Escape To Midas E-Book

Andrew Stickland

• Herausgeber: Lightning Books
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Serie: The Mars Alone Trilogy
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 424

Beschreibung

Book Two in the Mars Alone Trilogy It's 2313 and a battle for the future of humankind is brewing. The battleground is space Last year Leo Fischer and Skater Monroe were normal kids living normal lives, worrying about school, dealing with family issues, planning their futures... This year they're hiding out on Mars, hunted by a psychopathic megalomaniac – who happens to be the most powerful individual in the Solar System. He claims the two of them are interplanetary terrorists and is demanding their heads on a plate. In the thrilling second instalment of the Mars Alone Trilogy, Leo and Skater, together with an artificial intelligence called Taffy whose mind contains the knowledge of an ancient alien civilisation, must face the consequences of fighting an enemy who has been lying to the entire human race and will stop at nothing to protect his secrets.

Leseprobe

PRAISE FOR THE MARS ALONE TRILOGY

‘Brilliantly pacey, imaginative, high-stakes sci-fi adventure set on Mars – a must-read for all YA thriller fans’

Emma Haughton

‘An old-fashioned pulp sci-fi space opera packed with action, adventure, an android, amorous teens and artificial intelligence’

Nina Paley

‘A beautifully paced, unputdownable story. Stickland’s world-building rings true down to every grain of Martian dust’

Victoria Whitworth

‘Glorious world-building. I couldn’t put it down’

Fran Harris

‘Consummate storytelling that speeds along as smoothly as an interplanetary spaceship… with satisfyingly grounded science’

Iain Hood

‘An immersive adventure. If you like science fiction with strong characterisation and a political edge, this is for you’

Katharine Quarmby

‘Part space-adventure, part coming-of-age story… With quicksilver prose and a pacy plot, it keeps you guessing until the very last page’

Melissa Fu

‘This is aimed at YA readers, but I am a lot more mature and I couldn’t put it down. This book has it all’

Jackie’s Reading Corner

ANDREW STICKLAND is a prize-winning poet and short-story writer whose work has variously been published by the British Fantasy Society, Games Workshop, the Royal Statistical Society and The Economist. He studied law at University College London, then creative writing at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland. He is previously the author of The Arcadian Incident, the first part of the Mars Alone Trilogy. He lives in Cambridge.

Published in 2023

by Lightning Books

Imprint of Eye Books Ltd

29A Barrow Street

Much Wenlock

Shropshire

TF13 6EN

www.lightning-books.com

ISBN: 9781785633638

Copyright © Andrew Stickland 2023

Cover by Ifan Bates

The moral right of the author has been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

For David

Contents

PROLOGUE

PART ONE

SKATER GOES TO UNIVERSITY

GETTING THE JOB DONE

SOME FAMILY TIME

PRESIDENT WHITTAKER

A CHANGE OF MIND

THE CENOTAPH

SORTING THINGS OUT – WITH CAKE

FORWARD PLANNING

SKATER SPEAKS HER MIND

THE ASSAULT BEGINS

ESCAPE THROUGH THE MINE

NO SURVIVORS

CAMPING ON MARS

RACE TO SAFETY

LICKING THEIR WOUNDS

PART TWO

DESTINATION: MIDAS

THREE KINGS

PIRATES, BUT NICE PIRATES

HOME

LEO GETS A JOB

SHARING INFORMATION

TAFFY GETS A NEW BODY

A TALE FROM HOMEWORLD

THE START OF BAD NEWS

NO MORE SECRETS

THE TRAP IS SPRUNG

NO WAY OUT

LILLIAN

THE CHASE BEGINS

TIME TO GO

PART THREE

IF AT FIRST YOU DON’T SUCCEED…

A CHANGE OF HEART

ACTION STATIONS

FIREFIGHT

…TRY, TRY AGAIN

TAKING DAMAGE

BACK TO MARS

LUNCH WITH THE PRESIDENT

—FLASHBACK—

THE DEED IS DONE

WHAT HAPPENS NOW?

EPILOGUE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PROLOGUE

Already the Deimos Bar was a huge, glowing jewel, its thermoplas dome slowly fading from blue, to purple, to red against the darkening Martian sky. It was perched twelve storeys up, on the very top of the Nevsky Grand Hotel, and there wasn’t another tall building to spoil the view for several blocks in any direction. On another occasion, Stefan Granski would have been happy to sit for a while, enjoying a drink or two and staring out at the stars, or at the lights and holoverts of the city sprawling away beneath him, but not tonight. Tonight he needed to keep a low profile and he wished his contact had suggested somewhere less exposed – one of the underground bars maybe, where people could come and go without attracting quite so much attention.

He crossed the roadway and waited nervously at the back of a group queueing to use the hotel’s airlocks. He felt exposed. His eyes darted from side to side, constantly checking the surrounding buildings, the passing transpods and the other pedestrians for any sign that he was being followed. There was nothing. Even so, he reached down to the large bag hanging by his side, drew it up to his chest and wrapped his arms tightly around it, just in case.

Once through the airlock he was immediately approached by one of the hotel’s famous Meet-and-Greets, an enthusiastic young man wearing a smart, old-style uniform and a broad smile.

‘Good evening, sir,’ the young man said, ‘and welcome to the Nevsky Grand. May I take that for you?’ He reached for the bag and Granski pulled back defensively.

‘I can manage,’ he replied, curtly. ‘I just need to know how to get up to the Deimos Bar.’

