Tethered Worlds: Star in Bankruptcy Page 27

  “They burn teslanium in an attempt to root out this so-called Shadow Board, but not to stop the rotting of their foundation. The Banking Confederation was unwise to let this place go unchecked for so long.”

  “Quite, sir.”

  The Jetty appeared large on the active wall. Data lines showing access points and other details sprouted off it as Barrister worked. Highlight squares shrunk atop the six bays housing the recently sidelined galleons.

  “That last battle was a mockery, and towing those galleons back to the Jetty a disgrace.” Red bars multiplied on the display showing Barrister's failed attempts to access the base. Aristahl looked afar off. “The epicenter of this Shadow Board ruse and the galleon problems make the Jetty too coincidental.”

  He brought up visuals of the Trade Union flotilla. An eclectic squadron that in some ways hearkened back to another age. The ornate carrier rotated in 3D like a piece of sculpture in comparison to some of the more mundane designs of recent starmadas. Glowing golden lines ran along its outer ring and down its hull accenting magnificent curves.

  “I wonder if the people of Aner Betera would be pleased that one of their carriers still functions,” Barrister said.

  “The Drexalis.” Sweeping outriggers ran out to engine nacelles embedded within the ring. Each housed massive thruster clusters and defensive systems protecting the launch bays on the main hull. “She fought by my side before our time together. Now we know who whisked her away for what had to be a challenging restoration. Artisan work, it seems.” Though the ship was mystic, its design sensibilities reflected a strange amalgam of thought. “Would they be pleased it flies again? Yes, I believe so. Perhaps they would even find the new owners acceptable. They were a different lot. Perhaps someday we will see what became of them.”

  “I hope you are not blaming yourself, sir. The Sojourners went above and beyond to protect them.”

  “Yes, yes.” Aristahl refocused. “Well, have you gotten in yet? Come now, one of our old seeds must still be in place.”

  “It has been quite a while. They do tend to get rooted out.”

  Barrister continued to refine his attempts, moving to smaller and smaller openings.

  “So, we are down to our secondaries.”

  Finally, a flashing green bar indicated success.

  “I have access,” the AI said. The Jetty interior filled out. “Some of these systems are decades out of date.” Test lines passed straight through junctions, leaving them marked in black. “It is worse than we suspected. Bypasses abound.”

  “Hmph. Bloat and bureaucracy. Whether misguided attempts to save coin or outright uncaring, routing around defunct systems has come to bite them harder than they could have imagined.”

  “The architecture has grown inflexible. Some of this code is not far from original.”

  “Original? Aventicia has been a military pinion since the Banking Confederation declaration of neutrality. That is over two centuries ago.”

  “The affected galleons are reformatting their computer systems,” the AI noted.

  “Yes, but we are both beginning to see that the problem is not nested in the ships.” A new series of dark lines grew on the Jetty schematic. “What is this?”

  “Covered tracks. Subtle. They are numerous. Someone is being quite... careful.”

  “You can say it, Barrister. Clever. They are being clever.”

  “I see no signs of external penetration.”

  “That you can find.” Aristahl paused, staring at the screen, then turned to face a point in space. “I believe we are needed elsewhere. Aurora must be left in Jordahk's hands. We shall require a shuttle. A fast shuttle. I sense things are quickly coming to a head.”

  A new VAD cycled through local shuttle services.

  “As you can imagine, the current state of affairs has evaporated our options.”

  “Perhaps more unconventional thinking is in order.”

  The VAD began cycling through shuttles docked at the Concourse.

  “This one is undoubtedly the fastest,” Barrister said. The search highlighted a gleaming black ship with a red stripe. “Its ship of origin is the Verdant.”

  “Really? Where my son has placed his flag. Hmm.” Aristahl's grin was almost imperceptible. “In that case... Torious, meet me at bay seventeen.”

  “Will it be alright leaving Jordahk?” Barrister asked.

