“The generals and their retinues, including myself, have retreated safely to the munitions factory, as you planned.” She didn’t actually know that this was the plan, but dropped in the assertion as a test. Her handler confirmed it with the inflection of his response.
“Excellent, excellent. You are to be commended for your part in the operation.”
“I’m afraid I still don’t understand the operation,” said Heron. “We had soldiers in the building—I could have delayed both generals long enough for them to be captured. With an official order, I could have captured them myself. You would have had them and the satbox. Why did you instruct me to hold back?”
“We have bigger wheels in motion,” said the voice. “You keep following your orders, and those wheels will roll smoothly to victory.”
“I look forward to it,” said Heron. The voice never told her much, but he seemed to be even more mysterious lately. “Any chance you’ll let me in on my next glorious part in it?”
“I delight in talking to you, Heron,” said the voice. “You’re so much more personable than the other Partials.”
“I’ll try to take that as a compliment.”
“You should. I have a mission for you, because I know that you’re clever enough to manage it. I need a map of the munitions factory complex: all buildings, all hallways, all rooms, from the roofs all the way down to the basements and subbasements. Be sure to call out key locations and defenses. I need this information as quickly as possible.”
“Because you’re going to invade,” said Heron.
“And clever, too,” said the voice. “Get me my map. Confirm.”
“Confirm,” said Heron. It wasn’t a code word, just a protocol the officer had. He treats me like a computer program, or a trained animal. The thought shot through her mind, but she dismissed it. This was the way it had always been, and she had a job to do. The connection was severed, and she turned off the scrambler. She adjusted her skirt and straightened her jacket and walked out into the busy factory.
The factory complex was a hive of constant activity: five buildings already crowded with workers and machinery, now doubly crowded with soldiers trying to set up a military headquarters. The bulk of both armies, Wu’s and Bao’s, were outside, spread through the city to make them less of a target for Partial air strikes; but even so, the factory was filled with men and women in uniform, the assistants and aides and messengers of two generals’ retinues. Heron walked through the hall to the main factory floor of Building 3, where hordes of men in thick leather aprons crawled in and around the massive machinery that processed ore into bullets. China had rejected the expanded use of intelligent biotechnology on moral grounds, if not outright religious ones, and though the factory still used certain engineered bacterial cultures in the metal-cleansing process, they had nothing so advanced as a BioSynth—not a Partial, nor even a Watchdog. Their skill in robotics, on the other hand, was impressive, and Heron watched with respect as the fully automated, self-sustaining monstrosities collected the ore, refined it, and pressed it into millions of rounds of ammunition of every shape and size. Zuoquan supplied much of the northern Chinese army with their munitions, and when the Partials took the factory, it would supply them with the same. The invasion hinged on it, in a very real sense.
But why had her handler insisted that the generals get there safely? The complex would be easier to take without them, for the Chinese would defend it now more vigorously than ever. She did not like being kept in the dark, no matter how much her handler patted her on the head and called her a good little Partial.
She reached a side corner of Building 3, where a door led out into the courtyard. She stepped outside and pulled out her phone, activating one of the hidden bits of software she’d installed on the Chinese army’s otherwise standard-issue device: a GPS mapper, which worked in real time to track her movements and relay them through the Chinese’s own satellite system to the NADI Task Force and the Partial troops. She walked back through the door, and the system began building a map of every step she took. With enough walking, and if she was thorough, it would construct a 3-D map of the entire complex. She glanced at her watch and estimated that she would have enough time to map about half of Building 3 before General Wu needed her for the next strategy meeting. Heron made sure the ribbons on her jacket were in their proper position, marking her as a member of the general’s staff. No one would bother her.
She cursed mildly, wishing she’d worn more comfortable shoes. She would be walking for hours.
The glamorous life of a spy.
PARAGEN BIOSYNTH GROWTH AND TRAINING FACILITY, UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
October 7, 2058
“Again!” called the instructor, and the girl stood up on thin, shaky legs. She might look nineteen, but she’d only been out of the vat for two weeks. “Go!” The other side of the room seemed so far away, but some of the other Partials were already moving toward it, and she refused to be left behind. She walked as quickly as she could, still stiff, keeping her eyes on the opposite row of chairs. She passed one boy, then another. A few rows down from her a boy was nearly running, too eager to win the race, and when he overreached and fell, he took his two neighbors with him. The girl ignored them, hobbling to the front of the pack and touching her chair first. She paused, turning slowly, savoring the victory before flopping down into the chair. Her muscles were still too atrophied to stand for long, but they were growing quickly. The instructor blew his whistle when the last Partial sat down; even ignoring the ones who’d fallen, she’d beaten the last-place racer by nearly five seconds.
“Heron wins again,” said the instructor, marking it on his clipboard. The name had been assigned to her, along with everything else she owned: two sets of clothes, one pair of shoes, three textbooks, and an elastic for her hair. The other females in this training pod had had their hair cut, but Heron’s was left long; this was, the instructors said, because the other girls were pilots and Heron was espionage, but Heron didn’t know yet what that meant. The basics, at least, she was clear on: When they completed their first month of classes—the Level One subjects like language and math and physical fitness—they would go their separate ways, beginning their first levels of specialized training. The boys were all infantry, and would be sent to something called combat training. The girls, all except Heron, were pilots, and as near as she could figure out, that meant they got to ride in carts instead of walk everywhere. That hardly seemed fair to Heron, but she suspected there was more to it than that: If they never had to walk, why were they learning to do it?
Heron still didn’t know what “espionage” was, but she did know that it gave her a class the others didn’t have to take; during afternoon PE she had a separate class, with other espionage girls from other training pods, in which they learned something called Chinese. Apparently there was more than one word for each thing, and the espionage girls were the only ones who got to know what the extra words were. That didn’t seem fair to Heron either, but it was unfair in her favor, and she wasn’t going to argue it. As far as she was concerned, the more she knew the better.
“And again!” shouted the instructor. “One more race and then we move to the ellipticals. On your feet, let’s move.” Heron was tired; they’d been walking for nearly an hour, in one form or another, and the prospect of moving to the elliptical machines for another hour after this was anything but a reward. She could feel the others thinking the same thing, their exhaustion nearly tangible through the link. She wished she could just stay sitting and let the other Partials walk.