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CHAPTER 7

It was pouring rain the next afternoon when I swung by Starlight Tower to pick Dagny up. Remembering what happened the last time I was there, down in the parking garage, I stopped my car in the loading zone in front of the building and waited for her there. She came hurrying to the car and quickly climbed in.

“Wow,” she said, pulling back the hood of her purple rain slicker. “It’s really coming down out there. Oh, sorry, I got your seat wet.”

“A little water isn’t going to hurt anything. How are you doing today?” I pulled the car into the street while I spoke.

“As well as can be expected, I guess. Where are we headed?”

“We’re going out to North Hampton.”

“Way out there?” she asked. If you don’t know your way around Delta City, North Hampton is a suburb in the northeast quadrant of the Crater. It’s a place where people who either don’t mind a long commute or can work remotely live if they don’t want to be crammed into a hundred-story tower in the city. There aren’t a lot of places zoned for single family houses in Delta City, and in those places the cost of living is sky-high. There’s only so much room in the Crater and beyond it is the critical farmland necessary to feed tens of millions of people. Space is at a premium.

“Yup,” I said. “We’re going to have a visit with Dr. Ocean Ivery, a former scientist with Ascension’s exobiological research division. Lily got ahold of her yesterday and she agreed meet us, but only if we could talk face-to-face.”

“Exobiological research? Like the study of alien life? This proves it, right, that they really did find something at Site 471? There isn’t any alien life on Nova Columbia except for pseudo-moss and that purple slime that causes Kellerman’s Syndrome.”

“It’s not the slime, it’s the spores the slime releases into the air,” I said. “Another possibility has occurred to me, that this business about alien technology might just be a ploy.”

“A ploy? What do you mean?”

“Think about it. It’s a sensational enough story to get all of the would-be whistleblowers, do-gooders, and leakers to tip their hands.”

“You mean . . . you think Cassie was wrong? That’s not like her.”

“Anybody can be wrong,” I said.

“No, I mean it’s not like her to fall for something like that. She’s skeptical by nature.”

“For a trick like this to work, it would have to be believable enough to convince the skeptics.”

“What about this scientist, then? She’s an exobiological researcher.”

“She is. Remember, though, Ascension’s headquarters is on Nova Columbia. They have people from every scientific discipline on their payroll and send them off-world when needed. Dr. Ivery lives here, but from what Lily found, she’s spent most of the decade since the war on other planets.”

Dagny nodded, but looked dejected. I could tell she didn’t like the idea that her sister may have fallen for a scam. “Let’s say you’re right, and they didn’t find any alien artifacts up there. Where is Cassie? Wouldn’t they just fire her?”

“That’s what’s been sticking in my craw,” I said. “The only things the company could do to her are terminate her employment, sue her for breach of contract, or have her arrested if she did anything illegal. None of that would have resulted in her disappearing, unless . . .” I trailed off.

“Unless what?”

“It’s a long shot, but . . . what if your sister did fall for an entrapment scheme, but your stepfather intervened to protect her? Shuffled her off somewhere until the heat’s off? Maybe the reason he didn’t tell you anything is because he knew his communications were being monitored.”

“That does sound like Arthur,” Dagny said. “Do you really think this could all be a trap?”

“I don’t know what I think yet. We’ll see what our contact says today. Something about this whole thing stinks either way. Regardless of whether or not there are any aliens at Site 471, we’re going to get to the bottom of it.”

“Thank you, Easy. I don’t know what I’d do if I had to handle this on my own.”

I grinned at her. “I’m just doing what you hired me to do. I’d appreciate it if you left a positive review of the business when all this is over.”

That go a laugh out of her. “Deal. Hey, you said this scientist is a former researcher for Ascension?”

“Yup. She resigned a couple weeks ago. Lily was able to anonymously query Ascension’s employee database to verify.”

“You think that’s why she’s willing to talk? Because she quit?”

