CHAPTER THREE

20th June 2084

If there’s one thing you learn about soldiering, as opposed to training, it’s that things can go wrong.

‘And if you’d like anything at any time during the flight,’ said the pilot, ‘just ask a member of the cabin crew.’

My first thought was that someone must have found the body back at Dallas airport. They’d worked out who was responsible and re-routed the flight as some kind of precaution. But that was too far-fetched — why re-route direct to Reno? I tried to shut it out of my mind. This mess was bad enough whatever its cause.

I looked down the aeroplane and saw Jacobi looking back at me. Ahead of him, Gil was still talking to the bemused old lady. I couldn’t see Amagat over the back of her seat and my mind conjured up an image of her sat there with her head in her hands.

The sublieutenant’s head appeared moments later and Comtac flickered in my belly. There’s a limit to what you can say with a sequence of three-point codes and there wasn’t a code invented for our present situation. You can’t Comtac Say, that was a piece of bad luck, wasn’t it? and then have a conversation about the various possibilities that were still open.

Comtac flickered again. Stay put, it said. Stay put. That must be Amagat — the leader has override on everyone else, when she wants to use it.

Stay put. I remained in my seat, that much was obvious. My first impression of Amagat had been that, like most inexperienced soldiers, she was inflexible, unadaptable. I had no idea how she would cope with a situation like this.

I didn’t know how to interpret the order.

Did it mean ‘Abort mission’? Stay in my seat until Reno, then try to make my way back to Grand Union?

Go ahead, came another burst of Comtac. Then: Stay put. Go ahead.

I cracked a smile as I realised what she meant. Clever Comtac. That must have been about the first time I had admired anything Amagat did. But I can’t say I admired the actual course of action she had chosen.

I would have opted for one of the bail-outs. One plan was to suicide the plane, take over and crash it. Preferably on a military target. In tactical terms that was then the best option we had available. The other bail-out was simply to stay put and get together in Reno. In all other terms that was the best option. Unless someone had discovered the body.

But I should have known what Amagat would do. Go by the book. The plan would go ahead after ninety-five minutes regardless of where the plane happened to be.

I closed my eyes and accessed my chip’s memory bank. A digital map of pure information scrolled past my mind’s eye. I stopped it and zoomed in on Texas and the Midwest. I wiped the original route into limbo and traced on an approximate route to Reno via Santa Barbara. Then I called back the first route, superimposed on the new one, and it was as I had feared. The routes drew further and further apart, even with the westward swing the route to Cheyenne took to avoid Grand Union airspace.

After ninety-five minutes on the original route we would be fifty kay-ems east of Amarillo. After ninety-five minutes on the new route we would be over the New Mexico Desert. More than 300 kay-ems deeper into CalTex.

To carry out the plan, we should have moved it ahead and gone into action soon after the announcement of the diversion. But not Amagat. Too much change. She was sticking religiously to the plan and putting us even more at risk than Gil had with his drugs. Now we were going to have to take over the plane and somehow get it through 350 kays of CalTex airspace without getting shot down or forced to land.

Where were you when we needed you, Plato?

I looked up the plane and Amagat and Jacobi were still in their seats. Gil was singing a Mexican jazz-ballad to the old lady. She was smiling back at him and beating time on the top of the seat in front of her.

I could do nothing to change the situation so I settled back in my seat. At least Gil might have come down off his cloud by the time we had to move and, from my own viewpoint, I would be more ready for action after a rest. My leg was hurting and I would benefit from the extra time allowed for me to wipe the hypnotic influence, lose the limp.

I looked at my lop-sided reflection in the smoke mask hanging from the seat in front of me, ran my fingertips over the scar on my jaw, settled down for the wait. Chipped down on my juices. My fingers ran around to the base of my skull, the site of my suboccipital chip. I had the first surgery when I was seven and I still remember it clearly. Papa had wired himself into Lejeune only months before and I was gonna be like Papa. Not much like him, but that was how I saw it. We went over to the huge Merrywell medical torus in the main cluster of L5. A family outing, just like when Mia and Lacey had theirs done, the year before. They picked me up a week later. Time for the artificial nerves to be grown up into my thalamus, time for the pain to subside, time for me to be trained in the use of my new organ. That first chip was much more primitive than my Army one, only limited chip memory, a small range of biofeedback and the inevitable jack socket for shunts. But that first surgery was the most daunting. When the Army expanded my range in ‘83 I knew what to expect and I soon got the hang of the new set-up.

