Deep Hydra Read online

  “Take some time to think about it. My support in the Barony, the Gemini System, and a real chance to avert extinction while defeating your father’s enemy. The price is my involvement in all future decisions. I know, it is a lot, but it is also your only reasonable option. I would hate to see you wind up with a lesser deal, or worse. I also prefer to deal with you as opposed to your sister, but I am a practical sort of man.”

  He was stunned. His eyes fell, finding Tengu was still giving LeRoux a hard stare.

  Perhaps he should take LeRoux up on his offer, take the money and go find Setha. It was what he really wanted in any case, giri[2] be damned…

  “You’re welcome to stay the night, or more if you wish. Think about it all you want. I have time that you do not. When you are ready I would love to have my children give you a true demonstration of the Gemini.” A smile seeped across LeRoux’s lips.

  “Thank you for your hospitality,” Ichiro whispered, his body numb. He cleared his throat. “I will consider your offer carefully.”

  He took another sip of the tea. Its bitterness bit at his tongue.

  Chapter Five

  Ikuzlu City, Kosfanter

  J2400:3230

  “Come at me,” Giselle said, crouching in tiger stance with her fingers hooked into claws. The lights of the gym made the black material of her form-fitting, smart armor shine.

  Cygni hesitated, scanning the readouts in her UI. Her eyes changed focus between them and the discolored skin of Giselle’s reconstructed face.

  “Stop pitying me and attack before I decide to demonstrate how hard I can hit you.”

  “Sorry,” she said back.

  [RECOMMENDATION: KATA 139] her PLIA displayed across her UI.

  “Why not?” she muttered. Execute.

  Knowledge flowed into her mind. She visualized herself moving before the engram reached her peripheral nervous system and her body launched itself forward.

  In the seventeen standard days since she became an Umbral, Cygni trained with Giselle and Biren. Though her PLIA had a repository of hundreds of martial arts styles in its engram library, her body hadn’t performed them before. The days she spent healing from torn muscles and ruptured tendons after the battle at the Biodome were testament enough to the need to train.

  The balls of her feet tapped the glossy-wooden floor as she closed the distance. When she was within striking range her digital reflexes took over. She fainted with her left leg, then twisted and swept the back of her fist at Giselle’s cheek. Her opponent swayed out of range, then snapped forward with a knuckle-punch at her throat. She countered by twisting and her engram-reflexes turned the evasion into a leg sweep. Giselle tried to hop over it, but one of her feet failed to clear Cygni’s leg in time. There was a brief impact and she watched Giselle fall into a split with a sense of satisfaction until her opponent, now within arm’s reach, struck her in the face with a fist.

  Sparks flew through her vision and she fell like a domino onto her back. She tried to curl up into a handspring, but Giselle was on her before she could move. Dark eyes locked onto hers and a forearm pressed into her neck. She felt the woman’s thighs come down on either side of her chest.

  “Shit, how did you do that?” She asked, blinking away the sparks.

  “Got my first black-belt when I was twelve,” Giselle responded. “My reflexes are faster than yours because you haven’t trained enough. Don’t give up. You’ll get there. You just have to improve the neural pathway link to your downloaded engrams.”

  “Stop enjoying this so much,” she said as her friend got up and helped her to her feet.

  “How could I not enjoy laying my hands on you?”

  “Don’t be creepy,” Cygni smacked her shoulder.

  “Can’t help that.” Giselle tapped her jaw.

  “I wasn’t talking about the way you look.” She felt a pang of guilt. She was unable to shake the feeling that Giselle’s malady was her fault.

  “I know.” Giselle put her hand on her hip. “You need to get your moves to the point where they are pure reflex. I can sense what you’re going to do if you think about it, but a well-trained opponent can read your body language even without my abilities.”

  She wondered when she would start winning these sparring matches and checked the chronometer in her UI.

  “Shit, I have to get going. I want to visit the others before the meeting tonight. You said you’d give me your report when we finished today.”

