GAIA: Rogue State (A Girl Power Novella) Read online

“I’m fine, love. Doctor gave me a clean bill of health after I got back.”

  “It’s nice you want to be a hero and all, but you can’t work yourself to a frazzle. Tell Melanie to find someone else to do whatever it is.”

  “Like who, Garlak? We’d have an international incident in hours.”

  “Ask Starla or Alan. They’re the real superheroes.”

  “This isn’t a job for superheroes. It’s for my sort.”

  “Diane, please. You can’t keep doing this.”

  “Don’t have much choice about it, love.” She turns and leans forward to kiss Tonya on the lips. There’s still a little part of her that recoils at this, tells her girls are supposed to kiss boys, yet kissing Tonya feels right to the rest of her. “I got a job to do.”

  “Where’s she sending you this time?”

  “I’d rather not say.”

  “What, you don’t trust me?”

  “I don’t need you butting in.”

  “You seemed grateful for my help in Australia.”

  “Fine. If you must know, I’m going to Africa this time.”

  “Where?”

  “One of those places that keeps changing its name. If you want, find some business to take care of in Nairobi or some such place.”

  “We have been considering a facility in Africa. Maybe I could scout some locations.”

  “Attagirl. I’ll call you when I’m done—or when I need backup.”

  They kiss again, deeper this time. Then Diane is able to grab her bag and go. At least this time they managed it without a bunch of tears and Tonya threatening to leave. The girl is as smart and capable as there is and yet she’s so damned clingy. Diane expects one day to come back and find a rabbit boiling in a pot like that old movie.

  Case in point, Tonya texts her a half-dozen times on the way to the airport. It’s just the stupid emoticons and stuff like “Miss U Already” that a dopey teenager would send to her boyfriend. It seems some take to becoming younger a lot easier, like that CotR rabble. She wouldn’t be surprised if Tonya started to take up with them, go to those raves they call “meetings” and go on group trips to the mall. It makes Diane almost glad to be heading to a part of the world largely free of such nonsense.

  The cab drops her at the private airport in Atomic City where the fat cats keep their flying yachts. A Holloway Corp LearJet is waiting for her, a bimbo stewardess grinning at her as she boards. The leather seats and lack of any other passengers make it better than flying commercial, but the constant mothering of the stewardess grates on Diane after six hours.

  To avoid the woman’s pestering, Diane curls up on a couch to take a little nap. She should enjoy this soft bed while she can; she isn’t likely to find anything like it out in the jungle. She closes her eyes, but can’t make her mind stop thinking.

  Mostly she thinks of Tonya. How much longer will the girl remain with her? Tonya is a pretty kid and so smart and sure of herself. She’s coming into money too now that her solar venture is operational. By all rights she probably has admirers of both sexes lined up around the block. How long is she going to keep waiting for Diane to settle down?

  The thought of settling down occurred to Diane at times during her career as an assassin, usually when she was in some dump on a job or hiding from the law. She’d sit on a hard motel bed, stare up at the water-stained ceiling while the couple next door fucked as loudly as if they were filming a porno, and wonder why the hell she didn’t just take the money she had and set herself up in some nice town in the country.

  The problem had always been not knowing what else to do. Killing people had been her only great skill, the only thing she could do well. Without that, what could she do?

  It was Melanie who had given her the way out, first with the Super Squad Auxiliary and then with GAIA. And as much as Diane wanted to go back to school, to make something more of herself, she isn’t sure how that will go. School had never much interested her as a boy; she doubts it will hold her interest now.

  When a hand touches her shoulder, Diane instinctively reaches for a gun that isn’t there. The stewardess is still grinning like an idiot; maybe she’s a robot or maybe Robin Holloway employs brainwashing techniques on her stewardesses. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but it’s time to land.”

  “Thank you,” Diane grumbles. The stewardess helpfully leads her to a seat where she can buckle up for the landing. The hours on the couch didn’t make her feel much more rested; she’ll have to gut this out.

