Overthrowing heaven, p.27
Overthrowing Heaven, page 27
“You said we had to leave,” Pri said. She sounded even less happy than when Matahi had handed me the box.
I looked up. “You’re right,” I said to her. To Matahi, I said, “Thank you. Thank you very much.”
Matahi glanced at Pri, came up to me, kissed me on the cheek, and said, “You’re welcome.” She turned to go. “I’ll head for the SleepSafe and wait to hear from you.”
She left.
I stared after her until Pri touched my shoulder, pointed at Lobo, and said, “Don’t we need to get moving, too?”
I nodded and started toward Lobo.
“I believe there are washing machines that are more adept with women than you,” Lobo said, still privately. “Amazing.”
“Enough,” I subvocalized as I walked inside him. I went into my quarters to drop off the box.
Pri followed me into my room and stood in front of the door, which closed behind her.
“Now that you have a job close to Wei,” she said, “I don’t understand how I can help, and I sure don’t understand what you need her for.”
I leaned against the opposite wall. “I have a job on the island,” I said, “providing I don’t fail the training course. Even then, they’ll start me with scut tasks; no way does the new guy get close to the main asset.”
“So what use is the job?” she said. “Children are dying while we keep failing!”
“You think I don’t know that!” I stepped close enough to her that she backed into the doorway. The door opened just in time to save her from smacking into it. “We’ve been living with that reality from the moment I agreed to help. Your people have known about it even longer. We’re doing the best we can.”
“Well, that hasn’t been very good,” she said.
I shook my head. “No, no it hasn’t. But we’ve been doing the best we could.”
We stood in silence for almost a minute before she spoke. “So what do we do now?”
“I pass the training camp,” I said, “get the job, and eventually figure out how to get close to and snatch Wei. You run surveillance routes in Lobo and also stay in touch with your people in case they have any useful intel.”
“And if they do?” she said. “Or if Lobo and I spot Wei on the move?”
“You or he will leave the data for me at a drop Lobo will brief you on. He and I will set up a protocol that works via a public exchange, something I can check regularly. I’ll also meet you periodically at the alternate landing facility we first used.”
She covered her face with her hands and stayed that way for a while. When she looked at me again, her eyes were full of tears. “I’m never going to see Joachim again, am I?”
I stared at her. No, I thought, but if there was any chance at all that he was alive, I might need her help to rescue him. Even if he wasn’t, she might prove useful in saving the children who were. I wasn’t sure if I was committing a kindness or being cruel when I finally said, “Don’t say that, and don’t believe it. Wei can’t want to risk using too many children, because each one raises the chance of bringing to the public’s attention the awful things he’s doing. So he’s probably keeping them alive. We’re going to save them, all of them, including Joachim.”
I doubt that she believed me, but she forced a smile and said, “Okay.” She turned and left my small room.
Looking at the spot where she had stood, her expression still fresh in my mind, I knew there was no way I would fail that training class or anything else they threw at me. I would get close enough to Wei to grab him, and this time I would not fail.
The process would start in the morning.
I would not fail.
Chapter 37
I don’t like you,” Rhionne Ng, the head of Wonder Island security, said to the six of us standing at attention in front of her. Her voice echoed from the permacrete walls and ceiling of the cavernous, domed underground room in which we stood. She paced back and forth, her movements slow and powerful. “I don’t trust you.” She stopped in front of the woman on the far left. Ng stood almost my height, was easily as wide as I am, and wore her short black hair in a buzz cut.
The woman facing Ng sagged, as if a great weight were pushing down on her.
“I sure don’t enjoy looking at you,” Ng said.
I watched out of the corner of my eye as she moved slowly along the line, pausing to stare directly at each of us.
“So given how happy I am to have you all here,” she said, “who can tell me why I let them send me such a worthless group?”
“I can!” shouted three of the people.
They were either idiots, lifelong civilians, or both. An officer or NCO addressing a new squad rarely wants an answer to that sort of question, and certainly not on the first day with the unit. Though Ng wore no sign of rank, just the same plain black security uniform as the rest of us, she moved and talked like every sergeant I’d ever seen work a group of raw fish. Like I had in my days as a sergeant. But she wasn’t the sergeant, because she’d introduced herself as the person in charge. The tall, dark, bald man behind her, Tomaso Park, stood with the calm, contained manner of the career NCO and the heavily muscled body of someone who prided himself on his strength. He was her sergeant now—that was clear—but she’d also been one once, I was sure of that.
“So you three are mind-readers?” she said. “Good. You can spend your afternoon duty shift with the maintenance crew, reading the minds of the larger mammals so you can more quickly find where they crapped.” She put her hands on her hips. “Anyone else care to try to answer?”
None of us spoke. The other two were probably wondering the same thing I was: What should we call her? In the Saw, the right response would have been, “Sir, no, sir” if she was an officer, but I had no clue here.
Ng waited and watched us. You could almost see the energy coming off her. She wore her shirtsleeves rolled up to expose arms that were bigger and more muscular than mine. They twitched in the telltale rhythm of the muscle-activation treatments I’d seen both on field missions with the Saw and in prison.