“If you’re investigating an organization, a good way to get dirt on them is to talk on disgruntled ex-members. You’ve got to be careful, though, because sometimes people like that will exaggerate or just make things up. This is especially true if they were fired from a job, but as near as we can tell, Dr. Ivery quit of her own accord.”

Dagny was quiet for a few moments as I maneuvered the car through stop-and-go traffic. “Isn’t it weird that after all this secrecy and all these dead ends, someone you approach is suddenly willing to talk?”

“Yeah, it is,” I said, nodding at her. “Now you’re thinking like a snoop.”

“What if they’re trying to throw you off? You know, you talk to this scientist who tells you that everything is on the up and up and Ascension hasn’t done anything wrong.”

I was impressed with Dagny’s conspiratorial thinking. “That’s a possibility, and one you always need to keep in mind in this business. People who seem very credible will lie to your face. You have to learn to be able to tell when someone is lying, and even with experience it can be tough.”

“Aren’t there lie detectors you can use?”

“There are,” I said. “I have a program called Truthsayer on my handheld. It analyzes voice patterns and face and eye movement to try and guess whether a person is telling you the truth. If you have smart glasses or an ocular implant it can give you real-time analysis as they talk, like a language translator program. I don’t use it very much.”

“Why not? Wouldn’t that make your job easier?”

“Not really. It doesn’t work as well as advertised, for one thing. There are so many variables to account for when people talk that even the best software is going to struggle to interpret it. The best lie detection systems require direct biometric data from the person being questioned in addition to voice and facial patterns. That’s what the Security Intelligence Service uses for their interviews, for example, but even those are inadmissible in court by law. Too many ways to manipulate or misinterpret the data.”

“Huh.”

“Besides,” I said, “in order for Truthsayer to work, it needs to be able to see the person’s face and record their voice. Everyone knows tech like that exists. A lot of people won’t talk to you if you’re wearing smart glasses. There are hidden fiber-optic cameras, of course, but even those can be detected by a quick scan. People will wear face masks and use voice modulators when talking to you if they think you’re going to try and run a lie detector on them. A lot of your professional criminals have been trained to spoof lie detection software, or they’ll use drugs that alter the cues the software relies on. Either way, you still need to learn to get a read on people. I guess I just prefer to do things the old-fashioned way.”

“Does this stuff ever just give you a headache?” Dagny asked, pinching the bridge of her nose.

I shrugged. “Nature of the business. It is what it is.”

It was quiet for a few minutes before she said anything again. “Do you think this meeting could be a setup?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they’re just sending her to throw us off the trail. Even if she quit they might have gotten her to agree to it. Or, maybe she’s genuine and she’s willing to talk.”

“Cassie told me every Ascension employee signs a nondisclosure agreement as a requirement for working there.”

“All an NDA means is that you can be sued if you disclose information you were privy to, with certain exceptions like being deposed in court. You can say whatever you want if you’re willing to risk a lawsuit. The worst thing they can do is bankrupt you with legal fees. Besides, reporting illegal activity is protected, regardless of what they made you sign.”

Dagny looked down at her lap, then out the window. “I hope this pans out, Easy. I know you’re doing everything you can, but each day that goes by I fear more and more than I’m never going to see Cassie again. It’s all because I didn’t check my blocked messages sooner. That was stupid.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You didn’t know what you didn’t know. Let’s say you had listened to that message as soon as it arrived. What would you have done with the information?”

“I guess I would have tried to track down Arcanum myself, but I wouldn’t even know where to begin. I probably would have ended up in your office sooner or later anyway.”

“And you already contacted your stepfather. You did what you could even without the message from your sister.”

“Thank you,” she said, looking at me with a sad smile. “You’re sweet.”

“Heh. My ex-wife would disagree with you there.”

“You were married?”

“I was, a long time ago. Her name is Marian. We tied the knot right after I got home from the war. We had been, you know, kind of seeing each other before I got shipped out. When I got back I proposed and we shacked up right away.”

“Oh. How’d that work out?”

