War of the Spheres Read online

  That was unacceptable.

  “You’re right,” I told him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, friend. Maybe you should be on your way.”

  I wasn’t at all tempted to pretend that I liked this man, that he could order me around due to his rank. Accordingly, I took an aggressive step in his direction. I figured it just about put him within my range.

  He skipped to keep his distance.

  “Okay, Gray—let’s discuss this for a minute in private,” Shaw offered. He pointed over his shoulder deeper into the dark, narrow alley behind him.

  I was mindful of the package under my arm, and the person I had to get it to. On the other hand, I was feeling like this meeting wasn’t by chance and mustn’t be ignored.

  With a nod, I followed after him into the shadows.

  Shaw walked four meters in and glanced over his shoulder to flash a friendly smile that wasn’t genuine.

  “What’s your job today, Gray?” he asked.

  I gestured vaguely behind us at the street.

  “Security work,” I said starting to rethink my choices about this detour. “Nothing special.”

  “Nothing special…” he echoed and looked at the parcel I was carrying. “Not sporting your rank today, I see.”

  “I’ve got my own problems and my own way, Lieutenant. Back off.”

  Spreading his hands and shaking his head, he laughed. “What’s wrong, buddy? You look like you’re ready to fight. We’re on the same team, man.”

  “I’m not on anyone’s team,” I told him. “I work alone.”

  Even as I said this, I knew it to be true. I always worked alone, never in tandem with another partner from Control.

  “You should be wearing your rank insignia before you get to the job,” Shaw advised me. “That’s a rule right from the top.”

  “Thanks for the tip, Lieutenant, but I really need to be moving on now.”

  With that, I backed away toward the street.

  “Just a second,” he said. “I’m sorry if my manners are rough.”

  “And…?”

  “Here’s the thing, Gray: Those in charge have decided to abort your mission. I’m the lucky officer they sent out here to give you the news. I’m going to need to confiscate that package under your arm, and you’re to report back to the Old City.”

  I looked at him without moving or speaking a word. I gripped the packet close, and his eyes crawled over it as I did so. His stare flicked back up to meet my own. He was still trying to smile, but I was fresh out of diplomacy.

  “That’s not happening, Lieutenant.”

  “Well, Chief,” he said with a sigh, “have it your way. I’ll let you get back to your business, but I’ll have to report this incident.”

  Nodding without a care, I turned and headed toward the shining streets. Before I took three steps, however, I heard boots scratch on the sparkling debris underfoot.

  Shaw was very quiet. I would never have heard him if the alleyway hadn’t been in need of resealing. Crystalline structures were strong and beautiful, but as a glinting and attractive by-product, they tended to shed sparkling bits of dust and grit. That raspy grit had broadcast this bastard’s intent to blind-side me.

  Pivoting on my hip, I was able to see and partially react to a vicious, flying kick aimed at the back of my head. I displaced myself and parried his momentum to pass me by.

  The lieutenant was already springing back at me with a fast side attack—again using his foot.

  I whirled to meet him, countering with my own stop-kick to his leg, slowing his momentum, but he was able to get inside my guard and follow up with a clean blow to my jaw. I shoved him back with both of my hands, so I could square-off with him properly.

  Shaw was quick as well as quiet, and I could see he loved to fight in close. I tried for a heavy blow that should’ve nicely crippled his smaller frame. He slid his body around my flying fist and cracked his knee into my side.

  His hand shifted to grab my ankle, but I’d snapped my leg back in by then. I ignored the pain his knee had caused and smoothly disengaged.

  What surprised me most about the encounter was his expression. There was anger on his face—rage. Myself, I was nice and focused. I was just taking care of business, but he seemed to honestly dislike me.

  There followed a flurry of blows. He caught me just above the left eye once, splitting my eyebrow. Blood trickled down, partially blinding me.

  But the lieutenant caught the worst of the exchange. I had to admit, he was well trained and strong—but he wasn’t a match for me. I pounded him pretty good. His jaw was off-kilter, and his mouth and nose were bloody when we separated for a moment to breathe.

  Honestly, I expected him to back off—but he didn’t. He lunged instead, coming in close for a clinch.

  I didn’t want this guy in tight—he did his best work there.

  My lips drew back to show my teeth. This little man was pushing me. I’d been willing to take a few punches to convince this lieutenant I was no one special—but he was ticking me off now.

  I got my mind into the zone and breathed out deeply. My attack came before he could even react. With impossible quickness, I struck him twice more in the face. With the third, I crushed his windpipe.

  There was a hollow crunch—like a rice cake broken in an old coffee can. His eyes widened as he sprang away. Madly fluttering his fingers, he worked his lopsided jaw, rasping in an effort to get air through his mouth.

  Then, he surprised me. His feet left the ground as if he were fighting in null-G. Twisting and grabbing a rusty fire escape rung high above, he swung up the rattling ladder to the iron landing and perched there, looking back down at me.

  Grabbing a penknife, he flicked out a small blade and twisted it into the cartilage below his crushed throat. An explosive rush of air whistled into the wound.

