Fort Liberty, Volume Two (6 page)

There was never any mention of bio-engineering in the official story, no mention of a unique bacterial colony discovered in a subterranean cavern on Mars, and no admitting that the entire goal of this project had been to create genetically altered human beings to communicate with that colony.

The sheer hubris…

Logan can feel the anger, or maybe it’s more like disgust, working its way up from the pit of his stomach. BIOSTAT’s elevator makes it all too clear, with the shielded cameras, protected thermal scanners, and shining fireproof walls, floor grates, and ceilings lined with flame nozzles… for decontamination purposes, in case anyone missed that.

He didn’t.

But then again, he wouldn’t.

He’s not like the others, not someone who was chosen from the roughest Earth ghettos, like Voss, Wyatt, and Gojo. His parents were both Earthbound surgeons, educated and employed by one of the more respectable warlords, and granted a place in low filter because of it.

It was safe, comfortable by Earth standards, but the Logans wanted a better life for little Peter, so it was med and science training day and night, always pushing him to apply for a Rhys Corp contract. As a surgeon though---not an Assaulter---because they were so sure he had the talent for it, and pulling a trigger was something anyone could do.

Yeah, what a waste, only it was the best decision of his life. And never, for one second, has he regretted it, until now.

The colonel chose him as the medic for Team Blackheart, and that was the greatest honor because both the man and the team carry serious distinction. And he learned pretty quick how to sleep in the dirt with the rest of them, in the rain, go hungry, tired, unwashed and unshaven, waste months waiting behind sandbags, obeying orders from the head shed to stand-down on missions based on actionable, time-sensitive intel, only to kit up for a green light on some suicide op with a hopeless, inarticulate objective.

The colonel never lied to him. Never told him it would be fair, never told him it would make sense, never waxed poetic---as many officers do---about the divine arena, about Patton, and Rommel, Alexander, and Cyrus, Sparta, and slaughter of Persians on the salted ridges of Plataea.

With Voss, it’s always, ‘we’re here to save lives, so kit up, and kill motherfuckers’, and that’s it. The guy’s a legend, survived more than almost anyone, so maybe he just doesn’t let his mind wander, tries not to think about why they’ve been lied to. After all, what would it get him? He’s an old gladiator without gods, although Logan has caught him a few times engaged in what appeared to be silent introspection, sitting in the middle of some shithole with a lit cigarette, numb from the heat, from the physical pain, from the exhaustion of the day, and watching the Earth’s sky bleed into another sunset, as if Aristotle himself could make any fucking sense of it.

But here comes Niri. Here comes this mission, and Red Filter, and suddenly it feels like this woman, and his team, his brothers, are all at the mercy of his
kind
… Doctors, only the strictly corporate ones so all the worse, scientists who accept big money for big projects that carry the ethical weight of toilet paper. Maybe that’s why he chose to become an Assaulter---and not a company surgeon---in the first place. Maybe it was so that he wouldn’t ever be forced to question his participation in some sick profit making venture. But here he is anyway, sitting in an elevator, dropping three hundred and fifty meters through porous basalt while some no-talent like Dr. Williams is talking to him as if he’s a trained dog.

“This elevator goes directly to the monitoring station,” she’s saying, refusing to look at him, like she’s too hormonal to make eye contact. “No doubt it’s different than what you’ve seen on Earth because it’s very clean. The monitoring station has a lot of complicated computer technology, what you’d probably think of as a control center, with gates, and some guns, which I’m sure you’ll recognize, and it’s manned by our armed security personnel, who are very, very capable. There’s never been a problem they couldn’t handle. They monitor every aspect of the facility. When this elevator stops, they’ll let us through the primary security gate, check us, and allow us to get on a second elevator, which drops another one hundred and fifty meters to the facility, to BIOSTAT and the vault itself---”

Logan catches Niri staring at him from the corner. She looks away as soon their gazes meet, but her cheeks are flushed, a curve of a smile still tugging at her lips.

“---residential area, and---” Dr. Williams is still talking. “---and you’re not an observer, just extra security, I hope you---”

He grimaces, trying to focus, but it’s harder than it should be. That look from Niri… Impossible to misinterpret. There’s attraction in it, and some glitter of curiosity, which is a side of her he hasn’t seen.

Shouldn’t see… shouldn’t notice now.

Because she’s too young.

Well, actually only three years younger than he is.

But still too young.

And exotic, beautiful…

Maybe he didn’t notice it before, on the long trip to Mars, when she was sick, and he was the caregiver. Or maybe he noticed, and he just shut it down, because that’s what he does. It’s his duty to focus on the procedure, to be clean, distanced, to keep his eyes averted, or force an unseeing gaze, encouraging patients in ways that sound personal, but aren’t, at least not for him. She’d held his hand for comfort, and it felt right because that’s part of it.

Still, it was all touch. It’s intimacy that, in the mind of the caregiver, never happened, buried under layers of professionalism, nothing to remember… and yet it’s not exactly forgotten, is it?

Not by him. And apparently, not by her either.

Not human.

She’s not human.

But that’s where the anger really comes from. She
is
human. Only she’s sharing her DNA with something that’s not, and that what the flame nozzles in the elevator are for. That’s what the blast doors in the corridors are for. That’s what the ‘armed security personnel’ are for.

To ensure that this woman doesn’t leave.

That’s it, isn’t it?

Because Dr. Williams, and the other idiots here, are busy playing God.

And because they know that something might go wrong.

Niri glances at him again, and this time he’s the first to look away, struggling to keep his expression neutral because it’s got him by the throat.
What are we doing?
Protect her… how? Make sure it’s voluntary… why? What difference does it make that Niri thinks she wants to do this? She can’t really know, with what they’ve told her.

