Overthrowing Heaven-ARC Read online

  The crowd swirling a couple of meters in front of my table parted for a moment, and the woman in the blue dress stepped into the opening. I looked everywhere but at her, making sure I hadn't missed an interior threat. As I did, I subvocalized to Lobo, "She's here. We're on." It was a routine job, but it was a job, and now was the time to be serious.

  "Five men in line pose a possible threat," said Lobo, all business.

  "Noted," I subvocalized, still scanning the area around my client but not making eye contact with her. I started to tell Lobo to watch them, but of course he would, so I shut up. I finally settled my gaze on the woman in front of me.

  She walked up to the table. "Mr. Moore?"

  "Excuse me?" I said.

  Confusion played across her face for a moment before she said, "I was supposed to meet a friend of a friend here," she said. "Jon Moore. Kiana Glazer recommended you to me."

  "Sit down," I said, motioning to the chair to my right. That position put her back to a wall and kept her out of my field of vision as I watched the rest of the club. "I'm Jon Moore. Don't ever offer a name to someone."

  "But if you're the—"

  I held up my hand. "I'm explaining how you should act." I glanced at her and realized I was wasting my time. "Forget it."

  "I'm Priyana Suli," she said, extending her hand to shake.

  "Put that down now," I said. "You're supposed to be trying to pick me up, not sell me property."

  She gave me the confused look again.

  We were burning time, but it was my fault, not hers; I didn't need to teach her anything to get her off this planet. "Tell me why I should take you to the jump gate," I said, "and why you don't hop on the next commercial shuttle."

  "Kiana told me she had—"

  "You tell me," I said.

  "I've wanted to leave for a while," she said, looking down at the table, no longer willing to make eye contact, "but my partners won't let me. One of them has serious connections with the Arctul government, so if I try to get on a shuttle, they'll detain me. The jump station is CC territory. Once I'm there, he and his friends won't be able to touch me."

  "And if they follow you and make the jump?"

  "I know people on Lindquist," she said, "people who will help me. Once I'm in its jump station, even my partner's friends won't dare come after me."

  I've always doubted that sort of claim, particularly from someone who's never worked the kind of jobs I've had, but what happened to her after the jump was not and could not be my problem.

  "Okay," I said. "Let's get started."

  "Get started?" she said. "What is there to do besides go?"

  I turned to face her. "The first step is simple: You pay me." I pulled out my wallet, thumbed it to receive, and put it flat on the table. My hand still covered it; I didn't know her.

  "Of course," she said. She reached into a pocket I hadn't seen on the dress, and two seconds later my wallet vibrated slightly. I checked the exterior display; the money was in an account of mine in Vonsoir. It wouldn't stay there for long; Lobo would move it quickly through a series of transfers that would take an auditor a fair amount of effort to follow.

  I put back my wallet.

  "Now," I said, "we can—"

  "Alert," Lobo said over the comm unit. "Three of the five men we were monitoring have entered the club, spread, and are approaching on your ten, two, and twelve. The other two are heading to the rear exit you had planned to use."

  "How long?" I scanned the crowd but could not yet see them; too many people blocked my view.

  "Twenty-five, thirty seconds," Lobo said.

  "Trouble is coming," I said to Suli, standing as I spoke. "You were followed. Stay behind me. Do what I say."

  "What?" she said as she slowly rose.

  I could see the three men now. They'd spread a bit more and were moving methodically toward us, checking each other's positions with short glances and murmurs over a comm. They'd done this sort of thing before.

  I pushed the table forward and pulled Suli behind me as I did.

  "I was wrong," I said. "The trouble has arrived."

  Chapter 2

  The men vanished into the crowd again. I had a few seconds before they could reach us, but not many. I'd anticipated a pair of jealous lovers might show up; I hadn't planned on an assault team. If the situation turned bad enough, I could use the nanobots that laced all my cells—the benefit of that horrible time I spent as an experimental subject on Aggro—to create a nanocloud and send it to disassemble the men, but the risk for collateral damage was high if civilians got in the way, as they most likely would in this small space.