‘Of course,’ the Meet-and-Greet replied, looking him up and down. ‘I can show you to the wash facilities if you’d like to freshen up first. And if you want to leave your E-suit with us, we can have it cleaned and refilled for you while you enjoy your time at the bar.’

‘It’s fine. I don’t plan on staying long. Just show me the way up.’

‘As you wish, sir,’ the young man said, directing Granski across the busy lobby. ‘Last elevator on the left will take you directly up.’

A pair of burly, angry-looking security guards stood beside the airlocks inspecting everyone as they entered the foyer, so Granski hurried over and joined a group of smartly dressed party-goers waiting to go up to the bar. He pushed his way to the back of the lift as soon as it arrived.

Even this early in the evening the Deimos was buzzing and Granski had to try several times before he could attract the attention of one of the bar’s human staff.

‘I’m looking for someone,’ he shouted over the din. ‘Captain Lockley. He said to ask for him here.’

The woman reached up, took an empty glass from the shelf above her head and handed it to him. ‘In the back,’ she said, motioning over her shoulder before turning back to her computer screen.

Granski took the glass and went through into a quieter, more dimly lit section of the bar. Small booths, all occupied, were set against the room’s curved walls and Granski scanned them quickly, looking for someone who seemed to be a spaceship’s captain – though Granski wasn’t exactly sure what that might look like. But he needn’t have worried. His attention was immediately drawn to the central booth, where a single figure was seated in the shadows behind a large circular table. Several bottles, mostly empty, were lined up along one side of the table.

As Granski stood watching, the figure sat forward so that his face was picked out by the overhead light. A brief smile appeared as he took hold of the nearest bottle and motioned for Granski to come and join him. The man was young, much younger than Granski had imagined, considering he claimed to be a fully certified merchant captain. But then sometimes Mars was like that, especially these days with the blockade in force. What mattered now was having the right connections. It didn’t matter if you were the skipper of a battered old tug, or a forty-year-old shuttle, or even just a surface-to-station barge, as long as you could find someone to issue you with an off-world licence. Then you were a somebody.

And the word was that Captain Lockley was a somebody. For the right price, it was said, he would happily take you out to one of the Belt stations, or even arrange a discreet ship-to-ship, to put you onto something heading back to Earth. Stefan Granski hoped that what he had to offer was ‘the right price’.

As he approached the table, Granski was surprised to see that Lockley wasn’t alone after all. Draped along the sofa beside him was a young woman, very pretty, with the long, slender features of a Martian-born. She was wearing a tight, revealing dress and a silver bob-cut wig, and was, Granski assumed, some sort of paid escort the captain had bought himself for the evening. As he took his seat on the far side of the table she raised herself slowly onto one arm, gazed at him with a vacant look in her eyes and sank back down again. Lockley ignored her and filled both his own and Granski’s glass.

‘You’re late,’ he said, but there was no anger in his voice.

‘I got held up,’ was all Granski said in reply. He took a cautious sip of his drink and then drained the glass in one gulp. Lockley refilled it.

‘So,’ he announced. ‘Let’s start with introductions. I’m Angus Lockley. Captain Angus Lockley. Call me Lock.’

‘Lock?’

‘Exactly. And you, I take it, are Stephen Granski, yes?’

‘Stefan.’ There was a long pause. Lockley was clearly waiting for more, but Granski was reluctant to continue. He looked down at the young woman. ‘Couldn’t we have this conversation in private?’

Lockley waved his hand dismissively. ‘Don’t you worry about Nuying. As far as I can tell she doesn’t speak English, and even if she did, I don’t think she’s in much of a state to remember anything she hears. She’s an ornament, that’s all. Part of the furniture.’

‘Couldn’t you at least have picked a less public place to meet?’

Lockley spread his arms wide. ‘Why? I have nothing to hide. I’m a fully licensed merchant captain. I can do business wherever I please.’ He leaned in closer. ‘And that, my friend, is why you need my services, yes?’ Granski nodded. ‘So why don’t you tell me your story, and then we’ll see whether we can come to some sort of arrangement, yes? Something that will be of benefit to us both.’

‘Fine.’ Granski took another swig of his drink. ‘Stefan Granski, journalist. Or former journalist, I should say. I used to run an online newsfeed called The Martian Chronicle. Maybe you’ve heard of it?’ Lockley shook his head. ‘Well, it wasn’t one of the Majors, but it did okay. Had a reasonable following.’

‘Had?’

‘Until our wonderful new government decided that freedom of the press wasn’t anything like as important as I thought it was. I guess I said the wrong thing once too often so they decided to shut me down.’

‘Unpleasantly?’

‘The works. The beating, the threats, the gun in the face. They smashed anything they couldn’t take with them, whether it had anything to do with the business or not, and they gave me a single day to clear out and disappear for good.’

‘Yeah,’ Lockley said, showing little interest for the story. ‘That’s the new Mars for you. Crazy place. Crazy. Still, it works for some people.’ He smiled. ‘If you know how to play the game.’

‘Well, I don’t. And I don’t want to either. I just want to get the hell out of here as fast as I can.’

‘And so here you are.’

‘I was told you’re the man to come to if you’re looking to get off planet.’

‘And you were not misinformed. I am the man to come to. Yes, indeed. But tell me…’ He leaned forward again and made a show of looking serious for a moment. ‘How do you intend to pay? My services don’t come cheap, and something tells me you’re a little short on funds right now. Am I right?’

