Cats Cradle Chapter 6
The doors and walls of the office of the President of Stellvia Corporation were soundproofed, ensuring that none of Stellvia's day-to-day operations chatter would disturb anyone working in the office while preventing any secrets from leaking out before their time..
Also, the President of Stellvia Corporation was not known to use profanity, either on a regular basis or under most types of stress.
Which is why everyone in Main Operations was doubly shocked to hear, through locked doors, Noah Scott yell, "Holy FUCK!"
The Gamma 2 bulletin that Kohran Li had flagged "Priority: SuperNova" then forwarded to him sat on the middle of the desk. His security clearence helped avoid most of the red tape involved and get in contact. Knowing that he was only human, they patched him straight through to reduce data transfer lag.
The digital feed chirped, eventually settling on an image of a red haired woman.
"Jet Jaguar here," she said. A momentary surprise passed across her face when she realised just who she was talking to.
"This is Elite Troubleshooter Noah Scott. You requested information about an entity known as 'Quattro'."
"That's right."
"From what little information you were able to provide Mr. Jaguar.” Jet seemed to start just a little. A surprise but not an unwelcome one. “,my best guess is that she is a Scott-series android built by Agatha Clay, based upon the most sociopathic character in the anime 'Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS'."
"The team on site says she's a 'cutesy bitch', Mr. Scott."
"Yes, she's very good at faking that persona. It gets people to underestimate her. The canonical Quattro appeared to everyone, even her sisters, to be something of a ditz, but she was more than capable of keeping a criminal conspiracy organized while still toying with the lives of almost everyone around her."
Jet winced visibly. "Are you sure of this, Mr. Scott?"
"As sure as I can be without actually coming on site. And if I was to do that, your operation would be blown. However, your report also said that she's the station's resident madgirl. The canonical Quattro was more of an administrator and power behind the scenes than a researcher, so this Quattro likely doesn't match the canon character exactly. That's why I think it was Clay who built her - Agatha tends to deviate from canon whenever she can."
"So you don't actually know who or what Quattro is, then?"
Noah thought for a second. "Maybe not, but I'm willing to bet a share of StellviaCorp stock on this."
"You're that sure?" Everyone knew that owning even one share of Stellvia Corporation stock was enough to let you retire to Pallas.
"I'm sure that Quattro was based on the character. I'm also sure that you won't be able to predict her actions with complete accuracy by comparing her to the canon character, but I'm having Kagome work up a personality profile of Quattro even as we speak. Expect to receive it within the hour. Do you need any additional troops?"
She thought for a moment. "Surely it can't be that bad."
"That depends on who else is there and what strings Quattro has been pulling behind the scenes. And don't call ..."
"... me 'Shirley'." they finished in unison. Jet continued. "If you're making jokes, then the situation can't be that dire, Mr. Scott."
"I'm making jokes because the situation is that dire, Mr. Jaguar. I don't want to start swearing at you over the radio. If it's at all possible, could you send me a copy of whatever data you manage to retrieve about Agatha Clay when you storm the base?"
"Why?"
"As you can probably figure out from the fact that she can build my sort of androids, I have a certain responsibility for her. I'd like to bring her to justice eventually."
"Right," Jet responded. Something was clearly bothering her. "We plan to try take the computers intact anyway, I'll send a courier with a copy of what's on there."
"Thank you,"
"Thirty seconds Jet," a very British voice offscreen advised. Thirty seconds until the Destiny Nova was within line-of-sight of Nehalennia. Thirty seconds before their transmissions risked being detected.
Jet looked away for a moment at the source of the warning. "I'll have to cut this short. Just so you know, based on what you've told me, it's clear Quattro is too dangerous to be allowed off Nehalennia. If we can't capture her, I plan to kill her.".
"I was about to suggest the same thing, Mr Jaguar."
The screen flickered and went blank, the transmission cut off automatically at the other end. Noah sighed and relaxed back into his chair, pondering for a few moments. He glanced at Jet Jaguar’s profile, scanning through character notes. A little different from the usual he noted, coming from the opposite end of the fandom, but by all accounts someone who could go in, get the job done and get out again.
It was mildly reassuring to see that Jet tended prefer taking prisoners where possible.
Maybe, if she was taken alive, she could be helped?
The more ruthless part of his mind noted that if she was taken alive, she might know where her mother had gotten to.
