Yu's assistant followed her everywhere. It was uncanny, and just shaking her off was a chore in and of itself. At lunch, she was there. At dinner too. In fact the only place she didn't worm her way into like a termite was Yu’s apartment. And thank God for that. It was a place of peace for her, somewhere she could be alone. Such places were becoming fewer and farther between.
Today, she officially resided at home. She'd left her PDA at her apartment, in her bed, so that should anybody ping it, they would assume she was sleeping. Hopefully, at least. She was, in truth, skulking down the corridors of the Administration Tower, taking back elevators and service routes to get to the top. She didn’t want to be spotted - not by guards or civilians alike - and knew that the cameras were watching, but that that was a sacrifice she’d have to make if she wanted answers.
She stepped onto an elevator, alone, and took it up to the upper floors. Once there, in the plush carpeted hallways that connected offices, rec rooms, and secretary desks, she swiftly worked her way to a staircase off to the side, sticking close to the walls. These stairs would take her to her final destination, and were basically untraversed. She hurried up the barren, metal stairs, up to the very top floors, where she stepped out into a large circular room with hallways carved into the walls and a desk by the far wall. Here, pictures of Earth hung on the walls, paintings and photographs alike, and beside the desk, two TerraGov flags lay draped down golden poles on either side. The door she stepped out of was next to a set of elevators, and the room was empty, save one.
Xiao’s secretary sat before her.
The woman had long black hair, a thin, wiry frame, and harsh blue eyes behind a set of red-framed glasses. She looked up to Yu as she entered the room, her gaze sheering into Yu like knives.
“Director,” the secretary said, looking up from her desk from behind her glasses.
She swallowed. “Ms. Julia. It’s a pleasure to see you.”
The secretary eyed her over. “You took the stairs.”
“I did. I’m here to see my father.”
She sat back in her chair. “He’s not in right now.”
“Then why are you?” Yu asked, squinting at her.
“I work late hours, Director. The Commander is a busy man, and he needs all the help he can get, and so I step in where I can,” said the secretary.
Yu huffed air from her nose, and thought for a moment. Then, approaching the desk, fighting the urge to chew on her nails, she leaned forward and said, “My father has a special package I need to pick up. It’s a personal item, and classified. I’m here for it.”
The secretary stared at her for a moment. “Nobody is allowed in the Commander’s office.”
“I am.”
“You are not.”
“On whose authority?”
“The commander,” she said, staring coldly at Yu.
Yu blankly watched her for a moment, frowning. She tapped her fingers on the desk as the secretary waited expectantly. It was unfortunate, really. “I didn’t want to do this.”
The secretary looked taken aback. “Do what?”
Quickly, Yu pulled a rag from her back pocket and lunged over the desk, pressing it to the secretary’s nose. Pens spilled off the desk, rolling to the floor in a clatter. Yu almost fell, she lunged so fast, but she maintained momentum, keeping the rag pressed to the secretary’s face, pulling them both to the ground before she could hit her panic button. The woman writhed under Yu, struggling to push her off, but through sheer force of will and certainly a not insignificant amount of anger, Yu stayed on top. She grunted and pinned the secretary even harder with her knees. Within moments, the woman was unconscious on the floor, and Yu stood above her, looking sadly over her silent figure.
“I’m sorry,” she said, frowning, before leaning down and taking the secretary’s key card from her breast pocket. Inspecting it, staring at the TerraGov logo for a moment, she tucked it away, and turned. The fumes would have the secretary out for at least fifteen minutes, and so that was about all the time she had to get what she came for, escape the offices, and board the shuttle to the Military HQ. She needed to move, and she needed to move now.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Turning, she ran through the halls, making her way to Xiao’s office. Once there, she slid the secretary’s keycard into the slot and the door hissed open, revealing a large, quiet room with a bay window at the back wall behind a large desk that hosted a computer terminal and some papers. There was a door to the right, and plants abound, and flags and pictures and paintings in ornate frames too. And it was large. The ceiling was vaulted, and the room felt spacious.
One picture in particular caught her eye as the door closed behind her. She and her father on the Great Park of Earth stood proudly in it, beaming smiles. She’d just graduated pre-college, she remembered. Some sadness washed over her, some deep melancholy that she couldn’t rip from her heart.
She turned and hurried up to the computer. Once there, she inspected the holoscreen and keyboard; it was locked, and she didn’t know the passcode.
“Fuck,” she muttered, blinking and hovering her fingers above the keys. She typed in four digits: 0921, Xiao’s birthday. Nothing. So, she tried another one, 0627, her birthday. Still nothing.
She had one more try before the terminal locked.
Licking her lips, she thought hard for a moment. “One seven, two nine,” she muttered, trying a different code. It was her birth time, 17:29, on Earth. To her surprise, the terminal blinked, and she was in.
Her heart slowed a bit as relief washed over her. “Thank you,” she whispered, looking around his desktop. Now that she was in, she actually had to find the files, and that was no easy task as in and of itself. She looked around, and then went to the search bar, before typing in “Allister”. A list of personnel came up, and it turned out there were four different Allisters in the Kuiper Belt.
One, notably, was missing from the list.
Gritting her teeth, she then typed into the search bar for the document, “Shishone”. There was only one, and when his name came up, she saw he was listed MIA. She frowned. “Where did you go…?”
She saw by his name that his superior was Major Jamison Thobias, and made a mental note of that. She didn’t have too much time left, though, and so she switched tracks. She closed the document, and began to peruse through some of Xiao’s deleted files. Technically, they had already been removed from the system… but, Xiao himself had taught her one time how to manually retrieve deleted files and restore them before they were permanently deleted. She typed the line into the command prompt, and soon began digging through his virtual trash.
There were, mostly, daily reports, flight logs, and communications with higher ups that had she had the time, she would have loved to have read. As it stood, she skipped over them, until, finally, something caught her eye.
It was a document titled Manet Vivus: Quarterly Update.
Curious, she paused. “Manet Vivus” didn’t ring a bell for her. She clicked on the document and extracted its metadata, before entering another line into the command prompt urging the computer to restore the file. It did so, and it even opened it before her. It read:
//TC-ATS//ENG-SYTM//KP-PTCL//EXP///For Official Use Only//
Commander Xiao:
The Manet Vivus is nearly completely constructed, and Charon’s launch systems are green. The Siggs-Siegemeyer Engine is installed and all embryos are aboard. Cryostasis readings are normal - for all purposes, the Vivus is ready. Personnel have already been dealt with, debriefed, and sent to remote corners of the Solar System. All is going well.
Of this regard, however, I have noticed your silence. It is alarming, to some degree. Are you still receiving these updates? The Vivus is nearly ready, and Sedna swings closer by the day. We need to make a decision soon.
Below I’ve attached all relevant data of the Vivus, for your reading. Please, I am imploring you to return my messages. TerraGov is getting antsy. Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.
Regards,
High Admiral Jishui Thomas
//TC-ATS//ENG-SYTM//KP-PTCL//EXP///For Official Use Only//
Yu checked the clock. She was at thirteen minutes in. So she didn’t have time, but she had leads. The Manet Vivus. Major Thobias. She would start there. Closing the terminal, she grabbed the keycard she took from the secretary and rushed out the door, closing it behind her, and working her way through the halls of the Administration Tower like a rat rushing through its burrow away from a hungry snake.
She needed to make it to the Military Tower now.
It would prove to be her only refuge.