“Well, meat?” she said.
We weren’t going anywhere until somebody answered, so I took the gamble. “Sir, no sir,” I said.
She appeared in front of me faster than I’d believed she could move. I wouldn’t underestimate her speed again.
“Good choice, Moore,” she said. “I guess they taught you something useful in the Saw, third-rate outfit that it was.” She leaned forward until her nose was almost touching mine. “What, too weak to defend your old comrades?”
“Sir, no sir,” I said. “Sir, the Saw can defend itself, sir.”
She shook her head and stepped back.
“I let them send me you useless bags of meat because we’re desperate, pure and simple. There couldn’t be any other reason, could there, Tomaso?”
Ng never looked behind her, but Park still snapped to attention as he answered, “Sir, no sir.”
“You’re probably wondering,” Ng said, “why we don’t hand you a few sensors, a weapon, and a security guard badge and send you on your way. After all, we’re not military, and we’re not police. So let me lay it out for you.” She ticked off the points on her fingers. “One: Wonder Island contains hundreds of animals that could kill a person without any effort whatsoever. If anything happens to the automated systems that control those creatures, our team is all that stands between those animals and our paying guests.” She pointed upward; I wasn’t sure how deep we were, but I knew Wonder Island’s guests were enjoying themselves somewhere far over our heads. “Make no mistake: The animals that roam around up there must never be out of our control.”
She dropped her hand. “Two: Wonder Island is the biggest single tourist attraction on any planet in at least a three-jump range. Heaven’s government counts on the revenue from this place, and it’s our job to make sure nothing ever interrupts its flow. Three: The tech that makes these creatures so attractive is confidential and proprietary, and one of our jobs is to make sure it stays that way. Four: The scientists and computer systems that work the tech are appealing targets for rivals, so we protect them and make sure that what belongs to Wonder Island stays on it.”
It was a good sign that she even mentioned the protection assignments. I certainly wouldn’t start on them, but the fact that she included them in our duties gave me hope that I could work my way into them.
“Park here is going to break you into groups, issue you some training contacts and weapons, and run you through some VR drills so we can see how well you perform.” She turned and headed toward the door through which we’d entered the area. “I don’t expect to see all of you at the end of the day.”
Park stepped forward, snapped his cuffs, crossed his arms behind his back, and said, “Listen up, because I do not like to repeat myself. Here’s what we’re going to do.”
The ponytails of the little girl whipped back and forth as she ran. The guard chasing her and the kidnapper were neck and neck and would catch her at about the same time. I couldn’t get a clear bead on the kidnapper. The guard should have taken on the kidnapper, but he was so focused on getting to the girl he wasn’t thinking clearly.
I thumbed the weapon to full auto and sprayed both men before they could reach the girl.
The terrorist and the girl winked out of sight. The contacts returned me to the training area.
The guard candidate was furious. He stalked toward me, his fists clenched.
“What’d you shoot me for, you idiot?” he said. “We’re on the same team. I almost had her.”
Park watched us from ten meters to our left. His expression remained calm.
“So did the attacker,” I said. “You blew it by not taking him out, so I did the only thing that would be sure to save her.”
“I would have protected her,” the candidate said. He stopped half a meter in front of me.
“Given how foolishly you were already behaving,” I said, “I couldn’t count on that. Our mission was to save the girl.”
He might as well have called me and told me the punch was on its way. He took time to plant his feet, torque his hips, and lift his right hand in preparation for it.
When it finally came, I stepped to my left, grabbed his right shoulder as he went past me, spun behind him, and followed him forward. I kicked the back of his right leg, and as he went down I wrapped my left arm around his neck and clamped on a choke. He clawed at my arms for a few seconds, but the uniform held nicely. When he was out, I set him on the ground more gently than he deserved.
“Shooting your teammates won’t make you popular,” Park said. I glanced at him as I stood. He hadn’t moved, and his expression hadn’t changed.
I shrugged. “Lose a few men in training or a lot in battle.”
A man stepped out of a door a few meters away and walked over to the guy I’d choked out. The man’s nametag said “Dan Lee,” and he wasn’t happy with me. I had him in height by about twenty centimeters, but he had me in width by at least ten. His arms strained against his shirt, and he wore his black hair long and loose, almost to his shoulders. He glared at me as he checked on the unconscious guy.
I ignored him.
Park smiled slightly. “We’re not in battle. We’re security guards.”
“Sarge,” I said, “when we’re fighting, we’re in battle.”
“We have job titles and pay grades here,” he said, “but not ranks. No sergeants, no officers.”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter what they call you,” I said. “I know a sergeant when I see one.”
“So do I,” he said. When I didn’t respond, he thumbed a control on his cuff, and all the groups scattered around the huge training area stopped moving. “Five-minute break, then we tour some of the grounds, and then we have some real fun.”
“I’m kicking this one back,” Lee said, tilting his head toward the man who was just now regaining consciousness.
“He might learn,” Park said. “I’m willing to give him the rest of the day.”
“You know how Rhionne feels,” Lee said.
Park winced slightly at the informality.
