Ure Infectus (Imperium Cicernus Book 4) (29 page)

Reacting instinctively, Masozi dived behind a nearby piece
of furniture—which happened to a black couch—and reached around for an
impromptu weapon of some kind.

While she did so, she heard a muffled sound from near the
figures. The sound grew in volume until she recognized it as an overly-feminine
giggle—a giggle she had only heard back on Virgin.

Masozi peered around the edge of the couch and saw the two
figures standing motionless against the wall, and between them was a
two-dimensional display built into the wall with a familiar face filling it.

“Got you!” the display blurted before pointing accusingly
with her digital fingers and erupting into a burst of unrepentant laughter. “You
should see the look on your face, bakeshop,” Eve said after several seconds had
passed, during which time Masozi had regained her feet as she glowered at the
sexbot. “You’re just too gullible, honey pie,” Eve chided in mock consternation
before waggling her finger reproachfully, “it’s going to get you in trouble
someday.”

“Eve…” Masozi began as she eyed the motionless figures—one
of which was male, the other decidedly female—warily, “what are you doing
here?”

“I’m going to be your Operator, sweet cheeks!” Eve said
proudly, flashing a ‘thumbs-up’ sign before jamming said thumb into her
impossible cleavage. “Benton’s got his hands full back home so he sent me to
fill in. Somebody’s got to take care of you two, after all. Say…” she said, her
digital eyes scanning the room suspiciously, “where’s Jericho?”

“He’s…indisposed,” Masozi said hesitantly. It was entirely
possible—even probable, given Masozi’s limited understanding of synthetic
intelligences—that Eve was little more than an alter ego of Benton. She might
have even represented repressed homosexual ideations, or full-blown multiple
personality disorder of some kind.

But even Benton would be hard-pressed to establish an FTL
method of communication which would allow him instantaneous, real-time access to
Eve’s processes. That suggested that either Benton was on Philippa—an unlikely
possibility, given his physical condition—or Eve had, in fact, been sent to
provide some measure of assistance.

Masozi nodded to herself as she took a step forward and
elaborated, “Jericho sent me ahead to check on the preparations and make sure
everything’s in order,” she lied. “He had to place the…the backup device before
we rejoined.”

“Ah…gotcha, babe,” Eve said with a knowing wink. “He sent
you to do all the dirty work so he can swoop in at the last minute and snag all
the glory for
himself
.” Eve rolled her eyes and
sighed, “That’s a typical man for you. You know, there was a time Benton and I
were trying to break into this orbital—“

“Eve,” Masozi interrupted, knowing that if she got too deep
into the lie she would be unable to sustain it—even to a glorified sexbot like
Eve, “we need to check all the preparations as quickly as possible. This
location might already be compromised.”

Eve’s image reared back in the screen and her eyes began to
flit from side to side for several seconds, “I’m not seeing anything on the
local grids, babe. Are you sure you’re not just getting pre-fight jitters?” she
asked with an accusing look.

“I’m pretty certain we’re going to have to scrap the primary
plan,” Masozi said with conviction, her eyes snagging on a truly massive rifle
set on a tripod with the butt propped by another, smaller tripod. “That means
we’ll be looking at the up-close-and-personal method. Can you bring me up to
speed on it?”

Eve smiled as though in ecstasy and began to clap wildly.
“Sure thing, sugar!” she said excitedly. “Tell you the truth, I wasn’t exactly
looking forward to the whole ‘shoot the bitch from four miles away’ plan—it’s
too anticlimactic, right? This way will be
payloads
more fun!”

Masozi eyed her warily before saying, “I’m not sure
Jericho’s going to know where to meet up with us.”

“Oh, that’s no problem, honey. Benton already covered that,”
Eve took a deep breath, and her face morphed into some pale imitation of the
morbidly obese computer hacker’s, and when she spoke next it was with Benton’s
voice. “I’m authorizing you to help both Jericho and Masozi; shit’s bound to
get real thick up there so you give either one, or both, of them full access to
your new protocols.” Eve ‘exhaled’ and her features returned to their usual,
perky, cartoonish appearance. “See? We’re good as gadolinium, bakeshop; time
for a double-dose of girl power!” Eve’s image pumped her fist and then struck a
pose which Masozi vaguely recognized from some of the entertainment programs
she had watched as a young girl.

