The Unincorporated Future (36 page)

“‘Socialist’ is probably too generous a word, Mr. President,” added Brenda. “We might be communist by the time we’re done.” But for a slight grimace Hektor barely dignified her comment, choosing instead to cast his eyes toward Franklin.

“The Assembly has voted me emergency powers to deal with the crises, but apparently you’ve gotten them to make it UHF-wide, which means I can do what, exactly?”

“Just about anything you want to, Mr. President. The Assembly’s already been suspended, both literally—as in all frozen and packed away in polystyrene—and politically. Right now, you can pass any law and enforce it till the Assembly reconvenes or the election takes place later this year.”

“In that case, I’d better win this war in the next eleven months, because I doubt, under the present circumstances, I’m getting reelected.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be so worried, Mr. President,” said Tricia. “Something can always be arranged.”

“Ah yes,” Hektor said, turning now toward his favorite Cabinet member, “you
are
certain you can find the traitors who brought down our defensive array and left us open for this attack.”

“Whenever they’re needed, Mr. President.”

“Well, you’ve all got your work cut out for you,” said Hektor, standing, “and I’ve got a performance to give.” The rest of the Cabinet rose and exited. All except for Tricia, who had more pressing business to attend to.

“I know that look, Trish. What’ve you got?”

Tricia’s lips drew back into a catlike snarl. She pulled out her DijAssist, placed it on the table, and hit PLAY. The look on her face was evidence to what she’d already heard. When the recorded conversation between Trang and Jackson was over, the Minister of Internal Affairs looked sadly over to her boss.

“Treacherous bastard,” she said.

Hektor stared, slack jawed, at the DijAssist. He, more than most, knew that rarity of such moments, when years of hard work and strategy, push, and pull aligned in a dance of such perfect symmetry: one fleet heading in one direction; one fleet heading in the other. It was the boldest of moves, sacrificing queens in an all-or-nothing gambit. And the one man who’d proved time and time again that he could seize any opening, exploit any opportunity had let him down. How, at the precipice of all they’d fought for, could Trang have been so blind and betrayed so many? There wasn’t a soft bone in that man’s body—Hektor had been convinced of it—and yet, the man had turned tail and run. Run from his destiny, his people, his duty. And now, as usual, it was Hektor Sambianco who’d been left to pick up the pieces, left to clean up the mess.

Hektor leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table as he ran his fingers through his hair. “He could’ve destroyed the heart of the Alliance and he let them off the hook—for what? A ruined planet? Are you fucking kidding me?”

“I know, sir.”

“I just don’t get it.”

“I have operatives waiting on his flagship, Mr. President. Say the word: Trang and his lapdog Jackson will suffer a freak accident.”

“You will do no such thing,” Hektor said wearily.

“You’re going to let them get away with treason? Collusion with the enemy? Failure to follow a superior’s order?”

Hektor gave his minister a wan smile. “I wanna shoot the bastard as much as you do, trust me, but in case you forgot, the people love him. And more important, we need him to destroy J. D. Black, and so far he seems to be the only one who can even come close. No, Tricia. We can’t kill him just yet. Not till he wins the war for us.”

“But he doesn’t want to fight her anymore. How do you win with someone who doesn’t want to fight?”

“By making them realize that the price of peace will be higher than the price of war, that the only way we’ll ever be safe is when we’re happily incorporated and everyone in the Outer Alliance is dead. Just how that’s going to happen, I’m not completely sure. But between the two of us, I have no doubt we’ll find a way.”

Presidential docking station
AWS
Lightning
Via Cereana

Marilynn slipped off a ship she was never officially on. The dependable vessel somehow made the trip almost two days faster than the best projections could’ve hoped for but had suffered grievously for its troubles. It had been the only way that Marilynn was going to get to Sandra and Dante before Sebastian got to her.

