Crossover (14 page)

Sandy bit her lip, considering as she pedalled. Escape clause. She didn't really know what it meant, not in the way it'd been used. League Intel had their little games, and she'd kept her attention entirely focused on her own operational concerns. She could only guess. Until now she'd had no firm hints with which to guide her guesses. Now, there were the Tobras. The FIA rarely did things by halves. And now the firepower. She didn't like it. She didn't like it one bit.

"Look," she said, on a sudden burst of inspiration, "while you've got me, why not let me in on the investigation? Just hook me up to a terminal, and let me see everything, realtime." Naidu's frown deepened. She wasn't entirely sure herself why she offered. She was in enough trouble already. But Tobras were serious ... any assault weapons in a civilian city were serious. And lately she'd had the unsettling suspicion that maybe this was all at least partly her fault. Her fault for coming here. Her fault for being so naïve that she hadn't bothered to consider the other things that Tanusha was known for, besides infotech jobs, nightlife and scenery. Naidu's expression, however, was not positive. She stopped pedalling, leaning heavily on the machine armrests, and studied Naidu's dubious expression. "Why not?"

"Cassandra," Naidu sighed, "I am under specific instructions to limit your involvement. Instructions from Secretary Grey, you understand. The President's administration, Director Ibrahim answers to him."

"You want me to help you," Sandy said slowly, "but you don't really want me to know too much. So obviously you don't want me to help you, in which case there's nothing else I can do."

Naidu looked frustrated, ran a hand through his long, dishevelled hair, grimacing tightly. It was politics, she thought. Obviously It was. Factions within this Senate Security Panel, among others, were leaning on the CSA, and on Neiland, and on everyone connected to her. So they were not allowed to trust the GI on anything, even if they'd previously been inclined to.

"Do
you
trust me?" she asked. Naidu looked at her through narrowed eyes.

"Yes." The answer almost surprised her. "As a person. As an ex-League special forces soldier, however, there are political considerations to be weighed before sharing sensitive information. It's not personal."

"But you agree with it?" With increasing desperation. She couldn't see a way to help — neither her way nor theirs. She was trapped. Naidu just looked at her, pondering. "What if I applied for asylum? Citizenship?" Naidu let out a sharp breath. "Ms Rafasan said she would try to arrange it."

"You're very game, aren't you?"

"Why not? Where else am I going to belong, if not to this place? I can't go back now. Where else is there for me? Where else can I be useful?"

"Cassandra ..." He looked uncomfortable. "... I feel I should tell you, the atmosphere at present is against it. Not within the CSA ... Politically."

"I can't stay here," Sandy told him. The desperation grew worse. "I can't just stay here indefinitely, in this room. This can't be my
life
, Mr Naidu. I'll go crazy."

"Cassandra, we'll do what we can ... it may take some time, it's true. There are political considerations, security secrets, Federal issues ..."

"Naidu, my own side don't want me, the Feds cut me into little pieces, now Callay ... God, I could be so much help here, you know? I'm good at these information systems, I have expertise no one else in the CSA has ... but shit, I'm running out of options here." Her voice held a faint quaver, and she swallowed with difficulty. Naidu appeared distracted, a flick of the eyes suggesting he was receiving ... he backed up a step, watching her. And she realised.

"Oh Christ ..." and glared up at the nearest camera inset in the ceiling, "Djohan you fucking fool, I'm not about to attack him. I'm upset, dammit. I'm allowed to be upset, just occasionally." Looked back to Naidu. He backed up another step. Her eyes hurt. "Oh come on," she told him, with shaky exasperation. "I'm drugged, my joints hurt ... Christ, I wouldn't hurt you anyway. Please."

"Cassandra ..." His voice was level, not at all frightened. Just very, professionally wary. "Maybe I should come back some other time and discuss this with you. You're obviously finding this upsetting right now."

"Look, for God's sake ..." She climbed off the bike in exasperation ... white, blinding light hit her, flashed at agonising intensity through her skull.

Then she was lying half sprawled on her back, one shoulder propped against the bike stand. Her head hurt like hell, and her vision refused to come properly clear. The shoulder wound ached, presumably from the fall. Her back did. Her vision gradually cleared to normal light, and the humming in her ears receded. She raised her head, looking blearily about. The room was empty. She lay alone in a golden patch of sunlight beside the bike. A pot plant frond floated nearby, a translucent, dreamy green against the glowing blue sky. She got an elbow beneath her and raised herself carefully. Pain shot through elbow and shoulder joints but she ignored it, propping her back against the bike stand. And sat there, stupidly, knees up and surveying the empty, comfortable room that was hers. Naidu had gone. She had no idea how long she'd been unconscious. It felt like a few seconds. It could have been longer.

