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This message One to Three was posted by niobe on Thursday, April 18, 2002 at 18:01.
One.
I love my job.
My white coat, my name tag, the long hours, the secrecy. I love my job.
Red Right Hand, manufacturers of deadly weaponry by appointment to the rich and powerful. I don’t think about all that, I just make things. Tonight I’m making a rudimentary sensor array for some device so hush-hush I haven’t seen the plans myself. The talk (there’s always talk) is of some means of harnessing and modifying residual bioenergy. By which I mean auras, the traces of nerve impulses, that sort of thing. I’ve worked on it before; it’s why I joined, six months ago.
Put down soldering iron. Connect cables to oscilloscope. Switch on. Pass hand through loop. Turn up GAIN control. It’s doing something, anyway. This would be much easier if they just told me exactly what they wanted. Don’t like guessing games. Scalp itches. Push strands of hair behind ear. Supervisor at the door. He looks pleased with himself.
"Hi. Did you want some coffee?" I smile appreciatively. He - Jerry - is a nice man. Look at clock. Close to eleven p.m.. Probably just him, me and the security team left in the complex. Get up from bench, put unused components back in boxes. Hang lab coat on chair. Go with him, lock door behind me.
Coffee bitter, from vending machine. We talk. And on the stroke of eleven, chaos. Klaxons, sirens, flashing red lights. Jerry leaps to red telephone. Calls Security. Armed intruders, ground floor. We’re in the second sub-basement. Already gunfire on stairs. Jerry straightens up. Ours is the only project sensitive enough to be run down here. They can only be after one thing.
He looks quite dashing, truth be told. Takes my wrist, we run to his office. He unlocks a desk drawer. RRH have planned for this sort of thing, for when the guards are overwhelmed. As they are clearly being. He produces an automatic pistol. Out into corridor. No-one around. Wait - noises on stairs. Doors kicked open. Three men in black body armor. Before I can react, Jerry pulls me through a doorway. Slams the door shut. Gunshots crack against the outside.
And this is it: the safe room. In the very center of the building, with Plasteel walls several feet thick. The only room in the building to which I don’t have access. Only the highest-level supervisors do, by keypad. We’re safe. More important, the project is safe. This must be it, in a glass-topped display case. Flat, rectangular, six inches by three. Silvered, with four narrow cables leading from one end. Pretty.
Jerry relaxes. "Yeah, that’s it," he says. "And we’re keeping it." All the tension has gone from his voice; he has remarkable faith in the safe room. A yellow light informs us that the intruders are trying to crack the keycode. "Don’t worry, they’d need about four years to work it out. I’m calling the control room..." He lays his gun on the glass case and turns to a telephone mounted on the wall.
I look at this brave man, this kind man who has helped me so much in the last six months, and I am glad he’s looking the other way when I shoot him three times through the heart. He slams against the wall and collapses. I’m also glad he had a gun and I didn’t have to break his neck. With the butt of the gun I smash the glass case and lift out the device. I have to step over Jerry’s body to hit the door release.
The three armored intruders - my accomplices - are waiting. I nod to the back stairs. We have about one and a half minutes to leave the area. Burgess passes me the spare rocketpack. It’s an annoying word, always makes me think of Thirties movie serials, but a beautifully compact piece of kit. Designed them myself. I strap it on, and pull on a pair of flying goggles. Stylish.
No-one on the ground floor yet. No-one outside, which is a shame; take-offs look so spectacular at night. Don’t know what they’re missing. But we’re up, up and away, and within minutes we’re soaring in formation a thousand feet over the dark water of the sound, on the way to rendevous with a Ukrainian submarine. The bioenergy cell is tucked safely away in an inside pocket. Along with... where is it... yes. Flick the switch. Three explosions, so close I can feel the heat on my wind-chilled cheeks. My colleagues plunge in flames toward the sea. Crime doesn’t pay, folks. Unless you’re really good.
