Part 17 (1/2)
She felt the cool caress of a drug sprayer on her deltoid. Interrogation chemicals, she thought.
The front of the machine had a logo on it. Aldriena looked at it for a second and then identified it as the red silhouette of a scorpion.
”What do you know about a project codenamed Insidious?”
Well, might as well see how good the UNSF lie detectors are, she thought.
”Insidious? Nothing.”
A red light glittered on the top of the device.
”Oh, so I'm supposed to get all upset that you red-lighted me?” she asked. ”Is that supposed to make my heart race? Make me sweat?”
”You do know,” the operator said in a neutral voice. ”Please elucidate.”
She took a deep breath. ”No, I don't know.”
”You do know. Please consider the danger your silence could pose to Earth.”
”Sorry.”
”If you don't comply, you will be held indefinitely. The UNSF cannot negotiate with your employer for your eventual return. You will no longer have any means to support yourself above subsistence level.”
Aldriena gave a false smile. Subsistence level was a state of utter poverty so severe that sometimes even basic needs weren't met. Anyone on Earth who didn't work for a megacorporation or the world government knew intimately how bad the official subsistence level was.
Sigh. Time for a strategic retreat.
”Project Insidious is an espionage effort directed toward some of the deep s.p.a.ce stations,” Aldriena said.
”True,” the voice replied evenly. ”Thank you for your cooperation. Which s.p.a.ce stations are involved in the project?”
”Synchronicity. Xanadu. Avalon. Thermopylae. Tanelorn. Maybe others, I don't know.”
Aldriena's vision fuzzed for a moment and then cleared itself.
Oh, s.h.i.+t. Here we go. I was always better on the other side of coercion.
”What information in particular is Project Insidious trying to retrieve?”
Aldriena hesitated. Then her whole body clenched convulsively like her arm, as if to eject the answer like vomit.
”Technological secrets.”
”Whose technological secrets is Project Insidious trying to retrieve?”
A drop of sweat trickled down her neck. Aldriena tried to imagine that it was Martin's lips. Then in a perverse inversion of her imagination, she ended up with the mental image of the hideous technician behind her, gnawing on her neck. She managed to forget the question.
”Whose technological secrets is Project Insidious trying to retrieve?”
d.a.m.n. Just get it over with.
”Captain. Slicer. Claw. Hitler. Red.”
”For what company or companies do Captain. Slicer, Claw, Hitler, and Red work?”
”I don't know.” The words exploded from her. Finally, a question she didn't have to fight. She tried to marshal her will to sidestep the next question.
”For what company or companies do Captain, Slicer, Claw, Hitler, and Red work?”
”I don't know!”
”Tell me about Captain.”
”Captain is ... he is ... it is ... the leader.”
”Tell me more about Captain.”
Aldriena groaned. She closed her eyes but it made the spinning worse, so she snapped them back open again. She felt the sting of sweat in a cut on her temple.
”Captain is the leader of a group of aliens that made contact with Synchronicity.”
Finally, there was some respite. Her statement took the program awhile to dissect. Aldriena tried to breathe deeply. Then she clenched her stomach muscles and opened her mouth trying to puke. When that didn't work, she tried to sleep. Nothing was working.
”What do you mean Captain is an alien? Tell me more about that.”
”It is a cyborg that resides in an artificial body that moves in a ... an alien spinning motion. It has enslaved several stations and forces the inhabitants to partic.i.p.ate in virtual contests in order to attain ranks.”
”Why haven't you informed the UNSF of this development?”
Aldriena laughed. Then she spat on the logo of the s.h.i.+ny machine.
”That'd be pretty dumb, now wouldn't it? If we did that you'd, oh, say, fly in with a heavily armed s.p.a.ce fleet and shut Insidious down before we could learn anything from them. Before Black Core, Bentra, and Reiss-Marck could a.n.a.lyze their technology and catapult themselves a century ahead of the compet.i.tion.”
Ten.
”This is outrageous,” Vendrati proclaimed.
Bren barely heard her. His mind had already accepted the report of the Black Core operative and moved on to the repercussions. Aliens! It fit the facts they had; Bren felt that if they'd been up against a rogue AI core they'd have lost already. But a small group of aliens, with technology ahead of that possessed by humans, could well explain past events.
”It makes sense,” Bren said.
Everyone stared at him. He realized he must have interrupted the meeting in progress.
”Excuse me? Niachi has probably been suborned by the AI core. We already know it has some kind of mind control,” Vendrati said.
”We thought the mind control was related to the suits,” Jameson said. ”Bren, why are you so willing to believe the Black Core operative?”