Killswitch (50 page)

"Considering I'm offering you a choice between violent death or imprisonment, that's not saying much. The man's a megalomaniac. So sure, maybe he's perfect for you."

"I'm a GI," Jane retorted. For the first time, Sandy thought she could detect the faintest trace of emotion in her voice. "I seek my creator."

"So go to church."

"Be serious," came the mildly scornful retort. "Religion is for the lost. I know who I am."

"You'd be the only one." Sandy stepped far enough forward from the wall to clip the rifle to her back armour. "Creating us doesn't make him worthy of whatever it is you think you're looking for."

"I seek only my own kind. I'd thought perhaps that meant you. Clearly I was mistaken. Renaldo knows me. He respects what I am. Together, we find a commonality of purpose. He treats me as I deserve."

"Hey, bitch-I know you. And I know exactly what you deserve." Hands now free of the rifle, she took the pistol in her left hand, the grenade in her right.

"Your analysis lacks precision," Jane replied. "You have become ragged and uneven. A flawed tool. It shall be your downfall."

"Tell it to someone who cares."

"I'll tell it ..." and broke off as Sandy flipped the grenade about the corner, on a low trajectory, then went high and left-handed with the pistol. Jane shot the grenade in midflight, but was simply not quick enough to target the simultaneously emerging pistol as wellSandy fired an explosive volley, tearing the rifle from Jane's hands, then charged, holstering the pistol and ripping the rifle from her back in milliseconds, discharging two grenades through the open doorway through which Jane had vanished.

They detonated with a crash, followed by a volley of fire as Jane softened the weak wall panelling, then a crash as she dove through into the adjoining corridor ... Sandy pulled up short as a second volley whistled through where her head would have been had she stuck it around the corridor corner. She ricocheted a grenade off the wall instead ... it tore wall panelling rather than bouncing cleanly, so she risked a peek with her rifle muzzle only to snap it back as Jane put a bullet through the grenade launcher, then several more. Then nothing, light footsteps springing up an adjoining corridor, and Sandy dashed in armoured pursuit.

The array of grenade debris told her that Jane must have taken fragments, probably from all blasts ... she switched hands approaching the next corner, and shoved the rifle butt out instead of the muzzle. Two shots hit it, the burst cut short prematurely as she heard the pistol go empty, and stepped around the corner into calm, plain sight, with a swing of the rifle to underarm-level like a cricket batsman stepping up to the crease. Jane was already running, but fast as she was, she was two metres and forty-five hundredths of a second short of the next corner, and wearing no armour.

Sandy fired low, shots striking thighs and calves. Jane hit the decking and rolled hard for cover. Sandy ran after, hearing more shots ahead as Rhian engaged Takawashi's group just short of the docks. Targets appeared on tac-net, only to vanish, panicked yells and Rhian shouting at them to stop or else. She gave the next corner a wide berth, seeing blood on the deck plates ... and realising that somehow, she'd fired low. She couldn't remember making that conscious decision at all. A single burst between the shoulderblades would have solved everything. But now, the corridor was empty, and the engineering door was forced open. Damn it.

She ducked within, eyes and rifle muzzle darting within the dark metallic space. Two closed hatches along the right wall, and a larger one through a reinforced bulkhead straight in front. Sandy kicked through it with a resounding wham! that proved nothing was hiding on the door's far side. Beyond, a dark, narrow space of low overhead pipes, and the reverberating hum of aircon and station systems. Sandy moved forward at a low crouch, tracking multiple places where a body could hide up ahead, and eyeing the occasional blood spots on the decking that she knew could be deceptive ...

A grenade flashed to her side, blinding, and Jane was on her barely before the shockwave had finished smashing her into the wall, tearing the rifle from her grasp and sending her flying headfirst into a pipe brace, the visor imploding to shattered white. Her countermove swept arm and leg simultaneously, predicting Jane's counterbrace and switching to a simple, right-fisted punch that sent her crashing backward. Sandy's next blow went straight through the pipe as Jane whipped away and rolling, steam erupting as Sandy ripped the pistol from her webbing.

