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CHAPTER XVI

FOREST GRAB

After I left the café, I loped along forested paths in the nearby parks. Such a beautiful day, perfect for running, secluded and private. As I ran, my mind gradually smoothed out from all the tangles of the past few days, until it became like a mirror, reflecting the sky.

Reflecting grief.

I imagined touching the surface of the water. A ripple started, a circle spreading out in a lake. It felt like a way to mourn, though why, I couldn’t have said. Despite all my abilities at solving problems, I’d never learned how to analyze my emotions, only feel them. This image of a lake with ever-widening circles—it felt like grief, like allowing myself to grieve for the losses at the co-op. So I ran, in silence, absorbing the beauty of the day into my heart, into my soul.

The rumble of a flyer broke my reverie. A silver-and-yellow craft flew overhead, then came back, too low, setting the treetops whipping in the blast of air from its cloud-turbines.

No, I thought. Not now. I need this time. “Max, what are they doing?”

“A good question,” he said. “It’s illegal to pilot a craft that close to the trees.”

The flyer came back, dropping yet lower. “They’re going to hit the branches.”

“I don’t like this,” Max said. “I’d suggest you make it more difficult for them to find you.”

I veered off the path, running under trees with pink flowers larger than my hand. The flyer growled above the canopy of branches. Although the engine rumble faded away, within seconds it came back. Branches above me whipped in the wind of its passage, and pink flowers rained over my head.

“Bastards,” I muttered. “Why isn’t any city drone stopping them?”

“Normally, it’s legal to fly over this area,” Max said. “But not so low.”

I looked around the park. It was too tame to call a forest, with the ground cleared of any plants with thorns, prickles, or other weaponized foliage. “Can they land near here?”

“Not nearby. No clearing in this vicinity is wide enough to set down a flyer that large. I think they’re circling above this grove, trying to hover.” He paused. “Can you hear that clanking?”

“Turn up my ear augs.”

Park noises jumped into prominence, the fluttering of blossoms drifting through branches, the scratch of leaves rubbing together, the buzz of a glass-bee looking for flowers to pollinate, or whatever bees that looked like pretty marbles did with their time. And yes, there! A creaking noise came from high up the trees.

“Max, that sounds like someone coming down a line.” We’d used fast-rope insertions all the time in the army, to deploy soldiers or drones from a low-flying craft when they couldn’t land. The composite line creaked that way as we slid to the ground with gloves to protect our hands.

I took off at a run—just in time to see two women in pseudo-military fatigues drop through the trees a few meters in front of me. They wore pistols holstered on their belts. Whirling around, I found myself staring at two more fatigue-wearing persons.

“Well, shit,” I said.

“Major Bhaajan,” one of the women said. “You’ll need to come with us.”

“Who are you?” I said.

Both women drew their guns, EM pulse revolvers. One bullet from those could liquefy my insides. “Don’t make this difficult,” one of them said.

I could hear the other two behind me, blocking my retreat. I turned and scowled at them. All four looked the same, women with fake military outfits, tattoos on their arms, black hair and eyes, and an attitude that practically shouted, “We’re tough. Don’t mess with us.”

“Screw you,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere. You wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble if you planned to kill me. You aren’t going to shoot me with your little fucking guns.”

The taller of the two women pulled a weapon off her back, a huge rifle. “How about my big fucking gun,” she said as she leveled it at me—and fired.


I swam to consciousness like a sea dragon in an ocean of molasses. Or something. My thoughts, never poetic, were even more blunted today.

Gradually I became aware that I lay on my back. The rumble of an engine vibrated beneath my body. Opening my eyes, I saw—nothing. For a while I lay, staring into the nothing. As my night vision adapted, I realized a ceiling curved not too far overhead. Ah. I was in a flyer. Fake commandos had trapped me in the park, like yah, an idyllic grove in pastoral Selei City required four heavily armed combatants to grab one unarmed woman.