  No, I needed a more conventional solution to the problem. I considered using the small projectile handgun in the pocket of my pants, but again, with a crowd this large the risk of hurting an innocent was unacceptably high.

  The three men appeared again, now only one layer of people away from us. The center man saw me spot him. He immediately glanced to his left, toward the man edging toward us along the wall to my right. That guy would be the leader. He was letting his team either push me toward him—unlikely if I was any good, because anyone who knew what he was doing wouldn't want to be trapped inside the club—or send me running toward the waiting rear duo. He'd then play clean up or catch up, as necessary.

  The only way out was to take neither of the options they expected.

  As the men edged around the last of the people separating us, I subvocalized to Lobo, "Shut down the club's power. Now. Seal the rear door." I switched my vision to IR and not for the first time silently thanked Jennie for all the improvements she'd made to me.

  The room went black as the power system switched off. The bio emergency lights snapped on an instant later, their soft blue illuminating the walls and exit paths. Lobo said over the comm in my ear, "You'll have to use the front or be trapped."

  A few people gasped, but most murmured approval and clapped, wondering what trick the club's management would do next. The Take Off's clientele appreciated a little darkness.

  I grabbed Suli and said, "Stay close" as I pulled her after me. We ran for the kitchen. I risked a glance backward. The leader was pointing at me, and his men were clearing the people in front of them, showing reluctant partiers a glowing badge of some sort. Great; her partner's friends really were connected.

  "No," I said to Lobo, "Different exit."

  "Kitchen skylights," Lobo said.

  "Yes. Come now."

  Cases full of bottles of locally brewed ales stood in stacks along the hallway to the kitchen, a nod to the club's bar heritage and a sign the owners hadn't yet jettisoned all of The Take Off's past. I pushed over three of the stacks as we passed them; even if none of the bottles broke—and it sounded like a few had, though I didn't look back—they'd at least slow our pursuers. Suli started to slip away, so I tightened my grip on her hand and pulled her after me. She yelped, but I ignored it; we needed to reach our destination.

  Six meters after the bottle stacks, we turned left and burst through a door into a surprisingly large kitchen. I pivoted as soon as we were both in the room, yanked Suli in an arc behind me, switched to normal vision, and threw the lock on the door. I grabbed a metal prep table to my right. A cook who'd been leaning on it gave me an annoyed look, but what he saw on my face led him to hold up his hands and back away. At about two meters tall and over a hundred kilos, I'm a fairly strong guy naturally, and the boost I get from the nanomachines helps a lot in situations like this, so I had no problem dragging the food- and bowl- and pot-laden table in front of the door. Neither the lock nor the weight would stop the three guys for long, but that was okay; we didn't need much time.

  I scanned the area. The skylight stood less than two meters above the top of the plating table. Suli had retreated to a corner. I grabbed her arm, yelled "Sorry" to the cooks and waiters who were now lining the walls and trying to stay out of whatever was happening, and darted to the table full of small, ready-to-eat plates.

  "Ten s
econds," Lobo said.

  The door banged against the table as our pursuers weakened the lock.

  "Up!" I said to Suli. She paused, so I climbed onto the table, kicked aside the plates near my feet, and pulled her after me.

  "Cover," Lobo said.

  I pulled Suli tight to me and bent slightly over her as the skylight shattered and small fragments of glass and wood supports tumbled onto us. From the relatively small amount hitting me I could tell that Lobo had shot it from the side; I love working with a pro. A pair of rescue smart-cables fell through the opening. I straightened, grabbed Suli's arm, and put it on the cable. The soft, black line wound around her forearm and downward until it hit her torso, then extended once around her chest. I grabbed the second cable, and it began to wrap around me.

  The lock gave, and the door opened a hand's width.

  "Go!" I said to Lobo.

  As our pursuers shoved aside the table, Lobo accelerated straight up. Suli and I shot into the sky, a vertical ascent of about ten meters in two seconds. She gasped as Lobo slowed his climb and headed at a more measured pace out of the line of fire of the men who'd chased us into the kitchen. As he moved, he reeled us in gently.