Jane came up and grabbed it faster than even a high-des GI had a right to, considering the state of her legs ... Sandy simply let her have it, releasing the pistol and punching her in the face with that hand instead. A straight's head would have smashed like a melon. Jane's snapped back, in that fractional, time-frozen moment, eyes wide in desperate, rapid-time processing as her brain tried to catch up with events. Disbelief, Sandy saw. Shock. Sandy's kick smashed her into the wall, an armoured elbow smash bounced her artificial skull off the pipes, and her overhead hammer-blow drove her straight into the deck ... where she grabbed Sandy's legs and pulled her feet from under her.

Sandy twisted and kicked on the way down, but only succeeded in imparting greater velocity upon Jane's new dash for a side exit. Sandy stayed long enough to retrieve her pistol, then scrambled after. Down the cramped side passage was a metal ladder descending through a manhole ... she heard the movement below, grabbed a hold and slid down one handed, the other hand aiming the pistol as she hit the deck below. Fired a shot that clipped Jane's arm as she fled stumbling through yet another side door. Sandy ducked rolling through that one, darting a look both ways past the blur of her shattered visor. Jane was headed dockward in a flashing, strobing wash of red emergency light-jacket flying, legs straining to control the limp as synth-alloy myomer calves and thighs screamed in protest, contracted to steeldensity and impact-shocked, and now struggling to loosen for running. Sandy took aim between the shoulder blades, as Jane approached the final corner, and let her have a full ten rounds in a half second.

Jane's head snapped back, hair flying as her body was thrown forward, back muscles erupting to super-hard density under compression, contorting her entire posture. She hit the ground and rolled into the corridor mouth, a straining hand held desperately toward the sign and arrow on the wall, pointing toward Berth Twenty-five. Sandy advanced at a walk that felt no faster than slow motion in knee-deep mud. Jane did not look back, her desperate, wide-eyed stare focused instead up the hallway, toward the docks. Body rigid, arms outstretched, fighting the agonising tension of bullet-strike on unprotected muscle. Arms and legs tried to lock out, fingers straining like claws, teeth bared in an animal snarl.

Then, she began to get up. Like some broken puppet, attempting to rise on its own once the strings had been cut ... an awkward, stag gering motion of stiff legs and precarious balance. Sandy's finger hovered over the trigger. Somehow, she did not fire.

Jane staggered off, limping forward like a wounded automaton, eyes fixed only upon her goal. Further up the hallway, Sandy heard commotion, and Rhian's voice shouting for someone to keep still. A cry of anguish, surely Takawashi's. Then Sandy rounded the corner herself, Jane staggering frantically ahead, making no inconsiderable pace despite the horror of her injuries. Desperation, Sandy realised. Beyond, she saw Takawashi, a gaunt, ghostly figure in a silvery robe. Arms outstretched to Jane, advancing toward her. Rhian behind, several bodyguards crouching nearby with hands wisely on heads, several others sprawled in bloody ruin having failed to do likewise. Rhian was yelling at Takawashi to stop. Takawashi did not seem to hear, eyes only for Jane. Somehow, Sandy could not seem to hear the words.

"JANE!" she yelled. The pistol was not assault-rifle calibre, to which Jane owed her briefly continuing life. But another burst, in the same spot as the last, would surely, finally penetrate. "You surrender now! I don't need another excuse!"

Jane did not stop. Takawashi surely had a weapon under those robes. And besides, the moment had been a long time coming. Sandy fired. Jane lurched, and crashed forward like a falling statue. Takawashi cried out in anguish, trying to run on aged, slippered feet, but managing no more than a rapid, agonised shuffle.

