Cassandra Kresnov 5: Operation Shield (17 page)

“She's a good kid,” Sandy said quietly.

“Has she shown remorse?”

“Why the fuck should she…” Sandy began, and caught herself. Another deep breath. “The pain is there. She'll never regret the action, but the pain of having to do it is there. I know what that's like. I can help her.”

“Good,” said Naidu, nodding as he gazed out the window. “Good. And the little one?”

“I can't even attempt an objective opinion with Kiril,” Sandy said firmly. “He's gorgeous. He's kind, generous, brave, funny, and clever. Danya says he's the smartest of the three, and he's probably right. And I'm worried sick about those fucking things Chancelry put in his head.”

Naidu nodded. And gave her a sideways look and a smile. “Very good,” he said with a final, lighter note. And made to leave. “We'll talk longer once you're actually working again, I'm sure. Lovely to see you well.”

“Hang on,” Sandy said, with growing suspicion. Naidu stopped at the door. “You're not doing a damn psych report on the kids. You're doing it on me.”

Naidu gave her a patronising look. “Cassandra, as interested as we are in your lovely kids, you are the Commander of FSA special combat operations, and you hold a continuing operational rank in CSA SWAT. These children now become a potential operational liability for you, one that League commanders recognised on Pantala and attempted to exploit. We are now going to have to protect these children, for the simple fact that they are our enemies’ best chance of getting at you.”

“And you want to know if such threats make me completely fucking unstable or what,” Sandy added sarcastically.

“Well…” Naidu nodded at her immobile arm and the bandage on her head. “Apparently not unstable, since your rescue was successful. But very angry.”

“Sure.” With a glare.

“Let's just say from our interview I can conclude that there are safer places to be than between you and these children. But I only needed to look at you to know that.”

They were all surprised to see her so beaten up. She'd seen them looking at her injuries in astonishment. Wondering if she'd screwed up. “There was no other way to do it,” she said. “Heavy walls, narrow bottlenecks, they were pouring explosive into every opening; I had to take chances and expose myself. I just absorbed some near misses and kept on coming. Otherwise I'd never have broken through.”

“Motherhood becomes you,” said Naidu, smiling. “And have no fear, you'll have access to my final reports like everyone else with clearance, and you're free to challenge whatever you want.”

He left. Motherhood? Sandy turned to look back through the office glass. Surely motherhood meant more than the willingness to soak up high explosive?

“She's cut off all contact with the asylum process?” Ibrahim couldn't quite believe it. She'd been so passionate about it before leaving for Pantala. It had driven her to Pantala, no question. Had driven her to do questionable things, in the fear that the New Torah government were doing things to GIs that would have irreversible consequences for the entire species…if artificial humanity could be called a species.

“It appears so,” said Naidu. Naidu technically did not work for him anymore, but on this matter he knew Cassandra best, and Federal and Callayan Security Agencies were close enough that they shared personnel and expertise on a needs basis. “She's still receiving reports, but I understand she's given no feedback, and she hasn't attended their meetings nor had contact with any of their personnel. Several of them are quite upset, they feel she's abandoned them.”

Ibrahim looked at Vanessa. Vanessa wasn't happy to be here and showed it in her usual way, sitting on the desk in her old SWAT jacket, with complete disregard for protocol. “They broke her heart,” Vanessa said tiredly. “The GIs on Pantala. Leave the girl alone, as if she hasn't gone through enough.”

Ibrahim walked to the wall opposite her and leaned there, directly in her vision. Unable to avoid him, Vanessa rolled her eyes. “It was that fight, that last big one,” she said. “I mean, she's been in bad fights before, she's lost individual friends before…in that one she lost about a thousand. They weren't friends, but…you know.”

“The mass application of the killswitch.” Even Ibrahim still could not quite believe the corporations had done that. If for no other reason than it had cost them a lot of money. But few things frightened the users and makers of combat GIs like the prospect of a mass uprising.

“She'll deny it, of course,” said Vanessa. “But she really did have these big dreams of leading some rebellion. Not at the expense of her loyalty to the Federation, never that, but she thought somehow she could do one while serving the other, fold an uprising into the Federation cause.”

“And she nearly did,” said Naidu, sitting rumpled and grey-streaked in one of the FSA Director's office chairs.

Vanessa nodded. “And then it all blew up in her face. All her rebels were too eager and idealistic, and they just didn't want to listen to her when she told them to be cautious; they're GIs, I'd imagine it's easy to feel invincible when you're a GI, if you're not as smart as Sandy. You get a whole bunch of them together, overthrow New Torah Chancelry…they must have felt they could take on the universe.”

