Killswitch (5 page)

"Why?" asked Sandy with a frown, pausing midchew, her dinner plate on her lap. She sat upon one of the lounge chairs around the coffee table, in the centre of the main room of the house she called home. The floors were wood, the walls a stylish, rough-hewn red brick with mottled dark patches. To the front of the living room were broad windows opening onto a balcony, profuse foliage of the garden beyond, and all contained behind the high stone walls that typified the high-security suburb of Canas. Vanessa moved in the adjoining kitchen, mixing herself and Sandy drinks to go with their meal, which Anita had made for them the old-fashioned way-by hand, on the bare flame of the gas stove.

"I am a League GI," Rhian said matter-of-factly. "Unlike you, I am still in the service of the League. I am living in your house."

"It's your house too," Sandy objected.

"It's the government's house," Rhian corrected her. "You and Vanessa are here because you are important government officers. I am here because you are here. An afterthought."

"Chu, you're not a damn afterthought! I mean Rhian." Correcting herself with frustration-Chu hadn't gone by her old surname for two years now, preferring her given name in her new, civilian surroundings. She sat comfortably now on the living room rug by the coffee table, dressed in stylish black pants and a black silk shirt. A lean arm hooked over one upraised knee, holding her cards. Her beautiful, Chinese features were well suited to the fashionably short cut of her black hair, her expression as cool and untroubled as ever, eyes fixed upon her cards.

GIs had that look about them, even without the benefit of superenhanced vision displaying the lower body temperature, and the lack of a jugular pulse. Just the way they sat, and moved, shifted their gaze from one object of consideration to the next. Sandy knew she looked like that herself, to another person's eyes. Anita shifted from time to time, moving her weight to prevent bad circulation, or muscle tiredness, or other aches and pains from developing. Rhian sat relatively motionless. Not like a statue. More like an effortlessly poised, presently dormant bundle of energy. Just waiting for a chance to explode.

Rhian's arrival on Callay had been the single most wonderful development of the last two years. Sandy had thought she'd lost everything from those years in the service of the League, all her old friends and comrades from Dark Star. She'd not come to know or like them all, not by any means. But with Rhian Chu, she'd had nearly three years of connection and slowly developing friendship ... and three years in Dark Star had felt like twenty in most other places. While the rest of her team had been murdered by their own commanders, during those final, desperate days of the losing war, a small group, unbeknownst to her, had survived.

When the smoke cleared, Rhian had wound up under the ISO's wing. Once the ISO discovered her old commander had resurfaced, somewhat spectacularly, in the Callayan capital of Tanusha, they'd been only too quick to assign Rhian to the command of Major Ramoja, and reunite the old friends once more. Perhaps, Sandy reflected, they'd expected gratitude. Perhaps an opportunity to influence her opinions and actions, within her new role of authority on Callay. For her part, Sandy saw no reason to thank the murdering bastards who ruled over all matters of artificial humanity in the League for anything. They'd established a link between their own operative, in Rhian, and herself. It got them regular reports, and calmed the nerves of security operatives on all sides, who became very nervous in an information vacuum. That ought to be enough for them. She had her old friend Rhian back. That was certainly enough for her.

"Well, thank you for saying so," Rhian said, with a faint smile. Selected two cards from her hand, and placed them face down upon the table. "But the fact remains that if you were not my friend, then I would not be here. And if the politicians who are so scared about League influence on Callay learned that I was sharing your house, there could be further trouble. Couldn't there?"

As she resettled two new cards into her hand, and Anita unloaded two of her own, Anita met Sandy's gaze with a brief, intrigued smile. Far less concerned with politics, Sandy knew, than fascinated with Rhian's increasing self-confidence in her own powers of analysis where civilians were concerned. Her development, Sandy had to admit, had been remarkable. From a total novice in all civilian matters, in the space of two years Rhian had progressed to the point where local events no longer disturbed or puzzled her with the same regularity as before. Anita now teased Sandy, from time to time, that Rhian had now overtaken her ex-captain in some civilian matters-such as fashion sense. Looking at her friend's stylish black outfit, Sandy could only agree. But then, in some regards, that was Rhian-utterly meticulous and precise with the small details, yet often missing the broader picture.