He sighed. He knew he’d feel a hell of a lot more comfortable having someone he actually knew personally handling something this sensitive. He knew exactly who he would’ve preferred to have handling this.
Noah made sure that the details of the mission where shared with those who needed to know about them, but decided against replacing Jet. That would just do more harm than good at this stage.
He decided to hope Jet would live up to his reputation.
Aboard the Nova Jet drew a long breath, staring at the blank screen. She was tapping her finger rapidly on the console. Tat-tat-tat-tat... sharp and metallic. Ceramic fingers met metal console.
“You’re worried about Ford, aren’t you?” Desmond asked her.
Jet glanced over at the speaker from where the voice had come, then at the fisheye lense observing her, then out the forward windows at the rock walls.
“Of course I am.”
If a speaker could’ve smiled reassuringly at her, it would have. “I’m sure she knew the risks,” he said. Ever the proper British stiff-upper lip spy. Who the hell on Hephaestus had been responsible for him?
Jet didn’t say a word. She glared at the screen, visibly tensing up.
“Jet, Jet, this is Cortana,” the speaker came to life once more.
“Jet,” she answered, “What is it?”
“I have a connection to a new computer system. It looks like it is what we are looking for.”
“Good. Forward it on through QED as it comes through. I want the details back before we go in.”
“I will. It could take some time, it’s a huge amount of data.”
“Just get it done.” Jet snapped at her.
She just had to trust the Ford knew what she was doing. The plan was good, Everything so far was good. it was just a matter now of having the nerve to stick to it and see it through to the end. Ford could really look after herself.
Cally was getting sick of staring at the bottom of her truck. She was sick of the frame rails, sick of the brake lines that seemed to be leaking far more fluid than had ever been in the, and sick of a CV Joint-come-power conduit that just wouldn’t goddamned move no matter how hard she tried. Mars dust had baked on like rust, fusing into a solid red ceramic.
Cally swore, “Fucking thing.” She glared at it for a few seconds “Where’d I put that hammer?”
She started to roll back out from under the truck. A hand offered a hammer to her.
“This one?” a familiar voice asked her
Cally pulled herself out from under to see Naoko standing over her. Her face was stern.
“What?”
Dare she ask.
“Teela was found down in the restricted area of the station.”
“Shit.”
Teela came to. She immediately wished she hadn’t. Her head felt like it'd been split in two. She was confined somewhere, a cylinder that seemed to press her in from all sides and force her to stand upright. It smelled of cat inside. It didn't smell of her.
Teela slowly pawed herself up to her feet. She was inside a glass tube, less than a meter in diameter and about two meters high. The material looked quite fragile, but a probing punch proved that it was more than resistant enough to hold her in. In the darkness beyond the glass Teela could make a few flickering lights among the dim outlines of unregniseable hardware.
“Finally my labcat has awoken.”
It was an awfully familiar voice. It was chased by a breezy chuckle that chilled her to the bone. Teela felt her hair stand on end. She peered into the darkness, barely able to distinguish a female silhouette through the gloom.
The lights came up, stabbing at her eyes. She blinked, and nearly threw up when her vision finally cleared. Quattro was smiling at her. It wasn’t a nice smile.
“I was just about to wake you.”
Teela snarled. “What do you want with me?”
“Nothing much,” Quattro reassured her “I need you to answer a few questions for me.”
“No! I won’t!”
Quattro just smiled at her. Now for the fun part. “Non-cooperation is bad. Non-coopoeration will be punished.”
She giggled gleefully. Teela pushed herself back against the rear wall of the tube, her heart racing. She clawed at the smooth surface, scratching for an opening. Quattro pushed a button on a remote.
Teela heard the electric hum a moment before the shock bit her in both feet at once. It blazed it’s way up through her body. It squeezed the breath out of her lungs, forcing her to scream wordlessly. Her muscles spasmed and jerked and stiffened, pressing against the tube walls. She gasped desperately for breath, her chest burning with fire, squeezing tighter.
“Stop!” She tried to scream. What came out was an amorphous cry of pain that rang off walls of her prison.
The current shut off. Teela slumped against the wall of the tube, gasping for air. She grasped at sheer plastic, pawing to drag herself back to her feet.
“As I said,” Quattro repeated with a dry smile, “you will answer my questions.”
Teela whimpered. “Cally will come for me.”
