FicWad

Chapter Two

day seven

The last forty-eight hours have been really busy, thought Yuni as she took a few moments to herself in the training room, off the Tactical hallway. She’d already attended three planning sessions for Charles’s rescue, detailing Mikal’s investigations of building blueprints and possible troop placements. Fortunately, Falhurst had located a phantom file, indicating the number and status of personnel assigned to the Sector Four security headquarters. It used a complex encrypt algorithm, but enough information had been decoded to give them details to train from.

Only the suspension of her own mind in combat training allowed her to release the pent-up stress and aggravation caused by staying too long inside the base, or the apprehension before a mission. The complex and involved martial arts forms flowed around her as she flowed through them. Punches flowing into kicks, blocks into throws, each achieving its own singular purpose winding around the others in a tapestry of form and function. She alternated her crane forms with her tae kwon do, her tiger with her jujitsu. Never allowing herself to focus completely on only one style, but to be always ready for the unexpected. It is like, she half-mused to herself as she flowed, only having one bullet for your gun. If you need more than one bullet, it makes for a much harder mission.

What made this mission harder, in Yuni’s opinion, was the standard operating procedure of no fatalities. While they regularly had to wound enemy soldiers in order to accomplish their mission or, almost as commonly, escape a failed one, they had never resorted to outright murder. The Professor, as much the leader of their cell philosophically as Charles Linzia had been in charge of it militarily, had decreed early on that wholesale slaughter of the enemy would not be permitted. We must accomplish our goals in this insurrection, she remembered from a speech he’d given right after she’d joined. However, more powerful than any weapon we can devise to kill them is the power to convince them. If we don’t kill everyone, the public won’t fear reprisals from us. If we continually win by tactics instead of attrition, our enemy might wonder whether their employer’s tactics are wrong. If we spare their lives, they may choose to fight alongside us instead of against us.

Yuni had yet to meet anyone she’d spared who’d suddenly changed sides, but there was always the story passing around of so-and-so who’d been a whatever-rank and switched sides and brought over lots of valuable intelligence. Nobody she’d ever known, conveniently enough. She didn’t think it was a crock—not totally. But she had at least seen the results of his philosophy. The panicky desperation that had marked any captured prisoners had eased over the past several years to resigned acceptance. They treated their captives fairly, if not affluently, and released them from temporary holding locations to keep attention focused away from their real headquarters. No mistreatment, no starvation, no chemical interrogations unless completely necessary, and then only to get the valuable information they held. Even then, the drugs were chosen to minimize any lasting effects.

Not, she thought bitterly,that Charles is receiving that kind of treatment. She assumed they’d be lucky if they rescued him in time for the man to hold his own coffee cup by himself. She finished her workout with a sigh and grabbed her towel from the nearby bench. Time to rejoin the real world, I guess. Attempting to dry her sweaty mane of violet hair, she walked across the hall to the kitchenette to grab something to drink. She grabbed a sports water from the refrigerator and sat down, alternately taking drinks from the plastic container and trying to arrange her damp hair back into the disordered purple bun she normally wore. As she sat there, Mikal Scott walking into the kitchenette and rummaging through the cupboard, causing her a moment of surprise. Professor Antimon had given the mercenary almost carte blanche inside the headquarters, and aside from a private room for the parcel of clothes he’d brought, and a limited run on the food supplies, he seemed to have no interest in the base or its people. The only time he showed any animation or interest was during the mission briefings. She wondered what kind of man he could be, to walk and talk and breathe and yet be so dead.

“I notice you eat a lot of those,” she stated flatly, indicating the protein bar he was unwrapping.

Mikal paused, muscles tensing, then relaxed again—or, Yuni thought privately, as relaxed as a panther casually watching prey instead of stalking it. “Yes,” he replied hesitantly, seemingly unused to casual conversation. “I don’t eat much besides these.”

“Why? Digestion problems or something?” she probed further.

“No,” he replied more confidently. “Cheap and easy to obtain. I don’t need any frills or paper-trails.”

“Apparently not,” Yuni bit out, pointing to his belt. “Except for your toys there.”

Mikal looked down briefly at the weapons fitted tightly against his armor. “Tools of the trade. Nothing more,” he replied without looking up. “Why? Are they causing you a problem?”

“No. I was just starting to wonder if you were any better than the people who captured Charles,” she retorted. She was rewarded with watching Mikal tense back up, expecting to defend—or to attack.