  “We must all step up if this mess is to be salvaged.” Aristahl brought the Drexalis VAD back to the surface. It rotated in silence. “Aventicia has let itself grow fat, and now the wolves are hungry.”

  ▪ ▫ ▪

  Jaan and an equally endowed raven haired beauty swam next to each other. But their focus was dedicated to getting the attention of a poolside man inexplicably dressed in formal togs. He seemed the sophisticated type, and poured a crystal of the new high-end Aquarii mead, Aquarii Excellence. The girls flirted outrageously toward him until their competition turned so fierce that they began to fight.

  In the ensuing struggle, the raven haired beauty ripped Jaan's suit off and hurled it from the pool. She swam to the man in triumph. But as he approached poolside, bottle and crystals in hand, he shook his head in disappointment. Jaan swam up slowly, downtrodden and embarrassed. But when the man gestured to the Aquarii Excellence, she perked up.

  This turn of events seemed to bring the raven haired beauty back to sensibilities of a kinder nature. She looked to the blond, apology in her eyes, and gave her a warm embrace. Then offering a mischievous grin, flung off her own suit to the surprise of the other two. The man, pleased, lowered himself down to hand each a crystal and filled them with Aquarri Excellence. They clinked crystals, sharing a knowing look, and drank.

  “Jordahk? You receiving?” Solia's tone was needling. “I didn't think you went for the giga-proportioned types.”

  “Huh? What?” Jordahk realized he was lost in thought staring up at the Jaan ad. “No, I don't.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Aventicia was a peculiar place. So professional and controlled to the public eye. But if one knew where to look, its interior was wrestling with the same degenerative maladies that plagued all mankind.

  Hmm. Perhaps it's not so peculiar after all.

  Durn was more attentive than lost in thought at the sight.

  “Hey!” Jordahk pushed his arm. “Snap out of it. Where's Zoraida?”

  Durn was quick to look indignant. “She said she needed an hour.”

  Jordahk felt a sense of urgency. “We have to find her.” Solia gave him a strange look which he didn't have the bandwidth at the moment to interpret. “I don't think we should split up right now. Things are happening. I don't know...”

  Solia didn't seem convinced, nor did he sound convincing. But he felt an uneasiness that was hard to explain.

  “Durn, do you have her code?”

  “That's Darren.” He paused, accessing his compy. “Her comm sys is turned off.”

  “Or she's ignoring you,” Solia said.

  “What's skewed your orbit?” Jordahk asked. “Look, let's just get her and get out of here. Max, where are the most people?”

  “The smash-dance club.”

  “Not her style.”

  Durn shook his head. “Definitely not.”

  “What's next?”

  “A karoke show club.”

  “Does she sing?” Durn asked.

  Solia sighed. “Try there.”

  Jordahk rolled with it, glad that somebody had an inkling. They swerved through the crowds to arrive at the show club. Its seating formed three quarters of a circle around the stage. The tiered design afforded enough space on each level for booths. They were filling fast as the group grabbed one near the top.

  The floor and tables were lit with strips of light. The ceiling was dark, and the stage, currently empty, reflected a cold blue.

  Jordahk scanned the crowd. No doubt among them was information they'd find useful. “Max, do you see her?”

  Suddenly the stage lit with gl
ittering colors. They formed lines and took shape, filling out to become a warrior woman with a lion's head. The sound of two women wordlessly singing in low harmony filled the club. A light beamed down to the platform, and there was Zoraida, back facing the audience, gyrating her colortat to life. He didn't realize it went so low!

  “Found her,” Max said.

  “Thanks Magellan.”

  This had to be a different offering than what typically occurred at karaoke show time. Zoraida moved with a surety far beyond long adolescence. Conversations stopped and tabletop gaming VADs paused. A number of unseated stumbled as they craned necks to see. Why was he not surprised.

  As she turned to face them, the dual harmony became four-part. Waves of sound, brought to life by glowing VAD effects, cascaded through the air. They moved above the audience, covering them with chromatic pulsation. It was entrancing.

  “I didn't imagine she was that good,” Durn said.

