Time-Lock (Memory Block, pt. 3)

Read Mindwipe (Memory Block, pt. 2)

Gigi Gagnant stood in the small, empty auditorium with a dozen other paramilitaries. Most of them shuffled nervously behind her, red X’s on their shoulders in place of unit markers. Penal duty, just like her. Welcome to Obsession.

She was angry now, always angry. She didn’t know what she’d done to earn a position in this place. None of her people did. She only knew that like the others, her team had been sold to L-I Space and Missile for corporate asset reclamation. She and her original people had completed five missions already. Seven was supposed to see them clear.

They were at the edge of the tunnel complex LISM Security now controlled. In the past two weeks, there’d been a major offensive. Scrolling through the maps she’d stored in her nightshades, Gigi was increasingly convinced Torrado had created a salient and they were in it. As she and her team had approached through the newly reclaimed passageways, she’d heard the languid exchange of gauss weapon fire echoing from several corners away. 

The room was tiered, only without seats, desks or tables. Like a Roman amphitheater. Or a tiny coliseum. The walls and steps shone like obsidian, the native stone melted smooth when it was first carved out to seal in atmosphere. Later cracks from asteroid collisions or unknown stresses had been filled and sealed with a composite binding agent, like veins of quartz running through the faults and fractures of a metamorphic rock.

Three doors broke the geologic illusion, two forward and one to her left. The side door was a hatch to the corridor beyond, airtight like almost all compartment entry and egress doors in the complex. Both others were standard interior doors, but heavy and reinforced. The one nearest the hatch was sealed with a corporate cipher-lock. An armory she knew from previous missions. LISM didn’t trust prisoners with weapons until they had to, and even then would only activate them at the last possible minute. The other door troubled her a little more. It was a gunmetal gray composite in the shape of a standard door, mounted flush, yet devoid of either a keypad or handle. No hinges were visible. A private cubicle for the briefing officer? A cell? Neither made much sense.

“Who’s the BAM?” a sonorous male voice whispered somewhere behind Gigi.

“Bam?” a puzzled response came, another man.

“Broad-Assed Marine,” Gigi answered casually over her shoulder without turning to look. “Hers is the ass you’ll follow if you want to stay alive.”

Before either could respond, Torrado strode in through the exterior hatch to give the briefing. He stood before them like a band leader in the crisp, black uniform of an L-I Space and Missile Security officer. The bars of a captain shone on one tab of his collar opposite an LISM corporate logo, like a cop. Something about the twin bars particularly galled Gigi. Civilians shouldn’t be allowed to co-opt military rank as if they’d earned it. But she knew better than voicing her objection. This was an LISM Security operation. Hell, Obsession was an LISM world, though technically off the books.

“Ok, people, settle down,” Torrado said. It took only a moment before a nervous silence descended.

“The Greens have set up a new bio-weapons lab somewhere in this sector. Your mission is search and destroy.” He paused for a moment, surveying the group. “How many of you have been in a time-lock before?”

No hands went up. Even Gigi hadn’t heard the term.

“It’s like a camouflaged safe-deposit vault.” He pointed to the featureless door. “This complex is riddled with them. They weren’t designed by the Greens, or by anyone we’ve encountered. Their primary function remains unknown. The tech guys think they might tap into Transit Space. What we do know is that once sealed they are almost impossible to detect. Once a time-lock goes active, nothing short of a bunker-buster can destroy it. But our people in Cyber-Warfare Division cracked the lock and hacked the code for the mechanism.”

Torrado paced up and down on what passed for ground level, looking grave, as if he’d spent too much time in too many military entertainment sims. If it were possible, Gigi hated him even more. “Time flows differently in there. By the time you emerge, we will have pulled back from this sector. When the time-lock re-opens, twelve hours should  have elapsed and you should be somewhere deep in enemy territory. Find the lab and destroy it then get back inside the zone. Our sentries will be looking for you.”

Yeah, Gigi thought. Just like the last recon when they almost killed us because word hadn’t filtered down, and you hadn’t given us the proper passwords.

“Why don’t we just cut their power and air and be done with it?” one of the replacements asked, the only woman Gigi had seen back there.

A good question. Standard denial tactics. Gigi had asked the same on her team’s first mission.

Obsession was an asteroid field positioned at the L5 point in a binary system composed of an M5V red dwarf and its brown companion chasing each other like gravitational predator and prey. Planetologists thought that as much as ninety percent of the field’s content was shards from a captured dwarf planet that had been shattered by a large cometary body which had somehow survived the system’s tidal forces. The bulk of the field was composed of V-type asteroids with differentiated interiors, stratified geologic layers of crust, mantle and ancient core. They averaged 50 km in diameter. And they were riddled with rare iridium.

Extracting that isotope and processing it into LISM corporate profits had become Director Brianna Subramainan's only obsession, earning the system its unofficial name. The Greens’ recalcitrance in ceding their claim saw the project undermanned and over budget, harder and harder to hide from the rest of the board. With each passing year, Brianna's dream of springboarding her position deeper into the corporate ruling class faded a little further. But she was monomaniacally driven in a way only the director of one of human space’s largest Interstellars could be, well and truly obsessed. So rather than cutting her losses and burying her financial failure in some unauditable report, like an all-night gambler in deep with a brewing hangover, she kept doubling down in hopes of breaking even with a single throw. Rarely a winning strategy.

But long before LISM’s interest, someone very clever had gathered two roughly equal-massed, circular cones and laced them with gravitic drives to where they now circled a center of mass in space between them at a radial velocity that simulated just under one standard Terran G. No one was quite sure who had tunneled out the complex within the two Geminal cones, or how their fields were entwined, but experience had taught them that the grid was inextricable linked to those gravitic drives. Cutting power to any given sector risked breaking their delicate detente.  So as long as LISM remained, the Greens would stay one tier up on Maslow’s Hierarchy. Her job was to make sure they didn’t climb a second.

“I don’t pretend to understand the physics,” Torrado answered impatiently, “but if we drop the grid, the two Geminal cones will fly apart. So, like our motto says: Relentless forward progress.”

“It’s why God created infantry,” Gigi mumbled to Wilmots standing beside her, who then finished the protocol with, “And the reason boots on the ground never become obsolete.”

Torrado glared at them, then keyed a remote. The reinforced door to the armory swung open. “Gagnant, you have twenty minutes to get them organized.” He left through the same hatch he’d entered. It echoed shut behind him like a tomb. Apparently, that was all briefing they’d get.