“And why,” he asked with deceptive casualness, “would you make an assumption like that? I thought I was here to help rescue your captain.”

“You’re just a bully,” she responded bitterly. “All muscle and guns. You’re not here because you hate the Corporation like we do, or because they took someone from you. You came here because we promised you money. And I’m sure that it was a lot, not that I’m privy to that. And for all your knowledge and connections and skills, I certainly don’t see you sticking your neck out for anyone but yourself.”

Mikal appeared contemplative for a moment as he slowly chewed his protein bar. “Let me ask you something,” he began slowly. “How many of your people get caught by Corporate? How often?”

Yuni almost sneered. “What is this, you’re pumping me for information? I thought you had a corner on information.”

“Are you willing to humor me for a moment? Maybe I’m just trying to teach you something,” Mikal countered.

“Heh,” was her only reply. “You honestly expect me to just spill information? What kind of incompetent revolutionary do you take me for?”

There was Mikal’s almost-smirk again. “Incompetent? Hardly. I’ve seen your information, haven’t I? Well then, Ms. Oshiri, allow me to provide the information I already know. Through hotheadedness, bad intelligence, traps or defections, this city loses roughly two or three percent of its revolutionaries every three months. The hatred, personal loss and other emotions you refer to as motivation are nothing but buttons for your enemies to press. Push that button, pull that switch, and they act predictably. For five years I’ve carried out my business in Arx alone, and do you want to guess how many people I’ve lost?” Yuni didn’t feel like dignifying his statement with an answer, though she knew his numbers did reflect their average losses. “Even your military people are sometimes more of a hindrance than a help. Anyone who leads your people probably served under someone with fewer scruples or more interesting vices. What do you want to bet me that Charles’s old boss, or two or three, were brought in to give advice on what he might do? Who knows your Professor friend? Who might be willing to sell him out for a few hundred notes? The reason I do my business, and do it alone, is simply that no one knows who I am, or how I operate, or any weak spots they might use against me. I keep no friends, few contacts, I trust no one. I have a few I do business with, such as my protein-bar supplier, but I insulate myself well and assume that the day will come when I’m worth less as a customer and more as a bounty.”

“Bounty?” Yuni asked.“You have a bounty?”

“Well, I don’t like to brag,” Mikal shrugged, and Yuni could tell this was of pure informational content only, “but I’m at the top of the greensleeve capture-and-detain list. Now, your professor knows that, so I’ll give it to you for free. But I only tell you this for two reasons.”

“Why two?” Yuni asked exasperatedly. She was getting tired of feeling on the defensive in this conversation, but then again, she’d started it. And now she wanted to end it.

Fortunately, Mikal seemed willing to oblige. “First off, you seem too principled to try and turn me over to save my fee, even after I rescue your friend. And second, because you seem to need reassurance of some kind that I won’t betray you. I consider you less of a liability then I do them, and MarUban has been hunting me for years. So I return the favor.” He finished the protein bar and walked out of the kitchenette, leaving Yuni with possibly more questions than she’d started with. And as far as she could tell, most of them were new ones.

==+==

Charles started coming to again; it felt like they were wheeling him around on an equipment dolly of some kind. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he’d blacked out again during interrogation—again, not really a surprise in this place. He hadn’t been a very cooperative prisoner the last week or so, and they usually communicated their displeasure for this with punches. He wasn’t sure exactly how long he’d been a captive, but he was starting to notice that his anti-interrogatories were starting to lose their potency, or become diluted, or whatever—he wasn’t a doctor. What he did know was, when they pumped him full of drugs to make him talk, he was starting to want to tell them things. It was still fairly easy to resist, but it meant he was about nine days into capture, unless they were giving him way too many drugs. Then he was down to about seven days, maybe six. He wasn’t going to give good odds on six more.

He was starting to wiggle his fingers and toes really well when they arrived at his new interrogation room. As they unceremoniously wedged his dolly into place next to a bank of machines that looked medical in nature. When his “orderlies” left the room, he began surreptitiously trying to identify the machines in the room. Several he didn’t recognize, which caused some frustration, but he reminded himself again—he wasn’t a doctor. But several others looked more familiar, which caused more frustration anyway. I’m running out of time! I should have figured a way out of here by now...