“She’s been taken care of,” Quattro stated, “permanently.” Her lips curled into a vicious sneer.
“You lie!” Teela cried.
“Then how come she hasn’t come looking for you, even though you don’t have your collar on?”
Teela's hands snapped up to her neck, and met only bare fur. No. That wasn’t possible. She scratched and clawed, but found nothing. Her mouth fell open. Quattro just smiled at her. Chipper and cheery behind her glasses. The cat playing with the mouse.
“So you will answer my questions, ne?”
In the darkness, there was only Jet.
No Destiny Nova. No Kunstler. No Nehalennia. No Quattro. No Noah Scott. No body around her. No hardware signals. Just her raw naked self, free and clear in the void of her mind.
A peaceful, calm place to be spend an hour every minute. Meditation helped her sleep. An hour a day keeps the nightmares away. Shadows of bad memories danced around the edges of her mind.
Little demons put back in their box one at a time. The box was bursting at the seams.
Something at the edge of her mind was beeping. Her self grimaced, distracted by the intrusion.
Beep-beep.
She tried to block it out.
The alarm insisted. Beep-beep.
Fuck off alarm.
Beep beep.
Jet spat a curse as she crashed out of Friede. The world came back with a bang, flooding her mind for a few brief moments before she got herself under control. A light on the comm panel was blinking in time with the beeb.
It snapped off under Jet’s finger. “Jet. What is it?”
“Hello Jet, Cortana here. There is a burst transmission for you.”
The AI was frustratingly chipper.
Jet snapped at her.“Could you not have waited another ten minutes?”
“Verdammt nochmal, noch so jemand deren Welt untergeht, wenn sie nicht ausschlafen kann.” Cortana murmured, then she focused on Jet again. “It is marked ‘Gamma 1 SuperNova’, And it is ‘Mission commander only’, so I do not think this can wait.”
Jet cursed under her breath. Databurst. Mission Commander only.
“I’ll take it on the bridge. Jet out.”
Jet could’ve taken it raw, but she just didn’t want to feel like she’d spent the last three days getting smashed drunk at a party she couldn’t remember attending.
Most of the Nova’s crew were busy doing nothing. With the ship facing Nehalennia on minimal power, most were either resting, sleeping, or had grabbed a book to read. Desmond had gone into a low-power self-maintenance mode, cleaning out cruft in his filesystem and rearranging a few things so there was a bit more contiguous free space on his disks.
The lights were low. The air was thick despite the pressure having dropped to the bare minimum. The Static scrubbers must’ve been near full and the powered ones had been shut down. Jet's shoulder brushed against a bulkhead and she felt an uncomfortable shiver build inside her. The Nova was a small ship and gradually getting smaller. Squeezing in around her. Jets body just wanted to Go!. Get out there and fly, not be stuck inside a tin can.
Meditation also helped keep that quirk from getting too distracting.
One of the Senshi, Linda, was sitting in the Commander's seat reading something on a datapad, giggling away to herself. She peered over the top of it, noting Jet opening the hatch.
“Maybe you should get some sleep, Jet” she suggested, jovially. “You look like hell.”
“Just woke up,” Jet half-lied with a hand held up. “Cortana piped through a message for me/”
“Comm's panel.” Linda indicated with the tablet stylus. “I didn’t look at it.” Her eyes lit up, hunting for gossip “So what is it?”
“Secret stuff.” Jet answered, dismissively. “I don’t know yet.” She had more than an inkling.
“Fine,” Linda huffed. “It’s freaking boring stuck here in this tin can,”
Jet demurred. “Tell me about it.” Jet didn’t even look at her
The data came up onscreen. Not just raw data, but analysed and annotated with sections specifically highlighted for her attention. Jet felt a chill run through her body as she got deeper in. Noah's appraisal of Quattro was repeated, then confirmed with some experimental details and snapshots for the benefit of those who hadn't actually seen Nanoha yet.
It was typical Boskonian madgirl stuff. Science without obligation. Violence without cause. Malice for the thrill of it. Jet decided not to bother with the Jedi philosophy stuff for the time being. Then came the preliminary analysis of the first batch of data stolen for the lab.
Linda kept poking away at her tablet. Jet’s expression was darkening like an oncoming storm. She was standing on the deck, stooped over the console putting most of her weight through her arms. Jets grip on the console tightened, metal creaking and buckling.
