satindesire
Queen of Geeks
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2005
- Posts
- 13,101
Previously...on..."The Centre"
********************
Briefing Room 2 was empty but for a single backlit chair, the masculine definition of broad shoulders in a black tuxedo jacket. The bald head gleamed predatorially. If Ki had ever been afraid, this was the room it happened in.
On the single long desk, a tan case log was slapped onto the polished old-Earth mahogany.
The file read "Project: MusicBox"
"United Syria's Grand Enclave General Sumra's daughter, Nixa, was kidnapped two hours ago. Her integrated becon has been shut down by some unknown source. She was last reported in the Mondolo system moons, propably being held on the third smallest, also habitable to humanoid lifeforms. Mandolo 4 has a large underground network of old magma chambers connected by natrual and man-made tunnels, which we've theorized is her location. The kidnappers are demanding ten million unsignatured credits by tomorrow morning or they're threatening to kill her."
It was the work of a moment for Sandoval to determine that the colourful negotiations in Board Room One had nothing to do with Ki. Box Two was still playing its recorded sequence of diagnostics, responding as though he was sitting at the keyboard, so he moved Box Three on to the section of the building that housed the briefing rooms. The tailbroom program dragged after him, erasing his digital tracks.
'...daughter, Nixa, was kidnapped two hours ago. Her integrated beacon has been shut down by some unknown source...'
Box One pinged. He had mail. The contents of the message were identical to the words he was hearing from the Agent in Room Two. Despite the ludicrously tight timeline, this mission read like any of the countless others he'd done extop duty for over the years. Stop being so paranoid, man.
"The Centre has an....interest...in the Grand Enclave...and her rescue could prove quite profitable to Centre business. You have five minutes to pack your gear and report to docking ring one."
Ki's large copper eyes were wide with shock.
"With all due respect Sir, I'm an -assasin-...not a dog team!"
"You have...-five-...minutes, Agent Four."
A sinew pulsed in her jaw.
"Yes, Sir."
***************************
Docking Ring One
"Testing voice print activated signal. Rub a dub dub, three men in a tub, taking a bath one day. The butcher, the baker, the candle-stick-maker...Now which one of them was gay?"
The Stims suddenly hit her like a tidal wave and in a sudden wave of most human-like nausea she doubled over, green liquid tearing from her eyeducts. The eyecam moniters crackled with sudden life as her energy was suddenly forced from seventeen percent to eighty nine percent.
"Fuck." the HUD's energy spike sent a shrill claxon in her earpeice and she winced, flicking the moniters offline.
"Pilot Ri Natama reporting for duty, Ma'am!" A tall half-asain, half-black humanoid stood at attention, saluting smartly.
"Oh, for fuck's sake, stop that. I'm not your superior, at ease, or whatever it is you're supposed to say..." He automatically relaxed, crossing his hands behind his back. He was well over six feet tall, built like a Mac truck with muscle on muscle. What the hell was he doing as a pilot?
"The preflight checks have been made, Ma'am. We're ready and waiting."
"Are any other Agents being deployed?"
"I was not told Ma'am. But the rumor is that Agent Five is rendezvousing on our LZ, Ma'am."
"Stop!...calling me Ma'am."
"Yes Ma'a......Er..."
"Oh, God. Nevermind. Come on." Pressing a finger agaisnt the earpeice to check the voicecom to Box Room, she made sure the linkline was connected to Sandoval. Her little limmerick in the docking bay would have established that before.
"You reading this okay, Sandoval?"
Presumably there was a line between paranoia and prudent caution, but he didn't know where it was any more.
The earpiece crackled, static cut with syllables that resolved themselves into Ki's voice. The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker... He'd always wondered about that linkup signal. Anyway, the smart money was probably on the candlestick maker.
"Loud and clear, Agent Four," sliding the blue goggles over his eyes. She'd overridden the monitors and her stats bubbled near optimum as the drugs filled her with borrowed energy. The sight alone was enough to trigger hungry receptors in his brain. "Feeling refreshed, I see. All right for some."