He stopped himself abruptly.Yeah. Just figure a way past the drugs and beating and more drugs and blackouts. Let’s try and think constructively here. All hopes of that were dashed, however, when he realized one machine looked really familiar. About ten years ago, after a brief skirmish but before the American military had been disbanded, some shrapnel had shredded his abdominal area and perforated his intestines. He’d gotten out of that all right, but a month later he was back in the hospital with a badly dysfunctional kidney. They’d put him on dialysis to clean him out before and after his kidney was removed...

They had a dialysis machine, sitting just to his left. Pump the blood out, suck it clean, pump it back. It looked out of place, like it had just arrived and wedged in with the rest of the junk here. He knew it was here for him.

The “medical team” walked through the door and began busying themselves. Charles said nothing, couldn’t say anything. Oh, Nina, I’m so sorry. I should have said yes weeks ago. I should have...I should have died. I wish I could die, right now, before I can betray you or anyone else. He felt his tears start welling up, but he fought it back. Don’t want to give these wayvo-co-merez the satisfaction. He wasn’t quite sure what that phrase meant, but found it bizarrely appropriate that Nina had taught the Hispanic phrase to him, if only indirectly. The thought would have brought a smile to his face, but the man walking into the room killed any humor he might have had. Illuminated for the first time since his arrival, he could see the face of the man who’d interrogated him his first night here, and he believed every time thereafter. The imperious stance, the hawk-eyed face, and the commanding voice belonged to Major Donavan Walker, one of the most frightening men in Arx Metroplex. It was said that he painted all of his personal equipment crimson, his favorite color because it matched the blood covering his hands. Though he saw no dripping liquids on “Red” Walker, he knew the lives of thousands of Arx citizens lay on him no heavier than a feather. Charles wished all over he could have died a week ago. Unfortunately, Walker’s smile left no doubt he would relish correcting that deficiency.

“Captain Linzia,” he intoned, his domineering voice spoiled somewhat by the trace of glee working its way through, “I notice that despite our best efforts, you haven’t yielded anything useful to my interrogations. I’m so sorry about that. So I’ve gotten approval to test our new idea on you. Anti-interrogatories have always been a problem for us, wasting time and effort for any number of Marcroft-Ubanski’s valuable employees. So, in the interest of helping my company achieve it’s most humble aims—-” Charles had never heard anything of the sort, but Red Walker apparently talked way too much “—-I have devised a solution, involving a modified dialysis machine to cleanse your blood of these despicable chemicals. Unfortunately, the machine itself was located across the Metroplex, and these requisitions take so much time to move through channels...I suppose among your people, you just steal whatever you need from us. Must make inventory so much simpler to take from those who have already, mustn’t it?” Charles didn’t rise to the bait. No need to give this monster any new levers or openings to get to him. “Oh well. Not a conversationalist, I suppose. But we’ve found that out this week, haven’t we? Anyway, our modified machine will cleanse you and make you receptive to our efforts. I do hope it doesn’t take terribly long, because I’m so looking forward to talking with you again.” He leaned in close to Charles; he doubted even the men in the room could hear Walker’s whisper. No glee now; whatever Charles had just heard was apparently Walker’s public face. Up close, he abandoned his cheerful demeanor and showed his true face, full of rage and brutality. “I’ll kill you. When I’m done with you here, I’ll kill you so horribly it’ll give me nightmares for weeks. And just before I kill you, I’ll remind you that I’ll do the same to every friend, lover, coworker, neighbor—I’ll hunt them all down. Just so I can kill them too.”

He leaned back out, cheer and glee pasted back on his face. “By the way, one of the modifications I had made to this machine was the fittings for larger hoses. The skinny little ones just weren’t fast enough. But now, to work properly, I’m afraid they need to be inserted into a larger blood-flow area. And that requires an injector.” Charles began panicking as the large and frightening injection device came into view, attached to rubber tubes over a centimeter in width connected to the dialysis machine. “I’m told this is quite painful. But then, it’s supposed to be,” Walker added almost sadly as he walked towards the door. “Unfortunately, I have pressing business I really must attend to. So I’m afraid you’ll have to start without me. I do hope I can hear from you—-]/soon./]”

Charles watched the monster turn down the hallway before he realized the med tech was pressing the injector just to the left of his sternum. Then it clicked and whirred, and he felt something pierce his chest. Then he realized, in one brief moment of clarity, that he hadn’t wished he could die earlier. The past week hadn’t hurt. It was worth living this past week for the rest of his life instead, and dying of some horrible cancer that ate him alive, rather than endure what this pain really was. This feeling, just under the device, was the most horrible thing he could ever hope to experience. Then that clarity evaporated, and he screamed and screamed.

