“Perhaps,” Chien-Chu said enigmatically, “although we have more friends than some might think. And that brings me to the matter at hand.... I need your help.”
The volunteers trotted onto the parade ground, and Booly was reminded of the manner in which they had arrived. Part of some convoluted plan? Or a matter of coincidence?
“Of course, sir,” Booly answered respectfully. “Your company has been quite supportive. If I can assist without compromising my command, then I would relish the opportunity.”
Chien-Chu smiled gently. “It’s good of you to say so, Colonel ... very good indeed. That being the case, and in light of the extent to which the Confederacy may require my niece’s talents, I wondered if you would be so kind as to break her out of prison.”
It was pitch black within the cell—and had been for how long now? Hours? Days? There was no way to be sure. The only thing she
could
be certain of was that the room measured approximately six feet square, since she was five-foot-eight and used her frame as a yardstick.
Not that the darkness was necessarily bad, since even though the jailers could monitor Maylo Chien-Chu’s heat signature, they couldn’t actually
see
her, not like when the lights came up, and the ceiling, floor, and walls became high-res video screens.
That
was the worst torture of all, when they showed Maylo the way she looked, and she saw how vulnerable she had become. She dreaded the dark, hollow eyes, pale, sickly skin, scraggly, unkempt hair, and long, bony body.
And there were other pictures as well, including a computer-generated movie in which she was systematically gang-raped, tortured, and killed, along with footage of friends recorded through high-powered rifle sights, stills from her childhood, clips from the business press, a video tour of her high-rise condo, and plenty of propaganda. All lifted from the news.
Maylo kept an eye out for those episodes, because they almost always signaled an upcoming appearance by Leshi Qwan.
Was he really there, taunting her from beyond the walls? Or a thousand miles away? It had taken a long time to get wherever she was.
Qwan favored a number of tricks, such as sodomizing her digital likeness, or peering up at her genitalia. All followed by the same old pitch: “Tell where the money goes—and I will set you free.”
But Maylo
hadn’t
told him ... and had no intention of doing so. Her determination stemmed from principle, stubbornness, and no small amount of fear. What would Qwan do afterward? Turn her loose, just as he said he would? Or kill her? The second possibility seemed more likely.
That being the case, the executive huddled in a corner and waited for the next round of torture to begin. It didn’t take long. The walls could sweat, she knew that, and was forced to lick them in order to get drinking water.
There were various flavors, including something akin to perspiration, sulfur water, and, on one occasion—just to mess with her mind—peppermint.
Maylo felt the dampness behind her back and knew the water had started. It had been a long time since her last drink, and she was thirsty. She turned toward the wall, extended her tongue, and allowed the tip to touch the wall. What would the liquid taste like? Sweat? Urine?
The answer surprised and shocked her. The wet stuff tasted like water! Slightly salty ... but otherwise fine.
Thrilled, and eager to harvest every drop she could, Maylo licked in ever widening circles.
Then, as if to please her, what had started as little more than beads of water grew into trickles. It wasn’t long before the trickles jerked spasmodically and became six-inch jets of water. They shot from the walls and drenched her from above. She felt them with her face, hands, and body, glad to rid herself of accumulated filth and amazed by the extent of her good fortune.
Maylo stopped drinking as the water started to lap around her ankles—when she realized the drains were plugged. Not by accident, but on purpose, as part of a brand new torture.
Suddenly, as if to confirm her suspicions, the ceiling screen flashed on. Maylo blinked, squinted into the light, and saw a school of fish circle above her head. She saw the bottom of a boat and bubbles as someone entered the water.
The diver kicked his way downward. It was Leshi Qwan, or rather a
digital
Leshi Qwan, who had no need of a mask, tanks, or fins. His beautifully cut business suit was impervious to the water.
“Why, Miss Chien-Chu! What a pleasant surprise. Fancy meeting you down here. How’s the water? No offense ... but you were due for a bath. Whoa ... Nice pair of tits you have there! I’d grab ’em, except that I’m somewhere else.”
