Authors: Joel Shepherd
Cali Wiley had been a loudmouth fool, Danya recalled very well. But she'd been only twelve, and she hadn't deserved to end up dead in a ditch by an old warehouse in Rimtown. No one knew how. In Droze, they rarely did, and few people asked.
“Danya,” said Kiril with sudden conviction, “we should go back to Droze with Sandy and get all the other street kids, and bring them back here. It's not fair that they're still in Droze, and we're here.”
“We've talked about this, Kiril,” Danya said quietly. “She's not allowed. I know she'd like to. But she wasn't really allowed to help
us
. She broke the rules for us.”
“She could kill all the gangsters,” Kiril said stubbornly. “She could stop them hurting street kids.” Not all of them were gangsters, but to Kiril, every bad guy in Droze was a gangster. He hadn't been old enough for a more detailed understanding.
“Don't you think it's unfair of us to ask Sandy to go around killing people
for us?” Danya asked him. “She's very good at it, but she doesn't really like to do it.” Again he looked at Svetlana. Svetlana gazed back sombrely.
“I think she would,” said Kiril, his brown eyes wide and earnest. “I think she'd kill anyone for us.”
“Yeah,” Svetlana murmured, in a more quietly adult tone than Danya had ever heard her use. “I think she would too, Kiri. But that's all the more reason why we shouldn't ask.”
Danya woke at 7 to go running as he usually did, slipping out quietly so he didn't wake Svetlana, still asleep in her pyjamas on her side of the bed. Kiril had adjusted to sleeping alone, but Svetlana still came in sometimes, when something bothered her. Lifetime habits that your lives had once depended on were hard to break, and the kids at school who'd found out and teased them and made dirty jokes could go to hell; it just increased the number of kids he had no interest spending time with. Give
them
five years in Droze, scared to sleep in case someone killed them in the night, and see how fast
they
started sleeping in groups.
He came downstairs carrying his shoes, to find Sandy already in the kitchen, with a small arsenal laid out on the benches. The understairs secure safe was open, a steel compartment behind the panelling, unlockable only with secure uplink codes. Within, now laid on the benches, were a pair of snub-nosed assault rifles, three pistols, various magazines, an underside grenade launcher (currently detached) and a brace of multipurpose grenades, to be fired or thrown.
“Morning,” she said breezily, cleaning the stripped-down barrel of one rifle. She had synthetic oil out and cleaning implements. Every weapon gleamed, and the air smelled of lubricant. She wore neat-fitting cargo pants and a sleeveless shirt, bare arms lean with muscle.
Danya submitted to the morning kiss so that he could take a closer look at the weapons. “You keep grenades here?”
“Sure. They're actually safer than guns. You can't set them off without uplink or biometric triggers.” Meaning that the molecular sensors would have to recognise her finger contact, or her breath, before priming. Unactivated, the charge was as chemically inert as granite; you could play cricket with them.
Danya fetched a banana and some juice, watching her fast hands reassemble the weapon, automatic, like tying shoelaces.
“You mind waiting until Poole gets here?” Sandy asked him.
Danya blinked, stretching his quads, mouth full of banana. “Poole's coming?”
“Yep. He's on security detail for you guys today.”
“He's coming to school?” Sandy nodded, disassembling one of the pistols at similar speed. “Cool.” Cautiously. It had happened a few times before, and the school didn't mind, Canas being the neighbourhood it was. “Something going on?”
“Nothing I can talk about.” Threading the barrel with the cleaning tool. “And I'll be taking Kiril today. He gets the day off school.”
“Okay.” He did his calf stretches against the bench with the just-cleaned rifle, getting a better look. “When are you going to teach me to use one of these?”
“Hopefully never. But I can't stop you from learning when you're old enough.”
“Yeah. Cause whoever might want to hurt us will be nice enough to wait until I'm older.”
Sandy looked at him, eyes lidded as she cleaned. Weighing options, but for now, unconvinced. “You gonna carry to school?” she asked drily.
“Seems a pity to have them at home and not be able to use them if I needed to,” he reasoned.
“And Svetlana will want lessons if you get them, and we all know how that turned out, last time she had a gun.”
