Crossover (32 page)

"That's good. That is very good. I am on my way to see the Governor. You should head back to your unit, Lieutenant, Agent, and await my further instruction." Something about that did not sound right. Vanessa suffered a slow, cold raising of hairs on her scalp and down her spine.

"Sir ..." and she paused, wondering how to put it. Ibrahim waited patiently. She wanted to uplink directly, but that could be monitored even more efficiently than verbal communication, and would attract more attention. At least verbally she had the option of being obtuse. "Sir, is the present strategic circumstance ... acceptable?" Ibrahim shook his head, very calmly and with no doubt or hesitation. Vanessa's cold chill got worse. "Are these circumstances ... likely to change?" Ibrahim nodded with great assurance, and her heart rate accelerated appreciably. "Are you aware that the aforementioned of my ... hardworking and dedicated agents ... considers the ... the ..." Jesus, bloody word games — one of her great delights in SWAT was the simplicity of just blowing stuff up rather than having to worry about stupid bloody words and diplomatic sophistry, "... considers that the present dominant personality in this mess could in fact be playing for the wrong team?" Ibrahim's eyes gleamed. He understood that one all right. Worse, he appeared to find it amusing. Bloody Sunnis — whatever the man's intellectual composure, he just loved a good fight. It was in his genes.

"I believe, Lieutenant, that the mouse is chasing the cat. That your aforementioned agent suspects as much only confirms my opinions." Vanessa blinked.

"What should we do about this?"

"Patience, Lieutenant. The mouse should show great care. The cat will not run for ever, and it has very sharp teeth." He inclined his head briefly, the faintest of dangerous smiles playing upon his lips. The expression suited him. "To your unit, Lieutenant. More shall follow. The game has only just begun." He turned and set off with calm, measured strides down the polished corridor, brown leather briefcase in one brown hand. Vanessa and Sharma stood together and watched him go.

"What did he just say?" Sharma murmured beneath her breath.

"Bad news for mice," Vanessa breathed. "Of any colour."

Getting a room in Tanusha was easy — one of the things the CSA had given her, along with her pistol, was a cashcard. Transaction databases could hypothetically be accessed, Sandy pondered while waiting in the foyer of the Chennai International, despite the illegality. But the CSA card was foundationally encrypted, which was a very common custom job by Tanushan standards, but entirely impenetrable. The benefit of a very basic format with minimal complication. What many data-illiterate people did not realise was that technological advancement meant simplicity, not complexity.

The woman behind the desk handed her card back with an obligatory smile.

"Thank you," Sandy said and tucked the card back into her wallet. CSA issue also. She was careful not to reveal that besides the card, the wallet was empty.

All any records searcher would find on a scan of hotel databases, she thought as the glass-sided elevator whisked her soundlessly upward above the broad atrium floor, was the name she had given the receptionist. Even that could not be verified by the card-entry — personal verification was a thumb scan on the card itself, ensuring she was the only person who could use it. Otherwise, the card was self-contained. If tampered with, it self-destructed, so the stored-value was guaranteed as genuine. Only a recharge would register on the network to any searcher ... otherwise, there was nothing anyone would know except that a person by the name of Stephanie Dravid was booked into room 903 of the Chennai International Hotel in Anambaro, north-western Tanusha.

Among the million or so hotel guests in Tanusha on any given night the name would mean nothing. But someone might know. Someone who had known her direct superior in Dark Star and wondered if the similarity between Stephanie and Stephano was merely coincidental. That someone might check the name out of curiosity. If such an accessor used the network codes she thought they would, her own hidden package would activate, and reveal more code, which using further League-issue breakers ought to be simple enough to decode. The answers there ought to provide the searcher she hoped was out there with enough clues to be sure of her identity. And a five-star hotel was a moderately obvious place to stay. So, she mused as the elevator slid to a smooth halt, she'd finally found a use for Colonel Dravid after all.

She hit the lights when she went through the door and checked out the room. When satisfied that it was secure she stripped naked, laid out her clothes on the bed, the shoulder harness conveniently on top, then dropped to the floor and started stretching.

