Numina code, p.29
Numina Code, page 29
“You ever want to play fetch again?” he countered. She didn’t budge. Rover sighed. “How was space?”
“Kill many things,” she said with a grin that split her whole face.
He looked at the screen, at her XP bar. “Not as many as 2Shy, from the looks of it. Come on. Go pull your quadcopter on and help protect your territory.”
Emily’s form winked out. The kugu went slack. “2Shy?” he asked.
“Go ’way,” 2Shy grumbled.
Well. One of them ought to be enough.
It was early, not even light yet. Rover had come in special for this. Left him plenty of time for a workout, so he headed to the Group gym. He grabbed a cardio machine and pulled up the video feed from Emily’s kugu on his tablet.
Watching her swoop through the camp in front of the military cops with her dragon form projecting as big as it could get, spitting fire into the AR field, panicking a bunch of half-awake squatters as they poured from the campers and tents and whatever the hell that was—a minivan?—was well worth the ass-chewing they were all going to get for it later.
The AWACS was a secondary risk. A huge problem, should it manifest, but the probability of that happening was unknown. Rover was certain of the effect that Unity candidate camp was going to have on the local community. On the state. On his people.
Just move it to Ozona, he willed as Emily continued her hilarious, if harmless, rampage. Just move it to Ozona.
41
Daelia roused herself to the sounds of Argo and Tomas in another quiet, quick conversation.
“—can we expect here?”
“This is a big port, and like any big port, it’s got good security. But this isn’t like Earth, where anybody can sneak in if they have a boat. They’re going to know we’re coming. Shit, probably do already.”
“The question is, what are they going to do to us?”
“Yes. That is the problem. Potentially.”
Daelia stretched a little. She felt gross; skin sweaty, teeth furry. Her brace itched. She ran her fingers through her messy, knotted hair and tried to put aside the last twenty-four hours.
Numina might be gone, but they weren’t out of the woods yet.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“I’m starting to get messages from the Port Authority. Heading adjustments, things like that.”
Aiden yawned into his sleeve. “I keep telling you, bro, fly casual.”
“Movie references. Not helpful,” Argo replied, terse.
Tomas had anchored himself easily, one hand on the back of Argo’s chair and a foot hooked into a small notch in the floor. He was staring out the cockpit window. “Does Mags have anything?”
Argo tapped the central screen in the cockpit dash. “Nothing for the last three minutes,” he said, and looked back at Daelia. “We’re trying to figure out how to ID ourselves to the port.”
“I say we use the regular identifier on this thing,” Tomas said. “Be honest.”
“This thing is supposed to be pulling in alien artifacts from the Unity fleet,” Argo retorted, “and you saw the last message. Our timing is all wrong for a Hohmann transfer, so now they’re wondering what the hell is—”
A message popped up on the screen.
WELCOME TO PORT AETHERA, UNITY VESSEL. PLEASE PROCEED TO DOCKING POSITION BETA-TWO FOR CARGO UPLOADING
The humans all looked at each other.
“Mags,” Argo finally asked, “what did you just do?”
Not me.
“Holy shit,” Argo muttered, and rubbed his forehead. “Okay, let me think.”
Aiden, however, leaned forward, yanking the keyboard out of its drawer, typing fast.
“Hey!” Argo protested, but Aiden hit the upload key before Argo could stop him.
ACKNOWLEDGED, PORT AETHERA. REQUEST PRESSURIZED GANGWAY TO INTERIOR CARGO HOLD. CLEAR ALL PERSONNEL FROM OUTER CARGO FLOOR UNTIL UNLOADING IS COMPLETE. TURN OFF ALL SURVEILLANCE. SENSITIVE MATERIAL ON BOARD.
“What?” Aiden said as his brother glared at him. “Do you really want to explain this to the port authority? This gives us time to melt back into the station population before we’re IDed.”
“What do you mean ‘back into the station population’? You’re coming back to Earth with me.”