And then the machine whirred to life, and it started to really hurt.

==+==

Yuni watched as Mikal’s piercing emerald gaze quietly observed his seven-person covert intrusion team, with Professor Antimon beside him and the briefing room packed with everyone else who could fit. She had heard them both discussing the “employee relations” side of the operation, and decided that Mikal needed to have the Professor’s public approval for the troops he would be leading. They needed to obey him to accomplish this mission, and with Captain Linzia captured, their military confidence was already shaken. Yuni stood off to the side of the group, shaking her head. She still had severe misgivings about Mikal’s position in this operation, but the Professor had taken her aside after he caught her casually eavesdropping on his deliberation with Mikal.

“Yuni, I don’t care if you think he’s der Fuhrer reborn,” he’d responded with uncharacteristic anger. “He is our single best chance of rescuing Charles, and I’m going to take it. I am privy to a great many details that you are totally unaware of, and while he is driven by something other than revolutionary fervor, he is trustworthy enough to get us through this. From now on, you will not bring me your irrational distrust and focus on this mission. Once he’s done, and has left, then you can come and cry on my shoulder if you want. Or better yet, Charles’s shoulder. I’m sure he’ll enjoy some company.” Then he had nearly stalked away from her. Yuni had felt herself brimming with tears; Professor Antimon had been like a father to her, shepherding her through her first year with Ninth Sector Cell Fourteen. 9SC14 had been, in those earlier days, recently established from the remains of three cells which had been meeting together against protocols, and shattered by MarUban. Only the toughest and smartest had survived the massacres, and 9SC14 had grouped them together. A hard lesson to learn, and paid for with interest.

“Our preparations are complete,” the Professor began. “Mikal has formulated several options, and we’ve drilled them several times each with the best intelligence we currently have. Charles has been missing for seven days. We have no current information on his health, or whether he’s broken under the strain of interrogation. It is my personal belief that he has not, and I will continue to believe so until he tells me otherwise himself.” The group murmured at that, though Yuni noticed that Nina’s head was held confidently, with only the barest shimmer of tears forming. She knew that Nina had spent a lot of time since her return crying, but she’d also been the one training hardest for the rescue. Mikal had even tried to keep her from the intrusion, but Professor Antimon had vetoed that decision quickly. Nina was one of their best operatives at tactical intrusion from her time in Arx SWAT, and whatever Mikal’s objection to her involvement, she was in for good even if she wasn’t in her usual position of command.

“Our infiltration will be twofold. Team One will consist primarily of Victor Rubenov, and Andrew Gemon, our med tech. Their mission will be to find Charles and liberate him from captivity. Gemon is there in case they’ve done something to Charles, like installed subdermal transmitters. Team Two will consist of Mikal Scott and Nina Rodrigues. Their job is to remove Code Richter, the prototype Charles was trying to capture, from Corporation hands, as well as destroy any chance of them replicating it. Temporary Team Three will consist of Jackson Crue, Calen Falhurst, Robert Sullivan and Yuni Oshiri,. Team Three will be first up, disabling the entrance security setup and gaining updated information on Charles’s condition and location, as well as the current location of the Richter if possible. Team Three will then be reassigned as needed to Teams One and Two based on this information. Mikal Scott will be in overall charge of this mission, despite his nonaffiliation, because of his expertise on Corporate strongholds. I trust you will obey him as you would myself or Charles. I have the utmost confidence in his ability and desire to see this mission through.” Yuni was certain that comment was directed at her; instead, she found herself startled to see the faces of her fellow commandos and several of the crowd as well.

Maybe I’m not the only one? she thought to herself; strangely, the uncertainty of so many other people on this decision made her more comfortable. The Professor may have eroded a few more supporters than I thought. He must really trust this Mikal, to risk his authority with us this badly. She thought back to a saying he’d often quoted to her, “A wise general gives orders he knows will be obeyed.” But she only now understood the unspoken half, that they would obey his orders now because they knew he gave the best orders he could. As Yuni watched, she saw the faces around her change from uncertainty or disagreement to determination to see the mission through. Suddenly, Yuni thought of how she’d been acting since Mikal came, and felt ashamed of herself.