Jet's skin, what Linda could see of it, had gone pale. The cyber swallowed. Jet brought a hand up to cover her mouth, before slowly lowering it back down again. She watched her mouth slowly open, hanging for a few seconds, gaping like a fish. Jet’s eyes widened, and she quickly scrolled back up. Jet stared at the screen, Linda would swear her eyes zoomed in.
Just making sure that, yes, she really had just read that. She’d gone right through anger, passed fury and was heading straight for horror at what she was reading.
Linda felt her skin go clammy.
Jet pushed back from the screen, staring. “Good God!” She closed her eyes, inhaling a long deep breath through nose. She held it for a few seconds, before silently allowing it to dissipate through her life support systems.
“How bad?” Linda asked.
Jets expression hardened, her eyes fixed on the screen. “Worse than you think,” Jet said. “It’s worse than we thought,”
For a few moments, Linda thought it might’ve been just hyperbole, but the momentary fear she saw in Jets eyes was very real. It was gone in a flash, followed up by a palpable anger that seemed to electrify the air around her.
“What is it?”
Jet held up her hand. Give me time to think. She seemed to glance down at the floor, then over at the screen, then stared straight out the window for a few seconds. Another breath.
“Change of plans,” Jet answered. Her voice was cold and certain.
It was one thing to be able to stick to the letter of a plan, and quite another to know when it needed to be changed up to fit new information.
Teela was just staring at Quattro. Panic prickled through her body.
“But what do you want?” she whimpered, “You did not even ask a question. I can tell you a lot about Cally's truck, I have been with her a lot when she worked on it.”
Quattro smiled thinly for a brief moment.
“Very good, keep this attitude and you might skip a few small shocks. Let's start with a simple question. What is your real name and what were you doing in the restricted area?”
Teela shivered and took a deep breath. “I am called Teela. I just was curious and walked around to see more of the...” Teela stopped. Capacitors beneath her whined as they began to charge. Her eyes widened.
“Nein, nein... warte! Es ist wahr...” she screamed. The rest was drowned out by the crackle of electricity.
“You could at least lie consistently,” Quattro sneered. “Stand up, unless you want another one!”
She slumped to the floor. Teela wanted nothing more than to stay there for good. A small pin lay on the floor. She quietly grabbed it and pushed herself upwards, still feeling the cramps lingering from the last shock.
“How,” She panted. “If... if you know the truth already, why are you hurting me?” she stuttered as she got upright again.
There was a small lock keeping the tube closed. Maybe with her new tool, she could open it?
“Maybe because I'm smart enough to see through your lies. Maybe because your friend Cally has already talked. Or maybe it’s just fun to do.” Quattro giggled. The final one, definitely the final one.
She walked over to one of her lockers against the far wall. She pulled the open, the door clanging against the rock walls, stabbing at Teela’s ears, and began to pick through the contents.
“But what...But what if I don’t know the truth? Maybe if you ask the right questions... maybe.”
Teela's mind was running at lightspeed as she inspected the latch. Someone had already been tinkering with it a little bit, but she couldn’t open it just with the pin. If she had a power source like a battery, maybe an electric pulse might do the trick?
Teela began to shiver again. She had an idea. It was insane... the smell of singed fur confirmed as much, but it was better than nothing.
Quattro was was busy with her terminal, doing what, Teela couldn’t tell. A holographic display came up around her, a strange sort of piano keyboard. Holoscreens materialised around her her, each displaying a wall of text, shooting passed faster than it’d ever be possible for a human to read.
Quattro stared at a screen. Something on it appeared to catch her eye. She paused, muttering a curse to herself, before rewinding, then parsing through at a slower pace. Her expression blackened. Her coat swished as she turned on her heel, stomping across the lab. Teela stifled a yelp behind her hands as Quattro pulled the door of her server rack open. The lock just bent apart. Quattro turned to her wearing a savage grin.
“Finally you tell me something useful. “
“You will get nothing! I will...”
Capacitors began to whine. She stopped.
“Good kitty,” said Quattro, “Now lets see what’s inside my server.”
Teela swallowed a lump. The fur on her body stood on end. It prickled with nervous static.
Quattro, opened the door, before turned towards her, still wearing that awful smirk. “I see. Well, I’ll deal with this little thing first. Go to sleep.”