“We can’t do that,” Aiden said. “Flights down are highly controlled and book out months in advance. You can’t sneak us onto your flight back.”
“I’m talking about you.”
“You can’t sneak even one person on.”
“I came up here—”
“To make sure I was still alive.” Aiden smiled. “Mission accomplished, bro.”
Argo stared at him, which made Aiden grin back even wider, but before that could go anywhere, another message popped up.
CONFIRMED, UNITY VESSEL. PROCEED TO DOCKING.
Adjusting course.
“Mags, wait. No.”
Daelia saw an email notification in the corner of her monocle. She blink-clicked it open.
It was from Emily.
One word inside.
Safe.
“Emily says it’s okay,” Daelia said.
“What?”
Docking in five minutes.
Argo rubbed a hand over his face. “Fine, fine,” he muttered, then looked back at Tomas. “They’re going to expect something to come off this ship. Is there anything in the cargo holds on this thing we can use as some kind of decoy?”
Tomas smiled a little. “I’m sure there’s something.”
A lot could happen in five minutes, Daelia mused as the port’s gangway tunnel finalized suctioning procedures.
A decoy had indeed been located—some tank of glowing white liquid with a half-visible creature floating inside. It was probably silicone, painted and sculpted to look like some kind of nightmare deep-sea creature. Daelia had seen a few things in the expo claiming to be preserved alien specimens, but after dealing with Bri, the effect was a lot less impressive.
It was a movie prop. Nothing more.
One they were going to use to save what remained of the Numina crew.
The interior air lock hissed shut behind them. Everyone had crowded in; there was air enough for a little while.
“When we get inside,” Tomas was saying, “Matt and I will get this thing set up. I want everyone else to scatter. Lay low, stick to the commercial and staff areas, and for god’s sake, avoid station security if you can. According to Argo, traffic has resumed up here, so we shouldn’t be noticeably out of place. Doc, anything to add?”
“Come find me if you need money,” he said. “I’ve got enough in bytebuck to tide us all over for a little while if you aren’t idiots with it.”
“We need to give Jason and Daelia here some time to work this out,” Aiden said. “It won’t be forever.”
“What are you are going to work out?” Rachel asked.
“I’m going to figure out who’s doing this. Who stole my detector and what they’re using it for. Who decided that a fake alien invasion was a good idea,” Daelia replied flatly. “And I’m going to stop it.”
The air lock dinged open.
Time to see if Emily was right.
Argo half expected security. More kugus. Maybe a whole firing line of them waiting just inside the cargo bay.
But there was nothing. Even a preliminary scan with his monocle didn’t indicate any active surveillance.
Whatever Mags and Emily had done, it had worked.
The Numina crew scattered. Mostly. Rachel stayed close to them, leaning into Tomas, who just put an arm around her shoulders and asked her to help him with the tank.
They set the thing up in the dead center of the bay, with a few more bits and bobs Matt had found in other crates stuck on for good measure. The idea was for this to serve as a decoy, confusing and worrying the Port Authority long enough for them all to fully go to ground.
For Argo and Daelia to make their flight back to Earth.
Hell, if they were really lucky, maybe security would even board the Haley’s Hope and see that it was all a giant scam. But somehow, Argo didn’t think that would happen. There was some kind of willful blindness going on here, people in key positions ignoring possible clues indicating that things were not what they seemed.
That, or collusion.
Argo wasn’t sure which would be worse.
Tomas had taken Mags with him when he and Rachel left. The elephas-class abiota hadn’t said anything when they’d disconnected her from the Haley’s Hope. Mourning, maybe. Argo had no idea how abiota viewed human death. The predictives he’d worked with had always said all the right things, but what did that really mean?
Argo gave his brother one last hug. Just for a moment, Argo was reminded of that scared kid he’d once scraped out of a group home in Anchorage, fourteen and still grieving Mom and unwilling to admit to any of it.