The sensor plug had shocked her. Triggered by Djohan, no doubt, who had been reading her impulses. She wanted to damage the man ... and put a very fast, tight lid upon that impulse, the sensor plug still monitoring her more extreme reactions, reading her temper. No doubt Djohan had set a predetermined threshold above which she was to be considered 'unsafe'. Evidently she had crossed it.

God. She put her face in her hands wearily. Wishing it would all go away. Wishing there was a conceivable way out of this system, for whom she was useful but could never be accepted as an equal. That was what had upset her. That Naidu, intelligent, open-minded man that he evidently was, himself still had trouble seeing beyond that barrier. Whatever else he was, he was a professional. However personable he may have appeared in conversation, he never forgot what she was ... doubtless he'd read all the Intel reports, all the technical analyses, wanting to know what he was dealing with, conversing with. He trusted her as a person, he'd said. She'd believed that much. She still believed it. He simply did not know what happened to GIs when they were angry. Doubtless most straights assumed that a being designed for combat would necessarily become aggressive when angry, aggression and combat instincts being intrinsically linked in straights.

Well, they were not entirely disassociated in GIs either. God, she
did
get angry sometimes, and it
did
trigger combat reflex ... That was the worst part — in some respects, they were nearly right in their assumptions. They were right in thinking anger and combat reflex were connected. But to assume she would lose all control, all sanity ... ludicrous. But how could she prove it? How could she prove intent? There were only words, and words proved nothing.

She pulled her hands away from her face and looked at her arms. Rolled up the tracksuit sleeves, examined the red marks, a single red line up the centre of her inner forearm. Rubbed an aching, twinging shoulder. Felt at the invisible incisions there, also, and received an unexpected jab of pain. Felt, then at the back of her head, and the sensor plug that nestled in the insert socket ... one tug and it would shock her again, if she tried to remove it. She felt like a wreck. Hunched on the floor, monitored, drugged, shocked, recently mutilated and still aching from the scars. Imprisoned. Humiliated. Hopeless.

She could feel the tears coming. She welcomed them, for the release they brought, and the escape. She sat beside her exercise bike, curled in her soft grey tracksuit, and sobbed into her hands. High in the walls, the cameras watched, and monitor technicians watched the screens. She knew they were watching. She hoped they were confused as hell. But that was not why she cried.

CHAPTER 6

The wheelchair glided down corridors, rubber wheels squeaking around the corners. A blindfold obscured all vision. She could sense the movement on either side, could hear the footfalls of accompanying guards, measured and lightly shod. The drugs held further perception back, a dimming fog drawn about her senses.

com-gear. She could sense that clearly, registering the coded frequency bursts at regular intervals. A clear fix was beyond her but it was there, and heavily coded. It triggered old reflexes. Wrists flexed against restraints, bound firmly in her lap. Ankles similarly bonded so her thighs touched. Immobilised and blind, she was wheeled helplessly down invisible corridors amid watchful armed security who spoke only in electronic code.

Into an elevator, a soundless pulse as the doors closed. Silence. A pulse of sharp energy nearby. Positional beacon. Tracking their upward flight to an outside monitor. Then slowing.

Stopped, and they were out. She could feel a cool breeze on her face, its source distant, further ahead. Getting nearer, and then they were outside, and the breeze was strong, snatching at her hair and drying her lips. A whine of engines, thickly reverberating. Data flowed strongly, sensory, authorial, Intel and autos... signals scattered through her drug-dimmed brain without care for order.

The engine whine grew very loud, right alongside where something was blocking the wind. The wheelchair stopped, and the blindfold came off.

Sandy blinked, eyes adjusting to the glare. It was a rooftop landing pad, many stories above the ground. A forest of similar-sized mid-level buildings about them, the local mega-rise soaring massively to one side, nearly a half-kilometre tall, marking the centre of the Largos district. Alongside on the pad, the smooth metallic flank of an aircar, open drivers' doors swung skyward, a suited man leaning down to talk with the driver above the engine whine. Inside, a quick glimpse of lean manual controls, all moulded handgrips and polished, lighted displays, the aesthetics of function.

Keys worked at her chair restraints, which came smoothly away.

"Up, please," one of her escorts said. The foot rests dropped and the toes of her shoes were suddenly touching the ground. She wriggled forward, and managed to stand, moving slowly. The aircar's rear door cracked open at seamless joins, swinging upwards.

"You all right?" the other guard asked her. It was one of her regular CSA guards from the room, and he sounded concerned. She nodded slowly, sliding another sideways glance to the driver's seat and the controls there. Fancy car. Government, no doubt.

And turned, a casual shuffle of bonded feet, to look beyond this aircar and across the broad, open space of the landing pad. Several more aircars parked nearby, engines whining and doors open. Five more, in total. Milling security in dark suits, rigged for network. Her eyes narrowed slightly, hair whipping across her brow in the freshening breeze.