  For a few moments, we were out of sight of our pursuers and hanging in the crisp night air, The Take Off fading from view, the majority of Vonsoir a sparkling light show spreading into the distance in front of us, light breezes rinsing the club smells from my nostrils. The cable clung to my torso, so I flew without strain in the beautiful evening. Even as my body struggled to deal with the post-action adrenaline jitters, I couldn't help but be caught up in the sensations of flight and the beauty of the scene unfolding below and in front of us. I waved my free arm at the world below and said to Suli, who was now parallel with me, "Amazing, isn't it? Beautiful, just beautiful."

  She started at me as if I was insane.

  I tried to ignore her look, but I couldn't help myself: It made me smile, then chuckle, and finally laugh.

  I was still laughing when we were completely inside Lobo. Suli's expression turned angry, and it stayed that way as I unwrapped the cable from her body until it took the hint and finished retracting on its own.

  I tried to stop laughing, but at that moment Lobo said over the comm, "I obviously missed the joke."

  For no reason other than the need to discharge tension, his comment cracked me up again. I turned away from Suli and continued laughing as Lobo sealed the lower hatch he'd opened and accelerated at speed into space.

  When I stopped a minute later and faced Suli again, she said, "I do not understand what about that whole affair was so funny. They could have hurt me."

  "Yeah," I said, "they could have—but they didn't. As for why I laughed, forget it. Let's get you to the gate." I headed up to the pilot's area. "First, though, let's make sure those five didn't have any airborne backup." As I walked, I murmured, "Lobo, status?"

  This time, he spoke over the internal speakers, so Suli could also hear him. "I'm way ahead of you, as you might expect." What a show-off.

  "What was that?" Suli said.

  In general, the less data you give others, the safer you are, so I opted for a bland explanation. It didn't hurt that my answer would annoy Lobo. "The ship's command-and-control speech system." Before Lobo could comment, to make sure he understood my intent, I added, "On a PCAV imitation like this one, you get only the minimum computing capacity necessary to keep the vessel in the air."

  "So why did it talk to you like that?" she said.

  I shrugged. "I spend a lot of time alone in here, so I spent extra for some supplemental emotive programming." I sat in the pilot's couch. "Course and location?"

  "Heading into a high-density satellite orbit," Lobo said. "No sign of pursuit."

  "What are you doing?" Suli said.

  "Investing half an hour in weaving slowly through some clusters of weather and corporate-data-relay sats. If no ship heads our way, we'll know we escaped cleanly and make for the gate."

  "And if a ship does come after us? What good is a faux PCAV in a real fight?"

  "If something chases us," I said, grateful that Lobo let my obvious desire for confidentiality override the offense he had most certainly taken, "then we have other options."

  "Such as?" she said.

  "Other options. That's all you need to know. You paid for an escort out of the club, and you're out of it. You also paid for a ride to the gate, and we'll get you there. You didn't pay for the story of my ship, and you sure as hell didn't pay enough to question my plans."

  "Fine," she said, holding up her hands and backing up a step. "I am the one they were chasing, so I was just trying to understand what you had in mind. I had no idea you were so sensitive."

  "I've tried to tell him," Lobo said. "Perhaps now he'll believe me."

  Suli stared at me expectantly, as if Lobo's comment had done something other than make me wish he had a neck I could throttle.

  Nothing I could say would make the situation any better, so I stayed silent and waited for the rest of the half hour to pass.

  "No sign of pursuit," Lobo said over the comm. I'd asked him privately to stop talking to Suli. "Head to the gate?"

  "Yes," I subvocalized. "I'm ready to be done with this woman and this job and relaxing back in the trees."

  "I frankly prefer any work, even this sort of amateur effort, to the jungle life," Lobo said. "Dealing with a minor attack like the one in the club is better than hovering in the clouds while you relax in the trees, my only job to watch your every move on the tiny chance that some crazed bird decides to dive-bomb you and I have to bring to bear the full might of my considerable arsenal in order to save you from certain destruction."