“Yeah. She saved my life.” Sandy's gaze remained unreadable. That was odd, usually her guard was down at home. Reminders of Svetlana's most recent and profound trauma usually got a reaction. Today, nothing.
Sandy polarised the cruiser's windows on the way in, so that Kiril could not see where they were going. In reality, it was Kingly, a beachside suburb beyond the main Tanushan grid and not far from her favourite surfing spots. All network traffic blanked and Kiril wearing his repressor headband, she landed on a sandy vacant lot that was used as a temporary transition zone, then drove to a nondescript suburban house using forward cameras and into the carport. She depolarised the windows as the carport sealed behind them, and interior lights revealed bare concrete.
“Sandy, where are we?” asked Kiril, looking up from his compslate.
Sandy fought back a smile, shutting down the cruiser systems individually to make sure none of the automatics would relay something they shouldn't. “Why did I polarise the windows, Kiril?”
“So I couldn't see.”
“So why would I tell you where we are?”
Kiril thought about it. “Oh. Sorry.”
“Don't be sorry. Stow that slate and let's go. Out this side, please.” Gesturing him to climb across and come out through her driver's door. He did, as she pulled her pistol. “Here.” She picked him up with her right armâhe was getting too big for that really, but weight was hardly an issue for her.
“But I wanna walk!” he insisted as she went to the only obvious door in the carport's concrete walls.
“Tough,” she said. “Open the door, would you?” He did that, as her hands were full. Sandy stood side profile for a moment in the doorway, pistol not raised but ready. Ahead, another stretch of corridor, all dark.
“Why do you have your gun out?” Kiril asked, noticing that for the first time. He'd seen her handle weapons before, but never like this, entering some strange Tanushan place.
“I'm being very careful this morning,” said Sandy, walking down the corridor, adjusting her gait for Kiril's weight. “We're going to see an old friend of mine.”
“Who?”
“You'll see in a minute.”
“I can't see anything.”
“That's okay, I can see fine.”
At the downward stairs Sandy saw defensive emplacements in the walls, probably gas, possibly those sonic blast weapons they'd used in the shuttle. Anti-GI defences, for sure. But FedInt would never risk hurting Kiril. Assuming they knew all of what Kiril was. Given they had Takewashi to talk to, she didn't doubt it.
The corridor ended on a new door, which opened as she approached, flooding the darkness with light. Here was another bare room but for a pair of lean, doglike creatures who stood and studied her with unreadably curious demeanours.
“Oh look,” said Sandy, to blunt any misgivings Kiril might have. “Nice doggies.”
“They're not dogs,” said Kiril. “They're asura. They come from Emerald, they're really smart.” The asura circled aside from their bed baskets on the floor, lean-faced and sinewy. Bodies more catlike in their agility, but the faces were all dog, thrusting snout and pricked ears. “They're kind of dangerous,” Kiril added as he recalled what he'd read.
“Well, luckily for us, so am I.” Sandy walked slowly past them to the next door. The asura weren't there for fighting, she knew. Their smell was exceptional and when combined with intelligence made them suitable for anti-GI work. She wasn't especially worriedâif FedInt hadn't trained these two to behave, they'd be searching for two new ones very quickly. She usually liked animals, but not these ones, with Kiril on one arm. And not some humans either.
Beyond the next door was an open-plan house, pale-blue floor tiles and white walls, overlooking a beach. As Sandy had suspected, the tunnel had led beneath dunes to another house. It appeared to be built into the dune face here, with sand above. It meant there was only one point of assault for any attackerâthe windows onto the beach, about which there were doubtless many other defences.
In the living room before the windows, Shin got to his feet. With him were three other agents, two men and a woman, similarly rising. And Ragi, wearing a nice suit, but semi-casual without a tie. Like a young man dressing up for the first time for a formal function, Sandy thought . . . which was not far from the truth.
Amongst them all sat Takewashi in his usual kimono, this one was white with silver trim, in a comfortable white chair before the brilliant sunlight of a Tanushan beach. Sandy glimpsed a surfer, out beyond the break, awaiting a wave. The swell did not look promising today, but surfers were optimists.