That rifle must have delivered some drug that made me feel like I had clouds in my brain. The darkness suggested they had darkened the flyer windows.

Max, I thought. You there?

Yes. Static grated in his thought. Whoever kidnapped you has deactivated many of my functions and is trying to get them all. They think they turned off my ability to talk to you.

I concentrated on my wrists. They felt bare. I’ll bet they think taking off my gauntlets means we can’t communicate.

Possibly. Not many personal EIs can use wireless signals to link to sockets in a human body and send messages to a human brain using bio-threads.

Sometimes I wish you could connect right to my brain.

Don’t you remember? You almost had me implanted as a node in your brain.

My mind felt fuzzed. Dull. I’d need military clearance for that, wouldn’t I?

Bhaaj, something is wrong with your memory. He sounded worried. You looked into it not long after we started working together. Civilians can get a node if they can afford it and a doctor certifies them for the implant.

I strained for the memory. Oh. Yah. I remember. I decided not to do it. I hadn’t liked the idea of an EI in my mind, rather than in gauntlets I could take off. Now I wished I’d reconsidered.

Do you have any idea where we are? I asked.

They’ve blocked my local positioning network, but I must be within several meters of your physical location. Your wrist sockets aren’t designed for long-range signals.

Didn’t I upgrade your wireless capability years ago, including more distance?

Yes! He sounded relieved by my returning ability to remember what I shouldn’t have forgotten in the first place. Actually, you were going to increase the distance, but we decided you could better use those resources to upgrade my storage and calculation ability. So you went for more memory and speed rather than more distance.

Oh. Yah, I do remember. I made a concentrated effort to focus. My mind feels like sand running through a sieve. I’m having trouble holding thoughts.

I think you want to ask me how long you’ve been unconscious.

How did you know that? It did seem like something I should ask.

I believe you were thinking about it when you recovered consciousness. I can’t be sure because you hadn’t directed the thoughts at me.

Yah, I was thinking about it. Something felt off about his comment. It took a moment, but then I zeroed in on the oddity. Max, how can you receive me? My brain doesn’t have wireless capability. I shouldn’t be able to send messages to you.

You’re sending signals along the bio-threads in your body to the sockets in your wrists. This close, I can pick a few of them up even without a physical connection. I’m hiding in the background noise to avoid detection. He paused. I may also be interacting with your brain waves.

Say what?

I’m not sure. We’ve become so attuned, your brain waves partially sync with me, if we’re close to each other.

Huh. Can you send directly to my brain?

I wouldn’t advise it. When we interact via your wrist sockets, the threads in your body go from there to bio-electrodes that fire your neurons. You have protections designed from your own DNA to keep them from causing injury. If I tried to interact with your brain directly, I couldn’t control how your neurons fired. It could give you seizures, even kill you.

I struggled to concentrate. How long have I been in this flyer?

About seven hours. It hasn’t landed, so it will need to refuel soon. Also, you missed your meetings with the Traditionalist and Modernist reps.

Good.

Kidnapping seems an extreme way to avoid talking to politicians.

I meant it’s good someone knows I’m missing. They’ll wonder why I didn’t show up. Their people would contact my people, which means you should have heard from their EIs.

I haven’t. However, your kidnappers tried to deactivate me even before they hit the ground. They didn’t manage right away, but they’ve continued eroding my capabilities. I can’t get any messages now. The last I received was during your meeting with Colonel Majda. The EI for Manuel Portjanson, the Modernist rep, wanted to verify the time for your meeting. I haven’t heard anything from the Trad rep.

My goodness, no Trads. What a coincidence.

It might not be as suspicious as it looks. You hadn’t missed your appointment yet when these people grabbed you.

Were you able to contact anyone before the kidnappers blocked you?

I don’t know. I tried to reach Chief Hadar and Colonel Majda, and I sent a message to Highcloud at the townhouse. I think something got through to Highcloud, but I doubt Raja received my message and I’m sure nothing reached the police.