I almost keep pace with them, pulling up at the last minute to skim the wave crests and keep below radar cover. I head north, ticking off the dozens of security agencies and commercial interests who’re still looking for me. I love my job.
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Two.
Leaving the city well behind, I make land about a mile north of Clayhills and five minutes short of midnight. It takes me longer than I expected to locate the car; I’m not at my best in the trees. I stand the pack on a rock to cool down and slump into the driver’s seat, flipping through the police frequencies.
That’s interesting. No mention of RRH at all. You’d almost think they weren’t keen to get involved with police investigations. Suits me. But I don’t for a minute believe they’re going to just shrug off the loss of this. My prize. My preciousss. I sit it on the dash, and it glints in the moonlight, its polished surface seeming to ripple as the shadows cast by swaying branches ...damn, I’m falling asleep. Not yet.
First things first. If there’s even the slightest possibility that I’ve been followed, I want to get out of here. Preferably where there’s people - innocent bystanders. And while they’re hardly going to be printing my pretty face in the papers, I don’t want to be looking like this. A hand mirror from the glovebox and a pair of scissors, and the last foot of each lock slithers off my shoulders, curling on my thighs before slipping onto the floor.
Unbutton and tug off this horrible blouse. I run my fingers along the top of my left forearm. Barely a bump. I don’t like to admit it, but I am not looking forward to this. I slide on a vest top, not that it’s really my style - just the last night I’m likely to get away with it.
The pack is cool enough to handle now. I wrap it in a blanket and bury it, along with my shorn hair, my spectacles (Miss Jones, you’re beautiful) and as much of the last six months as I haven’t disposed of already. I scatter pine needles over the dug soil to make it look natural. As an afterthought, I squat down and piss.
Nose the battered sedan out of the trees and onto the road. See, I could sleep in the car, but I need space and light. I could have rented a place but I wanted to avoid a paper trail. I’m not heading back to the city yet. I have chosen to go with the time-honored tradition of motel-room anonymity.
Naturally I checked this out beforehand. This one I pull up at has no security cameras in the lobby and is well placed for tomorrow. The girl barely looks at me when I take a double room for two nights under a false name. I shower for a long time, just getting used to the cold water beating through my new crop.
With a chair under the door handle and Bruckner on the radio I am ready to begin. I spread the instruments out on the cheap table. I strap my left arm firmly to that of the chair, at wrist and elbow. I look longingly at the small vial of ropivacaine, but it’s important to feel exactly what’s happening. Swab the arm with alcohol and prepare to bite down hard on the pen.
Though cold, the scalpel doesn’t hurt going deep into flesh, nor as it glides toward my straining knuckles. The pain comes as the edges peel apart like lips in a tender kiss, the narrow space between filling with blood. I soak some out with a sterile dressing and explore the wound, fighting all the while to keep my breathing under control.
The tongs are useless, I can’t tell muscle from polymer. I drop them back on the table. The slit is just wide enough to admit my index finger. I dig around in the cleft until I locate the plastic strip and cut away the fibers that have grown over. Brought to the surface, the rims sit over the slowly puckering edges of the incision. Apply coagulants and release the straps. Swear once, loudly. After a few minutes, only a small amount of blood still seeps from the cut. I wipe the whole arm down and inspect.
A finger-wide ridge of pearly plastic, buried for twenty years, now runs along the top of my arm. Underneath, unseen, I know narrow wires run up the bones, networked and latticed, over the shoulder and down my spine. The strip is a full ten degrees cooler than the rest of my body. Some time passes before I bandage the arm up firmly. And as soon as my hand stops shaking, I’ve got to do the other. Then I can sleep, and tomorrow see whether this has all been worthwhile.
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Three.
As usual, I wake with a start. My head clears slowly. I lie fully clothed on the center of the bed, my swaddled arms outstretched. It’s getting dark.
Sit up.
