Kaleidocide (36 page)

In my eye rig, which was linked to the front camera of the coffin, I could see blue sky for a while, then blue seawater after the HUD informed me that all propulsive power was depleted. Fortunately there was enough electricity left to activate the coffin's floater ring, or it would have sunk like a stone and literally become a coffin. But as it turned out, we drifted on the surface of the water until we were retrieved about twenty minutes later. In the meantime, the Taiwanese army easily wiped out the remaining Chinese and reacquired the power plant.

Back in my room at the cottage, I didn't watch the last part of the holo, of course. There was nothing to see except salt water, so I turned it off and remembered some of the things that had happened after that.

The first thing that came to mind was rather random and insignificant, and it was the jokes that some of the sub crew made about me and a naked man being stuffed into the tiny coffin for a half hour in that position. I told them off and put a quick end to such so-called humor, partly because I was angry at the suffering of the man who survived, and also because the man who didn't survive had actually been gay. Talon 1 had been a good soldier, and now he was a hero who had been tortured to death for his country. So I refused to tolerate any jokes that day, even though we had won the battle.

The other memory I had was that a senior officer told me that Admiral Carter had to be talked into picking us up, because he was so bothered by my insubordination, and probably knew he wouldn't be able to fully prosecute me because of the outcome. I found out that bastards come in white as well as red, when Carter swore to me in private that he would do everything in his power to make it hard on me if I stayed in the service. And when he was promoted to Defense Minister because of the success of the Taiwan operation, I knew he could make good on those threats. So since I couldn't shoot him in the head like I did to Ho, I left the British military and ultimately England itself, ending up in the Bay Area working for BASS. But before I left my home country, some of the less political people near the king told him that I was the reason for the success in Taiwan, and Noel I did deign to knight me for my “distinguished military service.” Knighting was much more common these days than it had been in centuries past, but I still appreciated being thrown that royal bone.

As I stood up from my chair in the cottage bedroom, and looked around to bring myself back to this reality, I felt the ebb of adrenaline that had coursed through my body while I watched the holo from Taiwan, and the remnants of the anger that had fueled me back then. I also felt some guilt and regret now at shooting General Ho in cold blood like that, something I didn't even come close to feeling when it happened, nor at any time when I was in the military. I don't know if it was being out for a while or getting married or having children or what, but the process of being desensitized as a soldier had started to reverse itself in recent years. So now I had the worst possible combination of feeling bad when I hurt people, but still being able to do it rather easily and effectively.

Right now that anger and guilt was directed at the fact that even after reliving the whole episode in Taiwan, I didn't feel any closer to understanding why Zhang Sun hated me enough to expend this amount of resources to kill me. Nor did I have anything that could be used against him, as Terrey hoped I would find. The search that was running while I watched the holo, supplied with images of those close to General Sun, failed to identify any faces of family members that had died in my assault. It only registered General Ho as a close associate, which made sense because Sun was his immediate superior. What made it more frustrating was that in the back of my mind, I felt that there
was
something in the holo that pertained to my situation. But I couldn't place it, and I didn't know if it was just because I was thinking along those lines to begin with.

I thought of talking to Saul's ghost again, but remembered the frustration I had with it last time, and the fact that its programming wouldn't reveal anything the old man didn't want me to know. I needed to talk to someone living who might know more than I did, even though Terrey had told me not to spend much time on the wider net, or talking to anyone that was not a part of our secure loop. Stanford Glenn was someone like that, and there was another “splinter” in the back of my mind when I thought about my last conversation with him. So I resolved to ask Terrey if I could risk a call to him, and if the triplets could make it secure.

But for now I was ready to get some sleep. I was surprised by how late it was, and downright shocked when I thought back at everything that I had witnessed in just one day. A sniper attack, the fire in the base and outside of it, and the recording of the Taiwan operation—even
watching
all of that was exhausting. I thought of my house guests, however, for the first time in many hours, and stepped out of the room to check on them. Angelee and the boy must have been asleep in their room, because all I found in the living area was a note on the table from her, carefully placed next to a plate of dinner she had made for me.

