Mecha Rogue (14 page)

But his interface suit told a different story. His Demon hadn't been compromised. Its systems still reported back
FULLY OPERATIONAL. READY TO DEPLOY
.

But maybe they'd figured out how to spoof it. Maybe they'd had help from the other faction, which was clearly much more technologically advanced than the crew of the
El Dorado
.

But as they approached, he noticed that the repair ships had stopped their work. The arms were retracted, and no space-suited figures swarmed near the big rock of the
El Dorado
anymore. Had they run out of money? The repairs were scheduled to take three more days. The quietude was both reassuring and troubling.

When they arrived in the spaceship dock, Matt stopped stock-still, his breath going out of him.

His Demon was gone.

Matt shoved through the cargo containers before they'd even docked and pushed his way to the air-lock doors. They'd done it! Stolen his Demon! Red, acid-burning spikes of anger flared through him as he waited for the locks to open. The other passengers stayed away from his clenched fists and flushed face.

Matt flew out the air-lock door and nearly collided with Ione and Captain Gonsalves. In a flash, he grabbed a handrail for leverage and kicked the captain hard with both feet, sending him flying down the corridor.

“Matt!” Ione shouted, and dove for him. But Matt had already pushed off in pursuit of the captain. He reached the man as he hit the opposite wall and grabbed a handrail. Matt swung hard at his face, but Gonsalves ducked. Matt's hand glanced off the hard rock wall, skinning his knuckles and sending a bolt of pain through his arm. The captain yelled something at him. Matt didn't care. He wound up so he could hit him again.

Matt's arm was caught. He yelled and whipped around to strike his attacker. It was Ione. She grabbed his arms and pinned him to the floor. Matt couldn't do a damn thing except scream to get his Mecha back.

“Stop it!” Captain Gonsalves yelled, pulling himself up. “Your Mecha's still here. Damn crazy Union addict!”

“We should have told him,” Ione said.

“Yes. We should. The Cluster should have gone to another planet to reprovision too. And he should have stayed down on the surface awhile longer.”

Matt screamed and bucked, but Ione and the two men held him securely.

“We relocated your Mecha,” Captain Gonsalves said. “The Cluster—”

“Liar!” Matt yelled.

Gonsalves pursed his lips, then continued. “The Cluster wanted to come by for a visit. We couldn't let them see your Demon, so we moved it to the, uh, secure cargo dock.”

“You're lying! Show me!”

Gonsalves grinned. “If I'm lying, how can I show you? Now, do you want to listen to reason, or do you want to fight some more?”

“You sold my Mecha! To finance your repairs!”

Gonsalves's expression darkened. “I don't think so. Especially since the Cluster's motto is ‘if they have one piece of tech, they probably have more, might as well take it all.' No way I'm going to have them annex the ship.”

“He's telling the truth,” Ione told Matt.

Matt shook his head. It kinda fit together. Made sense. But—

“Show me!” he said.

Gonsalves sighed. “I'll do better than that. I'll see you take it for a spin.”

“I don't need to Mesh!”

“I disagree,” Gonsalves said.

A security team joined Ione and dragged Matt down through rough, dusty corridors to the other side of the asteroid ship. Captain Gonsalves followed. They came to a dead end, solid rock. Matt knew exactly what was going to happen. They'd kill him now, and that would be the end. He thrashed against his captors and succeeded in getting one arm free. Ione, flash-quick, helped them get ahold of Matt again.

“You sold me out!” he yelled.

“Oh, please,” Captain Gonsalves said. He did something on his slate, and the rock wall pivoted aside. Beyond it was a conventional air lock. Through the window, Matt saw a shadowy space, lit by pinpricks of orangish sodium lamps. Something large and red hulked inside. His Demon!

“Let me in!”

They cycled the lock and took him out into the large space. Racks for cargo, largely empty now, lined the interior walls of the dock. A larger pair of steel doors on one side of the dock warned
EXTERIOR EGRESS-NO LOCK
!

A smuggling dock, Matt thought. But it was just a whisper next to the other thoughts churning in his head. Because inside the dock was his Demon. Matt's heart pounded. Everything was okay. They were telling him the truth.