His full attention wasn't required unless someone started shooting at the hover. Sandoval's right hand settled on the Box Three keyboard and started keying in repeaters, getting a lock on the outer layers of the encrypted package. Matter of fact, he could probably set an autobot to break the ice and ping him when it was done
All business. There was no hint of the passion, the love, the desire for closeness and normalcy. Agent Four knew Sandoval as Box Room. Not as her lover, the only man she could trust. It was as if there were two people inside her body. Ki and...the mankiller.
Agent Four strapped herself in tightly in the foam-molded seats. Judging by the size of her pilot, this wasn't going to be the smoothest ride she ever took.
"ETA from takeoff is seven hours, twenty five minutes." He broadcasted, linking up with her earpeice.
With a private comlink she murmured "I don't like this, Sandoval. Not one bit. I've never done a rescue mission before and they're not likely to send someone like me here. I didn't know the General had kids!"
Almost like an afterthought, she stated "You know what...? Find all the information you can about the General and Nixa. This smells like fish and it's not the roach coach that's stinking."
ETA from takeoff is seven hours, twenty-five minutes.'
Which meant Ki would be sitting still in a chair for seven and a half hours while wired off the scale on stim shots. This was no easy task. Sandoval hoped for her sake they had in-flight video games, or that she'd be able to step herself down enough to get some sleep.
Idly, he punched up the file on Natama. Ex-military, apparently, like Cardin, although it seemed the big man was very recently ex-military. His file with the Centre wasn't more than a week old. Well, that explained the way he'd addressed Ki, at least...
'I don't like this, Sandoval. Not one bit. I've never done a rescue mission before and they're not likely to send someone like me here. I didn't know the General had kids!'
He wasn't about to admit it, but Ki had given voice to the same vague feelings of suspicion that had been circling his head since she left, an edge of disquiet he'd tried unsuccessfully to put down to lack of sleep. Nevertheless, he couldn't stop a smile when she requested 'all the information he could find'. Not that he blamed her, but Ki never seemed to get a handle on just how much information that was.
"I'll see what I can do."
Yes, General Sumra had a wife, a striking woman whose large dark eyes reminded him of Ki, and a six-year-old girl who stared sullenly into the lens of the camera for the file photo. Didn't look nearly as happy or well-dressed as her glamorous mother. She wore a blue-and-white checked dress with an outmoded square collar, looked like some kind of uniform.
Sandoval frowned. Something tapped at the back of his head, just out of his mental focus. He'd seen this picture before, but he was damned if he could remember where. Maybe if he went under, punched Core-
That was it.
Core. That was where he'd seen it- not the same image, but a disturbingly similar one. In her file photo, six-year-old Hana Kawaguchi had been wearing an identical dress. And there'd been that same faint blur to either side of her...
He locked on to the formless shadow at the edges of Nixa's picture, ran it through some military de-map to resolve it. Shoulders. The edges of chequered sleeves to either side of her. This girl had been standing in a row of other girls in similar clothing. This was not a Government-issue file photo. He'd patched together too many false identities not to know what that meant.
Sandoval opened his mouth, then closed it, his eyes on the bank of lights representing the Centre's comm board. The private channels were still Centre-operated, so there was always a chance that someone was listening- he could secure his end of the transmission, but there was no way he could get Ki to secure hers without raising suspicion.
Sandoval's unusually long pause threatened to have her up out of the seat. She was trembling with nervous stim-shot energy...seven hours in that tin can wouldn't do her nerves well at all. Hopefully she'd be clear enough to focus on Phasing. Even a seasoned infiltrater like her could Phase sloppily hopped up on stims.
"Sandoval, do you copy? I said I want all the information you can find." Static.
Natama spoke up as her belly dropped in the hoverpod's sudden liftoff. The antigrav chambers whirred a low roar beneath the crackling of many other monitors and other bells and whistles. "We're experiencing some kind of bleed-off interference from the Centre Com DataSat. It should resolve momentarily."
All the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Why? Suddenly, she didn't know.
Unconciously, she slid deep into the cushions of the foam-form chair...and wether Sandoval answered or not, it didn't matter.
The pod broke gravity and began preperations for faster-than-light travel.
A hoverpod fitted with Slipstream?