“What ‘new protocols’ are you talking about?” Masozi asked.

A mischievous grin played out over Eve’s features and she
whistled innocently before answering, “I’m afraid they’re mission-specific;
we’ll only get access to them when we satisfy mission parameters. On that
note,” she said as though just remembering something, “you’d better get into
your suit!”

“My suit?”
Masozi eyed the
immobile, female-looking form, and as she did so it came apart at several
points and opened up revealing that it was actually a form-fitted suit of
armor! She had heard of such suits, but they were supposedly prohibitively
expensive—she had heard of one such suit being logged into evidence and having
it appraised at several million credits. In spite of herself, she stepped
forward and touched the outside of the armor and felt a chill run down her
spine.

“Sexy, isn’t it?” Eve asked knowingly. “But forget about the
form; this baby’s all about function and she’s been built just for you. She’s a
stealth prototype based on top-of-the-line Imperial specs, and while not all of
her systems are online yet she’ll make you more than a match for anything on
this old lump of rock. Hop in so we can get going; I can’t wait to get out and
play!”

Masozi was in so much awe of the suit that she almost missed
Eve’s little tidbit of information she had just dropped. “How could it have
been built ‘just for me
?’
A suit like this would take
years to develop.”

Eve giggled again before sighing. “We’re just a couple of
bad bitches livin’ in the big man’s world, babe,” she said as though it
explained everything. “Looks like you might have been right about the house
being compromised, too,” she added laconically. “I’ve got a half dozen vehicles
converging on our position. Looks like the front
door’s
out as an exit; you’d better hop into the suit.”

“What about the rest of this stuff?” Masozi asked, gesturing
to the cannon and the suit of armor which could have only been intended for
Jericho.

“He
snooze
, he lose, sweet-ums,”
Eve said indifferently. “Climb in the suit so we can make like a prom dress and
take off!”

Masozi took another look at Jericho’s suit and then cast a
wayward glance at the massive, barely-portable cannon which Jericho had apparently
preferred to use for this particular mission. Something didn’t seem right about
the gun, which she recognized as a V-120MX model, but she didn’t want to take
the time to examine it—especially since she had been correct about the flat’s
security being compromised.

Masozi took a deep breath and stepped toward the suit before
carefully turning around and backing into it. As soon as her butt touched the
inside of the armored suit’s housing, her legs were pulled back into the lower
half of the armor by a handful of narrow, thin straps which criss-crossed her
shins and thighs. Before she could see what they were made of, the fronts of
the armored leg sections folded closed firmly around her legs, and she had a
not-insignificant wave of anxiety.

“Just slip your arms into the gauntlets, babe,” Eve
encouraged, “the armor will do the rest.”

“I hate tight spaces,” Masozi snapped irritably.

“Don’t you worry about that,” Eve said cheerfully, “we’ll
get you all
fixed
up once the suit’s calibrated to
your biochemistry.”

Masozi warily placed her left hand into the gauntlet, and as
she did so the vambrace closed around her forearm and then her upper arm was
also encased in the matte, dark red armor. The joint at the elbow seemed to be
relatively unarmored, but the rest of the suit had thick dimensions suggesting
a heavy layer of protection—and probably some concealed equipment the purpose
of which she could only guess at. But as she moved her left arm around,
apparently without any motive assistance, she found it was surprisingly light
for its apparent bulk.

Exhaling sharply as her heart rate approached double its
resting norm, Masozi reached her right hand into the right gauntlet and the
same sequence took place as with her left hand. Then the breastplate folded in
on itself and she felt a surprisingly comfortable pressure on every inch of her
torso as the helmet’s faceplate lowered into place over her head. When it had
done so, she was plunged in darkness and all she could hear was her own
breathing—which was bordering on dangerous hyperventilation.

