Mack 'n' Me, page 25
Smarter than they looked.
“Tell me what you thought of in the ops center,” Mack said, like he hadn’t been privy to what I was thinking.
“I can’t access the networks for the outer or inner security peripheries,” I said. “Did Delight close the door behind her?”
“It was the only way to make sure nothing came through it. Why?”
“It’s just that I couldn’t access the inner security periphery, until the inner airlock door opened, and it was the same for the security systems in the Ghoul’s server room. I had no access, until I could tap into the wireless net inside—and I couldn’t do that, until I was inside, so I’m going to have to go back in.”
“And?” Mack asked, like he knew there was something else.
I frowned. Up until that moment, I hadn’t thought I had anything else. I shrugged.
“There’s bound to be more. I just can’t think of it, right now.”
He nodded, and glanced toward the door.
I guess, if I’d been as tapped into his head as he was into mine, I’d have known breakfast was arriving. As it was, I didn’t expect to see the food being brought through the door. I also didn’t expect Agent Delight to be one of the people carrying a tray.
She handed Mack his breakfast, and passed him his coffee, and then came and sat down beside me. I flinched, and cast a nervous glance toward Mack. He watched Delight, not a skerrick of emotion showing on his face. When we’d all been served our breakfast, he started eating. Delight followed his example, and I tried to do the same.
Not a word passed between us, until Mack had finished his meal—and, even then, he said nothing until the rest of us were done. The kitchen crew came in and cleared the plates, but they left a hot pot of kaff, a jug of milk and a bowl of sugar. Mack refilled his cup, and passed the pot to Delight.
“What are you doing here?”
“I came for the briefing.”
“You weren’t invited.”
“She is our trainee, and we can sit in on anything she’s involved in.”
Mack looked at me.
“You’d better leave, Cutter,” he said, and I stood, but Delight wrapped her hand around my wrist and pulled me back down.
Or, at least, she tried. I twisted free, and moved around behind Mack.
Delight stood, drew a small projectile pistol from beneath her jacket, and calmly checked the settings. She didn’t look at me, or Mack, or Tens, just prepped her weapon. A wave of unease washed over me, but I put my trust in Mack, and moved past him.
Delight finished her weapon check, just as I passed behind Tens. She raised her head and looked at me, holding the pistol down near the table, and not pointing it at me.
“Don’t go, Cutter,” she said, and it was as much an instruction as the one Mack had issued.
I glanced from her to Mack, and waited. Tens said nothing, but tension thrummed through his body, and I noticed his hands were below the table. I wondered if he had a weapon hidden out of sight, and if he’d get to use it if he did. Delight had not become a legend without reason.
She waited, not following my glance to Mack, and appearing not to pay any attention to Tens. It was as though I was the only person in the room that mattered. It was a thought I found disturbing. Beside me, Mack swayed, grabbing at the table for support, before sliding limply out of his chair. On my other side, Tens went boneless. Delight’s gaze did not shift.
I leant on the wall behind me.
“What did you do to them?”
“Smeared the inside of their kaff cups with nan-contained knock-out drops. Let them drink the nans with their kaff, and triggered the nans to release when Mack wasn’t being cooperative. Any more dumbass questions?”
I blinked.
“Why?”
“Because you and I needed a little girl time.”
Somehow I doubted that, but Delight left me no room to argue, and the silver light of teleportation wrapped around us.
28—Post-Dead Recruitment
Delight shot me the second we landed in Odyssey’s transport room. Fortunately, she shot me in the gut, and not the head. At least they were going to let me live a little longer. I wondered if it would be long enough for me to regret it.
I had enough time to gasp, and feel my skin grow cold with shock, before she’d closed the distance between us, grabbed me by the bicep and pulled me close, and then shot me twice more.
“You’ll listen better from a regen tank,” she said, and kept me upright until the medics reached us. “So stay conscious, Cutter. I don’t have a lot of time.”
She didn’t have a lot of time?
I had a Bastien to catch, a Bendigo, too. I tried to stay conscious just for that. I really did, but I think she’d shot me good, and my body didn’t want to cooperate. I was heading for oblivion by the time the medics got me in the tank, and it started to fill. Delight watched like a hawk from outside the glass, the front of her tunic stained with blood and gore.
And she didn’t seem to be the tiniest bit sorry about what she’d done.
I’d ask her about that if I ever woke up.
* * *
It only seemed like an eye blink, before I came to, and Delight was there to greet me, when I did.
“We thought we’d let you live, this time,” she said, her voice coming in through the implant as she talked to me from outside the tank, “and we thought we might explain the recruitment plan you came in on.”
I stared at her. There’d been a recruitment plan?
Apparently, they’d recalibrated the implant to pick up the random impulses I used as thought—just like last time, but a hundred times faster.
“Keevers didn’t tell you?” she asked, and I shook my head.
“Shame,” she said, without seeming even the slightest bit worried by it, “but we don’t usually have to make things this clear. Most people are grateful enough for being rescued, that they don’t quibble about working for us, after—especially when they didn’t have a life beforehand, and weren’t going to have any sort of life without our interference.”