‘You’re right, I can’t pay. Not with credit anyway. They froze all my accounts when they shut me down.’

‘Yeah, that’s what I thought. So?’

‘I have information.’

Lockley let out a loud laugh and rocked back on the sofa, disturbing the woman beside him. She looked up, shrugged, and rearranged herself slightly away from him. ‘Information?’ he asked, still laughing. ‘And what am I supposed to do with that? I can’t fuel my ship with information.’

‘You can with this sort of information. It’s valuable. And I mean really valuable. You find the right person and I guarantee it’ll earn you more credit than you’d get from half a dozen other refugees like me.’

‘I doubt that.’

‘Trust me.’

Lockley gave a shrug. ‘So convince me. If this information really is as valuable as you claim, I’d be a fool not to take you anywhere you want to go. And in style, too. But I’ll be the one to decide. If I think you’ve got nothing, then you’re back on the street. Deal?’

‘Deal.’

‘Excellent.’ Lockley emptied the contents of the bottle into the two glasses and sat back, idly running his fingers through the Martian woman’s hair.

After a moment, Granski began. ‘I take it you’ve heard of the Arcadian Incident?’

‘Oh, come on,’ Lockley laughed. ‘That’s your information? That the government is covering up evidence of aliens? You’ll have to do a lot better than that, my friend. That’s an old story, and it was garbage even when it was new.’

Granski unzipped his bag and took out a small rectangular object that he placed on the table. ‘It’s true. Every last word of it.’

‘And so this would be, what?’ Lockley asked, leaning forward to examine the object. ‘An alien artefact?’ The thing was dark and smooth, and appeared to have been made out of a single piece of some vaguely metallic material. On each of its sides was a small, oddly shaped hole, but that was all. There were no other markings of any sort.

‘Not an artefact,’ Granski continued. ‘A computer. I have no idea what it does or how to work it, but if you take it to someone who knows about these things I’m sure they’d be able to get it to spit out something or other. And they’d also be able to confirm that it wasn’t built by us. Take it to the government, on the other hand, and they wouldn’t even be surprised by it.’

‘Okay, I’m now mildly curious. Tell me more.’

‘So, after my little visit from the thug squad, I had to get out of town fast. I wandered around for a while, begging whatever I could from those friends I still had who weren’t too scared to talk to me, and eventually I got put in touch with someone who could give me a place to stay. It was…well, it was like a safe house, only bigger. There were dozens of people there. Some of them were like me, ordinary folk who’d ended up getting on the wrong side of the new government and had nowhere else to go. Others were out-and-out criminals; smugglers, petty pirates, profiteers. And then there were the rest. We called them the Resistance. Some of them were soldiers, others secret agents or spies of some sort. They kept pretty much to themselves, but it was clear they were well organised and well equipped. They had vehicles, guns, explosives. And a lot of hi-tech computer stuff as well – stuff they were always doing secret experiments with. I know a bit about computers myself and I offered to help them out with their work, but they weren’t interested. No thank you.

‘So anyway. All these people. Rumours start flying around about who they really are and what they’re actually doing, and soon enough the truth gets out.’ Now it was Granski’s turn to lean in close across the table. He looked round to make sure there was no one close and then lowered his voice. ‘It’s the Fischers. You know, those scientists, mother and son, who are currently top of the government’s most-wanted list. Well, that’s where they’re hiding out. And you want to know why the government want to get their hands on them so badly? It’s because of this.’ He picked up the strange object from the table and looked at it admiringly. ‘Alien technology. They have a whole load of these and they’re trying to work out how to get them to work with human computers. And succeeding, as far as I can tell. Now you tell me, is that the kind of information that will buy me a place on your ship, or not?’

‘So what? You’re saying the Arcadian thing is all true? That the government is covering up contact with aliens?’

‘It was just a bunch of computers. I didn’t see any little green men. But yeah, I reckon it’s all true.’

‘Then why not turn them in yourself? I seem to remember it’s a pretty damn big reward.’

‘You think I’d ever be allowed to claim it? Me? No, I’m taking my chances off-planet. You get me there, the reward’s all yours.’

‘And where is this so-called safe house?’

Granski shook his head. ‘That’s enough for now. I’ll leave you the computer as a deposit, but you don’t get the location of the base until I’m safely on an Earth-bound ship. And I guarantee you’ll never find it on your own. It’s well hidden.’

Lockley took the computer, thought for a while and then his smile returned. ‘Okay, Mr Granski. I think we can make this work. I’ll pass this on to someone who can verify it really is what you say it is and then claim my nice fat reward and become a public hero while you do whatever it is you want to do back on Earth.’ He took a plastic call-card from his jacket pocket and handed it across to Granski. “We shuttle up at midday tomorrow. This will give you all the information you need. Be at the dock no later than nine. If you’re late, you’ll miss the flight.’

‘Just like that?’

Lockley shrugged. ‘Just like that.’

Granski took the card and tucked it safely inside his environment suit. ‘I’ll be there, nice and early.’ For a moment he sat, unsure what to do next, but it was clear the meeting was over. Lockley turned his attention back to the woman at his side and left Granski to get awkwardly to his feet, mumble a goodbye and make his way back through the bar’s purple gloom towards the entrance.

* * * *

‘He’s gone,’ Lockley said after a moment. His companion sat up, suddenly alert. ‘So what do you think?’

