Warden 2 Read online

  “Do it,” Rhea said. She glanced at Will. “Also, I want all of my other closest followers scanned. Make sure the Wardenites are clean.”

  “I’m on it,” Renaldo said.

  “No,” Rhea said. “Will, I want you to handle it.”

  Renaldo gave her a hurt look. She couldn’t hold his gaze and instead glanced at Will, who nodded.

  “I want everyone to wait for me on level three,” Will instructed Renaldo.

  The latter man scowled at him, but then Renaldo sighed and retreated through the hole cut into the wall.

  “You heard the man,” came Renaldo’s voice from the next cargo container. “To the rungs. Level three it is!”

  Rhea listened to the receding clang of boots upon the metal floor; she could tell when the group reached the ladder, because the clangs changed in pitch, dropping further in volume as they descended.

  “Renaldo didn’t look too happy,” Horatio commented when the din had faded almost entirely.

  “He’ll get over it,” Will said.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “He has to realize that I can’t trust anyone, not anymore.” She glanced at Will and Horatio. “Maybe not even you two.”

  “We’ll submit to scans, of course,” Horatio said.

  “I know you will,” Rhea said. “But that doesn’t mean you won’t be infiltrated at some point in the future.”

  “Then we’ll have daily scans,” Horatio said.

  Rhea nodded. It would have to do.

  She tried to access the Net. Even with the breach in the wall she wasn’t able to get a signal. She had insisted on installing a grounded metal screen around the cargo container she used as a bedroom, which formed a Faraday cage around it. The cage meant no unauthorized transmissions could get into or out of her room. It also meant when she wanted to browse the Net she had to do so in a different area. Why she had insisted on such a security precaution, she didn’t know. She supposed it was something she had done in her past life, something that had carried over into this one.

  Rhea strode toward the adjacent cargo container. “Have you ever heard of Veil?”

  Will shook his head.

  “I have not,” Horatio said.

  As she neared the hole in the wall her connection to the Net reactivated. She promptly ran a search on “Veil,” but found only the definition, and a few random usernames on various VR forums and streaming sites. She tried the search again, adding in the phrase “Rust Town or Aradne,” but this time got nothing at all. Which made her think that someone in power had been scrubbing things…

  “The assassin said something, I take it?” Will asked from behind.

  Rhea nodded. “He shouted ‘for Veil’ when he attacked. While you’re scanning my followers, ask them if they know anything about a man named Veil. Tell them to reach out to their networks.”

  Will nodded.

  “I’ll also upload a video to SubverseTube,” she said. “And ask my subscribers if they know anything.”

  “That’s a good idea.” He paused. “You know, we should change locations. Too many people know I stay here.”

  “We could,” Rhea said. “But what’s to say he won’t hunt us down again? The Scorpion might have been sent by Veil, for example. We were in the Outlands, but he still found us!”

  “Good point,” Will said.

  “Don’t worry, I don’t plan to stay here for very long anyway,” she said. “As soon as we find a way to restore the water, I’ll be on the move again.”

  “Different city?” he asked.

  “I haven’t decided yet. But either way, Veil will still be a threat.” She studied him. “Maybe now would be a good time to come clean on what you know about my past. You once sanded away a mark from my forehead. Why? What did the mark mean?”

  Will shook his head. “The knowledge won’t help you. It will only make things worse. Confuse you. Trust me on this.”

  She sighed. “All right. I trust you.” She glanced at the hole in the wall. “When you go, send one of the 3D printing drones up here. I want my wall, and its Faraday cage, restored.”

  Rhea sat in the corner of the adjacent room, watching the humming drone work. It sprayed a melted concoction of metals into the gap in the wall as it moved from side to side. Every time it completed a horizontal pass, it moved upward almost imperceptibly, less than a millimeter. In that manner it slowly filled the hole in the wall.

  Meanwhile, cleaning robots carried out the blood-stained mattress. Horatio had departed with the body earlier, carrying it in a body bag so as to not spread blood all over. Rhea had felt only anger when she saw that bag. She experienced no sadness or remorse of any kind. She wondered if that made her a bad person.