And Voss maybe doesn’t see the full intent of a facility like this, because it’s hidden in medical protocols that Assaulters don’t deal with, but it’s obvious they’ve put a lot of thought into containment. They don’t seem to be half as concerned with who might get in, as what might get out.

So what are the odds that Niri can get to whatever’s buried at the heart of this place, and then simply decide to have none of it? BIOSTAT wasn’t built for personal freedoms, for citizens and their rights. It was built to deal with biohazards. It was built to be a prison.

The elevator slows, sinking the last few inches to settle at the bottom of the shaft. The doors open to a white corridor, its security gate left open and waiting for them. Beyond it, he can see a clear-walled monitoring station, its control deck filled with the glow of holos and vid screens, a few skinnies in chairs, and a few tall, frail looking guards wearing black, standing in the open without helmets, weapons held loosely… ready but bored.

Very, very capable?
Dr. Williams… idiot.

They get waved through. No one expects trouble.

Then a skinny comes out, puffing himself up as best he can, holding up his hand as if he’d always dreamed of doing it. “No weapons beyond this point. Lockers are over there.”

More lockers?

Logan glances through the glass of the monitoring station and catches the sight of a dozen eyes set on him from behind the consoles. Not aggressive, not edge-of-their-seat, but smooth faced and curious, enjoying the spark of excitement in an otherwise loathsome shift.

Logan glares down at Dr. Williams and finds her unapologetic, offering only a careless shrug, savoring the opportunity to be dismissive… again. “You can’t take your gun any further.”

“It’s a sidearm, a pistol. They forced me to leave everything else, including my medical ruck, in the hangar.”

“Regulations. We can’t have foreign equipment or guns, in BIOSTAT.”

“I’m supposed to be Niri’s security.”

“You can still guard her,” the woman says. “Just without a gun, because they have guns here, lots of them, so you don’t need one down there.”

The logic is, of course, flawed. And he expected nothing less.

Still, it’s not negotiable. He can see that.

“Yes, ma’am,” he says, curt.

“All the rest of it too,” the guard adds. “No big suits.”

Ohhh-kay. It takes some time to remove the rest of his suit, pieces of kit, stow his sidearm, and battle rattle in large lockers made from thin metal that would dent open immediately if kicked. After it’s all in storage, he’s wearing a thin black suit, and soft boot liners, feeling far too light.

They run him through the scanners again then the rear security doors behind the monitoring station unlock, and roll back. A new hallway appears, a new elevator shining under the harsh white lights at its far end.

The hall has hatches on both sides, and it’s clear that this is where the guards live. Their infrastructure is in plain view, obvious signs marking the chow hall, the armory, and the barracks… all of it compact.

The doctor and Niri walk ahead of him, a female predator and her younger prey, and he follows along, knowing that he’s expected to remain silent as they board the second elevator… Another kill box.

“Are you hungry?” Dr. Williams asks Niri.

“No.”

“You’re excited.”

“Yes.”

“We’ll take you to BIO227 as soon as you’re ready,” the woman smiles, suddenly a loving aunt. “We’ve been told to move the process ahead as quickly as possible. You’ll be amazed. It’s so beautiful. It’s beyond description.”

“I can hear it.”

“Yes…of course, your blood carries memories of this place.”

Niri looks back at him, a slip of black hair curving lightly over her cheek, her eyes seeking his, out of amazement, or for reassurance, he doesn’t know. “I can hear it. I hear it everywhere.”

He presses his lips together, all too aware of those nozzles on the wall, and the cameras glaring down at him, and thinking---knowing---that this is not going to end well.

He shakes his head, black hair pulled into a topknot, sweat glossing his forehead. “Petra’s locator unit couldn’t have powered down. There would be log entry for that, as well as for malfunction, or shut down. But it looks like the signal just phased out, meaning faded to nothing, with no sign of trouble.”

“Interference?” Voss asks.

“Yes, sir,” Gojo says without looking up. “Like jamming.”

Wyatt groans, shifts his weight. “Or the storm, or just rolling slowly into a poor signal area. That can phase out signal.”

“No.” Gojo pulls up different satellite windows, adjusting frames, and scrolling back through time with a slide control. “These are SAT images. They were tagged and encrypted, so extremely hard to access---and we don’t technically have the clearance---so it took a little improvisation. I found an image of her here, at the last point we can see before the storm moves in. She was in a track, coming out of New Beijing, but clearly on the open plain, a flat stretch of terrain that does not get monitored.”

Voss leans forward, catching the grainy thermal outline of a box moving over sand, riding a plume of dust.
Where were you going?

“This is all we got before the satellite passed over, and the next image is no good because the dust kicked up.” Gojo pulls the image down and adjusts the coordinates, magnifying it until another blurry object appears. “But you can see here---right here---these are two ships, old delta-wing transports, pretty big, and clearly on an intercept course with Petra’s track. Hard to tell because Red Filter satellites, even the restricted ones, aren’t monitoring for older weapons, but the thermal images of the ships here, and here---and sticking out from under the fuselage there, and there---those look like rockets, and maybe guns. It’s hard to see, like I said, but it’s there.”

Rockets, guns…

Voss stares at it, at this infuriating blur, as if he’s going to catch some detail that Gojo didn’t, something that makes this all go away. But there’s nothing else there. He’s staring into the past, at what already happened, and he’s powerless.

“Get someone out there,” he says, his voice tight. “Have New Beijing dispatch a security team.”

“The storm, sir. No one’s going to fly right now.”

“Then have them send a search vehicle.”

“Visibility is nil.”

“Let me make this easier for you. I don’t care what you have to tell them. I don’t care who you have to threaten, or what you have to threaten them with. You get a team out there.”