Chapter 27
Samara Akaramides was finally free to be the rogue minder that the CPS was afraid of, but she couldn’t take time to savor it.
The wind punched the small military shuttle sideways for a heart-stopping moment. A ferocious cross-draft threatened to shake it apart.
Dust arose from every hidden crevice and threatened to make her sneeze. Her perfectly tailored but unfamiliar military uniform and mid-height heavy boots chafed in unexpected places. Her short hair felt weird. Despite the integrated snow hood on her regulation long coat, her ears felt naked.
The cargo bags on the shuttle’s floor would have gone flying if she hadn’t secured them with the holdfast. It was easier to ignore the pilot seat wobbling under her because that was normal. Not normal was flying in a whiteout snowstorm.
Especially not normal was letting the shuttle’s AI fly by itself, disconnected. The military traffic control system was glitching, so the AI was using the onboard sensors to collect data. The constantly updating holo displays used brilliant colors to illustrate the chaos outside.
Fear sucked dusty air into her lungs. Twitchy adrenaline urged her to do something.
Muttering a vile oath, she deliberately swiveled her seat away from the tempting controls. Yes, she was free, but she was still a bureaucrat with civilian-level pilot skills. She would never be a heroic Jumper pilot who could out-fly any AI ever built.
The shuttle’s ready-for-the-boneyard appearance belied its capabilities.
She’d stumbled across it two years ago in a regular military storage hangar.
Its outer skin bore the scars of countless trips to the orbiting space station and back.
Its interior had been repurposed so many times that the floor was a bumpy mass of plasma welds.
But its control systems and powerful engines could fly rings around prettier shuttles twice its size.
The military had seemingly lost or forgotten it. She abused her CPS access to alter their records to make sure it stayed that way, then added it to her collection of options for getting off the planet. She’d further abused her credentials to upgrade its flight AI to galaxy-class good.
A medical capsule took up most of the passenger space. The shuttle’s stained and dented interior walls made the shiny capsule look like it was slumming.
She shouldn’t have needed it, except Tuzan was breaking their long-standing deal. She’d planned their escape, and he’d go with her when the time came. Except now he wouldn’t.
His refusal reignited her abiding and long-repressed anger.
Since she’d been obliterating her bridges anyway, she’d already unleashed vengeance on three deserving coworkers.
Between them, they’d betrayed — or framed — dozens of their CPS colleagues and families in exchange for bonus payments.
She’d used her carefully hoarded financial access codes to make sure the assholes would be arrested for taking payments from a notorious minder-rights group. They’d be lucky not to be brain-wiped.
And if she could have, she’d have done the same for the very dangerous Jane Pennington-Smythe. According to Samara’s well-placed source, the administrator was the only CPS leader to notice that Legacy quatrains never originated on Mabingion.
Unfortunately, Samara had run out of time.
The conflagration was unleashed, and the city of Ridderth was paying the price.
She mourned for the lives already lost and the more yet to come.
The CPS would readily forgive the casualties if the eradication effort worked.
Fortunately, it wouldn’t. With luck, the complete failure would destroy Pennington-Smythe’s credibility forever.
Since Samara had already been deep in systems she shouldn’t have to add her own name and Tuzan’s to the casualty lists, she took the opportunity to spill hellaplexes of hypercube data to as many public nodes as she could.
She gleefully looked forward to Tuzan and Josh’s hydraworm finding and spread the data like a wind-driven wildfire in a summer drought.
It felt good to feel again. She was sick to death of her colorless affect and the constrained emotional range. The mind-numbing boredom of being unfailingly, soothingly predictable. Utterly reliable.
Though to be honest, she’d have to own that last one. Unlike some people she could name, she kept her word. She would fulfill the promises she made decades ago to protect Tuzan and get him where he needed to go. After that, he could do as he liked, and so could she.
She wasn’t a galaxy-class strategist and wildcard talent like Neirra Varemba had been. Or a top-level polymath and genius forecaster like Ayorinn and his bloody, brutal Legacy. But she knew Tuzan better than anyone now, including himself. Especially himself.
She’d known his big heart would make him want to save as many people as he could, and she’d helped with that. But keeping him at arm’s length cost her. Over the years, she’d spent countless regret-filled nights on the shoulda-coulda-woulda tour.
