The Far Shores (The Central Series) (54 page)

“It’s just another job,”
Katya said, shrugging. “Nothing changes except the targets.”

“I wish I was as
confident as you,” Alex admitted, following her down the hallway. “I’m nervous.”

“Benefit of experience.
Don’t worry. You’ll get there.” Katya shot him a grin. “You’re doing better
than Haley, anyway. She’s been in the bathroom puking since the sun came up.”

“You did not need to
share that,” Haley objected from the doorway of the communications room. Alex
noticed that she was indeed looking a bit ill and unsteady behind her
habitually sunny demeanor.

“So sorry,” Katya said,
offering Haley a smile as she breezed past and took a seat beside Min-jun at
the otherwise empty table.

“Why do I doubt that?”

Haley sighed and sat
down opposite Katya. Alex took a vacant seat two chairs over from her.

“Be nice, Katya,”
Min-jun scolded. “We’ve all been there. This is Haley’s first big operation.
It’s natural to be nervous.”

“I’m fine,” Haley
insisted, not particularly believably. “What about you, Alex?”

He hesitated, uncertain
of how to answer.

“It’s not exactly my
first time. But I’ve never gotten the chance to think about it in advance
before this,” he admitted. “I’m a little edgy, I guess.”

“At least you haven’t
thrown up,” Katya observed sweetly. “Yet.”

“I’m not going to ask
what you kids were talking about, so don’t tell me.”

Alice grinned as if she
had said something funny while she walked to the head of the table. Michael
held the door for her, and Mitsuru as well, who entered without a word. Karim
and Chike followed shortly after, chatting in what Alex could identify as
Swahili, but could not begin to understand. Xia was the last to arrive, and did
not sit. He stood instead in the corner to Alice’s right, features hidden as
usual behind goggles and a mask.

“Okay, let’s get
started. Mitsuru, if you don’t mind?”

Mitsuru closed her eyes
and reached for the Etheric network.

“Mission parameters
accessed,” Mitsuru recited woodenly, her mind filled with operational details,
maps, and background data. “Stand by for telepathic implantation.”

Alex screwed his eyes
shut and clutched the arms of his chair. While receiving information via
telepathy didn’t hurt, exactly, he found the experience profoundly disturbing –
there was a distinct sensation of swelling, as if his cranium were being
flooded with foreign thoughts that threatened to displace his basic identity.
It was bad enough knowing that his thoughts in Central could never truly be
considered secret. Consenting to the violation only made it worse. Of course,
he had no choice in the matter. He dropped the mental shields that Rebecca had
taught him to craft and held his breath.

For a moment, there was
nothing. Then there was a sudden influx of analytics and data. Briefly, he knew
nothing but what had been implanted. There was more information than his mind
could make sense of, so his awareness seemed to pick and choose, informing him
of salient details while shelving the rest for the off-chance that it would
become important. He was uncertain how some of the information was given
priority over the rest, though he assumed that it must have been processed and
tagged by Analytics before he received the download.

Instantly, he became
aware of a number of things he had never known before.

The city of Kiev
abruptly existed in his mind as if he had spent his childhood wandering the
streets, an indelible map imprinted on his brain that would allow him to
navigate by instinct. He became fluent in a selection of four different
languages, and gained a basic grasp of another four. The dizzying perspective
of a remote viewer was grafted to his own perceptions, giving him a thorough
and comprehensive view of the terrain they were to encounter, both physical and
psychic.

His previous ignorance
of the political and social workings of Ukrainian society was replaced with a
detailed understanding of the current upheaval, recent national history, and
enough well-informed opinions to ingratiate or infuriate the adherents of any
faction in play. Not that such niceties were likely to be required, as the
industrial suburb they were operating in was within a heavily industrial area,
and would likely be deserted.

He knew the workings of
the weapons he would be carrying – a carbine variant of the AR-15 optimized for
urban combat and the ubiquitous Glock 17 – as well as techniques for adjusting
the holographic sights, clearing potential jams, and even performing field
maintenance. He was aware of ten different locations where other weapons, armor,
and first-aid equipment were stashed around the operational area; three
different safe houses and an equal number of emergency rendezvous and
extraction points; and a small body of coded gestures and signals that could be
employed in a variety of dire situations. He possessed a working knowledge of
his comrades’ assignments and protocols, and the routes they would follow
during the course of the operation.

Floating in his
subconscious, Alex knew, was more sinister knowledge – the implanted routines
that would shut down his nervous system in the event of capture and torture,
and an auto-suicide routine that he could activate if those were overridden.
Their very existence gave him the chills.

Most of all, however,
Alex knew what they would be doing that day, and felt a strong sense of dismay
at the knowledge.

“Okay, good to go.”
Alice Gallow shook her head to clear it, then looked at each of them in turn. “Any
questions?”

“Yeah,” Alex said,
rubbing the bandage on his forehead gingerly. “Isn’t this the same fucking plan
as last time?”

“You noticed?” Alice
turned the full force of her crazed grin on him. “Pretty much.”

“And I’m the bait again?”

“You are.” Alice nodded.
“Anything else?”

“No,” Alex answered
miserably. “Not a thing.”

***

 “Close,” Alistair said, watching as
the engineers continued to struggle with the array of capacitors that had been
plaguing them since the first attempt to power up the machinery the night
before. “This is all going to be rather…close.”

“I don’t like it.” Song
Li’s attempt to frown was thwarted by the unfamiliarity of the recently
deceased body that she occupied – the slack muscles of the corpse were
incapable of anything more than a dull grimace. The necessity of jumping from
one nanite-infused corpse to another made Song Li’s existence both precarious
and repugnant, since Alice Gallow had destroyed her original body. “We don’t
understand the technology on which we rely. Nor can we trust our benefactors.”