  ***

  Melanie read the posts on the Church of the Restoration’s Facebook page to verify Sunny Moon’s phone call. Apparently these disappearances happened pretty much simultaneously on five different continents. In every incident the police shrug it off, which Melanie can understand given how goofy the CotR’s members are. Still, this many events indicate it can’t be a coincidence.

  That is unless Sunny Moon and her people are using LSD or some other hallucinogen at all of their “meetings,” which would not be a surprise. Melanie needs more information, but GAIA’s computer network was outdated by several generations of computer technology.

  For that reason she heads home to Redoubt City. Mom comes with her, eager to get a little more time with Jasmine. Melanie isn’t sure what the deal is with Mom and Robin’s butler, whether they’re friends or friends with benefits. There are some questions not even the head of a spy agency wants to ask.

  Jasmine answers the door. It still gives Melanie pause to see the brunette in her mid-thirties who had been an elderly bald man. “Good afternoon, Mistress Melanie. And Miss Amis. Wonderful to see you again.”

  “Is Robin here?”

  “I’m afraid not. She has some business to deal with.” Jasmine leads them inside the mansion. “Is this visit personal or professional?”

  “Professional mostly. There’s some information I need to find.”

  “Ah. I should warn you Mistress Jessica is in the bunker.”

  “Thanks.” Melanie turns to her mother. “This might take a little while.”

  “That’s fine, honey. I’ve been looking forward to beating Jasmine at a few hands of bridge.”

  Melanie hopes that’s all her mother and Jasmine will be up to. She leaves the two women to their own devices while she heads down a hidden staircase to the bunker. The lights are off except for the glow of the theater-sized computer monitor. This provides enough light that Melanie can see the vague shapes of Midnight Spectre’s array of vehicles. It’s a far more impressive armory than anything GAIA has.

  She stops at the bottom of the stairs to call out, “Jessica?” No one answers. “Miss Murphy?” Still no answer. “Outcast?”

  “What do you want?” a voice hisses.

  “I need to find some information. I thought the computers here would be more helpful. Unless you need them for something.”

  “I don’t need computers.”

  Melanie sits down in the chair facing the computer screen. She knows better than to turn on the lights. Jessica is no doubt wearing her nightvision goggles; a sudden burst of light would blind her. “I haven’t seen you in a while,” Melanie says as she begins to type. “How are things?”

  “None of your business.”

  “I suppose not. Robin says your grades have been good.”

  “School isn’t hard. I already did it once.”

  “That’s true.” Melanie hasn’t looked over her shoulder, but from the sound of Jessica’s voice she must be close by. She doesn’t understand why the girl dislikes her so much, always acting like Melanie is a threat to her. Sometimes Melanie wonders if the girl might have a crush on Robin and sees Melanie as the opposition. Or maybe it’s that Melanie was the first Outcast, a mantle Jessica took up after Robin convinced her to stop living on the street and come live with her. If she weren’t so young and didn’t hate Melanie so much, Jessica would make for a great GAIA agent. Unlike Diane or Garlak—or Melanie—Jessica already has covert ops training from her previous life as a Navy SEAL.

&n
bsp; Jessica practically whispers into her ear, “What are you looking for?”

  “There were some disappearances recently. A bunch of Church of the Restoration members.”

  “Freaks,” Jessica says, apparently not aware of the irony of a teenage girl who dresses in a black catsuit and mask to beat up criminals saying this. Melanie could also point out that like the CotR, Jessica has elected to remain sixteen instead of making herself an adult again. The reasons for this are hard for Melanie to understand; not even Robin knows, except it has something to do with the death of Captain Jake Howe, Jessica’s father.

  The computers in the bunker allow Melanie to bring up the locations of all the disappearances on a global map. Then she adds to this disappearances under similar conditions at roughly the same time. Blips appear all across the map. The computer reports at least five hundred such disappearances in all. This was clearly a lot bigger than the CotR and Sunny Moon.