  I should feel guilty about killing him, shouldn’t I?

  But she reminded herself that it had been an accident. And self-defense. But the worst part was, a part of her had enjoyed it.

  No, not the killing. Never the killing. Only the fighting.

  She remembered smiling when she kneed him in the groin.

  Yeah, I like fighting.

  When the gap was completely sealed, the drone deployed a telescoping arm to retrieve the existing section that had been cut away. The sheet metal flopped back and forth, emitting a deep twang, at least until the drone could press it against the wall. Then the machine began welding the edges to the surface.

  When the drone completed the task, it promptly flew into the open door and vanished. She accessed the inner security camera, which was located well within her line of sight—ensuring that the shielding from the Faraday cage wouldn’t interfere with her signal. From the cam’s viewpoint, she watched the drone move to the discolored section of wall that remained where the gap once was; when the flying machine arrived, it began spraying streams of metal onto the surface, and slowly crept upward after each pass.

  While it worked, she thought idly of the camera and the motion sensors in this current cargo container, adjacent to her bedroom. The monitoring devices had been temporarily disabled by Anderson during his earlier attack, since he had the passcodes like most members of her inner circle. Giving out those codes had been a mistake, she realized. Best to keep them in her possession alone, like the codes to the sensors of her bedroom. As soon as Horatio had taken away Anderson’s body, she’d changed all the codes in the vicinity, with the intention of keeping them to herself.

  The drone reached the top of the former gap and then flew out of the room. As it passed her, it beeped twice in acknowledgement, or perhaps thanks, and then departed. She could no longer discern any difference in coloration on the wall. The gap might as well have never existed. At least on camera.

  More robots arrived, carrying the replacement mattress and sheets. No doubt the substitutes had been taken from Anderson’s cargo container, since he wouldn’t be needing them now.

  The final cleaning robot departed her room, making way for the newcomers. When the robots finished placing the mattress and setting the sheets, they departed.

  With a sigh, Rhea arose and entered her bedroom. There was no sign of the bloody mess that had tainted the room. She still didn’t feel like sleeping there, however.

  Well, she wasn’t going to sleep out here, that much was certain. She felt safer within the Faraday cage. She wasn’t quite sure why. She glanced at her HUD and confirmed that she had no Net signal already.

  She didn’t bother to activate the usual virtual decorations she liked to festoon her room with; she wasn’t in the mood for them.

  Instead she lay down. On the floor. She didn’t quite feel ready to sleep in the bed, even if everything was clean. Not when the previous owner had only just died.

  Rhea realized she’d forgotten to shut the door behind her. Like most entrances in Rust Town, it was manually operated. While the parts necessary for remote interfacing were dirt cheap, manually operated doors provided an extra level of security: without a remote interface, a door couldn’t be hacked.

  She got up again, and before she could close it
, she heard clangs, rising in volume, coming from outside the room. A glance at her overhead map showed the blue dots of Will and Horatio approaching.

  She peered around the bend and saw Will and Horatio pulling themselves into the adjacent cargo container via the opening in the floor.

  She retreated into her bedroom and sat down on the floor, propping her back against the wall.

  When Will entered, he gazed down at her and frowned. “Don’t like your new bed?”

  “I’m not ready to sleep in a dead man’s bed, not just yet,” she said.

  Will nodded and shut the door.

  Rhea appreciated the added privacy. No one would be eavesdropping on them now.

  “So,” Will said. “The other Wardenites are clean. For now. No chips. Horatio and I are also good.”

  Rhea nodded. “Not surprising. But would you mind if I scanned you myself?”

  Will gave her an incredulous look, but then shrugged. “Horatio?”

  The robot came forward, and removed one of his fingers, which functioned as a portable scanner. She took the device and ran it over Will’s head, then Horatio’s AI core.

  “Clean,” she said, giving it back to Horatio. “Hope you’re not insulted.”