It was painful. She held herself in the air, back arched, supported on shoulders and feet. Muscles tensed hard, pulling tightly, rippled under the skin, snake-like, bulging and tightening to density far beyond steel. Sandy gritted her teeth and arched further. Her body trembled, shuddering. She felt the pain grinding along her spine, pulling tight at her hips and the small of her back, wrenching through her thighs, knees and buttocks. Shot briefly through her stomach, a memory of recent horror ... she pushed harder, and the pain got worse.

Synth-alloy myomer strained ferociously on ferro-enamelous bone, a creaking, shuddering climax of tension of mega-force scale. She felt as if she might explode. Surely a regular human would, a red smear of shattered organic matter smeared evenly about the walls and ceiling. A high-speed train crash would have involved similar force. A small asteroidal impact. She held herself like that until the clinging, grinding, grating stiffness had completely dissolved, and then collapsed to the floor with a gasp. Rolled onto her stomach, muscles holding to critical density. They flexed and rippled at the slightest movement, a feeling like a thousand steel fingers massaging her bones. It felt good, in a hard, ungentle sort of way. She lay there for a moment, wriggling and twisting slightly as the tension slowly diffused. She felt like she was melting. Pleasantly. And it reminded her, as always, of the release immediately following orgasm.

She rested her forehead on the carpeted floor for a moment, breathing deeply. Lucky, she reflected with a smile, that she'd learned not to tense so much during sex with straights. The coital embraces she'd frequently exchanged with her Dark Star team-mates would have been horribly, messily lethal to any straight, even an enhanced one. She'd been so damn scared of that the first time that she had almost completely failed to enjoy it. Which was the first time that had ever happened, to her memory.

She remembered lying on her bunk during one of her internal planning sessions about leaving the League, and being thankful that she'd learned how to handle that situation, or leaving might not have seemed worth the price. That amused her now, smiling to herself with her cheek to the carpet. God, she could be shallow sometimes. Telling Ibrahim of her high ideals, her political inspiration, her reasoned humanity ... damn, give her good food, nice surroundings and a decent, hard shag at least five times a week, and she was happy. Let the universe rot, she just wanted to get nailed ...

She rolled onto her back and sprawled there, gone completely limp, waiting for her muscles to recover. Trying to think of who that had been, her first non-GI bunk-partner. Not Sevi Ghano. Oh yes ... she suddenly remembered, through a haze of indistinct recall that suggested it had been a long while ago. She'd been ... nine. It'd taken her four years of active duty to even get to know any straights besides the Intel, command and psych officers.

Only she hadn't known this guy very well ... the name escaped her, but he'd been command crew on one of the assault ships. They'd briefed and debriefed together, shared input ... and she'd become curious enough to want to do something about it. He'd been giving her looks too, which might have been inspiration. So they'd gone straight back to his quarters and had it out.

She smiled again, remembering. She'd been terrified. Kept interrupting to ask if he was okay, refusing to embrace him in case of injury, not wanting to be on top in case she bucked too hard, not wanting to be on the bottom in case she flexed her legs too much, and above all,
desperately
wanting not to come in case she locked him in tight, orgasmic grip, and found herself in bed with a mass of red, pulpy tissue and broken bones.

God. Even now she suppressed a shudder through the humour. The control she'd guaranteed Vanessa applied only to sane and lucid moments ... which, in her experience, often ruled out sex.

But the spirit of adventure had driven them on, along with his assurances that he trusted her and wasn't frightened (fool, she remembered thinking), and they'd finally settled on doggy style, which seemed safest... Sandy found herself laughing aloud at the memory, shaking lightly as she lay on her back on the floor. Even then, she'd
still
had an orgasm. Mahud had once remarked that you only needed to sneeze and the Cap'n would come. Not that GIs ever sneezed, but it had been funny at the time.

At which thought she got up, went to the shower and took care of that particular urge for the next few minutes. Emerged after a good half hour's further soaking, wrapped in the white hotel bathrobe, and sat on her bed to gaze out over the night-time city view.

