The Cold Steel Mind (39 page)

Aneka sighed. ‘It doesn’t mean I have to like it.’

‘No one should
like
it!’ Winter snapped. ‘If you like it you’re one of the bad guys. If you like it then you’re no better than Quint or Delaney. What I won’t have is you beating yourself up over it. It was necessary and, whether you believe it or not, you saved Miss Patton from a fate far worse than the one she has been dealt.’

Aneka looked out across the room, trying hard not to succumb to Winter’s argument. ‘Ella spoke to you?’

‘Miss Narrows was concerned about you and contacted me, yes.’

‘I’m not going to get over this just like that.’

Winter smiled and turned towards the door. ‘Good. You wouldn’t be the woman I thought you were if you did.’

Part Six: The Future Ain’t What It Used To Be

University of New Earth, 24.9.525 FSC.

Aneka stretched, getting an appreciative but also sympathetic look from Gillian. ‘We’ve been at this for a long while,’ the archaeologist commented, ‘perhaps we should take a break.’

‘Sounds like a plan. I’ll go get some coffee. Stretch my legs.’

Gillian gave her a smile and a nod. ‘I think that would be generally appreciated.’

When they had discovered that Aggy had practically the entire Internet in her data stores, Aneka had assumed she would be basically off the hook for providing information about Old Earth. It had turned out that she was no longer really needed for providing
data,
but that data needed someone who had lived there to turn it into information. Aneka had spent much of the last nine months providing context for all that wonderful data.

She had also managed to get in a little training with Delta and Monkey. Bashford had been keen to use the time to get his younger subordinates trained up in some of the aspects of the job they had less experience in. All three of them had been involved in running courses for the university too, but that had finished with the end of the academic year. As she walked out across the sunny courtyard at the bottom of the building towards the coffee shop, Aneka grinned. Right now the three of them were out doing a refresher on survival training. Bashford had decided that she was quite well acquainted with that kind of activity, and Gillian needed her handy, and Aneka had never felt happier to be stuck in an office.

There was no queue. Aneka smiled at the man behind the counter as she ordered the drinks. He smiled at her chest hidden behind a light mesh halter top which Ella had bought for her the previous weekend. For once, Aneka did not feel like inwardly complaining; everything was going well and why shouldn’t Kelvin the barista get an eyeful if he wanted one.

Any day now they were expecting the full ratification of the agreement with Negral. It had taken a long time, but it was happening. All in all, things were looking really bright for the Lorenti Federation and Aneka had had a proper chance to settle into her new life.

About the only cloud in all the silver linings was Shannon who was still not really back to the way she had been. Her mind had been reconstructed, very successfully, but she had been left with less control of her telepathic abilities than before and her confidence had taken a massive hit. Drake had been worried about her, very worried, but he was confident enough in her abilities that he was out of system with her, taking a geology team on a survey of an unexplored planetoid in one of the nearby systems.

With three cups of coffee in a little tray, Aneka started back across the quad, smiling as the sunlight blazed down. Later she would bring Ella out here to sit in the sun for a while. Things were looking good and they might as well enjoy it.

Yorkbridge Mid-town, 26.9.525 FSC.

Ella was screaming now. Strong hands held her wrists and ankles, but only barely as she bucked and twisted against them, throwing her entire body into breaking free. She had been in this position for five minutes now and was showing no signs of stopping. That was when Aneka decided enough was enough and turned off the neurostim.

‘How…’ Ella got out when she could breathe again, more or less. ‘How long… was that?’

Aneka slid the thin probe of the nerve stimulator out of Ella and gave her a grin which still held a tiny bit of worry. ‘Five minutes, seven seconds. With the probe too.’ The extra point of contact seemed to quicken the speed with which the gadget took control, and heighten the effect; Aneka refused to use it more than once a month, but today was a celebration…

Part of the cause of the celebration clapped enthusiastically from beside the bed. Katelyn and Dillon had been holding Ella down during her exertions; the little robot they kept around their apartment to film their sexual exploits was still filming, its remit being to record her reactions as well as the event. The robot had been busy tonight since Ella had wanted a full recording of her first proper sex session with a man since Odanari. It had taken a
lot
longer to get to that stage than she had thought it would.