Gigi stepped down to the central arc of the floor, and surveyed the group in front of her. She hesitated to call it a platoon as she wondered how many had formal military training. The replacements could be almost any convict with a military or security background whose prison contract had been sold to LISM.

Her core team watched her expectantly, wondering how she would integrate in the strangers. Of the six she’d arrived with less than a month ago, only four remained.

Bryce was a Peacekeeper. He was the only one she knew had been through LOW OrbIT basic, if only as a driver. He was competent but no marine.

Maahes was a CuFF and a Navy gunner. As a combat feline, his LOW OrbIT training had differed. But his superior senses and stalking instincts gave him an advantage in the tunnel complex, so she’d made him her alternate squad leader.

Wilmots had been in Customs Enforcement but had gotten caught up in the mess on Darwin, one of the handful rounded up by Lt. Freeman at Blind Mouth Bay. She’s seen months of close-in fighting in the hospital complex which made her invaluable down here.

Baidu was a cop before he signed on for Darwin’s Reconquista. He had a better grasp of navigating the tunnels than any of the others. He called something similar home on Tao.

That left the two she was missing. Neither had been soldiers but she still felt their loss, if only because she knew their capabilities.

Meinert had seen action in the Reconquista as a civilian contractor who’d signed on with the Interstellars’ private army. Though she was capable and dependable, she’d never adapted to close quarters that didn’t involve a vehicle. She’d been KIA their third time out.

Patel had been an EMT and a pacifist from Blood. Gigi had no idea who he’d pissed off to end up here but she missed having a medic on her team. He’d gone MIA on their disastrous fifth mission which on Obsession meant presumed dead.

The eight replacements, a tier back, remained almost complete unknowns. She treated them like any new class of green recruits.

“Look who we got stuck with?” The same voice as earlier, though Gigi now detected the clipped, rugged accent of a remote Fringe colony. It wasn’t hard to spot her antagonist. She didn’t look up at many people. She stood even with the average man on level ground. This man had to be pushing two meters even without a couple multi-centimeter steps up to his tier. But Gigi knew people miscalculated her height based on how much they feared or respected her.

“I suppose we will have to take orders from her pussy, too,” he continued, gesturing to Maahes. That got a laugh from the six men clustered around him. The lone woman, who stood apart, didn’t laugh. She just tried not to look too scared.

Gigi fixed the man with a long, hard look. Okoronkwo was the name stenciled on his uniform. He was tall and muscular with a sharp, angular face that somehow made him look demonic. Not his fault but Gigi suspected he played off it. His ebony skin and dark eyes didn’t hurt the impression, though in her mind it wouldn’t have matter if he’d been deathly pale. She was surprised he hadn’t tinted his eyes red. Probably a genetic purist, maybe a paternalist, fringe of the Fringe. As long as he wasn’t a supremacist, she didn’t care. Then she spotted a silver tattoo that she recognized as the team insignia for the Destroyers of Souls, a zero-G soccer squad, running from the back of his hand into his shirt. That and his cropped, graying hair confirmed an impression. He was a bully, a sports hooligan who had been at it long enough not to feel the need for affectations. She’d run into too many of his type growing up in the contract mines on Lode. But she knew how to handle them, even if she was growing tired of doing so.

Wilmots saved her the trouble. “Watch your tongue, snack-size, or one of us will find a better use for it. I think Maahes needs a bath.” Her beaded maroon hair rattled as she spoke, a sure sign of her annoyance.

Maahes raised a gray paw and washed it, slowly extending and retracting his claws, then dragged it across his face and whiskers. “Keep that veggie-breath away from me,” the automated voice from his comm unit intoned flatly. “God only knows whose ass that mouth had to kiss to get this assignment.”

That drew more nervous laughter from Okoronkwo’s coterie, though his expression remained pinched and unreadable.

“Listen up, mushrooms,” Gigi broke into her briefing using her command voice. “If someone told you this was a democracy just because you don’t see any rank, then they’ve been feeding you a load of shit and keeping you in the dark.”

“Now, normally,” she continued, “I’d tell you that at the end of this mission, half this unit will be casualties. Problem is the five of us down here are occupying the prime seats already. So maybe two of you survive. On a good day, I’d just turn you all over to Maahes to find a place to hide the bodies and be done with it. But I actually like him, so we’ll divide you up and try to keep you all alive. You will do as we say or someone will shoot you. If not the Greens, then one of us. Now stay where you are while we pick teams.”

She motioned her core team to huddle around. “Baidu and Bryce will be with me. I’ll take snack-size, the fawn, and the golden boy in back. Can you and Wilmots handle the rest?”

Maahes eyed the crowd behind her then nodded in a somewhat alien gesture.

“You sure you don’t want us to take him?” Wilmots asked. “I’ve dealt with his kind before.”

Gigi shook her head but appreciated the offer. “With only one sidekick, he’ll be mostly harmless. Besides, only former military would call me a BAM. So I want him on point with us. If he can follow orders, he might just be useful.”

“Big if, Lieutenant,” Maahes said. Even with a comm unit that made him sound like a ground-nav program giving directions, he still managed to make his cynicism known.

Gigi shrugged. “Any other concerns or questions?” No one spoke up. “Ok, then let’s see what poor excuse for equipment Torrado gave us this time and get them loaded up.”

For once, the equipment proved state-of-the-art, almost as good as Gigi had seen in the LOW OrbIT Marines. The body armor was a de-militarized version used by corporate security. Practically that meant the coverage was slightly less and the ballistic composite didn’t go through quite the same rigorous quality control. The gauss rifles, on the other hand, were full mil-spec, only a couple generations back. The INS gear included an integrated scanner with a programmable interface. The comms were fully encrypted spread spectrum. For once, they had a full compliment of tactical lights, filter masks, goggles, med supplies and miscellaneous personal tools, plus three days of rations and recycling stills. That alone said this mission would be tough. But no smart camo, heavy weapons or drones. A constant handicap that meant they might never win this war.

While Wilmots and Bryce ushered the replacements into the armory, Gigi and Baidu downloaded the latest overlays from Gigi’s nightshades into each squad’s INS with Maahes looking on. Once everyone was geared up and reassembled, Gigi checked their comm algorithm to ensure they were all on the same frequency hopping scheme.

Fifteen minutes later Torrado returned with a satchel slung over one shoulder, accompanied by a man in a uniform marking him as LISM Medical. While Torrado pointedly ignored the team that would do his dying, the medic pulled them aside one by one to inject them with a green Immunity Booster. Something in the way the man consulted with each of them in a whispered tone reminded Gigi of a priest at confession giving out penance and absolution. When her turn came, she said nothing, just accepting his benison with a grunt. Once the medic had finished, Torrado simply keyed the second reinforced door open and instructed Gigi to load her team.