  Melanie leans back in her chair to stare at the map. How could something like that happen? She remembers what Sunny Moon said about the abducted girls, how their clothes had remained behind while the rest of them vanished. A few years back Robin’s former partner Ezekiel Stanford—going by the name the Tinker—had created a system of teleporters that allowed him to send giant robots from Titan to Earth in an instant. Stanford died on Saturn’s moon, but could someone have created their own teleporter to abduct people around the globe?

  “That’s a lot of people,” Jessica says. “They all went missing at the same time?”

  “Looks like it.”

  The girl comes to stand next to Melanie at the computer. She’s dressed in the same black catsuit Melanie had worn as the Outcast, only Jessica’s is a lot bigger since she’s about six inches taller than Melanie. She’s added a little muscle, but her frame still has a gawky look to it indicating she hasn’t filled out quite yet. “What’s the connection?”

  “What?”

  “The connection. No one would abduct a bunch of random people.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  “Of course I’m right,” Jessica growls. She squats down next to the chair to watch as Melanie begins cross-referencing the names to search for anything in common. Many of them have CotR connections, but not all. Most are girls, but there are some boys in the mix as well.

  “This might take a while,” Melanie says. “Any idea when Robin is due back?”

  Jessica shrugs. “Probably when it gets dark she’ll ask me to bring the car out.”

  “She lets you drive?”

  “It’s not like I haven’t done it before.”

  “I meant she usually prefers to drive.”

  “Maybe you were a shitty driver.”

  “Maybe. If she does call, could you tell her I’m down here? I could use her help with this.”

  “Fine.” Jessica gets to her feet. “I’m going up to the gym. Have fun with your research.” The way she says the last word makes research sound like a root canal. To a hothead like Jessica it probably is.

  When Melanie’s cell phone rings a few minutes later she hopes it’s Robin, but then sees it’s from Tonya. She already has a good idea what this will be about when Tonya shouts, “What the fuck is your problem? Diane’s back in town hardly a day and you send her off on another mission?”

  “I’m sorry, Tonya. It’s important.”

  “She almost died on that last mission thanks to you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You sent her there without any backup. If I hadn’t been close by she’d be rotting in a shallow grave in the Outback.”

  “I’m sorry. She wasn’t supposed to engage in a firefight. It was just a recon mission.”

  “So it’s her fault? That’s what you’re saying?”

  “No. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have sent her there without a better idea of what she was getting into.”

  “Sounds like you’re doing that again. I thought you were our friend.”

  “I am, but this is important—”

  “Fuck you, Melanie. I told her not to join your stupid little circus. You don’t have any idea what you’re doing. You’re just a stupid kid.”

  “Tonya, please—”

  “This is the last time. You got it? She gets back from this and you ease her out of the field. Let her find something else to do.”

  “Tonya—” But the connection has already been broken. Melanie sighs and then sticks her phone back in her pocket.

  Chapter 4

  Diane doesn’t usually get motion sickness, but the way this little bush plane bumps around, she might heave at any second. She starts to wish she’d taken a car, but it’d probably be about the same given the state of the “roads” around here. Times like this she can see why James Bond is always hanging around casinos and beaches; this sort of terrain is for the birds.

  There’s not even a proper runway for the plane to land on. It’s a swath of dried dirt amidst a lot of tall grass. The pilot circles around once, probably to make sure no elephants or lions or whatever lives around here are hanging about. Or any of the various “armies” that claim this as their turf.

  She’d ask the pilot what to expect, but he doesn’t speak English. She’s not sure what language he does speak, probably some tribal dialect. Diane’s done some studying on languages, but her focus was on the European ones given that was where she had done most of her business. Too bad GAIA doesn’t have a universal translator like on television.

  Her stomach jumps up to her throat as the pilot brings the plane down into a steep dive. She closes her eyes so she won’t have to watch the ground coming up at her. Still she can feel the plane going down. She clenches her jaw as the plane bounces along the runway. It finally comes to a stop, though the pilot keeps the engine running.

