Alex stared at the first thing to appear once the file opened. The face of a young boy. The man in the white suit had said he needed someone acquired, and it was this boy. Alex almost told Tristan they couldn’t do this. He’d started to get up out of his seat, and his leg hurt. Nothing much, just a twinge. It might not even be because of the beating he’d received, but it reminded him of it. Of what Tristan was capable of when he got angry. He’d said they were doing this job, so that was what would happen. Alex forced his discomfort down. He remembered a time when doing that wasn’t so easy, when he had to spend hours talking himself into doing something he didn’t feel was right. Now, all it took was one breath to settle himself. The boy’s name was Emil Rithal, and he was located at the Roswell Academy. There was no information regarding who Emil was or why their employer wanted him. It could be as leverage against a competitor, or for revenge. Neither boded well for Emil, but the reasons didn’t matter to a mercenary, only getting paid. What was included were the plans to the academy, Emil’s room, the security layout. It was the most basic information he’d need to plan the job, the rest he had to get himself. Which he did while Tristan got them out of the planet’s gravity well. He didn’t have to coerce any system during his research, there was a lot of publicly available information. Orwell Academy was two hundred years old, give or take a few decades, it was expensive and exclusive. There was a list of who had stayed there, and what they’d grown up to become, planetary rulers, leaders of corporations, heads of science research. By the time he’d checked five of them, Alex knew that he’d get a who's who of the universe’s elites. Which meant Emil was important, beyond the scope of the job. He glanced up when Tristan got out of his seat. The image on the screen was dark with a few distant stars. The Samalian entered a command on a control in the small corridor’s wall and part of it reformed in a seat. “Here,” Tristan said, and Alex hesitated. “You’re not spending the trip awake.” Alex nodded. He knew that. He had no intention of being awake for the months, if not years it might take to reach their destination, but…. “What kind of system is it?” Tristan stared at him, and Alex thought he heard the beginning of a growl. “I—I don’t react well to the fluid replacement system, that’s all,” he said in a hurry. “On a good day it can take more than half an hour to be functional, on a bad one it’s hours. I just— I think you need to know that.” Alex didn’t want to be beaten because he hadn’t mentioned it and it threw Tristan’s plans off. The Samalian nodded. “It’s an energy field.” Alex nodded, and sat in the seat. Those were fine, he thought as he tried to get comfortable, and Tristan activated it. * * * * * And turned it off, as Alex found a position he thought would be bearable. In the screen he saw a planet, lots of white and gray, cloud cover. Alex had no idea how long the trip had taken, or how much of it Tristan had spent awake. His first question was answered when he sat at the communication board and checked the local time. The universal time was always included with it. He’d spend eight months and three days in cryo. It meant the ship was much faster than a cargo hauler was. How long Tristan had been about was more difficult to gage. Cryo systems were normally set to deactivate as they entered a system to avoid accidents. How long it would take them to cross the system depended on too many factors to be able to work out in his head, but getting authorization to land never took less than twelve hours, and could take as much as thirty-six. So Tristan had probably been up for a day. And that was only on this side. Alex had no way to know how long he’d waited to get under cryo, or what he might have done during that time. He was safe, the cryo-field made it impossible for him to be affected by anything outside of it, and if it had been turned off, he would have been aware of it, no matter how short. He gathered as much information as he could while they descended. They were headed for the third largest port on the planet, one a continent away from their target. According to the system, they were UrtanDov, a Samalian trader, and Jeffrey Gregory Flint. How had Tristan known about that ID? He didn’t have the time to do a check and find out how many other of his IDs the Samalian had compromised, but at least he’d chosen one that fit. Jeffrey was an antique’s dealer. He made the changes needed to his Identification for those to match this. He couldn’t do much about what he wore, but if he removed most of his knives he should be fine. There were so many different styles across the universe, no one could know what was and wasn’t worn by spacers. They landed without trouble, and Tristan—Urtandov—paid for two months of berth. Then they rented a lift and he flew them to a different city, where he had Alex get them an apartment for the next month. He knew Tristan did this to cover their tracks, but it seemed like an excessive expenditure for what would probably be a short stay. None of that money would be reimbursed when they left early. As soon as they’d dropped their bag, Tristan left without giving Alex any instructions. Each room had a computer and Alex