I hurt. All over. Curiously, my arms give me much less pain than head and neck. I walk around the room, swinging my arms, twisting them behind my back, amazed at how quickly they sealed up. I shouldn’t be, of course. When we developed these plastics I never imagined this - thought it was for artificial heart valves - but it’s nice to finally know it works.
I scoop my things together and load the car. Turn left out of the motel and drive a mile up the road. I park the car a short way up a narrow track and kill the engine. I sling a small bag over my shoulders and head into the forest.
Among the trees, well away from the road, is a low building. This is the home of Dr James Austen. He will not be expecting me. He does not appreciate company. This last point explains the large fence and three muscular slavering dogs. I stay downwind of them, and have no problem picking each off in turn with a compressed-air dart gun. Still out of view of the house, I disable his pleasingly ingenious alarm system, scale the fence and creep up to the back door. A quick scan of the back walls reveals the telephone cable. Clip it, just in case.
I should know better than to walk in unannounced. When I say he does not appreciate company what I mean is this: if someone tries to get in contact with him, there’s a fair chance they do so with the intention of killing him. He will therefore do his best to see them off first. I didn’t much fancy the chances of getting word to him through the normal channels. I’m impressed he has lasted this long. It doesn’t tally with their m.o. to leave the dissenters so much space. It was as much luck as tracing work that tipped me off.
I have, of course, considered that this might be a trap, but that would be devious to a degree uncharacteristic of this lot. I don’t see any changes since I staked the place out three days ago, and had they been watching then it’s unlikely the Organization would have given me the chance to get away.
I lean close to the half-open window and whistle a few notes. There comes the sound of a startled man leaping from his chair. I am through the glass before he can level the rifle; I wrench it from his hands. He lands a lucky flick with an elbow, giving him time to bring up a hunting knife. I twist to avoid the blade - enough of that yesterday - and kick it from his hand. Force him down into the chair, my boot against his throat and arms braced against the window frame.
He’s still pretty good, for an old guy.
"Not good enough," he croaks. He does recognize me. He does. Sort of. "Olympia," he says, more surprised now than he was three seconds ago.
I don’t correct him. Stare pointedly at the fingers curling under the chair, then back to him and shake my head. He gives it a moment’s thought and relaxes. I release the pressure and stand out in the center of the room.
"So what do you want? Beyond the obvious?"
I’m not here to kill him.
He spits into the fireplace, then lights a cigarette with a steady hand. "A chat for old times’ sake? You know I’m not coming back."
Unclip the bag and slip off the thin black jacket. I turn my bare arms before him, showing him, watching his eyes for a reaction. He smiles softly. He doesn’t trust me, but the old enthusiasm is still there somewhere.
I need his help.
"I told you, I’m not coming back."
He doesn’t need to; I ducked out not long after he did. Which is why I’m here. It’s not like the Organization is short of biotech folk.
Austen considers this. "Left it? How did you - "
I would ask the same of him, but the less we know about each other the better. Minimize the chances of - well, you know.
He grunts assent and glances up for permission to touch the strips. I hold my arms out. He runs his dirty fingers across the edges. Seems pleased. "Does it work?"
Don’t know yet. Still needs the last few components. I’ve done the dangerous bit.
Push the bag over with a foot. He lifts out the roll of surgical instruments and the box. Looks questioningly at it. I take it from him and crack one end open. Now he understands.
"What’s in it for me?"
All the time he’s studying me, looking me over the way he used to look at his lab animals, wondering why I don’t seem any older. I tell him that through a few sources I can scrape together enough tech to give him some proper security. It didn’t give me much trouble, after all.
"You were always a special case," he chuckles creepily. It gives me a moment to wonder again whether he really is beyond them. No, I think we’re okay. "What exactly do you want me to do?"
I crunch the chromed bioenergy port further open and snip out the crucial pieces. Various ducts, collectors, triodes, that only a concern like RRH could put together, and mostly using my designs. Not that they ever knew that. Explanations complete, I hand him some schematics, pull my top around my neck, lie face down on the table and trust him.
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