The man in the seat next to me was giving me a strange look, so I smiled and withdrew my hand from my concealed interface. Fear and anger are only instantaneous feelings with the military chip, they can be instantly cut out by control of the hypothalamus and one or two bodily substances such as adrenalin and the endorphins. The man next to me flushed and went back to his paper.

* * * *

I looked up at the clock above the NO FURTHER ADMITTANCE sign.

16:34. One more minute. Amagat had sent the Prepare message a few minutes before. The man beside me gave a spluttering snore and moved in his seat. I looked back and saw Cohen laughing with his colossal bodyguard. I turned back to the front and the clock had clicked on a minute.

16:35. I paused and was paid with a worried look from Amagat.

I smiled and rose from my seat. Lifted my braced leg awkwardly into the aisle. I had to remember to make a conscious effort to limp my last few steps as an ordinary passenger.

‘Can I help you, sir?’

I looked around with a start and there was the steward standing at my elbow. The one that had helped Gil.

‘Uh, no,’ I said. ‘Thanks. I’m just going to the toilet.’ I grinned an awkward grin at him. ‘See to my leg. You know.’

‘Of course, sir,’ said the steward. ‘There’s one back there.’ He waved his hand back to the rear end of the plane.

Shit. I looked towards the toilet at the front of the plane. Just by NO FURTHER ADMITTANCE. ‘I think I’ll go to the one up there, if it’s all the same to you,’ I said. ‘It’s closer.’ I shrugged and indicated my leg. ‘It needs seeing to.’

‘I’m sorry, sir. That one’s out of order.’ My shoulders sagged and he must have noticed. Misinterpreted. ‘But if you don’t want to walk too far you could always use the galley, sir. You can draw the curtains and have complete privacy.’

I smiled my relief and he beamed back.

‘This way, sir,’ he said and led me up the aisle. I slung my bag from my shoulder and followed. Past Jacobi, past Lohmann, playing cards with his old lady — ‘Snap!’ she cried as I walked past. Past the worried face of Amagat, a smile for her.

The steward looked back and paused; I had remembered to keep up the pantomime of my bad leg.

I caught up with the steward and he led me — more slowly, now — under the sign that told me NO FURTHER ADMITTANCE. What had been the aisle made a sharp left turn and then right again, so that it was running along the port side of the plane. There was a door at the end of the short corridor. Pilot’s cabin. The galley was on my right, its curtains open.

Just like the 3D digital map we had seen back in Grand Union.

‘This is it, sir,’ said the steward. ‘I’ll draw the curtains and keep the stewardesses out until I see you’re back in your seat. If you need me just yell.’ He smiled and retreated, drawing the curtains after him.

I smiled to myself and looked around. Maybe three metres by four, shelves along three sides. Cupboards, fridge, a microwave browner that looked like they dug it off some refuse heap, a sink unit. I tossed my bag onto a shelf.

Squatting down, I began to unfasten the brace. A hopeless mishmash of wood and plastic, it only served to handicap my leg even further. I removed the brace completely and rolled up my trouser leg. Hand-sized zaps on either side of my calf, taped to the isothermal material of my body-suit. Four small, brown capsules stuck to my shin.

I ripped the zaps off my leg, flinching at the sound of the tearing adhesive. Then the capsules. Amagat had the other two zaps and some spare capsules as a precaution. I had mine in the brace because men just aren’t equipped with the storage places women have. I lay the little laser guns on the counter before me, put the capsules in my jacket pocket. Looked nervously over my shoulder and deliberately avoided chipping down to calm my nerves. There are some times a soldier has to be on edge, ready for instant action. This was one of them.

