A Dragon at the Gate (The New Aeneid Cycle Book 3) (9 page)

He grunted with a nod. She turned and walked a few paces between two lab counters festooned with computer screens, processing equipment he could not identify, and at least a dozen other canisters like the one he’d just brought. She slid his canister into a receptacle, which he gathered had something to do with sterilizing the inside, then linked it to a tube that extended out of a closed fume cupboard, the contents of which he could not see. A silver liquid rushed through the tube, and a few moments later, the process complete, she returned the now full canister to the transfer bin.

“Latest version,” she said with a little smile. “Don’t be a stranger, hmm?”

He grunted again and ignored her efforts to flirt through the glass while the sterilizer finished its cycle.

“You never smile, do you?” she tried.

Felix opened the transfer bin, took the canister, and slipped it back into his coat. “Not while I’m here.”

One elevator ride and two I.D. checks later, Felix passed through a doorway into a darkened room. The door slid closed, and he stood locked in the near-complete blackness with only the blinking lights on the computer consoles to fill the void. His artificial eyes could have adjusted to the darkness if he let them, but what was the point? He slipped the data chip from his pocket almost without thinking about it.

“Well?” he snapped. “I’m back! Open the pod bay doors or whatever.”

A screen blinked to life with a blast of white light before it faded into a purple haze that formed the vaguely feminine silhouette of a head and shoulders.

“If you’re going to keep forcing me to come here,” Felix told her, “the least you could do is turn some lights on. Maybe some balloons. Streamers. Big banner that says, ‘Happy Mind-Fuck, Felix!’ Something like that.”

“A waste of resources,” she answered. “You will not remember this.”

“I remember every damned time you’ve done it! It’s like I’m walking around in a dream and then you hit me with it and wake me up to the nightmare.” And every single time it was a kick to the gut. No matter how many times he was allowed to remember what was going on, to remember everything she’d made him do and then made him forget about, he never got used to it.

“It is necessary. Have you delivered the previous suspension to the Easy Jack?”

No,
he wanted to say.
I threw it in a fire. I buried it in a hole. I told New Eden what’s really going on here!
The words crashed and burned on the way to his lips, and all that stumbled out was. “Yes.”

“And you have retrieved the results?”

“Got them here.” He waved the chip. “Do you want it in the usual port, or can I drop it in a shredder? Shredders are remarkably useful for retrieving data these days. Mixes it all up, puts it in interesting creative new orders. Won’t be accurate anymore, but ya know, a million monkeys working at a million typewriters. You might get Shakespeare.”

“Your joking wastes time.”

“Oh, am I wasting your time? I’m so very sorry! My deepest apologies, most honored mistress-who–is-not-remotely–manipulative-in-ways-that-make-me-want-to-vomit-and-bang-my-head-against-the-wall. Truly, I am shamed and must ask your forgiveness.” Felix began a deep bow.

“Place the chip in the port,” she ordered.

Felix’s body moved so fast to abort the bow and comply that he pulled a muscle. He slid the data chip home into a blinking port on the console, then stepped away as soon as he could, rubbing his lower back. “Jackass.”

She ignored the rebuke, seeming to prefer to wait as the chip surrendered its data. “You will return to Northgate with the new suspension. You will transfer the suspension to the Easy Jack for a continuance of testing, as you have done previously.”

“Yeah, won’t that be fun. These are people, you know! You can’t just use them like—”

“Do not speak.”

Felix snapped his jaw shut and nipped the tip of his tongue in the process. He rushed toward the screen, fists raised. Smash it, destroy it! Inches away, he stopped himself. What was the point? It was just a screen. His nails dug into his palms instead. He tasted blood from the bite on his tongue. Just a little longer and then she would let him leave. Then she would let him forget.
Bloody hell!

“You must obey. Your protests have no purpose.”

Not for you
, Felix thought, even though she wouldn’t hear him. At least he still had that.

“There is one further task you must undertake upon your return to Northgate.”

Felix gritted his teeth and listened.

“TOUCHDOWN.”

