Antarctica

Gary’s Factory

Anya sat alone in the small apartment she had shared with Immonen, and pressed the button on the communications window that would connect her to MacDougal. It rang once, twice, and then there was a click and a huff as it was picked up.

“What is it, Nowicki? I’m busy and I’m not in the mood for another back-and-forth with you,” MacDougal snapped. Anya had her mouth partially open for a cordial greeting, maybe to ask her about that status of her suspension, but the director’s tone didn’t offer anything in the way of such a discussion. And in that moment, Anya just decided she’d had enough. Enough of playing politics and worrying about optics and god only knew what other silly bullshit that didn’t really matter one god damn bit. Gary had had the right idea all along: fuck the politicians, fuck being a puppet, and fuck being beholden to some paper-pushing bureaucrat who only cared about re-election or promotions or feeling like they still mattered.

Anya knew, deep down, that MacDougal wasn’t really a bad person. She was just doing what she needed to survive and what she’d been trained to do over decades in the FBI and swimming in the waters of the Bureau and Capitol Hill. But things had changed, and her maneuvering was an old tactic for an older time when there hadn’t been aliens and super-powered humans and pangolins running around the solar system. Action for the future mattered, not acting for the cameras.

“Oh, this won’t take long. I quit,” Anya said. Just saying it felt good. Like slipping under fresh sheets at the end of a long day. “I’m out. You can keep my last paycheck, even.”

There was a long pause on the other end, and then the click of a tongue against teeth.

“Excuse me?” MacDougal asked.

“I’ll turn in my security clearance badge, whatever else you need. The place the USAIF gave me in DC, obviously. I didn’t really have much there anyway, so it’s effectively cleaned out. I think that’s it? Unless you need an e-mail or a signed letter or something.”

“Nowicki,” MacDougal said and there was an obvious tension in the old woman’s voice. Anya had never known the director to shout or lose her cool, but it was obvious she was on the verge of something unpleasant. Anya could almost see her lips thinning in front of her teeth, caging back the tirade her professionalism demanded remain in the back of her throat instead of tumbling out of her mouth.

“MacDougal,” Anya replied, a kind of childish glee bubbling up inside of her. She hadn’t had a fight since the last assault of the invasion. Her Sun’s Heart glowed a little brighter in her chest and Anya clenched her fists. This wasn’t much of a battle, but it was something, it was getting in someone’s face again. She had a moment of concern about that feeling, about the warm glow pissing MacDougal off was giving her, but then the director spoke up again.

“You signed a contract with the United States Government guaranteeing your service.”

“And now I’m quitting.”

“You. Cannot. Quit.”

“I think I just did.”

“You are a sworn member of the United States Anti-Invasion Force. You have taken an oath to serve and protect this country. You cannot just quit over a phone call.”

“The invasion is over. I stopped it with all the other hosts. You’re welcome.”

MacDougal sighed. “Look, I know the suspension was frustrating, but it’s necessary to maintain order and a semblance of control for the media, and——”

“And I don’t care. I’m tired of it. I saved Hawaii and I got shit on. I saved London and the best I got was a ‘Well thank goodness she didn’t blow it up.’ I almost died, a lot, saving the world and I got a couple weeks of not being treated like the red-headed step-child and then when I dared to do something without groveling for permission from Uncle Sam, I got shit on. Again. So, invasion’s over, I held up my end, but it’s not working out.”

“Nowicki. Anya. If you do this——”

“If I do this, what? What exactly will happen to me, Director? I go to jail? No, I don’t think so. You send some other hosts after me? We both know Samaira, Chell, and Pan would never do that, and you don’t have authority over anybody else. All of your advanced tech is from Gary, and you know he’s gonna be on my side anyway, so you can’t use any of that against me. So tell me, please, what exactly will happen if I do this?”

Another long pause.

“You’ll be marking yourself as a rebel. Somebody who doesn’t care about law, order, or agreements she made.”

“I told you already: I lived up to my end of the bargain. The invasion is over.”

“You know that wasn’t what you agreed to.”

“I didn’t agree to get treated like the bad guy for saving people, either. If you need anything from me to finalize my exit, let me know, but this is done,” Anya said, then added, “Honestly, I think this is for the best. We both know I wasn’t cut out for this kind of situation.”

“No, not at first, but I was hoping you’d grow into it and see beyond you’re own nose,” MacDougal said and then hung up. Anya sighed and closed the window.

As fights went, it was pretty disappointing. No explosions, no broken bones, no nothing. But the satisfaction of being free of the red tape, of no longer having to give a single shit about what some random senator or representative or talking head on the news would think of her was more than a little liberating.

She felt a small pang of concern for what Sam, Pan, and Chell would think, but they would be okay. Ideally, they’d quit too…but for what was coming next, she’d need to be alone.

Mostly.