I chuckled again. “Well, she’s my ex-wife now, so you can probably guess. Honestly, we were both in too big of a hurry. I was so happy to be home that I just wanted to settle down and have, you know, a normal life. I think she fell in love with the man she thought I was and then was disappointed when I turned out to not be him. The whole thing lasted about two years.”

“Do you have kids? I’m sorry, I’m being nosy.”

“No kids,” I said, smiling. “Anyways, I don’t mind. If we’re going to do this together, we need to trust each other.”

“And what about now?” she asked. “Is there someone you’re making jealous by spending all this time with me?”

I looked at her out of the corner of my eye when she said that, while trying to pay attention to the road. I wasn’t sure if it was just small talk or if she was interested. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, with her being a client and all, but I was sure that I didn’t want to embarrass myself by seeing something that wasn’t there. “The only one waiting for me at home is Penny.”

Dagny paused for a second, like she wasn’t sure how to take that. “Oh. Who’s Penny?”

I grinned. “My virtual domestic assistant. She’s always happy to see me, she keeps the place clean, she cooks for me, and she doesn’t worry if I stay out late.”

That got a laugh out of her. “Well, I hope she isn’t the jealous type. I’d hate for her to passive-aggressively burn your toast.”

“I’ve got a question for you, too, if you don’t mind me asking.”

“What is it? I don’t mind.”

“It’s not my business and if you want to keep it that way, that’s fine. It just seems like you live on kind of the rough side of town, you don’t have a car, and you haven’t had the scar on your face repaired.”

“But I do have the money to pay you,” she said, completing the thought for me. “I was wondering if you were going to ask.”

“Like I said, it’s not my business. If it’s something I’d be better off not knowing, then feel free not to tell me. I’m just curious.”

“When we were little, our parents set us up long-term savings accounts, and they were maintained even after Dad died. My mother insisted on budgeting money to put into them all throughout our childhood and teenage years. I didn’t have access to the account after the falling out with Mom and Arthur, and I thought for sure that they’d have cashed it out.”

“But they didn’t.”

“No. In fact, Mom kept putting money into it, even while I was running around with the GLF, even while I was in prison. She put more money into it when she got sick. When she passed away, I found out that half her life insurance money had gone into the account. The other half went to Cassie.”

“Sounds like your mom never gave up on you.”

“She didn’t,” Dagny said. I could tell she was trying not to get choked up. “I was given access to the account after Mom died.”

“But you didn’t use it.”

“I didn’t. Sure, I could have gotten a car or maybe moved into a nicer place, but it didn’t feel right. Mom spent years putting that money away for me. It seemed disrespectful to spend it on petty things like that, so I just kind of sat on it. Thought maybe it’d be nice to have a retirement fund.”

“You have a day job, then?”

“More of a night job,” she said. “I’m a manager at a club called The Luxy in midtown. I’ve been there for years. Started off as a cocktail waitress, moved up to bartender, and now I’m in management.”

“They have human bartenders?” It wasn’t unheard of, but it wasn’t common. The Arcanum club, The Vault, had actual bouncers and a greeter girl at the door, but downstairs the bartending and cleaning was all automated. Even the Baron’s restaurant used robots instead of human waitstaff.

“We do. That’s part of the Luxy experience—real people to take your order, talk with, whatever. The only robots in the place are for cleaning. The pay isn’t amazing or anything but I get by. I’ve been putting money away myself to eventually upgrade to a nicer apartment.”

It was interesting to learn that Dagny was so frugal and responsible with money. She looked like trouble, hell, she brought a heap of trouble with her, but she seemed to have her head on straight. I had to admit she was growing on me, and I began to wonder if that was clouding my judgment. I thought about what Deitrik had said and had to ask myself, was I doing this for the right reasons? Was I doing it because of the beautiful woman sitting next to me? Does it matter if you do the right thing for the wrong reason?

Was it the wrong reason?


