Originator (11 page)

“
Commander, please hold for a moment
.”

Great, thought Arvid, measuring distances by eye below and trying to reconcile them with what tacnet showed him, with all its electronic certainty. Another thoughtful politician. “The problem with these guys,” his previous commander and mentor Vanessa Rice had told him, “is that they spend their whole career arguing some perfect model of civilisation, and when they're
dumped in a position of genuine power, they discover it's all a fucking mess and they can't make a decision because it doesn't look like anything they thought they knew.”

No good and bad decisions, buddy, Arvid thought, just bad and worse. Now hurry up before you pick worse by default. Tacnet showed him units in position, everything centering on the train. You'd struggle to coordinate something like this, with regular humans. With GIs, new capabilities emerged, not just on the individual level, but on the tactical and systemic.

Green came two minutes after the all-clear. Poole leapt from his rooftop, jumpjets kicking in as the suit powered into the night sky above the river. The kick was nothing like the 10G boost from an assault hopper—these were little modular add-ons to regular armour—but thanks to hopper practise, everyone knew how to use them.

Halfway toward the train, the riverside sniper cannon fired, high explosive, shaped charge calculated to hit the curve of the train's tubular roof at a precise angle. Poole cut the jets and fell toward his projected opening . . . with a flash multiple explosions ripped the train, sideways force directing the metal to peel up and out, a spray of shrapnel across black river waters, and arcing skyward, away from the train interior. Visuals indicated high-intensity vibrations as SoundBlast hit, a double smash to eardrums in the train, nausea and vomiting to follow.

Poole's jets fired, his opening matching perfectly, and hit the hole at a tidy 90 kph. Caught the ragged edge of the roof with an armoured fist, rifle in right hand, a cluster of passengers across open floor and seats below . . . and here an armed and vested man on the floor, Poole put a bullet in each leg and one in an arm, twisting from the dangling arm to find another, but an entry farther up shot that target first, and the next target along was on top of civvies giving no clear shot.

Poole dropped, bounced, and scrambled amongst screaming, writhing bodies, switched ammo-feed and shot out a window with hollowpoints designed for the purpose, grabbed the terrorist and threw him out. The vests had been identified as limited range, if a wearer's heart stopped when he hit the water, the twenty-meter range would limit detonations to one.

He searched for more targets and found none—all down. Six were still on the train though. “Can't cover all six,” he said tersely. “Two more overboard.”

Dahisu and Kiet grabbed one each, both wounded, and tossed them out. Several seconds later, explosions from below. Human “rights” observers would be troubled by that, but fuck them, even wounded a human bomb could self-detonate, and hostage safety came first. The deadman switches precluded uplink triggers, luckily, though these guys had probably discounted the latter, given Tanusha's known ability to reverse hack uplinks.

“HQ, target green, move the train now.” Immediately the train began to move, terrorist-imposed restraints wiped out, the carriages headed for the nearest station a kilometre away, where emergency services were clustered waiting. Poole grabbed a wounded terrorist, twisted his good arm so he had no chance at the two-handed trigger, and dragged him up the train, yelling at bewildered, deafened civilians amidst the smoke and wind to get down the other end of the train, gesturing with his free arm. They swirled past him as he went the other way, upstream against the flow, some carrying screaming children, others holding up frightened friends, family, and elderly and all commendably functional, considering how all his training emphasized the possible hysteria. Terrified and in pain, but functional, perhaps knowing instinctively what had just happened, and the reputation of Tanusha's new security assets, and having confidence that their chances of survival were now pretty good. The way they looked at him as they passed suggested as much—relief, astonishment, even worship, mixing with the fear.

As the train reached the station, they had all the targets piled at the train's far end, cuffed and twisted irrespective of injuries, guarded by Dahisu and Trong, ready to put more nonfatal holes in them if they more than twitched. Poole stood in the long space of open, tubular train between human bombs and clustered passengers down the far end, weapon away, and took off his helmet in hope of inducing a calmer reaction.

“Medical!” he yelled at the passengers, in the hope maybe half of them could still hear something. He pointed with both hands to the approaching platforms, then to both of his ears. “Go with the medics! All good, all safe!”