Keeping my eyes on the curtain I assembled the zaps. Strapped to my leg they had been nothing more than plastic cylinders, six cee-ems by three. I popped the first one apart into its two halves. Clicked it together again at a different angle. A quick twist and turn of a tiny thumb-wheel. And it was ready. Lightweight plastic handle, moulded into my hand; stub snout protruding between first and middle finger by about two cee-ems; shunt lead trailing off into mid-air. Made of plastics, poly-carbon fibres and various crystalline elements, it could only have been detected by a direct body-search. That was the reason we were using it on this mission. I would never have chosen it otherwise, it felt so weak and unreliable. It did also have the advantage that it lacked the power to burn through the plane’s walls, so we could use it with assurance if it became necessary. But I hoped I wouldn’t have to place my life in the hands of that little weapon.

When the second zap was assembled I rolled up the sleeve of my jacket and released a flap in my body-suit. There was a red mark on the inside of my forearm and I picked at it until the collagen-based glue released a tiny flap of skin to reveal a small fleshy hole, my median interface.

With everything ready, I strapped the brace loosely back onto my leg. I no longer needed it, but it might steal us a few seconds’ more surprise. I shunted the lead of one gun into my median, palmed it, and slid the other into my jacket pocket. Suddenly I saw the room through a third eye, the snout of my zap. I blanked the extra image and chipped the gun into subliminal mode. Aiming and firing would be a subconscious, intuitive action.

A last check reassured me that I had done everything, then I whisked back the curtain and stepped into the narrow passageway. I walked around the corner and then resumed my limp as I appeared under NO FURTHER ADMITTANCE.

The steward looked up from near the back and smiled. I waved with my empty hand and nodded, as if to say, It’s all fine, thanks for your help. I edged up on the adrenalin, squeezed my fighting instinct.

Stopped next to Amagat. Dropped a zap in her lap. Turned as if I had just remembered that I had left my bag in the galley.

And followed Amagat back through NO FURTHER ADMITTANCE, shielding her, I hoped, from casual observation.

We paused for a few seconds in the corridor, my heart echoing in my ears, zap held steady at my chest. Amagat Comtacked Lohmann and Jacobi to come, but that was unnecessary. I poked the snout of my zap around the corner and a flashed image from my subconscious told me that they were already on their way down the aisle.

This was a possible turning point in the plan. Someone might see Leo and Gil heading up here. Raise an alert. That would call for rapid action.

The two privates squeezed past me in the corridor and once more I poked my zap around the corner. Nobody had done anything. The CivAir blue uniforms were going about their business as if it was an ordinary flight. I withdrew my gun. We were coasting.

A glance around at the three soldiers. Silent acknowledgement. A grin from Jacobi, a wink from Lohmann, a flutter of Comtac from Amagat. Wait, she told us. But that was part of the plan, we didn’t need to be told. Enter the corridor then pause for breath before Stage 2.

Gil seemed to have come down a little, his trip cut short. His eyes were still glazed, but at least he had control of his actions. We were back to a four-man squad again.

‘Stick to the plan?’ asked Jacobi in a hushed voice, nodding slightly in Gil’s direction.

Yes. Comtacked Amagat, glaring at Jacobi for breaking silence. Hell, we had to know.

Jacobi reached into my jacket pocket and removed the capsules. I nodded at him. Amagat deshunted and handed her zap to Lohmann. She disappeared into the curtained room while we stood guard. Jacobi made as if to peek behind the curtain and I chipped down sharply to avoid a fit of nervous laughter.

I chipped back up to combat alertness as Amagat emerged a short time later with my bag over her shoulder. She handed a zap to Jacobi and as she turned away he wiped the gun on his trousers, as if to dry it. I grinned at him.

Amagat stood by the door to the cockpit. Me next, then Jacobi. Gil guarded the rear. The sub glanced over her shoulder.

And the door opened. A man in CivAir blue was framed by the door. Amagat stepped back in fright but the man was even more surprised and stumbled back into the cockpit. Amagat recovered her composure and burst in through the open door. I followed her in, covering the sprawled man. Jacobi was next. Then Lohmann, waiting by the door and scanning the corridor.

The pilot turned sharply in his seat and froze, a pair of bulbous data goggles wedged on his forehead. His mouth opened slightly, then closed. The other man looked up at me from the floor. Co-pilot, I decided.

The pilot finally managed to say something. ‘What...’

‘Quiet,’ said Amagat, waving her zap in his direction.

The co-pilot began to get up from the floor, trying to stare me out. ‘You’re not threatening me with ... with that thing,’ he said.