Why so many vehicles for such a simple trip across town?

"Get in," her other escort instructed. Sandy turned her head slowly and gave him a long, hard look. Reflective sunglasses glared back at her, expressionless. "Get in," he repeated, waiting by the open door, fingering a familiar looking control in his hand.

"Please," the other guard added, smiling faintly. Sandy favoured him with a slight, gracious nod and shuffled around to slide backwards into the car.

The interior was sleek leather. Spacious, she noted with mild relief, stretching her legs. Muscles strained momentarily against the ankle restraints. Without the drugs, breaking them would have been simple. With them, her muscles failed to solidify to critical tension. The restraints held, comfortably.

"Stiff?" her guard asked, sliding onto the seat beside her.

"A little." Not being able to stretch properly didn't help. Relaxed again as the second guard got in on the other side, her left. The doors swung down behind them, locks clicked and suddenly there was silence.

"So that you know," that man said without preamble, "any sudden move on your part, and I'll hit this button." Gesturing with the small, black device in his hand. "It activates the shock sequence on the probe in your input socket. It will knock you senseless.

"In the unlikely event that you did overpower us, this entire rear compartment is sealed." Gesturing around them. The drivers up front were isolated behind a smooth, transparent shield. Despite appearances, Sandy knew it was very, very strong. "They'll gas you, and us along with you. And the car can be flown on remote if necessary, even if the drivers were coerced. CSA don't deal in hostages, period. If you took one of us hostage, the others would act without concern for oar safety. We all understood the risks when we joined.

"Do you understand?"

Sandy didn't even bother looking at him. She was much more interested in the goings on outside. The guard sat back, content that his point had been made.

More activity up front, people getting in and doors swinging down. Some glances at her car from nearby personnel. The driver began touching controls and the display screens flickered with graphical response. Smooth vibrations through the leather seating and backrest.

Suddenly it hit her.

"This is the President's convoy, isn't it?" No immediate response from either side.

Then, "What makes you think that?" From her friendly guard.

"The President's the only one who warrants a security presence like this," Sandy replied, watching curiously, "except for foreign dignitaries, and there aren't any here right now. If you put this show on for anyone but the President, people would ask questions. You've just hidden me in the President's regular convoy."

"You can believe whatever you like," said the man on her left. "It makes no difference."

So which one was the President? That was her next thought. Not the lead car, and not the rear car. Other than that, it could have been any of them. A lot of effort for a Senate Security Panel hearing. More bureaucracy. She seemed mired in it, a never-ending circus of interviewers and department interrogations. What to do with her when news reached the official Federation heads? The sane ones — meaning anyone but the FIA, who doubtless hadn't told anyone official what they were up to.

Callayan officials certainly hoped not. Callayan rights had been violated. If it was tracked back to official Federation complicity, all hell would break loose. She figured that that was one piece of information many Callayans would happily do their utmost to avoid finding. The calamity would be too great. Separatist movements within Callayan society were not to be encouraged — even the Progress Party lived in fear of them, she'd gathered, and they were supposed to be the most 'League sympathetic' ideologically. Get rid of the GI. She provokes too many questions. Hush it up, let it pass, and we'll take out our grievances with the Federal Government committee in a month when it arrives in person to examine these developments. In
private
. All Federal-level politicians lived in terror of the spectre of the League. That, they claimed in shrill voices, was what happened when separatists have their way. Conflict, mad scientists, ideology out of control. Separatism must be defeated, and don't mind the mess.

So she was not expecting much encouragement from her meeting with the Senate Security Panel today, but rather an interrogation designed to create plausible excuses to get rid of her, ship her off to Federation jurisdiction. Earth. Where the FIA's influence was strongest. She did not want to contemplate it. Not at all a hopeful scenario.

Up ahead the first car was lifting. Signalled communication, coded frequency and tracking. Another car began to rise as the first moved out, accelerating slowly out into open sky.

Then their own. A smooth throbbing vibration, the landing pad dropping gently away below, faces of attendant security turning upward to watch. And easing forwards, the tower wall abruptly plunging away beneath them, breathtakingly. Out then, beyond the highrises of Largos and over the green of lower-density suburbs ... she stared left, and saw how the highrises had clustered to follow yet another bend of a Shoban delta tributary, huddled buildings arcing to follow that gleaming trail of water. The rivers broke up the Tanushan topography, made it unpredictable ... a stray tail of towers here, a cluster there, a junction at a river fork, an alignment for multiple bridges and calculated traffic flows. Her windows were large, and she could see a long way. Flying at altitude was a whole new experience. And the sheer, visual spectacle was simply stunning.

