Killswitch (29 page)

They headed past the broad stairway leading to the upper carpark, headed instead for the outer wall express elevators. There were glass doors and polished surfaces ahead, and at extreme, motion-sensitive visual enhancement, Sandy could see just about everything in the lobby that she needed to see. Or nearly.

"You're posing as Ari's wife now?" asked Sudasarno, as if trying to distract himself from the situation.

"One of many conveniences. You don't think I look Jewish?"

"Not enough for the Tanushan Jewish community." Glancing about once more, anxiously. "They're pretty conservative in a lot of places, don't intermarry much, try to keep the bloodlines intact. The scourge of genetic dispersal, and all that." As a political advisor to the President who tracked voting trends would surely know. And he spared her a glance, taking in the dark hair and shades, the dark jacket, and the effortless poise of her stride. "Frankly, Sandy, I think you're a Jewish mother's worst nightmare."

"And how do you figure that?"

"Because you're an Indonesian Muslim mother's worst nightmare too. If I took you home to meet my mother, I'd be disowned."

Sandy managed a faint shrug past the deadening calm of combatreflex. "Sure, but it'd be worth it for all the great sex, huh?"

"Spoken like someone who doesn't have a mother."

"Don't rub it in."

None of the four express elevators were presently docked. Sandy and Sudasarno waited to one side of the gathering crowd before the elevator doors, confronted by a vast panorama of Tanushan morning cityscape beyond the glass walls.

"Shit," Sudasarno muttered under his breath as the tension began to get the better of him, "I can't believe this is ... are you sure?"

"Sudie," Sandy said calmly, gazing straight ahead and covering both ends of the hallway with her peripheral vision, "in my business, there's no such thing as "sure". If you don't play the odds, you'll die. You'll notice I'm still alive, and I plan to stay that way."

"Why the express elevator? Couldn't we have taken the smaller ..."

"We'd have to change halfway, and if a GI's locked into the local network, she might be able to hack that elevator car, make it stop where she wants it. Express elevators are pretty much unhackable."

"We're not endangering these people?"

"It's a civilian environment," said Sandy. "Everyone's endangered no matter what we do. That's the bitch of these FIA arseholes." One trusted that even an FIA-raised and bred GI had enough civility not to fire into a car full of civilians. One trusted any hostile act would wait for a better opportunity, to ensure she got away. But if the mind in question was as cold as Takawashi had suggested ... Well, in that case, who was safe anywhere?

The car arrived. Sandy waited until the last of the small waiting crowd were in, and then followed with Sudasarno. It deprived them of a view, standing by the doors as the group of perhaps thirty people jostled to grasp the side railings, and gaze out at the breathtaking vista of morning cityscape beyond the transparent shell of the elevator car. Sandy took a casual hold of one of the leather straps upon the ceilingto-floor synthetic ropes that were arranged in a circle within the car. Sudasarno did likewise, as the doors closed with a final, warning bell, and a friendly voice announced on the intercom (in English and then Mandarin-the most common tongue of non-English-speaking tourists) that the express elevator would fly down the side of the tower at a hundred kilometres an hour, and internal gravity would be reduced effectively by a third. Some children clutching to the outer railing, and staring half a kilometre straight down, squealed in delighted anticipation. Another little boy howled in distress, clawing at his mother's leg. Sandy thought briefly of Rhian, and smiled, faintly.

"I hope no one lands on top of us when we're halfway down," a nearby tourist with some unidentifiable off-world accent remarked. People laughed. Sudasarno gave Sandy a wary sideways glance, which Sandy chose to ignore. The car began to descend, with a gathering rush of muffled sound. As gravity grew steadily lighter, and the tower wall began to rush by at blurring speed, Sandy felt the strange, surreal sensation of time appearing to slow. The natural-light colour and texture of the surrounding people, their clothes and hair and skin tones, vanished into a blur of bodytones, temperatures and flash-registered motion as an eyelid blinked, or a parent grasped a child's hand more tightly.

And she turned her head, sharply, to find one humanoid shape amidst the crowd that was not moving, nor grasping tightly upon a rail or strap, nor even admiring the view. Female, about her own height, and gazing straight at her. Of a cooler, nonbiological body temperature. No visible pulse at the jugular.