‘I think it’s a start,’ she replied. ‘It would have been better if you’d managed to get the location of the base from him up front. But no matter. We can trace his movements back over the past few weeks. We’ll find it soon enough.’

‘And what about this?’ Lockley asked, holding up the strange device. ‘You don’t believe this is really some sort of alien computer, do you?’

The woman took it from him and examined it for herself. ‘Who knows? Perhaps.’

‘Oh come on. Aliens?’

‘Why not? They’re out there somewhere.’

‘Exactly. Out there somewhere, not down here somewhere.’

‘What do you care? You’ll be paid for your part in this either way.’

‘And if it really is who he says it is?’

‘Then you’ll be paid even more.’

‘Once you actually get hold of them?’

‘Don’t worry, we will. And soon.’

‘Why not just wait and let Granski give me the location once he’s safely on his ship back to Earth?’

‘He’s never going to give you the location,’ the woman replied with a sneer. ‘Any fool can see that.’

‘So what am I supposed to do with him then?’

‘Get him off-planet and throw him out the airlock.’ She stood up to leave.

‘Hey, wait up,’ Lockley said, his sly smile creeping back as he let his eyes wander over the various areas of pleasantly exposed flesh in front of him. ‘What’s the hurry there, my lovely Nuying? The night is still young.’

She looked down at him, more disappointed than angry. ‘Don’t be such a pig, Lockley. Go home and sober up.’ She held up the artifact. ‘I have work to do. But even if I didn’t…’ She shook her head and left her words hanging in the air behind her.

PART ONE

THE TIDE TURNS

1

SKATER GOES TO UNIVERSITY

‘Okay, people,’ Skater announced, after popping in her ear buds and activating her comms. ‘I’m in position. So who’s ready for some fun?’

‘Can I please remind you’, came her father’s voice in her ear, ‘that this is an important mission and you’re supposed to be acting responsibly. You’re not there to have fun.’

Skater rolled her eyes. ‘Dad. I’m stealing a computer from a university. How, exactly, am I supposed to do that responsibly?’

‘And anyway, Pete,’ Morgan chipped in. ‘Committing crimes is fun, as you well know.’

‘Whose side are you on?’

‘Mine, of course,’ Skater added quickly. ‘As always.’

‘Enough,’ Captain Mackie barked, and the chatter immediately stopped. ‘Let’s get to work. Mobile, are you set?’

‘All set,’ Skater replied, in her most responsible-sounding voice.

‘Evac One?’

‘In position,’ Pete answered. ‘Ready to go.’

‘Evac Two?’

‘All systems green,’ Morgan said.

‘Technical?’

Silence.

‘Technical?’

‘That’s you, Leo,’ Skater added, helpfully.

‘Yeah, I know,’ came Leo’s flustered voice. ‘Just hang on a sec. I need to…do a couple…of things here.’ There was a long pause. ‘There. All sorted. Sorry, I mean, Technical standing by.’

‘Good. Mobile, you can go ahead and power up the glasses.’

Skater pressed the tiny pad on the side of her sunglasses that switched them over to interactive display mode, and information began to appear across the lenses as built-in microprocessors identified everything she was looking at.

‘I have video,’ Leo announced. ‘Signal’s clean and image is good. Just give me a quick three-sixty.’

‘Okay,’ Skater announced as she spun slowly around. ‘So welcome to Mars Minerva University. Here I am inside the main campus atmosphere dome, where someone has taken some quite pretty Terran gardens and dumped a load of ugly great buildings down on top of them. And as you can see, the place is triple-bursting with people.’

‘It’s the start of term,’ Leo replied. ‘Hundreds of new students. Which is why we chose today for our mission. Now try not to turn your head so quickly. Make your movements slower and more flowing, otherwise the cameras won’t be able to keep up.’

‘Okay,’ Skater replied, flicking her head quickly from side to side. ‘So not like this then?’

‘And try not to talk so much. You’ll draw attention to yourself.’

‘Right, because no one else is doing that, are they?’ She panned around slowly again, giving Leo a view of the nearby students. ‘Take a look. Half the people here are talking to their phone screens or eye slates and no one’s looking at them as if they’re mad, bad, or on a secret stealth mission.’

‘Mobile!’ Mackie interrupted.

‘Okay,’ Skater said, dropping her voice. ‘Once we’re inside I’ll shut up and be serious. And talking of inside…’ She looked up at the glass-walled building directly in front of her, and almost immediately her sunglasses identified it. ‘According to my super specs, this ugly blue diamond is the Department of Engineering and Computer Sciences. That’s our building, right?’

‘Right,’ said Mackie.

‘Although technically it’s an icosahedron, not a diamond,’ Leo added.

‘Whatever that may be.’

‘It’s a twenty-sided regular polyhedron.’

‘Well good for it. Do I care?’

‘I’m just trying to be helpful. Anyone who was actually a student there would know what shape their building was, that’s all.’

‘Don’t push it. I can hear you smiling, brainbot.’

‘Come on people,’ Mackie cut in. ‘Time to focus. Save the joking for when we’re all back home. Mobile, off you go. And remember, as long as you act like you know what you’re doing, no one’s going to bother you. Not for the moment, anyway.’

‘Got it,’ Skater said and took a deep breath. ‘I’m going in.’ She set off for the long, curving walkway that led up to the building’s main entrance, more nervous than she wanted to admit to the others and muttering i-co-sa-he-dron to herself as she went.

