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
'But the AI didn't need to
'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.'
Full-saturation EM to kill any bugs planted on him, Cormac realised. Then his mind drifted for a moment, before a hand connected hard with his face, snapping his head round.
'Are you listening, soldier?' Samara enquired.
He focused on her, almost grateful for the slap because it seemed to have shaken something into place in his mind.
'I'm listening,' he replied, and further studied his surroundings.
The charred walls and the roof of plasmel sheets told him very little about his location, however, the big ceramic manhole cover behind where Samara was now standing indicated major drains below, so he was probably in the city. Hadn't someone said something about sewers? Behind the manhole cover was a heavy wooden door with a screen mounted upon it showing the feed from a pin-cam obviously positioned outside. All he could see there though was a brick wall with what looked like blackened roof beams resting up against it. To the right of the door a narrow worktop extended along the wall, two swivel chairs before it and further screens upon it. He recognised some city scenes, which seemed to confirm his location.
'So you know,' she said, 'that no one is going to be coming to rescue you, and that no one is going to be tracing those flasks. It didn't work, soldier. ECS fucked up and now we've got the tools to really hurt them.'
Cormac tried to think fast, it wasn't easy. 'So they played me,' he said.
Samara just stared at him.
'But you've got what you wanted, which means you still owe me,' he tried.
She continued staring at him, a nasty smile starting to twist her features. Someone else's hand rested on his shoulder and a mouth came down close to his ear.
'Cormac,' said a now utterly recognisable voice. 'I think she knows you're not my partner.'
Then the memory of Yallow sprawled bleeding on the ground hit Cormac in the guts.
Carl continued. 'But knowing that, I really, really want to know whether ECS chose you because you were conveniently positioned, or whether you, like me, are not quite what you seem.' Carl reached up and grabbed Cormac's chin, dragging his head round so they were face-to-face. 'You see, if it's convenient positioning, I'll know ECS had no suspicions about me until the fuck-up at the ship and I will consequently know that our method of penetrating ECS military remains sound. However, if you're an agent, that means they've been on to me for some time… and we really need to know about that.'
The hand released and Carl retreated. His neck vertebrae clicking, Cormac turned his head to peer behind. Work-benches back there. Carl, dressed in an army maintenance technician's overalls, began loading instantly recognisable antimatter flasks into a large brushed-aluminium case. Cormac brought his focus back to Samara.
'How did you get them?' he asked. It seemed important to keep talking, to keep delaying.
'Sewers,' she said, proud of herself now. 'We got you to bury them just twenty yards from one. It took a bit of digging to get to them, but was worth it.'
She looked past him to Carl. 'Are you done now?'