“Mikal will also be in charge of leading Team Two on the Richter mission, while Victor will be leading Team One. Charles and the Richter are both priorities in this mission. I know many of you are not familiar with the purported capabilities of this Richter, but let me assure you: it represents a threat to everything we strive for here. We must deny it to our enemies at any cost. Understood?”

Yuni and the other six commandos snapped to attention and saluted in unison. “Yes sir!” Yuni cried enthusiastically, her sentiments echoed by her teammates. Regardless of the outcome, she was going to have a chance to fight and win!

==+==

Two hours later, she wasn’t sure if her enthusiastic determination was gone or just hiding. The torrential rains had ceased yesterday, but the soggy cold was a poor replacement and left her purple ponytail clinging damply to her neck. She was having trouble holding her weapon with numb fingers, her combat armor was cinched wrong and chafing, and she just wanted to warm up. When she looked around, she didn’t recognize anything in this part of town; the flimsy piece of scrap paper she held gave her partial directions to a safehouse rendezvous within half a mile of the Sector Four holding area. Or at least, that’s what Mikal said.

“How much further do we have?” Andrew Gemon, the medtech holding the first half of her directions, wasn’t much of an outdoors person, certainly less than herself. Having spent years building up a medical practice, he had joined the resistance movement after MarUban had made new regulations concerning private practices, effectively putting him out of business. Coincidentally, a week later they’d also plowed his building under while he was in the city, destroying any chance he had of rebuilding his business. An older and bitter man given to complaining; she had sympathy for him, but certainly not for his whining attitude.

“It looks like the next block up, behind that old phone booth,” she replied. It really was a battered antique, an old CommEx screen receiver crammed inside an even older shell. Gemon might know what the old faded sign on the side meant, but she was certainly too young to remember what it was. She glanced at her instructions, trying to comprehend where the nine-one-one area code could be for; she’d never heard of such a number. Gemon had shrugged at it too; apparently before his time as well. Yuni stepped inside the abused old booth and started typing the ten digit number Mikal had given her. Before she got past the fifth number, though, the speaker under the screen started reciting a recording.

“Hang up the phone, wait thirty seconds, and walk around the side of the building,” the broken-up female voice stated before ending in a squawk of static. Yuni hung up the phone as instructed, then turned around and shrugged at Gemon. “You see anything happening?” she asked.

Gemon was more restless. “What did it say? What are we supposed to do here? Frag, I hate this!”

Yuni sighed. One day, she hoped the cranky and high-strung doctor would calm down. “It said wait thirty seconds and walk around the side over there. Do you hear anything?”

Gemon cocked his head impatiently, then a look of concentration crossed his usually irritated features. “Yeah, sounds like lubed hydraulics or something.” They both moved quickly to the alleyway next to the building, where a large drainage grate was shifting aside and the concrete slab underneath was slowly sinking like an elevator. “Well come on,” he snapped as Yuni stood, mouth agape. She’d had no idea Mikal Scott was capable of something like this. “No time like the present? Hello?”

She recovered enough to drop onto the platform, then ducked as the storm grate began sliding back into place. Even on this side of the grate, she noticed when she could actually looked up again, the mechanisms that retracted the grate and lowered them were almost impossible to spot. She was beginning to regret her earlier hostility towards Mikal, if only because it had apparently blinded her to the true level of his competence. He might have certain contacts he would go to for information or equipment, but she sincerely doubted he ordered custom electronic or mechanical work and had it installed by a licensed technician. Mikal was much too close-vested for that; also, it prevented any security leaks or information for people to guess his intentions. Even as she thought about it, she saw it in her mind’s eye: Mikal buying common parts in bulk, through different intermediaries to disguise his intentions; ordering unnecessary items along with the needed to mask his needs or losses. Just trying to figure him out left her learning numerous conspiracy-minded methods for doing business on this side of the law. Is this how we do our business as well? she suddenly thought. She realized that she simply didn’t know. Do our supply officers do things like this to hide us? Buy twenty-thousand small common parts from the black market and distribute them to the different cells? Or buy things from different sectors so that, even if it [/is spotted, it’s assumed for the needs of the local sector instead of where it actually ends up.../]

The staggering amount of effort and work that she now realized Mikal went through to be who he was chilled her. He’s like an ultimate soldier, a methodical professional with no attachment to anything but the job. She shuddered at the thought. She looked at her own life, driven by petty concerns or emotions. Her daughterly affections towards Professor Antimon, her professional attachment to the capable leadership of Charles Linzia, her camaraderie with her new teammates. Her warm smiles as Nina Rodrigues tried to subtly attract Charles’s attention, the sense of loss when Charles was captured and the sadness her comrade felt at the same. She felt so weak compared to this man, this Adonis of efficiency, this masterful mercenary.