He reached Jane's side as Sandy approached, pistol ready for any sudden movements. Slowly, and with great, shuddering effort, he managed to turn Jane onto her side. There was blood in her mouth, Sandy saw, and she breathed with difficulty. The eyes were stunned, seeking only Takawashi, who knelt at her head and clawed helplessly at her shoulder. One brown, skeletal hand found hers, and clasped. Even in Jane's state, she could have crushed it. Drops of blood stained the shimmering white kimono. Her bloody lips struggled to move.

"I ... I'm sorry," she breathed to him. "I failed you." Sandy unclipped the helmet faceplate with one hand. The breather came away, then the shattered eyepieces lifted. Cold air filled her lungs, tinged with acrid smoke.

"No!" Takawashi had tears in his eyes. A gnarled hand stroked at Jane's cold, pale face. He smiled through the moisture. "You were magnificent! You nearly matched your sister, despite all her advantage of years. There is no shame, my dear. No shame at all." A thumb and forefinger pulled Jane's eyelids apart, peering at her irises. "You have exceeded my wildest expectations."

"She's better than me," Jane murmured. Takawashi felt for the back of her torn, bloody jacket, fingers seeking the location of the holes. "You told me. I didn't want to believe it. But she is."

"Now, now, what did I tell you? We all learn our greatest lessons from our failures, not our successes. Your problem is that you have been too perfect! You never failed, and so you never learned."

Further down the hall, Rhian had approached. Watching curiously, her expression invisible behind the helmet's visored mask. The three suited guards crouched against the wall might have been hopeful, with her back turned ... except that somehow, Rhian's left hand kept the rifle levelled dead-straight, even behind her.

None dared move.

"I would have liked to have seen Ryssa," Jane managed to breath. "I've never ... belonged. It would have been ... nice to belong. With you."

"Come come, my girl," Takawashi retorted, a new, firm purpose restoring itself over his emotions. "I won't have defeatism, do you hear me? Come on, we're going to get up. Up, do you hear? You're not finished yet, I command you to rise!"

He struggled to his feet, grasping helplessly at her arm. Jane tried. Sandy stood, and stared, watching her try. Feeling ... numb. It was hope. Plain, desperate hope. And it was the last thing she'd wanted to see. Takawashi waved desperately to his cowering guards, as Jane tried to get a knee beneath her, and then a foot. The guards exchanged nervous, sweating glances.

"Come on, come on you fools!" Takawashi snarled, straining breathlessly. "They're honourable soldiers! They won't hurt you!"

"Cap?" Rhian questioned by uplink as the guards slowly rose, keeping their hands in plain sight. Sandy didn't reply, watching Jane's attempts, dumbly. The guards edged cautiously past Rhian, her rifle tracking them all the while, then ran to Takawashi's side. Together, they lifted Jane. When half-upright, they linked hands beneath her for a seat, and lifted. "Cap?" Rhian repeated, audibly this time.

Takawashi turned to face Sandy. The guards carrying Jane waited, casting anxious glances back at her, now. Her eyes met Takawashi's, his gaze brimming with emotion. Noting her blank expression, and the lowered pistol, with tearful expectation. And he smiled at her, thankfully. As if this, in all the universe, was the greatest gift she could possibly grant him. She knew, past the numbness, that she didn't like it. It opposed everything she believed in, all that she stood for and admired. But, for the first time, she understood completely. God help her.

Takawashi put a hand upon one guard's shoulder, and they moved off, holding Jane suspended between them. Takawashi shuffled along behind, hovering like an anxious father, as if to be sure she did not fall. They passed Rhian, who stood, and watched the unlikely grouping in disbelief. Then she turned, and walked toward Sandy. Popped her own faceplate, to display the curious frown upon her face.

"Cap? You okay?"

"I'm okay." As she watched the little group retreating up the hallway, toward Berth Twenty-five, and Corona, and a long trip home.

"Didn't we, like, want to ask them some questions, at least?"

"Takawashi wouldn't talk," Sandy murmured. "He's a League VIP, he'd just sit tight until we had to let him go."

