Geordie Thorne never got a chance to introduce himself properly.
The nanofactory had just delivered his new ocular implant – they called it the ‘Lens’. The fitting was smooth, the existing retinal sensors bypassed seamlessly. That was five minutes ago. Now, pinned to his temple by a track irradiator beam that hummed like a trapped wasp, the capital fleurs-de-lis of Security Director Valerius Drace pulsed with blood-red menace from his left eye viewplate. In the clearing terminal light, his own irises jittered, a familiar, fine tremor eating through his steady hand near his regulated pulse pistol.
“Visual conduit established, Evans. Subject Thorne,” the calm female voice issued from Drace’s armoured cowl, a synthesized constancy in the oppressive metal bay. She referred to himself familiarly, aggressively. Kept him on edge, Thorne mused, a dry, internal thought barely registering. He wasn’t much for optimism.
He could feel the heat radiating from the high-output chronal regulator next to him, making the thick cryofoam under his bio-reg suit cling uncomfortably. And in Drace’s grip, the data spike pulsed. It contained the kernel of his transgression: decrypting a single classified directive – Level Beta-7 Skirmish Protocol – but not the Capella Station’s entire defence matrix, as his ‘handlers’, the Infiltration Directorate’s ‘Canaries’, falsely accused him of. He swallowed, the artificial lubricant from his oesophageal tube a useless counter to the dry tension. The air conditioning system vented his misfortune, the irony of it all.
Self-recrimination washed over him in familiar, cold waves. He’d cracked the wrong code, a significant one regarding assets within the orbital mechanics division probing alleged pirate activity near the Kuiper Belt resources. Probing. Admittedly fruitful probing had led to the discovery of some shocking infrastructure. But damn it, digging deeper into the public files, the long-forgotten protocols, the embarrassment that Line Commander Tiberius Cy was trying to cover up with the Canaries’ phoney data feeds – it wasn’t treason, not directly, but it was dangerous.
“Captain Thorne,” Drace’s voice, a stage whisper becoming a threat, cut through the internal monologue. “Your reputation precedes you. Internal Network Oversight finds itself… intrigued. Their current assessment relies heavily on unverified Canary chatter. We offer, as bait, a data fragment secretly stored on a quarantined Canaries subordinate unit – perhaps the ‘proof’ you consciously lacked?”
Time for the political suicide. “I crack systems, Director. I don’t set entire planetary defence strategies afresh, leave alone dictate which asteroids are safe.”
A heavy sigh, the sound of the Director leaning back onto the cold, rolled-up event horizon simulator support frame, emphasizing the utter futility. “You think these Infiltration ‘Canaries’ truly operate independently? Synergy?” Lips breathing hotly across the comms jack in his ear, close enough to smell the faint ozone tang of his own electronics. “We need someone inside Command Information to clear some decks. You looked like a man needing… diversions. A perception, if you will. A vulnerability.”
Thorne tracked Drace’s faceplate with his gaze. The red lights crept upwards, still intermittent in warning. “What exactly do you want, Drace?,” he asked, voice rough.
“The unfiltered directive, Master Thorne. Beta-7 operative mobilization times. Maybe coordinates?” A pause. “Simple details. Standard procedure. Redact what’s not needed. See?”
“A flaw? A deliberate oversight?” It was one of his theses – the universe was peppered with errors, chances. “Not a Canary, but remember the last breach they tried feeding me? Kept misfiring. Asking for deleted Elite Unit Alpha archives there which didn’t even exist off the mainframe. Slippery.”
There was a long silence from Drace. Then, the office door. “Ten-minute brief. The data spike contains all tactical route navigational logs for the command modification crew you’re simulating. Prioritize this meeting.”
Thorne pulled the Lens away from his irises hurtling towards a theoretical ignition point calculated by his suit’s CPU. He visually scanned the department corridor beyond Drace’s office until his standard audio perception returned. He cupped a hand to his helmet speaking orifice, not bothering with the assigned frequency. Red mist. Or was it the blue light?
