The Human Edge VI

VI

Antonio stepped into the data crypt, his heart beating away at the inside of his ribs.  At long last, here he was, with Francesca's life within reach.  Even his inevitable death at Huang’s hands didn’t matter, because the cold walls of the secure data storage assured him that everything would be alright.  Francesca would live again.



As Antonio approached the archaic input station, Klaus looked behind them to the airlock-style doors.  The double-layered doorway, Antonio knew, protected the data even while people moved in and out.  Crypts like this one were fully sealed dead-zones as far as Mayanet was concerned, and legend had it that the hearts of the largest Nomad vessels were massive crypts in their own right.  Only those with the highest security clearance in the Nomad nation could verify that claim, though, and they weren't talking.

 “So, what’s the plan?” Klaus leaned against the wall, very close to the door.  He looked nervous, but that wasn’t much of a surprise.  "What do you have to do here, anyway?"

“Francesca died a little over a year ago.” It had been one year, two months, and ten days, to be exact.  But Antonio kept that to himself, and went on.“I wasn’t sure what to do with myself, at first.  What does a man do when his only child dies?  My work associates almost literally had to haul me to her cube extraction, but I couldn't bring myself to watch the incineration.  They say it makes things easier, makes it easier to move on.  As you can imagine, I don't want to move on."

"Yeah, I feel ya." Klaus nodded.  "So then what?"

"I invested each hour I had outside work to try to get her back.  The resurrection bureau made it clear that the waiting list was years long.  I was told to wait, and silly platitudes like 'all in good time' were thrown around a lot.  Imagine having to wait ten years for your only child to come back to you.  Francesca's all I have."

“Huh.  So this is something else completely.  You thought of something, some other way of getting her back.”

Antonio nodded.  “Two months ago, I was contacted by an anonymous party from offworld.  They said they needed my help moving an information packet from NeoTerra to the Human Edge.”

“All the way out here.” Klaus said, realization dawning in his eyes.  “They wanted you to haul your ass out here, to the most neutral ground there is.  PanO ain’t got much hold here, and neither does Yu Jing.  This far out in the Sphere, and you know it’s gotta be the hyperpowers that want the package.  Whatever’s in there must be something that very powerful people want very very bad.”

“I wasn’t told what the package contains.  It’s something to do with higher security clearance than I ever had.”

“Shit.  Higher than diplomatic clearance?  This is a fucked-up mess you've gotten yourself into.” Klaus exhaled.  Antonio shrugged, turning to the far wall and pulling the small black box out of his pocket.

"Have kids some day and then tell me it's not worth it." Antonio replied, as he looked for an open port to make his deposit.  He was glad that he had to face away from Klaus to manage the input drive.  Tears had been threatening to break his composure for some time, and they came freely now.

This was finally it, though.  The moment when he no longer had to feel this way, no longer had to miss his only daughter.  Once the data package was safely in the crypt’s storage system, he would have discharged his duty to his nameless benefactors.  The end of this duty meant that they would finally set their own apparatus in motion, arranging for Francesca’s cube resurrection outside the conventional laws of PanOceania.  If he could only escape this ship, he could see her again.  But even if he didn’t, he was making up for letting her die only a foot or two away from him, a passenger in the vehicle he was driving.  His fault.

“Hurry it up, PanO." Klaus hissed.  "Someone’s engaging the doors, and my bet is they ain’t friendly.  You want your kid back, then stop fucking around.”  The Nomad pressed himself against the wall, holding Antonio’s ceramic pistol in his hands.  It was up in front of his face, barrel pointing at the ceiling.  It was the ready stance of Mayacasts, not suitable for actual combat - but neither of them knew that.

Antonio opened the little black box, removing the small disc with trembling hands.  He tapped a panel a few times, inputting the temporary password they had given him for his data, and slid the disc into the input drive.  All of this hardware was unusual and foreign to the touch, probably because the Sphere itself was made up of comlogs and quatronic data floating through the air invisibly around everyone’s heads.  Having things be so concrete made him feel almost as though he were on the planet Dawn, living the backwater life with the defunct remains of an organization once called NASA.  If he lived through this, he'd have to take Francesca there, if only to get away for a little while.

He tapped the panel one last time.  There.  That was it.  Data registered, password selected.  Francesca’s future guaranteed.