Inside she found a plain, gray, composite compartment with benches lining two opposing walls. The entire plane of the ceiling glowed with icy cold-light. A keypad hung above one of the benches near the corner with alien markings stenciled above it like warnings or instructions, though the panel itself appeared opaque and dead. Essentially a freight elevator with seats.

Maahes and Wilmots took one side, Gigi, Bryce and Baidu the other. The replacements arranged themselves in no particular order. Most sat holding their gauss rifles between their knees as there was nowhere else to store them. Gigi’s body armor bit into her spine where it connected awkwardly against the hard, flat-backed wall of the compartment. If they stayed in here long, her lower back would begin to ache from the lack of support.

“I saved you a seat, Torrado,” Gigi smiled sweetly, scooting over and patting the bench beside her. “Seeing what combat looks like outside a sim might build you some character.”

He sneered back then entered a sequence on the interior keypad. It danced with violet light where his fingers connected then faded back into lifelessness. “You’ve got five minutes to unload after the doors open. Those Immunity Boosters are only good for three days, so don’t screw around, Gagnant. Mission failure doesn’t work off your debt.” He backed out, activating their weapons with the remote as the doors began to close. He quickly tossed in the satchel which landed at Gigi’s feet with a thud just before the doors sighed completely shut. She picked it up and set it on the seat beside her. Charges to blow the weapons lab.

Sealed inside, the recon team waited, unsure exactly what they were waiting for or how long it would be. At first they just tried not to stare across at each other. Baidu configured the INS like a soldier cleaning and reassembling his weapon. Bryce tugged on his horseshoe mustache, lost somewhere in thought. Wilmots played with the beads in her hair as she checked and rechecked her gauss rifle. Maahes sat beside her with his gray paws folded beneath him, silent but watchful.

The replacements looked uneasy and uncertain, though most had the good sense not to fidget. Only Okoronkwo seemed unaffected. He stared at Gigi like one of those stone heads from that island on ancient Earth. He remained enigmatic as she stared back. She only realized he was focused at a point just beyond her ear when his eyes briefly flicked to hers. Feeling guilty, she looked away.

The fawn distracted her with a nervous question. “How far do you think we’ll get?”

Gigi’s eye’s flicked to her chest. Sagnol was her name. Gigi smiled coldly, patting the satchel beside her. “With any luck, all the way to their bio-weapons lab. Just do your job, Sagnol, and we’ll all come out ok.”

“One recon platoon with no support or heavy weapons?” Baidu kicked in from the other side of Sagnol.

“The last heavy weapons you laid your hands on, Baidu, ended up on the black-market,” Gigi shot back with a grin. “Isn’t that how you got here?”

Bryce and Wilmots laughed. Baidu just smiled. But the ice was broken. Everyone began to relax, settling into their seats for the duration. Like a true soldier, Maahes’ eyes slowly drifted shut.

A sudden queasy lurch dropped into Gigi’s stomach, like she’d stepped on a grav plate well out of calibration. The ceiling light not so much flickered as rippled between bright and dim, drifting from icy blue to almost ultraviolet. She felt disoriented. A couple of the replacements clutched their stomachs. One doubled over. She saw a twisted expression play at the corners of Okoronkwo’s mouth.

A second later, both ends of the compartment sprang open. Followed nearly simultaneously by the distinctive sound of gauss rifle fire stitching a neat line of divots along the opposite wall, trailing from high to low before shattering keypad panel with a wisp of acrid smoke. Two replacements went down when that line intersected them, the golden boy and one other, the former with a small, almost bloodless wound just above the bridge of his nose like a Bloodite’s bindi, the latter moaning, clutching his abdomen, blood oozing between his fingers.

Time slowed as Gigi’s combat reactions kicked in. The compartment was a death trap. She needed to get them out. No one awaited her encouragement. The replacements were already stampeding the other door.

When Gigi tried to call them back, she found her comm channel flooded with static. Jammers. She shouted orders for her squad to lay down suppressing fire, and for Maahes’s squad to pull out the wounded. In the confusion, one seemed to hear.

So she resorted to Leadership 101. First she pushed Baidu down, back toward the door taking fire, then she clutched the collar of a retreating Sagnol and slung her onto the bench, all the while shouting a repeat of her orders, desperate to be heard above the din of more incoming fire before a retreat turned into a route.

Gigi then knelt beside the door, ducking out to return fire in short, controlled bursts down the perpendicular corridor the time-lock emptied out on. An instant later, she noticed someone standing over her, doing the same. Okoronkwo. She adjusted her nightshades to mark weapon signatures. Baidu, now recovered, used her fire to grab cover behind a row of lockers lining the wall opposite the time-lock door. The three of them laid down a burst of sustained fire, allowing Sagnol to scurry across, too, where she clung to the wall behind Baidu. Now Gigi could setup a bounding overwatch to secure the corridor and cover Maahes’ retreat.

Gigi spared a glance over her shoulder back inside the time-lock. Bryce had scooted back in and now clutched the gut wound under both arms. He was the last of their team inside except the KIA. The body of the golden boy slumped against the bench, eyes wide, staring at the ceiling, blood trickling down the wall toward his shoulder. A wave of guilt washed over Gigi as she realized she’d never learned his name. But this was exactly why: the fuckers would just die on her anyway. Names held power through the attachment they created.

No time to think about that now. Gigi flicked her eyes to the chronometer integrated in her nightshades. Less than a minute had elapsed. She set a timer for three. She shouted to Bryce that they would cover here while Maahes found a place to regroup. He had three minutes. Bryce flashed the universal sign for understood, and began to drag the gut wound out.

Just as Gigi turned back to the task of securing the corridor, both compartment doors began to slowly drift shut. What the hell? That hadn’t been five minutes. She caught the chronometer hanging in her peripherals. More like one.

No time to decide. It was either in or out. If she sprinted, she might make Bryce’s side. The gut wound’s feet had just cleared the far door. That meant abandoning Baidu and Sagnol. No way. Okoronkwo had fixed her with an evil eye as if calculating that she would discard the other two as collateral damage when the door scissored past. In another second, the decision would be made for her.

“Cover us!” she screamed across at Baidu and Sagnol. She dove out to the center of the corridor, tucked and rolled prone, barely feeling the sting of impacts against her chest. Flicking the gauss rifle to full auto and trying to ignore the adrenaline, she concentrated on using the nightshades to walk her fire to a target about twenty meters down the corridor, lurking at a corner. One string of enemy fire quickly ceased.