‘That was amazing,’ Katelyn said. ‘Are you okay, Ella? I mean, you didn’t strain anything?’ Katelyn was a fit, active woman with dusky skin, a throaty voice, and long, black hair which she wore plaited carefully into thin cornrows. When Aneka was in the city they went running together once a week on one of the nearby beaches, so they had had a lot more time to get to know each other recently.

‘She’ll be fine,’ Dillon said, grinning lasciviously. ‘She had plenty of warm-up beforehand.’ He was a big man who knew a lot about exercise because he spent much of his free time pumping iron in the lounge of the apartment. When he was not pumping iron, he was usually pumping Katelyn. He reminded Aneka of a young Arnold Schwarzenegger: solid, masculine features and a huge amount of muscle mass. Still, he could move fairly quickly for a big man, his face was softened by the long, dark hair which framed it, and his brain was not a total loss either.

Ella giggled. ‘I’m fine, really.’ She looked up at Aneka. ‘And you can stop looking worried. Of course I want it again
now,
but the craving wears off quickly enough if I don’t get it.’ Which was true enough; it had taken Ella over two months to get Aneka to experiment with the neurostim again. In the end it had taken Ella getting Cassandra on side to do psychiatric evaluations after each session to get Aneka to relent. They were planning to publish a paper on Ella’s reaction to the device. Aneka had suggested, sarcastically, ‘Coming for Science’ as a title, but apparently that one had been heavily overused.

‘So how was it?’ Katelyn asked, chuckling. ‘Come on, we’re documenting this for science.’

Ella drew in air and looked over at the stereo cameras of the robot. ‘I honestly don’t remember much of it. It always starts the same, kind of nice, like someone’s blowing on my skin. That gets more intense, more like a tingle, just where it’s pressing. That spreads out across my whole skin and it just feels great, but if it’s over my pussy… It just gets more and more intense until I can’t feel or see, or anything. It’s just pleasure, ecstasy.’ She gave Katelyn a grin. ‘You could try it and see.’

Katelyn blanched slightly. ‘Oh no. I saw what it did to you. There’s no way I’m going to let someone do that to me…’

‘Grab her, Dillon,’ Ella said, giggling, and Katelyn let out a yelp as her big boyfriend grabbed her wrists and lifted. He seemed to put almost no effort into it, but a second later Katelyn was pinned to the wall, her toes an inch or two above the floor.

Aneka looked at her and leaned over so she could whisper to Ella. ‘I can’t… Not if she’s putting up a fight like that…’

‘She’s been begging Dillon to buy her one,’ Ella whispered back. ‘That’s one of the reasons we’re down here. And you need to see that you’re not going to hurt anyone with it.’

Tensing despite herself, Aneka crawled across the bed. She could see the anticipation in Katelyn’s eyes even as the woman wriggled in Dillon’s grasp. Ella was right, of course. Dillon was holding her, sure, but she could have broken free. Her legs were not bound; she could have been kicking at him, or Aneka, but she was not. She was putting up a token fight, playing at being reluctant. Activating the neurostim, Aneka placed it flat on Katelyn’s left thigh and began to move it slowly upward. By the time it reached her hip the struggling had stopped and she was making little cooing noises.

‘How does it feel, Kat?’ Dillon asked as Aneka slid the pad over Katelyn’s ribs.

‘Feels rilly nice,’ Katelyn drawled. ‘Wan’ more.’

Aneka slid the device up, over the lower slope of her left breast, circling in towards the nipple. Katelyn’s breathing began to quicken, soon turning into panting. They had discovered that the effect was more pronounced and a little faster if the gadget was applied directly to the pubic area, but it worked on any erogenous zone.

‘Oh…’ Katelyn said, her eyes widening. ‘Oh Vashma… Oh!’ Her eyes rolled back and her body tensed, beginning to shake. ‘Ahnnngggg…’

Aneka swept the neurostim down again, crossing Katelyn’s stomach while the effect was still at its highest. It stopped moving over Katelyn’s mound, and the panting grew louder and more rapid. She started screaming.

‘How long should I give her?’ Aneka asked.

‘Your call,’ Dillon replied. He gave her a look which said he had every confidence in her skill with the device.