Beyond the entrance the building opened out into a vast atrium filled with the buzz of conversation. The central section was taken up by a food and drinks bar, its wide tables and low chairs already busy with mid-morning coffee drinkers. Around the outside of the room, where the blue light filtered in through the huge glass walls, a series of interlinked spiral escalators wound their way up towards the building’s upper levels.

‘Nice,’ Skater muttered. ‘If you like working in a fish bowl. So where to first?’

‘Head towards the far end of this room,’ Mackie said. ‘There should be a bank of lifts somewhere near the back.’

Skater picked her way between the tables, trying her best to keep looking straight ahead instead of glancing from side to side. She’d been practising with the glasses back at the Mine for the past couple of days, but still found it almost impossible to keep from turning her head too quickly.

Suddenly her foot caught against something and she stumbled. She twisted awkwardly to avoid landing on a table full of cups and ended up falling gracelessly into one of the low seats. Unfortunately, it was already occupied.

‘Steady on!’ spluttered the elderly man across whose lap she was now sprawled. ‘This seat’s taken.’

Skater scrambled to her feet and mumbled an embarrassed apology. She’d lost the glasses. Desperately, she searched around on the floor for them.

‘Here,’ the man said, holding them out for her. ‘But perhaps wearing them inside is not such a good idea, young lady.’

Skater quickly put the glasses back on and was relieved to see they were still working. ‘Thanks,’ she said, smiling down at the man. ‘I’ll remember that.’ And she hurried off, leaving the puzzled man staring after her.

‘Oh my god!’ Leo exclaimed. ‘You know who that was that you just crashed into?’

‘Actually, I do,’ Skater replied. ‘Super specs told me it was some guy called Professor Popsicle.’

‘Pospisil,’ Leo corrected her. ‘And he just happens to be probably the most famous mathematician there is on Mars right now. The guy is like the god of maths.’

‘Well big biscuits to him. And maybe when you’ve finished being such a nerd groupie you might want to ask if I’m okay. Which I am, by the way, so no need to ask. Now shut up and let me do my job.’ She had reached the lifts and stood waiting for one of them to arrive. She was shaking.

Re…lax, she told herself, hoping the others hadn’t noticed any change in her voice. She could do this. She knew she could. Once the lift arrived, she stepped quickly inside and closed the door before anyone else could join her.

‘Where to now?’

‘Down,’ Leo replied. ‘Sub-level Two. You’re looking for the Department of Advanced Engineering, Artificial Intelligence Unit. According to the map it should be on the left as you come out of the lift.’

When the doors opened again Skater stepped out into a small foyer, where a set of double doors led off on either side. A sign above the left-hand ones told her she was in the right place. They slid silently open as she approached, revealing a long, empty corridor beyond.

‘Okay,’ Leo continued. ‘I need to see what’s written on the doors. Can you just walk along the corridor and look at all the name plates?’

‘Can do,’ Skater muttered quietly. She stopped in front of the first door.

‘Not that one,’ Leo said. ‘Move on.’

Skater moved along the corridor and Leo checked off the names as she went. At one point there was an unmarked door, but a small glass panel on the top half allowed them to see that the room beyond was some kind of workshop. A couple of technicians were working on some large piece of machinery at one of the workbenches, but neither of them noticed Skater looking in at them.

‘That’s not it either. Keep going.’

There was a hiss of hydraulics from behind her and Skater let out a startled gasp as she spun round. A young woman had emerged from the room opposite and stood looking at her in surprise.

‘Can I help you?’

From her age she could easily have been one of the other students, except that she was wearing a white lab coat over her clothes and something about her manner gave the impression she was a lot more senior than her age suggested. Skater stared at her in shocked silence as she waited for the glasses to identify the woman, but nothing was coming up on the display.

‘Are you lost?’ the woman continued.

Skater could feel the panic beginning to rise up inside her and all the breezy confidence she’d felt upstairs suddenly drained away. ‘Um…’ she managed, before Mackie cut in over the comms.

‘Say yes.’

‘Yes,’ Skater said.

‘I was looking for…’ Mackie continued.

‘I was looking for…’ Skater repeated.

‘Now look through your bag, as if you can’t remember someone’s name and you’re looking for something to remind you.’

‘Hang on,’ Skater said, playing along. ‘I’ve got it here somewhere.’ She opened her bag and took out her slate, flicking through various files at random.

‘Right,’ said Mackie. ‘You’re going to have to explain that you’ve lost the name. Just say it was some professor or other but you’re new and can’t remember who it was. Say you’ll come back later once you’ve remembered.’

‘No,’ cut in Leo. ‘Just give me a sec.’ The others could hear him tapping away on his keyboard. The young woman was becoming impatient. Skater was running out of time. ‘One sec.’

‘Are you sure you’re in the right place?’ the woman asked. ‘New students aren’t really supposed to be down here.’

‘Dr Mortimer,’ Leo announced.

‘Dr Mortimer,’ Skater said, with relief.

‘Really?’ the woman asked, looking puzzled.

‘It’s a funding application.’ Leo said. ‘And it has to be handed in today.’

‘It’s a funny application, and it has to be handed in today.’

‘Funding!’ Leo shouted.

‘Funding!’ Skater shouted. And then, more quietly, ‘I mean funding, of course.’ She gave the woman a weak smile.

‘Four doors down, on the left,’ the woman replied. ‘Just look for the name on the door.’ She turned to go and Skater let out a sigh of relief.