Her nightshades registered a shadow pass over and behind her. She disregarded it, adjusting her stream of flechettes to the other corner at the top of the hall where more fire originated. This one, too, stopped, though Gigi was uncertain whether she’d hit the target or it had merely ducked out of sight.

Before she could decide, someone grabbed both her feet and hauled her backwards. An instant later, she was crowded with the other three behind the shallow row of lockers that provided their only cover. The center of her chest now burned as if someone had dropped lighted nic-stick down her shirt. The slowly spreading sensation of liquid warmth didn’t put it out.

She’d have to deal with that later. Right now they’d have bigger problems if someone ducked back around the corner and laid down more fire. They needed a place to regroup, somewhere defensible.

When she looked across the passageway, the time-lock was gone. Her nightshades couldn’t detect so much as a seam or an energy signature where it had stood open less than a minute before.

The corridor they occupied was lighted by sporadic, recessed cold-lights, significantly fewer than when they’d entered the time-lock. A glance behind her revealed more passageway, lined on the same side with more lockers. On the opposite wall about ten meters back was a hatchway, shut. Twenty meters farther back, another closed hatch sealed the passageway behind them like a blind alley. If those two hatchways were secured, the four of them would be ducks of a carnival sim when the next assault came. And if more enemy lurked behind them, her people wouldn’t last two seconds in the crossfire.

She scanned her squad, evaluating. Sagnol was scared but still functional, though Gigi couldn’t tell for how long if she was given time to think. Baidu was scanning the INS display, presumably to pin down exactly where they were and options for retreat. Okoronkwo swung his weapon back and forth between the two corners from which they’d been taking fire in front of them. He raised a hand and tapped his helmet, the universal sign for listen.

Gigi concentrated a moment to still her ragged breath, then heard it, the sound of a body being dragged away. Their unseen enemy was either in retreat or preparing another assault. She checked the round counter on her gauss rifle. Down half. Another firefight like the last and she’d have to change magazines. Not good with them all jammed into the same piece of cover. One grenade could take them out.

With nowhere to pull back to, it was time to seize the initiative. Gigi tapped each of her people’s helmets in turn, first verifying no one else was hit. Then, with quick, clear hand gestures, she motioned that she and Okoronkwo would secure the corners ahead of them, him left, her right. Staying behind the lockers, Baidu would cover high, Sagnol low. They would advance when she waved them forward. She just hoped Sagnol didn’t get too excited and mow them both down.

With a quick countdown on her fingers, she signaled Okoronkwo to lead off. She followed at a sprint half a second later. Gigi reached her corner a few seconds back. Okoronkwo’s legs were longer and he knew how to make them work.

Crouching at the corner, Gigi scanned her sector. She looked out into a nightmare scenario. A twenty by twenty meter chamber with intermittent, recessed cold-lights, only a quarter of which functioned. She counted two open passageways in her sector alone.  Along with four parallel banks of floor to ceiling lockers to the right side of center that could easily conceal another passageway from view, maybe more. She tried to decide what they’d stumbled into. A school? It didn’t matter. She cycled her nightshades through their settings, low-light, IR, UV, energy signatures. Everything came up clear. 

She looked to Okoronkwo. He signaled the same. She scanned his sector quickly, counted two more passageways and a hatchway several meters down an adjacent wall. She’d have a hard time securing this space with all of Maahes’s squad too, never mind just the four of them.

A training sergeant’s voice echoed through her head. Keep them moving, lieutenant.

She signaled the other two forward. She related a change of plans. Sagnol would take up position as sentry. Gigi and Baidu would clear the doors behind them with Okoronkwo providing cover. Fewer potential friction points.

The three of them quickly secured the corridor. The dead-end hatch led to another passageway. The nature of the complex beyond seemed to change. The side hatch led to a room almost exactly like the briefing room they’d departed from but not quite. Two small interior rooms, neither cipher-locked, both empty, no exits. Stacks of chairs strewn across top two tiers, one overturned and spilling down a level. Only a smattering of the recessed cold-lights glowed dimly overhead. Small changes.

Gigi left Okoronkwo in the chamber’s hatchway supporting Sagnol, while she and Baidu retreated inside to sort out where they were. Or more importantly, where Maahes might be. The big man divided his attention between watching them over a shoulder and looking up and down the hall.

Gigi leaned in over Baidu’s INS display. “Have you nailed down our position?”

“Everything syncs up to right where we started. Except that door,” he pointed to the far one, “was the time-lock but now looks like an office. And there should be almost a mirror image of this room backing up to this wall. Plus there were no lockers in the passageway when we came in.”

The burning in Gigi’s chest had mostly dulled to a throbbing ache just below her breastbone. She had to get a look at it. “See what else you can find.”

While Baidu fiddled with the INS, Gigi unstrapped the chest plate of her armor. Tacky blood stuck it to her shirt, and her shirt against her chest.

“What’s our time lag?” she asked as she peeled up the armor like a day-old bandage and carefully pulled it away. At least a centimeter of flechette protruded from the inside. Another half a centimeter and it would have ricocheted through her abdomen. At least blood wasn’t pumping from the wound, merely oozing.

“There’s no way too tell,” Baidu said. “All I have is subjective time until we find a source to sync to.”

“What about this jamming? Any way to punch through it?” Gigi tried to worry the fragment free of her armor but it snapped off, slicing open her thumb and forefinger. She cursed as she dabbed them on a bandana she pulled from a pocket. Okoronkwo watched her intently as she knocked the jagged edge flush with her utility tool.

“All the channels are locked up tight. Unless we find the source, we’re down to shouting range.”

Beautiful. “Any idea where the hell Maahes is?” She looked down at her shirt. A little more blood welled out from the hole left by the flechette. She pulled up her shirt to get a closer look. Okoronkwo’s gaze snapped back to the passageway suddenly as if studying something very interesting in its highest corner. Gigi wasn’t modest but his reaction made her self-conscious. As she examined the wound, she turned away from both men, though neither appeared to be watching.

“If these overlays are accurate,” Baidu said. “I’m not seeing where his position might link up with ours. I’d need to map out more.”

“We don’t have time for that.” The wound was small, the fresh blood merely seeping now. Gigi wiped it clean with her bandana, then medicated it and slapped a bandage on. “If we fail this mission, everyone draws another. Maahes knows that, too. And no one gets left behind. As Torrado would say, relentless forward progress. Ideas?”

Baidu shrugged. “We could see if the Greens left a trail and follow that.”

