Crossover (44 page)

"What happened to the links?" he asked, keeping his voice deliberately bland. "I can't access my links."

"Just a part of the override," said Emeagi from the back. "Our friends in the Governor's Office are hooked into Tanusha main. We can access anything we want and they can't touch us." His voice was cool, but Mahud could hear the excitement there. And the tension.

"Like having God on your side," Pham added from the front, less restrained than the others. "Unbelievable. The whole damn system is just ours. Nothing they can do about it. Just incredible."

No comment from the driver, Ramez. Nor from the others. The van sped along in the middle of a growing convoy, speeds approaching 140. Blazing tower sides slid smoothly by and the tires hummed in anticipation. Mahud resisted the urge to fiddle with his pistol and said nothing, gazing out at the curving lanes of tail-lighted highway snaking ahead through the city. Toward their target.

The target. Mahud had some ideas about that. This was the final play before withdrawal. The recovery ship was in-system, undetected by the Callayan security grid, such as it was. The shuttle would launch soon. Just one more op and they would be gone, out of Tanusha and toward the shuttle rendezvous, somewhere in the broad, deserted Callayan wilderness. Away from the Federation. Away from Tanusha. Away from Sandy.

Mahud felt a surge of something that might have been ... fear. It was not an accustomed feeling. Not before an op. But there had never been this much at stake before. He'd never thought that there could be anything more important than life and death, live or die. But it seemed that there was. And the discovery was astonishing.

Sandy sat against a hard, bare wall and gazed sightlessly across the empty expanse of car park floor. The Prabati stood idly alongside, its smooth, powerful lines untarnished by its recent high-speed adventure. Artificial lighting gleamed on dark curves, a glint on moulded metal. Not even a scratch. That much to be said for the central Tanushan traffic network's improvisational abilities. And more to be said for the neurally enhanced, meta-synaptic brain that had guided it through the snarled evening traffic where original, organic models would surely have failed. Failed and died, 300 kays an hour of mangled organic wreckage strewn across the freeway. Wasn't technology wonderful.

Sandy hugged her knees closer to her chest, the ferrocrete ground uncomfortably hard beneath her rear. She could still feel the shuddering thunder of her headlong plunge through traffic. The bike vibrating between her legs. The howl of slipstream. The energy of speed, and sensation, coming at a rush. And her ability to handle it, whatever the stresses. Her jeans were torn at both knees, thanks to those fast, leaning corners. Her exposed kneecaps were skinned and red to look at, but only faintly. Surface skin would shed, but foundational skin required far worse than friction and temperature. Beneath that, kneecaps of ferro-enamelous bone. The road would break before they did. She knew from experience.

She liked being a GI. It was a singular, revelatory thought, and she stared across the empty car park, considering that monumental notion and its ground-shaking implications. She liked being able to break things. To jump high and run fast. To process information at speeds that made time appear to crawl, like a quarter-pace video feed. To feel invulnerable.

But increasingly, even in Dark Star, she had distrusted that feeling. The feeling that let her enjoy speed and action. Combat was nothing if not speed and action. It was the drug that hooked lesser GIs. The ultimate experience. The moment upon which the rest of their lives were based. The thing that they lived for, their whole purpose in life. Make them enjoy it and they'll never question what it means. They'll want to do more. And in the absence of independent thought, and with the League's own special brand of 'moral guidance', they'll do it willingly until it kills them.

And it had made so much sense. Back then. GIs had special capabilities. How fitting to find one's purpose in life exercising those capabilities. That was what they were there for, after all. It was all so very logical.

She leaned her head back against the hard wall, and closed her eyes. She felt cold. Cold and empty. People were after her. Mahud was in danger. There was chaos everywhere. Being what she was had caused nothing but trouble. Trouble for herself, trouble for Mahud and trouble for all those civilians killed as part of the operation to bring knowledge of her workings to those underground programs operating here in Tanusha. She attracted trouble like a magnet. She passed through, and people died.

And it was not just politics, not for her. It was ... everything. Everything that she was. All her thoughts, hopes and dreams. Every aspect of her personal self, all the things that she'd liked to delude herself were private, and no one else's business but her own. It was all involved, and she'd been deluding herself if she'd ever thought things otherwise. Just another happy little delusion to comfort herself with rather than face the truth.