What did you tell Highcloud?

If they received enough of my message, they have some idea you were kidnapped. He still sounded worried. Even if I could reach anyone, though, I can’t give our location with my GPS blocked. I’m sorry.

It’s not your fault, Max. You’re operating well beyond a normal EI’s capabilities. Even better, you’re managing to hide it from these cretins who shot me.

That is more polite than the words I would like to use for them.

You sound more like me all the time.

Thank you.

Max considered that a compliment? He honored me. I supposed if I analyzed my responses, I’d come up with some business about how he had become so integral to my emotions, I no longer had objectivity, or some other talky-feely stuff. I decided I’d just be flattered instead.

If we’ve been airborne for seven hours, I thought, we could be anywhere on this continent.

I suspect we’re going north, into colder regions of this landmass.

Have they fitzed with your other functions, too, like your ability to detect human life signs? It would be good to know how many people are on this flyer.

They’ve blocked my sensors.

You weren’t blocked when they shot me in the park, though, right? If you describe what they did up until they blocked you, it might give me some clues.

I believe their team consists of five people. One stayed in the flyer while the other four fast-roped into the park. One of the droppers got hit with a tree branch. Not that I, an EI with only logic, would take pleasure in such an event.

Of course not. Served her right if a branch smacked her on the way down. How did they get me into the flyer?

They didn’t try to hoist you up to the craft. It doesn’t hover well enough. They carried you to a clearing. The flyer landed, they loaded you on board, and all four got on. The medic keeping watch on you was one of those four.

She’s not watching that well. She doesn’t seem to know I’m awake. Remembering Max’s comments about my possible subconscious sexism, I added, Or he.

She, Max said. So is the pilot. All women. It fits with your theory that the Trads are behind this kidnapping. They would never send men.

The kidnappers seem clumsy, I thought. No way did they need four commandos to grab me.

Don’t underestimate yourself. Not many people are sixth-degree black belts with augmented speed, strength, and reflexes.

Well, maybe. I had my doubts that I could put out four of them, especially if they had training or augmentation. They were lucky a drone didn’t stop them. It’s also illegal to carry arms like that in Selei City, unless you’re police or otherwise licensed. And what was with that rifle? She didn’t need a weapon like that to sedate me.

I’ve checked my records of city ordinances. Tourists often fly over that park. I don’t know why she used such a large gun to drug you. I agree that their operation had a blunt feel, one consistent with the PI at the port and the students who tried to spy on you. I’d say they have training, but they aren’t professional at the level of the technocrat murders.

It’s not like the child EI, either. It seems brilliant, but without enough experience to carry through its ideas.

Yes. Max sounded bemused. The child is improving, though. I’m having trouble finding its shimmerfly drones. It figured out how to play the game on its own, so it doesn’t need me anymore. I’d say it wants to establish itself as independent.

Hah! It’s turned into a teenager. Time to rebel against its hoshpa.

I’m glad you find my involvement amusing, he thought dryly.

It hasn’t tried to contact me in the last day, either. The baby wanted to warn us about Greyjan’s tavern. Do you think that changed?

I can’t say. He paused. If I were to guess, I’d say the baby was frightened. Terrified, even. The teen wants to handle matters on its own.

I thought you said EIs didn’t experience human-identified states of being. Or whatever we’d called them.

A more accurate description would be that the younger version of the EI knew it lacked the resources to deal with what it perceived as a great threat. It has since evolved.

A woman with a clipped voice spoke. “Captain, I think she’s waking up.”

That’s the doctor, Max thought. Perhaps you should pretend you’re just waking up.

Another woman answered. She sounded like the one who had shot me. “Is she talking?”

“No, I’m just getting neural activity on my monitor.” The doctor’s clothes rustled as if she were leaning over me. “Bhaajan? Can you hear me?”

I made a show of opening my eyes. “Eh?” I mumbled.

“Do you know where you are?” the doctor asked.