I ate half of the food and put the rest in the refrigerator, thinking the whole time what a great wife the little lady would make for someone. Then I climbed into bed and set the alarm so I would be up in time to prepare the double for his big trip to the city. But if I had known what was going to happen in another bed that day, I would have stayed in mine.

 

33

FINALLY

I woke up before the alarm went off and lay in the bed for quite a while, thinking through the day to come. It would take all my meager management skills, working at their highest efficiency, to pull off what the double needed to do with BASS in general, and one Internal Security Officer in particular.

As I got up to take a shower, so I could be alert as possible, I could briefly hear the faint voices of Angelee and Chris in another part of the house. They were dutifully not bothering me, and I was so distracted with what I had to do that I didn't think of going out to greet them at all. In my mind, the girl's misplaced hopes about me were working out beautifully for both of us, because I was confident that she would stay right here and gladly provide anything I needed, and it was also the best thing for her and Chris to be staying here right now. I did feel bad that she would have to be let down at some point, but hardly had time to worry about that now.

When I came out of the shower, I first called Terrey to make sure that he would take care of all the security concerns, so I could focus on my ride with the double.

“Live forever, man,” I said when he came on.

“Never die young, mate,” he said in return. “I love this idea, it kills so many birds. Michael Ares makes a public appearance, but not too much of one. You appoint a spokesperson, so she can talk about things and give us a credible reason to keep the double out of the public eye.”

And my almost-affair with Tara will finally be ended,
I thought to myself. But I said, “Yeah, it should work out well, as long as Jon doesn't get killed. I'm hoping you can handle the Protection Guaranteed part so I can concentrate on what he's saying and doing.”

“Absolutely, my boy. Me and the
Trois
have it covered. Or I should say the
Deux,
since Go is still recovering and getting worked on by the Cyber Hole tech when he's done with Min. But we're more than up for the task. We've neutralized the assault team, sniper, and bomb methods, so we just have to prepare for the other ones that have been used in the past, and be as ready as we can for anything new. Poison: We simply won't let Jon eat or drink anything while he's at the castle. Accidents: We'll have BASS clear any other aeros out of the sky while he's on the way, and on the way back. Betrayal: We can never totally eliminate all possibilities of that, but we'll be with him the whole time he's in the castle and limit his interactions there. Except he will have to talk to this Sheila you're promoting to the spokesperson job. Are you sure she couldn't have been turned against you?” He was referring to Tara, of course.

“Yes,” I said with a chuckle. “Very sure.”

“Oh, you clever boy,” he said, showing how clever he was himself, by picking up my unintentional vibe. But then he got back to business: “And we don't have to worry about the members of the Protection Team, of course, because they know that the double is not you, and they have no idea where you are.”

“Why do you say it that way?” I asked. “Is there an issue with somebody?”

“No, no. We did it right. You picked 'em, and they didn't have any connection with you. We're good.”

“Terrey…,” I said, raising the last syllable.

“No, really, mate. If I had anything substantial, I would tell you. But I don't want you to get paranoid. Just trust me, we're good.”

“Okay,” I said, stretching out the last syllable of that word, because it didn't feel entirely okay. But as he said, I had to trust him. Time was of the essence, now as ever. So I moved on to the next subject: “I need to check in with a couple of my lieutenants, because it's been a while. Should I call them while Jon's on the way, and only use audio?”

“Like I said before,” Terrey answered, “I wouldn't talk to people other than us on the net unless you really have to.”

“I thought you would say that, so I came up with an idea. We put the BASS people on the video in the aero, and have Jon wear an earpiece, so it looks like he's getting reports from other places while he's talking to them. That would explain it, if they notice him pausing to listen to me.”