“If they’ve got wounded,” Gigi strapped her chest plate back on, “they’ll probably drag them away from their nest and lead us into a trap. We’ve seen it before.”

Baidu shrugged again.

Gigi turned back to Okoronkwo and found he was still studying that same spot near the ceiling in the corridor. Being respectful was one thing but this was ridiculous.

“You still with us Okoronkwo?” she snapped, harsher than she meant to.

“I think there is something up there.” He pointed to where he was looking.

Gigi stepped up beside him, adjusting her nightshades. Dialing them to look for energy sources, she saw a speckling of bright spots up in that corner. He must have one hell of an eye. “It looks like a cable painted with smart camo running along the corner of the ceiling. The coating must have been nicked a flechette. What do you make of it, Baidu?” She passed her nightshades over.

“It looks like a landline someone strung up.” He considered it a moment then handed the nightshades back. “Which makes a lot of sense.”

Gigi raised an eyebrow. “How so?”

“When you assault a compound you cut power and water first thing, then jam communications. Standard police procedure. The serious fringe groups know that. They hardwire landlines and try to jam you back.”

Now Gigi understood. “Can you tap into it?”

“Too primitive.” Baidu shook his head. “We don’t have the right equipment.”

Gigi thought a moment. “But if we follow that cable, it’s likely to lead somewhere worth finding.”

Baidu smiled, but it only lasted a moment. “Anything worth finding is likely to be well defended. Do we wait for Maahes?”

Gigi considered the question. Baidu was right but every moment they waited was another moment that whoever had attacked them could relay word back. They needed to keep moving. “The four of us will take up recon. We’ll leave a trail of breadcrumbs, one only he should be able to follow.”

Both Baidu and Okoronkwo looked at her curiously. She held up her bleeding fingers. “A blood trail. Nothing too prominent, just enough for him to smell.”

“And if he’s dead?” Okoronkwo asked.

Gigi didn’t like facing that prospect. She relied on the little furball. But she knew it was a possibility. “Then Wilmots or Bryce will have to lead them home,” she answered, suddenly sounding more grave. She looked back up the hall to where Sagnol kept nervously checking over her shoulder as if to ensure they hadn’t left her behind. “Either way, we still have a job to do. Let’s collect Sagnol before she thinks we’ve bugged out.”

With an algorithm input from Gigi’s nightshades, Baidu programmed his scanner to punch through the cable’s smart camo. Gigi marked their starting point with blood, right where the time-lock had opened but no longer stood.

They made a quick sweep of the large chamber, both to ensure it was clear and to make certain there was no connection to Maahes’ initial position that hadn’t made it onto the INS. They only discovered a blood trail leading between two banks of lockers, away from both the cable and from Maahes’ last presumed position.

From there, they began a series of bounding overwatches down the corridor with the cable. Gigi divided their experience as equitably as she could, she and Sagnol acting as one team, Baidu and Okoronkwo as the other. The trailing pair of each team was tasked with watching behind as well as forward. They operated under tactical lights as the cold-lights in the corridors became more irregular and unreliable. Almost as though the power here had become degraded but not quite cutoff.

All the corridors were uniform, three by three meter conduits with darkly polished walls, broken only by occasional lightning cracks of filler. Industrial construction as if cranked out by tunnel grinder with a surface melter trailed behind. Close up, the inside corners had the barest rounding rather than the normal sharpness of joined surfaces. The hatches and doors appeared to be later additions with standard electronic mechanisms as well as manual overrides, artifacts of an extended human occupation.

The complex reeked of near abandonment. Pools of sweat, blood or other fluids had been colonized by furry patches of mold that sometimes phosphoresced when her team brushed too close. Runnels and rivulets of dripping moisture mildewed and lichened on the walls. Albino cockroaches scurried at the edge of the light, along with intermittent trails of eyeless ants and other insectile vermin that always setup shadow colonies throughout the margins of human space.

As the team proceeded, the lockers completely disappeared. The working overheads grew fewer, the shadows deeper, the walls dirtier. Constellations of flechette scars starred the corners, interspersed with the occasional dark or light powdery nebulae of scorch marks, attesting to a history of internecine human fighting. Gigi marked the passageway at regular intervals, as well as each side of every intersection they passed, and both sides of each corner they turned. Just the barest dab of blood buried where the floor met the wall.

Three hundred meters later, Baidu waved Gigi back. She signaled Okoronkwo and Sagnol to take up watch positions forward. When she arrived beside Baidu, he was studying the INS as if trying to decode an ancient language without a Rosetta stone.

“What’s up?” Gigi whispered.

“Thought you should know, we’re officially off the grid.”

“You mean we’ve moved beyond the map edge?” she tried to clarify.

He shook his head. “The INS no longer syncs up with facts on the ground. I started seeing small deviations all the way back to the open chamber where we started but wrote them off as mapping errors, like the missing room by the time-lock. Now, there are too many to ignore.”

“So where exactly are we?” she asked, looking over his shoulder.

“I thought we were headed toward this nexus chamber here.” He pointed to the display, then to the intersection ahead of them. “But neither of those corridors heads the right direction. If we weren’t following that cable, I’d say flip a coin.”

“So we’re effectively lost.” Gigi glared at the display. That was just peachy. If they couldn’t trust the INS, Maahes might not find a way to link up with them. And none of them might find their way back inside the zone. If they weren’t on the right map grid, where in the hell were they?

Suddenly, the lights of their two sentries winked out. Gigi and Baidu threw on their low-level filters and moved up. Okoronkwo waited at the corner. When they arrived, the big man hooked a thumb toward it. Ahead, Gigi saw the telltale lights of occupation, moving but not toward her, at least a corner away. Okoronkwo did have a good eye.

She pulled back and huddled her team around her. Baidu worried over the INS display. Sagnol looked like a spring wound just a bit too tight. Only Okoronkwo betrayed no emotion.

“We move up by pairs and reconnoiter, corner to corner.” Gigi tried to keep confidence in her whisper, offering more reassurance than she felt. “If it’s a sentry post, we’ll see if we can take them by surprise. If not, we’ll circle around until we find an opening.”

Gigi motioned them forward. At the next corner, she fed her gauss rifle display to her nightshades then popped the weapon out low for a look. A small group of Greens clustered over a travel case of equipment. Behind them lay another intersection.

One by one, cameras and microphones emerged, then a swivel-mounted micro-gun. Two technicians started connecting cables, while two soldiers watched lackadaisically. They were setting up a listening post. Five more minutes and the corridor would be as good as sealed. Word of their presence must have leaked back. Though these four didn’t appear to be overly concerned.

