of him, at chest level so as to appear to be looking down on the person on the other end of the call. She used the same angle on her side, so the dynamic was, at least, balanced. “If your team lost Mr. Flynn, they have enough information to reacquire him eventually. Or perhaps you should send a better team next time. Four against one and they couldn’t manage it? Some retraining is due, wouldn’t you say?”

Camela scowled. “You put it more tactfully than I did when I heard. They say he had a bodyguard. A woman. Know anything about that?”

“I would infer that he rightfully believes that he lives in a dangerous world. Beyond that?” Adrian shrugged. He’d been concerned enough three months ago to investigate Michael Flynn’s condition. Yet strides made since then had rendered inconsequential whatever knowledge the young man possessed—at least in Adrian’s plans. “Now if you’re done interrogating me upon matters of which I washed my hands months ago, I have more important things to attend to.”

“Ask it,” Camela said.

“I beg your pardon?” Adrian laughed. “What possible purpose would that serve?
It
is isolated, with as much means to gain new information about Mr. Flynn’s whereabouts as my espresso machine.” That was not technically true, he realized; his espresso machine had wi-fi access to order beans and accept remote programming. But the point was made.

“Just ask it, Adrian. We’ve got loose ends to tie up here.”

Adrian smiled. “Tsk. There’s that ‘we’ again.”

“RavenTech’s concerns are your concerns. This is your mess I’m cleaning up here.”

“Ms. Thomson, my ‘mess’ is bringing this company forward by leaps and bounds. I’ll be the judge of what my concerns should be.”

“I’m not having this discussion again,” she said. “Just ask it. Tell me if you learn anything.”

Adrian smiled with the most delicate nod he could manage. “Oh, most assuredly. Happy hunting to your team.”

He ended the connection, stood from the couch of the moderately appointed “executive observation lounge,” and moved to stand at one of the windows that looked out over the adjoining engineering bay. The bay was one of perhaps a half a dozen in the discreet RavenTech satellite facility half a mile outside the Northgate city limits.

Below, four curved pieces of half-finished technology, each a dozen feet long, lay on assembly platforms where the four-armed MEDAR units—RavenTech’s proprietary Multifunction Engineering and Design Assembly Robots—busied themselves at making Suuthrien’s schematics a reality. Beyond them buzzed RavenTech engineers who monitored the MEDARs and did their best to make sense of the production. Directly below the window, another pair of MEDARs hunched in stand-by mode next to a broad, rectangular, half-assembled hulk of technology while two more engineers argued about what Adrian assumed to be some manner of diagnostic readout.

Not long now.

Camela was technically correct: Michael Flynn was a loose end. Knowledge of his whereabouts would be a useful bargaining chip to strengthen his position in the project, but likely not worth the effort Adrian would have to spend on his own to find the man. And with the “Agents of Aeneas” crippled, whatever little knowledge Mr. Flynn had of Suuthrien—and the treasure trove of technology she promised—was of little concern for the moment.

Of course, he could not tell Camela Thomson this. Knowledge of the AoA—and how Suuthrien had dealt with them—was one of his aces to hold.

Adrian turned from the window, left the observation room with a passing glance at the aircraft construction activity in another adjacent bay, and took the secure elevator down to the passage that led to Suuthrien’s chamber. A palm scan and entry code later, he was inside with the door sliding closed behind him.

The room was a pristine flat black, with featureless walls and a single white glowing circle embedded in the ceiling to illuminate it. It had once been a clean-room for sensitive equipment, now repurposed for Suuthrien’s on-site interface.

A single computer workstation faced the door, its screen powered, yet blank. Adrian sat in the high-backed leather chair in front of it, gripped one armrest, and made use of a nearby footrest. He cleared his throat.

“Do you have any information on the specific location of Michael Flynn?” he asked.

Silver light danced onto the screen like glowing mist in a swirl of breath. “Negative,” Suuthrien spoke. “Why do you inquire?”

Adrian examined the lines on his palm and shrugged. “Because I was asked to. No matter.” Would she leave it at that? He smirked at himself for regarding this thing as a “she.” Throughout their dealings, Suuthrien continued to use the low, feminine voice chosen months ago. Perhaps it was easier for him to deal with the whole situation if he personified her.