***
Aviaries 7, 8 and 9 were pitch black as Otter looked out from his office across the four-storey drop, his handprints misting the glass. Most of those giant, reinforced enclosures opposite were almost empty now. Still. As quiet as he’d ever known them in his seven years working here as a comparative psychologist, studying the cognitive behavior of a vast array of GenMod subjects.
It had been an insane three weeks. The devastating raid by the gang of mercenaries had wrought irreparable damage to at least four of the biggest aviaries, allowing some of Iolchis Core’s brightest, most promising GenMod birds to escape. Birds he knew by name, some he’d been monitoring closely, testing personally. One of the Andean condors in particular—Consuela—was a prodigy, capable of projecting vivid images and impulses telepathically to whomever she chose.
Otter had seen surveillance footage of her attacking several guards during her escape, actually helping one of the intruders to make it out alive. Shocking footage. And there were even rumors she’d orchestrated some kind of avian rebellion against the Iolchian army out in the desert, near the northern border. Charred remains of hover tanks and troops told of a terrible conflagration: vast quantities of flammable oil from the Aguarbor trees in the west had been dumped onto the vehicles and then ignited. Apparently the birds had carried epiphyte bulbs containing the oil, thousands of them, and had bombed the stunned army.
He wouldn’t have believed any of it if it weren’t for his knowledge of Consuela’s extraordinary abilities. As for why she’d done it, it was painfully obvious to Otter, despite his superiors’ obtuse hedging: she’d learned what the facility was all about. The gruesome reality behind the benign facade of Iolchis Core. She’d somehow found out about the vivisection wing and the disposal of unpromising subjects and the myriad unethical experiments that took place underground, where even Otter and his colleagues in Behavioral weren’t given access to. She was certainly smart enough to comprehend all that. Smarter than maybe anyone else in the Core realised.
Or perhaps he just liked to think she’d consciously rebelled against the evils of the Core. That she was that perceptive. Maybe a part of him was jealous of what she’d done, what he hadn’t been able to do.
So far.
Just like the abused creations that had inhabited The Island of Dr. Moreau, these GenMod birds, marshaled by Consuela, had risen up against their creators. It was an inevitable result of increased intelligence in captivity—the desire to be free, and to wreak vengeance on one’s captors.
But Professor Otter Mbowe was now himself a captive in the Core, as was nearly everyone else who worked here. Ever since the raid, the Administration had halted all work and denied all leave, effectively cutting the facility off from the civilian settlements at the feet of the giant Segado dams across the desert. Employees separated from their loved ones, indefinitely. The powers-that-be were convinced the mercenaries had had help from inside the facility. So everyone was now a suspect.
A government outside ISPA jurisdiction, the Iolchis Core Administration answered to no one. It was all there in black-and-white in Otter’s contract: any employee could be detained for as long as was deemed necessary if suspected of seditious behavior. So he was more or less confined to the office floor of the Animal Cognition wing—except during mealtimes—along with Marianne Fitzpatrick and the two other department heads, Pinker and Shae, until further notice.
Worse than that—far worse, for both him and Marianne—the two of them were stone-cold guilty of an even more serious crime.
They had in their possession the most prized secrets of Iolchis Core, including all research data on its xenobiological crown jewel. Most of the other research amounted to a butcher’s bill of horrific animal cruelty, and evidence of experiments so heinous and unnatural they would quickly bring down the wrath of outraged humanity upon this facility if word ever got out. ISPA would then have no choice but to intervene, to put an end to this sickening fiefdom.
But the crown jewel itself had been stolen, and not by him.
Otter’s espionage had been going so well, until Malesseur’s mercenaries had broken in...
“Ten green bottles...standing on the wall; ten green bottles standing on the wall; and if one green bottle should accidentally fall, there’ll be nine green bottles standing on—Oh my!” Her packet of sedative pills pinched between her forefinger and thumb, Marianne drunkenly smooched the window as she peered down to the foyer four storeys below. “You know who that is, Otter-boy?”
Otter had to admit he didn’t. The new arrival at the facility held a gaggle of over-eager security personnel at bay with an ID badge he plied calmly, despite their scanners and frisking gloves trying to mate with him.
“That’s Ferrix fricking Vaughn.” Marianne hiccupped loudly, then tripped sideways as she frantically retrieved the hand-mirror from her skirt pocket. Otter caught her. A good thing too, because she was doped to the gills, and her hands were full, so she’d have fallen flat on her face, maybe even cracked her head on the corner of the desk.
Her face inches from his, she slow-danced him in loose circles, humming to herself between giggles. Otter’s mind was elsewhere, but he humored her until she blurted, “You do know who Ferrix Vaughn is, don’t you?”