  She told her PLIA to clean her up and shift her armacorium into everyday clothing. The gym clothes she wore turned silver and flowed around her body. Nanomachines embedded in her skin converted her excess body heat into electrical power and cooled her off to stop perspiration, then scrubbed her clean of dirt and the excess bacteria that built up during the session. It wasn’t as satisfying as a shower, but when her armacorium flowed into the form of her jumper skirt and jacket she was just as clean.

  “Baron Keltan was missing while most of the deals to block Revenant’s takeover of the treasury took place.” Giselle parted her armored chest piece by stroking it down the sides. She used the pieces in front and back to fan herself off. They stiffened as the fluid inside them responded to the motion. “From what I was able to find out, it looks like his artificial made the deals with treasury and banking agents.”

  “So Ben must have been directed to do so.”

  Giselle nodded. “And he had some powerful leverage. Some of the individuals involved belong to Houses that are known to oppose House Keltan. Most of the people I asked didn’t even want to talk to me, and I’ve known them for years.”

  “Will that come back to us?” Cygni asked.

  “I made sure they wouldn’t remember the encounters.” She parted the material on her arms with finger strokes and pulled the top part off over her head. It caught on her chin, and she struggled for a moment before freeing herself. Pale, sweat-drenched skin shone in the light while she wiggled to get free. Giselle looked over her shoulder in a sudden motion and jiggled her eyebrows.

  “Sorry.” Cygni looking away as they walked towards the locker room. “I didn’t mean to stare.”

  “Curiosity is a mark of intelligence, and I know you can’t help it. It isn’t a bad thing that you are the way you are.”

  “What the hell do you mean by that.” She crossed her arms before her chest. Was Giselle implying that she was some kind of hyper-sexual tart that was interested in everyone she met?

  “Relax, that’s not what I mean. Don’t get defensive.”

  “Well, don’t flatter yourself. I’m not interested in you that way. I didn’t even know you were like that.” Cygni felt herself flush with anger. She loved who she loved, and she was attracted to what she was attracted to, and that was all there was to it. Of all people who judged her, she thought Giselle would be the last to do so.

  “I’m not judging you. I never have, and what do you mean by ‘like that?’?”

  Her eyebrows contracted over the bridge of her nose. “Don’t you start getting defensive on me. I’m the offended party here.”

  “Are you?”

  “What?”

  “Are you offended?” Giselle cocked her head to the side and fluttered her eyelids.

  “What are you doing?”

  She heard laughter in her mind. “Nothing, Cygni. I’m not doing anything but looking at you. You know, you’re pretty cute when you’re in a huff.”

  “What the—” she was about to launch into a blistering tirade, but something in her friend’s eyes twinkled and her anger evaporated. “You’re pulling my leg, aren’t you?”

  “You make it so easy.” Giselle started walking towards the locker room again. Cygni moved to catch up.

  “Shut the fuck up.” She laughed. “You were joking, then?”

  Giselle winked. “Ben leveraged Keltan’s control of the banking system to force those who resisted to put the deals he needed in place. Some debts were forgiven, others were given revised terms, and the real holdouts
were threatened with financial ruin. In essence, Keltan has bullied his way into blocking the Treasury loan. It’s more evidence of what the VoQuana did to him.”

  Cygni blinked, jarred by the sudden shift in conversation. “Was that a ‘yes’ or a ‘no?’”

  “Don’t dwell on it, talk business.” Giselle’s eyes twinkled again.

  She nodded, that was probably best for everyone. “Okay. It sounds like you’re right about Baron Keltan. Ila should have the details of the transactions soon if she doesn’t already. We’ll be able to take that to Dorsky.”

  “Are you going to see them now?” Giselle asked when they reached the doorway. “You’re still worried about him.”

  “Of course, I’m worried about Biren. I drove him away with that stupid comment of mine—though I still say he’s being a big infant about it.” She bit her lip and looked to the side. “I looked. He’s not in any of the spots I would expect.”

  “Have you asked Boa?”

  “She… has problems with me… still.” Cygni felt her cheeks heat up.

  “I could—”

  “No. You know I’m not comfortable with that. I’ve violated that woman’s trust enough.”