Then a series of lights began to flash at the edges of her
vision and Eve’s image appeared in the lower right corner of her view. “The
nerves are nothing to be ashamed of, baby cakes,” Benton’s glorified sex toy
said confidently. “If your heart rate doesn’t come down below one thirty in the
next minute we’ll have to calm those jitters with a mild sedative—don’t worry,
they’re built into the suit and are completely standard.”

There was a whirring sound in her ears, and the visor of the
helmet flashed brightly for a moment before it dimmed and she was able to see
the room around her. Masozi moved her arms and took a step forward, literally
amazed at how well-balanced the suit felt. Even though the boots had soles that
were nearly as thick as her highest set of heels back in New Lincoln, she was
able to take several steps without and balance issues. She fought to regain
control of her breathing as she looked down at her hands.

“That’s better, babe,” Eve said approvingly, “heart rate one
ten and falling. Oh, wait,” Eve said, looking down at her scantily-clad body in
alarm, “I forgot to change! One sec.”

Eve’s image disappeared briefly, but when it returned she
was clad in an all-black bodyglove that somehow seemed to reduce her
exaggerated bust and hips to more believable—if still considerably
larger-than-average—proportions. She also had a pair of narrow, black stripes
‘painted’ under her eyes, making her look like some sort of a cross between a
spy and a professional athlete.

“Much better,” Eve said with a curt nod. “Primary systems
are now fully online, but it’ll take another ten minutes for the secondaries to
power up. In the interim, I suggest we make like an atom and split.”

“Where are we going to go?” Masozi asked, looking around the
apartment for an exit. All she could see was a bedroom adjoining the main
living room, the door to the hallway leading to the lifts, and the large window
which the V-120MX cannon was set up behind. There still seemed to be something wrong about the rifle but Masozi
could not quite place her finger on it.

“You guessed it,” Eve said when Masozi’s eyes lingered on
the window. “Don’t worry about the fall, girlfriend,” she added, “
the
suit’s primary systems will help us get down without too
much trouble.”

Masozi noticed a series of readouts spring to life at the
periphery of her vision, and she saw that several of them appeared to be
reading her biorhythms. But there were literally dozens of minimized graphics
the purposes of which she could not hope to understand.

“Don’t worry about those, babe,” Eve said hastily, “just head
on over to the window so we can do this.” One of the minimized readouts
unexpectedly enlarged, and it showed a three dimensional representation of the
building she was in. As she focused on it, she saw that there were at least
thirty icons making their way up to her current position. Those icons were
flashing an ominous, angry red color, and Eve said, “I’m guessing we’ve got
about thirty seconds before they barge in here. That means you’ve got to get
out that window in the next ten or we’ll be caught in the cleansing of the
room—don’t worry though, none of the adjacent apartments will be damaged when
it goes ‘ker-pow,’ and neither will the officers if you hurry.”

Masozi took a short breath and asked, “What do I do?”

“In case of emergency…” Eve said dryly, folding her arms
across her chest and tapping her bicep with her fingers.

Masozi cocked her fist back and fired an overhand left punch
into the glass. It shattered instantly, and the strangest part of when it
happened was that she couldn’t hear it at all. The window’s fragments flew out
into the mild wind which whipped across the building, and Masozi took a step
forward to peer over the edge.

It was a long way down, and Masozi felt butterflies begin to
riot in her stomach, “Ok…now what?”

“Now you climb down,” Eve said with an emphatic roll of her
eyes. “Six seconds to get clear of the room. Just grab onto the ledge and I’ll
show you how to do the rest.”

Masozi grabbed the window sill and swung her leg over the
edge, acutely aware that a fall from her current height had the very real
potential to dismember her when she impacted.

“Good,” Eve said, “now, I’m just going to take over for a
second…”

Masozi’s hands opened very much against her will, and she
shrieked in alarm as her body began to plummet downward.

“Stupid controls,” Eve growled and after what felt like an
eternity—but was less than two floors’ worth of descent—Masozi’s gauntlets
thrummed and her armored fingertips somehow grabbed hold of the building’s
sheer, vertical exterior. “There,” Eve said, miming the wiping of sweat from
her forehead, “sorry about that; I didn’t expect the protocols to require
handshakes in quintuplicate.”