The Unincorporated Future (38 page)

Can he really have forgotten? Could it be a trap? Did he even have time to set one?
With those thoughts in mind but without having the luxury of a better option, Marilynn disappeared from the villa and reappeared on the other side of Tuscan Park, standing, along with a rather large group of very surprised avatars, at the foot of its newest installation. Most of those present had been taking in the Al statue, but now they focused squarely on her. Marilynn, however, had come for one thing and one thing only. She quickly turned her back on the Al as well as the shocked citizenry and faced the beautiful white oak tree made even more so—to avatarity, at least—by the woman who’d gifted it. But to Marilynn, the great oak’s true beauty was not to be found in its benefactor but rather in something far more prodigious—its subtle haze of luminescent purple.

Amid cries of alarm and hands reaching out to grab her, Marilynn touched a branch of the tree and in a moment, both she and the oak disappeared in the now-familiar flash of light.

Alliance Avatar Council Chamber
Cerean Neuro

Dante absorbed the information and then repeated it verbatim, just to be sure he hadn’t caught a bug. “So you’re telling us that not only has an Al, previously undetected, been spotted, but that now—somehow—Marilynn Nitelowsen, a respected and trusted Merlin, is connected with his reappearance.”

Sebastian nodded gravely. “I’m having a tough time understanding it myself, but Sandra wants us to find and detain her until she’s done with her award ceremony. Apparently, Marilynn Nitelowsen is not even supposed to be on Ceres. Check the ship manifest yourself.”

The Council members did. Sebastian, saw Dante, was not lying.

“In fact, she’s rigged the ship to make it appear as if she’s still there!” Sebastian threw an image of a supposedly sleeping Marilynn Nitelowsen—in present time—aboard the
Warprize II.
Then he flung another image taken of Marilynn slipping off the recently landed frigate with a marked time of less than an hour ago.

“As you can see by the code, these images have not been manipulated or hacked into in any way. I submit there’s a reason she’s trying to be in two places at once, and so it behooves us to detain her as soon as possible—if only to find out why.”

“Is it possible,” asked Marcus, “that Al may have gotten to her on one of her many incursions in his space? She did spend a lot of time alone—unsupervised, I might add.”

“That is my suspicion as well,” said Sebastian, “but far be it from me to cast aspersions before viewing the evidence.”

There was an informal vote. The Council was of one mind in agreement with their leader.

Dante shook his head. He liked Marilynn and would hate to think she’d been compromised. But no one really believed they’d seen the end of Al’s depravations. Manipulating a human mind, even one as brilliant as Marilynn’s, was certainly and sadly not inconceivable.

“It behooves us to see her as soon as she’s found,” Dante said, more in the tone of a command than a comment.

Lucinda’s lips drew back into lascivious grin. “Don’t let your interest in the human cloud your judgment.”

“Meaning?” asked Dante, amused. He hadn’t taken Lucinda for the jealous type.

“Meaning we should lock her up and then let the humans have at her. If they think for even a minute that we’ve interrogated or messed with her in any way—”

“But she
should
be interrogated,” insisted Marcus. “How she even managed to slip by the avatars on the
Warprize II and
the
Lightning,
” he added, indicating the frigate she’d been transported on, “is reason enough. I’m sorry, but this all smells of Al, and I’m not sure we should wait for the humans on this. Our lives could be risk—even now.”

“No, Marcus,” answered Sebastian. “As much as your logic is sound, Lucinda’s is the more prudent call. Marilynn should be isolated and not allowed to speak with anyone. Our relationship with the humans is too—”

The Roman villa that was the Council chamber suddenly changed into a very modern war room, standard protocol when it was felt the leaders of avatarity would be called upon to make command decisions quickly. Though the surroundings had changed, the table had remained as the necessary equipment grew around each Council member, depending on their area of expertise. Now situated and primed, the Council was shown what had necessitated the emergency transformation: an update on Marilynn. The group watched in awe as she first appeared in front of the Al statue, then seconds later—and in a familiar flash—disappeared with the great oak.

How did I forget to secure that?
was Sebastian’s first plaintive thought. But he knew. There’d been so much to do, and he’d been forced to improvise from the moment Marilynn showed up in the Triangle Office, and …

The room went white.

When the evanescent flash faded, Marilynn Nitelowsen stood dead center on the table, staff blazing in hand. She crouched slightly and began spinning in a wide arc as iridescent streams of data blasted from her open palm into the receptacles of each Council member. Her eyes were two coruscating orbs, every bit as bright as the corona of light pulsating from her staff.

“There is a traitor among you,” she declared, finishing her sweep of the table with an accusatory finger pointing directly toward the Council leader.

Realizing that it was pointless to argue, Sebastian vanished.

Grand Ballroom
Ceres

Sinclair groused as he reviewed the incoming data. Somehow their coup attempt had not only been uncovered but was now also being broadcast live over Ceres with replays of his attack on Corporal Langer being holovised and downloaded at a dizzying rate. The Grand Ballroom would soon be cut off, as the Unicorns were only minutes away from taking control of the perimeter.

Perfect
, he thought, shaking his head in disgust. He knew what would happen if his miners went up against the Unicorns. His were good, but the Unicorns were among the most trained, experienced, and decorated units of the war. They’d stayed planetside just in case something went wrong. Sinclair could only imagine that their captain, Claude Brodessor, would think this was very, very wrong.

Mosh was standing next to him, deflated. “Now what?”

“We get to the air locks”—Sinclair grabbed Mosh’s arm and started walking at a quick clip—“link up with my miners, blow the damn doors, and then get the hell out.”

“Out where?” asked Mosh, keeping pace. “We just committed treason, they’re not gonna let us go anywhere.”

“
We’re
not the ones who betrayed the Alliance, betrayed Justin.”