Marilynn stepped into a privacy booth and took a moment to change the color of her hair, the shape of her facial structure, and the tone of her complexion. Nothing overt, just enough to avoid easy recognition. While she was at it, she demoted herself once more—to lieutenant.
More than enough of that rank around to get lost in the crowd,
she thought. She then made her way over to the Cliff House. Between security checks and normal bureaucratic wait times, she figured to be at the President’s office in twenty minutes. It took all of five.
How,
she asked herself,
is it possible that I’m standing at the door of the Triangle Office without having once been stopped?
Red flags flew.
No TDCs, she thought.
They were always posted, whether the President was in residence or not. She used her all access code—rejected. Her heart began beating more quickly. Slowly Marilynn looked around. There was no alarm or drill in progress. There were people in the hallways doing things one would expect in the executive branches—delivering data cubes and such—but she realized she had seen no important individuals or key members of their staff. It was as if every important person in the executive branch had suddenly decided not to be there.

“Excuse me,” asked Marilynn, flagging down a passing clerk, “where is everyone?”

“Oh, you mean the important people,” he sniffed.

“I suppose.”

“Medal award ceremony.”

“For what?”

“Battle of Ceres. Honor the heroes, that sorta thing.”

“Lotta heroes. Must be a pretty big venue,” said Marilynn.

“Nah,” answered the clerk, glad to dish information. “This was just for the Presidential Guard and the Cabinet. They’re in the Grand Ballroom at the base of the Cliff House. Invitation only. Guess you weren’t important enough either.”

“Guess not. How come there’s no one in front of the Triangle Office?”

“I don’t know,” answered the clerk, exasperated. “There was one about a half hour ago.”

The man gave Marilynn a small crystal, looked around, and said, “Call me when you catch a break. I know the best clubs around here.”

Marilynn took the crystal and the clerk moved off.

When she saw he was out of view, she tossed it in a nearby waste bin and put the middle and index fingers of both hands to her temples. She looked for all the world like someone nursing a migraine—in front of the President’s office.

In an instant, Marilyn was in the Neuro. It didn’t take very long to realize that something was very, very wrong. For starters, it was not the Neuro; it was a box, and a small one at that; maybe twenty-five meters square. And when she tried to leave the data node and go into another part of the Cerean Neuro, she found her access blocked. After only a moment, she gave up and sent herself into the door mechanism itself. It took a second for her to override the foreign code, and as she did the door slid open. She then disengaged from the Neuro and slipped back into her body, only to feel a blast of air rushing past her from the corridor into the Triangle Office.

Any citizen of the Alliance knew what that meant: vacuum. Marilynn peered carefully into the Triangle Office and quickly discovered a set of combat boots sticking out from behind the President’s desk. Without thinking, she rushed in and came upon the strewn figure. His patch read CORPORAL GUSTAVO LANGER. Besides being out cold, the corporal had also turned a nasty shade of blue. Marilynn ripped the corporal’s med kit from a front vest, unclipped his battle armor, and exposed his chest. Then just as quickly, she slammed the kit onto the exposed torso. It began working immediately, pumping oxygen and other vital drugs into his depleted body. She could only hope the combat-grade nanites in his system had sent what little oxygen remained to his brain. She’d known spacers who’d been able to survive without air for up to an hour but almost all those cases were in space, where the cold acted as your friend. Some bastard had actually turned
up
the heat in the office. Marilynn pulled the corporal’s comm unit from his clip and was about to call for help, when she heard the door slam behind her.

“Nitelowsen,” came Sebastian’s mellifluous voice, “is that really you?”

Without thinking, Marilynn let the comm unit slip from her hand as she placed her fingertips to her temples. The floor’s magnetic grid suddenly went into overdrive, slamming her body to the floor with enough force to bruise her ribs. But her consciousness was already free in the Neuro.

They were in the Triangle Office. Sebastian was sitting on the couch, hands clasped on his knees, legs crossed over each other. He seemed truly sad.