  She began to sing words, although in a language he didn't understand.

  “Max, where's the translation?”

  “One second. I didn't have this one on me.”

  “It's Dynastic Egyptian,” Wixom link-said.

  The translation scrolled in the air before them.

  Power is coming with the waning sun. The underworld shall rise and the dunes shall be wiped clean.

  “Charming,” Solia said.

  “It must have some poetic context...” Durn said.

  Jordahk's eyes met Solia's.

  “I don't think so,” she said.

  The rhythmic beat and harmonies throbbed through his body. It felt good, yet he was ill-at-ease. Durn seemed entranced.

  Suddenly the sound and visuals kicked up a notch. The room's lighting strips began to cycle to the music. The visuals became real enough to touch, and sound came through the table, the floor, everywhere.

  “She's cracked the pro system,” Max said.

  The room was rigged for incredible effects, but for professionals, not karaoke night.

  A great flaming bird crossed over them, flying toward the horizon and taking the light with it.

  Ra has gone, and now only we remain, the translation continued.

  The setting took on a darker tone, and the sound became otherworldly.

  “Cracked it? How? What's she running?”

  “An Olivia,” the AI answered,“v30a.”

  “That sounds new,” Solia remarked.

  “It is, v29 was just released.”

  Zoraida amped up the spectacle. Light flowed off her arms and echoed off body movements in expanding waves. Her clothes opened to reveal more skin. They changed to the music, alternating between glowing hues and transparency. Revealed underneath were more colortats. Two jackals grasped her chest, their serpentine lowers stretched down her abdomen and wrapped around her thighs. Blood red light coursed through them.

  Jordahk squinted, then tried to blink away the imagery. Something deep within him rose. Something he didn't even know was there. It stood in opposition, refusing to be dominated by the sight even as the room grew enchanted. Sound bounced off everything, infusing his body, grasping for the pleasure centers. But his pillar of resistance, near the place where mystic resided, would not yield.

  With an effort of will he turned away. Sweat trickled down his temples and coolness washed over him.

  He placed a hand on Solia's arm. “Stay with me.”

  Solia looked into his eyes. He felt his rets flick off, and he flashed her with platinum irises.

  She shook her head as if to snap out of a trance. “What is this?”

  “I don't know. It's like the sound is beyond what we can hear.”

  “It is, on both ends of the spectrum,” Wixom said.

  He could feel the AI's amusement. “Why didn't you say something?”

  “I was waiting to see if you'd be resistant.”

  He was really starting to dislike that AI, but for the sake of Max, he was stuck with it. He could sense greater activity in the mystic creation as the concert environment amped up yet again.

  “Max, sound shield the table.”

  “Privacy options on the tables have been deactivated. Generating anti-sound myself. The incoming is complex and multi-layered. I can't get it all. Not against this room's sound system.”

  The very air began to oscillate with light and now heat. It acted like an extension of Zoraida's body. The greater temperatures carried an almost erotic sensation. From out of the mesmerizing light a VAD formed. A dozen racy pictures of Zoraida flickered at high speed, stopping on a last one with her arms out, beckoning.

  It was a file waiting to be opened. It floated before Durn too, and everybody in the club. Solia's showed Zoraida kissing some bare-chested guy that looked fresh off of a romance postbook cover.

  “Leave it,” Jordahk said.

  “I wouldn't go near it,” Solia scoffed.

  Wixom was whirring away. Durn's face was flushed and his eyes glazed. Solia was perspiring.

  “Max, give me some answers!”

  “Wixom's doing a lot of crunching. I can tell you about the file. It's diabolically simple. It asks for two-way file sharing when you accept it to look at the images. Cleverly hidden, though, is a modifier that bores a tiny hole through the user's privacy firewalls.”

  “She'd be able to read anything.”

  Most people had chosen to unlock the file, but a few were stunned, shaking their heads and massaging their temples.

  “It wouldn't work without all the prior conditioning,” Max said.