And gave them a double thumbs-up. And was absolutely astonished when a few of them, fearful, nauseous, and injured, gave him a thumbs-up in return, some with ferocious approval, others with tearful relief and gratitude. It gave
Poole a feeling he'd never had before at this intensity. He didn't know quite what it was. But suddenly, he felt unbelievably, addictively good.

There were cries of relief when the platform arrived, swarming with medical personnel, police, stretchers, and wheelchairs. The train stopped, and they poured off, into the organised confusion of helper and victim, then out toward the exits and broad stairways to where the streets below were filled with flyers, cruisers, and ground ambulances, a cacophony of flashing lights and motion.

Leaving four calm GIs, standing alone on a big empty maglev train, contemplating the four pathetic, bleeding wrecks piled up at the end in a growing pool of their own blood. One of them whimpered.

“Shut the fuck up,” said Trong.

Intelligence Director Naidu strolled in off the platform, rumpled like an unmade bed, belly out, tie askew. He walked to the captives and regarded them with a quizzical, unsympathetic eye. “Only four?” he asked.

“You can go looking for the other six,” Kiet suggested. “Might be a few bits floating downstream.”

Naidu adjusted his belt. “Very well,” he said. “It will do. Nice job, by the way.”

“Thank you for noticing,” said Poole. “How about a raise?”

“Oh dear boy,” said Naidu with wry wisdom. “Among the many formidable opponents you will face, internal auditors and paymasters you will find among the very worst.”

The briefing room was circular, an auditorium with a holoprojector in the middle, at the bottom of the bowl, surrounded by ascending rows of seats. Sandy sat on the bottom row, stretching as usual, relieving a myomer hip twinge. With her around the circle sat Steven Harren, Reggie Dala, and Abraham Yusef. Their three-person agency now had more than three people in it, Sandy understood, but no more details were forthcoming. Neither did the agency now possess a name. In that absence, those who knew they existed had given them one—SuperPsych. It was meant to be ironic, and amusing. Instead, Sandy found the whole setup rather creepy.

But only as an institution, because Steve, Reggie, and Abraham were actually very nice. “Sandy, are you sleeping with Rami Rahim?” Reggie asked
her now, slyly. Reggie's professorial suit was cut a little more stylishly than Sandy remembered from just a year ago and looked very good with her long African braids. Reggie was a professor of some standing at a major Tanushan university, as was Abraham.

“No,” Sandy said mildly, pulling her right elbow back behind her head, right leg stretched out hard for maximum effect. “We flirt so much in the interviews, we don't need sex.”

“Yeah,” said Reggie, “well, I was thinking, after your last interview with him . . .”

“It's a game,” said Sandy. “Rami's a performer. And his ratings are down twenty percent since last year, so he needs every boost. It's the least I can do.”

“Strange that a guy who helped save democracy should actually lose ratings,” said Steve. Steven Harren was small, young, and blond. He dressed like a businessman but looked about half his thirty years. One of Tanusha's infamous tech whizzes, he was uplinked even now, dark glasses on despite the dark room, no doubt doing all kinds of fancy things on uplinks while he waited for the meeting to start.

“By helping to remove two democratically elected governments?” Reggie countered. She was comfortably old enough to be Steve's mother and sometimes took on the tone. “I'm surprised the backlash wasn't larger.”

Sandy made a face. “It's not a political thing. Rami was Mr Partytown. Now he's a partisan, a part of the establishment. Not that he actually is, he's pretty vicious about us sometimes, but that's how he's perceived. It's uncool.” She gave up on her right side and began stretching the left.

“So who
are
you sleeping with, Sandy?” asked Steven.

“My kids' imaginary friends,” Sandy said drily. Reggie laughed, with the amusement of an older woman who knew. “Are you looking at porn, Steve?”

The young man grinned, reclining in his chair even farther than Sandy, hands folded on his middle. “Why? You know some good stuff?”

“I don't think you could run my sims.”

“Never underestimate the capabilities of an ambitious man.”

“Ambitious,” said Reggie. “Is that what they call it?”