That’s when a loud crack of thunder almost deafened him.  The walls of the data crypt must have caused it to echo, because it came from all around, attacking his ear drums.  He grabbed at his head to block out the intense sound, but no more of it came.  Still reeling, he turned to face the door.

Klaus lay there, in a small puddle of red that slowly flowed out to the ceramic pistol at his side.  He wasn't moving.

“Klaus?” Antonio whispered, still fearing that noise.  Then his voice became a yell as he ran over to the Nomad.  “Klaus?”

The diplomat skidded through the blood, dropping to his knees beside the man who had helped him.  He hadn’t needed his technical expertise after all, but simply having him around had emboldened Antonio more than he could say.

“Say something, Klaus.  Where do you think you're going?  Look at me.  Look at me.” He tilted the man’s head up, but the eyes were glassy and distant.  Beneath the tattoos, the Nomad’s face looked surprised.

“What the hell is going on?” Antonio whipped his head around, but there was no one else in the crypt.  The inside door was open, but all systems were functioning perfectly, the outside lock still intact.

It was then, after a moment of panic, that a ripple caught his eye.  Oh no.

He had heard about this device, heard stories of it being used by the military and by unscrupulous assassins, but he’d never thought he’d see it.  He’d always thought that when he died, he would die looking death in the face.  Never once did he suspect that his killer would be cloaked in a thermo-optic camouflage shroud.

“Back away from the meat.” He heard a woman say.  If he did what she said, she might show herself, and if she showed herself, he might be able to talk to her.  If he could talk to her, then he might just make his way out of this alive.  He backed away, sliding through the blood, leaving a track of it behind him like some kind of snail.

The space above Klaus’ body rippled again, and a body began to appear.  It was obviously female, dressed in some kind of grey bodysuit criss-crossed with belts and pouches.

And a gun.  A compact pistol of some kind.  Athena Giges levelled it at him, a sneer on her lips.

“A...Athena?”  Not in his wildest dreams would Antonio have suspected the girl.  She was too much like Francesca.  But then again, whoever sent her must have known that.

She didn't bother to dignify him with a reply.  Instead, she looked down at him and spat.

“You think anyone cares about your dead daughter?” She stepped over Klaus’ motionless body, soaking her heels in his blood.  There was venom in every word, and he could swear that she was almost laughing.  “A lonely, washed up diplomat wanting to bring back his roadkill.  Sure, I’ve heard the stories.  I hear tell that you were good, in your time.  Until you put yourself out to pasture and betrayed us."

“Who are you?” Antonio stuttered, trying to step backwards.  He collided with the wall of the datacrypt.  “How can you say those things?"

She scoffed, waving the gun back and forth for only a moment.  He was back to staring down its muzzle just a half-second later.

"Not even wondering who I really am?" Athena smirked. "So ready to resign yourself to my bullet, are you?  You traitor.  Maybe it's because you feel guilty.  Maybe because you want me to succeed."

"N...no." Antonio tried to lift himself to his feet, but his shoes and hands were covered in slick blood.  "T...tell me who you are, then.  O-12?  Did Aleph itself send you?"

“No." She laughed.  "I’m here to make sure Aleph never finds out about this little breach of security.  She might not care about a sad old man, but she’d certainly care about a defector.  Do you know what she does to defectors?  No, I guess you wouldn’t, because you don’t even know the value of what was in that data package.”

"I don't." Antonio shook his head.  His body refused to move any further.  This was it: the end for him, and for Francesca.  If Athena had been in thermo-optic camouflage the entire time, if she had seen him input the password, she could get inside the crypt’s storage and remove the data he had risked his life for.

“I won’t tell you, then." She spat, stepping closer to him.  "You don’t deserve to know, traitor.  I’ll leave you to wonder if it was all worth it.” She stepped up to him, close enough that he could smell her perfume and the blood staining her boots.  “Lucky me, though.  I don’t have to bother with data extraction on site.  I just have to kill you and bring your cube back for questioning.”

“What kind of monster are you?”  Antonio asked, but he sounded tired, defeated.  It was over.

“The best kind." She grinned, pressing her gun to his forehead.  "Ultra vires, motherfucker.”

And then she pulled the trigger.