Part 9 (1/2)

Keiko swallowed her anger and the desire to strike out. It wouldn't solve anything here. ”My loyalty to Ciari was never in question. Her loyalty to the Silence Law has never been in doubt. The only transgressions here are yours.” Keiko's mouth twisted as she slung Aidan's arm over her shoulder. ”We'll consider your offer.”

”An empath, Keiko. You need one. Now get out of my office.”

In an eye blink, they were gone.

Nathan returned to his desk, accessing the system again. A new download had come in last night that he needed to deal with. Sharra, given enough incentive, managed to accomplish the impossible some days. Who would have thought a human could be so much more useful than his own children?

Sharra had sent along two files. The first was confirmation of the back door now embedded in Erik's personal computer system, where the most sensitive data on the upcoming launch was stored. Nathan forwarded that to the hackers in his Syndicate, whose job it would be to monitor and retrieve information. The second download was pure data.

He initiated an uplink with the records division of the Warhounds. ”Get me everything we have on the Stryker known as Jason Garret. Check Samantha Serca's reports first, then supplement it with nonduplicative files. I want it within the hour.”

”Sir.”

Retrievals were done at his discretion, no matter how hard Ciari had lobbied for the saving of her people in the past. Nathan could leave Earth without the psion Lucas had discovered, but he didn't want to. The explosion on the mental grid after the fight in Buffalo must have been the breaking of Jason's natal s.h.i.+elds. Samantha's last useful act was discovering that Stryker's unique s.h.i.+elds, but it wasn't enough to keep her alive now that she had turned traitor.

A window popped up on the vidscreen again, stating that the second download was complete. Nathan opened the file and scrolled through the latest schematics of the Ark that lay docked in cold s.p.a.ce behind the moon, its decks just waiting to be filled.

ELEVEN.

SEPTEMBER 2379.

PARIS, FRANCE.

The Border Wars were instigated by first-world countries, so it was no great shock when they were the first casualties. France was. .h.i.t hard, situated between countries that suffered just as badly. That nation had owned a stockpile of nuclear bombs at the beginning of the five-year stretch of war, all the excuse anyone needed to attack. Retaliation was inevitable for every country on Earth, in whatever way possible. France was no different in its response, and like many countries, it was wiped off the map by the end of the Border Wars.

Deadzones still covered the European continent, areas where nuclear fallout and lingering radiation made it impossible for life to take back the land. The Paris Basin was a toxic pit, a concentrated mess of pollution and nuclear taint that no one could live in. The Seine, that ancient waterway that carved through France, was a poisonous water route that twisted through and around the ruins of the city. Ma.s.sive dams that had once graced the banks downriver to hold back the Atlantic Ocean had been destroyed or eroded over time. Salt water inevitably flowed into fresh, seeping deep into dirt to mix with toxic runoff. Pools of water and crawling fog were stained an eerie green.

Paris-flooded, abandoned, and lost-stretched out before Dalia in the early-afternoon sunlight. Dalia was one of Nathan's best spies, a human capable of taking on any ident.i.ty and owning it for the duration of her mission. She was unremarkable to look at, easily forgotten once she finished a job. Switching ident.i.ties and appearances to gain information was her life, and Nathan owned all of them.

Squinting through the brightness of a clear, near-autumn day, Dalia scratched at the skin where the collar of her uniform rubbed against her throat. Beneath it, she wore a skinsuit specially tailored to block the lingering radiation in the Paris Basin. Her hard helmet was on the floor by her seat. People could work without a skinsuit, as bondworkers did, but the radiation levels were still high enough to damage DNA. The government's Command Center was specially s.h.i.+elded, but people always took precautions.

The threat of certain death and ruined DNA kept people out of France, or should have. When records of Mars Colony, with its ma.s.sive enclosed habitat, made their way back into the awareness of the surviving government, getting there became the number one priority. Surviving meant more than simply clawing one's way into the Registry by any means necessary. It meant preparing to take up the mantle of a progressive society once again. The results of that effort stood before her beyond the Command Center, reflecting sunlight.

Platforms, hundreds of them, stood above the wastewater and ruins, all holding s.p.a.ce shuttles. Running through the middle of those platforms was a long launch ramp that curved into the sky. Built by government scientists and enslaved bondworkers, s.h.i.+elded against lingering nuclear taint, the shuttles were waiting to be filled by those lucky enough to be in the Registry.

”Shuttle Prime, this is Command, do you copy, over,” the government's head of operations said into an uplink where he stood some meters away from Dalia.

”We copy, over,” the pilot said.

Dalia trained her eyes back on the vidscreen in front of her instead of the view beyond the large plasgla.s.s windows. Her role here was in operations, just one of many bodies contracted out of government-controlled scientific divisions. She'd worn her latest ident.i.ty as a scientist before, just not here. Studying the vidscreen, Dalia watched the shuttle's system come online, the same information showing on other terminals.

”Weather looks like it's holding. We've got clearance for launch, over.”

”Copy that, Command, over.”

”Begin preflight calibration and start countdown, over.”

The countdown went smoothly, months of practice simulations enabling the crew to launch on time and without difficulty. The shuttle roared down the curved ramp, thrusters burning a bright line through the sky as it launched, smoke and vapor trailing in its wake. This was one of the larger shuttles, capable of carrying three hundred people and supplies. Today, it carried only three-quarters of a full load as it fought gravity and left Earth behind, the shuttle's route rigidly plotted on the vidscreens in the command room.

The crew on that shuttle would begin the final preparations on the Ark for its pa.s.sengers, joining the lead group who launched six months ago. Dalia watched the shuttle until it wasn't even a pinp.r.i.c.k in the sky, the smoke trail dragged to pieces by the wind. A soft beep brought her attention back to her console, an arriving encrypted message requiring her attention. She tapped in a few commands, downloading it to a separate folder. A background filter was already running, keeping the download from being discovered by the central command system. She'd crack the file later and retrieve her new orders from Nathan. At the moment, she had other duties to perform.

”Sir,” Dalia said to her supervisor. ”Preparing for communications with the Ark in fifteen hours and counting.”

She set the clock, the numbers winding down.

PART THREE.

Vitiate.

SESSION DATE: 2128.06.29.

LOCATION: Inst.i.tute of Psionics Research.

CLEARANCE ID: Dr. Amy Bennett.

SUBJECT: 2581.

FILE NUMBER: 596.

”I'm tired,” Aisling says. The nurse taking a vial of her blood for testing doesn't look up.

”We're almost finished, Aisling,” the doctor says from where she stands behind the nurse, watching the procedure.

The nurse pulls the needle out of the girl's arm and places a small bandage over the hole in her skin. Aisling leans her head back and stares at the doctor, wires framing her face.

”There's nothing special about my blood,” she says.

The doctor waves the nurse out of the room. Only when they're alone does the doctor step closer and stare down at her small patient. ”It's not your blood we want.”

Aisling slowly nods, the wires swaying with the motion. ”You can't see what I see, but you want to. That's why I'm here, isn't it?”

”We have records of people that don't exist and years none of us or our children will live to see because you refuse to help us.”