“The meeting?” he murmured. The background hum of the station’s cooling systems swallowed his words.
“When you get the notice, head outside assigned traffic flow towards the pulley ascents. Delta Quadrant Maintenance access route three. Locker access on arrival.” More static. “Ten minutes.”
Delta Quadrant Access Route Three was, in truth, little more than a cold grey scar gouged into the station’s underbelly, overlooking an artificial, spartan waste incinerator vent far below that vented quantum-diluted plasma. The air there was cleaner, colder. Thorne stepped from the shadow of the main corridor into the stark, utilitarian corridor, boots clicking cement. It was far from Drace’s opulent confinement, far from the CIC’s controlled chaos. Just more metal, more wires, more waiting. He headed towards the ventilation controls. The suits hissed and whistled as he approached. The maintenance access hatch was cool metal, thick type. Portable tools clipped to his lumbar pack felt weird, like part of his skin.
The office meeting notice pinged in his internal display. 8/10. He opened the door slowly, the heavy interlock hissing on. Director Drace stood by his tall viewport overlooking the incinerator below. Not where he expected. Maybe intimidation in a new key.
Valerius Drace wasn’t hulking; he was neat, efficient, a domineering presence mostly manufactured. He wore his usual sleek command grey, dark eyes calculating, mouth a tight black line. His Chair Stability Unit kept him regally planted despite the motion of the nearby anti-grav skiff section. Hardly intimidating. Too calculated. Too safe.
“Ten minutes, Captain?” Drace asked, not turning. “Ready?”
Thorne stripped his helmet faster than most FTL calculations. Bags under his eyes, perhaps, etched the contrast on his usually expressive face. A loose buff, khaki shirt. The suit had probably weathered many a mission dust-field. He was, underneath the bio-reg enforcement mesh, leanly muscled, average height but steep shouldered. Thin but dense, not soft. Pipe-cleaners don’t crack walls.
“Ready,” Thorne said, joining him.
Drace turned. The right hand held something flat. Not a weapon. The data spike. He pressed it against Thorne’s retinal scanner beside his sinewy neck. It activated. Data flooded his internal buffer. Text, diagrams.
“Your handler?” Thorne’s voice still held that strange lethargy. “Your Canary? Cy?”
Drace nodded. “None for us. They’re dense. Always looking down their nose. See, this…” He pushed the spike slightly further. A schematic of a derelict artificial structure popped into existence before their eyes, tagged with coordinates and deep-space parsecs, showing a weak energy signature far from known habitations. “…this is our prize.”
“Relict? Bronze age space-criticality?” Thorne tried to keep his voice steady.
“Think dopamine spike civilization. Gigavolts of pure integration prototype power. Lost, apparently harmless. Mining makes money. Confirming.”
” Harmless? Looks like a dreaming butterfly about to strike you on the chin, Director,” the teasing underscored the danger. He knew the Canaries – dangerous, ill-disciplined, often making mistakes, but also smart. This deep-space structure? Too far, too risky, funding unavailable for unproven ventures. A Canary bait? Or bait for someone Drace thought he could manipulate?
“Invalid assumption. Requires validation. That’s what you’re good for,” Drace’s voice hardened. “Breaking the decryption protocols shut down autonomously after your initial probe. Too broad. Secured immediate notice. It’s… confirmation we needed. Taking out the element of surprise.”
Thorne thought back. Since his miss-firing Canary handlers. Since the penalties for crossing Drace, possessing a Pisces Neo-Ruler faction connection. He was cleaner than Cy’s chancers, trapped cleaner.
“Logic bypass attempts?”
“Multiple. Standard walk-throughs clear the encryption barrier, yes. Raw data dump reveals a primitive but potentially useful power matrix. Scalable.” Drace peered closer, almost lost under the cap. A genuine study.
“Your opinion?” Thorne’s choice of words was nearly casual.
“A positive synergy. Scalable power?” He waved a dismissive hand. “Few places dislike surprise. Few systems, if powerful enough, resist the impulse. It’s… about final momentum.”