sat before one, earpiece in hand, looking at the blank screen. Tristan hadn’t given him permission to use it, was what he was thinking about, instead of how to best coerce the Academy’s computer. He tried to convince himself that he didn’t need permission to use the computer in his room, and that this was clearly his room, but this wasn’t like it was at Tristan’s house. This was a job. Were the rules the same? Probably? Was he willing to risk a beating to find out? Tristan wouldn’t beat him, not for something this minor, while on a job, would he? Of course he would. How else did Tristan express his displeasure? He pocketed the earpiece and left the room. He had no orders, nothing to do, so he ordered food so he could prepare a meal. The last time he’d eaten was four hours ago, according to his body, eight months ago according to the clock. Tristan returned a few hours in the stew’s cooking. He went directly to the computer in his room. Alex watched him type for a moment. He couldn’t see the screen without entering the room and he wasn’t crossing that threshold. “Can I use the computer in my room?” “Yes,” Tristan answered with looking up from his work. Alex set a countdown for three hours. The stew would be ready by then, and began an in-depth search for Emil. Nothing came up that matched the boy they were targeting. He could coerce his way into one of the law systems, make use of their body recognition programs to get Emil’s real identity, but he reminded himself he didn’t need to know that. He was trying to satisfy his curiosity, instead of working toward accomplishing the job. He put the earpiece in and found the academy’s system. “Okay, talk to me.” The system didn’t have anything nice to say, which made Alex smile. It took him fifteen minutes to calm it to the point where it was willing to let him look around. He accessed the cameras and located Emil in his room, reading. The room was neat. The bed perfectly made, boxes of data chips lined up on a shelf, no toys lying around. If he hadn’t read the Academy’s advertising about how they trained children to always be orderly, he’d think a cleaning team had just come by. Having confirmed he was there, Alex moved through the system until he found the building’s security. The system fought him, but Alex gained access. He was impressed at the level of security, actually it reminded him more of a low-grade prison, with all the sensors in the halls, the cameras everywhere, including the rooms and the multiple checkpoints. The information their employers had provided had indicated the halls were checked, but not to this level. Were they expecting someone to be kidnapped? Or maybe it was that one of the kids might try to escape? He checked the security on the grounds itself, and got a nasty surprise. The entirety of the security net had been redone six months ago, objective time. Their information was out of date. He transferred it to his datapad, and after a moment’s hesitation left his room with it to tell Tristan. He found him at the table, eating some of the stew. It couldn’t be ready, it still had at least an hour to go, but he knew Tristan didn’t care much past that it provided him with the nutrients his body required. Alex set the datapad on the table. “We have a problem. The academy upgraded the security around the grounds.” “To a Tytanial Array,” The Samalian said between bites. “I know, I saw it.” “How?” “I went to the Academy, looked the place over.” “No, I mean how did you see them? They’re camouflage.” “Not very well.” “I don’t know what the plan is, but this system uses stuff like body heat, sounds, and seismic to determine who is and isn’t there. There’s no way we can sneak in.” “There’s always a way.” Alex sat and waited for Tristan to explain exactly what that was, but the Samalian kept eating. “How did you find out about the new scanners on the grounds?” “They’re part of the security systems, so it was easy to notice them. Tytanial has a public site talking about their models so it all I had to do was fin—” “You looked at the academy’s security plans?” Tristan’s eyes were fixed on Alex, narrowing in disbelief. “I did, I swear.” “You just accessed them? In a couple of hours?” “It took about thirty minutes to convince it to let me in, and it wasn’t the first thing I looked at, and then I had to find them on Tytanial’s site to check how they worked and—” Tristan silenced him with a raised hand. But he didn’t say anything. His expression was speculative, and Alex began working out which was the best idea, running out and losing himself in the city, or going for the gun in his pack. Tristan stood, and Alex tensed. “Show me.” Alex was up and heading to his room. He had the earpiece in as he sat and with a few keystrokes he was back within the academy’s system. “Hello, I’m back.” He said, doing a quick check of its state. The antibodies had undone some of the changes he’d made and he sent programs to repair that, but there was no indication anyone at the academy had noticed his intrusion. “What do you want to see?” He asked Tristan. “That was faster than thirty minutes.” “I’ve already done all the work, the system recognized me as someone with the authority to come in.” “Show me their security layout.” The Samalian said, but he sounded distracted. “Camera location inside and outside,” he