It took another hour to get all the way across the Crater to North Hampton. Dr. Ivery insisted on meeting us in public. There was a big farmers’ market set up in a city park and that’s where she said she’d be waiting for us. The rain had stopped but the skies were still overcast and gray, pretty normal for Delta City in autumn.

This farmers’ market is a biweekly occurrence in North Hampton throughout the summer and into the fall. The well-to-do happily pay top dollar for produce grown by independent farmers outside the city, especially for things that are hard to come by on this planet, like peaches and oranges. There’s nothing wrong with the crops mass-produced by corporate farms, despite what the beatniks and the flower children tell you. Efficient industrial farming is the only way a barely terraformed frontier planet like Nova Columbia can feed a population of almost a hundred million. That said, I can’t blame the farmers for capitalizing on demand like that. It helps keep the little guys in business.

The market was busy, especially seeing as how this was going to be the last one of the year. It took me a while to find a parking spot and Dagny and I had to walk a few blocks to get to the park. Rows of temporary booths and tents were set up as hundreds of vendors pushed their wares. This late in the afternoon, the crowd had thinned out some, but the market was still bustling with people.

“I don’t get out of the city much,” Dagny admitted, looking around. “We used to go to these every summer when I was a kid, but I haven’t been to one since. It feels a little strange to look up and see nothing but sky.” The city skyline could still be seen to the southwest, with its hundreds of monolithic towers disappearing into the low clouds, but the there were no tall buildings nearby. The market was crowded but people were packed in shoulder to shoulder like they were at events downtown. Nobody was wearing a respirator, either, as the native slime molds don’t do well in open-air environments that get direct sunlight.

There was still plenty of daylight left, too, when downtown was already being overtaken by the shadows of its own structures. The living green of the grass and trees, the fresh air, and the relative quiet contrasted sharply with the noisy, congested, and often smelly world of ceramicrete, transparent aluminum, and nanotube-steel you can find in the city.

I looked down at my handheld and showed Dagny the screen. I had a map of the market pulled up. “We’re here. We’re supposed to meet Dr. Ivery over here. I hope this was worth the drive.” We made our way through the crowd of suburbanites, between rows of booths and stands that were beginning to close up shop for the day. At the end of the row on the right was a large walk-in tent. The sign out front said they were selling bonsai trees.

With Dagny in tow I stepped into the tent. The short Japanese woman at the entrance welcomed us and said to come find her if we had any questions. I thanked her without really looking at her; I was focused on someone else. At the back of the tent, idly examining one of the little trees, was the person we’d come to meet. “That’s her,” I said to Dagny.

Dr. Ivery, dressed in white, looked up at us as we approached. She was a tall, fiftyish woman, lanky and androgynous, with skin so fair she looked pale. Her platinum-blond hair, accented by streaks of gray and white, was cropped short on the sides and combed back on top. Cybernetic eyes had replaced her natural ones. The implants covered both her eye sockets and made her look like she was wearing a small pair of goggles. She considered me coldly from behind blue-tinted lenses. “Mr. Novak?”

“I hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long.”

She looked at Dagny suspiciously. “Who is this?”

“My name is Dagny Carmichael,” she said, offering her hand. “Thank you for meeting with us.”

Dr. Ivery didn’t take the offered handshake. “Walk with me,” she said, and strode away. I looked at Dagny, shrugged, and followed after her. The doctor led us out of the farmers’ market, down a paved walkway into the wooded portion of the park beyond.

About a hundred yards into the woods she stopped. An unpaved footpath branched off of the walkway and led to an enormous tree. It was a Western Red Cedar, one of the ones planted by the first settlers at Site Delta, and had to be two hundred feet tall. Its huge trunk was covered in moss and ivy and was surrounded by waist-high ceramicrete barriers. Signs were posted at the edge of the footpath warning people not to climb on or carve into the trees.

“Nice day for a nature hike,” I said, breaking the silence.

The doctor looked up at the towering tree, like she was contemplating it for a moment, then back down at us. “I apologize. I am merely trying to be cautious. I was not expecting two of you and I do not want to have this conversation in front of strangers.”