Then she thought of his isolation. His mistrust, his reliance only on himself. Even if she attributed these to unswerving dedication, he was cut off from what made Yuni feel alive in the first place. The love and joy and caring made her a person, someone who mattered to someone else. She realized he had no one else to matter to. He might gun down depraved people or corporate villains, but he had no direct bearing on anyone else’s life. He lived a life of minimal contact with the world, and both he and the world were less for it. She would like to have pitied him for it, but knew it for a useless emotion when concerning the proficient Mikal Scott.

She knew she couldn’t live in a world like that, nor did she want to.

She suddenly noticed that Gemon, who had been leading the way while she introspected, had stopped; she reasoned this by dint of running into his back.

“Watch where you’re going, Violet?” Andrew almost sneered as he gave the prearranged knock pattern. The wall panel slid aside to reveal the rest of their rendezvous party already arrived, and Gemon ducked under the wiring to get inside, Yuni following. As she reached the inside, she marveled at the spartan, utilitarian furnishings. A simple workout station in one corner, a bed and dresser in another, a battered but sturdy floor mat in the middle of the room. Yuni noticed two tape marks next to an off center pair of indentations, roughly the size of Mikal’s boots. /A fellow martial artist, indeed,/she thought. Various karate and martial art types existed, but the kata forms used to train acolytes of most disciplines generally had one item in common—finishing in the same spot one started from. He keeps close track of his movements and pacing, it seems. She looked to the near corner. An old worker android stood there, deactivated. She noticed that the blocky humanoid shape had several pads greytaped to key striking points on a human. That stripped-down thing must still weigh almost a hundred-fifty kilos, she pondered nervously. Another look at the floor mat revealed marks where the robot’s arms or legs had damaged the durable surface. He practices throws and strikes with that? And those pads are small...a punishment all their own if he misses his target. She decided to look to the last corner.

There sat an efficient-looking computer setup, which Calen Falhurst was, unsurprisingly, typing furiously away at the terminal. She smiled. Calen never could stand to be away from a computer, or information, for more than an hour, she thought to herself. She hoped he’d bothered to ask Mikal’s permission before attaching himself to the mainframe. She looked around, suddenly confused.

“Where’s Mikal?” she asked. Even as the words left her, though, she realized it was kind of a silly question. Everyone but Calen was standing and waiting. Burt before anyone could answer, a blurred shape fell from above the ceiling and landed in a crouch. Yuni had her sidearm out, as did several others, when Mikal stood and waved impatiently for the weapons to be holstered.

“No need for all that,” he said dismissively. He was bedecked now, Yuni noticed, with a pair of smaller shoulder holsters, as well as paired hip holsters, for a total of six firearms; the low-slung weapons looked decidedly heavier and dangerous. Festooning the extensively worn leather belting were numerous thirty-round reloads, a wicked selection of knives, and what appeared to be several short swords sheathed along his back and legs. “Sorry for the theatricality, but if we’re doing this together, I needed to check people’s reaction times. A few of you were slower on the uptake than I’d normally like, but healthy enough all around. Falhurst, have you made any progress?”

Calen looked up, and Yuni noticed he seemed confused that Mikal was in the room now. Reaction time, indeed. “Um, I managed to hack in far enough to find the Cap, and the storeroom where they have that Richter thingie. Cap’s room isn’t really on the map but I, uh, back-referenced location stuff and they put in new cells about four months ago. Dug right into the rock, or concrete or whatever. Real rough housing, I guess. Anyway, it’s back in the northwest corner, but the storeroom is on the east side. Um, here’s a printout.”

Mikal took the sheet and studied it carefully for a moment. “You were careful?”