“The name’s vaguely—”
“Then let me clarify, Professor.” She struggled to keep her eyes open, and started whistling Ten Green Bottles again. Poor woman hadn’t responded well to her interrogation at the hands of the Administration that morning. Her nerves were fried. Sedating herself had probably been the wisest course, at least for the rest of the day. The sons of bitches had thoroughly grilled her on her relationship with Otter and the other heads of department, demanding she report anything suspicious about them, no matter how small.
Little did they know she’d colluded with Otter in siphoning off close to a million supposedly secured digital documents over the past six months. Those documents were with them now, in this very room, ready to be smuggled out as soon as an opportunity presented itself. But none had arisen yet—the lock-down isolated them completely from the outside world. ISPA officials, exactly the sorts of people they needed to reach out to, were right here in Iolchis Core, bargaining, mediating, utterly oblivious and out of reach.
“Who is he, Marianne?”
“Who’s who?” She was almost asleep in his arms, knees giving way, her cheek resting on his shoulder. Though she was nearly thirty years his junior, about as pale-skinned as could be—the opposite of Otter, whose descendants had been Congolese miners—and despite her being from a much wealthier family, Marianne had always got on well with him. When sober, they had a sort of winking, snarky rapport, not flirty in the least. She had a fiancé fighting on the 100z border. Otter had been divorced once and widowered twice. It was a pleasing, uncomplicated friendship he shared with Marianne, beset by unpleasant, complicated circumstances.
Life as a spy came easily to Otter. He’d joined the military-industrial corporate behemoth Kuiper Wells right away upon his graduation from ISPA’s Academy of Sciences. Unbeknownst to Kuiper Wells, he’d reported back to ISPA on a weekly basis, through a team of espionage agents, on all facets of his work there, some of them illegal. In a small way, he’d helped bring about the forced liquidation of Kuiper a couple of decades ago, paving the way for ISPA to regain total military control of the colonies.
And he was at it again now, only without a sponsor, without back-up, and in an ever-tightening noose. Worse than that, he didn’t know who to trust in ISPA even if he could get word out. That was the reason he’d signed up with the affluent Iolchians in the first place; ISPA had treated him shabbily after the collapse of Kuiper Wells, breaking all their promises of career advancement, treating him like they had the rest of that company’s assets—as the spoils of conquest, to be assimilated as they saw fit.
He’d give anything to be able to go back and teach science in a school. Somewhere remote, off the radar, where he could really help shape the li
ves of children, maybe forge a colony that might actually end up doing some good in the galaxy.
“Ferrix Vaughn,” he reminded her. “Is he a diplomat?”
“Ferrix...Ferrix...Dreamy, I’m telling you. He can visit my dreams any time.”
“Who is he, Marianne?”
“Omicron. Can’t be corrupted, oh no, not my Ferrix. Arrested his whole family when he found out they...something...”
Otter remembered it now, the whole story ISPA had peddled tirelessly over the podnet as an example of their agents’ incorruptibility. Propaganda 101. “His family helped plan the attack on the Vike Academy.”
“Yeah, the Vike. All those kids. Poor Ferrix, he made the tough call...and his own people don’t trust him now ’cause he’s too honest. Ironic, huh? And that’s why...why he’s my...tragic...hero.” With that she fell sound asleep, snoring into his ear. Otter carried her over to the settee, set her down gently, fastened an extra button on her blouse for modesty, then covered her with his jacket.
He checked the time—two-thirty, a few hours until dinner. Damn. Would Vaughn even be here that long? If he was, Otter knew his only chance to make contact with the incorruptible agent would be in the cafeteria. Every inch of the dining area was almost certainly wired and bugged, so he would have to improvise, without being seen or heard.
At two-forty-five, while he was formulating his plan, the door to his office slid open. Otter jumped. A brace of Administration officers strode in. Armed guards waited outside. He instantly turned to Marianne, held his breath. Was she going to suddenly wake up and say something addled and incriminating? He didn’t think so. She’d swallowed enough sedative pills to—
He spotted the plastic-and-foil packet she’d dropped on the carpet. Jesus. If the goons spotted the pills, would they put two and two together? Would they deduce guilt? Could they? Taking sedatives after her interview—really an interrogation—was not the act of a well-adjusted employee.
He stepped to one side, blocking the goons’ view of the pills, then approached the two tired-looking men. “What’s up?” he asked.
“Professor Mbowe, will you come with us?”
“Certainly.”
“You might want to bring your jacket. We have to pass through one of the colder sub-levels.”
Great. Deep underground. Where no one could hear you scream. Otter managed to steel himself by focusing on keeping Marianne safe, warm, out of harm’s way. “Nah, I’ll be all right.” He left his jacket on her. “She gets cranky if I disturb her afternoon nap.”
“Suit yourself.”
“Will we be finished in time for dinner?”
The officers were silent as they escorted him out.