  “Is that what you think I do?” Giselle’s eyes narrowed.

  “No, of course not. I just feel that having you pick through her brain for the answer isn’t right. She should want to give it.” She sighed. “Please don’t be mad at me. I have enough people angry with me right now.”

  Giselle’s expression softened. She grasped Cygni’s shoulder. “Never.”

  She smiled. “Well, thank you for that. I’m off to check in with them.”

  “I’ll go with you. I’ll be right out.”

  “Okay.”

  It took Giselle about ten minutes to get changed and freshen up. Cygni took the opportunity to pull a small cube of kalkoa from a hidden pocket and stuffed it in her mouth. Her tongue lit up with the familiar tingle of the narcotic. She shivered as the sensation rolled down the nerves of her body and prickling waves oscillated back and forth within her. A crooked smile appeared on her face as the first feelings of light-headed euphoria made the room rock like a cork in the ocean and drained the stress from her body. It wasn’t as intense as it was that first time on her couch, each time she took the drug its effects were slightly diminished, but it was still good. If she really wanted to, she figured she could take a second cube, but right now she just wanted to stop the craving. She’d be up for the full experience later.

  When Giselle emerged from the locker rooms she was wearing her mask again and carrying a small duffel bag. Having already become accustomed to the benefits of her cybernetic armor, Cygni felt bad for her friend. Giselle’s bio-magnetic senses would be disrupted by the armacorium implant. She would never know the advantage of an instant clean, or being able to will on whatever clothing she wanted.

  They headed out in an Umbral-registered air-car which cut through the air with a quiet pulse from its dark energy engine. Her PLIA maneuvered the vehicle with extreme precision. It was clearly top of the line software, and she realized she should expect no less from the Premier’s personal guardsmen. After a lifetime of living cheap it was something of a novelty to her that these advanced devices were now at her disposal.

  “You’ll get used to it eventually,” Giselle said into her thoughts.

  “Says you.” She gave the woman a look and chuckled. “Let me enjoy it, okay?”

  Giselle held up her hands in surrender.

  Xikhaz Park was the only part of Ikuzlu that retained the hilly topography the city’s builders encountered when they first came to the atoll. For many residents this was the only place they knew that wasn’t flat and paved. Rock outcroppings shared the narrow, U-shaped strip with trees from a dozen different worlds. Grass and a leafless purple shrubbery filled the space between them. The first Solans on Kosfanter called it “Writhing Coral” after its resemblance to the ancient reef-colonies of Earth and its ability to move when touched. These waist-high plants had a proper Cleebian name, and a Relaen one, but the designation the Solan settlers gave it caught on. Now, even the Cleebians called it “Xiving Xoralz.”

  Her PLIA set the car down on the park walkway between two rocky hills covered in xoralz. The doors hissed open, letting in damp air heavy with brine from the lagoon.

  Cygni looked around in the evening twilight. There were a few sentient beings nearby: a Solan jogger, an Achinoi pushing a stroller about fifty meters down the walkway, and a small group of teen-aged Cleebians who were buzzing away in their native language beneath a lamppost.

  “We better cover up,” she said in a low voice.

  Giselle nodded, reached back behind the collar of her Umbral uniform, and pulled a hood over her head and face. Cygni activated her armacorium, feeling it melt and slide, encasing in the reflective silver material. Both of them faded from the EM spectrum.

  [STEALTH MODE: ACTIVE. THREE-HOUR CHARGE REMAINS] her PLIA informed her. She set the autopilot to take the car back to Solahab Tower and climbed the hill. Reacting to their touch, the xoralz parted in an island around them like it was unveiling a hidden path. On the bay side of the hill, just past its crest, the xoralz gave way to a small clearing with stone-framed bars in the ground and a small hand-crank poking up from under one of the xoralz beside it. With a final glance around she grabbed the crank and used her armacorium-enhanced strength to turn it. Ancient gears and hinges creaked in protest, but little by little the bars retreated into the hill and opened a descending shaft behind them.