Natama's Sat board read they were going towards Alpha Prime System...the complete opposite direction they were told.
The hover entered slipstream space mere moments after Centre doomsdayer fell under. Natama stood as he keyed the ship on autopilot, unhooked Ki's unconcious body from the foamform seat, and carried her to the pre-prepared seperate brig cabin.
She'd wake up soon enough.
He snapped an electric collar around Ki's throat...That should keep her in line until they reached Prime.
***********************
Box Room
***********************
The door hissed open, to Sandoval's suprised face. He tore his blue-goggled eyes from the VR screen, keying off the info on Nixa and the General. "Agent One. What do I owe the honor to?" There was a hint of wariness to his voice, and suddenly he was all-too aware of the fact that he couldn't stand up. The fine hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, a sudden burst of ice-cold adrenaline making his hands tremble.
Gleaming bald head, shark-like features tight in a rather uncomfortable-looking smile...as if those muscles were not used to such an expression. "Ah, Sandoval. The Centre's very own Agent Extop. You know, I always wondered what it was like to go Under, use the thoughtport to literally wet-wire yourself into Box Zero." He uncrossed his arms, a slender-barreled pistol held in his left hand. "It must be terribly exciting. Almost like the spark of heat you feel when you first enter a woman." He paused, excruciatingly, lifting sinistarly arched brows in a macabe expression of suprise "Of course, we both know what that's like. Although I've never had the pleasure of being that intimate with Agent Four...But Box Zero...ah, I suppose I'll never have a chance." Sandoval was silent, brown eyes hard on Agent One's face. No pleading. No begging. No asking for mercy. He slid the blue goggles off his face and dropped them on the floor. The pistol rang out once, the bullet striking him in the chest.
"It's too bad I'll never find out, isn't it?"
The last thing Sandoval thought of was Ki...and how her eyes would sparkle when she laughed. "Oh, God, Ki....I'm so sorry..."
Agent One lifted the limp body of Gabriel Sandoval from the wheelchair and subvocally cued up a cleanup team to Box Room. The new extop would make it here soon, and a bloody mess wouldn't be a good introduction to Box Zero and his new home.
********************
Briefing Room 2 was empty but for a single backlit chair, the masculine definition of broad shoulders in a black tuxedo jacket. The bald head gleamed predatorially. If Ki had ever been afraid, this was the room it happened in.
On the single long desk, a tan case log was slapped onto the polished old-Earth mahogany.
The file read "Project: MusicBox"
"United Syria's Grand Enclave General Sumra's daughter, Nixa, was kidnapped two hours ago. Her integrated becon has been shut down by some unknown source. She was last reported in the Mondolo system moons, propably being held on the third smallest, also habitable to humanoid lifeforms. Mandolo 4 has a large underground network of old magma chambers connected by natrual and man-made tunnels, which we've theorized is her location. The kidnappers are demanding ten million unsignatured credits by tomorrow morning or they're threatening to kill her."
It was the work of a moment for Sandoval to determine that the colourful negotiations in Board Room One had nothing to do with Ki. Box Two was still playing its recorded sequence of diagnostics, responding as though he was sitting at the keyboard, so he moved Box Three on to the section of the building that housed the briefing rooms. The tailbroom program dragged after him, erasing his digital tracks.
'...daughter, Nixa, was kidnapped two hours ago. Her integrated beacon has been shut down by some unknown source...'
Box One pinged. He had mail. The contents of the message were identical to the words he was hearing from the Agent in Room Two. Despite the ludicrously tight timeline, this mission read like any of the countless others he'd done extop duty for over the years. Stop being so paranoid, man.
"The Centre has an....interest...in the Grand Enclave...and her rescue could prove quite profitable to Centre business. You have five minutes to pack your gear and report to docking ring one."
Ki's large copper eyes were wide with shock.
"With all due respect Sir, I'm an -assasin-...not a dog team!"
"You have...-five-...minutes, Agent Four."
A sinew pulsed in her jaw.
"Yes, Sir."
***************************
Docking Ring One
"Testing voice print activated signal. Rub a dub dub, three men in a tub, taking a bath one day. The butcher, the baker, the candle-stick-maker...Now which one of them was gay?"