Katelyn’s hips began to buck, making it hard to maintain contact. Aneka pushed herself closer, sandwiching her hand and the neurostim between their bodies. Sweat from Katelyn’s breasts trickled down onto Aneka’s, the scent of sex heady in her nostrils. She looked up, seeing the chords in Katelyn’s neck straining, her gritted teeth. Enough was enough, Aneka backed off taking the neurostim with her.

‘We… we need… one of those,’ Katelyn panted once her body was left to hang limply in Dillon’s hands. He lifted her down and wrapped her in his arms, sliding onto the bed beside Ella.

‘We’ll get one, lover,’ Dillon told her.

Aneka was about to say something when a message appeared in her vision field. ‘I’m sorry to disturb,’ Al said, ‘but this came through from Winter. It’s marked urgent.’ Aneka took in the text.
You need to be at the university conference room as soon as possible. Drop whatever you’re doing. Bring Ella. Winter.
Fine, but how was she supposed to know about the message?

‘Have the flat put this through to us here,’ Aneka said, silently. Aloud she said, ‘You’re sure you’re okay, Kat?’

‘I feel great. A little worn out, but fantastic.’

‘Good, I…’

‘Urgent message received for Aneka Jansen,’ the apartment’s computer announced. ‘Personal ident required.’

‘At this time?’ Ella asked, frowning. It was about two in the morning. Aneka was actually hoping that whatever it was Winter wanted would not take too long or she would get no time offline.

‘I’d better take it,’ Aneka said. ‘Sounds important.’

‘Use the console in the other bedroom,’ Dillon suggested. ‘If it’s personal ident only then whoever it is wants you reading it alone.’

Nodding, Aneka started out of the bedroom; not a difficult trip since there was no door or wall between it and the lounge. The guest room had both for a little privacy, but Katelyn and Dillon liked their sex out in the open. Going in was a pretence, she did not need to do so, but her friends did not know what she was. She hated not being able to tell them, dreaded the day they might find out from someone else, but that was how it had to be.

And now she was going to walk out on them with Ella on some secret errand for Winter, and she would not be able to tell them why they were leaving. She grinned; Dillon would be pissed, he always liked a titty fuck before she went.

University of New Earth.

Aneka and Ella were the last to arrive at the conference room. Gillian, Wallace, Cassandra, and Winter were already there. Aneka half-expected to see Elroy, but the politician was absent. Winter nodded to them as they entered and rose to her feet.

‘I’m sorry to interrupt your mid-week break, but we received a transmission from Negral two hours ago which you should all see.’

Aneka frowned. The other reason they had been celebrating was the finalisation of the treaty with the Negral AIs. In three days, ships from Negral were to set out to an uninhabited garden world on the very edge of the Rim to start construction of the educational facility they were calling the Galactic University. Aneka thought the name sucked, but no one had asked her. Still, it was going to be a matter of months before the AIs were teaching students from the Federation.

Winter tapped a button on her tablet and looked up at the wall. It darkened and then filled with a view of space. There was a shape in the middle of the screen, difficult to identify at first until some sort of image intensification was applied and the view zoomed in. The shape was a huge ship, long and slim, and turning slowly towards the camera. Smaller vessels were emerging from the underside of it, near the bow. The bow itself had a shape Aneka thought she recognised.

‘That’s a Mordra Kai battleship,’ she said. ‘The one we went aboard?’

‘I don’t believe so,’ Wallace replied. ‘That one had nothing in the docking bay.’

As they watched, the battleship swung around and its main gun lit up brightly in the enhanced view. ‘Oh shit!’ Aneka said, and then the screen turned to snow.

‘That was all we got,’ Winter said. ‘We’ve sent a message back, requesting a status update, but this does not look good.’

‘No,’ Wallace said, ‘for a number of reasons. Not least of them is the fact that that was a Xinti vessel.’

Winter nodded and looked at Aneka. ‘Thoughts?’

Aneka shrugged. ‘The Xinti are dead…’

‘Apparently not.’

‘Then… they decided to stop the AIs interacting with the Federation?’

‘That was my immediate working theory. We’ll be conducting further analysis of the video. Senator Elroy is dispatching messages to everyone he can think of. The Navy is mobilising ships and increasing patrols on the outer borders. We have to hope those Xinti don’t have the wormhole technology the AIs had.’

‘Unlikely,’ Wallace told her. ‘It relied on the exotic star they were in orbit around.’