  Shaw jabbed a finger down at me like he was going to shoot something out of it. His eyes bulged, and the bloody hole in his throat whistled and spit while he held the wound open with his other hand.

  “Are we done here, Lieutenant?” I called up to him.

  I could almost believe his face was going to explode. Blood and spit continued to buzz through his blowhole. Suddenly he fled up the fire escape to the roof like he was on a wire.

  “Have a nice day, sir,” I called up after him. Then he was gone.

  I checked for my parcel, and found it lying in the colorful dust that sprinkled the alley. Unfortunately, it was torn open.

  Then I scanned for something to mop my face with. I still had to be presentable for my meeting. In the end, I used my sleeves.

  “What was that guy’s problem…?” I wondered out loud.

  The lieutenant had left me curious and slightly battered. He had displayed a few special talents of his own. I’d have liked to have gotten more information about his agenda, though. What did he know about me? What had I done in the past to piss him off so badly?

  I wiped blood, sweat and sparkling grit from my face with the dark lining of my sleeves. As I pressed on my split brow to get the bleeding to stop, I saw my insignia bars scattered around my feet in the shadows.

  I checked and found one still in my pocket. I recovered the rest and decided it was time to wear them. I wasn’t fooling anybody that mattered anyway.

  The bars hugged into the fabric of my tunic and nestled where they belonged. My uniform was now complete. I was a warrant-officer. A chief in Earth’s united military.

  Chapter 3

  The woman named in the packet was Colonel Emily Hughes. She ran a major facility at Arlington Defense Laboratory, and her team was known for achievements in particle physics.

  That much I’d gleaned from a brief search using her name online. There seemed to be nothing shady nor terribly surprising about Hughes. She was a military scientist who’d done things that sounded boring—and which probably were.

  But there had to be something special about her. There always was when I became involved.

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nbsp; Contact was made in the usual manner—by surprise. My thumbprint, along with other identifying biometrics, got me through an impressive number of checkpoints at Arlington Labs. Once I located Hughes, I approached her by surprise on the roof parking lot of her building.

  “Colonel Hughes?” I asked, and I offered her a few pages from my packet.

  She stopped on the windy rooftop, her hair blowing in reddish-brown streams. I made a mental note about the impeccably neat uniform she wore beneath her lab coat—this lady cared about appearances.

  Hughes looked at my split brow and the packet dubiously. She did not lift a hand to take what I was offering, and my estimation of her character improved.

  “I don’t know you,” she warned, speaking with a mild British accent. “You’re not authorized to be here.”

  Her hand had already strayed to her comm-link—no doubt intending to release an emergency signal. I could have told her there was no point to that action—if I’d meant her any harm she’d already have been flung from the rooftop.

  Instead, I smiled slightly.

  “It’s okay. I’m here to help you. Sorry if my appearance is a bit unprofessional. I had a scuffle with a dirt bag on the way across town.”

  She eyed my rank critically.

  “Who are you, Chief?” she asked. “I don’t see a nametag.”

  “It’s all in the document,” I said. “Please, have a look.”

  “Is this some kind of court summons?”

  My smile broadened. “If I was only a courier, would I be allowed into a defense lab parking unit?”

  She looked around at the air cars surrounding us, and she relaxed a notch. No one was allowed up here without a security clearance.

  “Sorry,” she said, taking the packet and looking it over. “It’s just that I’m working on some rather sensitive—oh…”

  She trailed off, examining the document. The text moved as her eyes scanned the words, being made of smart-paper. I had no idea what these words said—but it didn’t matter. They were designed to get me where I must go. That was always the case, and I’d learned not to question it.

  “This document… it says you’re to join my project?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Who are you again?”

  “Isn’t that mentioned in the paperwork?”

  Hughes gave me a strange look.

  “No, it isn’t,” she said. “Tell me your name.”

  She was thinking now. She’d seen the name, and she’d decided to test me. I nodded slightly in approval.

  “I’m Chief Gray,” I said.

  “Gray? That’s not what the—?”

  “I’m Chief Gray,” I told her firmly.

  “Oh… I get it. I’m not to reveal your name. Fine, then. Let’s go.”

  Colonel Hughes seemed annoyed now, rather than frightened. She beckoned and strode across the windy rooftop with me in tow. Her steps were precise, rapid, and irritable. She was small and shapely, but she walked with obvious authority.

  She asked me no more questions until we were in an elevator plunging downward. “You’ll join my team—because I have no choice. This authorizes you to be present in every circumstance you wish to be, but I’m not going to give you special briefings. If the Ministry of Control wants to plant a spy in our midst, that spy will have to do his own homework.”

  “I understand,” I said, and I did understand. She thought of me as a tool of government overwatch—a budgeter perhaps, someone seeking to make cuts. That was acceptable.

  “All it really says here is that you and I work for the same people,” she said. “That’s no surprise. Please don’t deploy any nano-drones. Don’t make copies of our work. It’s secret, and everything here is on a need-to-know basis.”

  “Naturally your work is classified,” I said, “everything at Arlington—”

  “It’s beyond classified. It’s much further evolved than that.”

  “I understand, but I can’t promise to restrict my duties. My mission must be completed.”