Mosh smiled humorously. “I don’t have any personal experience with coups ’n’ all, but I’m pretty sure that when you’re on the wrong side of a failing one, you don’t get to make that call.”

Their clip soon turned into a full run as they closed the rest of the distance to the executive loading bay. As they entered the cavernous room, Josh watched with some satisfaction the professionalism and efficiency of his miners. While some were busy laying charges on the large air lock doors, others were improvising defensive fortifications from pallets, crates, and, he saw, the nine suspension units. As he approached the captain in charge to get a report, two of his assault miners came running from the far end of the landing bay. “Got company!” one of them shouted as they both jumped over the nearest pallet, guns at the ready. Within seconds, three mediabots came zipping into the center of the bay. Sinclair’s sharpshooters made quick work of them. There would be more, knew Sinclair, who along with Mosh had taken up a defensive position behind the suspension units.

The Unicorns entered next, rolling in behind the protection of a few small mech units. The mechs, knew Sinclair, would not be used—efficient as they were—because the suspension units he was now hiding behind were far too valuable. There would be no “friendly fire” in the coming battle. It would be an all-or-nothing sort of thing. Brodessor’s team quickly swarmed to one side of the bay and took up whatever firing positions they could find. Less than a minute later, they set up their heavy weapons. But not a single shot was fired from any of their positions. Sinclair made it clear to his spacers they were not to shoot as well. At this range, the grand admiral could see the rage in the eyes of his opponents. Angry as they were, he very much doubted that any of them wanted to fire the first shot in a new civil war—and in his heart, neither did he.

Other than the captain giving him the hand signal that the charges had been set, nothing much happened for the first few minutes, except for both sides laying down an inordinate amount of stink eye. Sinclair was rather amused to note that the only people in the loading bay who did not have some sort of body armor or suit capable of minimum protection from the vacuum of space were both Mosh and himself. Even so, he’d just begun to consider having his miners blow the bay door to end the standoff, giving them all a chance to escape, when two figures entered the loading bay. The first was a TDC that Sinclair recognized right away. Even with the helmet covering most of the man’s features, Joshua could feel the murderous glare coming from Corporal Gustavo Langer. But the corporal never even raised his well-maintained ARG, though he did have his forefinger pressed to the side of the trigger. He slipped behind a pile of large storage boxes and disappeared. Sinclair assumed he was reporting to Captain Brodessor. While that was going on, Sinclair studied the second figure, soon realizing who it was.
But shouldn’t she be with the fleet?
After a few more moments, Corporal Langer went back to Marilynn and whispered something in her ear.

She nodded and, looking directly at Sinclair, spoke. “I’m going to come forward to talk with the person in charge of the hostage takers. I’m unarmed.” Marilynn then slowly yet purposefully walked toward the halfway point of the loading bay.

Joshua Sinclair bristled at the appellation “hostage taker” but was honest enough to own up to it. He stood up from behind one of the suspension units and started out toward the center of the bay. He was soon joined by Mosh McKenzie. When all three got to the center of the bay, no one spoke through the uncomfortable silence.

“I assume the
Rumrunner
has joined you in this treason,” Marilynn finally said.

“Ordering the deaths of a billion innocent people,” said Mosh, “is treason, Marilynn. This is preservation. ‘The means are the ends.’”

“A point you could have taken up after you resigned and went to the press or ran for office. You could’ve even gone over to the enemy and apologized if you thought that was called for. But you made—” Marilynn regarded the surroundings coolly. “—other choices.” She looked back toward Sinclair. “Nice touch getting former Martians together in one unit.”

“Not nice enough, it seems,” the grand admiral answered without malice.

“And I’ll suppose some congratulations are in order.”

On the conspirators’ looks of confusion, she added, “For relieving Cassius and Brutus of the mantle of ‘traitors’—at least for the foreseeable future.”

“The future’s all well and good,” said Mosh, caring not one iota. “I’m more interested in how the next few minutes play out.”

A bland smile worked the corners of Marilynn’s mouth. “The two of you and your men will be allowed to leave. You must get out of Alliance-controlled space by the fastest means possible. I would not suggest the vias, as despite what orders are given, we cannot guarantee the actions of any passing Alliance ship you might meet. That being said, you should be fine if you simply cut out across the solar system. I don’t think anyone will go out of their way to kill you.”

Mosh eyed her warily. “What about J.D.?”

“Commodores are not in the habit of giving guarantees for fleet admirals. However, to ensure the safety of the President and the other hostages, I think she’ll give on this one. That being said, I wouldn’t suggest you go near Jupiter any time soon.”

Sinclair’s eyes narrowed as he mulled the proposition. “It’s not just about our hides, Marilynn. What that woman did, is planning to do—” Sinclair shook his head slowly. “We could always kill the President right now and possibly save both governments the prospect of billions more dead.” Sinclair’s eyes turned cold. “We’re not afraid to die.”

Though her face hadn’t betrayed it, Sinclair’s threat shook Marilynn to the core. She’d been moving so quickly to stop the coup, evade Sebastian—survive!—that she hadn’t thought for a moment the grand admiral might actually be a true fanatic as opposed to a political opportunist. But if there was anything she was sure of, it was that Sandra had to live. Sandra, who’d been thrust into a titular role by a nation in mourning and who’d turned that role on its head, delivering to that nation the hope and courage it needed to fight on; who’d opened the door to avatarity and in doing so unleashed in Marilynn qualities and traits of leadership she never knew existed; who’d brought J.D. back from the brink; and who’d refused to give up on Justin’s dream of unhindered freedom for all. Sandra had to live, and Marilynn knew that she’d have to think fast to keep Sinclair from trying to die an “honorable” death, possibly taking humanity’s last best hope with him.