Hard Line

Five facts that EOS knows about Bhanji Kyrano

1. That in his forty year career as a private mercenary he has consistently displayed a capacity for clinical and detached violence

2. That he mistrusts technology and keeps much of his private and personal info as hard copy

3. That he has multiple aliases, all seven of which she believed she had isolated, until he produced an eighth at security at Tokyo International Airport

4. That he is Jeff Tracy's loyal dog and therefore any loyalty to John is subsidiary

5. That he is the full brother of the man who tried to kill John on more than three occasions

EOS does not like Kyrano.

More accurately, she is afraid of Kyrano.

But John trusts him, at least he trusts him in the way John trusts anyone now, in these days since her interminable imprisonment, since the bond between him and his brothers was breached, lightly and with one eye on the door.

Therefore, for now, she must deal with Kyrano.

And look for alternatives. She has been resistant to accepting outside help, assured that no one can care for John's needs better than she can. But recent events had made her consider that outside help might have its place. Perhaps it would be useful if John were to acquire a loyal dog of his own. She swivels one of her eyes in the direction of Steven Summers.

He sits in his booth, running his finger around the rim of his glass and chewing on his lip. His gaze is fixed upon the back of John's head. When he hears Kyrano's question he rises and sits down in the booth next to John. "Are you looking to hire? My charter got delayed in Abu Dhabi. Customs. I can fly you anywhere you want to go. For a price."

EOS runs Kyrano's expression through three facial analysis software packages, gets no hits. John's is much easier to read. It's one of stupefied horror.

"And you are?"

Steven thinks for a moment. "John?" he queries.

"Hah," says Kyrano. "No. Try again."

"Neil then."

"You look about 17."

"I'm nearly 23."

"Congratulations on reaching such a major milestone. If you are not yet 23 then you cannot have your APC licence, therefore you cannot fly a jet, therefore you cannot help us. Thank you for your interest."

"There are special dispensations," Steven retorts.

"Do you have such a dispensation?"

He grinds his teeth. "I can fly everything you throw at me."

"You've been drinking." It's not a question. "You can't fly anything."

"If it's just a standard up and down– "

"You've been drinking. And I don't deal with amateurs."

Kyrano reaches into his pocket and removes a small silver pill box. Inside are half a dozen yellow lozenges. She identifies the substance as di-sulfram guanide, a substance on the semi-legal edge of the pharmacopeia. Its use is specifically forbidden by the International Rescue Manual of Operations, as well as most commercial airlines. Its object is to purge the body of 99% of ethanol in three minutes. Looking at the mechanism of action, the operative word is 'purge'.

Steven seems to be able to identify it on sight too. He scowls. "I can– "

"Get sober," says Kyrano, "And then maybe we'll talk."

Steven takes a tablet and swallows. The next moment he lurches to his feet and runs up the stairs. EOS follows his progress as he rushes into the concourse. He snags a bottle of water from a concession stand without stopping to pay for it and runs into the men's washroom. He collapses inside an empty stall just as the purgative takes effect.

This, at least, means his position and behaviour will be entirely predictable for several minutes.

Downstairs, Kyrano is grilling John on Steven's identity, the presence of two shot glasses on the adjacent table, the meaning of the sourdough crumbs on the table's surface and John's lapel. But John's heart rate is on the sixty-third centile and he does not seem distressed. This is probably because he is agreeing with Kyrano that his association with Steven is categorically at an end. She records the audio for later, leaving a scanning protocol active for only ten thousand or so keywords.

Meanwhile, she expands into the GDFTA's central network. The time she can lurk there without attracting attention is limited. She has rendered three profiles, one for Jacob Gareth Teegarden, a cyber-securities expert with the TA special branch, another for Simon Jared Spellman, a promising junior marshal operating out of Moscow Branch. The third profile, for Stefan Johann Smythe, details a person of interest with a history of violence, anarchist leanings and connections to the terrorist groups Red Cloud and The Luddites. For now she doesn't upload any of the profiles.

Instead she scours the network for potential threats. Before Steven's mention of hard lines she had never given much consideration to physical solutions meant to circumvent her. Extrapolating threats and solutions for future digital attacks, yes. It had been one of the first problems she had turned her mind to during her imprisonment. Physical threats to John she equally spends much of her time predicting. But physical threats to herself she had not considered.

A survey of the hacker community produces speculation about the existence of hard lines, dark rooms lined in lead meant to imprison individuals with implantable cybernetics, and EMF generators. She searches the TA servers for mentions of these countermeasures but finds only the same reference again and again. "Refer to box 777."

She considers the outcomes if John were to be hit with an EMP. Having considered them for an interminable 0.32 seconds, she places these outcomes in a secure data vault within her programming where she will not have consider them anymore.