Sound ceased to register. All extraneous information flows stopped. There was just her, and the other GI, standing perhaps three metres apart with stares locked. No move was made. Slowly, Sandy phased her vision back to regular light, overlaying that imagery on top of the hairtriggered, combat hues. The other GI's eyes were pale blue, her shortish hair a light, straw-blonde, protruding beneath a baseball cap. She wore comfortable cargo pants with thigh pockets, and a light, waterproof jacket over a T-shirt. The collar on the jacket was raised. From behind, that plus the cap would block any clear perception of body temperature. At least one pocket of jacket and pants appeared to bulge with weight, the exact nature of which was difficult to tell-you could do so with straight humans, because weapons were heavy, and posture altered just minutely to compensate. A GI's posture was rarely so affected.

There was a child, clasping his father's hand, directly alongside the GI. Gazing outward and down, in the opposite direction. Sandy realised she couldn't move. A GI on hair-trigger reflexes might have weapon in hand and be pulling the trigger, before a conscious decision to change her mind could register. Two GIs, facing each other, suffered from a mutually reinforcing "no return scenario" ... as they'd called it, studying such phenomena in Dark Star. It had been a purely hypothetical scenario, then. Two GIs, facing each other ... impossible, since the League was the only side to produce or deploy GIs. But the scenario was a constant in training, where the first move, once made, was far too fast for the conscious mind to easily halt ... and when reinforced by the reflexive response of the opponent, the momentum toward the kill-shot became unstoppable. The other GI might be merely shifting weight, or turning her head to look another way ... if it triggered a draw, the other GI had to retaliate. Had to. And a firefight in a crowded elevator car would be a disaster. Unarmed combat would be even worse.

She was dimly aware, then, that Sudasarno had asked her a question. She moved the tip of her little finger, just a fraction. The GI's gaze did not alter. Nothing did. Sandy accelerated the motion, moving the entire little finger, then ever so slowly allowing all the fingers on her left hand, grasping the leather strap, to join in. She had no other notion of what to do if the GI drew, or otherwise attacked, than to attempt to grab and restrain her from lashing around, hopefully saving thirty innocent tourists from being smeared all over the car's interior. Perhaps she could smash a hole in the transparent wall, and leap out, thus depriving the GI of a motivation for violent action. Somewhere in the distant background of her hearing, a child squealed laughter ... the tops of smaller towers were passing now, gravity was low, and it was doubtless very exciting.

Slowly, her entire hand moved, a part of that gradual, flowing motion. Then, without any sudden movements, or rapid extensions, she extended the arm, and grasped Sudasarno's suit lapel as best she could, with the thumb still immobile and bound. Still it was steely strong.

"Don't move," she said calmly, just loudly enough to be heard above the hum of descent, and the babble of excited children. No one was paying them any attention. "Don't say a word, don't move, and don't panic. If you can do that, we'll be just fine."

Sudasarno neither moved nor spoke. Sandy guessed he was summing up the situation, although she could not turn her head to see. She could imagine well enough his eyes following the rigid line of her stare, and realising who the object of attention must be. And the terror that would follow. Dimly, past the combat-focus, she realised she was mad at herself. Should have taken the stairs. Should have called for an air-taxi. Should have done anything other than lead to this standoff, in a crowded elevator, where the very people she'd sworn an oath to protect were going to be the first to die, if something went wrong. But the first step to lessen risk was to remove yourself from the situation. And she'd done that, the fastest way she'd had available. It had been the right thing to do. Hadn't it?

The hum of descent began to ease as the ground neared. A passing elevator flashed by, on its way back up. The GI simply stood, backside leaned gently against the handrail behind, utterly unconcerned with the expansive view to her back. Just gazing, with pale blue eyes within a face that was somewhat attractive, but less so than Sandy might have expected, of a GI. In fact, it occurred to her, this was quite possibly the ugliest GI she'd ever seen. Which wasn't saying much, against the uniform beauty of League GIs. It was a face that could still attract male attention, in passing. But would tend to get overlooked beside herself, or Rhian, or most other female GIs she'd known. Somehow, that rang alarm bells. Hadn't her creators wanted her to be pretty? League philosophy held that uniform good looks would help with socialisation and self-confidence, and thus inspire a counterreaction of good feelings toward those around him or her. A virtuous circle, they'd called it. Had the FIA altered her original, League-designed appearance? To what ends? What, in their eyes and plans, was this GI for?"