She was a contrivance. Some humans had created her. Her very existence had huge implications. And most of them, it seemed, were negative. The recognition was so devastating that she felt numb. She couldn't cry, couldn't scream, couldn't fight the truth. There was only emptiness. And the dark, hollow thought that maybe ... just maybe, her entire life, and all that she'd thought she was, had been built on a lie.

Eyes squeezed shut, she scanned for Mahud through the nearby linkups ... and found nothing. It was like he'd vanished, cut off from the entire network, like Eagle One and Ibrahim had been cut off when the Governor's Office had used their central control to undermine the operation, bypassing Ibrahim by ordering in units directly to arrest her. God, there was something seriously wrong with the Federal system if this could happen, if Federation agents could take control of the government and use it for their own purposes. Once this was over, and the Federate committee arrived from Earth, the shit would really hit the fan. Callay breaking away from the Federation. Becoming an independent world. As little as she knew about such Federal political machinations, Sandy thought it was possible. And public opinion, once the present scandal fully emerged, might just demand it.

At that precise moment, however, she could not have cared less. She wanted Mahud back, and she wanted him now. Beyond that, the Federation and the League could both just rot and die.

"
Sandy, where are you
?" It was Vanessa. She sounded calmer now.

"Safe," she murmured. Her voice sounded strange to her own ears, loud against the echoing silence. "Car park."

"
You okay
?" Reception crackled, distorted through layers of ferrocrete, twelve levels below ground.

"I'm okay." Quietly, hands in her hair, elbows rested on her bare, skinned knees. "What's up?"

"
Well we've got through to police HQ, we're establishing a sub-network, new connection points, new encryption. We can talk to a few people now. We've got some contacts at HQ and they've put a hold on your arrest ... we can't guarantee the same will apply to all units, but it's bought some time. We've got our best people on the network links. We don't think they can find you, but we're not sure
..." A hard sigh. "
It's just all fucking insane — it's like the whole CSA just got split straight down the centre and we don't even know who's on which side. We're trying to contact each of them individually to find out. Some are on the fence, others refuse any order that overrides Dali ... whole heap of goddamn ass-lickers worried about their performance reviews, refusing to break chain of command... hell, you get the picture
."

"Busy little democracy you've got here," Sandy murmured. "Bet it wouldn't happen under a dictatorship."

"
A what
?"

"Old-fashioned idea. Never mind."

"
Anyway, point two: we just had a shooting. Werner Associates, small, independent design and consulting firm ... guess the industry
."

"Biotech," Sandy said tiredly, rubbing her eyes.

"
Clever girl. Three dead, one security and two designers, both at different locations, both in their homes. Very orchestrated. Looks like the sweepers are clearing away the last loose ends before they leave, anyone who knows too much or might talk ... we've got security after what suspects we've got, but the Chief doesn't think we've found any of the top people yet. And your buddy's not likely to be on any home assassination job
."

"You could put out a warning for all biotech industry in Tanusha."

"
Too many people to target with any accuracy and we cant talk to them anyway with our links all fucked up ...no chance. We just have to keep working
."

"Damn Dali."

"
No kiddin'. We're taking steps in that direction right now
."

"Steps?" Sandy's hands dropped from her face.

"
Solid steps, you understand
?"

"That sounds like fun. If I weren't more occupied elsewhere, I'd volunteer my services."

"
Be patient, Sandy, you'll hear from him. Take care
."

Nothing then but the echoes of cars moving a number of levels above, distant tires on rampways. And silent again.

Steps, Vanessa said. Solid steps. Her trigger fingers itched. If she weren't so concerned for Mahud she'd be over to the Parliament Building
so
fast...

CHAPTER 17

"
Sandy, I'm in Rawalpindi
." Sandy's eyes shot open, jerking fully upright against the wall. Mahud's sending voice sounded hard and tense. Preoccupied. "
There's a building here, I don't know which one, it's on Vento Street, it's an office district. We've parked nearby, we're in two groups, I'm headed for the top floor, I'll know more when I get there
."

