The Unincorporated Future (23 page)

“Yes, apparently the Alliance can undo your ‘work,’ but sadly, for just one hour. Still, it took Neela only five minutes to come up with the plan to kill you. Delivered—” Nadine curtsied. “—by yours truly. But I wanted you to have this last thought, Dr. Wong. You used me to kill my sister.” Nadine lifted the cranial scanner above her head. “And now my sister used me to kill you.” And with that, Nadine Harper brought the machine down on Dr. Angela Wong. The motion was repeated until the skull first broke and then finally shattered. When she was finished, Nadine calmly pulled off Dr. Wong’s shoes and put them on her own feet. They were a little too small, but they’d do the trick. She began to stomp on whatever was left of the doctor’s gray matter. Angela Wong’s death would be what it had always needed to be—unequivocally permanent.

Nadine continued to stomp until something on the floor caught her eye. She stopped, walked a few feet over to where she saw the glimmer, bent down, and picked up her tooth. As she stared at it, a smile formed on her lips. Slowly she came back to herself. She looked around and saw the discarded gun and knife on the floor. Her eyes swept Angela’s desk for a metal stylus. When she found one, she used it to lightly touch the pulse pistol on the floor. An electrified blue arc appeared and jumped from the gun onto her hand, causing her to drop the stylus. She felt a tingling sensation that soon left her entire hand momentarily numb. Nadine had no doubt what would’ve happened had she grabbed the gun by the handle.

A thorough search of the doctor’s desk did, however, produce a fully charged and nonrigged pulse pistol. Nadine used the doctor’s nonsecure DijAssist to look up one more piece of information and then with a look of feral determination, she crept out of the lab and into the dim hallway. She put the loose tooth she’d been holding into her mouth, sucked on it, and tasted her own blood. She then gave the pistol grip a slight squeeze and tenderly ran her forefinger up and down the trigger. She’d killed Dr. Wong for her sister. The guard she would kill for herself.

Executive office
Burroughs

Hektor Sambianco should have been disappointed. A night he thought was going to be spent hearing the latest gossip from Earth and having some good old-fashioned sex had suddenly been canceled. Although Amanda had just returned from her long journey, she’d claimed exhaustion, blaming it all on, “that abominable Earth gravity.”

And so in a fit of anger, he’d spent the first part of the night sexually humiliating Neela Harper. When he grew bored with her—which, he noted, seemed to be happening with greater frequency—he sent her off for the night. Soon, he decided, he was going to have start finding ways to spice things up again. Perhaps even “sharing” her with people, but he would have to be careful. She’d need a disguise.

Bored, and feeling the need for camaraderie, Hektor invited over some of the Cabinet members for an impromptu game of poker. They arrived shortly, and after a few stiff drinks and a couple of hands, things finally started to loosen up. Hektor was beginning to think the night might not be a waste after all—even if he was losing.

“You know, Porfirio, I
am
the fucking President.”

Porfirio’s eyes rose slowly from behind the cards he was holding. “And?”

“And you
could
let me win every now and then.”

The corners of Porfirio’s mouth tilted up. “Mr. President, I most certainly could not.”

“Because?”

“If I did—” Porfirio put his cards down on the table, faceup: two pair, kings and tens. “—you’d never trust me.”

Hektor shot him a half smile as he threw his third losing hand down onto the table in abject disgust.

“Mr. President,” interrupted an overhead voice.

“What is it?”

“You have a visitor.”

Hektor viewed the time on his iris head-over display. “At this hour?”

“Yes.”

“All right … I suppose,” answered Hektor, clearly dour. “Who is it?”

“Neela Harper, sir. She insists it’s important she see you.”

For a moment, Hektor had a powerful vision of Neela being the entertainment for the three men and two women sitting around the table, but he put the idea on hold. Although he was sure Porfirio and the titular head of the Libertarian Party, Carl Trang, would enjoy the dalliance, Franklin would not. He was an oddly cold fish. Same with Brenda. But he was equally sure that Tricia would have no issues whatsoever—especially if it involved doling out a little punishment. The idea had merit, but he’d have to plan it for a different night with a more select group.

“Tell her it’ll have to wait till morning.” Hektor cut the connection, picked up the cards Franklin had just dealt, and drew them close to his chest. Three threes.
Finally,
he thought, making sure his face didn’t betray his emotions.

“I’m sorry to bother you again, Mr. President,” came the overhead voice.

Hektor looked at the group and smiled acidly. They paid the intrusion no heed; it came with the territory.

“You do realize,” Hektor said, “that your job is on the line, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Go ahead.”

“Dr. Harper says she has information concerning Amanda Snow. Her exact words were, ‘sensitive and time dependent.’”

Hektor saw Tricia’s left brow raise slightly. He knew if he didn’t get to the bottom of it, his Minister of Security would. And if it did turn out to be something of real import, she’d make him miserable for it. “Fine, send her in.”

Two minutes later, Neela appeared. There were beads of sweat on her forehead, and her eyes were sunken and almost lifeless. Her breathing was labored and, noticed Hektor, she seemed to be trembling.

Hektor’s demeanor changed instantly. “Neela,” he asked, rising from his seat, “are you all right?”

Neela didn’t answer but instead weaved her way toward the back of the couch and leaned against it, catching her breath. There was something about her movement … almost purposeful, noted Hektor, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Porfirio, closest to her, stood up from the table and began to reach out to help.