  I ignored him and said, "ETA to the gate?"

  "Central Coalition fleet ships are conducting exercises on both sides of the route I would normally follow," Lobo said. "Do you want to wait, go the long way around one of the sets of ships, or head straight?"

  "I saw a news story on the CC maneuvers," I said. "I assume they're maintaining an open route directly from Vonsoir to the gate so they don't inconvenience travelers. I see no reason not to take advantage of their courtesy and stay the course. Am I missing something?"

  "No fact I can find contradicts that opinion," Lobo said. "I felt obliged, however, to point out the ships."

  "Thanks," I said. "Let's go."

  "Accelerating," Lobo said.

  I stood and faced Suli, who was sitting in the other pilot's couch, her eyes shut, studiously ignoring me. "We're on our way to the gate. We should have you there soon."

  "Thank you," she said without opening her eyes. "I look forward to it."

  "Look," I said, feeling bad for having upset her so much, even though I didn't think I'd done anything wrong, "I'm sorry if—"

  An alarm cut me off. Straps extruded from Suli's couch and clamped her in place. I climbed into the pilot's seat, which immediately secured me.

  "Ships swarming on eight different approach vectors," Lobo said audibly, shifting to battle protocols. "The sphere surrounding us is tightening rapidly."

  "Options?"

  "Based solely on ship types," Lobo said, "not many. I could fight five of them and possibly win, but three are combat frigates that would beat me handily. I could outrun those and two of the others, but three scouts are faster than I. They'll win no matter what we do."

  "Any chance we're not the target?"

  "None," Lobo said. "They're attacking in classic surround formation."

  "Could we—"

  "Incoming message," Lobo said, cutting me off.

  "Show me," I said. "Blank our end."

  A standard CC police avatar appeared on the display Lobo opened in the wall in front of me.

  "The government of the Central Coalition demands your immediate attention," it said. "Councilor Ken Shurkan requests your presence aboard the flagship, Sunset." A holo map of the ships around us popped into view and identified the Sunset, which sat in space far back from all the oth
ers. "You will dock in its main landing hangar."

  "Turn on the audio," I said to Lobo.

  "If we go into that ship's hangar," he said, "and they decide to retain us, we will not be able to exit without a high probability of self destruction."

  "I understand," I said. "Now, turn on the audio! Leave the video off."

  "Activated," he said.

  "We have committed no crime," I said, forcing my voice to be calm. "We're tourists headed for the Arctul jump gate. We request the same safe passage available to all travelers."

  The avatar disappeared. The head of a blond boy filled the display. With bright blue eyes, unnaturally white skin, and lips so full they crossed the line from stylish to ridiculous, his face was far enough from human norms that I wondered if the CC was now using distortion software on its calls.

  He smiled.

  It didn't help.

  "Mr. Moore," he said, "I'm Councilor Ken Shurkan of the Central Coalition government. We have a business proposition to discuss with you."

  I studied the image a bit more and saw the man behind the boy. I'd met a few of the people who did everything possible to maintain the bodies and looks of their childhood, but I'd never understood the desire to do so. "I'd be happy to discuss it," I said, realizing I'd let Shurkan's image distract me, "after I finish my vacation on Lindquist." I glanced at Suli; she was sitting quietly, staring at the screen, reacting to the situation far more calmly than I would have guessed.

  I focused again on the image in front of me.

  Shurkan leaned back and shook his head, the smile still firmly in place. "As I'm sure you're aware, Mr. Moore, you have few options, and that is not one of them. You can come aboard the Sunset voluntarily, or we can make you do so. If you choose the former, you do, of course, risk becoming our prisoner, but I can promise you I want only to talk. If we have to resort to the latter, there is, as I'm sure you're aware, a significant chance that in the ensuing action we would destroy your ship. That would be a shame for us, of course, because we'd lose a potential business partner, but it would, I must say, cost you a great deal more."