The Stims suddenly hit her like a tidal wave and in a sudden wave of most human-like nausea she doubled over, green liquid tearing from her eyeducts. The eyecam moniters crackled with sudden life as her energy was suddenly forced from seventeen percent to eighty nine percent.
"Fuck." the HUD's energy spike sent a shrill claxon in her earpeice and she winced, flicking the moniters offline.
"Pilot Ri Natama reporting for duty, Ma'am!" A tall half-asain, half-black humanoid stood at attention, saluting smartly.
"Oh, for fuck's sake, stop that. I'm not your superior, at ease, or whatever it is you're supposed to say..." He automatically relaxed, crossing his hands behind his back. He was well over six feet tall, built like a Mac truck with muscle on muscle. What the hell was he doing as a pilot?
"The preflight checks have been made, Ma'am. We're ready and waiting."
"Are any other Agents being deployed?"
"I was not told Ma'am. But the rumor is that Agent Five is rendezvousing on our LZ, Ma'am."
"Stop!...calling me Ma'am."
"Yes Ma'a......Er..."
"Oh, God. Nevermind. Come on." Pressing a finger agaisnt the earpeice to check the voicecom to Box Room, she made sure the linkline was connected to Sandoval. Her little limmerick in the docking bay would have established that before.
"You reading this okay, Sandoval?"
Presumably there was a line between paranoia and prudent caution, but he didn't know where it was any more.
The earpiece crackled, static cut with syllables that resolved themselves into Ki's voice. The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker... He'd always wondered about that linkup signal. Anyway, the smart money was probably on the candlestick maker.
"Loud and clear, Agent Four," sliding the blue goggles over his eyes. She'd overridden the monitors and her stats bubbled near optimum as the drugs filled her with borrowed energy. The sight alone was enough to trigger hungry receptors in his brain. "Feeling refreshed, I see. All right for some."
His full attention wasn't required unless someone started shooting at the hover. Sandoval's right hand settled on the Box Three keyboard and started keying in repeaters, getting a lock on the outer layers of the encrypted package. Matter of fact, he could probably set an autobot to break the ice and ping him when it was done
All business. There was no hint of the passion, the love, the desire for closeness and normalcy. Agent Four knew Sandoval as Box Room. Not as her lover, the only man she could trust. It was as if there were two people inside her body. Ki and...the mankiller.
Agent Four strapped herself in tightly in the foam-molded seats. Judging by the size of her pilot, this wasn't going to be the smoothest ride she ever took.
"ETA from takeoff is seven hours, twenty five minutes." He broadcasted, linking up with her earpeice.
With a private comlink she murmured "I don't like this, Sandoval. Not one bit. I've never done a rescue mission before and they're not likely to send someone like me here. I didn't know the General had kids!"
Almost like an afterthought, she stated "You know what...? Find all the information you can about the General and Nixa. This smells like fish and it's not the roach coach that's stinking."
ETA from takeoff is seven hours, twenty-five minutes.'
Which meant Ki would be sitting still in a chair for seven and a half hours while wired off the scale on stim shots. This was no easy task. Sandoval hoped for her sake they had in-flight video games, or that she'd be able to step herself down enough to get some sleep.
Idly, he punched up the file on Natama. Ex-military, apparently, like Cardin, although it seemed the big man was very recently ex-military. His file with the Centre wasn't more than a week old. Well, that explained the way he'd addressed Ki, at least...
'I don't like this, Sandoval. Not one bit. I've never done a rescue mission before and they're not likely to send someone like me here. I didn't know the General had kids!'
He wasn't about to admit it, but Ki had given voice to the same vague feelings of suspicion that had been circling his head since she left, an edge of disquiet he'd tried unsuccessfully to put down to lack of sleep. Nevertheless, he couldn't stop a smile when she requested 'all the information he could find'. Not that he blamed her, but Ki never seemed to get a handle on just how much information that was.
"I'll see what I can do."
Yes, General Sumra had a wife, a striking woman whose large dark eyes reminded him of Ki, and a six-year-old girl who stared sullenly into the lens of the camera for the file photo. Didn't look nearly as happy or well-dressed as her glamorous mother. She wore a blue-and-white checked dress with an outmoded square collar, looked like some kind of uniform.
