January 23, 2363 AIA

P5

Tennama waited as the guard and the bot went through his ID, retinal scan, and clearance codes. Ciro, who was standing behind him, was amazed by his relaxed bearing.

The bot handed back the ID, while the guard nodded and said, “Welcome to P5, sir.”

“Thank you.” Tennama put away his ID.

“And him, sir?”

“He’s a guest. Temp badge, yellow band. He’ll be here for an hour. Maybe longer, depending on how fast I get through my work.”

“Understood.”

When the bot held out his mechanical hand, Ciro gave him his ID, then turned to allow the guard to scan his eye.

The guard said, “The badge will be attached to your information, and it’ll work most doors in this building, but only for an hour and a half. If it looks like you and the major are going to need more time, stop in at any security desk and let them know what’s happening.”

“Thank you,” Ciro said.

“Not a problem.” The guard finished typing and pulled out a card with a bold yellow stripe at the top. He scanned it and held it out.

The bot held out his ID. “Your card, Mr. Banderas.”

Ciro took them both. “Is there anything else I should know?”

Tennama said, “Yes, don’t lose your badge.”

The guard chuckled.

“I won’t get in trouble, will I?” Ciro asked.

“The only trouble is when we have to find you and get you out from wherever you’re stuck,” the guard explained. “And the reports. Oh, the reports. Please, don’t lose the badge.”

“Got it.”

“Otherwise, the major will make sure you’re taken care of.”

“Have a good day,” Tennama said.

“You too, sir.”

Ciro glanced back as they were walking away. After they turned down a hall, he said to Tennama, “You’re handling this really well.”

“This is every day at my office. It’s hard to be intimidated by the mundane.” The xeno glanced over. “What about you? You look pretty composed yourself. Have you done this before?”

Ciro straightened his shoulders. “A few times. Not—not like Francisco has, but…once or twice.”

“Where to now, Mr. Banderas?”

The thread of Ciro’s confidence snapped.

“I thought you knew,” he hissed. “Tennama, I didn’t get any maps!”

Anthony put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him along. “Come on. Calm down. That’s not what I meant. What do you need to get this job done?”

“Oh. Okay. Yeah.” Ciro took a breath. “I don’t suppose you have an office with a lockable door, do you?”

“Not on this planet.”

“Then I’m going to need a computer that’s hooked up to the network. Somewhere private.”

“That, I can do.”

Tennama led him through the building without any difficulty. They went up and down halls that appeared mystifyingly similar to Ciro. At each turn, there was another glass door that required a retinal-scan and his yellow badge. The traffic thinned the further in they went.

“Where are we?” Ciro asked.

“These are private rooms reserved for people who have higher clearance levels.”

“Am I allowed to be here?”

“As long as you’re with me, you have the same clearance I do. There are other security measures in place, but hopefully, we won’t have to deal with them.” He glanced at Ciro again. “Are you sure you can break the system?”

“I’ve done it before, Tennama.”

The major raised an inquiring eyebrow. Ciro mimicked the gesture but only offered a smirk, instead of an explanation.

They halted at a built-in console. It took a moment for Tennama to get the information he needed, but eventually, he muttered, “Room four is open and reserved for me. Here’s your first test, Mr. Banderas. You aren’t technically allowed in that room because of your badge. Can you convince the computer otherwise?”

Ciro checked that the hall was empty. “What kind of a computer is that?”

The major lifted his hands to inspect the unassuming machine. “It’s a computer. It’s got a monitor and a console.”

“What? With buttons and everything?”

“I don’t know what you mean, Ciro.”

“First of all, it’s Antonio—”

Tennama winced at his mistake.

“—secondly, I mean which network is it hooked up to?”

Anthony paused. “I never thought to ask that.”

“Who uses it?”

“We do, to see which rooms are available. That’s all this one does.”

“To quote the love of my life, ‘bet you a ten-coin you’re wrong.’” Ciro grinned. “If that tells you where people are, it’s a security console. Do you have the nan-cards I gave you?”

Anthony stepped back and reached into his jacket pocket while Ciro stepped up to the computer.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Give me number three,” Ciro said.

Once he had the card, he kissed it and slid it into the badge port.