“Park,” I muttered.

“She’s really out of it,” the doctor said.

Low voices spoke in another part of the craft, words I couldn’t pick up.

Max, can you crank up my hearing? I asked.

The doctor may detect the biomech activity, now that she’s checking on you.

Not good. Can you fiddle with my health meds, then, make it look like I passed out again?

I’ll try.

I closed my eyes and endeavored to look unconscious.

“Major Bhaajan?” the doctor asked.

I kept as silent as a baby EI.

Various hums came from equipment around me. “She’s out again,” the doctor said.

“What about her EI?” the captain asked. “Maybe we ought to dump it overboard.”

If they tried to destroy Max, I’d wake up fast and violent. Max, where and when are your most recent backups?

A full back up of me exists on the console at the townhouse and on the servers at the manufacturer that created my template. My last backups took place about one minute before they deactivated my ability to reach the servers.

Good. If you get the chance to make any more, do it pronto. I hoped to high hell we wouldn’t need it, but I wanted to be sure. Also, can you record what’s going on around us?

Yes, but only in close range to the location of your gauntlets.

“The EI is quiescent,” another woman said. “I’d suggest we keep it. For one, it might prove useful in finding out more about her. For another, it’s one hell of a high-end unit. Also, if we destroy it, that will activate an alarm at the corporate servers that sell and maintain these units.”

Good. Their EI expert knew her stuff, at least enough to protect Max.

“All right,” the captain said. “We’re landing soon, and I don’t want any trouble. Maybe you should give her more jinx.”

“She’s had too much,” the doctor said. “If I give her more, it could cause brain damage.”

Max, what is jinx?

It’s a neural relaxant. It’s supposed to slow your brain function and put you to sleep.

I’m not asleep. And my brain is fine.

Your brain is not fine. However, your army training to resist coercive drugs helps.

That doesn’t explain why I woke up. I struggled to find the memory. What am I forgetting?

You’ve always had a high tolerance to drugs. He paused. They are running a test on me. We should stop communicating, just in case.

All right. I remembered now about the drugs. They saturated the Undercity. In my youth, I’d run with a dust gang: me and Jak, my oath sister Dig, and a boy named Gourd with a gift for tech-mech. Dig’s mother had been a drug cartel queen, responsible for so much of the shit that screwed up our people. Dig hated it, not only because of the pain it caused, but also because her mother preferred selling drugs to loving her own daughter.

I didn’t know why I’d never responded much to the “illicit substances” the army docs tested me for. They acted so surprised that my body showed no history of drug use except for second-hand inhalation of hack smoke. I could have told them that. I did, in fact, but of course they didn’t believe me. They did believe their tests. It wasn’t only that I had a high tolerance to many substances; I also didn’t enjoy their effect. Jak had loved hack and used it all the time in our youth. He quit as an adult because he liked gambling even more, and he wanted his casino to succeed. He told me the hack made it hard to think clearly. Well, yah. That was the point.

I wasn’t the only Undercity native who didn’t respond to the drugs so common down there. I’d sometimes wondered if we’d bred that trait into our population. After several millennia of my people suffering the highest infant mortality in the Imperialate, it wouldn’t surprise me if genes that gave us a better chance of survival—including a lack of interest in shit that destroyed our lives—became concentrated in our gene pool. Not that it stopped the drug queens. They were equal-opportunity criminals; they sold to anyone, in the Undercity or anywhere else.

Bhaaj? Max asked. Are you still conscious?

Yah. I felt subdued. Just remembering.

We’re landing, Max thought.

I concentrated on the rumble of the engines. A jolt vibrated through the flyer and the rumble stopped. Another hum started, one that suggested a much lighter engine.

That sounds like an air stretcher, I thought.

For you, I assume, Max said.

Sure enough, they lifted me onto a stretcher. As they lowered me from the flyer, Max said, I think they’re taking me somewhere else. If we get separated, I can’t reach your sockets.

