“What’s he mean?” the Kid whispered to Reaper.
“He means he went to one galaxy and his ass went to another.”
“Call it a scientific miscalculation,” the man in the cyberchair went on. “Unbelievable as it may seem, UAC does make the odd tiny mistake.” There was a moment when they were all blinking at him, obviously thinking, Who the hell are you? He smiled and answered the unasked question. “Marcus Pinzerowski. Call me Pinky.”
A gaunt man in uniform came toward them — some of the gauntness might’ve been the worry etched on his face. Reaper had never seen the uniform before. A lieutenant of some kind.
The lieutenant only glanced at the puke on the floor. “Lieutenant Hunegs, UAC Security Officer. Welcome to Olduvai. Pinky is your acting Comms officer.”
Portman whispered it, but it was loud enough for Pinzerowski to hear: “The sparko’s a gimp?” Pinky pretended not to hear.
Reaper sighed. He wanted to smack Portman — not the first time he’d wanted to do that.
Wiping his mouth, the Kid was gaping around at the wormhole chamber. A little seamier, darker than the one they’d just left. Looked like he was thinking: So this is another world? Doesn’t look like it.
Sarge shook the officer’s hand. “Sergeant Mahonin, RRTS.”
Pinky handed Sarge a fistful of access cards on chains, to wear around their necks. “Access chips for the security doors.” He led them into the next room — a much bigger room dominated by computer monitors, comm consoles.
Sarge — always ready to get on with it — gestured toward a console to one side. “Put us up, Pinky.”
Pinky whirred over to a console, tapped touch-responsive spots on the screen. “Activating remote personal surveillance.”
On the screen over the console, images appeared from the viewpoint of the digicams — fiber-optic microcameras on their chest armor. The idea was to transmit their point of view to the communications center so everyone there could see what the squadron was seeing. Most of the time, the squadron had kept the digicams turned off. You didn’t always want what you did in the field on record.
Pinky stared into the screen. One of the little thumbnails was just a blank outline. “Who’s Dantalian?” he asked.
The squadron looked at the Kid. Mac shook his head, reached over and slapped the switch on the Kid’s chest-mounted CDM. It blinked green — and his thumbnail on the comm screen lit up with an image of Mac chuckling at him.
The digicams were up, but there was a second-line of point-of-view connect. “Circle up!” Sarge ordered.
All the squadron — except the Kid — suddenly pointed their guns at other members of the team. The Kid started at this — it was a little lacuna in his training.
But on Pinky’s screen, another set of images showed. “Killcams up and running,” Pinky said. There were fiber-optic cameras on the guns, too, just below the barrel, so people monitoring the squadron could see what was being shot.
“People,” Sarge rumbled, “this room is code red. No one gets in without our permission.” He let that sink in, then went on, “Mac — stay here, secure the door. Squad, on me. Let’s move it out…”
Mac scowled. He didn’t like hanging back from the action. He came from a culture that emphasized self-sacrifice, even suicidal risk in the service of the team. But there was no questioning Sarge.
Pinky hit a tab, and hydraulic locking pins clashed, a big metal door rolled aside.
The squadron stepped into an atrium room, a vault of cobwebbed marble archways and high, shadowy ceilings. Under the arches, along with the ubiquitous UAC logos, the infomercials chattered to themselves, dialed low volume, like lunatics who babbled on no matter what happened.
Reaper noticed rubble in the corners — loose pipes, cracks in the walls, dust. The place wasn’t being maintained. One of the screens flickered like it was about to go out.
“Nice,” Duke said. “Cozy. Where the fuck are we?”
“Couple million miles from breakfast,” Goat rumbled, looking disdainfully at a clutch of UAC employees passing through, carrying digital clipboards and giving them frowning looks.
Leading them across the room to another computer console, Hunegs asked, “When can I start evacuating my people out through the Ark, Sargeant?”
Sarge shook his head. “We’re at level-five quarantine. So nobody’s going anywhere.”
Reaper started to ask about the quarantine — there had to be some protocol to get these people out if it came time — then noticed the woman standing at the computer console.
Samantha. Samantha Grimm. Reaper’s own sister.
It was an uncomfortable moment. He’d been expecting to see her here of course — just not so soon.
Portman was hitting on a couple of minor female technicians — with nice legs. “Hey, uh — we’re up here on vacation, we were wondering what you ladies were doing later?” They looked at each other, amused — and not at all tempted. “We —” He broke off, seeing Samantha Grimm. Who was in a whole different league from the techs. Flat-out gorgeous — and with the absolute minimum makeup. “Hold that thought,” Portman mumbled to the techs. Turning instead to Samantha as she walked toward them. “Excuse me, we’re up here on vacation, we wondered…”
She walked past him as if he didn’t exist, stepped up to Reaper and Sarge. And waited with a kind of quiet authority.
“Sergeant,” Hunegs said, “this is Dr. Samantha Grimm, the UAC science officer assigned to retrieve data from the lab.”
“Sergeant,” she said.
“Dr. Grimm,” Sarge rumbled. Managing not to react to her beauty — mostly. But his eyes flicked over her body, just once.
She had light eyes, strawberry blond hair, the suggestion of a dimple in her chin. But her expression was all business. She was just twenty-six but, Reaper knew, she was a brilliant scientist — she’d graduated from high school at the age of thirteen. She’d always had an interest in the past, in forgotten worlds. So she’d gotten her doctorate in “archaeological genetics” — almost following in their parents’ footsteps, but finding her own path. She’d always looked for her own way to do things.
Her eyes met her brother’s — just a flicker of reaction. Some warmth, not much. Reaper had to hand it to her — she was unflappable. They had a troubled history, and there was no room in the unraveling situation on Olduvai for family sentimentality.
“Hello, John,” Sam said. She looked at the light machine gun he carried. Just the suggestion of contempt in that look. She’d never gotten over it…
“Hello, Samantha.”
Duke took off his shades. “Hel-lo Samantha!” He waggled his eyebrows at her.
She rolled her eyes and looked at a printout she held in her hands, as if it were infinitely more interesting than Duke. He kept smiling at her.
Reaper gathered that Samantha was being introduced to them for reasons other than politeness. Assigned to retrieve data? Were they thinking that she was going along with the squadron? Olduvai he could deal with. But his sister, breathing down his neck? Uh-uh. Besides…Sam would be at serious risk, judging from the hints they’d had from the transmissions.
“Sarge,” Reaper said firmly, “this mission is code black. We can’t take passengers.”
Sam turned back to him, those pretty eyes narrowing, going icy. “Excuse me, Corporal, but I have orders to retrieve data from the physical anthropology, forensic archaeology — and molecular genetics servers —”