Gigi brought up the map overlay in her nightshades. If the leftmost passageway behind them ran true, it would lead exactly where the INS said Baidu’s nexus chamber should be, just by a slightly different path. This might be their only opportunity to see the mission through.

With quick hand signs, Gigi signaled four unfriendlies. She carefully dialed down her gauss rifle into subsonic sniper mode. She had Okoronkwo do the same. She trusted his eye best. She motioned she would go low, taking the two to the right, and he would go high taking the pair to the left. He nodded understanding. 

On a finger count of three, they swung around the corner. Again, Gigi tried to ignore the rush of adrenaline, focusing on the soldier who was her initial target. She squeezed off a round just as his expression turned from shocked surprise to understanding that his limbs could not obey his brain fast enough to change the outcome of the encounter. His brain gave up trying even before he hit the floor. Gigi switched to the technician without processing what she had done. The girl quickly fell beside her companion with a soft thud. Then Gigi scanned Okoronkwo’s pair for another target. Both lay still as well.

Now they were committed. It wouldn’t be long before the listening post was expected to report in.

Gigi moved forward quickly, motioning Okoronkwo and Sagnol to take up watch at the intersection. Gigi hauled the bodies out of the center of the passageway in case they had to retreat. It was only then that she noticed how young and gaunt all four were, like undernourished teenagers playing soldier. As did Sagnol who seemed unable to tear her eyes away from their grimy faces as she passed.

Gigi shook off the thought as she squatted down beside the micro-gun next to Baidu. They’d been armed. And she still had a job to do. “Can we take it with us?” she asked.

Baidu looked up from the controller. He sighed and shook his head. “It will take a while to break it down. But it looks like they were almost finished. I might be able to bring it up here.”

“Do it. Then set it to standby. I don’t want it going off accidentally if Maahes catches up. We’ll use it to cover our withdrawal if necessary.” She motioned Sagnol to get ready to move.

“What’s the plan, Lieutenant?” Baidu asked.

“We flank them through the tunnels and catch them by surprise. Both these corridors should link up with the nexus chamber. Sagnol and I will take the rightmost, you and Okoronkwo the one with the cable. Wait five minutes to let us get in position, then initiate an assault. We’ll catch them in a crossfire before they before they can react. But we need to move fast.”

“That map is fucked,” Baidu reminded her. “You can’t trust it.”

“We have to risk it,” she replied. “I want a clean confirmation that we achieved the objective so there’s no way Torrado can mark it as a mission failure. Him and his relentless forward progress. If we wait, we’ll lose our opportunity.”

“What about Maahes?” Baidu tone didn’t sound hopeful.

“Any more of these,” Gigi pointed to the micro-gun, “and reinforcements won’t matter. Plus Maahes’ squad might just provide a diversion if the Greens are tracking them instead of us. ” 

Baidu nodded. “Where’s the rally point?”

“Back at the passageway by the time-lock. Make sure you set that thing to recognize me and Sagnol as friendlies in case it comes to that.”

“Underway, Lieutenant.” He turned back to the controller.

Gigi left him to it. She rose to find Okoronkwo staring at her intently. She nodded an acknowledgement, which he returned with a half-whispered, half-mouthed, “Lieutenant.” The word startled her. Something she’d done must have made an impression on him to counter his initial hostility. She wondered if she’d ever learn what it was. Had he only been pushing her before to see how she’d react? Maybe she’d misjudged him.

Gigi tapped Sagnol on the shoulder and motioned down the passageway. The other woman jumped as Gigi touched her.

“Breathe, Sagnol. Almost there.” Gigi spoke quietly, laying a hand on her shoulder. She felt it quiver beneath her palm. She looked Sagnol in the eye as she waited for it to subside. How had she not noticed before how young Sagnol was? Almost as young as the girl in the corridor. Almost as young as Gigi when she’d first signed on as a Marine. Then a sudden realization struck her: Sagnol wasn’t afraid because this was her first combat mission. She was afraid it would be her last. She wondered what the younger woman had done to earn her place here. “We’ll see you through this.”

“You could have left me at the time-lock.” The younger woman looked up at her. “I just don’t want to let you down, Lieutenant.”

“I don’t leave my team behind.” Gigi smiled and squeezed Sagnol’s shoulder gently before turning to lead the way down the corridor. She set a five minute countdown timer on her nightshades.

Three minutes later, Gigi regretted her decision to separate the squad. The corridor had quickly synched back up the map overlay on her nightshades, then just as quickly diverged again at the point that turning back meant missing their timetable. So she opted to press forward, hoping for a break.

It came a moment later when ground truth realigned with the abstract representation. And evaporated just as quickly as gauss rifle fire erupted somewhere in front them. Too early. They hurried toward the sound as fast as Gigi dared without inadvertently stumbling into an ambush.

Two corners later, they arrived at the edge of the nexus chamber, a similar configuration as the one they’d seen before. Only this one was stacked with crates and equipment. And in place of the banks of lockers stood an improvised isolation lab constructed from composite framing and clear plastic sheeting.

It appeared luck was on their side. They were ninety degrees off Baidu’s position. All the fire was drawn that way. Pulling back around the corner, Gigi began to calculate how far they would need to retreat to achieve safe distance while Sagnol kept watch behind.

The firing across the chamber began to wane. Baidu and Okoronkwo must already be pulling back. Gigi scrambled to set the timers on the incendiaries in the satchel.

An instant later, her world slowed to almost strobe-light speed as she processed a sudden change in circumstances. In the corridor behind them, the micro-gun burst into a rage. Something had gone wrong. Sagnol shouted an incomprehensible warning as her gauss rifle exploded in a panic. Full auto, no bursts. Perimeter guards must have cut them off. Gigi wondered if they’d stumbled into a trap. They’d just run out of time.

She abandoned finesse. Thumbing one of the incendiaries to the shortest delay, she dropped it back in the satchel. She glanced at Sagnol just in time to see her fall. Winding up like a discus thrower, Gigi stepped around the corner and sidearmed her deadly burden toward the lab. It spun across the empty space, its strap revolving around the central pouch like a kitten chasing its own tail.

As her momentum carried her back toward the corner, a blur of the images of the nexus chamber whirled by almost faster than she could process them. But like a shutter opening then snapping shut, her mind latched onto only one and refused to let it fade, the freeze-frame of a young child cowering among the crates. Gigi’s chest exploded in an ache but not from her wound. A memory came flooding back, bodies in a lake. A rush of emotion overwhelmed her. She couldn’t watch another child die.

