Project Starfighter (4 page)

Getting his bearings, Chris started
making his way through the crowds, favouring moving around the
outskirts of the squares, rather than straight through the middle.
With his injury he did not want to invite trouble. It would take a
little longer to hobble around, but at least he could spare his foot
any further trauma. But his heart almost stopped when he heard the
sound of a robotic voice.

“Good evening, Mr and Mrs
Salisbury. I am currently attempting to locate these people. Should
you know of their whereabouts, I would be very grateful if you could
let me know. The Wade-Ellen Asset Protection Corporation is offering
substantial compensation for any information that might lead me to
them.”

Chris immediately ducked down behind
a nearby noodle stand, peeping over the top. He could see the drone
just a short way off. As with the one that had arrived at the diner,
the drone was projecting a holographic image above its head,
detailing the people it was looking for.

Mr and Mrs Salisbury peered at the
images before looking at one another and shrugging. “I’m sorry,”
Mr Salisbury said, “but I don’t know any of them.”

“Oh. Well, thank you, anyway,”
the drone responded in what Chris had come to recognise as a false,
chatty persona. It would revert to the flat, monotone octave of the
standard AI system once its tasks were complete. The drone shut off
the projection, lifted off the ground and hovered over the crowds for
a time before settling down on the ground once more.

“Good evening, Mr Wallingford ...”
it started again.

“Good evening, Ms McCullen ...”
A different voice now.

Chris sighted a second drone
settling down as it began to question another member of the public.
Hell! Now he had to pick up the pace. Not only to get to Sid before
anyone else did, but also before the drones spotted him.

He started off as the drones rose
once more into the air and disappeared off further into the crowds.
Hobbling through the various squares and roads on his way to the
Watergardens, Chris hoped not to hear the blare of a siren behind him
indicating one of the drones had spotted his uniform. An immediate
change of clothes was vital.

~

It
did not take Chris much longer to reach the Watergardens. He had
anticipated the need to tail one of the other residents into the
building but discovered that the main doors were open. Sid’s flat
was located on the sixth floor. Chris took the lift up, feeling his
heart thumping harder as he made his way down the corridor to 617.
The door was open a crack. Too late.

“Hello?” he asked.

No response.

He pushed the door wider, swearing
as he came upon the scene in the living room. The body of a man lay
face down on the floor, blood from a deep wound in his head seeping
into the carpet and staining it a dark red.

Much
too late.

Regardless, Chris hobbled inside and
over to the body, kneeling down next to it and rolling it over. He
started. It wasn’t Sid, not unless the man had in fact been a
short-haired woman this whole time. He set about inspecting the body,
to look for some form of identification, when a loud bang – the
sound of the front door slamming shut – came from behind. He turned
around just in time for a boot to connect with his stomach, hard.

Winded, Chris rolled onto his back
and tried immediately to stand, putting all his weight on the wrong
foot. He went down again and was scrambling to get away from his
attacker when a gun was pushed in his face.

“What do you want? You after the
reward money, too?”

Chris was face to face with a man in
his early twenties. Short, black hair, and a mixture of anger and
terror in his eyes.
This
was Sid Wilson, no doubt about it.
Chris began raising a hand in a gesture of surrender.

“Keep your hands on the floor!”
Sid shouted.

“Sid, it’s me; it’s Chris
Bainfield,” Chris said, lowering his hands once more.

“No, you’re not,” Sid said,
shaking his hand. He was trembling terribly, the gun jumping all over
the place.

“I am. I’m not lying.”

“Prove it.”

Chris glanced at the uniform he
still wore. Clearly it wasn’t enough. “I sent you a message from
the Morton motorway, about nine miles outside the city. You sent me
three back.”

“Uh huh,” Sid nodded. “Why did
you take so long to respond?”

“I told you in my last message,”
Chris explained.

“I never got a message back after
I said where I was staying.” Sid was shaking his head. “Chris is
dead.”

“No, I’m not. I stole a hover
from outside the diner after the others surrendered Wooding to
WEAPCO. I was chased by a drone and some bots. They blasted me off
the road. There’s now a huge hole in the barrier of the bridge over
the Atlas Gorge where my hover came off the road.”