I looked around. It was a gloomy, rainy day and there was no one else around. “Dagny here is my client. Cassandra Carmichael is her sister. She’s gone missing.”

“I was afraid of this,” the scientist said. “When she first approached me I warned her that it could be dangerous.”

“So you were in touch with Cassandra Carmichael. Did Arcanum put you in touch with her?”

“Who?”

“Arcanum? Activist group? Sound familiar?”

Dr. Ivery stared at me like I was stupid. “I have had no contact with any such organization, Mr. Novak.”

Interesting, I thought. Cassandra obviously gave this woman’s name to Arcanum, but she’s not one of their informants. “When was the last time you spoke with her?”

“With who?”

“Cassandra Carmichael,” I said. “Are you okay, Doctor?”

She looked down for a moment and took a deep breath. “Yes. I am . . . tired, is all. The last time I saw her was thirty-four days ago.”

“Thirty-four days?” Dagny asked. “She’s been missing for two months! Where did you see her?”

Dr. Ivery looked perplexed. “She was assigned to Site 471. Her father helped her secure the position there. The company is unfortunately rife with that sort of nepotism these days.”

Dagny put a hand on Dr. Ivery’s arm. The scientist stiffened when touched but stopped herself from recoiling. “So my sister . . . she was just transferred up there? For work?”

“Yes. Were you not aware?”

“We were not, Doctor,” I admitted.

“Arthur was telling the truth,” Dagny said, shaking her head. “Wait. This doesn’t make any sense. Why would she have left me that message, then? Dr. Ivery, what’s going on up there? Where’s Cassie now?” She was gripping the doctor’s arm tightly now, and I could tell it was making the scientist uncomfortable.

“Whoa, whoa, let’s all take a breath here, okay?” Dagny let go of Dr. Ivery’s arm and folded her own arms across her chest. I turned my attention to the scientist. “How did you meet Cassandra Carmichael?”

“I was introduced to her when she was assigned to the project,” the scientist said.

“Is that Project Isaiah?” I asked.

“Yes. I was responsible for her onboarding process and giving her the required briefings. We did not actually meet in person until after she had arrived at the site.”

“I understand you resigned from the company a couple of weeks ago.”

“I did. You caught me just in time. I have a flight booked to L5 Station in two days.”

“L5 Station? Taking a trip off-world?” L5 Station is Nova Columbia’s main port of entry to interstellar traffic. It’s where most warp-capable ships will dock between flights.

“I am returning to Earth,” the doctor said. “I wish to be far away from this place.”

“Forty-six light-years is pretty far,” I said. “Why did you quit the company?”

She was quiet again. Her prosthetic eyes glinted in the afternoon light as she studied Dagny and me. She was trying to decide how much to tell us. “How much do you know?”

“Not enough,” I said. “They supposedly found something they think might be alien technology. I don’t know what it is or anything about it, just that it’s called the Seraph. Look, I didn’t take this case looking to expose any company secrets. I just want to find a missing woman.”

Dr. Ivery looked up a little and stared off into the distance. “The Seraph,” she repeated. “When they read me into the program I thought they were being fanciful with the name. When I finally saw it, though . . .” She trailed off, then looked me in the eye. “If anything, a religious reference does not do it justice. It’s magnificent . . . and terrifying.”

“So it’s real?” Dagny said, excitedly. “There really is alien technology up there?”

“Indeed,” The scientist said. “They found it under Mount Gilead, but it is far older than the volcano.”

“It’s older than the volcano?” I asked, incredulously.

“Oh yes,” the scientist answered. “Mount Gilead began forming approximately two hundred thousand years ago. The strata in which they found the Seraph is at least sixty-eight million years old.”

“Sixty-eight million years? Is it some relic from the First Antecessor Race?” I asked.

“No,” the scientist said. “It is something wholly different. The First Antecessor Race was advanced, of course, incredibly advanced, but they were still carbon-based beings. Like us, they were finite and . . . mortal. They lived, they created, they reproduced, and they died, just like every other life-form we have encountered.”

