Ghost of Mind Episode One (10 page)

The officer beside John was obviously trying
very, very hard not to laugh. The guy was probably half human and
half some other soft race, so John could recognize the
stiff-lipped, crinkled-nose look well.

‘
I see,’ the Chief finally replied. ‘I have
stopped, as you say, questioning your authority. Debrief
me.’

And that's why John liked the Barkanians. A
matter-of-fact race when they wanted to be, notwithstanding the
brutality and thirst for war, that was.

Taking a deep breath, John talked the Chief
through the last hour of his life. Listing the woman's exploits one
after the other. The Chief did not snigger in disbelief; John
didn't give him the chance. He linked up to the Pegasus and got
them to send down all the information they'd picked up on the
woman's fall and resultant walk through the frosty salt and snow
dunes of Orion Minor.

When John was finished, he looked over his
shoulder to see that the woman was no longer in the center of the
room. She was not huddled on the bench or underneath it either,
considering how large it was. She was pacing, back and forth in
front of the security fields. Though she was a good four meters
away from the crackling field, that didn't stop the color of it
from playing across those exposed lips of hers.

The sight caught his attention for a
second.

‘
Commander, I repeat,’ the Chief said
louder, ‘I demand we do a bio scan at once. I do not want to risk
having a high-profile criminal or assassin cyborg in one of my
cells. The Union will have to be informed immediately; we don't
have the facilities to hold such creatures.’

John snapped his attention back to the Chief.
All facts he agreed on; the woman needed to be scanned as a top
priority. She also needed to be placed in a better holding cell
whenever it was safe to move her. But John doubted very much she
would turn out to be an assassin cyborg; not with that smile of
hers. And as for her being a high-profile criminal, he had no
evidence. But a flicker of intuition told him that wasn't even
scratching the surface of this elusive woman's secret.

Chapter 15

Alice

They'd finally left, the officer and the
Chief of Security. But he had staid.

Now John Doe, with his arms still crossed,
leant as close to the opposite side of the security field as he
could get without his armor frying.

His head was on that blasted angle again. The
one that told her John was staring forth with unbridled interest,
with unquenchable curiosity. Right at her.

Except this time she could see his eyes. He'd
taken his helmet off to talk to the Chief, and hadn't bothered to
put it back on, setting it to transparent force field instead.

As she paced, her limbs threatening to lock
up from the tension of being trapped in the cell, she tried not to
stare at him.

He had the kind of gaze that could melt
anyone.

‘
I suppose you are still not in a talkative
mood,’ he suddenly noted, voice sounding clear through the field,
despite how furiously it crackled.

She paused, but only for a second. Then she
went right back to pacing, her footfall fervent and quick, her
shoes squeaking over the well-worn floor of the cell.

‘
You know, you could tell me what's going
on. We're going to find out anyway,’ he said through a
sigh.

She looked at him sharply.

She could see through her hood. While to
everyone else it was low slung over her eyes and hid everything but
her lips and chin, to her it did not obscure the world at all. It
was the handy work of the same race responsible for building the
Great Universal Transport System after all. A semi visible cape was
about the least impressive thing the Old Ones had ever done, in the
scheme of things.

‘
You don't play along, and it won't get
easy from here. It'll get harder. No more running away; there's no
building to drop yourself off. You're surrounded by reinforced
smart metal walls,’ he banged his fist on the wall beside him, the
sound of it loud and hard, ‘and more security force fields than
you've got on the rest of the planet. So start playing along; it'll
be better for you in the long run,’ he added in a lower
voice.

It made her turn to him. She really didn't
want to; she wanted to get as far away from this man as she could.
She did not want to spend time staring at him and considering his
advice carefully. He was freaking John Doe, after all.

But it was the particular flicker of emotion
that had laced his words that had done it. It had made her belly
twitch, sent a sharp snap of cold over her back.

‘
I don't know why you ran, and I don't know
who else apart from me you've been running from, but you're safe
now. You tell us your story, and I'll guarantee you they won't hang
you up to dry. If you've gotten away from one of the Factions, from
the pirates, from some mercenary unit, tell me,’ his voice rang
louder, somehow managed to shift through her feet and shake right
into her.

Clutching a hand over her arm, her fingers
pressing right through the tangled and ripped fabric, she still
couldn't turn from him.

‘
If you promise to testify, I'll ensure
they look after you. You'll be offered the same security protection
as all other informants. It doesn't matter if you're from the
higher levels or the slums,’ his voice croaked for a moment, ‘I'll
make sure they treat you like a Union citizen deserves.’

She rubbed at her arm distractedly, her skin
starting to finally warm up. But no matter how soft it now felt to
her touch, her fear had not magically dried up.

He'd just distracted her from it for a
precious second.

Was he serious? He certainly sounded like it.
That particular gaze he fixed her with didn't waiver either.

‘
Come on, just give me something. You can
trust me.’ He shifted his head sharply for a second, looking
uncomfortable as he swallowed. ‘I don't know if you can trust
them,’ he admitted as he brought a hand up, pushing the fingers
easily through the force field of his helmet as he scratched his
eyebrow and sighed again. The move was heavy. Everything about him
in that moment seemed heavy.

Alice had been in the slums long enough to
know the cost of compassion. Whether it was your food ration for
the week, your quarters, or your life; it was more expensive to do
something kind for a stranger in the lower levels than up
above.

It could cost you survival.

And at that moment as Alice stared back at
John, she fancied she saw understanding flickering through his
gaze. He knew the equation.

But he didn't seem to care. And while it was
expensive for Alice to be compassionate, it would also cost someone
like John Doe to stick his neck out for a slum woman.

She blinked slowly, her eyes flicking over
his form.

She was thankful he could not see her gaze,
because right now she looked the man over entirely.