"And Jane?" With great expectation. "She looked like she might survive." As if the prospect were notably disappointing.

Sandy shrugged. And let out a long, tired sigh. "Jane's going home, Rhi. She's going home."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

HE one nice thing about the summer, Sandy reflected as she paddled, was that there wasn't much wind.

To be sure, summer meant heat and humidity (she was informed, barely noticing such things herself), a profusion of biting insects (ditto), lots of rain, lightning strikes, and more than the usual numbers of crazy, mystical types running naked down streets proclaiming to be emperors of long-lost alien civilisations. But no wind meant no "afternoon rubble," as the locals called it-the surf collapsing from its still, morning perfection as the wind came up later in the day. So summertime, all surfers knew, meant great waves.

The next set rose before her, clear and sparkling in the midday glare, and even the curling, rising face seemed to be carved from blue, polished marble. She dug in her strokes, and accelerated her board comfortably over the lip, then over and down the next two in turn. To her right, a young grommet she knew to be named Pradan went hurtling down a wave with a howl of delight, skinny brown limbs in perfect balance, long, matted hair flying out behind. She smiled to herself and continued, toward where Rami, his cameraman and his producer were getting set up with their little support boat.

"Ready yet?" she asked as she paddled alongside.

"Uh, sure ..." said her favourite Tanushan TV personality. "Just about." He looked a little nervous, with the inflatable rising and falling beneath him, with each passing swell. Although the water was much deeper out this far, just beyond the sudden rise in the seabed that brought each wave to its towering crest. And utterly smooth, save for the swell, the water gleaming a deep, luminescent shade of green. Rami's cameraman climbed onto his longboard with evident expertise, then reached as the producer handed over the camera, encased in a waterproof, black casing.

"How deep's the water here again?" Rami wanted to know, sitting on the inflatable's edge in his blue wetsuit. Only a small man, and quite unfamiliar with any body of water outside his bathtub, as he'd put it. But as handsome in real life as on a monitor, Sandy had been pleased to discover. And as pleasant.

"Far too deep, Rami," said his producer. She was a cheerful, redhaired woman with freckles-and a hat, shades and lots of sunscreen. An automated camera mount monitored the whole scene from the inflatable's bow, presumably for later screening of the most amusing bits. "It's such a long way down, you can't even see the bottom."

"Crawling with flatrays and razors," his cameraman added, sighting his lense upon Sandy and adjusting.

"Don't you mess with me, Angus!" Rami snapped, breaking into one of his familiar personas. "I'm the most powerful man in Callayan showbusiness! I tell you I have every flesh-eating carnivore swimming along this entire beach front on contract!" Snapping a closed fist against his palm. "Now I command this water to part! Part before me, ungrateful liquid substance, or you'll never work on my show again!"

He jumped in feet first, and proceeded to make a great show of floundering and splashing like a clown until finally reaching his longboard, dragging himself on board like a half-drowned animal, and collapsing.

"You're now wondering if this was such a great idea, aren't you?" the producer suggested to Sandy, who was seated upright on her board and grinning.

,,You know," Sandy commented, "when you lie face down on the board like that-from below, to a razor, you look just like a floater squid. They eat floater squid."

Rami scrambled to sit upright in such a hurry he fell off, and spent another thirty seconds floundering and gasping, appealing to numerous Hindu gods that regular viewers would know he regularly lampooned-not always wise, as a Muslim Indian, but Tanushans were fairly sanguine about such things, and Rami was so inoffensive, and so egalitarian in his targets (frequently including himself) that he always got away with it.

Several minutes later, with Rami precariously balanced upon his longboard, and the cameraman and producer indicating all in readiness, the interview began.

"Now first of all," Rami began, "let me just say that I'm ... incredibly honoured that of all the thousands of pathetic little media parasites that have been chasing after you for the past two years, hiding in bathrooms, bursting out of your closet in the dead of night, trying to grab an interview with the Federation's most famous artificial person ... you chose me." With a hand on his chest, smiling disarmingly. "May I have the pleasure of knowing why?"

