Free Crossover by Joel Shepherd Page A

his longish, grey-streaked hair in a greater state of disarray than usual, his open-collared shirt rumpled beneath the jacket. "Obviously she is suffering from shock ... the doctors recommend to leave her alone, but right now I don't have that luxury. The evidence suggests the FIA presence in Tanusha may be far larger than we had first anticipated."
    "How much larger?" Arms tightly folded, and not at all surprised at the confirmation of this particular rumour ... it had been making the rounds through CSA circles ever since the GI had been recovered three days ago. Intel, of course, had difficulty admitting to a large, undetected infiltration. And she watched, with merciless satisfaction, as Naidu shifted uncomfortably, ran a weathered brown hand through his hair.
    "A lot larger," he admitted. "There are some very weird things going on in this city, Vanessa ... some of them we are already on top of, and a lot more we're not. Obviously it's connected to the GI somehow, but she won't talk. And we no longer have the luxury of allowing her time to get over her trauma. We need answers."
    "Which goes back to my question," Vanessa said impatiently. "Why me? I'm a SWAT lieutenant..." She held up a hand, forestalling Naidu's predictable response. "Yes, I know, I made contact with her, you think she might trust me, et cetera, et cetera ... I'm not an analyst, Rajeev, I don't know what questions to ask. I'm not trained with interviews, I'm not a biotechnician and I'm sure as hell not a psychoanalyst..."
    "So much the better. She appears to react very negatively to anyone smelling of 'establishment'. You are the closest thing this city has to an indigenous combat soldier, Vanessa, and I feel you might be our best chance of getting her to talk right now."
    "It's just another piece of manoeuvring," Vanessa retorted. "She'd be stupid not to see it. You think she's stupid?"
    "That remains to be seen, but her false identity documentation would suggest otherwise — it was quite flawless, probably the best I've seen ..."
    Another man entered from the monitoring room, a small man of Indonesian appearance in a dark brown suit.
    "Ah, Lieutenant Rice, I am Dr Djohan, the biotech surgeon. Mr Naidu has briefed you on the situation, ah?" He came to a brisk stop before her. Small as he was, he was taller than Vanessa. "Yes," Vanessa drawled.
    "Good." He clapped his hands together. "Now firstly, when you are in the room with her, do not get too close. Mr Naidu did that and she grabbed him, not hard ..." as Vanessa shot Naidu an alarmed look, "... but harder than we'd thought possible with the repressant drugs. Evidently she has some sort of short-term reflexive resistance, so we've felt it safer to keep her restrained and heavily sedated. It also lessens the chance of self-inflicted injury and allows her more time to heal free of unnecessary movement.
    "Now, you do know what she is, don't you?"
    Vanessa frowned. "You mean she's not a regular GI?"
    "Hmm ..." The little doctor spared himself a small, amused smile. "From what little she has told us, her designation is GI-5074J-HK. Now, that is a most unusual designation. The first two digits typically designate the design type. Most GIs range from the twenties to thirties. Anything higher than a thirty is very advanced, and from the literature I'd read I hadn't been aware there was anything higher than a forty. But even a cursory examination of her interface capability suggests that her story is probably true — her neural interface patterns are simply extraordinary. We suspect she is an experimental model, which would perhaps explain her erratic behaviour in being here in the first place. Dark Star, as you know, is the most specialised and lethal of all League Special Operations units — their GIs aren't in the habit of wandering off, usually.
    "Oh ... and the HK at the end is standard League abbreviation for Hunter Killer." Vanessa blinked. "Just so that you know what you're dealing with here. Always