“Let him go,” Captain Gonsalves said. The security goons let Matt loose, and he pushed away from them to float toward the giant Mecha.

“Get in the damn thing,” Gonsalves called. “Don't come out until you can act human again.”

“I'm not addicted!” Matt yelled back at him.

Laughter was his only answer.

It didn't matter. What did they know? It was his Mecha, and if he was addicted, maybe that was just fine. He irised open the pilot's cockpit and dove in, not even bothering to remove his jumpsuit. It didn't matter. Matt snugged on the viewmask and closed the iris, feeling the warm magnetorheological gel flood the chamber.

Mesh,
he thought.

Warmth exploded inside him. It was like being taken apart and reformed into another being—a being with atomic energy in its veins. Matt shivered in pure pleasure. He could do anything. Be anything. He could break through the dock doors and be free. He could rule Tierrasanta like a king.

Matt forced his rushing thoughts to slow. Yes. He could. And deep within non-Union space, he'd probably quickly meet a Corsair faction like the Cluster. Maybe they had enough tech to take him on. Better to stay here and play defense.

Matt sighed. Everything that Gonsalves said rang true. He'd been out of his mind.

Addicted.

* * *

“So, are you ready to hear how you can help us?” Gonsalves said when Matt came out of the Mecha.

The security guards were gone, but Ione still watched him steadily with her yellow-and-violet eyes. Those enchanting eyes.

“Help you?”

“Yes. Despite your addiction, you aren't a complete idiot,” Gonsalves said. “You called it before. We're out of funds. I stripped the secure dock, I hocked my own stuff, I sold bonds to all the crew, and we're still in a pinch.”

“I won't sell the Demon,” Matt said.

“That's not what I'm thinking about.”

“Then what is it?”

“The Cluster is here. They're one of the two or three richest Corsair factions. They could pay for our repairs out of the change they find in their couch.”

Matt shook his head. The phrase meant nothing to him.

“Old Earth expression,” Gonsalves said.

Like Michelle.
Easy as pie
. A pang of regret and loneliness pass through Matt. What was she doing right now? Enjoying a stay on Eridani? Or wiping out more innocents in the name of the Union?

Gonsalves saw his reaction. “What's the matter?”

“Thinking of someone,” Matt told him. “Someone from Earth.”

Gonsalves blinked. “Earth native?”

“Yes.”

The captain sighed, and his eyes went blurry and unfocused, as if he were looking at something far away. “I've always wanted to visit Earth.”

“It's a backwater.”

“It's our damn home!” Gonsalves exploded. “The origin. Where we started. Doesn't that mean anything to you?”

Matt held back a chuckle, remembering the hot and smelly Cape Canaveral swamps. “Why don't you go?”

“Because the Union controls it!” Gonsalves said. “Why do they have a right to monopolize Earth?”

Matt shook his head, surprised at Gonsalves's heated outbursts. It was like seeing a small piece of his soul. “What do you have in mind?” Matt asked.

“For what?”

“For me.”

Gonsalves blinked. “Yeah. You. Here's the idea. The Cluster would pay good money to have a chat with a real live Mecha Corps officer.”

Matt started. A chat? More like an interrogation. They'd want Union secrets. And he wasn't ready to simply sell the Union out.

“No,” Matt said.

“They wouldn't have to be real answers,” Gonsalves said.

“I can't do it.”

Gonsalves went red. “You've seen what the Union has done. And you still want to protect them?”

“No.”

“Then why not?” Gonsalves asked.

“I don't want another Geos.” Rayder's attack. Five million dead. Even if the Union was experimenting on HuMax, their civilians didn't deserve to be slaughtered.

Gonsalves winced. “Yeah. I hear you. But I'm out of options. Either I find some more funds or we're going to be parted out right here where we sit.”

Matt shook his head.

“You don't understand, do you? If they take us apart, they'll absolutely get your Demon. And you. And Ione. And whatever else they want.”

Matt frowned. That was a problem. And he couldn't just get in his Demon and set out on his own. There were too many question marks. “What's to stop them from taking me with them?”

“We do it on Tierrasanta, under the protection of the Aliancia. Even the Cluster won't chance their heavy-matter guns.”

“You've thought this through.”