Thorne followed the pointer, his eyes drawn to the quantum subspace map. A green star blazed, corrupting nearby blue vectors.
“It,” Drace stated the obvious, “requires a first strike. Security check point clearance, power matrix extraction, modification, boot-up. Directed energy, efficient controls.”
“Standard spectre protocol,” Thorne nodded negatively. “Right? Extraction *without* implications for source.” His breaking point often occurred calculating the cost of a mistake in microseconds. Drace presented a profitable, controlled mistake.
“Exactly,” Drace confirmed, the barely concealed grudge making his voice sharp. “Hand it to us, Thorne, and we remove the minor inconvenience of your potential commitment to the ‘Canaries’ little pet project. Or,” a subtle hand signal from his cowl operator hidden by the broad shoulders, “you walk.”
Thorne reached. His fingers brushed the uncontrolled micro-burst that leapt from the Director’s personal chronal disruptor salvo. It slammed into his chest, shorting his suit temporarily, sending a jolt that made him gasp. He was flung clear, landing hard on cracked durocrete, spitting excessive gamma-particle induced static from his mouth. Internal sensors instantly detected the disruption. “Maximum overload on comm link bypass,” an automated bio-alert screamed over his neural net.
Drace allowed the personal threat to pass without visible reaction. Thorne scrambled up, quicker. Renewed internal panic pulsed through his synthbio matrix. He activated his pulse pistol. Not half a second after he fired, for guided system upload onto Drace’s interface, the Director himself triggered a power shield. The shot pinged harmlessly off a raised shield field that bloomed visibly for a split second around Drace, filling the viewport with a shimmering blue-white distortion.
Thorne felt the shock in his muscles. Everyone but probably Drace reacted to the electric pulse running up the shielding snares. Drace pushed the button again, instantly recalibrating his own fire control. Thorne realized he was bleeding from multiple minor ruptures, probably in the scalar wall guard integrity. Unpalatable.
He fired again, twice, rapidly. Both nullified by quick shield overload counter-strike pulses from Drace’s built-in weapon emitters, barely milliseconds apart. Thorne staggered back, feeling the beginnings of synching override headaches and a rapid rise in stress hormones. He needed data feeds, telemetry, better.
“Aggression,” Drace’s synthesized voice ceased its threat-song for a moment, “is a temporary means to an end. Persistence relies on understanding.” Lights sparked along Drace’s visor. “Did you intend to compromise security protocols with your personal weapons?”
“Fine words, Director. But enforce them on probabilities…” Thorne ducked and fired blindly as he ran towards one of the vent alcoves stretching deep into the station’s layers, the plasma vent section far below providing a dark illustrative backdrop. “Or on processes. You deny any operation here? You suppress your Canary finds?”
“I *fundamentalize* them. My Canary is delivered incomplete. Or…” His voice remained level, seemingly a clinical observation. “Status clarification: as of this moment, targeting sequence one is void. Only project retrieval remains.”
” Guaranteed?” Thorne was running.
“Dependable,” Drace agreed. Thorne heard the heavy tread getting closer. To Drace’s credit, the Director didn’t advance immediately. A small, unhelpful data packet about station clearance chime-scheme malfunctioned across their partially rerouted channels. Confusion. The best moment. He tried to clamp onto his shield emitter. Eject the spike. Nothing. It was already bypassed.
Another shot hit him in the heel, stinging sharply. Pain reminded him he was human. He kept running.
He ducked into the ventilation shaft. The confined tube had limits. He couldn’t fit via auxiliary conduit. T-Socket needs? Ivan probably would have the welded-in terminal plugs. Or maybe not. Ivan was a mechanic who managed to build communications networks out of Pringles cans back on the ioncruiser.
The Source…check out the great article that inspired this amazing short story: Essential Foods to Eat for Achieving Under 10% Body Fat Effectively
Source:: News – Blog – iNthacity
About Author