“If you were blasted off the road
and into the gorge, how come you are still alive?” Sid asked. “Hey!
Stay where you are!”

“I jumped to the underside
maintenance platform, just as the hover went over,” Chris said,
doing his best to keep his voice steady and even. “I broke my foot
in the fall. And I’ve got to tell you, it really, really hurts.”
He nodded to his foot. Sid didn’t look.

“I’m not making this up, Sid,”
Chris said. “It’s really me.”

Sid said nothing, apparently mulling
the explanation over. Chris glanced to the body of the woman on the
floor. He could well believe that she had come to surrender Sid to
the Corporation and claim the reward money. How many more might be on
their way up here? he wondered. They shouldn’t waste time finding
out. Chris saw a gun still in the woman’s hand.

“Don’t even
think
about
it!” Sid warned, clasping his own gun firmer and pushing it forward
as he saw Chris’ eyes lingering on the weapon.

“Sid, listen,” Chris began
pleading, “we need to leave. There are people looking for you. More
people,” he added, his eyes straying once more to the corpse.

How did you convince someone you’d
never met or even spoken to outside of typed characters on a screen
that you really were who you said? They had never even seen
photographs of one another.

“We’re both part of the
Resistance,” Chris said. “We talk on a chat channel called ‘Pasta
Fans’. One of the moderators is a guy called Yuletide14. Your
handle is ‘The Doc’. Mine is ‘BiplaneAlpha’.”

“All those details can be traced,”
Sid said, shaking his head. “You’re either a WEAPCO agent or a
bounty hunter. I’ll give you one more chance. If the next thing you
say isn’t something that only Chris and I would know about, then
I’m going to shoot you in the head.”

Think, Chris, think
. Then he
had it. “About three years ago, when I first started chatting on
the channels, you contacted me privately to tell me that something
bad had happened in your life and that you really needed someone to
talk to. You had come home one day that week to find that your father
had shot your mother before turning the gun on himself.

“He had been depressed with life
and growing more and more angry, arguing with your mother a lot. He
blamed WEAPCO for everything but didn’t know what to do about it
... except to take a quick and easy way out. It was part of the
reason you joined the Resistance in the first place, because you
hated seeing what it was doing to your mum and dad, and wanted to
find a way to stop it. But then you came home to that. You’ve told
everyone since that it was a breakin that had gone wrong, but at the
time you told me, you just needed someone to listen.

“You had a different handle that
day. You normally call yourself ‘The Doc’, but that day you had
named yourself ‘Sparkles’. We talked for an hour. I offered for
you to come over to my place, if you needed company, but you
declined. I never told anyone about that chat and you went back to
calling yourself ‘The Doc’ the next time you logged in.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,
Sid. I still cannot imagine how that must have felt or quite how you
found the strength to pick yourself up and carry on.”

“You helped,” Sid said, lowering
the gun. There was a tear running down his cheek.

Chris wished he could have found a
different memory to use to convince Sid of his identify, but at that
moment it was all he could recall.

“Chris. It
is
you,” Sid
said, wiping away the tears that were continuing to fall.

“Yes, Sid. Yes, it is,” Chris
said, smiling sadly.

“Nice to finally meet you, mate.”

“You too, Sid. You too.”

[Encrypted
Data Transmission]

[To
>> Lance Skillman, CEO]

[CC
>> Erik Overlook, Kline Kethlan]

[From
>> XS-0017811]

[Subject
– re: Security enforcement]

@XS-0017811
– Reporting four of six targets eliminated. Sweeps continuing for
remaining targets.

@SkillmanL
– Who is left?

@XS-0017811
– Sid Wilson and Tyrone Vin.

@SkillmanL
– Have you searched their registered addresses?

@XS-0017811
– Neither Wilson nor Vin appear on any official registers, nor do
they have any employment or address history within the past six
years. All recorded positions prior have been searched, but neither
man was found.

@OverlookE
– Should we increase the ‘reward’ money?

@SkillmanL
– Yes, double it. That should loosen some tongues. Lock down the
airports and starports, if necessary, to prevent Wilson or Vin from
leaving the immediate area, or going off-planet. Also, freeze the
assets of any known members of the Resistance.