  “What’s that noise?” The child’s voice caught her off-guard. She snapped her head up to see a juvenile Isinari walking beside an adult on the path around the hill. The two stopped at its base with had their heads cocked in her direction.

  “I’ll handle this,” Giselle whispered in her mind. A moment later the pair blinked, shrugged, and walked in the opposite direction.

  That’s convenient. I didn’t know you could do that across species.

  “It’s harder, but I’ve had practice and training. The difference in brains generates feedback. I’m going to be hearing a buzz in my head for at least the next hour.”

  Ouch, sorry, she thought back. You first.

  She felt Giselle’s touch on her arm, then heard her body scrape down the shaft. She gave her a twenty-second head-start, then dropped in herself, letting go of the crank as she did. The spring-loaded device closed the bars behind her while she slid down the rough stone. The passage descended at a steep angle down for thirty-meters before leveling off and emerging into the ancient tunnel network.

  They came to a stop in the underground corridors and deactivated their stealth devices. Cygni shifted her armacorium into casual clothing as they moved toward the chamber where the others were holed up.

  Ila and Sanul got to their feet when she cranked open the door.

  “Oh, it’s you.” Boa remained in her seat with a sour look.

  “We’ve got exciting news.” Ila smiled. “Oh, hello Haem Giselle.”

  “Hello, how are you?” she projected to all of them.

  “Well, thank you. I have managed to find the records we were after. Hundreds of micro-transactions that add up to millions of ConSovs transferred to key individuals. They were all authorized by various banks controlled by Keltan Securities.”

  “Good work.” Cygni grasped Ila’s forearms in the traditional Isinari greeting.

  “Thank you, Haem Cygni.” Niu hesitated. “Did you find Biren?”

  She sighed. “No sign. I won’t give up, though.”

  “And you won’t find him if he doesn’t want to be found. What are you doing, Cygni? You’re not cut out for this. Stop, before you get the rest of us killed,” Boa said.

  She moved to respond as the anger rose in her chest, but Giselle interrupted.

  “I’ve got my work done as well, so we can all search for Biren after.”

  “After?” Ila’s yellow-green eyes shifted between them.

  “You
need some sun,” Cygni said.

  “I am okay. I will replenish my chloroplasts later. What are we doing before we look for Biren?”

  “Dorsky called a meeting tonight. Giselle and I have to provide his personal security. I would have sent word earlier, but we can’t chance transmissions. The Praetor’s monitoring the traffic in the city.”

  “We know,” Sanul said. He pulled out a rolled-up leaf from his jacket and stuck it in his mouth. Watching him made her twitch, but she forced her hand to stay away from the hidden pocket in her armacorium. She couldn’t handle being judged right now and envied the carefree way he chewed the narcotic leaves.

  “Sanul,” Boa said in a quiet but firm voice.

  His hircine eyes went wide and the leaf of phytrophor fell limp on his lips. His four-digit hand rose from his side and removed the roll from his mouth.

  Boa nodded.

  Cygni’s gut clenched.

  “Go ahead, Sanul. We’re all friends here,” she said.

  Boa gave her a sharp look, then turned it on him.

  “Ah—” he stammered.

  “Chew it,” Cygni said.

  “Um…” his ears twitched madly against his crystal horns. Boa smiled at her.

  Sanul started speaking in a staccato rhythm. “I think we’ve got good news. I’ve got more of Revenant’s feed decrypted, but so far it’s nothing we don’t know already. There was a vague reference to some boy having been tracked to a planet named Zov, though. I don’t know why that would be important.”

  “Who was the reference directed to?” She pulled her eyes off Boa. Something was going on with her and the rest, and she didn’t like it. Still, she did owe Boa a lot. Maybe she was letting her anger get the better of her.

  “I don’t know, the feed was some kind of internal memo in Cosmos Corp.” Sanul’s tiny ears flicked at the base of his horns.

  “Okay, better stay focused on what applies to us,” she said, trying to shake off the uneasy feeling. “Okay, boss.” His nostrils flared as he snorted in the affirmative.

  “Great work.” She smiled, and he returned the gesture with a lopsided, crystal-toothed grin. It made her feel better.