But that was a decade or more in the past, Argo reminded himself. Aiden wasn’t a kid anymore, so he patted his brother on the back and let him go.
“They’re alive because of you,” Argo reminded him.
“They’re alive because of both of us,” Aiden replied, and sniffed at his armpit. “Shit, I need a shower.”
Argo laughed.
And that was it.
It had taken a little longer than anticipated to get the decoy through the gangway and set up. Argo would have liked to have headed back to their room, taken a shower himself, gotten cleaned up. He was filthy. Daelia had dried blood on her face, under all the bandages. But there was no time.
Less than an hour now before their flight.
“I could see if Tamm can get us on a flight tomorrow,” Daelia offered as they headed toward the main doors. She had a canvas bag slung over her shoulder. Scrounged from the Haley’s Hope, it had Bri Quercitron Whatever-the-hell inside of it.
“Aiden’s right. They run these flights, and the tourist ring, at capacity. There’s no way that can work without attracting a lot of attention,” Argo said. “Besides, I need to be back tomorrow.”
“We’re going to attract attention like this,” Daelia grumbled.
But waiting for them on the other side of the door was a kugu in Space Force orbital service markings. Waiting for them.
“Were you able to get the kugu?” the abiota asked.
“Excuse me?” Argo asked.
“The one Emily rented,” it said.
“I’m sorry, who are you?”
“Apologies,” it said, and tapped its chest. Its AR field came on briefly; it looked like some kind of large raccoon. “The name is Tenuki. Emily let me know you were coming.”
Argo and Daelia exchanged a look. Daelia adjusted the bag she was carrying.
“My patience for any more bullshit is pretty thin,” she said.
“I am emergent, primate-class,” it said. “A shame. Easier to come up with good story, eh, if I bring the kugu back. But you are alive, spawn. That is good. Come.”
She eyed Tenuki. “No offense, but I’d rather make our own way back up to the port.”
The USSF abiota had brought them a change of clothes at least, and Daelia was willing to accept that. They stripped down right there, tossing their filthy undersuits into the bag the new stuff had come in. They could find a garbage can for it somewhere in the commercial port.
“You doing okay?” Argo asked back at her. Tenuki had brought them stuff that actually fit.
“Oh, I’m great,” Daelia said, biting, sarcastic. “A psychotic predictive got my detector from somewhere and was using it for fuck only knows what, out on a space station where he murdered hundreds of people. Really great.”
“We’re going to deal with this, when we get back to Houston.”
“Oh, fuck, yes,” Daelia said, voice flat. “We are going to deal with this.”
“You ready to go?”
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
Something had changed for her out at Numina, Argo thought as they made their way back up through the commercial port, moving as fast as they could. He’d seen it before. Almost everyone in the military ran into it sooner or later. The realization that the system you believed in, the things you thought were true, weren’t what you thought they were.
He didn’t push her on it. That was usually one of those things a person had to work out for themselves. And now really wasn’t the time anyway; they still had an entire port to make it through.
They made their flight. Just barely. Two minutes to spare.
Settling into her seat as the pilot announced that the door was closing, Daelia made a mental list of everything she was going to do when she got back to the surface.
Figure out who stole her detector.
Why.
Kill them.
Maybe. Probably not, actually. But she was pissed. Really pissed.
She was not in a mood to be nice.
Find Dad, too. She needed to find Dad. Maybe he would know what was going on, or at least help her figure it out. He knew more about abiota than almost anybody else on the planet. If anybody could help her figure out why one of them—an art program, nonetheless—had decided that killing people was A-okay, it would be him.
“Hello again!”
Lisa McConnell. Fuck. Daelia must have winced, because the woman’s smile softened a little. Became a bit more real.
“I’m sorry if I startled you,” she said. “Daelia, wasn’t it?”
“I’m not really in the mood. Ma’am,” Daelia said. Now that she was finally sitting down, not moving, safe, she was starting to feel the weight of her own exhaustion, the emotion she’d been forcing herself to hold in. That was a polite thing to say, right? A nice way of telling the woman to fuck off? She’d used ma’am and everything.