“That has occurred to me
as well.” Alistair’s gaze was drawn to the enormous crystalline growth
suspended above the dormant machinery; the color of smoky quartz permeated with
an indefinable light, branching and fragmenting based on the pressure of arcane
forces, sustained by a forged breach into the Ether that the Yaojing had
personally engineered. “Of course, it seems likely that our allies would lose
all they seek to gain in the process. What do you think, Samantha?”

The Yaojing glanced at
him briefly before returning to her apparent contemplation of the machinery.

“Are you addressing me?”

“Yes. Was that overly familiar?
Because I was also considering Sam, if you prefer…”

“My name is Samnang Banh.
But you may call me whatever you wish,” Samnang stated flatly. “Our association
will not be lengthy enough for it to matter. The same is true for your
concerns. I am not here to reassure you, merely to ensure that we receive our
end of the arrangement we have made. For simplicity’s sake, however, I assure
you that the Church of Sleep will abide by our agreement. The offshoot of the
World Tree that you have been provided is genuine, and the sapling is already
firmly rooted in the Ether. The maturation process is very nearly complete, and
your technicians have used the data we provided to begin alignment. You will
shortly have exactly what you wanted.”

“Something of dubious value,
if you ask me,” Michelle offered snidely. “We already have apport technicians,
after all.”

“The World Tree is
capable of much more than a simple apport,” Samnang said coldly, turning her
glowing eyes on the abruptly nervous Frenchwoman. “Even in its juvenile state,
it will provide a persistent portal to
anywhere
– not a momentary
transport to a single destination. It will allow for the coordinated movement
of a large number of personnel or a virtually unlimited amount of material,
without the necessity for an apport technician or a traceable transit through
the Ether. The logistical possibilities alone will revolutionize your conflict.”

“Well, that’s comforting.”
Alistair laughed, then turned to face the small group of Anathema assembled
behind him on the catwalk overlooking the machinery. The warehouse had been
chosen largely by virtue of being one of the few of sufficient size that was
still in moderately good repair – all of the available structures being of
largely Soviet vintage – which meant that the catwalk, along with much of the
interior of the building, was structurally suspect, and made occasional ominous
groaning sounds under their combined weight. “Does everyone feel better?”

“No,” Song Li responded.

“Not at all,” Michelle
agreed.

“Yeah, not so much.”
Nick Marsh shook his head, looking rather leery at the height and precarious
nature of the footing, despite the nature of his protocol rendering him
fundamentally immune to any potential hazard of falling. “I don’t know what
she’s supposed to be – or what the hell her name is, either – but I don’t trust
her one bit.”

“An advisable, if
uncharitable, conclusion, Nick,” Alistair noted approvingly. “That’s why we hedged
our bets, so to speak. Do you object, Samantha?”

“I don’t care,” Samnang
said with a shrug, refusing to be distracted from the activities below. “Our
interests are compatible for the near future. I do not harbor concerns.”

“Well, I do. Thankfully,
our own lovely Emily Muir has arranged a sort of insurance, if all other
eventualities should fail. I trust that your part in this has been taken care
of, Emily?”

“Ready and waiting,
Alistair,” Emily confirmed, will a self-important smile. “I almost hope it
comes into play, because it took months to arrange.”

“Your efforts will not
be in vain, I assure you.”

“I’ve heard rumors, you
know,” Emily said, taking a step forward to stand beside Samnang and Alistair,
at the edge of the catwalk. “In Central. They say that the Far Shores is
working on something similar.”

Alistair grinned
broadly, but Samnang dismissed it with a shrug.

“Is that so?”

“Not necessarily,” Emily
said confidently. “But that is what they say.”

“Quite a coincidence,”
Alistair mused, peeling old blue paint from the catwalk guard rail with his
fingernail. “The scientific elite of Central and the Anathema both pursuing the
same technology. Particularly since we have only made our breakthroughs with
the assistance of the Church of Sleep. Makes me wonder if they have someone
helping them along from the shadows as well...”

For a moment, Samnang
turned her lantern-bright and unreadable eyes on Alistair.

“Does it?”

“It does, Samantha. Do
you have any thoughts you might want to share on the subject?”

“Very few,” Samnang said
firmly. “Though it is extremely fortunate for you that we have already arranged
for a fallback, should this endeavor prove as perilous as it initially appears.”

Emily brushed
accumulated rust from her shoulders and hair with obvious distaste. The steady
vibration their labors caused in the crumbling factory had been shaking loose
oxidized metal and flakes of lead paint from the ceiling in a steadily
increasing rain.

“I wish this could have
been done somewhere safer,” Emily said, frowning at the reddish tint on her
fingers. “Cleaner, too.”

“The Tree must be rooted
in a deep flow of Ether,” Samnang explained distantly. “Such locations are
rare. This was the only usable place that was firmly under Anathema control.”

“Still, it’s risky,”
Emily said. “Vulnerable, as long as the Auditors are out there.”

“That is your concern,”
Samnang said indifferently. “Not mine.”

Alistair was briefly
distracted by a rising hum, as the engineers started up the first stage of the
machinery, the crystalline structure immediately responding by producing a
myriad of new branching stages, suffused at the edges by a light the color of
which had no name, but most closely resembled violet. The hum was shortly
accompanied by a repetitive, dull pounding that beat out a steady rhythm that
shook the catwalk beneath their feet, the windows of the building vibrating in
resonance.

“It appears that our
people are achieving a degree of success in their labors,” Alistair observed. “Perhaps
we should view it as a sign to begin our own?”