Within five minutes, the yellow band at the top of his card was meaningless, and he was walking into room four with Tennama.

The room had three computers and ample desk space between the consoles. Two chairs were already in the work area. Several more placed around the wall.

“Oh! Now this is more like it!” Ciro went to take a step forward, but stopped himself. “Cameras?” he asked.

“In a room where people will be working with classified material? No.”

“Excellent.” Ciro rubbed his hands together. “Can you get all the computers up and working for me?”

Anthony considered him. “Won’t we only need one?”

“You know how to hack too, so I should be able to tell you what to do and where to go.”

“But we’re only going to be doing one task.”

Ciro hummed.

“We’re only going to be doing one task, right?” Tennama said. “We’re getting a copy of all the files related to Kumar’s death.”

“Less talk, more computer waking!” Ciro gave him a light shove toward the far chair, then claimed the other one. As Tennama woke up the computer and leaned over to have his eye scanned, Ciro said, “Francisco is amazing—he really is—but there’s something he’s never been able to wrap his mind around. You see, he’s an analog thief.”

“An analog thief?” The xeno half turned.

Ciro pushed Anthony’s shoulder so he was facing the computer again. “It needs your passcodes.” He continued with his pontification: “Francisco deals with physical things. He smuggles, hauls, and transports. Even when he’s sent to retrieve information, it’s a nan-card. To him, an extra task means extra time, extra bother, and another thing to try to hide. However, I am a digital thief.”

With the computer now unlocked, Tennama turned to listen.

“There’s nothing extra to hide,” Ciro said. “It’ll all be on one nan-card or in our brains. And it won’t take a minute more to get the information, especially with you and two extra computers here. So why only get Kumar’s files when, for the same amount of danger, we can check up on a couple of other things? You understand.”

“I understand you’re about to disobey a direct order from your brother.”

“That’s the other thing he’s never been able to wrap his mind around—he’s not actually in charge of me. Now get those other two machines up and running.”

Tennama did as he was told. Ciro used one computer to hunt down some legitimate codes he could attach to a series of false orders while Anthony ran a facial-scan program on all the photos of prisoners arrested within the last year, starting with those suspected of being involved with the Rising. Once those tasks were underway, Ciro disappeared behind the last computer. He had Tennama update him on the progress of the first two.

Fifteen minutes passed.

“Those bastards,” Ciro muttered.

Tennama looked up when he heard him.

Ciro went on, “Of course! You’d need a full team to write the code, then you’d have to have a controlled lab environment to test it in, and it’d still take years.”

“What are you talking about?” Tennama stood up and came around the desk.

Ciro pointed to the screen. “Randy was right. The bloodhound code that took out Jane’s site came from a team in the Supremacy MI.”

“This is what you were doing? Antonio, I don’t care what that computer says, the Supremacy didn’t care about Jane’s site! She wasn’t calling for a revolution or instigating violence.”

“It was unauthorized—”

“Which means they would have taken it down, but it would’ve been low priority since it wasn’t associated with any crime.”

“And how would you know?”

Tennama gave him a look.

“It's a little creepy to think you were one of them,” Ciro said.

Tennama went on, “They never would’ve used a seek-and-destroy code for Jane’s site. It was designed for…something else.”

“For what?”

“For taking down the Rising’s computer systems.”

There was a short silence.

“Over my dead body,” Ciro said.

Tennama sighed. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” He leaned over to get a better look at the text on the monitor. A second later, he sat back on his heels to bring his head level with the screen. “No, that doesn’t make sense. That launch date matches the exact day Dr. Jane’s site was demolished.”

“How do you know that?”

“I read her site every day.”

“You do know you're on our side now, right?”

“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t read it anymore.”

“And this is why! What’s going on Tennama?”

“I don’t know. Keep digging. I’ll check on the other programs.”

“I need card one!”

Tennama tossed him the last nan-card, then returned to the other computers.

“We got one or two small hits on the prisoner scan,” Anthony said, “and we’re almost into Kumar’s files.”

“Good. We should be out of here soon.”

The door to the room opened. The man who entered was in his mid-fifties. He had a kind face and a wide smile.

“Tennama!” he called out.