@OverlookE
– How many of them have been found and dealt with?

@XS-0017811
– As of now, one-hundred and seventy-three : Ethel Crews, Nicola
Beechwood, Juan Acree, Paul Landes, Sarah Fender, Amber Burke, Jacob
Worth, Patrick Sanderson, Chris Bainfield, Antonio Kersey, Andrew
Linder, Martin Crampton, Janie Haro, Harriet Reams—

@OverlookE
– Pass the names to Commander Kethlan; they are of no use to us.

@SkillmanL
– Report back when you can reliably determine what has happened to
Wilson and Vin.

@XS-0017811
– I am receiving a report of a fatal shooting at the Watergardens
residence, in Tira, on Ceradse. I will notify you if it is connected
to my investigation.

@SkillmanL
– Good. Is there anything else I should be aware of?

@OverlookE
– We are also still missing the Firefly with the human-AI
interface. It is believed that the Resistance may have acquired it.

@SkillmanL
– Can we detonate it remotely?

@OverlookE
– Unfortunately not. It is no longer phoning home or responding to
any commands, which leads me to believe that either it has been
tampered with, or it isn’t willing to give itself up.

@SkillmanL
– You are not making sense, Erik. What do you mean, ‘it is not
willing to give itself up’? It’s a machine.

@OverlookE
– It isn’t any more.

@SkillmanL
– Out with it, man! Stop being so cryptic and explain!

@OverlookE
– We believe it has become sentient; it believes it is alive, and
is now trying to protect itself and ... figure out its place in the
world.

@SkillmanL
– This bothers me a great deal, Erik. It is imperative that we
locate that fighter as soon as possible. AIs should remain AIs; they
shouldn’t lose the A and become a straight I!

@OverlookE
– Yes, sir.

@SkillmanL
– And what about the girl? Have you managed to locate Phoebe Lexx?

@XS-0017811
– XS-0551821 is currently leading the search. There have been no
updates on her whereabouts.

@SkillmanL
– Useless, the pair of you! Search harder!

@XS-0017811
– I will continue to search.

@OverlookE
– My apologies, sir. I was once again focusing my efforts on
dealing with the threat of Mal.

@SkillmanL
– Forget about the cult. Discovering the whereabouts of Phoebe Lexx
is more important.

@OverlookE
– As you wish. Might I suggest that we eliminate her sister, since
we already have her in custody? One twin cannot pose much of a threat
on her own.

@SkillmanL
– We made the mistake of killing one too soon the last time.
Remember – one twin can lead us to another. And you are also wrong
– they are dangerous to us even when not together. Their abilities
are significantly magnified in one another’s presence, but are
still deadly when they are alone. We should not eliminate either
until we have found them both and confirmed their identities. I will
talk to her again and try to convince her to open up. For now, you
have your tasks. Get on with it.

[Transmission
Ends]

~

“Ms
Lexx?”

Ursula snapped out of her daydream
to see that a man had arrived beside her table. He was smartly
dressed, wearing a sharp suit that appeared tailormade, fitting him
perfectly. The man looked to be in his early to mid sixties, his hair
mostly silver. He was offering Ursula his hand.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I
think I got a little distracted. What did you say?”

“I said, would you like to dance?”
the man repeated himself, smiling warmly at her.

Ursula glanced about her. She was
seated in what appeared to be a ballroom, round tables with bottles
of wine dotting them. There were occasional stains on the otherwise
pristine white table cloths, indicating that at some point food had
been served and consumed, though Ursula could not remember having
eaten anything herself.

She was wearing a long, black
evening gown, split at the leg and backless. Many other guests,
dressed equally formally, were gathered around the tables, either
chatting casually to one another and laughing lightly, or watching
others dance. Ursula saw that those nearest to her were eyeing her
closely, as though waiting to see how she would respond to the man’s
request. He was still offering his hand, seemingly willing to wait
forever for Ursula to accept it. Not wishing to appear rude, she did
so, and allowed him to lead her to the dance floor, where, joining
other couples, they began a slow foxtrot.