Up Against It - M. J. Locke [22]
Benavidez said nothing. Jane and the others waited.
“All right,” he said finally. “Val, I want you to analyze Jane’s data on those troops. See what records you can dig up about their purchase. Find out what we are up against in terms of their military capacity. What kind of fighting equipment do they have? And what about the troops? Did they just give shock rifles to a bunch of Martian farmers, or are those soldiers a real threat? Begin planning for how we would counter it. Yes, I know you are up to your eyeballs. We all are. But we can’t neglect this threat.”
Val looked as though he had bitten into a lemon. “Understood.”
“Contact Sean if you need him,” Jane told Val. “He’s ex-military.”
“Emily,” Benavidez said, “I need you to be thinking about the public relations aspect. How much do we tell people? When? What format? I’d like your recommendations before dinnertime.”
“Yes, sir.” Emily scribbled notes into the air.
“Thomas, I’m sure I don’t need to emphasize that you must apprise me the instant we hear from one of the Ogilvies,” Benavidez told him. “In the meantime, get me everything you can on them—their connections, their methods, their history. Who do we know who has influence over them? I want as many levers as we can find.”
“Will do.”
The prime minister turned to Jane. “You know what you have to do. Find proof of their complicity. Find us other sources of ice. And be quick.”
* * *
It took Geoff longer to get home than it should have. The lifts were congested, but many already seemed to know of his role in saving the ice, and insisted he cut in line; he reached his neighborhood within half an hour of leaving his friends up top in the rocketbike hangar. It was the last few meters that took the most time to traverse.
He and his parents lived in a mid-gee, working-class neighborhood in the Main Metro district. He found a bench in a small plaza near his parents’ apartment and rested there. He dangled his helmet between his knees, threw bits of his uneaten burrito to the chattering birds and squirrels at his feet, and watched some kids playing basketball against a nearby bulkhead.
For a while he tried to come up with entry lines, but language failed him. I’m home seemed hollow. I’m sorry was more how he felt, but he was damned if he was going to apologize for having lived. He didn’t even know if they knew yet, and he didn’t want to be the first to tell them. There was this big empty hole he teetered at the edge of. A place where his brother had been. Burn hot, he thought, thinking of his last words to his brother. Fucking awful.
How could he be gone? How? Geoff just slumped there—speechless—staring into that invisible, endless space, while the lights dangling from the rafters overhead shifted their colors toward late afternoon and the shopkeepers started closing up shop. Burn hot, he thought.
Finally, he stood. It’s not going to get any easier. Get it over with.
As he passed by a gap between buildings, someone grabbed his arm and pulled him into it. He jerked free. “Hey!” Then he stared. The one who had grabbed him—he didn’t know how he could tell she was the real thing, and not just a wannabe—was a Viridian.
She was as tall as he, perhaps six or eight years older. Her eyes were a warm brown, her skin a smooth honey tan, and her hair a cropped cap of tight, reddish curls. She wore Viridian garb: a multilayered, diaphanous top spun with more metal and lighted fibers that reached her waist; leggings; a delicate set of tattoos traced her cheekbones and forehead. No other mods showed on the surface, but with a Viridian, Geoff knew better than to trust his eyes.
While he was sizing her up, she was doing likewise to him. “Hey, yourself.” She had a mild accent, a pleasant one: perhaps British, or Luny ex-pat.
“What do you want?”
“Very sorry about your