Asylum, page 12
“They did not search my jewelry.”
Kenji’s arm drooped, and his body followed, his shoulder too numb to feel pain when he thudded down on the trail.
“I’m going to have to… speak to them… about their carelessness,” he mumbled, his cheek mashed against the dirt, its earthy scent filling his nostrils.
Mari stood over him, and he feared she might do more than knock him out this time. Maybe he deserved it. All of his father’s training, all of the precious genetic enhancements, and Kenji couldn’t catch one astroshaman girl.
8
Mari wanted to leave the university campus, having found nothing but trouble here, but she needed to get her terraformer back. Maybe it was naive, but she still believed it might be a way to prove her usefulness to the Kingdom government and get that meeting with the queen. And a diplomatic passport! Minister Dabrowski had mentioned that twice, as if it might truly be a possibility.
As uncomfortable as it had been dangling from the crusher’s grip, Sato and Dabrowski had been willing to talk to her, willing to listen. If the police hadn’t shown up—and if her terraformer hadn’t been stolen—her night might have gone according to plan.
A part of her was tempted to circle back to Sato and Dabrowski’s home and try again, but she had to get her terraformer first. Then she could make her case. The next time she approached, she would try to catch Sato without Dabrowski—or his crusher—around.
Mari found the public campus map she’d used earlier and looked for a security building. There had to be a depot where those drones went to recharge their batteries. Maybe the hoodlum who’d reprogrammed them to attack and steal from people was hunkered in there now, examining his or her loot.
A single building on the map was labeled Campus Security. It didn’t say anything about drones, but she headed in that direction, winding along dirt trails and cement walkways between buildings and through grassy areas so she could avoid the streets.
She’d left that man crumpled on the trail for the police to find, and she hoped they locked him up. Her mother would call her a fool for leaving an enemy behind to try to capture her again, but she couldn’t kill any of these people, not when she wanted to work for them. Even if that bounty hunter might be a criminal in his own right, he had a Kingdom accent, and she couldn’t be positive he didn’t have ties to some law-enforcement agency.
Though if he had, he wouldn’t have had to stun the police to get her. What exactly had that been? A rescue, he’d said. How ludicrous. He’d only wanted to rescue her, so he could capture her himself. And collect whatever reward her family had issued for her.
A part of her wanted to message her mother and tell her to knock it off, that she was leaving, and that was that, but she’d spoken to her family of her desires in the past, and neither her mother nor siblings had been willing to accept them. One didn’t leave the astroshamans, especially when one had specifically been raised to be an asset to one’s people, not out of some feeling of love or a desire for children. If her mother had ever hugged her or expressed warmth, Mari couldn’t remember it.
Her throat tightened with a sense of longing that she usually succeeded in pushing out of her mind. Distracted, she almost ran into a pair of students in dark clothing walking along the path in the opposite direction. She muttered an apology, tugged her hood lower over her eyes, and hurried around them.
“Focus,” she muttered to herself.
Even though she hoped the police would assume she’d fled the campus, and weren’t looking for her here, Mari couldn’t be positive about that. Further, she’d passed several stationary cameras atop lampposts. It was possible someone was monitoring them and had been alerted to watch for a blonde woman in a cloak and hood.
She came off the trail and onto a disturbingly open grassy lawn around a three-story building. Numerous security shuttles and autoflyers were in the parking lot, and lights were on in the foyer and front offices. Campus Security, a sign out front read. Someone passed by a window in one of the lit offices. A night shift was working, maybe the very night shift that monitored the cameras and was looking for Mari.
Following the trees edging the lawn, she circled to the back of the building. Maybe the drones were in a less populated garage or shed.
Thwarting electronic locks and sneaking into the building shouldn’t be difficult, but she didn’t want to risk running into people. The police had taken her arc blaster, her destroyed backpack, and everything in her pockets. The stunner she’d grabbed and the dual-purpose rings she wore were the only meager tools she had left. It had only been luck—actually, it had been the bounty hunter’s lack of foresight—that put her in a position to use one.
There was a smaller detached building in the back, with only a few vehicles parked out front, one police van and two air bikes. The police van might have made her draw back and reject the idea of entering there, but a plaque on the door read Security Drones and Robots.
Maybe the policemen were inside, interrogating whoever had reprogrammed the drones. Her first thought was to applaud that, but if the police confiscated all of the stolen goods that had been brought in, they would take her terraformer right along with shopping bags full of knickknacks.
She assumed that the rightful owners of the latter would be able to come claim their goods, but how could she walk in and do that? She had to get her device before it was locked up somewhere. Or, worse, taken to a government facility for study. Would the police recognize astroshaman technology when they saw it?
After checking her hood again, Mari headed for the entrance, giving the police vehicle wide berth. The front door wasn’t locked, and she eased it open. With her stunner in her pocket and her hand around the grip, she paused to listen for voices. A man and a woman were talking somewhere down a hall.
Mari stepped inside and crept past closed office doors on the left and a bank of windows on the right looking into a large repair bay. A few vehicles, a couple dozen ambulatory robots, and shelves full of dormant drones were inside. The lights in the bay were off, but she found an unlocked door and stepped inside, hoping to find the bags of stolen goods on a table.