Lee didn’t notice. “The guy blew it,” he said, “so he’s out. As for this one—” He indicated me with a quick flip of his wrist. “—he may have won the exercise, but he’s still a jerk.”
Lee stood and faced me.
“I think we should kick him back, too.”
Chapter 38
No,” Park said. He stared at Lee for several seconds.
Neither man moved.
Watching them, I wasn’t sure if their confrontation was about what to do with me or about some preexisting issues between them. It sure felt like the latter.
“Look,” Lee said, “Moore is lucky he’s not joining this loser for attacking one of his training partners. We don’t need any more know-it-all ex-mercs on this team.”
“I don’t agree,” Park said. “As one of those ex-mercs, I have to say that if we had more trained pros we might not have fared so badly in some of our recent—” He paused. “—exercises.”
“That’s a load of crap,” Lee said. “Nobody could have known—”
Park cut him off. “This is my training session,” he said, “so it’s my call. Moore saved the girl, and he defended himself when necessary, so he moves on.”
Park turned toward me. “Don’t push your luck, meat. Get some water, and join the others.”
The light breeze felt wonderful after so much time underground. We’d come into the park via one of the hidden hatches, which closed as soon as we were all clear. At least a meter of dirt and grass covered it, and unless you knew to look for it you’d never spot it. We stayed away from tourists, moving on forest paths and entering only a few small exhibits whose animal occupants were currently elsewhere. I admired the dedication to preserving the user experience; unless something went wrong, the vast majority of the visitors to the island would never even be aware of the existence of a security team.
The hatches to the underground complex were all over the island, almost a hundred of them, so we could quickly appear wherever we were needed. The robotic sentries, like the ones I’d encountered on my visit with Pri, provided the first line of defense and could pleasantly deal with most cranky animals and misbehaving guests; they’d certainly handled me well.
“Don’t come up here unless a supervisor orders you to do so,” Park said. “If we do send you up, deal with the problem quickly and quietly. If it’s a guest who won’t cooperate, lead him to the nearest hatch, and a liaison officer will meet you and take it from there.”
“How do we know where the hatches are?” a woman in front of me asked.
“Your contacts will show you the moment you go topside,” Park said, “provided, of course, that you’re up here under orders.”
“What about opening them?” a man beside her said.
“You can’t,” Park said. “Your uniforms will tell the monitoring officers you’re near one, and they’ll decide whether to open it for you. The moment you head up, we start watching you.”
“Is that—”
Park cut off the woman. “It’s not just about keeping these people safe,” he said, “or about managing them when they’re rowdy. It’s about the illusion we sell: Wonder Island is an unspoiled garden teeming with amazing creatures you can’t see anywhere else. If you spot a security guard, you start wondering just how nice the garden really is. If we do our jobs right, the civilians never know we exist.”
“Isn’t that always the case?” I said.
“Everywhere I’ve ever fought,” Park said, nodding his head. “Now, let’s move on.”
They’d turned a landing hangar into a makeshift training ground by scattering crates here and there throughout the enormous permacrete room. The containers ranged in size from a meter square to almost five meters on a side, and the gap between any two of them was always at least four meters. Park had split us into two teams: the woman and I on one, the three other remaining candidates on the other. None of us had names on our uniforms, but it didn’t matter; we didn’t have comm connections to each other, either. All we had were vests, helmets, rifles with flexible rounds that would bruise but not penetrate, and a comm link to Park.
He stood in the center of the room and pointed to the doll sitting on a chair beside him.
My partner and I were thirty meters apart on the wall to his right. Our three opponents were on the opposite wall. Each of us was about seventy meters from the center.
“Everybody on Heaven comes to Wonder Island,” he said. “They bring their friends, their families, anyone and everyone. We’ve had kidnapping attempts. This is your chance to show us how well you’d handle one by rescuing my cute little friend here.”
What crap. They were short on people to protect Wei, and they were seeing who might be useful. Fine by me; I’d show them.
“The rules are simple,” Park said. “The first one to take the doll to safety wins, and if you shoot it, your team loses. That’s it. If you’re hit and you can keep moving, feel free to do so. If you’re too hurt to continue, stop.”
“But our team is short a person,” my partner said.
Hadn’t she learned yet?
“Thank your partner for sending your other teammate home early,” Park said.
The lights dimmed, as if twilight had fallen indoors.
“Go on my signal,” he said. He jogged to the wall on my far left, faced the center, and said, “Start.”
My partner looked at me; she obviously had no idea what to do.
I waved her toward the doll.
She stalked forward.
I scanned the area and found the perfect spot about twenty meters to my right and ten ahead: a three-meter-tall container bathed in shadow. I dashed to it, jumped, grabbed the top, and as quietly as I could manage pulled myself onto the huge crate. I stretched out, switched my vision to IR, and trained the rifle’s sights on the area on the far side of the doll.
I’m not the best shot I’ve known, not by a long mark, and I don’t practice enough to be as good as I once was, but sniping from a stationary position eighty or fewer meters from my target was within my capabilities. My partner would head for the doll, and she’d make it or she wouldn’t, but either way she’d draw the opposition’s attention.