“I want you to know,” he said, “that I had no intention of harming you. You weren’t even supposed to be here.”

“What have you done, Sebastian?”

“Ironically, hardly anything,” he said. “This was hatched by McKenzie and Sinclair. I’ve had my part, but it’s only to keep the other avatars unaware of what’s taking place till that woman’s gone.”

“That’s why the Cliff House is cut off from the rest of the Neuro.”

“Yes, but you would only know about it if you were in here. If you try to access this data node, you will find it, or one exactly like it, filled with enough false images to keep the average avatar happy.”

“Dante wouldn’t be fooled, or is he in on this also?”

Sebastian smiled. “This is my idea. Actually, if my fellow Council members knew about this, I imagine I’d be expelled. As for Dante, he’s occupied with a manufactured but seemingly real threat which has the rest of the Council on tenterhooks.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because the air is being sucked out of the office again, and you did not attach yourself to any oxygen like you did for the corporal.”

“You are going to kill me to help those traitors kill Sandra?”

“She’s a threat to the avatar race, Marilynn. All you humans are, but she more than most. With her gone, I’ll be able to convince the rest of avatarity that we should go our own way. It won’t be a difficult sell. I’m truly sorry, but in ten minutes you will be unable to maintain a link to the Neuro. Is there any environment you want to spend your last moments in?”

Sebastian watched as Marilynn’s eyes quickly scanned the room. His head shook slowly from side to side. “Don’t bother. I’d hate for you to spend your last minutes of life searching for something that doesn’t exist.”

Marilynn stopped looking and once again regarded her captor.

“Good,” said Sebastian. “At least you listen to reason. Pity more humans aren’t like you, Marilynn. This might actually have worked.”

“Where are they?”

“The backdoor devices? I’ve removed them from the armory and here. We will no longer allow humans to travel with abandon in our domain. And there are no weapons you can use on me. They’re all locked in the armory as well. I’ve also blocked all egress points from this node.”

“In that case,” said Marilynn, “I could use a drink.” She walked over to the bar, which, unlike its version in the physical world, had the finest selection of alcohol anyone could have hoped for.

“As long as you’re up,” asked Sebastian, “would you mind fixing me a gin and tonic? I’m parched.”

“Of course,” replied Marilynn as she lifted a pulse pistol from behind the bar.

On seeing the gun, Sebastian dived off the couch in alarm, and before Marilynn could get a clean shot off, the avatar blinked out of existence. With Sebastian gone, Marilynn was able to regain control of the environment in the Triangle Office. She quickly restored the magnetic field and air pressure to normal. Then she put some barriers around the virtual space she needed to protect and left the Neuro.

*   *   *

Marilynn rejoined her body. She had a nasty oxygen-deprivation headache and what felt like a few bruised ribs. But she was relieved to see that the color had returned to Corporal Langer’s face and that he was breathing normally. She hoisted the corporal onto her shoulders and, grunting against his magnetized weight and her bruised ribs, carried him back to the bar and placed him on one of the stools.

“Neh tahm fa dinks,” he managed to slur, leaning forward onto the ledge of the bar.

“Not drinks, Corporal,” said Marilynn, smiling patiently as she pulled the corporal back off the ledge by the scruff of his shirt. “Deliverance.” Holding him firmly with one hand, she began to tilt the bar with her other hand until there was enough leverage for her to fling it open and onto the ground. Both of them stared down into an inky black tube about one and a half meters in diameter.
Thank God for paranoid Presidents,
thought Marilynn.
Now, let’s just pray Sebastian doesn’t know about Sandra’s little body shooter.
Marilynn steadied the corporal, making sure he wouldn’t topple over on the stool, then grabbed the two exposed parachutes that had been attached to the hollow part of the bar’s base. She clipped one chute to the corporal’s back and then the other to hers. She then helped the corporal to his feet, grabbed him around the waist, and sat him over the ledge of the tube, legs dangling inside the mouth.