All stood for her arrival, Takewashi shakily, on his cane. Seated alongside, Ragi hovered, ready to offer assistance. Sandy refrained from rolling her eyes.
“Cassandra!” said Takewashi, his face creasing into a smile that hid his eyes completely. “Oh, and you have brought me a visitor! This young man must be Kiril Kresnov.” Sandy let Kiril down, to stand by her side. But he took her right hand, unasked. “Kiril, my name is Renaldo Takewashi. I'm an old friend of your mother's.”
It made Sandy edgy, this man pressing these concepts into Kiril's head.
None of the kids were entirely clear on the whole “mother” thingâDanya and Svetlana had known their real mother, and Kiril had heard stories about her. Sandy did not want them to forget and had even helped them to find information on Lidya Seravitch, with photographs and life history, as much as Federation investigation into League archives could reveal from this distance. They'd not yet taken to calling Sandy “mum,” and Sandy wasn't sure she wanted them to. She was their legal guardian, and best adult friend, and lethal protector. The head of their family, such as it was. That was plenty, but now Takewashi, for his own purposes, came thrusting that word at Kiril. Imposing judgements on him.
“Hello,” said Kiril. “I've heard about you. Sandy told me.”
“Kiril,” Sandy reminded, “call him Mr Takewashi. That's the proper thing to say with an older man.”
Kiril nodded. “How did you get to Tanusha?” he asked, completely forgetting what she'd just told him. Sandy nearly sighed. “Were you on that ship that the League were trying to blow up?”
Takewashi straightened, with a look of amazement that was part real and part exaggeration for the boy. “Well! Cassandra, you have a smart one! Yes, I was on that ship, Kiril. And do you know? You were one of the reasons I wanted to come back to Callay so badly.”
Kiril looked unsure, a half-frown half-smile. Uncertain if he was being made fun of. “Me?”
“Yes. Please, won't everyone sit?” Takewashi gestured around. All the agents looked to Shin first and sat only at his indication. A two-person sofa was beside Takewashi's chair, at ninety degrees and angled to the windows. Sandy took it and patted the cushions for Kiril to get up alongside.
Shin and a few of the agents were looking with some concern at Kiril. “Cassandra,” said Shin, “why did you bring him?”
Probably it upset their psych profiles. They knew she was protective, dangerously so if threatened. They wouldn't think she'd bring him to work, especially not
this
work. Which told her that they
didn't
know the full details of what he was. Or not what she suspected. And any time she did something that violated FedInt's psych profile, they got nervous.
“He knows,” said Sandy, looking at Takewashi. “All these little seeds he's sowed across the galaxy. Ragi was one. Weren't you, Ragi?”
“It would appear that way,” said Ragi. Looking at Takewashi with something approaching . . . not worship, no. Ragi had an IQ off the charts and was far too rational for that. But there was longing in his eyes, and the hope of answers. “From the beginning, there were few other explanations of why I could exist. Different as I am.”
“The uplinks in Kiril's head are another,” said Sandy. “Renaldo was hooked into the corporate research programs on Droze from the beginning. After all, he's old enough to have been in on the original discovery. Weren't you?”
With a steady gaze at Takewashi. Takewashi's gaze dropped briefly to consider the pistol, still in her hand. No one had demanded that she put it away or give it up. All knew that she was nearly as lethal without it, and one did not invite Cassandra Kresnov into a room unless you were confident she would not hurt you. Thus their disquiet at unpredicted behaviour.
“Its immediate aftermath, yes,” Takewashi conceded. “Under stand, Cassandra, Chancelry Corporation was only small then. A few scientists and businessmen, making a joint exploratory venture. They discovered Talee outposts on Pantala and wanted to monetise their discovery. Before League Gov stepped in and took it from them.”
“Which they did.”
“Oh, but with a large slice for Chancelry,” said Takewashi. “But they did not know how to make sense of what they'd found. Thus they called for my expertise, and I was able to understand the technology. It was
so
advanced, Cassandra. So advanced. I used every simulation then available to me, every processor, every AI matrix, and still I felt that my brain would bleed from the effort.” He spread his hands widely within flowing sleeves. “And yet here we are.” Indicating both her and Ragi.