Gigi moved before she thought. Her boots skidded on the smooth surface of the corridor as she struggled against inertia. Impacts chased behind her as she sprinted across the chamber toward child. Shards of stone stung her ankles like a swarm of biting fleas. As she closed the distance, she dove, sliding across the polished floor. She scooped up the child like an errant hockey puck and cradled him, twisting her body to shield him as she glided to rest among the crates. She barely felt the impact of rounds against her back as she curled around him. Her hands clutched his head tight against her chest plate just as the shockwave enveloped them in a shroud of cold, artificial night.

---

Gigi awoke with her hands zip-tied in front of her, surprised that she felt no burns. Her ears were ringing. Her head felt stuffed with wool. Patel leaned over the child she had saved, checking him for wounds. Somehow, she wasn’t surprised to see her former medic.

She quickly learned the one charge in her satchel had blown the others clear. The shockwave had reached her but the fireball had fallen short. Baidu, Okoronkwo and Sagnol had not been so lucky. They’d been KIA along with two more Greens from the explosion, plus the four from the listening post. Patel tended another half-dozen wounded. The lab equipment was damaged but not fully out of commission. The isolation shelter was a twisted wreck.

Within minutes, the Greens were on the move. They hauled the bodies with them along with all of their equipment and what they could salvage from the lab. They blindfolded Gigi before they retreated, but not before forcing her to carry Sagnol’s body. Gigi was surprised how small and light the younger woman felt, how slight a burden she was now. Suddenly, another memory surfaced, one of digging through a barn and hauling out a host of small, twisted corpses. In the murky darkness behind the cloth, she wondered if she’d been transported back to the Farm and this body was just one more. Is that how this nightmare had started? She was no longer certain. She could no longer rely on any memory as real.

An indeterminate time later, someone called a halt. Gigi was relieved of Sagnol and forced to sit with her back against a wall. The blindfold was taken from her eyes.

They were in another large chamber, this one long, wide and high, with hatches on all the exits. Maybe a former gymnasium. Somewhere deep in the unsurveyed portion of the complex Gigi suspected. She wished she had her nightshades to confirm it.

A large group of people clustered inside. They were different from the others she’d encountered on previous missions. This group had families. Most had no weapons, so she tagged them as refugees. Yet another surprise Torrado had neglected to mention in his briefing.

The chamber looked like a mini-camp she might find somewhere in the Stack Maze of Petit Darwin on Home. Improvised privacy screens strung up on repurposed frames that shielded each family from its neighbors. A bank of communal shower stalls. Raised bed gardens, a mix of traditional and hydroponics right next to a public kitchen and refectory. A complement of water recyclers, methane scrubbers, and composting toilets. A compact fusion generator. Inductive taps into the Geminal cone’s distribution network jury-rigged to charge pieces of salvaged electronics gear. Everything stained, worn and slightly grungy.

The demographics were skewed toward youth. Mostly couples and families with a range of children from infants to adolescents. The adults were bracketed by the extreme bounds of breeding age. Libertarians, pioneers and dreamers in the prime of their productive working years. Just like contract miners, their faces wore creases, lines and furrows like scars that proved their able-bodiedness had not seen a moment’s rest. And just like in the mines, no real elderly or infirm that such a marginal community could ill afford to feed. Almost everyone showed signs of malnutrition as well as the green shoots opportunistic disease.

Gigi was thankful for her Immunity Booster even if it only gave her a few days protection. She could see most of her captors were infected with a common pathogen as well. The Greens and their godforsaken plagues.

While she waited, she watched a group of children strip the corpses of all their clothing and equipment. They passed the bodies to an older team who began slicing meat from bone, butchering them like pigs. She quickly turned away, her stomach crawling up her throat.

She focused on the technicians manning a communications center constructed from a pile of composite cases. Others began reassembling the scorched remains of the bio-lab. Nearby, Patel and some soldiers argued, occasionally gesturing toward her. After a heated debate, he strode over, snagging her comm from a pile of equipment that looked like a holocaust sorting station, as well as rounding up her team’s IDs. He dropped them in her lap.

“I convinced them not to kill you,” he said as he cut free her hands. “Quid pro quo for the child.”

Gigi rubbed her wrists then dropped the IDs in a pocket. She nodded toward the improvised abattoir without looking at it. “My people don’t deserve that. Leave their bodies for a recovery team. Give them at least that much respect.”

“Sorry.” Patel shook his head, slumping down the wall beside her. “We need them for the composters. Blood and bone meal for gardens. They’re resources we can’t afford to waste. It’s pretty much subsistence rations down here.”

“It’s disgusting and barbaric,” Gigi said without meeting his eye.

“You think we want to live this way?” He turned to stare at her. “It’s not like LISM has given us much choice.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Patel?” Gigi shifted to face him. “They didn’t start this insurrection. I may not agree with their methods but they have the right to defend their assets against terrorist attacks.”

“Terrorism?” Patel laughed. “Is that what you think this is? We’re not the ones trading in children. Or killing them.”

Gigi’s anger flared back to life. “The only children I’ve killed have tried to kill me first. Maybe if you Greens didn’t brainwash thirteen-year-olds and hand them a weapon.”

“You think this some ideological struggle?” Patel snapped. He swept his arm across the room. “Look around you, Gagnant. This is the real Green Revolution. People who are sick of their government backing the Interstellars who exploit them. They’re willing to die just live like this.”

She barely spared the chamber a glance. “And take anyone who stands in their way with them. What happened to your pacifism?”

“I make an exception for self-defense,” Patel shot back.

Gigi could only stare at him incredulously. He had balls, she’d give him that.

“These people settled this complex before LOW OrbIT even knew it existed,” Patel continued angrily. “It was only when their iridium turned up on Anarchy’s black market that Brianna Subramainan cut a deal with LOW OrbIT for exclusive mineral rights in exchange for help with Darwin’s Reconquista.”

Gigi sneered but stayed quiet. Their argument had begun to draw the attention of the Greens around them who stared at her with open hostility.

Patel seemed to take notice, too. “Seriously,” he lowered his voice, “how the hell do you think we both ended up here? The man who sent us needs this place to succeed. Without someone like you, that would never happen. You and your team are the only ones who’ve survived five missions. I have no doubt Maahes will survive another five even without you. That CuFF has nine lives at least.”

Gigi had been hoping Patel had forgotten about him. But she saw no point in denying it. “By now, he’ll have pulled them back,” she lied. Or at least she hoped. Maybe if she stalled long enough, the little furball would have a chance to find her.

“That’s not very likely,” Patel replied with a touch of his former condescension.

She just stared back, her expression flat. Waiting.