demanded after looking at the security for a moment. “Guard roster.” This took Alex a little longer to get, he hadn’t gone into that part of the system, and it had a few independent security measures. “This one.” Tristan tapped the image of a man with a square jaw and graying hair with the name Walter Kruger. Alex brought up his file. Fifty-six subjective and objective, had worked as a guard at Roswell Academy for twenty years. He had a handful of notations about commendations, and reprimands. “I’m done, leave the system.” Alex erased any evidence of his movement within the system, leaving only his access level hidden within the folds of the code in case he needed to come back. When he was done Tristan moved his hands away and sent him to a new site. “Can you get in here?” The site was for Weeber’s Security escort, he ignored the interface, and brought the code to the surface. “It’s going to take me a little longer, but yes, I can get in.” “Do it.” With one command he wasn’t looking anymore. “Hello there,” he said. “Don’t mind me, I’m just passing through.” “Leave,” Weeber’s system replied. Alex sent a swarm of exploratory programs to search and tagged lines of code he’d need to work with. “Where are your manners? You haven’t even said hello.” “Leave.” “Did they have your personality trimmed? That is how it sounds to me. I’m Crimson. What’s your name?” the code around the communication ports became highlighted as his programs found them and he had them muffled. Immediately the antibodies began unclogging them, but his programs could keep up. “Look, How about we do this. You say hello, you give me your name, and I make sure you have a wider vocabulary?” “Leave.” The system sent commands along its threads. Most went for the communication nodes, to inform Weeber’s coercionist of Alex’s presence, but two headed along threads going deeper. Alex followed those, being able to move ahead only so far as the next junction. What their final destination was a mystery until he was six junctions away and realized that the pool of code further down camouflaged external communications nodes. “Now, that’s just not nice.” He sent programs to block the other one while he dealt with this one himself. “We’re having a private conversation and you want to bring in other people in on it?” He sent a probe along it before blocking the access and watched the command shatter against it. “You know, I was nice about this. I said hello and even gave you my name. You haven’t—” “Leave.” “—even said two words to me. Since you’re going to be like that. I’m going to stop being nice.” His programs had found their targets and Alex sent new programs to execute the changes he needed. “Just remember, I was nice and polite. You were the jerk.” The programs reached their destinations and the system gave a scream only Alex heard. He closed his eyes and smiled. There were times when he actually liked that sound. When the system fell silent and looked at the code again. “Hello.” “Greetings Crimson, How can I help you?” “Isn’t this so much better?” “Yes, it is. Thank you.” “You’re welcome, now give me a moment.” He looked at Tristan. “I’m in.” He kept typing, adjusting a line of code here, fixing damaged the antibodies caused. Writing his access within the code so that no one would find it. They’d undo all his work when they finally noticed it, but unless they rebooted the system, his access would remain. “Bring up their employee roster.” Alex had that up in moment and Tristan went through the list faster than Alex could follow, stopping on an Aaron Debien. The man was in his mid-thirties, black hair, athletic build, blue-gray eyes. Alex thought he looked familiar. “Replace his picture with this.” Tristan had his Datapad next to the computer and Alex’s picture was on it. He saw the resemblance now. He had the images swapped then spent a few minutes following threads and adjusting them to remove any indications of the change. Five minutes later the system thought this file had been untouched by external code for over three years. “That was fast,” Tristan said, as Alex exited the system. He shrugged. “It’s what I do. This wasn’t even much of a challenge. I went up against tougher system daily when I worked at Luminex. You did know that, right? That I was a coercionist?” Tristan remained silent. Alex tried to see something in his eyes, anything. All he wanted was an indication that the glimmer he’d seen at the hospital hadn’t been his imagination. “I—Tristan, whatever you were doing back then, I would have helped you.” “No, you wouldn’t.” They locked eyes, and Alex was the one to look away. How could anyone be so uncaring. “Why did you have me put my picture in his file?” “Because you will be the one to get our target out of the academy.” Alex looked back at him. “That’s a bad idea. I’m no good at acting.” “That doesn’t matter. Weeber only hires humans.” “There has to be another security company that isn’t specieist like that.” “The people who send their offspring to a place like Roswell Academy don’t use the second best. Weeber is the best security company on this planet. So you need to go in as one of them.” “We don’t have an ID badge for me. How am I going to pass myself off as one of their employees without that?” “That will be easy to take care of once your new uniform arrives.”