Falhurst almost seemed offended, if such could be said of the quiet and genteel hacker. “Um, yeah. I ghosted through three major networks, the middle one Corporate, and then ran a hub-randomizer. It slowed me down a lot, but made it really hard to trace. At least for, like, a couple days. It’ll take ‘em at least another month after to get through the network screen.”

Mikal seemed satisfied, both with Falhurst’s recital and with whatever was on the paper he held.“All right, nothing too bad,” he announced. “Victor, you and Team One are go on plan gamma-dash-zero-bee. You’ve got Crue. Rodrigues, we’re delta-dash-one-niner. The storeroom is tighter than I’d planned, so we’ll need Sullivan to break us in. Sullivan, give them a small charge to blow Linzia’s door if need be. Oshiri, you’re with us too. Falhurst, you man the network here and keep me updated by scrambled comm. Now, everyone remember to use your code names on our way in and throughout. Don’t give them any more info than they need. All right?”

A murmuring of assent filled the room. “Then let’s get ready. Everyone check and clean your firearms, catch a nap if you need to. We leave at twenty-one hundred; that’s one hour forty from now.”

As the crowd dispersed, he walked straight towards Yuni. Caught off guard by his direct approach, her reflexes were a moment slow. More than enough for Mikal; as he reached her, his hands shot out, under her combat armor—and tightened a strap here, loosened the other, yanked somewhere in the middle back—and it fit perfectly. “Here,” he said, offering her a small tube of ointment. “That should help the chafing on your side.”

“You knew—?”

“Just the way you favored that side. I noticed.”

She calmed down; he was trying to do her a favor. She didn’t care so much for his handling her without permission, but as she’d noted, he was rather isolated. Perhaps he didn’t have a lot of experience catering to people’s personal space.

“Thank you,” she admitted. “And I would...I would like to apologize for my behavior before. I’ve...been very rude to you, and said things that reflect badly on me as a person. I’ve had a lot of time to think about it, and you have done well by us, whatever your incentive. Thank you for that, too.”

Mikal’s expression changed slightly; she wondered if perhaps, she’d managed to surprise the expedient mercenary. “I see I may have underestimated you, Ms. Oshiri. I don’t do that often.” His unnamed expression changed to a slight, if genuine, smile. He shook her hand.“I’ll be glad to have you along.”

As he left to see to his equipment, Yuni felt chagrined. She started to field-strip her pistols. Here I am, getting ready to assault a Corporate stronghold to free my friend, and I’m being forgiving to a guy I still don’t really trust, because he said he was wrong about me. As she removed the various pieces, she could feel the nagging voice of reproval in the back of her mind for not being honest with herself. Okay, maybe I respect him for his talent, but that’s it.

She sighed. I’ll figure this all out later. Right now I just want to get Charles home alive. All of us alive. After that, I’ll call it a good day.

==+==

Charles could feel the blood coursing through his veins, cell by cell. At least, he thought that he could, even without the aid of the terrible machine, now finally removed from his chest after almost three hours of blood removal and replacement. They’d started interrogating him right after the doctors had sealed him shut again, starting with low doses of chemicals. This time, though, he’d had to fight every inch of the way. He could feel where his teeth were chipped from grinding them together. He’d done everything he could to stay quiet. And he’d even succeeded.

He never would again, though. Every moment from now was another moment he didn’t betray his friends. Eventually, those moments would run out. Donavan “Red” Walker just kept smiling at him, standing in the doorway, just observing. Charles knew the cruel, sadistic major had known he wouldn’t break this time. They both knew he would next time.

And Walker would be there to do it himself. To watch a brave man break, betray, destroy everything he held dear. Then Walker would take a month or two killing him.

“Major, sir! We’ve received an anomalous outside contact!”

Red Walker sighed, vexed, and turned to the soldier just blocked by from Charles’s view.“What kind of contact, lieutenant?”

“Sorry sir. An outside source penetrated out computer security at twenty-three fifty-seven hours and had a run at some of the less-classified information. It would have gone undetected except—well, sir, you supplied us with the possible vectors. Nothing on the list you gave us would ever have been checked this soon daily.”

Walker dismissed him with a small gesture. When the hapless officer didn’t get the hint, Charles watched him slowly turn his head back and glared. “Yessir!” the lieutenant called, his footsteps making a frightened scramble down the hallway.

Walker looked back at Charles.“Well now, it seems your friends have decided to come and play.” His sadistic smile returned. “This will be interesting.”