  “And what exactly would your mission happen to be?”

  “I’m here to see that your project is executed quickly and without a hitch.”

  She pursed her mouth in thought. “I don’t know what to believe. I’ve already used my implant to check you out. These docs are legit, according to my comm-link search. But I’m going further than that. I’m calling your superiors. I want a personal explanation as to why—”

  “That’s fine, Colonel,” I said. “I would expect nothing less.”

  My calm responses to her threats and barbs only seemed to irritate her more. Perhaps she’d been hoping to shake me up. To break my confidence and force me to offer apologies.

  But that had never been my way.

  The elevator ride finished in tense silence. We went through another layer of security, and as we did so, Colonel Hughes was surprised to see that I was identified and cleared by the guard-bots even more quickly than she was. This seemed to bother her a great deal.

  “Damn those things—they let you slide right by,” she complained. “I come through here six days a week, and they always want multiple biometrics from me. Why not you?”

  “Perhaps I have a distinctive signature to my biology.”

  “We all do,” she snapped.

  I shrugged, and she dropped it. We were ushered into the offices by thrumming machines.

  My expectation was that we’d meet her staff and discuss my involvement in her project. That wasn’t how it went.

  Primly marching through a back passage, she led me to her private office. I saw labs as we went by, enclosed in security glass and glowing force-fields. The workers inside seemed focused, and they were all but oblivious to us as we passed down the echoing hallway.

  “Shouldn’t we meet your chief of staff?” I asked her.

  Colonel Hughes didn’t even turn around as she worked the lock on her door, using her handprint, retinal recognition and even and old-fashioned touchpad.

  “I’m my own chief of staff. We’re undermanned and underfunded. I’ve requested help in a dozen new positions—but instead, they sent you.”

  Her office finally opened, and we stepped inside. The lights came to life, making the ceiling glow above us.

  Hughes took her seat behind her desk, steepled her fingertips and stared at me.

  “Now,” she said, “consider this an interview. What skills do you have?”

  I took a seat and relaxed in it. The feeling was odd. How long had it been since I’d sat in a chair? I’d walked all the way here, and I’d lain in a tank of liquid before that. Quite possibly, it’d been years since I’d sat in a chair…

  My eyes shifted to the window. The glass was thick, and laced with living-steel. It would be difficult to assassinate someone through that window, but not impossible.

  I knew Colonel Emily Hughes was still talking to me, but my thoughts were occupied. I was putting together a full picture. I took a further glance around her office.

  “Chief Gray?” she asked.

  For a moment, I continued to stare outside, taking in the scene. “Is that delivery lifter supposed to be out there?” I asked her.

  Frowning, she glanced out the window. “Are you serious?” she asked. “We have equipment deliveries all the time. That’s a floater, probably bringing in supplies for the lab complex. There’s nothing unusual about it.”

  “It’s just that it was here when I arrived. It’s still here now—but it’s been a while. I’m trained to notice such things. Why such a long or complicated delivery from such a small vehicle?”

  She stared at me for a moment, clearly losing her patience.

  Her hand shivered, and I knew she was activating a call. I didn’t react in any way.

  “I’m contacting the people who sent you here,” she said. “Your arrogance and your refusal to answer even the most basic of—”

  “Security…” I told her, cutting her off. “You see, I specialize in security. That’s why I’m
here.”

  She paused, then her hand shivered again as she cancelled her call.

  “We have ample security here,” she said. “You’ve been thoroughly checked out since you got here. You probably weren’t even aware—”

  “You have external security,” I said. “Lots of it. Locks, robots, identification systems—very impressive. But I’m here to provide internal security. It’s not the same.”

  Colonel Hughes pursed her lips into a frown and nodded to herself. “You’re a goon,” she said. “A combat specialist in my lab. A bull in my China shop. That’s just what we don’t need: muscle and attitude.”

  To me, she was the one with the attitude, but I let it slide. Words rarely barbed me into action. I was more interested in what was actually happening than what anyone said.

  “Is this about the missing girl?” she asked suddenly. “That supply team junior-grade who vanished?”

  I pursed my lips and encouraged her to continue by raising my eyebrows.

  “She was a pretty little thing,” Colonel Hughes continued. “I wasn’t overly impressed with her contribution to my project. The men were always after her and we’d assumed she just ran off with some hotshot with money—traveling or something.”

  “Did she have any access to information behind security?”

  “It’s fortunate that she was largely involved on the outside of our firewall here. Her access was more to what raw materials were coming in—rather than what we did with them or built out of them.”

  “Okay, but let’s not rule her out entirely as a possible security breach somehow.”

  “Internal security…” she continued, reviewing my documents again with the air of a lawyer looking at a contract for exploitable flaws. “Very well. We’ll place you at the landing zone. You can review everyone coming into or out of the building.”

  “That won’t work,” I told her. “I don’t want a badge and a hat. I have to be close to your inner team. I have to be around the key members of your staff every day—every minute.”

  Frowning, she moved to make a note on the smart-paper, but she’d set aside her stylus. In a flash, I neatly snatched the stylus from her desktop and quietly offered it to her. Her mouth opened in surprise.