"You're the most powerful man in Callayan showbusiness," Sandy replied.

Rami laughed. "Well, yes of course ... but seriously?"

"Well ..." Sandy wiped a strand of wet hair from her brow, trying not to feel too self-conscious, with the camera focused unerringly upon her face. Her natural, familiar blonde hair, now that she'd had the dye removed. She did not, she was pleased to realise, feel particularly nervous. Nerves were not a natural part of her psychological state, under any circumstance. "For one thing, I was instructed by the powers that be to do just one interview ..."

"Just to get everyone off your back?"

"Off the CDF's back, I guess. And, you know ..." she shrugged, "... there's such a thing as public accountability."

"You'd be the only Callayan official who believed that."

"I'm still gullible enough to believe it, maybe," Sandy replied with a smile. "And I chose you because I knew I wouldn't like any of the usual stuffy, formal interviews. I knew you'd give me something different." She gestured to the ocean about them, and the waves breaking upon the sandy beach beyond. "And I was right."

"I should, um, explain this to the viewers," Rami added, with a gesture to the camera, "especially considering there'll be a lot of people watching this beyond the ... five or six who normally watch my shows. Some guests I have just aren't studio guests ... or at least, I just don't think of them as studio guests. You know, sometimes you get actors, or other performers who just belong there, naturally. Somehow, with you ..." and he winced, trying to articulate what he saw, "... I just couldn't conceive of you there. I mean, trying to turn you into a celebrity, something you seem to have been trying your level best to avoid the past two years. And it just seemed so stupid, and so fake, that I decided that I'd ask you if you wanted to do the interview someplace you felt most comfortable. And silly me, I thought maybe you'd pick the CDF grounds, or a firing range or something ..."

Sandy made a face. "That's not me. That's just what I do for a living."

"So Cassandra ... surfing." He patted his board, a little gingerly, as if willing it not to upend and tip him off. Again. A swell brought them rising up, then sinking down again, as the hump moved on toward the beach, where it transformed into a wave, and then a curling, breaking crest. "What does this place mean to you?"

"Oh ... freedom, I suppose. Happiness. All that good, corny stuff."

"Considering what you are, a lot of people wouldn't naturally see freedom and happiness as being immediately important to you."

Sandy smiled. "And what am I?"

Rami looked incredulous. "You mean you don't know?"

He was kidding, but Sandy decided to take it seriously. "No," she replied, shaking her head somewhat glumly. "No, I don't. I don't think anyone does, about themself. Not really. Not if they're honest with themselves."

"Know thyself," Rami said with a tone of mock-wisdom. "A wise man once said. Is that why you come out here? To know yourself?"

Sandy shrugged. "Sure. That's a part of why anyone does anything, I suppose."

"And it's a part of why you left the League in the first place?"

Sandy smiled. This was the other reason why she'd made the unlikely choice of Rami Rahim to do her first Callayan TV interview-behind the clownish persona lurked a man of insight and intellect. His best humour she found amusing because it cut its subject straight to the bone. He wouldn't fall for the cliched rubbish much of the media liked to spout about her. "Of course," she replied. "That was me growing up. Children have to leave home sometime. I just had further to travel when I left. And much more to run away from."

A large swell carried them higher once more. Several kilometres to the south lay Turgesh Heads, one of numerous rocky formations along this stretch of coast, northeast of Tanusha. Further south, the Shoban Delta began to break up the firm, straight beaches with a network of river mouths and shifting sand banks. There, the ground became swampy with marsh trees and root networks. Here, a rocky foundation held the ground intact, and steered the river mouths southward. The beach here ran straight and long between the heads, a little too gravelly and rocky to be paradise, but the waves made up for it. Some people lived here, and only visited Tanusha when they had no other choice. Most commuted. Some spots were crowded, but the coastline was long, and those with access to flyers could reach the southeastern beaches too, south of the delta. Today, there were people scattered at random across the sands and the waves ... but for most Tanushans it was a work day, and there was nothing approaching a crowd. Much of the CDF now had time off. Which was welcome, yet felt somehow unnatural.