“I don’t follow,” I said. “Is the Seraph a living being?”

“No,” Dr. Ivery said, “and yes. It is not biological life as we understand it. It is something wholly different from anything humanity has encountered thus far. The size of it alone is terrifying.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“It’s massive, larger than any life-form ever encountered. It has been buried here for sixty-eight million years, waiting for someone to find it.”

“Wait, it’s not dead?” I asked.

“Dead?” She looked at me, her bionic eyes shuttering closed a couple of times, mimicking blinking. “No, it is not dead, not in the way you mean. It appears to be an inert husk, but somehow it is still . . . aware. Sixty-eight million years and it is not dead. I do not know that it can die.”

“I don’t understand,” Dagny said.

“Neither do I,” the scientist admitted. Her voice cracked a little, like she was going to start crying. “You . . . you would not believe the things I have seen, the things it showed me.”

“What it showed you?” Dagny said. “You mean the Seraph?”

Dr. Ivery ignored her question and kept rambling. “It is not like anything we have ever encountered. It . . . it is magnificent . . . and terrifying. Just looking at it makes you realize how insignificant we really are, how little we understand.”

“Doc? Doc!” I said, getting her attention again. “Do you need help? Are you in danger?”

“We all are,” she said. “I apologize. I am not . . . I am not myself. I have not been sleeping. I have been taking medication and I still cannot sleep. It is because of the psychological contamination. It strains the mind.” She didn’t bother to explain what that meant. “That is all I know. I have not been back there. I will not go back there.”

I gently put a hand on Dr. Ivery’s arm. She was shaking. “We’re not asking you to go back there, Doctor. I’m just trying to find Cassandra Carmichael. Do you know where she is?”

“I am sorry, I do not.”

“From what you told us, it sounds like she left Site 471 before you quit.”

“There was an . . . incident,” the scientist said, slowly, her voice little more than a whisper. “It was my fault. This is all my fault.”

“Slow down, Doctor. Nobody is blaming you.”

“We disturbed it. It was . . . I do not know that you can assign human emotions to something so alien, but as near as we could understand, it was . . . it was confused. Lost. Intruded upon. We thought we could . . . we presumed . . . to communicate with it. We used a neural interface. That was my idea. It was successful at first, but . . .” She trailed off, slowly shaking her head. “It quickly became too much. I would not go back in, I could not. I refused, but it . . . the Seraph . . . would not be denied. It demanded another . . . so we gave it Cassandra Carmichael.”

“What do you mean you gave it my sister?” Dagny said, almost shouting at the woman. “What did you people do to her?”

“It was not like that. She . . . she volunteered. Somebody had to. I could not, not again. No one else would.”

I held up a hand. “Doctor, listen to me. It seems like you have a lot to say. Will you come with me? Will you go on the record? You can still make your flight. I can keep you safe until you get off-world. The authorities have to be alerted to what’s going on up there.”

“The authorities?” she asked, tilting her head slightly to the side. “They know. They have had observers on-site from the start.”

She confirmed my worst fears. “Who are these observers? What agency or branch?”

“We were told not to ask. I think they are intelligence officers. Off-worlders, I think, guessing from the accents.”

“Off-worlders? You mean Terran Confederation?”

“Easy!” Dagny interrupted, tugging on my jacket sleeve. “Look!”

Coming down the path from the direction of the farmers’ market were two people dressed alike. One was of average build, the other was a big guy, tall and heavyset. They both wore black protective jumpsuits—the kind with armor plates that motorcyclists like to wear—and bright green jackets with the collars popped up. Their faces were concealed under green-and-black full-face helmets. From the other direction up the path, two more guys approached, dressed in the same getup.

“Who . . . who are they?” Dr. Ivery asked.

“Green Dragons,” I said, quietly. That clearly didn’t ring a bell for her, so I explained. “They’re a street gang from East Central. Come on.” Taking her by the arm, I led Dr. Ivery down the trail away from the main pathway and toward the big tree.