"It's more my house than anyone else's anyway," Vanessa interjected, arriving back at her chair beside Sandy's with a drink in each hand. Sandy took hers, and Vanessa took her seat. "Me being the only one of us who's financially solvent and of reliable good character and long-term residence ..."

"Oh, go on!" Anita protested good humouredly.

"It's true!" Vanessa curled into her chair, no difficult feat for her small frame, in tracksuit and socks following her shower. The skin beneath her eyes bore the faintest shade of dark, but otherwise there was only the cotton wool to show for the recently broken nose. It kept her breathing through her mouth, and allowed the injected microbials to do their work unhindered. "It's unheard of for anyone with less than five years' residence on Callay to qualify for a house in Canas. I'm here 'cause they wouldn't have let Sandy have it otherwise."

"And for the joyful pleasure of my company," Sandy remarked.

"Of course, baby." Vanessa extended a sock-clad foot, and gave Sandy's shoulder a reprimanding push. "And you," she continued, turning her lively gaze upon Rhian, "are here so we can keep an eye on you. Under the auspices of our new liaison relationship with the League Embassy, of course. But the main reason no one's leaked that information to Neiland's opponents is because the only thing those same opponents are more scared of than Sandy being best buddies with her old League mates, is the League's Embassy GIs running around without supervision."

"You keep me on a very short leash," Rhian said with a nod. "I'll remember to say that if someone asks." And raised Anita's five prayertokens by another five.

Sandy finished the last mouthful of her meal, and gave Vanessa an eyebrow-raised glance. Vanessa's return glance was highly amused. For the last two years, there had been an ongoing debate between them whether Rhian was an unintentional wit who said amusing things without meaning to, or was one of the best deadpan comics they'd ever seen. Not that she was ever genuinely hysterical. Just amusing. As always, with her old buddy Chu, everything was understated. But understated people everywhere, Sandy reckoned, were full of surprises.

Sandy sipped Vanessa's drink. It tasted of at least five local fruits, and several liqueurs ... Vanessa had been introduced to the world of mixed beverages by one of Anita's friends a few months back, and now delighted in creating new concoctions. Rhian placed her hand of cards upon the table. Anita gave a "ha!" of delight, and laid down her own. Rhian raised both eyebrows.

"GIs aren't invulnerable after all," Vanessa remarked as Anita raked in the prayer tokens. Her pile was considerably larger than Rhian's.

"In a game of random chance," Rhian said mildly, "anyone can lose."

"Oh, it's not just random chance!" Anita scolded her. "You do a thing with your face every time you get a good or a bad hand."

"I'm a GI," said Rhian. "I don't do anything with my face."

"Yes, you do!" Anita sang playfully, handing the deck to Rhian for shuffling. Rhian gave Sandy a quizzical look, taking the cards to hand. They blurred between fingers with inhuman speed, as Vanessa and Anita watched in fascination. Sandy smiled.

"She's trying to get into your head, Rhi," she said. "She's psyching you out."

"How should I respond?" asked Rhian, in all honesty.

Sandy gave an exasperated shrug. "I don't know! Figure it out."

"You could stop doing that thing with your face, for one thing," Vanessa said mischievously.

"Don't listen to them," said Sandy. "Come on, Rhian, concentrate. We can't let any uppity organic humans start thinking they can actually beat us at anything. I mean, where would it end?"

"I don't mind getting beaten at things that don't matter," Rhian replied mildly, dealing the cards with a series of rapid wrist-flicks. Anita's cards skidded in perfect unison across the shiny coffee table, directly into her waiting hands.

"Have you spoken to Captain Reichardt yet?" Anita asked, fanning the cards in her hand.

"Might have," said Sandy, taking another sip of her drink. Anita removed a card and took another. Raised her bet.

"I'm glad he seems like such a reasonable guy," Anita continued. "I mean it can't be easy, can it? Standing up to your own people. Standing up to Earth, even?"

"He's American," said Vanessa. "That's different. Americans live on another planet entirely."

