He was beginning to accept that Nyom had died coincidentally, the result of a power struggle between forces that in all likelihood had not even been aware of her existence. Accept it, yes, but he would never be at peace with it. All that remained for him now was to find those responsible. After that…
He would never be able to work for Rega again, even if Looms were willing to have him.
I wonder if Ariel's offer is real…
At the rear of the bay, they ascended a short staircase. The door at the top let them into an office area. The squad seemed to fill it.
Coren was unconcerned about tripping warehouse security monitors-he doubted any of the normal internal systems were on right now-but his targets might have placed alarms at various points. He opened his pack again and took out another mass of tiny machines. He keyed them and let them out in the corridor beyond the office. Scavengers, they would hunt down and eradicate any telltale devices they found.
He sat down before a comm and waited, watching his monitor. When all the lights showed green, he nodded to the team leader.
Swiftly and efficiently, the agents poured from the room and disappeared into the warehouse, each member with a preassigned location. One of them remained behind.
The bead gave him new updates, reports from the various locations. Ariel listened to the same data, nodding silently to herself.
Coren inserted a decrypter into the console before him and initiated the invasive routines. Within seconds, the data stored in the warehouse systems was isolated from the DELETE protocols that would have erased everything upon a single command-a command, Coren noted, which had not yet been given. Secured, he opened a comm channel and began sending all this information to another site.
"Done," he announced. "Let's go."
The trap was closing as Coren and Ariel hurried through the administrative areas of the warehouse. With Palen coordinating on Kopernik and Agent Harwol coordinating on the ground, the global sweep was underway. Warehouses, shipping firms, and ships were being seized. Executives were being picked up for questioning.
Alda Mikels was about to be arrested again.
He entered the same office area he had been in five days ago, overlooking the gridlike expanse of the warehouse proper. So familiar and so strange-things rarely formed neat closures or elegant symmetries in his profession. There was a mirror-like quality to this, though, that gave him a sense of validation, confirming his choices and assuring him that his purpose was necessary and sufficient. Perhaps this feeling was wrong, an illusion, but he could use it. He moved unhesitantly.
Halfway across the grid they heard the first blaster shots. Then shouting. Coren recognized the stentorian timbre of TBI commands. Arrests were underway.
He crossed the apron to one of the open doors leading out to the transport grid. Agents stood above eight people who lay face down on the floor, hands clasped behind their heads. Nearby sprawled three corpses, smoke still coiling listlessly from their wounds.
Coren went from prisoner to prisoner, then to the bodies. No Tresha.
The maze of cargo bins beyond was motionless, the power cut. Huge cubes scattered across the vast field hovered on their self-contained antigravity cushions.
In his ear, Coren continued to hear reports of successful raids, arrests, a few casualties.
But no cyborgs.
He pulled out his optam and scanned the field of inert blocks. No movement. He strode onto the grid.
"Coren-"
Ariel came after him, the TBI agent trailing behind. "Where," she asked, "are you going?"
"They're here," Coren said. "They have to be." He turned away and continued walking.
"There are agents at the other end," Ariel called.
"I know!"
The TBI were very good at these sorts of things-they rarely botched a raid-but Coren wanted the confrontation. Things were going too well-the sites were being taken efficiently, arrests made quickly, few fatalities-but he wanted more of a mess, an excuse to get angry and desperate and violent.
He moved quickly, though cautiously, among the eerily-still cargo bins. The air smelled of ozone, and he felt a faint, dry tingle over his skin. The maze stretched a good two kilometers to where the port machinery sorted out the containers, those arriving and those departing going to separate chutes to the correct shuttles.
He stopped. He could not see the warehouse end now through the forest of cubes.
"Gamelin!" he called, voice echoing. "Did you know who she was? The baley runner you killed?" He listened to the answering silence. "Nyom Looms! Do you remember that name?"
He continued walking. "She was your sister, Gamelin! Did you know you had family?"
Coren stopped and looked to his left. He glimpsed a tall shape, dull gray, slightly crouched, standing outlined against one of the bins.
Coren raised his blaster.
Suddenly, the shape came toward him faster than Coren had ever seen anyone move. If it were not moving directly at him, Coren doubted he would have been able to discern a single detail.
But the moment seemed infinite in what he could see:
A face, pockmarked as if by horrible disease. Wide-set unblinking eyes. A hairless skull. Wide shoulders. A runner's build. A dead-alive intensity, unchanging, mutated into an expression of profound resentment.
Coren wanted more than anything to run.
He fired, too late. The charge slammed into the cyborg's torso, but momentum carried it into Coren. He felt as if his entire body had been slapped all at once. He flew back, into one of the cargo bins, and dropped onto his buttocks painfully.
Coren rolled and slowly rose to his feet.
When he turned again, the cyborg stood less than a meter away. He suppressed the impulse to try to shoot it-he doubted he could raise his weapon fast enough.
"Gamelin?" Coren said.
"Pleased to make your acquaintance, human," it said, its voice a rasp like dried paper scraps and crushed bone. "We don't know each other, do we, gato?"
"Maybe, in a way. Is that your only name?"
"Only need one."
"How about Jerem?"
It cocked its head quizzically. "You have a name?"
"Coren Lanra."
"That's two names. Never figured that. What, humans got to have more than one of everything? How come you never give anything else more than one name?"
"You know better than that. Look at your homeworld. It's got four names: Nova Levis, and Cassus Thole."
"Don't forget the star now. Tau Secordis. Six names. But other living things? One name."
"Are you a living thing?"
Gamelin shook its head. "Not really. But I don't mind. It's not so bad being dead. You should try it." He took a step forward. "What was that you said about a sister?"
"You killed her."
"Not possible, gato. I don't even have parents."
"You did."
Gamelin looked puzzled. "How'd I kill her?"
"Broke her neck when she wouldn't breathe your poisoned air."
Gamelin's eyes blinked, very slowly. Coren could not read its expression. The cyborg's eyes narrowed briefly.
"Not acceptable," it said.
"Coren!" Ariel's voice called.
Gamelin looked around. Coren gripped his weapon and brought it up.
The cyborg moved fast, laterally. Coren fired. The bolt struck a cargo bin, punching a hole in it. Something within it had been under pressure and now shot out of the wound, sending the entire container careening off its track into another one. Within seconds, they dominoed off and into each other, and Coren watched, stunned, at the sudden pile-up.
The grid's AI tried to compensate. Bins that had been immobile now began precipitously changing tracks and rearranging to avoid the collisions. Enormous piles of metal rammed each other. Bins bounced around like toys. The drumming of colliding bins filled the vast chamber. Somewhere the violent hiss of escaping gas cut through the thunder-the bin he had punctured.
What was I thinking about this being too neat and efficient…? Coren wondered.