‘Good girl,’ Mackie said.

‘Good girl,’ Skater repeated, before she could stop herself. The woman paused, looked as if she was about to say something, then shook her head and set off down the corridor towards the lifts. ‘Sorry,’ Skater whispered, once the woman was out of earshot.

‘Don’t worry,’ Mackie comforted her. ‘You did great. Just go to Mortimer’s office and pretend to knock. We’ll carry on once your friend has gone.’

‘Wait,’ Leo called out as Skater continued down the corridor. ‘Back up. That was our door.’

Once the corridor was empty again, Leo directed her back to the right door. It was drab and uninviting, and appeared to be much more solid than the office doors she’d already examined. There was a large sign at head height.

‘SWARM,’ Skater read. ‘Access Restricted. You want to give me a clue?’

‘System-Wide Academic Research Mind. It’s a giant network of linked AIs in all the major universities and research sites all over the Solar System. This is the local hub for the whole of Northern Mars.’

‘And this is where we’re going to get our AI from?’

‘Exactly.’

Skater pressed the red entry button. ‘Surprise, surprise. It’s locked.’

‘Then it’s time to use that little device I gave you,’ Mackie said.

Skater searched in her bag until she found the thing Mackie was talking about. It appeared to be a standard format entry card, but with a small, rectangular black box built onto the end of it. When she pushed it into the access slot, nothing happened.

‘Just wait,’ Mackie said. ‘It’ll take a few seconds.’

‘Damn it!’ Skater cursed, as one of the doors further along the corridor hissed open. She turned away and pretended to be looking for something in her bag, glancing up from behind her glasses to see what was happening. A young man carrying a box stepped out, crossed over and disappeared into a different room. ‘False alarm. We’re good. The door’s still locked.’

‘Give it time.’

‘Tick, tock, tick, tock,’ Skater muttered. ‘And while we’re waiting, what am I supposed to say if there’s anyone inside? Am I still looking for Dr Mortimer?’

‘There won’t be anyone inside,’ Leo said. ‘I can pretty much guarantee that.’

‘Oh yeah? And what makes you so sure?’

Just then there was a buzzing sound and the entry button turned green. Skater quickly pushed the key card back into her bag, pressed the button and stepped inside the dark room as soon as the door began to slide open. Three seconds later, as the door hissed shut behind her, she understood why Leo had been so certain the room would be empty.

‘Ah,’ she said, and let out a long breath that immediately condensed right in front of her face.

2

GETTING THE JOB DONE

The room was freezing. It was also dark, but Skater’s glasses automatically compensated by boosting the light levels to a point where she could see reasonably well. What they couldn’t do was wrap her up in something warm.

‘Guys,’ she panted. ‘You’re kidding me, right?’

‘Sorry,’ Leo said. ‘I probably should’ve warned you, shouldn’t I?’

‘You think? I’m going to be frozen solid in about twenty seconds here. Why the Sol is it so cold?’

‘The AIs prefer it that way. It makes them work better and stops them overheating. When there are this many of them together, they can end up giving out a whole lot of heat.’

‘Then let’s make this quick. What do I do now?’

‘Okay. See all those white cubes? They’re the AIs. We need to take one of them, but you’ll need to pick one from the back corner, where it can’t be seen from the door. That way it might be a bit longer before anyone notices it’s missing.’

Skater walked quickly across to the far edge of the room, counting the neatly arranged cubes as she went. There were thirty-two in total, arranged in four rows of eight, and she selected the next to last as being the least likely to be noticed. Already she was starting to shiver and she blew on her hands to try to keep them warm. Good job she’d decided to wear the jacket, she thought. And the boots. She’d hate to think what this would have been like if she’d gone with sandals instead.

‘Okay. Now you need to take your slate and link it to the AI network. Use the blue cable I gave you. And don’t plug it into the unit we’re going to take, plug it into the one to the left of the one we’re going to take. Got it? Now, look directly at the cube and I’ll tell you where to plug in the other end of the cable. And try to stop wobbling so much, it’s making it hard to see what’s going on.’

‘I’m shivering!’ Skater barked. ‘And there’s not a lot I can do about it so just deal.’

‘Sorry. I know this is difficult. I’d happily have swapped places with you if I could. It’s just that I’d never have made it onto the campus without being picked up by security.’

‘Yeah, I know. Desperate criminal, yadda, yadda…number one on the Mars Most Wanted list, yadda yadda. Can’t set foot outside the mine without being bombarded by sniper drones, or autograph hunters, or whatever.’

Leo laughed. ‘Exactly.’

‘You’d probably have messed up somehow anyway. At least this way we get the job done professionally.’

‘Now what I’m going to do’, Leo continued, ignoring the dig, ‘is access the network from here and remotely shut down one of the units. Once I’ve done that and it’s offline, you can literally just unplug it and take it away.’

Five minutes later it was done. Skater had the AI cube in her bag and had left a neat pile of empty work folders in its place on the workbench. She unplugged the slate, made sure she had everything she needed and headed back to the door. ‘Well, people, the Eagle has landed. The egg is in the basket. Or whatever it is I’m supposed to say at this point. Job’s done, anyway. And I just hope it was worth the loss of all my fingers to frostbite.’ She opened the door and stepped out of the freezing room.

‘Stop!’ Mackie shouted.

‘Oh, the relief,’ Skater said, as she felt a wave of warmth wash over her.