A flash of subconscious imagery as I swung the gun downwards. Magnified view of his left hand. On the floor, taking his full weight for an instant.

I shunted an impulse from my median to the gun. A fine blue bolt etched itself across my retinas, too fast to see in real-time. A yell of surprise. The co-pilot was sprawled on the ground again, holding his hand and moaning. The tip of his little finger was burnt onto the floor, a small black lump.

‘Not just threats,’ I said.

The cockpit was a little bigger than the galley. It was empty apart from the seats for the pilot and co-pilot, each with a small console on a swinging arm hovering before it. Despite my mental map of the plane I had still half-expected to see a huge bank of dials and digital readouts, monitors and meters, but there weren’t even any windows to show us cutting through the clouds. I guess the primitive state of the rest of the Earth technology had influenced my imagination.

This was a high-tech plane. The controls wouldn’t have seemed out of place in an old Lagrangian shuttle. The main difference was that Extraterran pilots jack directly into their craft. Instant response, with computer-aided decision-making. This pilot just had a pair of data goggles over his head. More of a data helmet. It looked like an antique leather flying helmet with bulbous earpieces to feed the pilot aural information. Added onto the front were large blind goggles. Maybe false images in front of the eyes, maybe even direct retinal projection. Whatever system the goggles used, they replaced all the old dials and meters that had lasted surprisingly long into the century.

Amagat stepped further into the cockpit and dropped my bag on the floor. ‘This is a hijack,’ she said. I suppressed a grin at her unnecessary comment and chipped some more juice, aware that I was relaxing a little after the action.

‘Aliens,’ said the pilot and spat on the floor. Amagat waved her zap at him and pursed her lips. The pilot raised the palms of his hands in a gesture of resignation. ‘What d’you want me to do?’ he asked.

‘First,’ said Amagat, ‘we’re gonna get your buddy back in his seat.’

I felt a flicker of Comtac, but it wasn’t directed at me. Jacobi responded and moved around me to help the co-pilot to his feet. But his help was refused and the co-pilot struggled up from the floor, walked over to his seat and collapsed into it, clutching his damaged hand tightly to his chest. Jacobi took a reel of packing tape from the bag and returned to the co-pilot, wrenched his hands from his chest and taped them methodically to the arms of the chair. Then he taped up the legs for an added precaution.

Jacobi taped the pilot up next, less securely as he still had to fly the plane when it wasn’t on auto. Just the legs and body, leaving the hands free to play on the flight console. The co-pilot’s groans became words every so often. I guess Leo didn’t take very well to being called some of the things the co-pilot was calling him so he ran a strip of tape across the shit’s mouth.

With the pilots secured Amagat relaxed a little. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Now I want you to get the cabin crew to come forward to the galley. Intercom it.’

The pilot pulled a lead from the side of his console and pressed the end against his jaw-bone. Bone-mike, I decided. He glanced at his partner and something passed between them.

I took a quick step forward, ripped the mike from the pilot’s jaw and jerked his head sharply back by a handful of hair from the back of his skull. I brought my face slowly down until my hot breath was deflected back up at me off his cheek.

‘You try anything funny,’ I said in a low voice. ‘I’m gonna burn your buddy’s balls off.’ I eased off and moved away. ‘And I might not stop on him. You get me?’

I think he might even have challenged me. Maybe if it was only his balls at stake. But I guess he saw the look in my eyes. He knew I meant exactly what I had said.

He nodded almost imperceptibly. I backed off, my eyes fixed on the pilot’s as he jawed his bone-mike.

Go easy, came a flutter in my abdomen wall. I looked angrily at Amagat. Why do they have to keep telling me to go easy? In his last few weeks with the squad, Plato had taken to Comtacking me with that one a lot. Hell, you’ve got to have a hard streak on these shits, else they just run you around on a piece of string.

I noticed Jacobi was giving me a funny look and I chipped down, knocked off some of the anger. Hell, it was a tense situation, I didn’t need to be told how to handle my own head.

The pilot spoke into his mike and I turned my eyes back to him. The other guy had just caved in after his little tangle with my burner but the pilot had shown a bit of fight and I intended to watch him closely. ‘This is your Civic Airlines pilot speaking,’ he said. ‘Staff announcement. Would the stewardesses please come forward to the galley.’ He looked up at me and added, ‘Union meeting.’