Water poured down over the top of Maylo’s head as the executive appeared to hover above. She blinked and wiped her face. The water was up to her knees by then, and continuing to rise. “Screw you.”
“Ah,” Qwan replied. “If only you could! But let’s stick to business—
your
business, or what used to be your business.”
The video walls came to sudden life, and a mix of lethal life-forms seemed to circle the cell. Maylo recognized some as sharks ... and knew the rest were extraterrestrial.
She forced herself to concentrate. Something new was in the offing—a deal of some sort. Maylo wanted to be strong, wanted to say no, but felt the water clutch her waist. Was it colder, or did it just seem that way? Her neck hurt from looking upward. “If you have something to say ... then say it.”
The businessman smiled and nodded. “Good,
very
good. Here’s the deal ... I place you in charge of Chien-Chu Enterprises, it becomes a sub, and you take a percentage. It’s the best offer you’re going to get. Whaddya say?”
The floor screen came to life, brightly colored coral appeared, and a sea snake skimmed the bottom of her feet. The water was up to her armpits by then.
Maylo was frightened, very frightened, which made the offer tempting. So tempting that she might have accepted, if it hadn’t been for the arrogance in Qwan’s eyes, and the leer on his face. The word seemed to launch itself. “No.”
Qwan morphed into a Surillian barbed tail, showed double rows of serrated teeth, and zigzagged away. The executive’s words were muffled by the surrounding water. It slapped Maylo’s face, and she was forced to swim.
“So long, bitch,” the barbed tail seemed to say. “I’ll see you in hell.”
Maylo swam in circles, hit her head on the ceiling, and heard herself scream.
The sit room was relatively quiet compared to the way it had been during Harco’s attack. There was a burp of radio traffic as a long-range patrol reported from the desert, the buzz of routine conversation, and the whisper of air passing through overhead ducts.
Booly watched with skepticism as Ho took Chien-Chu’s disk, dropped it into a slot, and triggered the holo.
There were thousands, perhaps
hundreds
of thousands of people being held by the new regime. Why risk his troops for this one? Because her uncle was a billionaire? No, not now, not ever.
From the moment the video stabilized, it was obvious that it had been captured surreptitiously. There was the strange ceiling-eye view, for one thing, not to mention the fact that the audio sounded hollow and was peppered with static.
Antisurveillance
static that had been processed, filtered, and rerecorded.
Still, the holo was serviceable enough, and Booly watched with reluctant interest as the threesome played footage taken at the gravel pit known as IQA-14.
Maylo Chien-Chu was nothing like the spoiled society girl that he had expected. She was smart, brave, and undeniably attractive. She turned into the shot, looked directly into the lens, and pointed to Booly’s left. “How ’bout you, Citizen? You’re wearing blue.... What do the blues expect of
you?
”
There were more words, followed by chaos, but it was Maylo Chien-Chu’s eyes that captured and held the officer’s attention. Eyes that sent a chill down his spine.
Where that holo ended, another began. There were gaps that the surveillance team had been unable to cover, but the basics were clear. Booly watched from the vantage point of a steadily circling fly cam as they placed a hood over Maylo’s head, forced the executive into the back of an unmarked car, and took her away.
Chien-Chu handled the narration. “My company has been around for a long time and, like any successful organism, owes its longevity to a number of survival strategies. A number of protective processes kicked in the moment that Noam Inc. seized control of the company.
“In spite of the fact that most of the revenues seemed to disappear, they were actually siphoned away, and delivered to secret subsidiaries, front companies, and numbered accounts.
“Some of those funds go straight to suppliers, some are channeled to employees, and the rest support Radio Free Earth, the resistance, and military operations such as your own.
“This Qwan person
knows
the money has been diverted—and wants it for himself. That’s why he took my niece.”
The words were delivered calmly, almost matter-of-factly, but Booly sensed the other man’s anguish. More than that, he discovered that in spite of the fact that he had never met the woman in question, he shared the other man’s concern. The officer watched as a van, with a barely seen figure sitting in back, was admitted to a heavily guarded building.