‘Check the corridor first!’ Mackie shouted.

But it was too late. Skater slowly turned her head, and the glasses showed two white-coated men chatting no more than thirty metres away. They stopped and gave her a puzzled look as the heavy door hissed shut behind her.

‘Oops.’

‘Go,’ Mackie said. ‘Just ignore them and walk away.’

‘But they’re between me and the lifts. And now they’re coming this way.’

‘Go the other way. Go now!’

Skater turned and walked quickly along the corridor, feeling the curious stares of the men burning into the back of her head. For several seconds nothing happened, and Skater had to fight the urge to turn around and see what they were doing. Maybe they wouldn’t say anything. Maybe they would just assume that she had the right to be in the room anyway. Maybe they would just…

‘Excuse me?’

Maybe not. ‘Damn,’ she whispered. ‘What now?’

‘Keep going,’ Mackie said. ‘And don’t run. Through the doors at the end and then hard right. There should be a staircase.’

‘And?’

‘Excuse me, Miss? Miss!’

‘And get yourself up to ground level and back out the front of the building.’

As she reached the doors they opened automatically and she risked a quick glance backwards. One of the men was walking purposefully towards her but was still a good way back along the corridor. The second was standing back at the SWARM doorway and appeared to be talking to someone on his phone.

‘Hey, come back here!’

Skater turned the corner and there was the staircase in front of her. ‘Now run,’ Mackie ordered, and she leapt up the stairs four and five at a time as she pushed against the low Martian gravity. She heard the man shout something, but already she was round the first corner and up to the next floor and the words were lost behind her. She ran on, reaching the ground floor a few seconds later, and then stopped dead.

‘There’s no door,’ she shouted, desperately looking around. ‘Where do I go?’

‘Keep going up.’

She ran on, up and round, up and round, relying on Mackie to find her an exit. But there was no door on the first floor either, and now she could hear the man running up the stairs beneath her. Finally, on the second floor, there was a small passage leading out onto the walkway that ran round the side of the main atrium and she made a dash for it without waiting. As she ran out onto the walkway she grabbed the handrail to stop herself and took a quick look around. One of the spiral escalators was on her left, about ten metres away, but as she set off towards it, she could already see the porter from the reception desk below stepping onto it and looking up at her.

‘Stop,’ Mackie ordered.

‘But they’re coming at me from both sides.’

‘I know. Just stand still and wait for them.’

‘What? You want me to fight my way out?’

‘No, I want you to wait until the guy from downstairs steps off the escalator and then I want you to jump.’

‘What? I’m two floors up.’

‘And you’re on Mars. Just be careful where you land.’

The porter had reached the top of the escalator. Behind her, the man from the corridor came stumbling out onto the walkway. ‘What the hell is going on?’ he demanded. ‘What have you got in that bag?’ Skater ignored him. She looked up, but there was nothing to help her there. She looked over the top of the low glass wall at the floor, way too far below her.

‘Jump! Do it now!’

‘Oh crap,’ Skater muttered. She pushed herself up onto the wall and swung her legs over the side.

‘Stop!’ the man shouted, more scared than angry now. The porter began to run towards her.

‘Crap, crap, crap,’ she said. And then she pushed off.

Maybe she was on Mars, and maybe the gravity was a lot lower than it was back on Earth, but to Skater it really didn’t feel like a slow or controlled jump at all. One second she was on the wall, the next her stomach was trying to climb its way out of her mouth and the next she was hitting the ground in a mass of flailing limbs. Someone had screamed, and even as she lay there winded, Skater was relieved to realise it hadn’t been her doing the screaming.

Several shocked people nearby were heading towards her, but Skater didn’t wait to find out whether they were coming to see if she needed help or to try to stop her getting away. She staggered to her feet, pushed past them, and ran for the main entrance. One of her ankles felt like it was on fire and kept sending stabbing messages to her to stop using it, but she was too desperate to listen to them right now and she ran on regardless. On the way, she passed the table where Professor Pospisil was still sitting with a couple of colleagues. ‘Hi, Prof,’ she shouted as she ran past, giving him a quick wave. Confused, the Professor held up his hand in response.

Once outside, Skater ran as quickly as she could down the stairs and back out into the gardens. Only now did she realise she’d lost her glasses in the fall, but at least the ear buds were still in place so she was still in contact with the others.

‘I’m back outside. Lost the glasses. Sorry.’

‘So I see,’ Mackie said. “We can do it with audio only. Just don’t panic. You need to get yourself into a different building quickly. Do not, I repeat, do not go back to the main entrance. They’ll have called ahead and security will already be on the lookout for you. Now, is anyone following you?’

Skater looked round quickly. ‘Not yet, no.’

‘Good. Then stop running. Take off your jacket and drape it over the bag to cover it. Untie your hair and shake it loose. Join a group of other students, or just start talking to someone. They’ll be looking for someone rushing about on their own, not someone who’s part of a group. And get inside. It’ll be harder for the security cameras to pick you up there.’

Skater quickly followed the instructions, tacking herself onto the back of a small group of students who were heading towards a low, flat building that appeared to be floating in the middle of an artificial pond.

‘Sorry,’ she said to the tall young man she found herself walking beside. ‘But what building are we heading for again?’

‘This one? It’s the Drumming Institute.’ the man replied.

‘That’s right,’ said Skater. ‘Of course it is. Music department.’