Teela yelped. “Bitt...” The rest of that word was lost in another scream. Merciful oblivion claimed her moments later.
Quattro removed her glasses, folding them before storing them safely in her coat pocket. The others were just plain inferior, compared to her, weren't they? S
Another sigh. That catgirl would be out for at least an hour, most likely longer. It could wait in the cradle until the intruder had been dealt with. Quattro’s first instinct was to just trash the box, then figure out how it worked. But then she’d lose any chance of finding out who the attacker was. She’d lose any chance.of attacking them back. Working with an inhuman speed, she quickly walled off the intruder, chrooting it into its own private jail from where it could do no more harm. She populated the jail with false data, just to maintain the illusion.
It wouldn’t even notice until it was much too late. She’d get to it in good time, she just needed finish some quick compartmentalisation in case the little puppy was cleverer than it seemed. She doubted it, it was still happily gobbling up the encrypted garbage she was feeding. Whatever it was, it was little more than mid-beta, at best. No match.
Quattro sighed with boredom, having hoped for more of a challenge. Maybe it was a good time to take a break and see if Naoko would show some sense? She put her glasses back on, switching like a lightbulb back to her persona. She pushed a key. A few seconds later, Sato’s face appeared beside her in a holowindow.
“What is it Quattro?”
She clearly didn't appreciate the interruption.
“Naoko-chan,” Quattro cooed. “I found something in my computer systems.”
“What?” Sato asked, wearily. Humans and their ideas of sleep.
“A bug in the servers. Someone on the station must’ve planted it within the last two days.”
She smiled daintily.
Sato seemed to wake up immediately “Planted it?”
“Well, there are two obvious candidates,” Quattro said.”You know what you have to do,”
She could see Naoko go pale just that little bit. Sato swallowed a lump “No... I want to be certain before I do it, there are nearly three hundred people on this station.”
“What more evidence do you need?”
“More than the fact that they just arrived on-station. It’s bad for business to murder clients based on little more than a suspicion. Get me some proper evidence, then I’ll take care of things,”
Quattro scowled at the image onscreen. “This isn’t a Senshi court,”
“And I did not get my reputation by being an insane psycho murdering people for the slightest hint of deception. Get real evidence instead of bothering me with guesses. Sato out.”
The image disappeared.
“Idiot,” Quattro spat.
Well, evidence she could get. First, she just had to tweak the catgirl a little. Three times. Three different stories so far, but she could cross reference them and get the truth that way. Once more maybe. It’d take a few minutes to set the cradle up
And while the catgirl was coming out of it for the fourth time, she could give Naoko-chan a little visit.
The Kunstler had filled up the galley, along with ship’s Captain Mari, and Desmond and Cortana watching through a closed circuit camera. A map of Nehalennia was projected onto a pull-down screen covering the forward windows. The little pull-string was dangling in the sink, wicking up grey water.
“Right,” Jet started. She stifled a yawn. “Well, I called yous down here because we have to make a few quick changes to what we planned. We’ve our first batch of intel coming back from Nehalennia. It’s worse than we expected.”
Jet let it hang for a few seconds. How could it be worse?
“To cut a long story short,the robbery was just a test, the tip of the iceberg,” Jet said, trying to keep her voice even. “It was a test of whether they could access our mind through our hardware. Their actual plan was to track one of our couriers on a run to Stellvia, and use a specially crafted burst transmission to implant new memories in their mind.”
The air went cold. Some of the Engels exchanged paranoid glances. Lenneth shifted position in her chair, recrossing her legs.
“What new memories?” she asked.
“Instead of just delivering a message,” Jet said, before pausing. “They might be compelled to attack the station, most..” she stumbled a little “...most likely attacking the Scott family directly.”
There was sharp intake of breath.
“Mein Gott,” Tiegel whispered. “But we would know it had been done, yes? Like, being given different orders or...something...”
“I’m afraid not,” Jet shook her head, keeping her voice soft. “Jana and Vanko had no idea what happened to them until the shipment and the raiders were gone. The brain just brushes over any inconsistencies and fudges things together to make something that works.” she exhaled a breath, trying to keep herself centred. “The real nightmare is, it could be done to any of us,” she looked down at Tiegel, then at Lenneth, then to the others. She looked right at each of them in turn. “The first you’d know something is wrong is when you’re covered in blood, with Stellvian security pointing guns at you, and you can’t remember why,”
A sick silence followed. Nobody dared day anything.