“Had a life,” I managed, forgetting the futility of trying to form real words, in a tank full of whatever they filled these tanks with.
Delight sneered.
“Not much of one. Do you know what the pirates had planned for you when Keevers stepped in?”
I shuddered, a myriad of images rising unbidden. I hadn’t known what they’d intended for me, but I’d seen what they’d planned for some of the others. My stomach did a slow flip, and I fought down the lump of sudden fear that caught in my throat.
“Exactly,” Delight said. “What Keevers didn’t tell you, when he pulled your ass clear, was that he was recruiting you as a post-dead special.”
Post-dead special? What the hell was that supposed to mean?
“It means you weren’t ever getting off that ship, sweet-pea. Keevers hadn’t pulled you? You’d have been dead in three, five weeks tops, depending on your stamina. There was at least one very sick puppy due to dock an hour after we boarded. We caught them coming in, cruise-ship style, and expecting a very good time with the cargo, if you catch my drift.”
I caught myself starting to vomit, just as the tank’s counter-measures kicked in.
“You were to be part of the menu of a very sad buffet.”
I closed my eyes, and a sharp staccato of blows rattled through the tank. It sounded like she was knocking. I mean, really? Why didn’t she just go away?
“Because you need to know what a post-dead recruitment contract entails.”
Of course, I did, even if I hadn’t ever seen a contract, let alone signed one. And, if I was on a post-dead contract, then why weren’t all the rest of those they’d saved?
“Damn,” and I was pretty sure Delight hadn’t meant for me to hear it.
I laughed, not in a happy way, but more in a the-world-isn’t-fair-and-I’m-screwed-anyway kind of way. I wasn’t letting Delight off the hook that easily, though. Nope. I wanted her to admit the discrepancy, regardless of the complete lack of good it would do me.
“So, Keevers thought I had skills,” I said, using my voice in spite of the tank. It bubbled, but still managed to grate like I was coming down with a sore throat, “and he thought Odyssey could use ’em...” I paused, feeling breathless in spite of the machines feeding me oxygen. I hated being this weak. All I wanted to do was go back to sleep, again, but I took a deep breath and continued.
“And if he’d just left me, I’d have been rescued. Given a new life. Free.”
Delight was silent.
“Right?” I pressed, even though my voice was fading, and my brain was shutting down, again.
Delight didn’t answer, and I drifted into sleep. It wasn’t anywhere near as long as I thought it should be—and I was out of the tank and dressed in combat fatigues when I woke.
“We sped up the nanites,” Delight explained. “We’re out of time, so I’ll give you the quick version,” and then she laid a hand over my mouth, when I tried to interrupt. “Post-dead special recruitment is for those with skills we need. You get training and employment, instead of settled into a minimum-wage job on a backwater world, or being sent back to a bad home situation.”
I stopped trying to talk; I knew which of those I would have fitted into. Delight took her hand away from my mouth.
“We train you, give you a career, and you thank us by succeeding—with us, for twice the time it took to train you, and half again for equipment and expenses. No one gets to buy out their contract, and few even get to sign one, but you can, if you insist.”
“You shoulda just asked,” I managed, and my voice still creaked.
Delight ignored me, and laid a small stack of papers and a pen on the wheeled table she’d drawn up beside the bed. I pushed it away.
“And that’s the second time you didn’t ask,” I said, pulling myself upright, and then swinging my legs over the side of the bed.
That was a lot harder than it should have been, and pain rippled through my gut. I ignored it, but added, “and you just told me there was no time for negotiation.”
Delight’s eyes widened, and she paled with annoyance. I slipped out of bed, glad to discover they’d set a pair of boots and some socks, beside a chair. If they were in that much of a hurry, then I’d get away with what I was about to do next... just.
“Where are Mack and Tens?” I asked, leaning on the edge of the bed, so I could catch my breath.
“Here,” came from the doorway, in Mack’s familiar rumble. He looked across at Agent Delight, his expression almost apologetic, and just a little annoyed.
“We have to go,” he told her. “Whatever games you’re trying to play, they’re gonna have to wait.”
Delight pulled a face, and pushed the table away. She reached out, as though to steady me, and I avoided her hand, moving toward the chair and footwear, as quickly as I could. I registered more pain, and a certain amount of weakness, but I kept going. The pain could go, or stay, as it pleased. The rest I knew how to deal with.
“I need stims and painkillers,” I said, reaching the chair, and sinking carefully into it, “and I’ll need a tank after.”
“What’s wrong?” Mack asked, stepping into the room with Tens on his heels, but I shook my head.
“Stims and painkillers,” I repeated, pulling on the socks. “We’re out of time.”
“Docs are on their way,” Delight said
Whether or not Mack liked me ignoring his question, he had to give way to that. He came across and stood in front of my chair, Tens following like a shadow.
“Odyssey sent a patrol in,” he said. “They tapped the security systems just the way you did, but they couldn’t find anything—and that includes the server room, the lab. Anything.”
“And the patrol didn’t come out, again.”
That last was Delight. I gave her a pained attempt at a smile.