‘No,’ the man replied, giving Skater a puzzled stare. ‘It’s the School of Architecture and the Built Environment. Named after the architect, Cordelia Drumming. If you’re looking for the Department of Music, it’s way over the other side, I think.’

Just then one of the university porters came running past, heading towards the blue glass building. Skater turned to the young man and seemed suddenly fascinated by what he was saying. ‘You know, I’m not really much of a musician anyway. Designing buildings, now that sounds much more like my thing. Especially designing lovely buildings like this one.’ She motioned to the sunken building in front of her. ‘Simply beautiful.’

‘Don’t push it,’ Mackie said in her ear. ‘You’re supposed to be blending in, not making a show of yourself. Now go find somewhere quiet to wait while we figure out a way to get you out of there.’

‘Already done,’ Leo cut in. ‘The bottom level of this building appears to have an exit directly out of the university and onto an underground roadway.’

‘Perfect,’ Mackie said. ‘Evac One can pick you up from there.’

‘Evac One here,’ came Pete’s voice. ‘Already on my way. Just send me through the location.’ Skater felt a sudden surge of relief at the sound of her father’s voice. He’d maintained radio silence all the way through the mission and she’d been far too busy with her own problems to give him much thought, but hearing him now she realised how much she needed him to be there with her, to hold her and protect her. To make everything alright.

‘Don’t be long, Evac One,’ she said. ‘I’ll be waiting.’

Now that she had time to catch her breath and calm down a little, Skater found she had the shakes, badly. Also, she was sore all down one side from the awkward landing after her jump and she only hoped she hadn’t done any more damage to her ribs, two of which had been broken when she’d been shot in the chest, just a few months earlier, or her shoulder, which had been badly dislocated two weeks before that. Life as a desperado, she realised, was probably going to involve a whole lot of recovering.

She sat down for a couple of minutes until the shaking had stopped and then found the lifts and made her way down to the lowest level. This time there were plenty of other students coming and going and there was no question of her being somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be. Just to be safe, she fell in with two other students as they passed the porter’s desk, but the man didn’t even look up from whatever it was he was reading on his slate. And then she was out the doors and walking across a small plaza to the side of the roadway.

‘Okay, I’m out,’ she said with relief. ‘It was a little bit beyond scary there for a while, but all things considered, I think that all went pretty…’

A hand clamped down on her shoulder and another gripped her around the upper arm. She spun round and came face to face with the porter from the engineering building. He was red in the face, and panting, but there was a look of triumph in his eyes. ‘Gotcha, you little thief. Thought you’d got away, didn’t you? Thought you’d outsmarted us all, eh? Well too bad little girlie, ’cos you ain’t half as smart as you think you are.’

Skater tried to pull away but the man’s grip was too tight. She tried kicking him, but he just stepped to one side and squeezed her arm even tighter until she stopped. ‘Right,’ he said with a smirk. ‘Back you come. And we’ll find out what you’ve got hidden away in your bag there, shall we?’ He began to pull her back towards the doorway.

‘Let. Go. Of. Me.’ With every word, Skater tugged and tugged to try to free her arm, but there was no way the porter had any intention of loosening his grip, even for an instant.

Until he suddenly let go of her, and fell clumsily to the floor as his feet were kicked out from beneath him. As he tried to get up, Pete Monroe sat down heavily on top of him, pressing him back down to the ground and trapping his arms beneath him.

‘Dad!’ Skater screamed with delight and relief.

‘Get in the car, quick,’ Pete said. He ripped the porter’s headset off his ear and threw it as far as he could onto the roadway, then took out a thick plastic cable tie and bound the man’s ankles together. He was up and running back to the car before the winded man even had time to turn himself over to get a look at his attacker. He shouted for help, but none of the students who had stopped to watch the scene made any attempt to come to his rescue, and by the time the porter from inside finally realised something was wrong and came out to see what all the fuss was about, Skater and her father were pulling away.

3

SOME FAMILY TIME

As soon as Leo was satisfied Skater was out of danger and safely on her way back to him, he switched off his computer, finished off the water in the bottle beside him and stood up to stretch his legs. It had been a long, hard morning. Okay, so he hadn’t actually had to jump from a second floor balcony or fight his way out of the university, but he had been working non-stop right through the night to make sure that nothing went wrong with his part of the plan. And nothing had.

The workshop was a mess. Dismantled computers and other electronic components lay scattered across every available work surface and in small piles on the floor. Long, trailing cables ran from one desk to another, sometimes along the floor, but occasionally straight across at waist height so that Leo had to pick his way between them to reach the door. And the whole scene was topped off with an assortment of unwashed cups, plates and bottles that Leo promised himself he would gather up and return to the kitchen later. But tidying could wait. First he needed some sleep.

Leo closed the door behind him and made sure it was securely locked. Ever since one of the mine’s other residents had succeeded in stealing one of their precious alien computers and disappearing into the desert, Captain Mackie had insisted on the workshop being locked whenever it was empty. They had also installed a surveillance camera at the far end of the corridor, and on the off-chance that Mackie or one of his men was watching, Leo waved as he passed.

On the floor above, Leo bumped into another one of Mackie’s men, Sam, who had been trained as a combat medic and was the closest thing the Mine had to a doctor.

‘Hey, Sam.’ Leo said. ‘How’s the patient today?’

Sam glanced over his shoulder at the room he had just left. ‘Still sick as a dog. And still refusing to admit it.’

‘Did you manage to get her to take anything for it?’