“You don’t even know where here is, do you?” He sneered at her comtemptuously. “You’re not in the same Geminal cone anymore, Gagnant. The time-lock transported you over to the other side. There’s no retreat from here. Even if there were, you’ve been gone more than a week. No one’s looking for you now.”

Gigi stared at him stonily, as if channeling Okoronkwo’s spirit. So The Greens knew about the time-locks. That might explain the ambush as soon as the doors opened. It was only luck that Maahes had slipped away with the bulk of her team. “That doesn’t make much sense. You just said Torrado needs us.”

Patel shook his head slowly. “I said the man who sent you here needs you. Torrado fears you just as much as these people. If you turn on him, he doesn’t have the forces to stop you from claiming all of Obsession. So he sent you on a suicide mission without bothering to tell anyone, including Subramainan or her handler.”

They settled into an uncomfortable silence, both staring straight ahead. This was all new to Gigi. She hated politics. She needed time to think.

“What do you want from me, Patel?” she finally asked. “We both know I’m not going to convert to the cause just because you spared my life.”

“No,” He smiled wryly. “I never thought you would. But I can get you and your people out of here. This isn’t your fight.”

“Just like that? For old time’s sake?” Gigi gave him a long, evaluating stare. “Why now?”

Patel met her eye. Then he dug in his pocket and held out an auto-injector filled with green fluid.

“What’s that?” she asked, suspiciously.

“Maybe your ticket out.”

“Enough riddles, Patel,” she snapped. “What is it?”

“What’s it look like?” he insisted.

Gigi sighed. Fine, she’d play along. “It’s an Immunity Booster.”

“That’s what Torrado told you,” Patel shook his head slowly. “But it’s not. And never has been.”

Now she was curious but she waited for him to continue. She hated playing his game.

“It’s the next generation of mindwipe, better than the ones we saw before. Those relied on a synthesized cone snail toxin to inhibit the conversion of short-term to long-term memories. But it had a limited metabolic duration. That’s why all our previous missions had to be so short.”

“This,” Patel held up the auto-injector as if to examine or admire it, “this is more elegant. It’s a tailored bio-chemical cocktail that binds to the receptor in place of the normal enzyme that forms a memory. Except that it also leaves a little hook hanging out like a tail. Completely inert until the right molecular machine comes along and unzips all those memories like unraveling the stitches of a cheap knit sweater. Then, poof, it’s like they never happened.” He spread the fingers of his other hand for emphasis.

“Sounds like you’re in love.” Gigi grew impatient.

“You’ve seen what simple mindwipes can do. Imagine something more powerful in the hands of LISM or any other Interstellar, especially without an antidote.”

Gigi shivered inside. “So what’s this have to do with me?”

“In some ways, it’s less like a drug and more like a virus. One in a ten thousand people has the antibodies to resist it.”

“And you think I’m one,” she finished for him.

“I know you are,” Patel nodded. “It correlates to the same DNA sequence as resistance to the mindwipes. Your immunity gets stronger with each exposure.”

“So why not just kill me and take what you need?” That was the Greens’ well-earned reputation.

“We need a living sample. A dead one is useless,” he replied, disdainful as ever. “And it’s easier if you cooperate.”

“And if I agree to help you, you’ll save my team,” Gigi stated evenly, trying to control her anger. Why hadn’t he offered this as soon as the time-lock opened? Why did so many of people have to die? Why was her team being butchered like livestock? It all felt like a betrayal. “Why now?”

“Call it a resurgence of my pacifist nature. Do no more harm than necessary.” Then he spread his hands. “Plus it’s not like I’m in charge.”

His explanation niggled at the corner of her mind. Another piece of a puzzle slipped into place. “You’re not a medic; you’re a bio-medical engineer. That’s your lab. You helped design this drug, didn’t you?”

Patel merely shrugged, stuffing the Immunity Booster back in a pocket as if to hide it.

Gigi looked to where the Greens were setting up the bio-lab. She wondered if the plague she saw was just a side effect of Patel’s failed antidote research. She thought a little longer. Patel was a coward, not an altruist. He always acted out of fear. Another memory surfaced. A face and a name. Her eyes narrowed. She turned back to him. “This all comes back to Nick Michaels. You’re still working for him, aren’t you?”

Before Patel could answer, the sound of distant gauss rifle fire echoed from one of the side corridors. Maahes had found her trial of breadcrumbs.

Soldiers began running in response to the noise, opening hatches and darting down tunnels. Gigi tried to gauge their dispositions, and how Maahes might proceed. It all depended on how much of his squad was left intact. She hoped he’d found the aftermath of her previous assault and could gauge the Greens’ numbers.

Patel rose to his feet, his eyes darting around nervously as if looking for a place to hide. He dug in a pocket and held out her comm. “Decision time, Gagnant. Call off your people and we have a deal.”

“Why should I believe anything you’ve said?” she asked without reaching for it. “Why shouldn’t I just do my job and watch you die?”

Fighting echoed from a second corridor, one too few soldiers had started down. Maahes had setup a diversion. His instincts served him well. He’d be here soon. Never fuck with a carnivore.

“It doesn’t matter.” Resignation crept into Patel’s voice. “As long as Torrado has the time-locks and the memory block, we are all doomed to repeat this scene over and over again. If not you and I, then someone else.”

This time she believed him.

In the chamber, families drew closer. Children whimpered as they huddled to their mothers for protection. They knew what might be coming. They’d witnessed this too many times before. The remaining sentries eyed her suspiciously. Too many of those faces were young and inexperienced. If Maahes broke through, it would be a massacre.

“It’s now or never, Gagnant. I can make certain no one will kill you before your people arrive. But I will ensure you remember everything.” In his other hand Patel now held a blue filled auto-injector, balanced against the comm like a choice. Or a threat. “How many children are you prepared to watch die?”

A sudden weariness spread over Gigi like a sickly yellow fog. She carried too many bodies with her now. Baidu, Okoronkwo, Sagnol, the golden boy. The soldiers at the listening post. All the girls from The Farm. The burden had grown too heavy for her. She was tired of killing children for someone else’s cause.

“Drop the jammers, Patel.” She reached for her comm then paused. “There’s one condition.”

“What’s that?” he asked, frantically signaling one of the technicians manning the electronics.

“When this is over, you will inject me with those molecular machines and make me forget,” she implored with more emotion than she intended.

Patel gaze snapped back and he stared at her aghast. Then slowly, he nodded.

Gigi accepted the comm and held it to her ear.


Read Humanitarian Aid (Memory Block, pt. 4)

© 2014 Edward P. Morgan III