“He’ll do it,” Rhea said. Though she wondered how she’d sneak through customs, considering that all crates offloaded from the vessel would be scanned.
She studied DragonHunter. “By the way, we’ll need a way to infiltrate the Martian presidential grounds, and the palace itself. Despite what Will implied, I do want to minimize the use of violence as much as possible.”
DragonHunter nodded. “I’ll see what I can do. But no guarantees: there never are any in the hacking world.”
“There never are any in the real world, either,” Rhea agreed.
Rhea relaxed in her spartan quarters deep underground. The chamber was essentially a bunker, located three floors beneath the main headquarters the Wardenites had built for her in Rust Town. The rest of the HQ above ground was a series of cargo container whose perimeter fence was watched by robots and men 24/7.
She sat on a sprawling bed that took up most of the room. Beside her was a nightstand and clothes closet. The hatch to the room was closed, which sealed the Faraday cage. A tiny vent in the wall piped in breathable air.
She’d applied a localized virtual decoration—the heroic portrait that depicted her perched atop the stack of dead Hydras, with her X2-59 raised high. It reminded her of what she was capable of when she put her mind to it. Reaching Khrusos wasn’t going to be easy, and she needed all the reminding she could get at this point, if only to calm the doubts that ate away inside her.
Will was right, she wasn’t invincible. She had Ganymedean technology on her side, but it would still take all of her focus and determination if she wanted to reach the leader of the free world and make him submit to her demands. She would be relying on training that she couldn’t even remember, the muscle memory of the warrior she once was, ingrained into her subconscious mind.
Make him submit. She wasn’t entirely sure how that would play out, or if Khrusos would even keep his word when their meeting was done. She feared she might have to kill him, though she had to wonder what sort of tyrant would replace him. The office of president was supposed to be an elected position, but Khrusos was a masterful politician, according to what she had read online. It all started with the Ganymede Countermeasures Act, declared after the Great Calming, which he had used as an excuse to turn himself into a Caesar.
To lend his reign an air of credibility, he had members of the House pass the act. Citing the ongoing negotiations with the Europans for access to water, these loyal House minions kept extending his powers annually, so that Khrusos had remained in office for the past thirty years. It was almost in the president’s best interests to keep the negotiations with Ganymede going. Too bad the public was left in the dark about how crucial those negotiations were, and how close Earth’s water supply was to running out.
Two other members of the High Council had similar strangleholds on power: the presidents of Russia and China. But at least they weren’t holding Earth’s water supply hostage to maintain that power.
She thought about the palace that housed her enemy. It was located in the city of Hongton, capital of Mars. She wondered if she’d even be able to penetrate it, she, this intruder from old Ganymede, hated enemy of Earth. If she was discovered, Khrusos would probably summon every combat robot in the city to join in the attack. Well, the defenses surrounding the palace were formidable in and of themselves, or course, though there was precious little about them online.
Her heightened hearing detected a clanging sound coming from outside, as of a person descending the rungs to her level. She accessed the remote interface of the cage and disabled it. Immediately she connected to the main network, and on her overhead map Will’s dot appeared.
She accessed the external security camera and confirmed it was Will. She unlocked the door.
“Come in,” she said when he was about to knock.
Will opened the door and peered inside. “I just heard from Renaldo. Targon’s agreed to bring you to Mars. And he won’t document you or the other passengers who tag along. He’s about a week out.”
“Good news,” Rhea said.
“After that, it’s only five days to Mars,” Will said.
Rhea nodded. “Not bad, considering…”
Will sat on the bed next to her. He gazed at the wall directly in front of him, where Rhea had hung the augmented reality painting. “Is there a picture here?”
“Uh huh,” she said.
“Care to show me?”
“Nuh uh,” she said with a smile.
Will chuckled, then became serious. He sighed. “You’d think, being the leader of the free world, Khrusos would resort to more civilized methods of dealing with you.”
“Like arresting me?” Rhea asked.
“Exactly,” Will replied.
She shrugged. “Maybe he wants to keep it off the record. Maybe he’s worried arresting me will piss off a few people.”
“And people won’t get pissed off if you’re assassinated?” Will asked in disbelief.
“Sure they’ll be pissed off,” she agreed. “But not at him. Not if they don’t know he’s the one who ordered the hit.” She paused. “It certainly reveals a lot about his character, that he’s chosen the assassination route, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Will said. “Makes you wonder how many of his political foes he’s had taken down over the years. I know I won’t feel bad when you bloody his nose.”
“So you believe in me now?” she said.
He glanced at her, his face serious, but then apparently he couldn’t resist a smile and quickly looked away. “Not really. You don’t stand a chance.”
“A-hole.” She roughly shoved his arm.
He shrugged. “I’m just being realistic. But uh, you know I’m coming with you, right? I’ve talked to Horatio. He’s in, too. Miles, Brinks, and Renaldo also. They’ll come at least as far as Hongton, anyway. Not sure how many of us will be joining you in the palace, though: I have a feeling