———————————————————

“Cheers, kid. Damn proud of you,” Gary said and raised a bottle of beer to her. He took a sip then leaned back in his floating chair. Anya leaned against the wall nearby and raised a glass of champagne she had gotten from a nearby food replicator. Renn, Mona, and Francis sat around a table nearby, also with flutes of champagne. Renn and Francis hadn’t touched theirs, but Mona was on her sixth.

“I have like, a hundred messages from Sam, Chell, and Pan,” Anya said as she glanced at her menu.

“You’ll get to that later, but for now, we have a plan to discuss,” Gary said.

“Less of a plan and more a list of goals,” Renn said.

“Are you sure you want me to be your spy?” Anya asked. “I’m not exactly…subtle.”

“No, but that’s to our advantage in this case. Your powers are well-known. Subterfuge isn’t among them. And while yes, you could theoretically alter your skills entirely at any given time, your equally well-known public persona doesn’t lend itself to that idea,” Renn continued.

“Plus, everybody knows you and Uncle Sam have had your issues,” Mona added. “Not the first time they’ve been cross with you. You quitting seems perfectly reasonable.”

“And it’s not like you were hostile to those new hosts when you spoke to them at the UN. Hell, you getting suspended for talking to them makes the story even stronger. You got fed-up. No lie there,” Gary said.

“Yeah,” Anya said and sighed. “I’m still not a hundred percent sold on the idea of me spying on them. Won’t that just make things worse if I get caught?”

“You have an open invitation to Mars as a host, especially as a newly independent one,” Renn said. “It’s not like you’re sneaking into some country where they’ll shoot you on sight. And if our worst fears are correct, you being caught as a spy won’t change anything.”

Anya bit her lip and looked at Renn. “You really think Corva wants to take over Earth? Or destroy governments? Or whatever?”

“I don’t know. Hence, why we need somebody up there. She’s never going to trust me. She knows I’m already put out with her for manipulating my own plan into this…stand-off she’s creating. She knows who’s close to me, so Mona, Kan, Francis, and Harrison are out. I don’t have much rapport with other hosts.”

“You don’t have much rapport with me, either,” Gary said.

“Ditto,” Anya added.

“Maybe not, but I know you share my concerns,” Renn said.

“It is starting to remind me of the Cold War,” Gary said. “Hosts are just the new nukes, and everybody wants them.”

“Yeah, I’m not thrilled that people are already getting twitchy about an Us-vs-Them showdown right after we just finished one with the gnosiphages,” Anya added.

“And outside of my own little group, you’re the one I’ve spent the most time with,” Renn said and pointed at Anya. “And I saved your life. I figure that counts for something.”

“Yeah. I guess it does,” Anya nodded.

“If you had left Anya in space, you wouldn’t be sitting here right now,” Gary said.

“But I did, and I am, and I’m not blind to how fond you are of her,” Renn said. Gary shifted in his chair and winced a little as he touched his abdomen.

“Fine. Corva makes me nervous and I trust you enough to not blatantly screw Anya. Can we get on with it?” Gary asked.

“It’s very simple. All I want is for you to go to Mars and find out, decisively, if Corva or anybody else has plans to attack Earth. If all they want to do is make their own little Eden on Mars, fine. I will remain with the French Government and do what I can to uncover any plans to antagonize the new Martian colony. If either of us uncover evidence of an attack, we stop it.”

“That’s a pretty bare bones plan,” Anya said.

“As I said: a goal, not a plan. And no plan survives contact with the enemy. Didn’t the gnosiphages teach you that?” Renn asked, some amusement in his voice.

“True enough,” Anya replied.

“And those freaks were pretty direct. They just wanted to smash everything with their big space rock. Who knows what Corva and the rest of that lot really want,” Mona said.

“And what about you?” Anya asked and looked at Gary.

“They want me,” Gary said. “I’ll stay here, string them along, maybe see if that Vaastukaar guy will open up about his projects. If you run into trouble, I’ll be working on a way to bail you out. Worst case, we tell them if they try anything to you or Earth, they’re not getting me ever, and I’ll make their lives very difficult.”

“I don’t think they’d trust me being there openly, but I’m working on setting up a kind of halfway point on the dark side of the Moon, connects to Phobos,” Francis said. “It’ll be like an escape hatch or dead-drop if we need it for anything. It’ll be small enough and camouflaged well enough to be invisible.”

“You some kinda inventor type too?” Anya asked Francis.

“Something like that. I specialize in stealth tech and a few other things,” Francis said and managed a little smirk form under his hood.

“Kid’s all right. He’s got a few things that managed to give my security a problem or two. Also helped me find some blind spots in my defenses,” Gary added.

“All right then,” Anya said and looked into the bubbles of her champagne. “So, what now?”

“Now,” Renn said, “We get you ready to go to Mars.”