  “No,” Will said. “Someone from your inner circle just tried to assassinate you. You have every right to be overly cautious and suspicious of everyone, even your friends.”

  “I knew you’d understand,” she said. She glanced at Horatio. “You finished examining the body, I assume?”

  “Yes,” Horatio said. “It was indeed a mind hijacking chip.”

  Rhea tapped her chin. “I wonder why he was only armed with a laser cutter? You’d think he’d have something more powerful. Don’t get me wrong, a laser cutter can do plenty damage when misused. But still.”

  “Given all the security cameras you have throughout the place, sneaking a weapon inside would be rather difficult,” Will said.

  “Actually, about that…” Horatio interjected. “During the autopsy, I also found this in the lower intestines.”

  He produced a small spherical object.

  Rhea extended a hand toward it, but then stopped herself. She wasn’t all that big on touching something that had been in a dead man’s intestines.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “A fragmentation grenade,” Horatio replied.

  Rhea hissed and stepped back a pace. “Why are you bringing it in here?”

  “No need to panic, I’ve disarmed it,” Horatio said.

  “I don’t care, get it out of here!” Rhea said.

  Horatio shrugged, then started for the door.

  Before the robot reached it, she asked: “Why didn’t Anderson detonate it when he had the chance?”

  “I believe he had no control over the device,” Horatio said. “Whoever sent him wanted to dictate the timing behind both your deaths.”

  “The Faraday cage,” she said. “It saved me.”

  “Yes,” Horatio agreed. “The walls of the cargo container would have interfered with any remote arming signals.”

  “But the Faraday cage… wouldn’t it have prevented the attack order from reaching the chip in his brain?” Rhea pressed.

  “Not if the order was received outside your room,” Horatio said. “Once given, Anderson would have followed the order even after losing communication, until the success or failure of the mission.”

  “Okay,” Rhea said. “Let me know if anything else surfaces.”

  “Will do,” Horatio said before opening the door and leaving.

  She glanced at Will.

  “So, what now?” Will asked.

  “Now I sleep,” she said. “And hope someone can dredge up something on this Veil in the morning.”

  4

  Rhea had set her mind-machine interface to wake her with the dawn, and at the designated hour her eyes opened. She was surprised at how well she’d slept, given the events of the night before. She thought she should feel shaken in some way. But then she reminded herself that she’d faced an army of deadly bioweapons.

  Takes a lot more than some botched assassination attempt to faze me.

  Though her room had no windows and was completely dark, she knew it was sunrise courtesy of the clock overlaid in the lower right of her HUD, which remained visible at all times, regardless of the light output. It currently read five in the morning.

  She rubbed her eyes and rose groggily. She half-expected to feel stiff, but as she stood up gracefully and without effort, she remembered she was no longer completely human. For a small instant she had forgotten she was a cyborg. It happened from time to time, usually upon waking.

  She glanced at the untouched bed then went to the door. She opened it only to discover Horatio seated on the floor just outside.

  “Have you been here all night?” she asked the robot.

  “Will thought it would be a good idea,” Horatio said.

  “Will had nothing to do with it,” Rhea said. “The idea was all yours, wasn’t it?”

  “The idea was mine,” Horatio admitted. “But I did tell Will. He agreed I should guard your door last night. And perhaps every night going forward, if you will allow it.”

  “Oh, that won’t be necessary,” she said. “I wouldn’t want you to be bothered, my friend.”

  “It’s no bother,” Horatio told her. “I was logged into Machine World for an all night gaming session.” That was a massive multiplayer VR game for AIs.

  She grinned. “So, you’re saying I ruined your gaming session?” Like her, his body was equipped with motion sensors that could rouse him from virtual reality at a moment’s notice.

  “Actually, this isn’t the first time I’ve been rudely pulled from the game,” Horatio said. “Renaldo came up a few times. You might want to check your messages.”

  She frowned. She’d told Renaldo not to come knocking at her door after dark, but the man was a night owl and sometimes couldn’t help himself. Good thing Horatio had been there to turn him away so she could have an uninterrupted rest.