"Now, the last time the Callayan public saw you," Rami continued, you were at the memorial ceremony for those who died taking Nehru Station. The turnout was just enormous ... did that surprise you?"

"Surprise me? No, not really. I don't think anything the Callayan public does surprises me any longer."

"I know exactly what you mean," Rami deadpanned wearily.

"I'll tell you what impressed me, though, was the manner of them. There wasn't any false triumphalism. People were positive; they weren't gloomy or depressed or anything ... but there was a weight there, you know? As if people had realised that things have changed, and they're not wildly excited about it on the one hand, but not terribly depressed on the other. They're thoughtful. That's the feeling I got that day, anyway."

"I got that too," Rami agreed, nodding as she spoke. "It has been a big change for a lot of people, it's given them a lot to think about."

"I know," said Sandy. "But I think too that Callayan people sometimes haven't given themselves enough credit. All these cliches about decadence and superficiality ... there's some truth in every cliche, of course, but I haven't been seeing any of that lately."

"Does it make you proud?"

"Yeah ... you know, it really does. But then, I was proud before, too. I think this place has a lot to be proud of ... and can do so without having to resort to hollow jingoism. I like that."

"There's been some other talk lately," Rami continued, "about General Krishnaswali and whether he's been hogging too much of the credit for the victory. Some people have leaked information to the effect that he wasn't actually in charge of the attack, and that you and Major Rice in fact deserve most of the credit."

Sandy smiled broadly. "Rami," she said reproachfully. "You should know better than to go around dealing in scuttlebutt."

"Are you kidding? I love scuttlebutt. Scuttlebutt has made many a great media career before, and will do so again."

"General Krishnaswali did a fine job," Sandy said firmly. "He was wounded during a very brave assault upon the station hub, and pressed on regardless to capture the reactor and keep the station online. He's a first class general, and I'm very proud to serve under his command in the CDE As far as I'm concerned, everyone on that station was a hero, and not just the CDF. We couldn't have done it without the civilians who helped us either."

Rami grinned. "Darn it, I thought I had you."

Sandy just smiled. Damn right Krishnaswali was hogging more than his share of the credit. Damn sure people were pissed at him. But equally damn sure she wasn't about to undermine the CDF and Callay's achievement in a fit of political backbiting over the spoils. Politics was politics, and would always be so. And you either dealt with it, as calmly and rationally as possible, or it dealt with you. Besides all of which, when Krishnaswali had emerged from the two-arm elevator with his squad, exhausted, sweaty and cradling a wounded arm, having against all the odds secured the reactor core with no further fatalities, she'd pumped her fist in the air and yelled with all the rest of them. If Krishnaswali wanted the credit, let him have it. Of the CDF's three senior commanders, he was the only one who actually wanted it, anyhow ...

"So tell me," Rami pressed, moving to lean meaningly forward upon his board ... and almost losing his balance as the board tipped. Sandy restrained her amusement. "Whose stupid idea was this anyway?" Rami muttered as he recovered.

"That would be yours," Sandy told him.

"Ah." He resettled the board between wetsuited legs. In the bright midday sun, the wetsuit was becoming quite hot ... yet the water here was verging on cold, with strong northerly currents hauling it down from the poles. Cold by warm Tanushan standards, anyhow. Sandy's artificial muscles preferred heat to cold, and she always wore a wetsuit while surfing, whatever the sunlight, least she stiffen and cramp for days to follow. And besides, she was determined that people the day after this interview was broadcast would be talking about the content of her words, and not the proportions of her figure as revealed by the kind of skimpy swimsuit Rhian favoured.