"
You're out of the van
?" Sandy sent internally, reflex preventing her from voicing her alarm to the open, silent car park. Did a fast race down an adjoining city-link ... found Rawalpindi, broadscanned ... shit, it was thirty kilometres north and she was leaping onto her bike, ramming on the helmet and activating the engine ...

"
I'm out, we're moving, the van had some kind of counter-measures locked in over the network, it can't track this transmission once I'm outside
..." The engine throbbed into life, a deep-throated, whining growl, display screens flashed to life. Sandy turned the throttle and accelerated swiftly across the open ferrocrete, headed for the exit.

"I'll be there as soon as I can," she said, hitting the ramp hard and flying upward, "I'm thirty klicks away — that could be fifteen minutes on these roads..."

"
Sandy, I don't think you're going to get here in time, this is a big hit. We've got goddamn floorsweepers here. It's gotta be a civvie target — there's nothing else here. I think it's biotech
..." Harsh shriek of tires around the bend, up the next ramp with a vicious thrust of speed, then a hard, wheelspinning U-turn and up the next...

"Mahud, when they give you your target, just do it, okay? Don't question it, just do it ..." She could hardly believe her own ears as she spoke, but her heart was pounding, her mind deadly calm and vision shifting at impossible intensity as the bike roared through slide after slide, climbing levels ... there was traffic here now, and startled pedestrians, and a near miss past a car-side ...

"
Kill civvies
?" Utterly disbelieving. "
You want me to kill civilians
?" Somewhere through the knife-edge calm, terror stabbed. A sharp jab of unreasoning, terrifying panic.

"What the fuck else can you do?!" she snarled, a furious explosion as she ripped through a narrow space between car and rampside, spun the rear about to unseen evasions by terrified pedestrians ...

"
Sandy
..." A pause, as if struggling to think of something to say...

"Hold on," she told him, leaping off the final ramp and accelerating along the ground floor, snarled with traffic, hurtling up through the narrow gap between cars, locked brakes when some pedestrians didn't move and
clipped
one, hard, as she accelerated past. And through the exit scanners, Central Control halting traffic once more to find space for this mad motorcyclist who was somehow riding outside the speed buffers with a death wish on her mind ... she howled onto the road, dodging traffic once more at frustratingly low speeds, and searched through her links...

No Vanessa. No Ibrahim. There were other, general connections, doubtless she could get some board operator on Eagle One, but she wanted that direct connection, not trusting any others, not trusting the people who would answer ... solid action, Vanessa had said. A brief jump onto a mainstream news network and scanned through a flashing succession of realtime pictures — trouble at the Parliament once more, security activity, seeming chaos, flyers hovering out of lanes and unauthorised activity progressing, communications blocked on all sides ... Guderjaal. Guderjaal had ruled, and Dali's power-grab had been found out of order. Solid action indeed.

She should have been happy. Now, she only thought of all the resources tied up at the Parliament right now, and no one could possibly get to Mahud in time, no one loyal anyway ... She left an emergency parcel on Vanessa's frequency, and on Ibrahim's, streaked through more lights, then decelerated for the next turnoff and took it fast, and up the ramp toward the northern freeway, speed rising once more. Clicked back to Mahud.

"Mahud, there's trouble at the Parliament, I..."

"
I know, were moving fast. They think Dali's not going to last another half hour — they want to be gone by then
"

"No one's going to get to you, Mahud." Her eyes sensed flashing light from behind as she screamed across to the freeway right lane, where traffic was sparsest and speeds faster ... "I don't think I can get there myself, just don't do anything, all right?"

"
Okay Sandy
" Flat and sombre.

"You promise?" Fear made its way into her voice, past her control. The flashing blue lights were close behind, matching her at 350 kph, hurtling along the empty right lane as traffic ahead shifted leftwards to avoid them.

"
I promise. Don't crash, huh
?" And gone, with that last, gentle quip. Leaning low over her bike in the roaring velocity, Sandy's throat was tight. Her right fist shook with effort to restrain another savage twist — it would go no further, and if she twisted any harder it would surely break. The lights behind were closer, and over the howl of wind and engine Sandy could hear sirens.