He was a solid, tall build for a human,
though not so muscular that his form looked out of proportion. He
had a stiff, hard-lined jaw that was lightly dusted with a ray of
stubble. He had dark brown eyes and the nick of a healed scar cut
through his left eyebrow. He had another longer scar running across
his scalp, clearly visible under his short-cropped dark hair.

Why the man had scars she could not guess;
the Union had enough technology to make something like that
disappear without a hint it had once been.

And yet they remained. Did he fancy himself
tough? Were they there as signs that the enigmatic John Doe knew
how to negotiate with his fists just as much as he did with his
voice? Or were they a reminder of something else? A fact John did
not want expunged by the erasing of the scars for life.

She was thinking too much about him, paying
too close attention to his body and face, and she shook her head
sharply to dislodge the thoughts.

‘
Come on, please,’ he said. He was still
looking right at her, gaze never wavering.

‘
I can't,’ she answered.

She actually answered him. She didn't need
to; it wasn't like he could force the words out of her throat. And
Alice knew she could not afford to let anything slip.

Yet he'd cajoled the words right out of
her.

Straightening up, probably bolstered by
the fact she'd finally spoken, John got a little closer to the
security field. Light feedback rippled over the force field of his
own helmet, but it didn't seem to bother him. ‘You'll be safe,’ he
repeated.

No she wouldn't. And that was the irony. John
Doe obviously believed what he was staying. But he did not
understand. And if he could truly comprehend just what and who
stood in front of him, he would not be making such generous offers.
He'd be dragging her off to his Union masters as the greatest prize
in the universe.

Backing off, her thoughts making her fingers
cold and stiff, she half turned from him.

‘
I don't go back on my word,’ he suddenly
added. In that moment his voice had taken on a different quality.
Harder.

‘
No, you don't understand,’ she
said.

God. She'd done it again. She did not need to
speak to this man. For her own sake, for the sake of the rest of
the freaking universe, she should be keeping her lips sealed.

‘
Then let me in on the secret. I won't go
back on my word,’ he reassured her again, his voice bottoming out
into a low brogue.

Oh, if only that were the case. Alice would
give anything for someone to trust. But she'd travelled through the
universe and all she'd found was hate and suspicion.

So no, she could not trust John, no matter
how much the flicker of emotion in her heart wanted her to give it
a go.

Chapter 16

John Doe

He leaned back against the wall, sighing
heavily. Just when it had seemed she was ready to open up to him,
she'd shut down again.

Just what in the hell was this woman's
secret? It seemed to be tying her down, stifling and smothering her
as her arms shook from the fear of it.

But before John had a chance to delve deeper,
he saw the Chief return along the short corridor.

John straightened up, not beyond being polite
even if he wasn't going to let the Bakar steamroll over him.

‘
We have managed to negotiate a level-wide
targeted impediment field,’ the Chief snapped before he'd even made
it halfway up the corridor.

John let a relieved sigh rattle his chest.
That was the first bit of good news he'd received since he'd
clapped eyes on this woman. ‘Full strength, I assume?’

The Chief gave a brief nod. ‘It will come
online in five seconds.’ He reached John's side and peered in
through the door at the woman.

She had stopped pacing; her body was right
back to being as stiff as a board.

John locked his gaze on her.

Then he heard a familiar electronic beep.

The computer had just locked onto her bio
signs. Then, in a flickering clap of light, a hum travelled right
through the cell, out into the corridor, and presumably through the
rest of the entire level.

A level-wide impediment field would stop this
woman from running around, jumping off buildings, and slamming her
arms into Union commanders. In fact, considering how powerful this
one was, it would reduce all her movements to a slow crawl. The
computer would dictate when and where she moved, and if she tried
to pull anything considered unapproved, she would grind to a halt.
It would let her walk forward in the direction it wanted, and
nothing more.

The Chief leaned in past John and made a
specific hand signal in front of the fields securing the door.

They immediately flickered off.

She looked up, the movement slow and
drawn-out. The impediment field had obviously taken effect.

Her body seemed as though it was being
dragged down, her arms stiff and heavy at her sides as if the
gravity field had just been turned up several notches.

‘
Right,’ the Chief growled, ‘move forward
prisoner.’

She didn’t make a noise. Her arms shifted
forward as one leg stuck out at an odd, awkward angle. She shifted
her weight, her hands clutching slowly in the air.

John had seen an impediment field in full
effect many times before, and he usually never had a problem with
it. This time he found himself turning away sharply though, giving
a cough to hide his movement.

She looked like a marionette being tugged
around by invisible stings, and John could guarantee if he could
see her eyes they would be plastered open in fear and shock.

‘
This is going to be regrettably slow,’ the
Chief grumbled, finally tugging the gun from the holster at his
back. The holster formed an electronic lock with the full body
armor under the guy’s uniform, and as it released the gun it did so
with a pneumatic hiss.

Running one spike-covered hand along the
length of the chamber, the Chief gave it a sharp shake until the
thing buzzed into life. The core pulsed a deep red and then settled
on a bright blue.

Fully charged.

One blow from that and he would eat a hole
through the reinforced walls, let alone tear the woman to
pieces.

Not that it would come to that.

She was stuck. Being yanked forward by the
impediment field, the flicker of it escaping and crackling over her
skin. A few times she tried to bat slowly at her arms, no doubt
trying to chase away the terrible sensation. It wouldn’t work. The
field was there to stay.

Grumbling, the Chief shifted forward, hardly
paying attention to the woman behind him as she jolted form one
foot to the other, the movements of her legs forced and heavy while
her hands formed the slowest fists by her side, her mouth
periodically gaping open and closing again, though it took painful
seconds for her lips to shift a single centimeter.