“What in the goddamned shit happened?” Janice’s cast stream wavered under the force of her irritation, Evan suspected the body she occupied had a vague sensory headache or was experiencing cognitive delay.

  “Alaya chose to entangle herself with the Root Clerics.” The chassis Evan now wore was an old model, old enough to be missing some key features such as multi-processing subsystems. This was the first time Evan had ever been forced to ride this particular pony. Failure tasted like rotten cigarette ash and crusty digital relays. “There was little I could do to dissuade her.”

  “The Clerics betrayed her? After giving their oath?” Fingers steepled and jaw set, Janice slid into the back of her chair. Whatever disruption had affected her cast stream ended and Janice rubbed her temples.

  Definitely a headache. With a touch, even through this ratty old chassis, Evan could have soothed her mind and staved off the cast jitters for weeks or even years. But Janice would have rebuked him, would have been furious over him messing with her digitals using his power. He wasn’t even allowed to touch her. “They betrayed her and they murdered her crew. Or rather they tried.”

  That got Janice’s attention. “Tried? Explain.”

  “Seven minutes ago one of my automated digital warnings flagged Kirk’s Net access. Based on the stream data we grabbed, he’s still in-cluster somewhere.”

  “So one of them lived, the brain-damaged kid from Bahl-Mau. Anyone else?”

  Evan eyed his employer. He had few reasons to distrust her and fewer to suspect she bore Alaya or her companions ill-will. The strange part, for Evan, was not how he felt a sense of kinship with Alaya. Rather he felt a strong sense of kinship with her illegal cyborg companion, Gaz. I’m going to tell her, I might as well do it now. Despite the thought, Evan dragged his feet mentally until the silence threatened to go on too long. “Gaz, her friend, I think she’s alive.”

  “You think?”

  “I made a new contact in Riggon Cluster, a Techomancer named Nathaniel.”

  “Your report mentioned him. He’s a cyberdoc and shipwright.”

  “Yes. And…” again, the reluctance was almost palpable, “I happened to leave a few “notational aids” among his office and ship.”

  Janice’s smile almost looked feral. “And?”

  “And he’s taken in a new employee. I can’t be sure it’s her. Grabbing too much too quickly will tip Nathaniel that I’ve bugged him.” Too many coincidences mounted up together for Evan to doubt it was Gaz who’d joined Nathaniel and who had already initiated her desperate search for Alaya.

  “When you’ve confirmed her identity, let me know immediately.”

  “Ma’am.”

  “We’re spinning up a skim ship just for you.” Janice looked over her glasses at Evan. “And we’re writing it off.”

  In other words, Evan was to use the ship and drive as he saw fit. Maybe he’d dismantle it and give it to Alaya for upgrading one of her ships. “It has tachyon sensors?”

  “Best on the market. Technically, better than that because they are fresh off the Himalia lines and no one, commercial or otherwise, possesses these sensors.”

  “Mission parameters, ma’am?”

  “Exact same as last. We have no heir. We have no idea where Alaya is, but the Loop system reports that the charter is in place and her debt is still available for transfer. In other words, she’s still alive.”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “Find her, protect her, and kill her if she becomes a danger?” Evan’s control was such that his voice didn’t even change when he said the last clause.

  “Precisely.” She waved to him dismissively. “Now go and get yourself a new body. We’d normally leave you in that can for a little while as an object lesson. But this is important and I don’t want our Red Charter flapping in the void for too long.”

  Evan nodded and rose. He’d been given an order and intended to carry it out, even if he happened to ignore the part about killing Alaya.

  Gaz wouldn’t like that.

  “What do you think, Yilanes?”

  Less than a meter away, standing on the same side of her long wooden desk as Janice, a figure stepped out of the air as if leaving a curtain. It wore an old-fashioned battle chassis. This one had a death’s skull in place of its head, titanium and chrome parts pistoned the limbs like a clockwork automaton. Metallic grinding accompanied the borg’s movements as it walked around Janice’s desk and fell into the chair with a crunch. Great. I’ll need to get my chair repaired now.

  “It is impossible to say if the Technomancer is lying. You should have given him an bio-organic chassis. Makes it a lot easier.” Yilanes’s eyes glowed blue from the optic channels in the old borg. “If you don’t trust this agent… why use him?”

  “I don’t trust anyone.” It was true too. Janice had automated processes in her own skull checking her decisions against ancient schema to make sure no one was messing with her. Paranoia extended much further than that. At current count, thirteen different processing facilities built replacement bodies for Janice, each of which was carefully compared to the others, to the point where a random body was disassembled every production cycle and compared against the mainline body atom for atom. Code and AI checks went on there too, never could be certain a hacker hadn’t wormed their way into a fundamental system. Had to keep testing. No one worked in the facilities other than Janice herself. Those thirteen facilities were only the ones she knew about. Janice was certain there were more. Paranoia had no bounds.

  “Good for me, that. Means a little spy like myself stays essential.” Yilanes stretched out, catlike despite the metal frame. “Want me to shadow your little Technomancer?”

  “No. It’s fine.” Janice knew where Evan’s original body was. She could hit a switch and choose a confirmation dialogue that would incinerate the Technomancer before he could finish controlling her systems. “I actually called you in about Chairman Singh. Evan was just a bonus”

  “Singh? Why?”

  Nelissan Arms purchased their first skim drive from one of Janice’s sub-corporations a little over a month before. But they’d fielded a Cabalon-class warship in that time? Highly fucking doubtful. A host of humanity possessed the secrets of the skim drives, but a controlled and monitored host nonetheless. Only a subset of that host could have leaked the drive to Nelissan Arms and helped them hide that fact. It was that last little slip-up which had led Janice to Chairman Singh. It took someone with an incredible amount of bureaucratic power to hide the transfer of a major technology like that.

  MilCas was one option, of course. By default, Janice placed that organization low on the list of possible leakers. Like her own corporations, MilCas had an intense internal security team and structure. She’d already ordered a review of their skim drives through a cat’s paw and the prospects were low. Same with the corps that had developed the drive in the first place. Which left only the government and hence, the Chairman.

  Yilanes had simply waited while Janice reviewed her own information. “I am not going to share the details of my information network with you. Shadow Chairman Singh and let me know if you find evidence of him feeding the drive design to Nelissan early. If he did, find out when.” Janice tapped her desk to emphasize how much that particular piece of information mattered. “I can’t do anything without that tidbit.”

  The borg spy in her office chuckled and bobbed his skeletal head. “Done. I’ll report back when I have something.” He snapped his fingers and a black cylindrical field rose up around him, swallowing him and the chair he’d been sitting in.

  “Fucking asshole.” Janice was laughing when she said it. Technically he’d saved her the trouble of having that stupid chair fixed. Dialing up her secretary, Janice moved onto the next bit of business regarding the Alaya/Nelissan affair. If she was right about Chairman Singh, which she almost certainly was, then she had to make a decision about his successor. “Call Garland Harriotte and ask him if he still wants to see the Alps from space.” There were ideal places to discuss overthrowing the most influential public figure in the solar system. Deep in space without the worry over recording equipment or listening devices sounded perfect. Besides she hadn’t been back to Earth in forever. It would be nice to see the old rock from something other than a simulation.