Do whatever you need to protect yourself. Anything, Max. Stay alive.

Understood. Static crept into his signal.

I will talk to you soon. Take care.

You too . . . His thought faded into nothing.

As the air stretcher carried me, I listened to my surroundings. Forest, it sounded like, with wind whispering and insects buzzing. Cold air moved over my face, a faint breeze. It smelled fresh and wild, not at all like the city. Footsteps accompanied the stretcher, crunching in dead leaves, people walking, three, maybe four. So far, they hadn’t scanned me again, which was good, because without Max’s help, I wouldn’t look unconscious.

“It’ll be good to get some dinner,” the doctor was saying.

“We can whip something up at the cabin,” someone else said, the captain it sounded like.

“You may not want to eat anything I cook,” a third woman said with a laugh.

So. Cabin did imply a forest. That they talked about cooking themselves implied these weren’t people who expected robots or other people to serve them.

A buzz interrupted them, the page from a gauntlet comm. The captain answered. “Lajon here. We have the target.”

“Good,” a woman said, with a thinness to her voice that suggested this area had poor signals. Even so. I recognized those cultured tones. I’d heard them often in broadcasts during my investigation into Eja Werling, the Trad PI. It was Assembly Councilor Knam.

“What about those two thugs she brought here?” Knam asked.

“They weren’t with her,” Captain Lajon said. “They may be at the townhouse, but its security is too tight to break.”

Good. The Majda techs had protected the place well, and Highcloud kept it secure. Then it hit me: if these people damaged Max, then what remained of the original Highcloud could go as well. Hell and damnation. I was tempted to jump out of the stretcher, fists swinging. Given that I had no weapons against all their guns, and that my brain felt like mush, I controlled my stupid urge to punch them in the face and continued to play dead. Or at least, unconscious.

“Werling is already at the cabin,” Councilor Knam said. “She has several truth serums you can try on the Major.”

Truth about what? I had nothing to tell them. I wondered if she was using a secured channel. Although it was an obvious precaution, her team seemed sketchy on details, like verifying Max couldn’t reach me. True, most people didn’t have bio-electrodes in their brain that allowed them to communicate with an EI, but a savvier team would check even remote possibilities. I doubted this team had masterminded the jigsaw puzzle of the technocrat case. They didn’t have the finesse.

So what the hell were they about? I didn’t have time to be kidnapped. I’d been at this case for nearly three days, and so far I’d achieved squat. My leads went nowhere. Royalists, Traders, Progs, financial wizards, New Techs. What about the Mods? Yah, right, they wanted to conquer the Imperialate. They already had a majority in the Assembly, which made conquering redundant. Besides, many of the people killed or injured in the bombing were Mods, not Techs. I still hadn’t figured out where Greyjan’s tavern fit in, if at all. My kidnappers must realize it would alert people when I failed to show for appointments. I hoped Max got through to Highcloud, because otherwise no one knew where I’d gone.

Concentrate, I told myself. If they gave me truth serum, could I reveal anything secured? So far my work pointed at the Traditionalists as the most likely culprits. I had no problem telling them that they were the prime suspects. Other than that, what else—

The EI.

Well, shit. I’d better not spill that juicy morsel, both about the ancient EIs and the baby EI. The health meds in my body could synthesize a limited amount of counter-serum to act against the truth drug. Although it would help if I had Max, the army never intended for us to become so dependent on our EIs that we couldn’t operate without them. The biomech wizards had taught me biofeedback techniques I could use to program the meds myself.

Clear your mind, I told myself. Calm. Still. Serene. Focusing inward, I concentrated on my meds. Nullify. I couldn’t directly reach the picoweb they formed; it was too rudimentary to interpret signals from my brain. But the biofeedback should evoke a response from my body that the meds recognized. I hoped. If it worked, then when Eja Werling injected me with the serum, the meds should act to counter it. I continued thinking nullify serum until my thoughts drifted . . . 


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