Anthony Tennama, in the body of Ryan Barnes, returned the cheerful greeting: “Everill! It’s been years.”

The room froze.

His smile gone, Everill took a step back toward the door.

“No!” Tennama lunged toward him, but when Everill jerked away from his sudden movement, Anthony stopped. This time, when Tennama walked around the desk, he moved slowly. “You are…you are Donald Everill?”

The man hesitated. “Who are you?”

It only took a fraction of a second for Tennama to finish crossing the space between them. His last stride included a step-through punch that landed across Everill’s jaw. The man hit the door behind him and crumpled to the floor.

“Time to go, Mr. Banderas,” Tennama said.

Ciro was already stripping the nan-cards out of the computers. “You know him?”

“Everill’s a good friend of mine. He probably saw my name in the registry and came to say hello.”

“You’re supposed to be a horrifying alien monster! Stop being so friendly!”

The xeno motioned to the unconscious body at his feet. “You call that friendly?”

“What do we do now?”

Tennama bent over his friend. “I can take his card—that should slow him down—but he works in security. The moment he gets on one of those computers, we’ll be stuck.”

Ciro looked back at the machines. “All he needs is his retinal and passcodes.”

“Do you know any way to stop him?”

“Without gouging his eyes out?”

Tennama stopped what he was doing. “I’m sorry, who’s the monster here?”

“Yeah. I think I can stop him.”

Ciro walked over, picked up a chair, and slammed it into the first computer. There was an ear-splitting crash. The monitor was nothing but a web of glass shards, and the eye-scanner’s camera had crumpled in on itself. Even though he was now prepared for the noise, Tennama winced with each of the next two crashes. When Ciro was done, he dropped the ruined chair and returned to the door.

“Efficient,” Tennama said.

“Whatever works, right?” Ciro said.

Anthony opened the door and made sure the locks had engaged after he shut it behind them. They didn’t run, but their pace was hurried.

“That might have been a mistake,” Ciro said.

“What part of that disaster are you referring to?” Tennama asked.

“Smashing the computers. There’s bound to be security and alarms on them.”

“Oh, I have no doubt, but whoever gets the notice will have to get to the room to find out what happened before they’ll know to stop us. That’ll take longer than it would have if Everill had simply cut off our access from there.”

“How long?”

“Hopefully long enough.”

Their pace became more hurried.

They almost made it. They were at the front doors, but when Tennama jerked on the metal pull, it didn’t move. He jerked it again. Ciro had to stop himself from screaming. They heard footsteps behind them. One set was the soft tread of boots. The other set was clanking metal.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the security guard said. “This building has been shut down. There seems to be an intruder.”

His hand still on the door, Tennama said, “What’s your rank?”

“Sir, rank has nothing to do with it.”

Tennama rounded on the man and stood, towering over him. “I never said it did. What’s your rank?”

The man didn’t step back, but it looked like he wanted to. “Staff Sergeant, sir. E-6.”

Ciro looked around the security robot. More men were coming.

Tennama held up his wallet with his ID exposed. “Recognize me, bot.”

It only took the robot a second to scan his ID, then scan the xeno’s eyes. “Major Anthony Tennama recognized.”

The staff sergeant swore when he heard the name. As he reached for his e-pistol, Ciro kicked his knee out.

Over the scream, Tennama yelled out his passcode and priority. Ciro wrestled for control of the gun while Anthony said, “You’re under my command. Acknowledge!”

Ciro raised the e-pistol.

“Acknowledged,” the bot said.

The other men on the security team dodged away from the weapon, but when Ciro pulled the trigger, nothing happened. He tipped it to the side to check the safety, then laughed. He didn’t know if he was laughing at his stupidity or theirs. The weapon was bound to the staff sergeant. No one else would be able to fire it.

“Break the door!” Tennama commanded.

The security team was running now, with their own weapons drawn. Ciro hurled the sergeant’s e-pistol at them. The clatter of it landing was lost in the waterfall of noise that accompanied the shattering glass.

Ciro and Tennama jumped through the ruined door and ran. They managed to leave behind the blaring of the alarms, but the security team was close behind them.

Ciro still took the time to huff, “Efficient.”

“Whatever works,” Tennama gasped.