“Figured there was a reason you stopped torturing me,” I said, adjusting the boots as I slid my feet into them, and pulling the laces tight.
“Docs are here,” she said, as a man and woman entered the room.
‘You’re not supposed to be out of bed,” the man said, and I glanced up, registering the hypoderms the pair held.
I started to rise out of my chair, but that was as far as I got, before Mack and Tens tilted me back, and pinned my shoulders to the wall.
“Hey!”
“Look at me!” Mack commanded, and I did, just long enough for the doc to come along side.
The first shot went straight into my stomach, the second and third into either side of my throat, just above the collar bone. I had time enough to shout, even as they said what they were.
“Fast-nans to accelerate the healing process.”
“Stim.”
“Painkiller.”
Mack and Tens held me until the docs were done, and Delight had escorted the pair of them to the door. The female doctor turned back to address Mack.
“Tank will be ready when you’re done. Teleporting in and out as close to the entry point would be best. The nans should continue the repair work, and stop things from getting worse.”
Delight opened her mouth to say something, but the doc turned and walked away. The sound of her receding footsteps sounded angry to me, and her male colleague had the sense not to say a word.
Delight turned to Mack.
“Doc’s right; she’s only half done.”
I didn’t wait to hear more. I was ready to do the job, my boots were on, and the stims and painkillers were taking hold. I tilted the chair upright, and brushed Mack and Tens’ hands off my shoulders. Maybe later I’d have a word to them about holding me down for needles. Then again, given I wouldn’t have sat still for them, if they hadn’t, it might be best if I didn’t say anything.
I pushed to my feet and headed for the corridor. Well, that was what I intended to do. Mack laid a hand on my shoulder, and I stopped.
“I have to get my gear,” I said.
“Tens brought your gear,” he said. “We replicated what you had the last time, and Rohan said you’d need these, as well.”
He held up a data stick, one that would fit the port for a jack. I eyed it warily.
“Did he say what was in it?”
“Said to tell you he was along for the ride last time, and remembered what you used the most, and what you wished you’d had more of.”
I took the stick from his fingers, and stared at it.
“Did he tell you if he’d put any more intrusion software on it?” I asked, because I just wouldn’t put it past the little beggar to have put a worm or something in there, in the hopes he could tag along, once more.
It was Tens who answered.
“Nah. I checked it. All legit.”
Delight sputtered with half-suppressed laughter, and I looked at her.
“I thought he was such a nice boy,” she said, “that the very thought of doing that kind of thing offended him.”
“You wish,” I said. “He’s come in contact with several bad influences.”
“I just bet he has,” Tens muttered, and I guessed he was making more notes on the finer points of cyber–etiquette for his apprentice.
“Good luck with that,” I said, but I swept my hair out of the way, and stuck the stick into my head.
It contained everything Tens had said it did—and not a worm in easy sight. Either the kid had learned, or he was sticking to his principles, which was not a comforting thought, given the shaking those had had lately.
I copied the programs into the implant, and then duplicated them again, because you could never be too prepared, right? When I was done, I pulled the data stick, and handed it back to Tens.
“You need any of these?” I asked, but he shook his head.
“Nah. I’m good. Kid set me up before I left the ship.”
“Fine.”
I looked up at Mack.
“You gonna lead the way?”
“No,” Delight answered, before he could reply. “I am.”
And silver light engulfed us.
29—Reanimation
We landed in the valley near the copse of trees where Bendigo and I had made our initial entrance. This was as close as the teleport could get us? I turned to Mack.
“They couldn’t get us in any closer?”
I knew how much tunnel lay between here and the entrance we’d need to access the inner security ring. Mack looked at Delight.
“Ask her. They’re not my operators.”
Delight gave him a sour look, and then turned to me.
“The complex is shielded. It doesn’t show up on any kind of scan, which is why, when you go in there, you’re going to check for a program that can tell outside scans what to see, given even the ones we use for density and certain metal types are giving back normal ground.”
“I am?”
“You are. Just as soon as you get us through the outer airlock.”
The outer airlock, I remembered that.
“We’ll need gas masks, and suits,” I said, but Delight shook her head, even as she pulled her mask out of her pouch, and Mack and Tens echoed her movement.
“No time for suits,” she said. “You’ll just have to work fast.”
Right. I didn’t bother arguing with her. Of course, I’d have to work fast. That had been a given, as soon as she’d said I’d have to open the airlock. Fine. Whatever.
I led the way into the tunnel, hoping that I’d be able to access the outer security periphery as soon as we got into the airlock proper. Getting through the outer door was as easy as Bendigo had made it look the last time—and, just like last time, the doors locked fast and gas came hissing out through the ceiling as soon as we were in the chamber itself.
Except that this time, the gas was green right from the word go, and Delight, Mack and Tens gave me the sort of looks that said they’d screwed up. Fantastic.
I went wireless, and found I’d have to get the door open before I could locate the outer security periphery. Glancing up at the gas, I went for the key pad, taking off the outer casing and stripping my jack’s lead to the wires, then I did a fast-fuse direct to the chip and hacked the combination.