“Where are we going?” Dagny asked, following closely behind. “What do these guys want?”

“The barriers around that tree will give us some cover if things go sideways.”

“Sideways?” the scientist asked. “What does that mean?”

“It means this might get ugly, Doc,” I said, hurrying her along. “When we get to the tree, I want you to take cover and stay there until I tell you it’s safe to come out. Do you understand?”

“This cannot . . . this cannot be happening. Are they here to kill me?”

I didn’t have an answer for her. If Ascension wanted Dr. Ivery dead, you’d think a company with all their resources would have better ways to do it than hiring a bunch of street hoodlums to do the job. On the other hand, maybe having the Green Dragons do their dirty work for them would give them a measure of deniability. “Just keep your head down,” I told her, pushing her behind the closest barrier. “I’ll handle this.”

As I expected, all four of the Green Dragons turned off the paved walkway and followed us up the footpath toward the tree. They approached in a cluster, all with their hands in their jacket pockets.

Dagny had her handheld out. “I can’t get signal to call anybody.”

“They might be jamming us somehow. You got that gun on you?”

“Of course.”

“Now’s the time,” I said, drawing my revolver from under my jacket. Holding it at the low-ready, I raised my voice and spoke to the approaching gangsters. “Nice day for a walk in the park, isn’t it?”

They stopped maybe twenty feet away, hands still in their pockets. The big guy took a step forward. I snapped my gun up and had it pointed right at his face. The reticule of the little holographic sight was right on the visor of his helmet. He cocked his head to the side a little. “Why so aggro, pops? Can’t we look at the trees, too?” His voice was disguised by a modulator in his helmet.

“Yeah,” the guy next to him said. “What’s this city coming to where you can’t even visit a park without getting a gun pulled on you?”

They all chuckled at his little joke. Dagny had her gun drawn, too, but they hadn’t flashed a weapon yet. Keeping my gun trained on the big guy, I asked him, “What are you boys doing all the way out in North Hampton? You’re a long way from East Central.”

“Maybe we’re expanding,” the big guy said.

“Or maybe we just like trees,” his buddy next to him added. “You got a problem with that?”

“No problem,” I answered. “You want to look at the trees, you can look all you want. Just step aside so my friends and I can be on our way.”

“We don’t want any trouble,” Dagny said.

“You hear that?” the big gangster asked. “They don’t want any trouble!” They all chuckled again.

A bead of sweat rolled down my temple from under my hat. I was calm but my heart was racing. What were they planning? We had them dead to rights, and none of them had pulled a weapon yet. Why would they corner us like this but let us draw down on them?

I figured it out a second later, but it was a second too late.

“Mr. Novak!” Dr. Ivery cried, grabbing my arm over the top of the barrier. I turned around just in time to see a fifth Green Dragon come up behind her and plunge a short sword into her back.

“Doc!” The gangster shoved the scientist off his blade. Stepping around the barrier I was able to catch her before she fell. The Green Dragon turned to run, but he wasn’t fast enough. I shot him in the back as he tried to vault over one of the ceramicrete barriers. He dropped his sword and crumpled to the ground in a heap.

Gunfire echoed through the trees as Dagny opened fire. I was busy lowering Dr. Ivery to the ground behind the barrier, trying to see if there was anything I could do for her. I had a small first-aid kit in my jacket pocket but it looked like the son of a bitch had stabbed her right through the heart. Blood poured out of her wounds and onto the mossy ground.

“Easy!” Dagny cried. She was trying to get behind another one of the barriers when two rounds caught her in the back.

“Dagny!” Transferring my gun to my right hand, I leaned out from behind the barrier. One of the Green Dragons was facedown and another was wounded. All three, including the wounded man, had pistols drawn.

The big guy, the one I thought was their leader, he was closest. I fired twice, shooting him first in the gut and then in the chest. The protective armor of his motorcycle gear was no match for APHE rounds. He shrieked as he fell, his voice distorted by his modulator.