“They're rebels,” Naidu rumbled, old and wise. “They were rebelling. It's a state of mind, and Sandy was telling them to submit to a new ruler called the Federation. Like telling a life-term prisoner who's just escaped and is just enjoying his first pleasures of freedom that he now has to return to a different cell.”

“And they wouldn't listen to her, so she just left them there,” Vanessa finished. “Holding a bunch of cards, thanks to her, and with no real choice how to play them. But she didn't hang around to see them through, she just got her kids back and came home.”

“To what effect?” Ibrahim pressed. Cassandra was important. The lynchpin in so many ways, she'd proven it time and time again. The isolated variable that could swing any number of ways. As FSA Director, Ibrahim knew that she was both an asset to be treasured and utilised, and a potential threat to be feared and guarded against. Either way, he needed to know. And her best friend was of course not happy about playing the informant…but most likely Sandy knew and would forgive her, it was all a part of the job.

“Everyone wants to fit in,” Vanessa sighed and hung her head. Kicked absently at the green frond of a potplant by the desk. “Even Sandy. She knows she's not like other GIs, but still she feels responsible for them…or she did. Responsible for the things they do, responsible for the things that are done to them, she couldn't let them suffer like she suffered. I'm sure she didn't expect them all to embrace her and call her sister for her efforts, but somewhere deep down, maybe subconsciously, perhaps she did.”

She looked up, brushed curls from her eyes. “And then they rejected her advice and rejected
her
, really. And Sandy's pretty tough emotionally, but she's not that tough. I don't think anyone is. And that's what she's protecting herself from now, by cutting herself off from them.”

Ibrahim nodded. “And the children? How do they fit into this?”

Naidu cleared his throat. “Well, I certainly don't wish to suggest that
her affections for them aren't substantial. But it is clearly a reaction of sorts. A shield, to hide behind and save herself from other pains. Cassandra's emotions are as real as anyone's, but we've never seen this before from her, nor from any other GI…except for lovely Rhian, of course. But Rhian was different, because Rhian had always had affection for children, and because Rhian developed her own motherhood attachments in her own good time. Cassandra's have arisen from a specific circumstance, and we'll just have to wait and see how it goes from here.”

Ibrahim looked at Vanessa. Vanessa shook her head firmly. “Rhian's affection for children is itself a result of combat trauma. Remember Sandy's story of Rhian's experience in combat, the little girl who died in her arms as a result of a firefight Rhian had been in?” Naidu nodded with a conceding gesture. “Rhian was a far less developed individual then, had shown precious little interest in children or other civilian things, was just another simple-minded 39-series soldier until that happened. And if I had kids, I'd trust them with Rhian anytime, anywhere, more than nearly anyone. Where the emotion comes from doesn't matter, what matters is what it is, and Rhian's love of children is as real as it comes.

“And Sandy…” she shook her head, a little exasperated at having to explain this stuff in the Director's office of the Federation's most powerful security agency, “…Sandy has a lot of love, and being what she is, she hasn't had the same opportunities as most to express it. And I say this as one of those few people privileged to have been the recipient of some of it.”

With a defiant gaze at Ibrahim. Don't forget that I love her, that gaze said. You can call me in here and order me to inform on her mental state, but there are limits to how you can order me where she's concerned. Ibrahim nodded, accepting that, and uncommenting. And wanting more.

“I just thank god for these kids,” said Vanessa. “Sure, it's a rebound emotion to some extent…but Sandy would be nuts about them under any other circumstances too, and I say that as the person who probably knows her best. I mean, they're innocent and sweet and naive, and yet as old as the hills and deeply messed up by all the shit that's happened to them…they're practically smaller versions of her, when she first came here. They're
substitutes
, if you want the psych terminology, for what she wanted to feel for the other GIs. She tried to love them that much, and couldn't, so she gave that love to three
more deserving. And,” she added, with a warning stare at Naidu, “I think you underestimate the power of that love at your peril.”

Ari passed through multiple levels of security and had the unnerving sensation of his uplinks going completely dead. Still active, but this place was completely shielded, like the Intelligence Committee rooms in the Grand Council. He surrendered his weapon, then a final door opened with a clack of heavy locks.

Within was a nice apartment, wide windows showing a seventieth-storey view across mid-eastern Tanusha. On the market it would have cost a fortune, but this one was CSA-owned, as was the upper half of this tower, certain security types having learned long ago not to centralise all their resources in the one headquarters campus. It was a studio apartment, though a huge one. Their secured guest sat in the sunken lounge reading holographic book displays, a tall, recently empty glass on the coffee table. At the kitchen bench watching over him was Amirah, very slender for a GI, eating a salad with a glass of rosé and reading a hand display.

“Hi, Ami,” said Ari, and gave the girl a hug. She smiled at him, still eating, and offered him some salad. Ari put a fork in it.