‘Okay,’ said Amagat. She stepped forward and ripped the bone-mike from its socket on the flight console. ‘You won’t need that again,’ she said. Go ahead, she Comtacked to us all.

We left the cockpit.

Jacobi slipped into the galley and I waited next to its entrance. Gil went a few paces forward and stood at the end of the corridor, zap at the ready.

Almost instantly Gil was pointing his gun and a startled-looking stewardess appeared around the corner. The young black girl must have been barely out of school. Her eyes, large to start with, grew even bigger when she saw me. I pushed her into the galley and turned to greet another woman as she appeared around the corner, prompted by Gil. This was the older one, mid-thirties and broad from her neck down to her ankles. That left two more.

They appeared together. I heard their chatter, flashed an Alert to Gil who was grinning up at me. He seemed to be coming out of his drugs by stages, clear for a time then back into a daze.

My Comtac snapped him back to reality and he turned just in time to cut off the chatter of the two stewardesses into strangled gasps. They came around the corner, their faces matching shades of white. Something was tapping away at my memory as I watched the four young buttocks move into the galley. I followed and helped Jacobi tape them up. We left them in a heap on the floor and returned to the cockpit.

The pilot had his data helmet back in place and was tapping out messages on his console. His partner was slumped in his seat, his weight pulling limply at his bindings. I looked at Amagat and raised my eyebrows. She grinned. ‘After you guys left he got a bit temperamental,’ she said. ‘Sure, he couldn’t do anything, but I didn’t like the noise.’

‘What did you do?’ I asked.

‘Just a little massage on his pressure points,’ she said. ‘Nothing lasting.’

Hell, she had been complaining at me about over-reacting only minutes before. I nodded at the pilot and Comtacked a question mark to Amagat.

‘I gave him the instructions,’ she said.

‘Where are we headed?’ I asked, wondering if she had been flexible enough to change the plan to any degree in view of the diversion.

‘Still to Wichita,’ she said. The answer I had expected. ‘No reason for any change.’ That was Amagat, all right. ‘Let’s get out of this lot,’ she said. ‘Us two first, then Gil and Leo.’ She deshunted her zap and started to remove her jumpsuit. Beneath it there was the standard tight-fitting body-suit. Isothermal, it would only let out or take in enough heat to keep the body at a comfortable 36.8. Any heat that it did let out was scattered by flecks of some sort of carbonate crystal in the material, so any infra-red scanner would receive a confused image. Under most circumstances that image would be unrecognisable as a human being. The suit was camouflaged with a sort of dusky grey-green pattern.

Amagat paused with her top layer rumpled up around her hips and gave me a questioning look. I looked at the floor and chipped down. The sight of Amagat removing her jump-suit had distracted me, God knows why. It wasn’t as if I found her an attractive sight. Neat ass, but her legs were like concrete pillars and her face was too thick-boned. I slid my jacket off my shoulders, stretched out the waist of my trousers and let them drop. Then I pulled my shirt out of shape and whipped it over my head. That left me in a military body-suit just like Amagat’s. except for a stripe and a star less on the left shoulder.

She smiled at me and nodded downwards. ‘Pity about the footwear,’ she said. I glanced down and it was a ridiculous sight. My military leggings looked completely out of place set against the smart businessman’s wrap-around shoes. Amagat had a simple pair of plimsolls, much more comfortable, although hardly appropriate.

‘You could do better, yourself,’ I said.

‘Have you two quite finished?’ asked Jacobi. ‘Maybe the two of us would like a chance to get out of these crappy clothes, huh?’

‘Okay, get to it,’ said Amagat, reshunting her zap. ‘Take the door, Brindle.’

I took Gil’s place by the door. While the two of them were removing their civilian clothes the pilot slid his helmet back on his head. ‘Swinging round for Wichita in a few seconds,’ he said. With no windows, there was no way I could see if we were changing course or not. I was just wondering how we could check on the pilot when the floor tilted and I felt a slight tug at my stomach as we began the manoeuvre.

Gil returned to his place at the door.