“He got Chud!” another of the Green Dragons shouted. I ducked back behind the barrier as the surviving gangsters started shooting again. Bullets whizzed past, smacking into the barriers and the old tree. Hitting the release lever with my thumb, I ejected the partially expended cylinder from my revolver and grabbed a fresh one from a holder on my shoulder harness. I pushed the new cylinder down and locked it into place.

Dagny had managed to sit up, her back to the ceramicrete barrier. She was bleeding, bad, but she was still conscious. She nodded at me then, reaching up and behind her, stuck her pistol over the top of the barrier and blindly fired. There was no way she’d hit anything like that but she didn’t need to. All I needed was some suppressing fire. I didn’t want to appear in the same spot twice, so instead of leaning around the barrier this time I popped up over it.

The last two Green Dragons were running away. The wounded man was being helped along by his buddy. I held my gun on them for a few seconds but didn’t fire. When they were out of sight, I turned my attention to the wounded.

“We make a good team, Easy,” Dagny said weakly as I knelt next to her.

“We sure do. Can you lean forward? I need to see your back.”

“I’m okay,” she said, but did as I asked. She was definitely not okay. Two pistol slugs had gone into her back. One had struck high, hitting her in the shoulder. The other had gone low, punching a hole into her guts from behind. Both missed the spine, but she was losing a lot of blood.

I opened my first-aid kit and grabbed the shears. “I need to cut your jacket and shirt off,” I said. “I need to patch up those holes.”

“If you wanted to get my clothes off all you had to do was ask,” she said, grimacing through the pain.

I chuckled humorlessly, cutting through her purple raincoat, shirt, and bra strap. “Hold still. This is going to hurt.” I cleaned the area around the bullet holes, then injected the wounds with hemostatic foam. She cried out in pain as I did this but didn’t move. Once the wounds were filled, I covered each one with a seal. “Okay, that’s it,” I said, gently lowering her back against the barrier. “I know it hurts but you should sit up if you can.”

She nodded haltingly. “Check on Dr. Ivery.”

“Yeah. Sit tight.” Keeping an eye out in case the Green Dragons came back, I knelt by Dr. Ivery and checked her pulse. It was weak and there wasn’t much I could do for her. Even if I could stop the bleeding with what supplies I had left, she’d been stabbed right through the heart. Without immediate trauma surgery . . . well, it didn’t look good.

Somehow she was still conscious. She looked up at me, the cybernetic lenses she had for eyes irising. “Am I going to die?”

I was quiet for a second. I hadn’t had a conversation like this since the war. “Yes. I’m sorry.”

She reached into a pocket of her tunic and grabbed something. She held it out to me in a trembling, bloody hand. It was a plastic wafer, maybe an inch in diameter, infused with circuitry. I looked at her. “What is this?”

“In my home,” she gasped, her voice gurgling slightly. “D-Diana . . .”

“Who’s Diana?”

Dr. Ivery didn’t answer. She was gone. Damn it to hell. There was no time to dwell on the situation. I stashed the little disk in a hidden compartment inside my hat and went back over to check on Dagny.

“You still with me?” Sirens warbled in the distance, growing closer.

“Yeah,” she croaked. “I’m still here. How’s Dr. Ivery?”

“She didn’t make it. Listen, I think SecFor will be here soon. They’ll get you to a hospital. You hang in there, you hear me?”

Dagny grabbed my hand and squeezed. “Stay with me.”

“You got it.”

A drone appeared over the trees and descended toward us. The quad-copter, maybe six feet across and painted blue and white, hovered overhead and addressed us through a loudspeaker. “This is the Colonial Security Forces,” a synthesized voice said. “Remain where you are. Troopers are en route to your location.”

“She needs medical attention!” I shouted, pointing at Dagny. “She’s been shot!” I knew the drone was transmitting its camera feed, or would be if it could get past the signal jamming. I crouched next to her, holding her hand, and waited for SecFor to show up.


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Framed