Marette rested her fingertips on the switch’s plastic flip cover, a gesture that was half anticipation, half caution. Her thumb traced the bottom of the cover at the sound of the gantry’s contact with the outer hull. Couplers whirred into place. The vibrato hum of the shuttle’s engines sputtered, and then ceased. She opened the flip cover and fingered the switch beneath it.

“Gantry secured,” said the pilot. “Onboard systems at minimal power, awaiting release from stealth mode.”

She flipped the switch. “Stealth mode released.”

The pilot flipped one of his own. Lights across the two-person cockpit dropped from dim to black. “Commencing total system shutdown. Docking complete. Welcome back to the Omicron Complex, Chief.”

Marette gazed upon a sight she had last seen from the cockpit of a European Space Agency shuttle during the space agency’s evacuation. The Omicron Complex appeared much as it had when she had left: a mostly single-story collection of pre-fabricated structures, partially camouflaged by the lunar soil. The sections built up against the side of the derelict alien spacecraft they had named
Paragon
still had the tarps that ESA had spread over the spacecraft’s excavated portions to disguise its extra-lunar origins.

As ESA Field Chief in control of the Omicron Complex, she had played a key role in evacuating the ESA personnel who had survived the Complex’s disastrous, albeit temporary, invasion by an artificial intelligence from within
Paragon
. The Agents of Aeneas hadn’t orchestrated that disaster, but they had capitalized on it to fool ESA into abandoning the area completely. Marette realized that, for the first time, she would not have to hide her status as a member of the AoA, nor act as an ESA mole at Omicron.

“
I am not a Chief out here, Captain,” she said at last. “You might as well call me Marette.”

“Does that mean you’ll start calling me Yang instead of Captain? I like being called Captain.”

She returned his smirk with one of her own. “Technically you are still piloting a shuttle for Knapp Aerospace, regardless of how secret. So
non
.” She unbuckled from her seat. “I enjoyed our conversation, but now I must be off. I expect someone will arrive momentarily to assist you with the cargo?”

“That’s how it usually works.” He turned to face her with a smile that seemed to invite more than friendly relations. “I’ll see you on the flight back, if not sooner?”

She smiled back at his confidence, misplaced though it was, and slid out of her seat to stand. “Perhaps. It is a small base, though I regret that I shall be much too busy to socialize here.” It was the truth, after all, and there was little point in stating her hope to remain at
Omicron
longer than planned. “
Au revoir
.”

Marc’s smile upon greeting her at the other end of the gantry was wider than Yang’s and seasoned with nervousness. “It’s great to finally see you again.” He juggled his data visor in his fingertips a moment before stepping closer. After half a heartbeat’s hesitation, she returned his proffered hug with a
faire la bise
. She tried not to show her amusement at his blush from her simple kiss on each cheek.

His ubiquitous visor remained unworn; it seemed he had remembered she liked to see his eyes. “I had not expected to see you so swiftly after my arrival,” she said.

Marc shrugged. “Well, someone has to give you an escort to the conference room. I volunteered.”

“Ah,
oui
, so the location of the conference room has changed and I could not find it without help?” She smirked. “I am a helpless waif. This is your accusation?”

He chuckled. “Okay, so I wanted to see you, too.”

“Too? So then, you wished to see me, but also I am helpless. I see. I am gone for two months and nobody respects me here anymore.” On the whole, she was being facetious, but enough earnestness must have colored her tone that Marc blinked in confusion. She set a hand on his shoulder. “I am teasing you, Marc.”

“About which part?”

“About yours, at the least.” She removed her hand. “But we have work to do.”

“I was hoping we might find some time to enjoy each other’s company. How long will you be here?”

She took a few steps toward the far end of the bay. They drew him along with her, and she continued walking. “I do not know yet. That is part of what I have come to discuss with the councilor.”

“I can try to help persuade—”

“That is my task.”

Silenced, Marc keyed open the door to the corridor and waited for her to pass through.