“Bacon and…bits of toast?”

“They're called crudités,” Amirah said flatly. “Eat it.”

“It's delicious,” their guest volunteered from the lounge. “She's an amazing cook.”

Ari hadn't really thought bacon and bread would go in a salad, but he put the fork in his mouth and…he raised eyebrows at Ami. “Wow. That's really good!”

“It's called Roquefort Salad, it's French. Goes well with a rosé. Would you like some?”

“Can't, on duty.”

“Me too,” said Amirah with a superior smile, and sipped. GIs and their alcohol immunity. Amirah was a 45 series, two years defected from the League. Seven years old, she didn't truly remember who'd made her, high-designation GI memory being quite fuzzy until three or four. But she knew she'd been on a ship somewhere, only it had been boarded by civilian authorities who had taken the GIs into new custody. There she'd had news channels to watch and
books to read, and within eighteen months knew that she wanted to follow other GIs to the Federation—meaning Callay, the only Federation world so far where GIs were allowed to live openly as new citizens. Some kind souls had smuggled her out to let her do that, and she'd worked her way through the Callayan asylum process.

Two months ago, the CSA had accepted her as an agent-in-training on the understanding that she'd probably end up as FSA as soon as she graduated, but Feds didn't recruit anyone who hadn't been at a lower level first, and had no training facilities for greenhorns. As a 45 series she was immediately overqualified for paramilitary spec ops despite her lack of combat experience, but both Sandy and Vanessa thought she was too clever simply for shooting things and thought it wise to start socialising their new combat GIs by training in broader Intel roles. In which capacity, Amirah was doing an accelerated internal sociology course and enjoying it. And landing soft duty like this, keeping watch on other new GIs the authorities were less sure about, while reading her study books.

“What's the book?” Ari asked. “Psychology again?”

“Collected essays of George Orwell,” said Amirah. “He's amazing, nearly six hundred years old and he's describing things I saw yesterday on the news.”

“Yes, that's Sandy's contribution to the reading list. Ami, we might talk about some stuff that you're not security cleared to hear, so I'm sorry, I'm going to have to ask you to…”

“That's okay,” said Amirah, collecting her salad bowl and wine glass in one hand, the half-empty rosé bottle and reader in the other. “Just don't let him devastate your brain with his logical conundrums.” She left with a smile, and the secure door clacked and clanged shut behind her.

“Very clever girl,” said their guest from his lounge chair, still reading from his display. “Suspiciously clever, for a seven-year-old 45 series. Enough to make one wonder if she's actually what she says she is.”

“If you believe that GI designations are the final say in synthetic intellectual destiny, sure.” Ari strolled over.

Their guest's name was Ragi. He was also a GI, though oddly, he claimed not to know his designation. In fact, he claimed to know hardly anything of his origins before arriving on Callay. He'd simply walked off a freighter at Nehru Station three months ago, while Sandy, Ari, and everyone were at
Pantala and told the authorities he was a League GI and wanted to claim Federation asylum. But asylum from what precisely, he couldn't say.

Ari took a seat on the sofa opposite. Ragi was of African appearance but of average size and build, most unlike the combat GIs, who looked and moved like ancient Greek statues come to life. He was almost slender, with a smooth, round face, faintly androgynous. He spoke like a man educated at the finest institutions and played chess like an AI. No expert who'd yet interviewed him had been willing to guess a possible IQ level, save to say that Ragi was by far the most intelligent GI they'd ever seen. That included Cassandra Kresnov and the recently late Mustafa Ramoja. They kept him here without uplinks because one look at a scan of Ragi's uplink hardware suggested that allowing him access to the network in any form could be quite dangerous. No one had yet seen anything like it, not the nature of the technology, nor the sheer density of synapse integration or bio-circuitry. As he'd recently seen some quite remarkable network capabilities utilised by a GI of entirely unfamiliar design and capability, those in charge of Ragi's fate now had an idea that Ari might be able to make progress with him.

“I'm Ariel Ruben,” said Ari. “I work for the CSA.”

“I know,” said Ragi, turning off his displays. “They told me you were coming. They're very nice to me, save that they won't open the door to let me out.”

“In our position,” said Ari, “do you think it would be smart to let you out?”

Ragi smiled. “That's the sort of question a man asks who's been told his interview subject is extremely intelligent. The idea is to try and use my intelligence against me, by asking me to apply it in seeing things from your point of view, and indulges in a kind of intellectual flattery by supposing that I'm the sort of man who can see all sides. What if I'm not?” His delivery was mild, and completely calm, yet Ari sensed nothing of hostility or menace. And this GI, unlike most of those he'd known, was no more physical threat to him than the average civilian on the street. “I mean, who can truly claim objectivity in anything?”