What happened next took only seconds, but were to be the longest of Hektor’s life. Neela released a hidden compartment in the back of the couch, and as she did, Hektor went stock-still. His eyes widened and he felt suddenly queasy. He’d created many such compartments—all with hidden weapons, all for just such an event—and unfortunately for him, Neela knew some of them. Neela’s tremulous hand pulled out the flechette gun and brought it to bear on her puppeteer. Hektor tried to push his chair back so he would fall to the ground, but in the Mars gravity, it seemed to take forever. All he could think about was how much faster he would’ve been on the ground had Neela tried to assassinate him on Earth. He watched in macabre fascination as the flechette gun spit out its tiny points of death. Part of his brain knew it was impossible for him to actually see the four hundred darts per second the gun had just released, but he could swear that he saw each and every one.

What he did, in fact, see was the bulk of the flechettes punch into Porfirio’s throat and face, pulverizing the flesh and bone. Neela’s hand became more erratic as she seemed to lose more control of her body, and her next few shots were wide. As Hektor’s chair finally tipped backwards and he fell to relative safety behind the poker table, he was sure a whole swarm of the tiny darts had flown right past his nose. He was to learn later that he hadn’t been too far off the mark. His left calf took three darts, and his right earlobe—or what was left of it—took one.

Then time seemed to move more normally again. Sound caught up with the panicked screams and din of alarms going off as he heard first a thud and then Neela crying out in rage. Brenda too was cursing, and when Hektor looked over the edge of the table, he saw that his Economics Minister was on top of his would-be assassin, having pinned her to the ground. The flechette had been prudently shoved to the side of the room, and Neela was not putting up any resistance whatsoever. Rather, she was shaking even more violently, and her eyes had begun to roll up into the back of her head. Her jaw hung languidly, and the bit of drool that had formed on her bottom lip began running down her chin.

Hektor slowly approached, in shock. Brenda looked up to her boss for orders. With a quick head movement, he indicated she could move. He then bent down onto one knee and cradled Neela in his arms. She focused on him momentarily and in that moment everyone in the room saw the unparalleled look of hatred emanating from her. Hektor ignored it and gently caressed his lover’s cheek, wondering if there would ever be a woman who, like Neela Cord, could know him for what he truly was. As Neela died in his arms, the loathing slowly faded from her eyes until all that was left were two lifeless orbs looking straight up and past Hektor Bandonillo Sambianco. And it was in that moment that Hektor almost,
almost
felt love.

4 And a Plague Shall Fall on Both Their Houses

The Cliff House
Ceres

The reports from Mars were confusing: There either had or hadn’t been an assassination attempt and some sort of shake-up of the Cabinet. Rumors also abounded as to the apparent disappearance of Angela Wong, architect of the UHF’s infamous application of psyche audits as compliance weapon. But the reports emanating from the asteroid belt were perhaps the most disturbing of all. The UHF had begun there what Gupta had left off at Jupiter—the annihilation of any Alliance citizens left in that occupied territory. Whereas before, there had been at least the pretense of “overwhelming force” against supposed “insurgents”—more often than not, code for the use of excessive force—now no such pretense was given. It was as if all the rules of warfare had been tossed to the wind. The UHF, according to Alliance intelligence, had begun a scorched-asteroid policy that had, to date, seen the deaths of at least 100 million souls—with at least two-thirds of those permanent. The UHF would pull up to an asteroid and then with a volley of rail gun fire from groups of heavy cruisers, pulverize the rock and all within it. Those fortunate enough to escape would be hunted down, and those who managed to escape that had no choice but to suspend themselves and pray their shuttles or pods—ships were too easy a target—would be found. Once it became clear there was to be no negotiations, the remaining settlers had risen up in revolt with a few actually succeeding in liberating themselves. The UHF couldn’t be everywhere, and some asteroids had either managed to stave the assaults through sophisticated minefields or direct one-to-one combat, while others had managed to move themselves far enough away to be too inconvenient to attack. Those who did break clear inevitably sent out desperate calls for help to what remained of the shattered Outer Alliance. But other than words of encouragement, the government had been unable to give any help at all.

Padamir’s face betrayed his consternation. “There must be
something
we can do.”

“Padamir,” answered Mosh, “we’re in the middle of evacuating nearly eight hundred million refugees from Jupiter. We must take care of them and we need the fleet to make sure they arrive safely with the components for the new Jovian Shipyards. On top of which, the refugees from the Belt are still arriving with their settlements. Damsah be praised, they, at least, have intact habitats. But they’re in desperate need of spare parts for recyclers, condensers, fusion reactors, and maneuvering thrusters—and that’s just to start. We still have to get them all settled. And I needn’t remind you that without them, we’re finished as a manufacturing power.”

“Still, Mosh,” argued Padamir, “we must do something. Perhaps attack Mars … draw them off,
anything
.”

“Trang already has a fleet of over five hundred ships at Mars,” answered Eleanor, attempting to quash another Battle of the Martian Gates scenario, “and it will only grow larger.”

“It’s true that Trang has ships,” added Rabbi, “but it’s equally true that he has no crews.”

“Every ship is manned, Rabbi,” said Mosh sternly.

“Yes, but it takes time to train them. Perhaps Padamir’s idea has merit.”

“Crews or not, you do remember what happened the last time we attacked the capital.”

“Mosh,” said Sandra, a bittersweet tone to her voice. “The ‘capital’ is where
we
reside. You of course mean
their
capital.”

Mosh looked about to complain when he saw his wife shooting him a look, shaking her head slightly. He took a deep breath and swallowed. “Of course, Madam President. I meant it was suicide for
us
to attack ‘their’ capital.”

Sandra acknowledged the retraction with a slight tip of her head. “I’m afraid I must agree with the Treasury Secretary with regards to the folly of an attack.”

“They don’t need to actually attack the place,” said Padamir. “Just going in there to shoot out a few satellites will be more than enough to help improve the morale of the citizens we now have under our control.”

“And what happens if Trang chooses to fight us at Mars?” asked Mosh.