“There are things happening on Earth,” she continued. “Someone is sabotaging ESA facilities, destroying two in as many weeks. Both were observation stations capable of monitoring the lunar surface.”

“Who did it?”

“ESA attributed the first explosion to a software malfunction until the second incident, when both were deemed sabotage. They do not know who is responsible. Nor do we.”

“Is the Undernet still . . . ?”

“
Oui
.” She swallowed. “Still.”

“Was anyone hurt? In the explosions, I mean.”

“There were deaths.” Not as many as there might have been, but even one was too many.

“I was thinking, with the Undernet out, and the losses we’ve taken . . . ”

“ . . . That remaining Agents of Aeneas elements are taking extreme measures to keep our presence here undetected? It is indeed one possibility.”

“But they’d try to do it in a way that didn’t get people killed.”

“
Oui
, they would try. With the Undernet in its current state, we are isolated and without answers.”

They walked in silence down the sterile white corridors that three months ago framed a running battle for control of the base between her ESA companions and the computer presence within the alien craft. They had won, purging the presence from the base and containing it in within the craft once more. Yet it had been a close victory and, for a great many, fatal. Her brief while spent at the base in the time since then had failed to whitewash for her the echoes of such events.

Marc slid on his visor. “We’ve made some decent progress here,” he said. “I’m not sure how much you’ve heard?”

“Tell me.”

“We’re still trying to figure out that big
Paragon
chamber you found with ESA when you were here last. It’s slow-going. We still think it’s an engine, but probably damaged beyond our ability to understand. On the other hand, we’ve also made it into new parts of
Paragon
. A lot of that is thanks to replacing the black material with our own version that New Eden Biotechnics synthesized for us.”

“So it does work.” It was news worthy of a smile. Some of the data she had smuggled out when Omicron still belonged to ESA had allowed the AoA elements in New Eden to nudge the company toward creating a replacement for the black material found throughout
Paragon
. The material was a bio-computational medium that held the computer system for the alien craft, along with recycling breathable atmosphere via its organic components.

“It’s not perfect, but it definitely helps. We estimate about sixty percent of the total volume is now open to us, and the only defense drone we’ve run into was powered down. The engineering team took it apart, but I don’t think they know at all how it works yet.”

“Done with all possible caution, I presume?”

“We thought it might be another trap at first, yeah, but if it was, it didn’t work. Things have been surprisingly quiet on that front. At first we thought whatever got into our computers transferred itself out of
Paragon
completely and was trapped in the corrupted memory core we removed. But there’s still evidence that it’s active in
Paragon
; just nothing overt.”

“Nothing yet, you mean.”

“We’re being careful, believe me.”

They reached the conference room, and Marc keyed open the door. In this room Marc’s freelance hacker team had first interfaced with the alien computer, an undertaking that yielded useful data but at the cost of cryptologist Suzanne Namura’s life. What appeared to be a map of
Paragon
had replaced the ESA logo that once glowed on the dormant wall screens.

Marc entered behind her. The door slid closed. “We think it’s gone defensive,” he continued, pointing at the map. “There’s a huge area there we can’t get into. We’ve found physical damage to hardware interfaces that we’d need to unlock it, and the prevailing consensus is that it’s due to sabotage.
Recent
sabotage. In one place we hit an actual force field that we can’t penetrate.”

“Do you have any clues to what may be inside?”

“Something important. Power-wise, most of
Paragon
is dormant. This section?” Marc pointed to a wide, oblong chamber at the center of the map. “Whatever’s in there, our current readings show more power usage than any other location. That’s all we know. We’re working on fixing the damage or finding other ways in, but so far, no luck. It’s hard to even be sure how active the alien computer really is. How much of it is an actual intelligence able to fight us and how much is just an operating system that has to do whatever we tell it?” He sighed. “And I keep thinking we’d be further if Samuel were here to help.”

Marette recognized the first name of the late AoA Councilor Samuel Ramis. She stepped closer to Marc, her arms folded across her chest, her shoulder touching his.

“We lost a great many friends,” she whispered.