The USA's continued refusal to consider itself a part of any greater, global political entity known as Earth was the source of many old jokes. On Earth itself, such political isolationism was the subject of much ridicule. But for the many Federation worlds now opposed to the monolithic, conservative, xenophobic bloc that Earth was threatening to become, it provided a large opportunity. After all, the population of the USA had been one of the only significant voting blocs on Earth to actually vote in favour of the relocation. In the eyes of many Americans, the Grand Council had done enormous damage in centralising huge chunks of the planetary political system during the war, creating a morass of petty bureaucracy and unrepresentative officialdom. And US President Alvarez, alone of senior Earth leaders, had spoken out in favour of Callay's new role as the centre of the Federation. Although everyone knew the Americans could never miss a chance to get right up the collective noses of the Chinese and Indians, and no one on Callay was fool enough to assume American support went any further than that.

"You guys are doing the security for Secretary General Benale, right?" Anita had much practice trying to weed out as much information as possible from her less-than-informative friends. "How suspicious do you think it is that the sabotage happens just after he arrives on Callay? I mean, he's the closest thing Earth has to a global leader, even if the Americans don't recognise EarthGov. He's an old-Earth nationalist if ever there was one, he promises to come out here to try and calm things down, but no sooner does he arrive than someone sabotages the Mekong?"

"That's a conspiracy theory," said Vanessa. "Sandy doesn't like conspiracy theories."

"Ari calls them conspiracy facts," Rhian countered.

"Ari would," Sandy said shortly.

"You're not still mad at Ari?" Anita said in half-teasing disbelief.

Vanessa frowned, looking from Anita to Sandy. "Mad at him for what?"

Sandy sighed. "Oh, he's been babbling on about that damn tour Cognizant Systems is doing through the medical lobbies ..."

"It's not just Cognizant Systems!" Anita retorted indignantly. "It's Renaldo Takawashi, Sandy. The man's a genius that comes along maybe once in ten generations ..."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Sandy muttered, "I read the press release."

"Takawashi?" Vanessa made a face. "I read an Intel report on that ... isn't he responsible for GI intelligence?"

"He's never been anything other than an independent researcher," Anita insisted, "but with the war on, the League government roped him into much of the foundational development for advanced synthetic neurology."

"Poor little man," said Sandy sarcastically, "he's been used and manipulated all along, never had anything to do with the League war machine really ..."

"Sandy!" Anita looked genuinely indignant. "His work with neural regeneration using synthetic integration with organic tissue is just ... it's amazing. For the first time we might be able to regrow destroyed brain tissue, cure what was previously irreparable structural damage, cure V-hooked burnouts, maybe even reverse criminal insanity! Imagine if they could reform murderers or rapists by rerouting the defective circuitry and then regrowing it."

"Wonderful, maybe they could cure subversive ideologies too," Sandy retorted. "League supporters, far right weirdos? You'd run out of friends real fast, 'Nita."

Anita was one of Ari's old friends-as underground as they came, and proud of it. It was hardly the most suitable company for two of Callay's seniormost civil servants ... but then, Sandy's own knowledge of security and monitoring systems ensured that her various political masters had very little idea of who she entertained at home, something for which she was very grateful. She did not always get along with Ari's friends, with their progressive, League-sympathetic ideologies, and their love of all things hi-tech and subversive. Anita was different in that she was a business woman, despite appearances, and was at least relatively pragmatic in her approach to real world issues. She was also fun company, and was pleased to be Sandy's friend because she liked Sandy, not because Sandy was "that awesome, android superbabe" or whatever stupid crap the wide-eyed techno underground liked to say about her these days. She got nearly as sick of the worshipful adulation from that crowd as she did of the hate mail. More so, sometimes. At least the hate mailers didn't want anything from her (except perhaps death), and would never be disappointed that she'd failed to live up to their expectations.

"You're overreacting again," Anita scolded, "there's no reason to believe that ..."

"Hang on," Vanessa interrupted. And turned a concerned frown on Sandy. "If this ... Takawashi ... is responsible for most of the League's advances in synthetic neurology ..."

"He's not," said Sandy. "He was the head of a damn big team. It's a reputation mostly limited to the underground on Callay." With a dark look at Anita. "Who, for some reason, seem to have developed a fascination with such things."