She thought to look up ahead, where the next aircar in line was travelling one hundred and sixty-five metres in front. Gliding left now as they picked up speed, rounding the architecturally curious, curve-side of the next mega-rise tower, the pivot of some unknown hub-district, their driver's hands tilting slightly on the controls to follow. The tower side glided past — a transparent side atrium ten stories tall with gardens and hanging plants. Tanusha was full of such curiosities, and the perspective was breathtaking. Then fading behind, the car straightening, the forward screen showing their airlane prescribed in a lighted, gridwork passage in the sky ahead.

"Haven't you seen Tanusha from the air before?" her guard asked.

"No." She shook her head, faintly. Still staring. Sunlight reflected from the towers, visible beams spilling through the clouds, angled lines of light amid vertical highrise. Trees below. Air traffic curving by, a spattering of moving dots, like small birds amid tall forest trees, their trajectories unnaturally smooth and full of curves. "It's beautiful."

It was indeed beautiful. The towers went on for ever. Another slow turn to pass another tower, and still more beyond. The clouds made a ceiling, broken by the wind, fractured sunlight spilling through. Fifty-seven million people. For the first time since her arrival Sandy found herself confronted by the sheer size of the place.

Tanusha was simply monstrous, in every dimension. A gleaming jewel in this half of human space. A treasure of unimaginable proportions. A generator of wealth on a scale that the human species had never before seen. It was awe-inspiring. And, in the same moment, frightening.

"How'd you come to arrange the President?" she asked her guard. He shrugged.

"We arranged it. She makes occasional stops at all kinds of government posts. It's no big deal." No doubt they wished to make it appear that way to any outside observers. Just another Presidential flyby. Nothing to arouse suspicion that there was anything in that particular building that required a separate security presence. Just include her in an existing one. The guard spared her another glance. "The monitors read your dosage as marginally beyond parameters. How do you feel?"

"Fucked," she murmured, gazing out at the passing towers.

"I'm sorry. It can't be any fun."

"No, it's not." And left it at that as the car banked again, the driver's hands moving on clear manual control. It was a tightly controlled manual, though, fixed within safety parameters. A security measure. If every car was auto, then the system was vulnerable to attack. Constant, regulated manual control solved the problem of vehicles falling from the sky if the system crashed.

Both guards remained silent. Sandy was glad. It meant the replication counter she was running through her interface was working, and no one suspected it for anything more than it looked like — drug suppression. In truth, she hadn't felt so clear-headed in days. Their fault for not doing their homework. It took some effort though.

A particularly large tower loomed self-importantly to their left, multiple wings tapering to a glass-domed summit. The Tanushan Trade Centre. Probably the most expensive piece of real estate in the human galaxy. It looked the part. Sandy focused briefly, and found a com-net simply jammed with constant transmission, a living flow of banded waves, like a giant river.

Another building was the central bank — a more austere, unostentatious building by Tanushan standards. And the giant names soaring by atop their massive structures of glass and steel — corporate names, names recognised through all of human space. Nearly governments in their own right, some of them. Nearly nations.

She saw at least one big biotech name she knew. And suffered a cold shiver. What was their interest in this? Had any of the database the FIA had compiled on her ended up in one of those buildings, hidden in some secret sub-bracket within the manifold data-storage systems? They were what it was all about, ultimately. Technology. Profit. Corporate leaders of course denied any laws were broken. But all tech corps were hives of independent-thinking groups — that was where the innovation came from. No single boss knew everything that happened within his organisation. And how did you stop innovators from innovating? Profit-seekers from being profitable? A losing battle, the League said. But then the League said a lot of things. 'We shall win the war' foremost among them. Neither side, it seemed, had a monopoly on truth. Both competed fiercely, however, for a competitive edge in bullshit.

They were losing height, she realised then. Glanced through the transparent shield in front, and saw the flight path display winding gently downward around another pair of looming towers. An altitude display ticked downwards, slowly unravelling. An aircar cut by close overhead, very fast.

"Do they ever leave their lanes?" she asked her guard, indicating overhead with her eyes.

"No. If you try to fly outside the parameters, not only does the autopilot take over, it appears on the screen of some cop monitor in some office. Tamper with the parameters and you could end up in jail."

Sandy nodded slowly, watching the car's reflection suddenly running parallel alongside. Then gone as the tower passed. Open space ahead then, and a massive, low structure looming up before them. Everyone knew that building, even those who lived many, many lightyears away. With its architecture harking back to an earlier time, with grand arches, domes and spires ... it was unmistakable.

It was the Callayan Parliament. And for some strange reason, she hadn't got around to seeing it earlier, when she was taking in the sights. Maybe the trappings of power reminded her of too many sinister possibilities.