If only she could take him somewhere safe.

In the airport, Steven has stumbled out of the stall and is rinsing his mouth out at the sink. "I suppose you think this is funny," he says loudly.

She had not thought about it in those terms. But maybe it is. Ha. Ha.

He returns to the concourse and pays the irate concession holder for his water. He then lingers far too long by the sunscreen stand. When he turns to go, he bangs against it and bottles roll everywhere, out onto the main hallway.

"Sorry dude, sorry, sorry." He backs away from the now furious vendor and straight into a passenger in rumpled suit and tie.

"Oh man, so sorry." His accent thickens into the brogue of the American Midwest. The man snarls at him as he waves his hands, backing up. "Sorry, I don't speak the lingo, man. Sorry, man." Then he turns and walks in the opposite direction to the bar.

Every sensor she can muster is now trained on him, assessing this suspicious behaviour. Security cameras and smartphone feeds follow him as he marches into a high end electronics store.

He walks right up to the counter and attracts the attention of one of the young women working there. His smile, when she turns to him, shows forty per cent more teeth than he has displayed thus far. "Hey there, gorgeous," he says, in Russian. "Can you help me? My boss's Bluetooth just blew up, two minutes before we were supposed to board. If I don't get a replacement, pronto, he's going to have me thrown out a window. What's the best you've got?"

Smiling, she takes out an overpriced Bluetooth earpiece to show him, placing it on the glass counter. "You're an angel," he says. "Can I try it on? If it pinches his ear it'll be my guts on a plate."

"Of course," The woman smiles back at him. Her pupils have dilated.

"Thanks, Duchess."

He plugs the earpiece into his left ear and turns away from the counter. "Can you hear me?"

"Of course."

"I need that digital miracle, now."

"Do you?" She modulates her vocal parameters for sarcasm.

"Yeah, there's a prepaid debit card in my wallet. I need you to top it up to 695 dollars."

"695 dollars. I offered you riches, the chance to humiliate or destroy your enemies, a life lived in the sphere of your dreams and you want 695 dollars?"

"Uh, plus tax."

"I'm a little offended by that."

"Now, please." He pulls the blue tooth from his ear and smiles again at the shop assistant. "No, not for me. I'll take a Light Type wrist com and earpiece."

She tells the debit card to top itself to a thousand dollars as he presses it against the scanner.

"Huh, new model." He's already tearing the packaging off as he exits the store. He pulls the earpiece from the foam. "So," he says, in crisp Japanese. "How many security agents do you count? Because I make nine on this concourse."

He's walking briskly now, but he makes no show of looking around. EOS expands her search parameters, using the same protocols she used to track him. The data her search returns is alarming. "Eleven."

"Could be a coincidence." He's not very convincing. "Any chatter?"

"No." The silence is terrifying.

"Then not a coincidence. They're instructed to switch to encrypted shortwave radio in a suspected cyberterror attack."

"They're after us."

"Could be me too." He sounds quite unconcerned by this turn of events. "You better tell Call-Me-J and his dangerous friend." She already is, transmitting to John frantically as Steven asks her, "Any movement on the runway?"

"No, there's a four minute traffic pause." She reads data from the tower. "Bird strike."

"That will be the troop carriers landing." And his certainty given her lack of any corroborative data is alarming. He sighs but sounds rather pleased. "You know, I think we're going to need to steal that plane after all."

"There is a refuelled Air Teranean jet in berth…"

"No," He grabs a navy baseball cap off a chair where a sleeping passenger has left it, stuffs it in his pocket. "Stealing a plane's not like stealing a car. We can't dump it in the lake afterwards. Those black boxes will survive a nuclear blast. Look at empty berths."

"Yes."

"See anything plane shaped?"

And there, in berth 74B, electrics, comms array, network signals. An aircraft, where there should not be one. "Yes."

"This is Russia," he says by way of explanation, "Smugglers and the mob can taxi right up to the gate."

The p-comm fits snuggly onto his wrist. He powers it up. The Tracy Industries architecture is familiar to her as a favourite pillow to a cat. The OS begins its initial boot. She stops it, reformats the comm to an approximation of an IR wrist-device."How did you know that?"

"My degree in criminal justice, remember? Gracie and Mary-Jane were so proud. Gracie baked me a carrot cake."

"That was… smart," says EOS grudgingly.

There's something like a laugh in his voice. "EOS, are we going to be friends now?"

She pings his ear. It's proving an effective form of reprimand. "I should tell you that being charming will not work on me."

Steven grins. "Don't be ridiculous, EOS. Being charming works on everybody."

He ducks into the bar and takes the stairs two at a time.