She reached into her jacket, and twisted slightly sideways in the saddle. Pulled her pistol, grasping the left handgrip, and straight-armed the pistol out behind her at 340 kph ... emptied half the pistol magazine into the chasing police car's bonnet, reholstered the pistol and recovered her briefly diminished speed in an instant, bending low to keep entirely out of the slipstream.

Behind her, two stunned police officers sat in their coasting vehicle, watching as the Prabati's tail light grew rapidly smaller in the distance, and wondering how it was possible that their cruiser's CPU was telling them that only the main drive feed was damaged.

She roared away from the freeway at mind-numbing speed, hurtling through the narrow gaps between traffic-filled lanes. Calling Mahud on continuous recycle but getting no response ... had been getting no response for the last five minutes. Preparations would be beginning, his full concentration required. Terrified beyond words as the cars flashed by and pedestrians jumped back in shock, taking the next corner and accelerating again, a traffic snarl to one side and she switched lanes fast, a hard lean past a protruding tail light as Vento Street approached up ahead, beyond the next set of lights, and she twisted the throttle once more ...

Central finally misdiagnosed her intentions, not expecting that acceleration approaching the lights, and the car that would have gone past ahead was suddenly right in line ... brakes locked in a squeal of white smoke, and Sandy's own brakes followed as she spotted the intersecting trajectories too late, saw the impact coming and leapt clear.

The Prabati W-9 hit the rear left wheel of the passenger car at a shade over 200 kph and disintegrated, the car hammered wildly about as the Prabati's rider flew a full forty metres down the road through the air, arms out, then shoulder rolling as she hit, sliding and tumbling on firmly braced limbs, over and over until she tucked into a tight ball and slammed into the back of a stationary car.

Sandy was up before her head had totally cleared, undoing the helmet and throwing it away as she ran, past staring pedestrians and shouted exclamations, people running the other way, toward the carnage at the intersection. Loose cloth flapped about knees and elbows, ripped clear in the slide. Sprinting fast along the roadway and then onto the sidewalk, flying past yet more pedestrians at inhuman velocity, yet agonisingly, horribly slow. Her right shoulder grated, damaged in that final impact with the car at the end of her slide. Her right hip was neither perfect, and the combination affected her run.

She turned hard onto Vento Street and saw another chaotic gathering of frightened, jabbering people about the base of a building. Flew that way, carved straight through the crowd, up the steps and into the ground floor, where several frightened people shouted at her to stop, that there was shooting upstairs, then she hit the stairwell door and was going up entire flights in single leaps. Somewhere up the stairs, her hand yanked the pistol from its shoulder holster, and took off the safety.

Out then, onto the top floor. Devastation. Through the smoke-thick air, there were desks and chairs strewn and wrecked, office spaces destroyed, partitions, some still burning, riddled with bullets ... Sandy's eyes took in the details without effort, analysing the pattern, the grenade blast-type, the calibre of weaponry. She strode, pistol ready and scanning, across the office space. There were bodies. Some dead from range, some executed with a point-blank shot to the head. She counted six. There would be others. Corridors and doors led to labs and filing rooms, storage and research ... but the stairs to the roof were there, and it was the only path that could possibly matter — she leapt up them in a flash.

More bodies on the rooftop. The shatter-proof glass shattered, twisted frames of doors. She pushed them aside, past the lifeless legs of an FIA man ... she counted two more who must be FIA, weapons in hand. Several civilians beyond that, hacked by fire as they'd tried to escape. And in the open space by the car park, beneath the leading edge of the aircar awning...

She sprinted. Slid in beside Mahud, pistol discarded, grabbing him by the jacket and ... and ... oh God, he was covered in blood, GI plasma, holes in his jacket, lying on his back and unmoving. Reached frantically into her jacket for her interface lead, reached back and jacked herself in, then behind Mahud's head, feeling for the insert... found it, click and merge, barriers weak and the codes ...

The eyes blinked open. Weakly, and her heart missed a beat.