  He says something to her in that language of his. She nods to him and then takes off her seatbelt. She grabs her bag from behind the seat and then hops down to the ground. She gives him a little wave before she dashes off into the tall grass. She’s on her own now.

  In her bag she has a GPS device to help her avoid getting lost. That isn’t her greatest worry by far. She’s more worried of running into poachers, bandits, or wild animals. To comfort herself she takes the Desert Eagle from its holster and checks to make sure it’s ready to fire.

  She also has a knapsack filled with water that will be more valuable than the gun. There’s no telling what’s in the water around these parts, everything from animal shit to diseases that haven’t been seen by Western medicine yet. Despite the heat she makes sure to wear a long-sleeved jacket and pants to help protect her from any poisonous bugs or plants around here. Maybe she’s being paranoid, but in her business that’s never a bad thing.

  For the moment the worst part is boredom. The trees and plants are beautiful, but the silence compared to the busy streets of London or Atomic City is enough to drive her mad. She wishes she could pop in her earbuds to listen to some music, but she has to be alert.

  Why did she let Melanie do this to her? She’s not Indiana Jones or Lara Croft or one of those other treasure-seeking heroes always tramping around in some jungle or desert. She’s a trained assassin, one who’s spent most of her time in the urban jungle. She doesn’t have any business in this part of the world.

  She reaches for her pistol as she smells smoke. There must be someone nearby. Poachers? Bandits? Probably not a young couple on their honeymoon. She tries to make her way quietly through the brush, but it still seems like she’s making as much noise as an elephant. Seems every step she takes she snaps a branch.

  As it turns out, she doesn’t need to have any worries. The smoke she’s smelled wafts from a village of crude huts—what’s left of it. From the look of it, someone torched the whole place. She keeps the gun in her hand as she searches through the ashes. She’s relieved not to find any humans amongst the ash. Yet that’s also troubling as in a fire this big you’d expect someone not to make it out. That there’s no one left makes her wonder if some
one emptied out the village and then set fire to it to cover their tracks.

  There’s a dirt path leading from the village. A lot of footprints have worn into it. Most have the shape of a bare foot or a crude sandal, but there is a set of boot prints. These are fresh enough that they probably came from whoever set fire to this place.

  She doesn’t see much to do except to follow those prints. Whoever made them is probably the bloke she needs to have a chat with.

  ***

  When Melanie hears footsteps she assumes it must be Jessica. Then she hears Robin say, “Howdy stranger.”

  “You’re back? I told Jessica—”

  “And I told her I wanted to surprise you. Looks like mission accomplished.” Robin bends down slightly to kiss Melanie on the cheek. She’s still dressed in a gray suit, meaning she came here from Holloway Corporation’s headquarters.

  “How are things at the office?”

  “Stock’s still in the toilet. Still fighting off hostile takeovers. If it weren’t for your girl Tonya I’d probably be homeless by now.”

  “That bad?”

  Robin shrugs. “It is what it is.” Robin pulls up a seat next to Melanie. “I see you brought your mom. Her and Jasmine are cuddling on the couch.”

  “Gross.”

  “Come on, I think they’re cute. They’re like a junior high couple, no idea what to do with themselves.”

  “That’s probably for the best.”

  “Just think, when they get married we’ll practically be sisters.”

  “Wonderful.”

  Robin runs a hand along Melanie’s back to massage it. Melanie closes her eyes and sighs; it’s been so long since they’ve done this. “What’s the matter? Jessica said you’re looking into some kidnappings?”

  “Disappearances. People vanished right off the face of the Earth.” She tells Robin about Sunny Moon’s call and then what little she’s gleaned from the computer. “You think it’s some more alien technology?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised.” Robin’s face turns serious, into its grim Midnight Spectre mask. The time for play has passed; now it’s time to get to work. “We’ve got enough of it running around thanks to those ‘Peacekeepers.’”