  Durn started to reach for the file. Jordahk slapped his hand away.

  “I want the rest of it blocked.”

  “I've got it now,” Wixom said. The sound reduced to plain background music. “The resonating was complex only by scientum standards. It's based off Sojourner research. Hence the delay.”

  “Resonating Sojourner research?” Jordahk said. “Ek-Hein Wahb?”

  Jordahk recalled the brilliant Sojourner they'd encountered, and eventually freed, at Grehjot. He was wracked by the onus, and clung to his last mission of protecting the platinum fields. A mission for a war long over, but one he sustained effectively using his resonance technology.

  “Yes,” Wixom said. “My master provided calculation support for what must have been Ek-Hein's early research. It was turned into a powerful hypnotic here using the varying densities of everything in the chamber. Your simple-minded AI can share the rest.”

  “The more stimulated by the performance,” Max said, “the more susceptible to the conditioning an individual becomes.”

  “What's she looking for?” Solia asked.

  Jordahk shrugged. “Did she get it? Max?”

  “Olivia's receivers are shut.”

  “She must have moved to a secure line.” Jordahk looked to his wrist. “Find it.”

  The image files disappeared.

  Solia wiped her slender throat. “Finally!”

  Wixom surged. Their table light strips stopped oscillating to the music and flickered.

  “She's resonance communicating through the pro system,” Max said. “Looks like six individuals. They only have to remain in physical contact with their table.”

  Wixom surged again. Across the generated landscape of toppling obelisks and crumbling pyramids, the light strips of six tables stopped oscillating.

  “What did you do?” Jordahk demanded.

  “I sent rudimentary anti-hypnotic protocols to the sound generators of the affected tables.”

  “What? You're not supposed to take that kind of action without authorization!”

  “I did it anonymously. Oh, would you prefer I leave those people to the whims of that woman's designs?” Wixom switched over to link communication. “That wouldn't be very Quext-like.”

  Jordahk shook his head. “Ramifications, Wixom.”

  At four of the six tables, admins were having heated exchanges with their rings.

  “Oh boy,” Max said. “Those can't be fun conversation
s.”

  The remaining two freed tables continued unchanged. At one, the crowd was still into the concert, much like Durn. At the other, a lone man with out-of-place clothing sat alone, clearly still mesmerized.

  “I've got multiple attacks routing in on her through the pro line,” Max said. “Those four are clearly not pleased. They've locked it open.”

  “Why doesn't she just get off the stage,” Solia asked.

  “She's probably transferring information from those two dupes,” Max said.

  The distance into the well of the stage suddenly seemed deeper to Jordahk. “Maybe she thinks she can hold off the attacks long enough to get what she wants.”

  Solia made a matter-of-fact shrug. “She's gonna get vaporized.” He looked at her. “She has it coming, Jordahk.”

  It was true. She did have it coming. He watched her with fresh eyes. The performance was amazing. Dark, and too reliant on sensuality, but amazing in delivery. More so with Zoraida simultaneously issuing data sifting commands and manning outnumbered defenses. He saw a tremor cross her face. A fleeting glimpse through ever-present bravado. He had no history with her, but how long had it been since she last felt that twinge of doubt?

  He wondered what could keep her on stage until the Olivia was slagged. Pride, or her greed for information. Grimacing, he closed his eyes. He centered his thoughts in his forehead with the old technique. The stimuli receded, and clarity returned.

  He pounded the table and glared at his bracelet. “No, I have to clean up Wixom's mess.”

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Kord closed the simple text message, although the man who sent it was anything but simple. The news added another piece to the vexing puzzle. His thoughts must have reached his face.

  “What is it?” Vittora asked.

  “My father. There's no keeping him out of trouble. Just understanding him is a full time job.”

  Concern crossed his wife's face. They both loved his father, but she was much better at expressing it. She also knew that if he took it to the enemy, Jordahk would not be far behind.

  Sojourners.

  Kord laughed at his own incredulity. Did he have any standing when it came to keeping out of trouble?