“So, where are they holding her? It’s a long walk to Los Angeles.”
Chien-Chu wasn’t fooled. The words had an edge—but his eyes told a different story. He took the plunge.
“Fortunately, for reasons I’m not sure of, Noam Inc. moved my niece to Africa. She’s being held just north of Johannesburg. A hop, skip, and a jump from where we stand.”
Booly took a remote off the worktable, clicked through a series of wall maps, and stopped on the one he wanted. It showed the southern half of Africa. The “hop, skip, and a jump” that Chien-Chu dismissed so lightly spann
ed the former countries of Ethiopa, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Botswana, plus a healthy chunk of South Africa.
Impossible to make the trip on the ground, given the fact that Harco’s forces were out there waiting for them, and iffy by air even with Tyspin’s help. Stupid, really, unless . . .
The officer moved the cursor onto the word “Johannesburg” and clicked. A map of the city appeared. “Do you know where the building is?”
Chien-Chu nodded.
Booly handed him the remote. “Show me.”
Chien-Chu directed the cursor to the north, east of Soweto, and clicked on one particular intersection. A shot obtained from an orbital satellite bloomed. The buildings appeared flat and rectangular. The shadows suggested that they were three or four stories tall.
The industrialist chose the one to the southeast and used the arrow to circle it. “This is the building where Maylo is being held.”
Booly frowned. “An office building?”
“No, a warehouse.”
The officer nodded. A firefight inside an office building could produce a lot of civilian casualties. He had no desire to turn one tragedy into many. “What, if anything, have we got on the building? Security systems? Number of guards? Anything would help.”
Chien-Chu felt a sudden surge of hope and hurried to offer a second disk. “Not everything—but quite a bit.”
Booly summoned Captain Winters, Lieutenant Nightslip, and First Sergeant Neversmile. They discussed strategy, timing, logistics, and more long into the night.
Later, while lying awake in his room, Booly wondered about his motives. Why had he agreed to go? Because Maylo Chien-Chu could help the resistance effort? Or because of her eyes? They haunted his dreams.
The sun was little more than a quickly fading orange-red smear by the time the fly form deposited Booly, Fykes, Nightslip, and the Special Recon Squadron’s 2nd platoon at Djibouti’s airport. The 1st platoon had already arrived.
There was a thump as the skids touched down. Booly released the safety harness, stood, and pulled his gear out of a rack.
Lieutenant Barr had ferried Booly across the gulf what seemed like years before. She spoke via the PA system. “Good luck, Colonel.... Sorry I can’t take you all the way.”
Though large, and well suited for carrying heavy loads over relatively short distances, the insectoid fly forms didn’t have sufficient range to cover the nearly six-thousand-mile round trip without a stop to refuel. The fact that the cyborg had a top speed of only five hundred mph didn’t help either.
Booly offered a thumbs-up to the nearest camera. “That makes two of us, Lieutenant.... Watch your six.”
Barr didn’t
have
eyes, not anymore, but she had feelings, and the fact that Booly knew who she was, and had taken a moment to speak with her, meant a great deal. She said, “Roger that, sir,” wished she could say more, and bit a nonexistent lip.
A security team had spent most of the previous day sweeping the airport for electronic surveillance devices. They vacuumed up no less than 3,216 of the tiny machines, all left by Harco’s forces.
The next step was to “turn” the bugs by feeding false input into their CPUs. The stratagem wouldn’t work forever, the muties were too smart for that, but the entire mission, travel time included, was slated for ten hours, or twelve, if things got hairy.
Additional security had been provided by Captain Margo Ny, who, along with a force of carefully reconditioned Trooper IIs, patrolled the airport’s perimeter. They had orders to kill anything that moved, and, judging from the occasional rattle of machine gun fire, they took the responsibility seriously.
That made for lots of dead snakes, rodents, and anything else that might conceal, harbor, or actually be an enemy surveillance device. Servos whined, sensors probed, and the scent of ozone tinged the warm night air.
Booly made his way down the roll-up stairs, felt the heat push its way up through the soles of his boots, and started to walk.