Her trick with the name at the front desk was a long shot, at best. But the possibility that Dali would have compelled certain sections of the CSA to look for her, however unwilling — or maybe the regular police, or those irritating SIBs — made her cautious about accessing the net herself. Her codes were difficult to recognise, she knew, but even so, some of the local people were evidently very good. Technology might not matter to them. They might just have an attack of intuition.

Damn Dali. She wondered if Ibrahim had guessed by now that Dali was probably a part of the FIA operation, whether he actually realised it or not. FIA. Federal Intelligence Agency. Dali's face on the TV ... "Federate concerns must lawfully take precedence over regional and state concerns ..." She wondered how they'd roped him in. Dali's personal background was readily available on any number of Tanushan netsites ... pure bureaucracy, from Indian civil service on Earth to Federal, not an uncommon leap by any means. Nothing to suspect FIA ties. The Governor's personal diplomatic staff, though, were less visible, and their background data was not readily available at all. She wondered who was really in charge in the Governor's office. If Dali truly made his own decisions. Or if he was merely following orders through a more obscure conduit that did not necessarily lead directly back to the Federal Government, but rather to FIA command and associated interests. They did have a very large say in the appointment and function of Federal Governors throughout the Federation, after all. She knew they did. She'd read the documents.

And now, thanks to the tyranny of distance, it was going to be at least a month until the situation resolved itself in the form of a Federal delegation from Earth.

She was, as Raju once used to say, really in the shit this time. Raju. She wondered if he was here. If any of them were. She missed him suddenly. She missed them all. She hoped like hell they were looking for her, and guessing she would no longer be staying with the CSA under present circumstances, and searching those most obvious of alternative accommodations ... five-star hotels. A logical thought process for one of her guys. The Captain. Loose in a civvie city, with ample credit and her usual expensive tastes. Five-star hotels indeed. She nearly smiled.

She sat on the edge of her bed and considered the city view. It was staggering, as always. Far below was a broad courtyard, at the foot of the building, with what looked like a food court, rides for the children. Beyond, streets, shopping, endless avenues of blazing light, and people strolling. As if nothing had happened, the government had not been disconnected and all was right in the world.

Something else caught her eye, perhaps a kilometre off to the right, on the far side of a broad, grassy park, not unlike the one in which she had crash-landed just that afternoon. Commotion on the street beyond, visible only because of the park and the lack of intervening buildings. Masses of people, flags waving, lights blazing, holographic, pyrotechnic and otherwise. Police lights too, staccato flashes of red and blue that danced across the park and glared off nearby windows. A protest march. Blocking traffic. Doubtless the traffic planners were furious.

She sat and watched them pass for the next half hour, and still the column did not end. At various other spots across the city vista, she spotted other commotions, flashing lights and the odd circling aircar with security or special media clearance. The numbers of security flyers airborne seemed far greater, too, than she recalled haying seen before. Back at the march, the crowds seemed even thicker, spilling onto the lawns of the park as they marched. She zoomed to full maximum, and studied the ordinary Tanushans, of many different ethnicities and modes of dress, marching, shouting, sometimes even dancing. No surprise there. If enough Tanushans got together in one spot, it usually turned into a party. The fact they were marching at all did surprise her, though. And so many. The apolitical city ... how many times had she heard that since she'd arrived? And yet there they were, out in the streets, blocking the traffic and doubtless sending the automated traffic systems into fits of inspired improvisation.

Had she done this? The possibility was stunning. No. No, she really didn't think she had. These people didn't know she existed, even if the politicians did. No. The universe had finally come to Tanusha, and indeed to all of Callay. The politics of humanity were finally knocking on their door. And she severely doubted, with a feeling somewhere between sadness and relief, that they would ever be quite the same again.

She was awoken by a knock on the door. Pistol in hand and automatically angling across the room with stiff-armed precision. The time was 3:38. Night light filled the room through the windows.

"Minder, who is at the door?" Night light turned to coloured shades, abruptly distinct, as the room transformed around her.