Lenneth broke the silence. “And there’s no way to defend against it?”
Jet sighed. “For the duration of this mission, on board radio and wireless systems are to be disabled. No radar, no wifi, no radio, nothing. You can’t hack through an interface that’s turned off. We’ll use those old wrist-coms to communicate.”
The irony of that, Jet noted, was that she’d initially laughed at the desk pilot on Arisia who’d sent them out during the closing stages of the war. Didn’t the idiot know they had their own built-in communications gear? They’d gathered dust aboard the Nova since then.
Jet brushed a few strands of hair off her face. “Now, onto who’s responsible for developing this shit.” She pushed a button on a remote. The projector clicked over to the next image, doing its best imitation of an old slide-show carousel. An animé face appeared. Round glasses, golden eyes, golden hair in two straight handlebar pigtails, a predators grin all on top of a blue bodysuit.
“This is our primary objective,”
“Oh hell,” Jash murmured. Everyone looked at him. “That’s a character from an animé. Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS. Her name’s Quattro, she’s a real nasty bitch. And dangerous.”
“You watch magical girl animé?” Lenneth asked him with a smirk.
Mari found herself compelled to giggle slightly. A little levity always helped.
“I wanted to be a magical girl before I got cybered,” he answered sharply. “It doesn’t matter anyway,” he waved it off. “But that’s a damn lucky biomod, or someone got creative with an AI,”
Jet carried on. “We think she’s a Scott-type AI, like the Stellvian girls.” The obvious question was why would Noah build Quattro? “She was probably built by Agatha Clay. Agatha was on Nehalennia up until a few months ago, but we’re certain now that she’s moved on” Another few moments. “Quattro is to be considered capture or kill. She is too dangerous to be allowed off Nehalennia alive and free.”
Jet’s voice matched her expression. Cold, hard and resolved. “We expect her to be in her lab here,” the projector clicked and the map returned, with the lab area highlighted. “I’m the troubleshooter, she’s the trouble, I’m going for the lab personally. If you see her outside her lab, make sure she doesn’t leave the station. Kill her.”
It seemed alien in a way no-one could quite place to hear Jet specifically order them to kill someone. Jet wanted nothing more than to tear her apart. Jet warned herself about the difference between killing someone because it was her duty and murdering someone on a flash of hatred.
Hopefully Quattro would spare her that moral dilemma.
“What about the others on Nehalennia?” Lenneth asked, “The Senshi, Naoko Sato. What’s our rules of engagement?”
“They’re not considered an enemy, just criminals. Lethal force as a last resort. That means stop, identify, give them a chance to surrender. If they’re armed and actively trying to engage, defend yourself with the minimum force needed,”
Traditionally, minimum force needed was whatever it took to shut down any combat as quickly as possible. Politically, that level of force was just plain unacceptable when hitting petty criminals in goth fukus, even if they decided to fight back. The arguments for both sides were long and vociferous, enough to make an essay David Weber would call boring.
Jet tended to follow Tsun Tzu on the matter, to which the natural counter-argument was that they weren’t at ‘war’ anymore. The first inkling Jet had that there might be something wrong with her was when she said that sometimes she wished they still were.
“If they’re escaping, allow them to escape,” Jet continued. “Naoko Sato included. The Senshi want her treated as a criminal and brought to justice. Capture if you can, let her go if you have to, don’t harm her unless you have no other option.”
She was a secondary objective anyway. It’d be nice to bring her in, but it was far from a priority.
Primary objectives were to hit Quattro and her lab computer and the Nehalennia main computer system. Secure primary objectives, secure the station, knock out the defensive systems to keep Roughrider assault force from being shot out of the sky on the way in to take care of a big crowd of bewildered Dark Senshi. The usual deal. Missions like this were the Panzer Kunst stock-in-trade. They each knew how to handle their own objectives. They’d done it many times before.
“Now, how do we get to Nehalennia without being shot down?”
Desmond spoke up, still speaking through a wall-mounted speaker. “Now pay attention everyone. I have forged a new transponder ID for us, after our last one was rumbled. For this mission we shall be the SS Wilhelm Canaris.” He seemed especially pleased with himself.
Mari snickered. “I like it. I like the irony.”