  Now that the door was open, she was able to log into the Net. A moment after she connected, the notification icon flashed in the lower right of her HUD.

  She had a message waiting from Renaldo. Actually, five messages. Apparently, he wanted to see her, very badly. There were also several other messages from SubverseTube subscribers who had watched the latest video she’d posted, but she planned to review those later.

  She sent Renaldo a call in holographic mode and shared the feed with Horatio. She muted the robot so that Renaldo wouldn’t know Horatio was observing.

  Renaldo’s upper body appeared before her in hologram form. He swept the short-cropped hair away from his eyes as if he’d just awakened. “Warden. I have news.”

  Rhea waited patiently, saying nothing.

  Renaldo cleared his throat. “Jairlin reached out to his network.” That was another Wardenite from Rust Town. “He received a response early this morning from a man who claims to know Veil. This man wouldn’t agree to a virtual meeting—says the Net has too many prying eyes and ears. He does have a point about that, so I decided to let him visit you in person. Hopefully you’re okay with that.”

  “Tell him I’ll be available this afternoon,” she said.

  “He’s here now,” he said.

  “He’s here now?” Rhea repeated incredulously.

  “Uh huh,” Renaldo told her. “He came an hour ago. We wouldn’t let him leave.”

  She frowned. “The forceful confinement of someone who wants to help me…”

  “It’s for his own good,” Renaldo countered. “We told him to wait, but after fifteen minutes he tried to go, giving us some lame excuse about feeding his robotic cats. So of course, we stopped him.”

  “What if he really had to feed his robot cats?” she asked sarcastically.

  “First of all, they’re robots, so they don’t eat,” he replied. “Second of all, no one owns robot cats in Rust Town—they’re too easily st
olen and reprogrammed. It’s obvious he was having a change of heart.”

  “If he’s had a change of heart, what makes you think he’ll talk now?” she asked. “And I don’t want you threatening him, by the way. That’s not how the followers of the Warden roll.”

  “We haven’t threatened him…” Renaldo said.

  “Telling him you won’t release him unless he talks is a threat, I’d say,” she insisted.

  “No, no, we didn’t do anything of the sort!” Renaldo said, stiffening. Then his eyes darted back and forth as he continued sheepishly: “We simply said he couldn’t leave until he spoke to the Warden.”

  She pressed her lips together. “I see.”

  “Please, Warden, just talk to him,” Renaldo told her. “If he reveals nothing, you can send him on his way, and we’ll blame Jairlin for wasting all our time. I have a feeling when he meets you face to face, he’ll spill what he knows.”

  Rhea sighed. “All right, fine, bring him up.”

  “Thank you.” Renaldo’s hologram blinked out.

  She glanced at Horatio. “See what I have to deal with?”

  “Interacting with humans is often unpleasant,” Horatio agreed.

  She stepped fully into the adjacent room and left the door to her bed chamber open in case she needed to beat a hasty retreat. Horatio stood up and leaned against the wall beside her.

  Rhea gazed impatiently at the opening on the far side of the cargo container, where rungs attached to the wall led to the next container stacked below.

  A few moments later she heard muted clanging coming from those rungs, then three individuals pulled themselves into the chamber in turn.

  The first was Renaldo, his bronze skin seeming darker than ever, no doubt from all the days spent in the sun helping to rebuild Rust Town. The artificial skin that covered her face and neck didn’t tan like a normal human’s; she always had the same perfect complexion no matter how much sun she took.

  The next man was someone she’d never seen before. He wore black coveralls over a grimy shirt, with a drab, mangy cloak hanging over his shoulders and boots that had seen better days. His unshaven face had a similar disheveled appearance, with both the hair of his beard and his head reaching to the upper chest; and if it wasn’t for the dirt caking his cheeks, he’d be as pale as Miles. And then there was the stench, which she detected even from here. Unwashed feet, underarms, genitals. She managed to avoid wrinkling her nose in disgust. Just barely. Via her mind-machine interface, she deactivated her sense of smell. Much better.