The air smelled of metal, chemicals, and lubricant, and a few indicator lights winked on equipment. Nothing stirred, and Mari didn’t see her property. She thought about activating one of the drones and hacking her way into its system to look for answers, but she doubted the responsible units were in this bay.
The female voice grew louder, and for the first time, Mari could make out words.
“What do you mean you were playing video games?”
A new voice replied, young and squeaky. “Didn’t know,” were the only audible words.
Mari grimaced, fearing the drones who’d stolen her terraformer weren’t here. Maybe some outside entity had taken control of them, and the owner of the young voice was a kid on staff who’d been sleeping on the job.
A man spoke, his tone conciliatory, and Mari started. That sounded like Dabrowski.
Would he have interrupted his dinner to come over here? He was a roboticist and worked on campus, but he was also an important government official. Did such people get called in after hours to help with malfunctioning drones?
Mari reached for the door back into the hallway, thinking she might eavesdrop after all, but she paused with her hand on the knob. If Dabrowski was here, the crusher might be too, and he was convinced eavesdropping was a heinous crime.
Before she’d decided what to do, someone stepped into the hallway. The woman. She wore a police uniform and walked beside another woman in a campus-security uniform.
Mari ducked low, glimpsing weapons on both of their belts. She was stuck right in front of the door, and they were heading down the hall toward the exit. What if they paused to check the bay?
She drew her stunner. Though she hated the idea of leaving a trail of unconscious bodies behind her, she was determined to get her terraformer back, one way or another.
Fortunately, the women walked past without stopping. Mari let out a relieved breath and waited a long moment to make sure they didn’t come back inside. The male voices started up again, Dabrowski and the kid.
Did she need to eavesdrop? What if she… strolled in and offered to help?
Assuming Dabrowski had been telling the truth that neither he nor Sato had commed the police, he might not be that perturbed if she walked in to continue their conversation. He’d seemed open to helping her, or at least listening to her story. He’d helped Mari’s mother, after all. Of course, that might be more of a minus than a plus. If he considered her mother an ally, he might feel compelled to report her missing daughter to her.
Maybe, but Mari decided to take a shot. She needed to prove herself to these people if she was to earn asylum.
She eased down the hallway, their voices growing more distinct as she approached.
“Good,” Dabrowski was saying. “Now see if you can find their locator chips. Their range is limited, so they should be within five miles.”
“Yes, sir. Er, my lord. Minister.” The kid sounded as flustered as he had when dealing with whichever of the women had been lecturing him. Maybe more so.
“Casmir,” Dabrowski said dryly.
“You can’t call a noble by his first name,” the kid protested. “They flog you for that.”
“I don’t think that’s been true for a thousand years, but even if it were, I’m mostly an honorary noble.”
“Didn’t they give you land? And a title?”
“And government work,” Dabrowski said.
“That means you’re a real noble.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, my lord. Professor Teabottom covered it in my sociology class.”
Dabrowski sighed, as if he would have preferred to be Casmir over anyone’s lord.
“I can’t find the locator chips, sir. None of them. Is it possible the drones were destroyed?”
“Probably not. And since they were in the bay this afternoon, and the security cameras suggest nobody was in here to alter them physically, the hackers likely remotely installed software to cloak their signatures as well as take over access. That sounds like the Chipfogger program. Or maybe Artarus 7. Here. You’ve got system-administrator privileges, right? Check for recent downloads of those programs from the underground campus servers to chips registered with the university. At this point, I’m more inclined to guess a student did this rather than some master hacker living in the city. Mugging students for what’s in their backpacks isn’t typical of an experienced criminal mastermind.”
Mari, having been mugged, wasn’t sure she agreed.
Remembering that she’d already gotten caught once for eavesdropping, and that the crusher might be standing silently in there with Dabrowski, Mari took a deep breath and knocked on the doorjamb. Since the door itself stood ajar, that was the best she could do.
The towering tarry black crusher appeared in the doorway. Mari jumped back, bumping against the wall. Not again.
Surprisingly, the crusher didn’t lunge out and capture her.
“Casmir Dabrowski,” it stated. “Your police authorities have failed to retain the astroshaman female. She is here eavesdropping once more. Do you wish me to apprehend her again?”
“Uh?” Dabrowski peeked around the crusher’s shoulder. “Miss Mari, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. I am looking for my terraformer that was stolen by security drones.” She hesitated, tempted to pretend the incident with the police hadn’t happened at all and see what he did, but the crusher had already brought it up. “The police were not interested in assisting me, so I had to… depart from their presence.”
“I see.” Dabrowski seemed more amused than annoyed or judgmental. “Yes, I’ve occasionally had to depart from the presence of law-enforcement authorities myself, when their mission goals deviated from mine.”
“Really, sir?” the student asked. “I mean, my lord.”
“Yes.” Dabrowski crooked a finger to invite Mari into the room, then patted the crusher. “Let her come in, please, Zee. I believe someone on campus has illegally obtained astroshaman technology.”