“Yes. Canaris was head of the German Abwehr while secretly working for MI6 during World War 2. As usual it’s an original Boskone Two - based key but they’re still in use. The variance from my presence in the system should be below the detection threshold. I would give it ten minutes if they’re suspicious of us enough to test it, fifteen at most.”
“We’re close enough that they’ll spot us as soon as the RF igniters fire.” Mari said. “But we have our usual response,”
The voice coming through the speaker changed. It was Cortana’s turn. “ I have planted a virus in their system. When an alert triggers in their system it will lock up and force a reset. Defense systems will be active but communication will go down.”
“Any edge.” Jet said. “Will you be able to tell me when you have finished downloading Quattro’s system?”
“Yes, I am one third complete so far. I should be finished within twelve hours.”
“Good. Instead of waiting for Ford and Cathy to be clear of Nehalennia we’ll be attacking as soon as the download is complete.”
Teela woke up feeling like she’d fought a battle against a herd of elephants and lost. Everything ached.The air reeked of ozone and scorched fur.
“What happened?” she mumbled to herself.
She yelped when she discovered she was inside some sort of glass tube. It startled her when the door just swung open as soon as she pressed against it. A small pin had been jimmied into the lock. It looked like it’d been shorted out.
It didn’t take her long to realise where she was. The singing turret was a dead giveaway. It’d been moved to cover the front door and the ventilation grille simultaneously.
Shit.
The last thing she could remember was that cutesy bitch zapping her. That explained the hangover. Teela stepped out into the lab, allowing the door to the pod to close behind her.On a metal plate bolted to it were the words ‘Cat’s Cradle’.
Odd.
Conduits ran from the top of the device, across the ceiling, feeding into the server racks and a second sleeping-dinosaur of a machine hooked up to some sort of examination table. It was hard for her to make sense of, but something about that helmet seemed fiendishly familiar.
She scratched her head.
If Quattro’d caught her, the the mission was likely already blown. There was nothing for it but to call Ford, get the alert out and get herself rescued before the madgirl went truly Mengele on her.
She grabbed for her collar. She found only soft fur and the collar of a set of overalls covering her body.
Shit!. Quattro took it. A flash of panic shot through her. This was failing in a big way. They might already have Ford. She swallowed that thought, sending it to join an ever growing lump deep in the pit of her stomach. The only other way out would be to take down the turret.
Sure she could kick it over, but if it was anything like its counterparts in the game, it’d fire randomly, spraying the lab with bullets. Unlike Chell she had no infinite respawns.
She needed another option. Quickly. Maybe there was some stuff here to improvise a weapon?
Looking through the parts of the lab she could reach she tried to think of something. She could not get out without being shot. She couldn't even get to Quattro’s computers. So no using the QED in there to contact Cortana directly.
It didn’t seem like Quattro was the sort of mad who’d have a spare death ray or three lying around. Aside from some spare cyber parts on the workbench, the lab appeared clean.
Some seemed familiar, a few chips she recognised. There were parts of a antennae, something that might’ve been an SDR and one piece of hardware she just couldn’t recognise. It looked custom.
I can work with this.
Teela began to smile grimly as a plan began to form in her mind.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Naoko was tapping the end of her pen on her desk.
“U-nye Nah Bah?” The furby enquired. It’s expression was a permanent plastic curiosity.
Sato didn’t answer. She just stared at her pen. A spy planted hardware in Quattro’s computer. That meant somebody on the station was a spy. That meant somebody knew what they were looking for.
That meant Great Justice were watching.
They probably knew everything by now. She was so screwed.
No. Not until she knows for sure. Check twice. Act once. How many others would love to know what was going on inside Quattro’s lab? It depends entirely on what the spy had been looking into.
That catgirl, Teela, had been caught by Quattro down in the restricted area. Could she have been inside the lab? But how did she get through the checkpoints without an alert?
Cally didn’t seem like the Great Justice type. She didn’t seem like a self-righteous arrogant asshole. She felt like she was who she was. She felt like someone just up for the freedom, and didn’t like her freedom being trampled by a bunch of wannabee superheros with an agenda. Cally hated the Stellvians. Cally had good reason for it. Cally’s truck had been shot-up by an OGJ cannon. Nobody would be stupid enough to deliberately let someone shoot their truck up like that.
It didn’t seem right. It didn’t feel right. Cally didn’t feel like a Troubleshooter.