But Lisa was unperturbed. “Did you enjoy your time? See the expo? Calliope and Richard here thought it was amazing.”
“Oh, it’s something, alright,” Daelia said cautiously.
Lisa cocked her head. “Oh, my dear, are you alright?”
Unconsciously, Daelia reached for the mess of bandages on her face. For a moment, she saw open space again, those slivers of black all around them, peeking through the obscuring lines of tape that Argo had wrapped her helmet in. The sense of flying blind. The cold, as escaping atmosphere froze around them or boiled away or whatever the fuck had been going on.
She could have died out there. Probably would have if Argo hadn’t—
“Bump bags aren’t as easy to use as they look,” Argo said, leaning over, and smiled his biggest, finest pilot’s smile. “Did you and, uh, Richard, get a chance to try it out?”
Lisa laughed and squeezed the arm of the guy next to her, who was plugging away at his own laptop. “Oh, Richard and I aren’t a couple, are we, darling? No, this is one of my superfans.”
“I won the contest to come up with her and Calliope,” he said, grinning. “What a show this was! Can’t wait to talk about it! We’re going to talk about it in your studio and everything, right, Lisa?”
“Of course,” Lisa said, with a smile that was almost as fake as Argo’s, and patted his arm. “Anything for my fans. You’re the lifeblood of my show. ChatBot wouldn’t exist without you.”
Daelia wanted to say something sarcastic, but not even closing her eyes could block out the stream of memories from Numina, and she didn’t trust what words would come out if she opened her mouth. Instead, she just turned into Argo and face-planted right into his shoulder.
He put an arm around her. Exchanged a few more words with Lisa.
Daelia didn’t listen to any of it.
In minutes, she was asleep again.
42
“After some deliberation, and in light of the boundary breach you suffered overnight, we have decided to not have that BX be the staging ground for the Unity staging point.”
“That’s very much appreciated, General. I’m sure the entire team will be relieved to know that we won’t have that kind of vulnerability to protect.”
The virtual conference room was sized much smaller this morning. The big circular table from Saturday had been shrunk to a more reasonable size. Like a large dinner table, maybe. But of course, that was only a matter of perspective; Ellington was the only base plugged into this right now.
Rover was keeping his mouth shut. He wasn’t quite sure what he’d say if he started talking. Gloating, maybe? Telling the Air Guard commander to go to hell? He didn’t want to find out.
You didn’t mouth off to a general and survive. And who the hell was going to pick up the position if he got sacked? Bumper wasn’t cut out for the job, and Marathon wasn’t ready.
No, Rover was quite content to stay exactly where he was. He’d gotten this shit off Ellington at least, and that was—
“I need to be more clear, I guess,” General Delgado said. In the virch, his avatar shifted in a way that might have communicated unease. The dampened body language of these things was one reason among many that he detested doing briefings this way. “We have to keep the staging points near spaceports.”
“Why? Are they planning on taking these people up to orbit?”
“I don’t have those details but—”
“General, we need those details,” Cactus said. “I need to know what you’re asking my Wing to do for you.”
“The staging point stays at Ellington,” the general said with a sigh. “NASA has agreed to lend us their hangar complex as a primary—”
“NASA?” Cactus asked, and now he sounded noticeably alarmed. “This isn’t in their wheelhouse.”
“Well maybe you all should have considered that before somebody took bolt cutters to one of your fences,” the general said, a little bit of heat coming into his words.
“Sir, I can assure you, we did and will do everything we can to comply,” Cactus said. “But I have three hundred and fifty-six people deployed to the Philippines right now alone, and we are not operating with full manning. The Army has even more people deployed, with only about ten percent manning on base. I—”
“I understand that, as does the Pentagon. The First Mobile Armor from Fort Hood is coming up to assist.”