Gonsalves gave Matt a thin, sad grin. “I've had a lot of time to think about it.”

Matt sighed. “No other choice?”

“None.”

How bad could it be? Matt wondered. He could pick and choose what he would tell them. And when it came to Union defense, he didn't really know that much. He knew even less about Mecha tech. And maybe this would be his chance to ask about those segmented Mecha. The Loki.

“A half hour. No more.”

Gonsalves blew out a big breath, all the tension leaving his body. “Thank you. I'll get it set up.”

* * *

They shuttled Matt down to La Malinche and took him on a train to a large government building, where the Cluster had set up a conference room. A magistrate of the Aliancia courts and his retinue sat as observers on one side of a large oval table, and Captain Gonsalves and his armed guards sat at another.

The Cluster had sent only one man. He walked into the room, exchanged pleasantries with the Aliancia and with Captain Gonsalves, then went to sit next to Matt. He was a thin, dark-skinned man with deep brown unblinking eyes. He wore the same formfitting uniform as the two Corsair Mecha handlers, but with an additional gray stripe on his shoulder.

“Thank you, Major Lowell, for talking with us,” he said mildly, extending a hand. “I'm Petr Volinsky, ranked subcommander in the Cluster.”

Matt made himself shake the subcommander's hand. His grip was firm and his hand was cool. The man displayed little emotion, and his eyes fixed Matt with a calm stare.

“I see you wore your Neural Interface,” Petr said. “That will make this a lot easier.”

“What do you—”

But that was as far as Matt got. The subcommander extracted a small black box and slate from his pocket and pressed a button, and suddenly the conference room disappeared.

Matt stood on an endless gray field, dimly lit by an unseen sun. His heart thundered as he whipped around, trying to figure out where he was. He tried to yell, but he had no voice. He raised his hands, but he couldn't see them. His body wasn't there! He was nothing, just a disembodied mind.

A familiar warmth stole over Matt, soothing and uplifting. Things stirred in the gray mist, things that smelled like dust and crackled like static. Talons scraped the surface of Matt's mind.

Mesh. The subcommander had somehow placed him in Mesh.

That little box must be some kind of mental interface. Matt's soundless scream echoed only in his own mind as the talons raked harder.

Don't struggle,
said a grating whisper.
Your mind is very interesting. Many things here.

Of course! His Perfect Record! If they were Meshed with him, they could pull any information they wanted. This wasn't an interrogation; this was a way to suck his mind completely dry.

Matt thrashed against the talons. Their cold touch retreated from the surface of his mind, then plunged deeper. Memories spun toward the surface: working with his father on Prospect, and his trip back to the planet as a cadet.

Jotunheim. They could find the location of Jotunheim, the former HuMax capital. The wonders they could find there. They didn't care about any Union defenses or Mecha Corps strategy—they were going for the ultimate repository of that fallen civilization's superscience.

Matt grasped the coordinates away from the scratching claws of the Corsairs' mind-control. Angry screeching reverberated in his mind.

Give the coordinates to me! Give them now!

No!
Matt fled over gray fields, frozen now with chilling ice. Cold, hard blades slashed harder at his mind. It would have the answer in a second.

But if it was connected to him, he was also connected to it. Maybe it was like the thing in the Mecha. Something you couldn't fight—but that you could subsume.

Matt thrust the coordinates down into the deepest jumble of his mind, feeling a momentary flash of a million dark emotions—rage at his father's death, desire for Michelle and Ione, righteous anger against the Union. He grabbed at the talons and ignored the razor pain as he took it in. The thing dove hard into his mind and tried to grab at the coordinates, but Matt had it now. He fed it every irrelevant thing he could: terror at his first training at Mecha Camp, old sayings from Pat, his refugee boss, painful images from Ash's death.

The thing screamed and recoiled. Matt grinned as it struggled against him, shredding through the weight of his memories. Brilliant, blinding pain raced through his mind.

Give me what I want!

But Matt wouldn't let it. He took his jealous anger at Kyle and flung it at the entity, screaming as it sliced through his feelings. The thing was deep in his mind now. It was hard to tell where he ended and it began. It was only a nanometer away from the information it desired. Close, so close. Its voice shrilled with glee.