But the break-in old her that she had a major security problem. It’d be the prudent thing to at least run a check on her, on her description. Not that many people had a cyber’d right arm and leg, especially not with that level of workmanship.
The thought occurred to her that maybe Quattro was right. It occurred to her that maybe she should just quietly take care of the pair. Vanish them quietly into the dark. Quattro did want more catgirls. It wouldn’t really be killing them....
Her stomach went tight.
She hadn’t murdered anyone yet. She’d given orders to kill. But then she’d only been following orders herself. She was planning to kill. But that was different, she wouldn’t be the one pulling the trigger.
Cally was right there.
There was a knock on the door.
“Kah da boh-bay,” the Furby whimpered. it closed its eyes and pretended to be off. Good idea.
“Come,” she said.
The door opened and Quattro stepped in riding a draft of cute malevolence.
“Cally and Teela are still alive,” she said.
“And they’re to stay that way until you get me better evidence.”
“Well, I have the results of my interrogations of the catgirl,” said Quattro. “She’s obviously lying about who she is.”
Sato pursed her lips. Wait a minutes. “Interrogation, how?”
“Well,” Quattro smirked. “You know how.”
Sato sighed to herself. “Damn.”
Quattro edged up to her desk. “I know. But it’s great because each time around, she doesn’t know what the last one said. It makes it so much easier to catch them in a lie.”
It made Quattro seem almost giddy. It made Naoko’s skin crawl.
“What have you found out?”
“That she’s lying about her name. And that she doesn’t really know Cally at all. Not as well as she would if she’d been with her for years. And she winced when I found the device in my server.”
Sato scowled at her. “That’s all?”
“Well, she breaks very quickly.” Quattro answered. And how disappointed she was at that too. “So it’s hard to get much before she starts sobbing uncontrollably, or just sits down and gives up.” Quattro giggled just a little, covering her mouth. It was almost a parody of cuteness. A malignant, cancerous cuteness. A saccharine evil. “But it should be enough.”
Naoko swallowed. Something felt...wrong
“But...” she paused. “You don’t tell people about who made you, do you? And I know how much you hide behind that facade of yours.”
“Don’t be silly.” Quattro said “That’s different.”
Sato folded her arms. “I do not see how. People in our line of work have good reasons to keep their secrets. We do not pry.”
“Don’t be...”
Sato stood up, staring the madgirl down. “I’m in charge on this station! We do business my way.”
“And because of that we have two spies in the Station. And most likely a Great Justice task force on the way! If Scott knows about me, and you know he probably does, I’ll give you three guesses who they’ll send.”
Sato sat down again. Take a deep breath.
“Maybe with a little more subtlety. I’ll talk to Cally myself.....”
Quattro scowled at her. “But playing with them and abusing them, throwing them in a cage and watching them suffer... It's so much fun!"
“I...”
The Furby woke up. Eyes bright. It’d found something good. “Dah signal.” It announced. “Dah signal secret!”
They both looked at the little furball. Naoko keyed open her intercom.
“Control, this is Sato. Did you pick up a radio signal just now?”
“Yes ma’am,” a voice answered. “A short high-powered burst in the 2.4GHz band.”
“Where did it come from? Where’d it go?”
“Somewhere in the restricted section, probably the labs. We don’t think it had the power to leave the station. Probably just something that psychopath is working on ma’am.”
Quattro shot a glare at the speaker for a few moments. “Send the raw data over.”
“I... Oh... did not...” the voice stumbled. “Yes, at once!”
Quattro concentrated for a moment. The hardware she’d put together for the attack, it had to be. “That was coming out of my lab. It’s the catgirl!”
“Get down there,” Sato ordered. “And find out where she sent the transmission to.”
Quattro grinned at her. Oh yes, she’d find out alright, and she’d have fun doing it too. The door slammed shut, leaving Naoko alone again with her Furby. The catgirl was sending a distress call to her owner, that had to be it. It was in for a nasty little surprise. If the catgirl was a spy. That meant Cally was either a spy too, or just someone who was fooled and betrayed as well.
Cally couldn’t be a spy.
And if she was?
The thought just sort of died in her mind. It made her body go cold. She’d have to get off Nehalennia in a flash. Quattro could stay behind. She sent a message to the hanger to have her car made ready.
Just in case.
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