I felt that jag of uncertainty in the back of my mind again and said. ‘Check the corridor, Gil.’ Amagat gave me her questioning look and I said, ‘Just a check.’ She shrugged and nodded at Gil, who had waited for her okay.

If Plato had been there Gil would have trusted my judgement immediately, but that had all changed since Amagat. Gil opened the door and I glanced at the slumped figure of the co-pilot. There was no colour in his face at all and I wondered just which points the sub had put her pressure on.

Gil was half out of the door when he shouted. I spun and instantly dropped into a stable firing position, images from the snout of my zap flashing across my consciousness.

A compound image from my zap and my eyes showed me Gil’s back. Beyond him I could see a CivAir blue figure in the corridor. Bare calves, skirt. One of the stewardesses. An electric blue flash burnt my eyes and the stewardess dropped to her knees and slowly slumped to the ground.

Gil started to look back over his shoulder, a dumb grin on his face. Past his cheek I saw another blue movement in the corridor. ‘Get the other fucker,’ I cried at Gil.

He turned towards me and looked blank. His mind was off somewhere on the remains of his trip. I leapt to my feet and pushed past him.

‘Get the panhalothol,’ I heard Amagat say as I left the cockpit. Orders for Jacobi.

I had to be quick or they would gas me. The blue uniform turned the corner. That had been the doubt that had been nagging at me. The steward. That bastard of a pilot had only asked for stewardesses to come forward.

Bastard. And with the co-pilot out of action, there was nothing we could do to the pilot. Not yet.

I reached the end of the short corridor. Stopped myself on the wall and turned. Momentum gone, I stepped out under the NO FURTHER ADMITTANCE sign and stood underneath it.

The steward was only a few paces away. He had emerged into the normality of the passenger area and stopped. Maybe it was the sudden change, from a room full of bound and gagged colleagues to the bright babbling tube full of passengers. Maybe he couldn’t quite believe what he had seen, once he had returned to this epitome of the normality of his working days.

Whatever it was that struck him as he left the staff-only area, it made him stop. Turn his head slowly.

The cheerful babble of the planeful of passengers was cut through by a sudden clap of silence. Faces turned to the front, to the scene of the oh-so-terribly-helpful steward transformed into a quivering wreck.

The scene of a man framed by the doorway, topped by a sign that read NO FURTHER ADMITTANCE. A man wearing a camouflaged body-suit and pointing what looked like a toy gun at the steward. One or two sharp gasps, a scream that cut off in mid-squawk.

An instant that seemed to last forever. Maybe it did last forever for that CivAir steward. Some people say it does. What scenes of personal history flashed across that little Earth shit’s eyes?

Nothing interesting.

In that instant of eternity I took in the impressions of all the faces turned on the two of us. All those faces, and every one of them empty. Whatever had been filling them only a few moments before had been drained away by this scene that was being played out before them. Some of them thought Alien, maybe some thought EP. Most thought nothing.

It was all too fast.

The steward twisted when he saw me. It had all been real. All those taped-up stewardesses. Here was living proof.

His mouth opened. Closed. Formed the word You. Closed.

A thin line of sharp blue etched itself across the scene. A small black hole appeared between the man’s eyes. His eyes were close together and it was a small target, but I rarely miss with my median shunt. Whatever the weapon.

There was no blood, the wound was neatly cauterised. Not even a puff of smoke emerging from the hole, like they show on the hee-vee cartoons.

The steward fell to the ground and the bubble burst. A scream broke the silence. It went unpunished and others followed, more confidently. People moved in their seats but didn’t leave them.

I swept my zap in a wide arc and people shrank away. A mustardy smell reached my nose and I sprang back around the corner. Along the corridor and through the open door to the cockpit, screams following me all the way. Past Jacobi, wearing a smoke mask.

Amagat thrust a mask into my hands and I let the zap dangle by its lead. Already the gas was having a slight effect. I chipped maximum juices and pulled the mask over my head. The smell of sweet fresh oxygen kicked off the remaining effects of the gas and I slipped the small air cylinder into the chest pouch of my uniform.

I looked around. The same as before, except for the masks over everyone’s heads and the loose panel dangling from the air system. I looked at Amagat.

‘Not good out there?’ she asked.

‘Not good.’