The ground approached, and the elevator slowed. A standoff in an emptying elevator, with its short turnaround time for new passengers to crowd on board, could create even more unwelcome attention. Possibly even the intervention of security officials. Sandy decided she had to take a risk.

"Are you getting off here?" she asked the GI. "Or are you just joyriding?"

The GI raised an eyebrow, as if curious at this approach. Sandy's heart sank. She'd known lower-designation GIs to sometimes raise both eyebrows. Rarely one. It was an expression that, in most cultures, seemed to imply a degree of subtlety, or irony, that lower-des GIs usually failed to grasp. But given what she already knew about this GI, it was hardly a surprise.

"I heard it was a fun ride," said the GI. Her voice was very ordinary. Female, mild, and clearly spoken. Her enunciation was perfect, down to the syllable. "Though I've heard that some people like to come down faster."

Oblique, ironic reference. Damn. Even Rhian didn't do that. Although her old League buddy Tran might have. Tran had been about Rhian's designation-damn clever, with loads of personality, but not the creative, lateral thought process of herself ... or maybe Ramoja. Although Ramoja hadn't entirely convinced her yet. Quoting Shakespeare was one thing. Understanding it was another. Being able to quote it, understand it, and still find it tedious, as Sandy did herself, was to her mind the greatest sign of intellectual depth yet found. In a GI, anyhow.

The hyper-analytical time dilation of combat-reflex created such tangential lines of thought. When operating at such furious speeds, her brain was very bad at just doing nothing.

"If you want to talk to me," Sandy said, "that's fine. I'd like to talk. I just think we should leave these other people out of it, and go somewhere private."

"I think that would be fine," the GI replied agreeably. For the first time, her eyes flicked away from Sandy, to fix on Sudasarno. Even through the lapel of his suit, Sandy could feel him tremble. "Friend of yours?"

"Maybe," said Sandy.

"He's a liability to you," the GI continued. The elevator slowed steadily, the ground coming nearer, walkways about the tower's base, and people moving by. "He led me straight to you. You should get rid of him."

Sudasarno's eyes were wide. The GI's tone remained mild. Sandy saw nothing on her face to suggest she was joking.

"No one's getting rid of anyone right now," Sandy replied, her gaze fixed with unblinking determination. The GI just considered her. The elevator arrived. The crowd's excited babble continued about them, unaware. A child said loudly that she felt so heavy now. They turned from the glass, and clustered back toward the door. Sandy remained unmoved, her left hand clasped upon Sudasarno's shoulder as people milled and pushed past, and the door opened. She was between the GI and the door, but she couldn't turn her back. Didn't dare.

The GI pushed gently off the rail, and strolled calmly past, dawdling as the crowd slowly cleared. Gazed Sandy directly in the eyes, from point-blank range, hands innocently in pockets. It was so tempting-a quick strike with the right fist, a snatch for the gun, something to end it right then and there ... but she dared not, considering all those still in the crossfire. And more than that. She wanted to know.

The GI moved on as the crowd cleared, Sandy walking after with a hand upon Sudasarno's shoulder, past the new crowd gathered behind the entry barrier in the waiting hall. As soon as they were clear, the GI fell back to walk at Sudasarno's other side, keeping him between them as they strolled across the broad, high foyer floor toward the mega-rise tower's looming, revolving doors.

"Sudie," Sandy said without looking at him, as they emerged into the early morning sunshine. "Go home. Whatever you wanted to tell me can wait."

"I'd rather he stayed," the GI said calmly, as they strolled together. Outside, a security guard paced, unaware that anything was wrong. "He might call for help."

"He won't," said Sandy. "Where do you want to talk?"

"Just up here will be fine." Another fifteen strides and the GI stopped. Sandy stopped and Sudasarno too, thin, quiet and very pale. Sandy strolled a couple of paces, to make certain the frightened young advisor was not in the line of sight. On the broad, paved space before the enormous glass foyer wall, people stood and conversed, or awaited those they'd arranged to meet. Stairs led down across a broad, quartercircle curve, interspersed with pockets of urban greenery. At the bottom, between two flights of stairs near an artificial waterfall, business people and tourists clustered at cafe tables for breakfast. Beyond, a cross-road met a major Tanushan highway, six lanes filled with zooming traffic, tightly packed and interlocking with the ease of collective automation. The sidewalks were busy with morning traffic, a seething mass of people.