Abraham said nothing, gazing at the blank holoprojector. From her own feeds, Sandy could tell he wasn't even uplinked. He was just a quiet, thoughtful man who often had nothing to say. Instead, he wrote—ten books at last count,
seven more than Reggie. His topic was sociology, theoretical systems and their applications in modern societies. He was not just a premier Callayan expert, he was a premier
Federation
expert. Sandy guessed that made him quite wealthy.

“Hey,” said Vanessa, arriving from up the back and making her way down between chairs. “Sandy, you talking about sex again?”

“'Course, babe,” said Sandy, arching her head back to look at her. “Where's the tyke?”

“I'm not bringing a three-month-old to a top-clearance briefing.”

“Oh, come on,” Sandy laughed. “Who's she going to tell?”

“You're bringing your kids to work?” Reggie asked. “The FSA let you do that?”

“It's just datawork,” said Vanessa, settling into the chair across the aisle from Sandy. She looked a little tired, Sandy thought, but otherwise good. “I could do it at home, but I need to get out. I have entire offices of ready child minders outside.”

“Who's got her now?” Sandy asked.

“Sarita.”

“Of course.” And to Reggie, “Personnel manager, grandma with twenty-three grandkids.”

“Good lord, women breed in Tanusha,” Reggie exclaimed mildly. “I had two, and even with all the tech, I've no idea how they find the time for more.”

“Colonial society has a breeding imperative,” said Abraham. “All these worlds to populate. It's why feminine social roles are more traditional away from Earth, completely contrary to what League thought would happen.”

“Yeah,” said Sandy, “and League overcompensated by building synthetic people instead.” Abraham smiled a little. “She's been good?”

“Oh, she was screaming for about an hour this morning,” said Vanessa, repressing a yawn. “And two hours last night. And Sylvan was screaming another hour. You'd think twin babies could synchronise screaming so we only lose two hours sleep, and not three?”

“You think they'd make a systems mod for it,” Steven added unhelpfully. “Twenty-sixth century and there's still no fix for screaming babies.”

“If they do,” said Sandy, “that'll be the point I know to resign from the human race.”

Steven peered at her past his dark glasses. “You know, Sandy, for such a high-tech specimen, you're quite a luddite sometimes.”

“You're not the first Tanushan techie boy to accuse me of that.” The doors atop the main aisle opened, and three men entered. “Speak of the devil . . .”

Ari was there, of course, walking with Ibrahim, the dark leather jacket and the cool plain suit. The other man was dark, slim, with a round face and unremarkable, almost androgynous features.

“Hello, Ragi,” said Steven, quickly taking his glasses off and sitting up straight. Sandy repressed a smile—obviously some GIs required more full attention than others. “Haven't seen you for a while.”

“Hello, Steven,” said Ragi in that mild, pleasant tone of his. He walked the aisle steps down but took a seat one row back from the bottom. “Good to see you once more. Reggie. Abraham. Cassandra and Vanessa, of course.”

Ari gave Vanessa a dark-browed look as he took a seat beside Steven, who looked pleased at the gesture. “What are you doing here?” he asked her.

“Oh, that's lovely,” said Vanessa. “Maybe this little baby factory still has some other uses left in her?”

“It's not the propensity to make babies,” said Ari. “It's the propensity to spread chaos and disorder wherever you go.”

“Cassandra brought her,” said Ibrahim, taking a random available seat. “Insisting she'd be useful.”

“No pressure, babe,” said Sandy. Vanessa snorted.

“Is this everyone?” Ibrahim asked, peering around.

“No,” said Captain Reichardt from up the top of the stairs. He sealed the doors behind him with a code. “Now it's everyone.”

“A man in uniform,” Ibrahim observed, as Reichardt came down the stairs. And beneath his breath, “Wouldn't that be nice.” There were grins. Ibrahim was no tyrant, but he did occasionally let slip mild concern at uniform standards in the building of late.

Vanessa shuffled along a seat so he could sit beside her and across the aisle from Sandy. “Hello, gorgeous,” she offered. “It
is
a lovely uniform.”

“Goddamn, girl,” said the yellow-haired Texan. “Darn shame, you bein' married an' all.”