He belonged to someone else. Once he remembered, he’d forget her. Or first he’d hate her for the lies and losses, then forget her.
It didn’t matter that Tuzan volunteered — begged, pleaded, demanded — to make him safe to be near his beloved sister. Samara had done her part to make it happen. It was her penance to stay and protect them both.
“Arrival in two minutes.”
At the shuttle’s announcement, she swiveled around and leaned forward, glad of the interruption.
The AI wouldn’t care if it landed the runner-equipped shuttle on a flitter pad covered by a waist-high snow bank, but she would.
Luckily, the building’s bots had diligently kept the pad clear.
There was enough room to leave the shuttle on the pad and not block access to the flitter stacker.
Slinging two cargo bags while directing the medical capsule to the freight lift was awkward, but the storm had delayed her timetable too much already. Tuzan probably wasn’t expecting her, but she tightened up her mental shields anyway.
Once in the semi-private lobby of the flat where he’d holed up, she grounded the capsule, then pinged him, audio only.
He surprised her by answering live. “How did you find me?”
“Jumpers don’t leave friends behind,” she replied. Once Samara had proved her identity, Soleil readily told her everything she needed to know.
“I should have anticipated.” He sounded more resigned than resentful. “Come in, then.”
The security door irised open, followed by the more decorative door behind it. She strode inside. Since things had come to this, she wanted it over and done with.
Tuzan stood at the end of the apartment’s entryway, hands on his hips. A black-and-gold caftan flowed from his shoulders to the floor, revealing his bare feet.
He eyed her up and down. “Convincing uniform.”
“Good.” She let the cargo bags slide off her shoulder to the floor, then pulled her gloves off and shoved them into her coat’s cargo pocket, leaving her hand there. “Let’s see how you look in yours.”
His shoulders tightened as he crossed his arms. “I told you, I’m not going.”
“Yes, you are.”
She slid the stunner from her pocket and shot him.
Pain overtook his surprised look as he crumpled, twitching like he was detoxing from minder control drugs. The weapon certainly performed as advertised.
From her other cargo pocket, she pulled out detention cuffs and secured his arms and legs.
Even though she took off her coat, sweat rolled down her neck by the time she was finished.
Watching training holos on how to use the farkin’ things wasn’t at all the same as putting them on a live human being.
Taking a deep, calming breath, she locked down his deadly telepathic talents with her shields. If she’d provoked him enough, his top-level cleaner talent could wipe her mind clean of every trace of memory if she wasn’t watchful.
In the ten minutes it took for him to regain some of his senses, she ransacked the apartment, looking for anything that belonged to Tuzan.
He’d want his personal gear, and he’d need his tech toys.
She didn’t know what to do about the elegant antiques she recognized as having been collected by his deceased sister, so she left them alone.
He started mumbling as she was levering his hips off the floor so she could get him out of his caftan. She’d seen him naked before, but not in years, and not with his new body makeover. In an impossible alternate starlane, she’d have spent a lifetime admiring his lean, lithe musculature.
Shaking her head to clear her wayward thoughts, she managed to pull the garment over his head without strangling him. Cutting it off would have been quicker, but he’d hate her for all sorts of reasons soon enough. At least she could save his favorite caftan.
She used her percomp to take his biometrics, then wrestled him into underwear, which he’d detest, and military pants, which he’d look good in. Socks and boots only went on easily because he still had little control of his body.
However, the uniform tunic was too snug-fitting and fussy in design for her to get it on him without releasing the detention cuffs.
She brought a stool from the kitchen and sat.
To pass the time, she used her percomp to illegally update more military databases with their new identities and backup credentials in case they needed them.
Every passing second weighed on her, but no minder ever bounced back fast from a heavy-duty stunner shot.
At last, he twisted his head to look at her. “Are you going to give me to the CPS? If so, I’d really rather you killed me.”
“No, and no.” She held up the tunic in her lap. “We’re leaving.”
His talent pushed against her shields.
“Stop,” she said. “It’ll make your recovery slower.”
The pressure faded.
He struggled against the cuffs to lever himself into a sitting position. After a long moment, he opened his mouth to speak, then stopped himself.
She waited.