“I read the book, but I didn’t know how much was, you know, fictionalized.” The speaker, a shaggy-haired kid who looked like a younger version of Dabrowski, raised his eyebrows when Mari walked in. “Do you really know astroshamans?” He touched his chest uncertainly; a logo on his blue T-shirt proclaimed in gold that he heart-symbolled the Kingdom.
“There’s only one who’s deigned to talk to me.”
“High Shaman Moonrazor.” The student barely glanced at Mari, instead turning his worshipful eyes toward Dabrowski. “Did you really kiss her?”
That didn’t startle Mari, since it had been mentioned in Sato’s book, but Dabrowski lost his equanimity, nearly tripping over nothing and pitching sideways. The crusher reached out and steadied him.
“Kim put that in the book?” Dabrowski blurted. “The book that all of the Kingdom has read?”
“Yes, my lord. Uhm, you haven’t read it?”
“I lived it.” Dabrowski recovered enough to lift a hand and rub the appalled expression off his face, though his left eye blinked in some tic. “I hope the book explained that she kissed me and only to use me as a shield so Tenebris Rache, whose mercenaries were demolishing her base, wouldn’t shoot her. She’s at least twice my age and…” He looked at Mari, maybe remembering her admission that Moonrazor was her mother, and edited his words on the fly. “We were more enemies than allies at that point.”
At that point. Mari couldn’t help but grimace at the reminder that they were allies now and wondered if she’d made a huge mistake. What if Dabrowski had already contacted her mother, and her family was on the way to round up their wayward charge and drag her back to their isolated base?
“That’s amazing, my lord. You’ve had so many stellar adventures.”
“Yes.” Dabrowski clasped his hands behind his back, resuming the teacherly tone he’d been using with the student earlier, and nodded toward the computer terminal the kid was parked at. “Have you found recent downloads of those files? The drones started deviating from their programming this morning, so you only need to check back a day or two. It’s possible this was being planned for weeks, but students tend toward the impulsive, so I’m inclined to believe this wasn’t premeditated. Someone who had more time to think about it might have realized it would be a bad idea.”
“They’re going to get expelled for sure. One minute, my lord.” The student turned his focus back to the terminal.
Mari thought about volunteering to do the search herself, since she could likely find the culprit in seconds. For that matter, Dabrowski probably could too and was using the opportunity to teach the student. But Mari didn’t care about that; she only wanted her terraformer back, ideally before a police officer sprang in to arrest her again.
“You mentioned that the device the drones absconded with is a prototype?” Dabrowski asked her, not sounding skeptical about her claims. “And for terraforming?”
“For rapid terraforming. It breaks down the original matter on a planet or moon within minutes and can soon start rearranging molecules into fertile soil, complete with seeds and enzymes and water.”
A pensive crease appeared on Dabrowski’s forehead.
“And yes, it’s a prototype. That’s why I risked going to the wreck to get it. I have the plans, of course.” Mari waved toward the chips integrated into her brain. “But it uses a unique alloy that my people—those who settled in the forest here—can’t make more of until we’re able to gather more resources. Your people—nonastroshamans—would find the alloy alone extremely valuable. It’s used in a great deal of our advanced technology, including ship hulls.”
“Ship hulls that can be made all but invisible?”
“The invisibility is conveyed by a shield generator, but the hulls do have technology that insulates against scans.”
The part of Mari that had been fully indoctrinated to be loyal to her people, and hold their secrets even in the face of death, squirmed at this openness with a near-stranger, but if she got what she wanted, to be granted asylum in exchange for working for the Kingdom, she would have to share a lot more secrets. If she did, would her family go from wanting to capture her and bring her home to perhaps trying to kill her to keep her quiet?
Maybe she could offer to work for the Kingdom without betraying any secrets, volunteering only her skills, not her knowledge. But unless her family knew she was doing that… would it matter?
Fortunately, Dabrowski looked only mildly curious, not like he was contemplating drugging her so he could extract everything she knew from her. “That technology and alloy would be very valuable then, yes. We’ll try to get it back for you. Maybe the thieves don’t realize what they’ve got, and it’s currently being used as a paperweight.”
“Found it, my lord!” The student opened a desk drawer and pulled out a pen and paper to scribble an address. He tore off a corner and ran it over to Dabrowski, who accepted the scrap with the same bemused expression that Mari might have had at being given information on a physical medium. “The files were accessed from that network account and at that address.”
“Thank you.” Casmir glanced at it, probably taking a picture with his contact camera, and handed it back.
Mari also recorded the address, experiencing the temptation to sprint away and check it before Dabrowski could send anyone.
“I had to track it through a few relay stations. They were trying to hide their location, but I found them.” The student lifted his chin.
“Good work, Brodeur. Hm. This address is in faculty housing, not a dorm. Assistant Professor Donadieu lives there without a roommate. He teaches economics.”
“Is the pay for faculty here insufficient?” Mari asked. “Such that someone would be tempted toward theft?”
“I don’t think so, but I suppose it depends on what financial desires you have. One wonders if he might have been conducting some experiment for a class. An irritated student could also be framing him. This will require an in-person visit.” Dabrowski considered her. “At this junction, the mature, professional thing for me to do would be to contact the police and send them to visit, but it will be problematic if they run into you.”