“Ace!” Terrey said. “I like it. I'll tell you, Michael, this whole thing has just kept coming together, even all the details. Dickensian, like I said.”

“Except for the woman who died, and the triplet who got fried.”

“Well, you know what they say about omelets.” Then it was his turn to chuckle. “Speaking of being fried.”

That was a saying Saul had used, and I briefly wondered if Terrey had ever talked to the old man, or his ghost for that matter. But then I realized that was highly unlikely, and it was a very common phrase. I also wondered, as I had many times before, whether his flippancy was a kind of cover for a heart that did care about what happened to people, at least to some degree.

“You mentioned assassination methods that we wouldn't know about,” I said, “because they've never been used before.”

“Yeah, I've had a few thoughts, like what I would do if I was Sun. I might try something a little different from the traitor thing, especially if I couldn't turn anyone, and have a single assassin infiltrate or wait somewhere, for a closeup kill. And I might try some kind of cyber attack, turning security systems against us, something like that. But truth be told, the
Trois
are so good with that stuff, almost omniscient really, that I don't think it could work.”

“Oh, speaking of them seeing everything,” I said. “When I meet with Tara at the castle—I mean when the double does—I want it to be private.”

Terrey grunted, half playfully but half businesslike. “That's up to you, if you're sure she's safe. It's your office, and she's the head of Internal Security, so you can probably keep us out even if we wanted to listen in. But we'll stay away, if you're sure.”

“I'm sure,” I said, and after ironing out a few more details with Terrey, I switched the screen and audio to inside the double. He was already dressed in some of my business clothes that I had kept in one of the base residence rooms, and was waiting in the aero bay for his ride to the city. While he was waiting, I started to prep him for the conversations he would be having on the way to the city. He seemed to be genuinely excited about playing the role of an important person, and presumably had abandoned the plan to commit suicide that he was set on just five days before. Whether it was this new adventure, or the large amount of money promised to him if he survived, or both, it was interesting to note how self-destructive thoughts could disappear when a person was given something to live for.

One of the triplets came over and reminded him about his injection of the Makeover I.S. He nervously apologized that he had always been a forgetful person, muttering something about being a teacher, and pulled one of the little triangles out from a pocket. While he was shooting the chemicals into his bloodstream, I asked him if he knew whether they had eliminated the AIMS virus from his system. He said that they hadn't, judging from the last test the triplets had done on him, but “they said it looked hopeful.”

When the time came to leave, Terry and Ni flew out of the bay in one aero, San in a second one by herself, and Jon and Min in the third. Terrey had informed Lynn that he needed Min to go with the double, because the big cyborg would be expected to accompany me to the castle, and because the threat to the double was the highest. But he must have picked up on my wife's lack of comfort with Korcz, because he stationed him and Stephenson in the garage and on the veranda, respectively. I didn't know it at the time, but there was another reason why Terrey wanted Korcz to stay at the house that day. Tyra, for her part, was not needed at the castle and was helping with the twins while Lynn tried to figure out where they could go.

Min was driving the aero, but was very good at double-tasking (and triple-, and quadruple-, etc.), so I told him to call the lieutenants and keep the lighting inside the car minimal, so these rather close associates of mine wouldn't be seeing the double too clearly in close-up. I wasn't worried much about it, however, because the Makeover was so impressive. I was a little more concerned about Jon's ability to seem natural with me talking in his head, so I had him wear the earpiece and press his finger to it from time to time, as I had planned.

The first person we talked to was Anne Madison, who had been absolutely indispensable in helping me with the financial side of BASS since I became its chief executive officer a year earlier. True to their form, Saul and Paul Rabin had their hands in the money management much more than they should have, and the way it had always functioned at BASS died with them. So I looked for the most knowledgeable and loyal department head I could find, discovered Madison, and tapped her as controller. I had never been good with numbers, so I left the day-to-day supervision to her, and tried to only intervene on bigger picture issues.