Yallow gazed at her unit commander, then switched her attention to Cormac. Her look said it all: he would have to update her soon or she would be seriously annoyed. Cormac remembered the bruises from last time she'd been annoyed with him, though he had given as good as he got. She climbed out of the vehicle and headed off to their quarters amidst the composite domes.
"He escaped?" he asked. "How the hell could he escape?"
Spencer took the car up again, then in a moment brought it down beside the hospital. Olkennon climbed out, but Spencer remained at the controls.
"Out," she said to Cormac.
He just cleared the car as it launched into the sky again.
"Come on," said Olkennon.
Finally reaching Carl's room, Olkennon punched in the code as before and led the way through the door. The bed was empty—shellwear discarded on tangled sheets. Cormac did not understand why he had been brought here. Olkennon walked around to the other side of the bed, gesturing Cormac over. As soon as he stepped round beside her she pointed down at an object on the floor.
"Medscan didn't pick this up," she said. "It's very sophisticated for a twenty-three-year-old recruit and certainly confirms Carl was more than that."
Cormac prodded at the flap of rubbery material with the toe of his boot. It looked like a thick piece of skin.
"The body has been removed," Olkennon added.
"Body?"
"What you are seeing there is what covers my kind, though the newer of my kind. It's Golem syntheflesh, but unlike mine this has imbedded chameleonware." She stooped and picked up the piece of synthetic flesh and dropped it on the bed. "A medic came in here to check on him, to make sure the shellwear was still keeping him unconscious. Apparently it was not. We don't know for sure what he had concealed underneath this." She gestured at the flesh. "But something transmitted a localized virus that froze all systems connected to his room."
"You were using a nerve-blocker to keep him unconscious," suggested Cormac.
"Yes—it knocked that out too."
"He killed the medic."
"Broke her neck then took her clothing," said Olkennon bitterly. "Then he just disappeared."
"Why did you bring me here?" Cormac asked.
"Because you have earned the right to know." Olkennon seemed chagrined for a moment. "It also seems likely, judging by your recent performance, that you'll be offered the chance to train as an agent, and seeing this sort of thing forms part of your education."
Cormac nodded, shrugged his pulse-rifle's strap more firmly on his shoulder. He wasn't sure what to make of that. Really, he didn't think he was ready for that kind of advancement.
"Head back and link up with Yallow," Olkennon instructed. "Whether you tell her about all this is entirely up to you."
Cormac turned and headed out, his head buzzing. Carl would probably rejoin the Separatists here and once that happened they would know Cormac was not his partner. From then on he would become a target and a danger to those around him. This was why they were being moved out, and he didn't suppose Yallow would be too pleased about it.
Within five minutes he reached their quarters, in time to see Yallow dragging out two heavy packs. He walked over, put down his rifle while hauling on his pack, then once again hung the rifle from his shoulder.
"Are you going to tell me what's going on?" she asked, as she hoisted up her own pack.
Cormac paused for a moment. How to explain all this?
"Olkennon showed me how Carl escaped," he said. "He killed a medic. I think she showed me this to drive home that Carl certainly isn't my friend. I think the AI was watching—checking my reactions. They still don't trust me because I was in that trench with Carl."
The lies spilt so easily from his mouth, and they were simpler than the truth. Perhaps he was cut out for agent training.
"But the AI didn't need to observe me?"
"I don't know, Yallow, I'm not an AI," he said. "Let's go."
As they marched off towards the main transport depot in the camp, Yallow was silent and contemplative, and kept glancing at him as if hoping to catch something in his expression. He maintained a slightly bewildered and angry mien, and after a little while she seemed to accept what he had told her.
"I still don't understand why we have to go," she said.
"Trust, I think," Cormac replied. "I guess they just can't afford to trust us on a world with this much Separatist activity." He glanced at her. "Or rather they can't afford to trust me—you just get to come along for the ride. I'm sorry."
Yallow grimaced
The hydrovan that slowly cruised past them was not a particularly uncommon sight, it being one of the bland green and beige vehicles used for carting about ECS equipment. It slowed ahead of them, pulled over and stopped, whereupon the back door popped open a crack.
The vehicle emitted a stuttering crackle, which for a second Cormac thought was produced by its exhaust, but Yallow just disappeared from his peripheral vision. He turned, seeing her sprawl loose-limbed. Her uniform looked untidy—torn and frayed—then she made an odd grunting sound and the blood began to soak through. In seeming slow motion Cormac hit the quick release on his pack then threw himself to one side, unlimbering his pulse-rifle. He shouldered the ground, rolled with the weapon clutched against his chest, came upright with it up against his shoulder and fired into the back of the van. The pulses of ionized aluminium cut a punctuated line across the back doors. Something thumped at the ground by his feet, and flew apart with a loud crack, the blast sending him staggering, then around him things detonated in the air punching what felt like needles through his exposed skin. With one hand going down on the ground he shook himself, tried to push himself into action, but couldn't get his breath and seemed to be gazing down a pipe at his hand.
Neurotoxin stun grenade, he realised, as the ground came up into his face and his consciousness fled.
"They would have been removed," said Samara. "After our first attempt they would have been removed."
Cormac blinked. She seemed to be drifting about before him and though sure she had said something a moment before, he could not remember it. He felt terrible: where his body wasn't numb it was afflicted with horrible bone-deep ache. He tried to move, but the only result of that was a sudden hot sweat.
"Wha?" he managed.
Something pressed against his neck, and hurt. From that point a wave of chill spread both up into his head and swiftly down his right arm to his fingertips, which felt as if each nail had been rapped with a hammer. In his chest the sensation was not unpleasant, until it encountered his stomach and seemed to close a hand around it. Abrupt nausea ensued and he vomited, just managing to turn his head so it didn't go into his lap, and seeing a couple of boots retreating he blearily peered up at Pramer, who was capping a syringe. Now, becoming a bit more aware of his surroundings, he realised he was tied naked to a chair in some cramped building with charred walls.
"Where were the tracers?" Samara asked.
"In the casings," someone replied—the voice somehow familiar, "We left the casings in the hole and took the antimatter flasks only."
"Are they okay?"
"Couldn't find anything, but we photo-etched the outside of them anyway."
"What about him?"
Cormac abruptly realised that Samara was standing right in front of him and that the one she had been talking to was somewhere behind. To his left Samara's other heavy stood cradling his flack gun. A wound dressing covered his hand and his face bore that shiny look often left by inferior doc-work. It was he who answered, not the other voice.
"His uniform was full of them, and there were microscopic ones imbedded in his skin," said the heavy. What was his name? Skyril, that was it. "While we were in the sewer we removed them, along with his uniform, then gave him the full-saturation EM to kill any others we might have missed. The search parties were above ground and couldn't get to an entrance into the sewers quick enough. In fact, when they did try to move fast they ran straight into a couple of sticky mines. Seemed to make 'em less enthusiastic."