Sandoval frowned. Something tapped at the back of his head, just out of his mental focus. He'd seen this picture before, but he was damned if he could remember where. Maybe if he went under, punched Core-
That was it.
Core. That was where he'd seen it- not the same image, but a disturbingly similar one. In her file photo, six-year-old Hana Kawaguchi had been wearing an identical dress. And there'd been that same faint blur to either side of her...
He locked on to the formless shadow at the edges of Nixa's picture, ran it through some military de-map to resolve it. Shoulders. The edges of chequered sleeves to either side of her. This girl had been standing in a row of other girls in similar clothing. This was not a Government-issue file photo. He'd patched together too many false identities not to know what that meant.
Sandoval opened his mouth, then closed it, his eyes on the bank of lights representing the Centre's comm board. The private channels were still Centre-operated, so there was always a chance that someone was listening- he could secure his end of the transmission, but there was no way he could get Ki to secure hers without raising suspicion.
Sandoval's unusually long pause threatened to have her up out of the seat. She was trembling with nervous stim-shot energy...seven hours in that tin can wouldn't do her nerves well at all. Hopefully she'd be clear enough to focus on Phasing. Even a seasoned infiltrater like her could Phase sloppily hopped up on stims.
"Sandoval, do you copy? I said I want all the information you can find." Static.
Natama spoke up as her belly dropped in the hoverpod's sudden liftoff. The antigrav chambers whirred a low roar beneath the crackling of many other monitors and other bells and whistles. "We're experiencing some kind of bleed-off interference from the Centre Com DataSat. It should resolve momentarily."
All the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Why? Suddenly, she didn't know.
Unconciously, she slid deep into the cushions of the foam-form chair...and wether Sandoval answered or not, it didn't matter.
The pod broke gravity and began preperations for faster-than-light travel.
A hoverpod fitted with Slipstream?
Natama's Sat board read they were going towards Alpha Prime System...the complete opposite direction they were told.
The hover entered slipstream space mere moments after Centre doomsdayer fell under. Natama stood as he keyed the ship on autopilot, unhooked Ki's unconcious body from the foamform seat, and carried her to the pre-prepared seperate brig cabin.
She'd wake up soon enough.
He snapped an electric collar around Ki's throat...That should keep her in line until they reached Prime.
***********************
Box Room
***********************
The door hissed open, to Sandoval's suprised face. He tore his blue-goggled eyes from the VR screen, keying off the info on Nixa and the General. "Agent One. What do I owe the honor to?" There was a hint of wariness to his voice, and suddenly he was all-too aware of the fact that he couldn't stand up. The fine hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, a sudden burst of ice-cold adrenaline making his hands tremble.
Gleaming bald head, shark-like features tight in a rather uncomfortable-looking smile...as if those muscles were not used to such an expression. "Ah, Sandoval. The Centre's very own Agent Extop. You know, I always wondered what it was like to go Under, use the thoughtport to literally wet-wire yourself into Box Zero." He uncrossed his arms, a slender-barreled pistol held in his left hand. "It must be terribly exciting. Almost like the spark of heat you feel when you first enter a woman." He paused, excruciatingly, lifting sinistarly arched brows in a macabe expression of suprise "Of course, we both know what that's like. Although I've never had the pleasure of being that intimate with Agent Four...But Box Zero...ah, I suppose I'll never have a chance." Sandoval was silent, brown eyes hard on Agent One's face. No pleading. No begging. No asking for mercy. He slid the blue goggles off his face and dropped them on the floor. The pistol rang out once, the bullet striking him in the chest.
"It's too bad I'll never find out, isn't it?"
The last thing Sandoval thought of was Ki...and how her eyes would sparkle when she laughed. "Oh, God, Ki....I'm so sorry..."
Agent One lifted the limp body of Gabriel Sandoval from the wheelchair and subvocally cued up a cleanup team to Box Room. The new extop would make it here soon, and a bloody mess wouldn't be a good introduction to Box Zero and his new home.