"Oh thank fucking Christ!" she gasped, and was in tears. Just kneeling there beside him, linked direct, holding him, but scared to touch more. He looked at her, recognition faintly dawning ... and the lips moved in a slight smile.

"Sandy," he whispered, with evident pleasure. His hand raised feebly toward her and she grasped it tightly. "Sandy."

"Mahud, don't move, there's help on the way, you're going to be all right, Mahud, we're going to fix you up just fine. You hear me?" With panicked desperation, bending over him, hand clasped with her left while her right brushed at his forehead. "You just hang on. You're going to be fine."

"No." A single word. He looked up at her and his brown eyes were smiling. Distantly. There was blood across the side of his jaw, bullet strike. Sandy's mouth opened, but nothing came out.

"T-5, Sandy," he whispered. "Nothing you can do." T-5. Chemical nerve suppressant. A GI killer. Degenerative and irreversible, fired from close range, execution style. Sandy just stared at him. Utterly stricken. His smile grew a little broader. "I got four of those bastards. There's ... another one behind the car ... over there."

"Mahud ..." She was crying. "Why?" she managed to whisper, strangled past the agony of tears. "Why... God, why didn't you just do what they said ... you didn't need to do this!"

He managed a weak, slow nod.

"Did." He let go her hand. Reached up, and brushed the tears gently from her cheek. His brown eyes were sad, beyond the smile. "Can't live here, Sandy. Too strange. Don't belong here. Can't live here, can't live there."

"But you said ..." Her voice broke, strangled and sobbing, "... you said you would ... that you'd ...
Why
?" Pleading. "Oh God, why didn't you just
say
?"

Mahud smiled up at her, a sleepy, sad-eyed smile.

"Love you, Sandy," he whispered in reply. Like it was all the reason in the world. The only reason that had ever mattered. The only reason that ever would. Sandy broke down and wept.

"I love you too," she managed to whisper, leaning down close, her tears wetting his face as they fell. Like raindrops, soft and gentle. She held him close, sobbing her life away as Mahud slowly died in her arms. About them, the towers loomed tall and gleaming in the cool night sky.

A howling scream of thruster engines and the last flyer departed, a mad flapping of rooftop awnings and decorative hedges. Across the rooftop, green canvas flapped, exposing a sprawled limb beneath, a patch of ground dark with dried blood. Forensics, 3D modellers and trace-scan technicians roamed the rooftop battleground, examining bodies, shell casings, bullet holes, piecing the scene together. Direct-linked to CSA headquarters, where complicated graphical programs attempted to reassemble the action realtime. With every piece of data, the picture grew clearer, the events slowly pieced together.

Vanessa Rice walked in on the scene from the stairwell, through the shattered doors that had been propped aside, stepping over the bodies. Beyond the grim rooftop activity, and the flash-and-strobe of blue phase-scan, she could hear the sound of sirens and street-level activity from below. Lights flashing off the windows of the building opposite. She spotted the scene commander nearby in conversation with a forensics man and walked that way.

Captain Khurana saw her coming, a small, armoured figure with a weary stride, moving through the ordered commotion, heavy rifle slung over one small shoulder. The forensics man went back to his work, but not without a lingering, respectful glance at the approaching lieutenant. Khurana stroked his impressive, black moustache and drew himself fully upright, thumbs through his belt. Vanessa stopped before him. Looked up at him blandly... not even shoulder height on the strapping chief investigator. Dark, sombre eyes considered him from beneath bedraggled, helmet-flattened hair.

"It's not pretty up here, is it?" Khurana said, Indian accent lilting. Looking about at the bodybags and canvas covers.

"Worse down there," Vanessa replied, with a faint indication back toward the stairwell. Looked about, following Khurana's gaze. "Has Kresnov been here?"

"Yes. Her Prabati W-9 is several blocks over there," pointing away past the near buildings. "She finally messed up an intersection, went into the side of a passenger car at about 200. Flew through the air for fifty metres, slid for another fifty, then hit the rear of another car waiting at the next intersection still going at about 100. Got straight up and kept running. Eyewitness reports said she was doing about sixty down the road on foot. She was in a mighty hurry, it looks like. Lucky no one else was hurt."