James Swallow: Icarus Effect

"Saddle up. We're on the move. Stay on open channel."

Connor slid smoothly into the driver's side of the SUV and Byrne clambered into the back. Anna paused, looking to Ryan for her orders as she settled a pair of military-grade sunglasses onto her nose. The elevator arrived with a melodic chime, and he nodded toward the limo. "Ride with

Laker. I'll be right behind you."

"I really wasn't late," she said, suddenly feeling compelled to make the excuse. Anna thought about the careworn brass coin in her pocket and her lips thinned.

"I know." He said it without looking back.

Anna opened the limo's door as Senator Skyler emerged with Agent Laker and a man she didn't recognize at her side. Eyes narrowing, she immediately commed Laker with the sub-voc.

"Who is this joker?"

Laker made eye contact. "Security."

"We are her security. She knows how this goes, no last-moment changes to the detail."

"It's already been cleared with command. Guess she likes to have a backup."

The man got in the car first, and Anna saw what she expected; a corporate assistant-cum-bodyguard, rail-thin, watchful, with a humorless face.

Her optics captured a blink-and-miss-it flash of something under his dark, gold-lined jacket-the grip of a hi-tech nonlethal firearm-and a discreet logo pin in the shape of a stylized bull's skull.

Belltower. As well as getting the American taxpayer to fund her security on the Washington visit, Skyler had also dropped what had to be some serious cash on a personal guard from the largest private military contractor on the planet.

The senator was speaking firmly into a vu-phone as she approached. "I don't care what Phil Mead wants, Ruthie. I don't like the man and I don't like his policies. Tell the governor he can go look for his endorsements somewhere else." Snapping the device shut, she afforded Anna a wan smile and climbed in.

Kelso was the last after Laker, and as the door thumped shut the limo set off. She didn't need to look forward to see that the town car was already on point, as the SUV slipped seamlessly into the six o'clock position behind the senator's vehicle.

Anna gave the interior of the limousine a once-over, and found herself looking Skyler in the eye. The senator reminded her of a history teacher she'd had in junior high, plump but not overweight, with a pinched face and hawkish eyes.

"I don't often see female agents with the Secret Service," said Skyler, as the convoy crossed onto Q Street and turned westward.

"There's a fair few of us," Anna replied. "It's not that much of a boys' club anymore, ma'am."

"What's your name?"

"Agent Anna Kelso, Senator."

Skyler smiled in a way that was ever so slightly patronizing. "Did they put you on my detail because I'm a woman, Agent Kelso?"

"No, ma'am," Anna replied. "They put me on your detail because, like my colleagues, I'm very good at what I do." She could almost hear Ryan wincing in the trailing car.

The Belltower operative, who was in the middle of pouring a glass of water for the senator, shot her a look.

"That's very reassuring," said Skyler as she took the glass. "I'm sure you have a lot of people to protect, and I appreciate your hard work today." She paused for a sip and then leaned forward. "Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?" The woman's request wrong-footed Anna, but she covered it. "I guess so."

Skyler pointed at her face. "Can I see your eyes?"

Laker gave her a quizzical look, but Anna complied, taking off the sunglasses and giving the senator her full attention. It wasn't as if she really needed to wear them-her cyberoptic implants had full-spectrum UV and solar protection built in-but they were as much a part of the Secret

Service "uniform" as the black jacket and pants.

Skyler leaned closer, studying her. "Your eyes… Caidin optics, am I right? I understand your agency also requires the implantation of certain communications and enhancile cyberware as well, is that so?"

Anna was uncertain where this conversation was heading. "Yes, ma'am."

"How do you feel about that?" the senator went on. "I don't have any implants myself, I don't ask for them for my staff. How do you feel about your government insisting on such a thing for you to do your job?"

"Not every Secret Service agent is enhanced," Anna replied. "That would be prejudicial."

Skyler sat back. "Really? Tell me, how many field agents do you know who are not implantees?"

Anna frowned. "I'm not sure I see your point, Senator." But she did.

"You know what I'm doing here, don't you?" said the politician. "The president has asked me to chair a Senate subcommittee with the National

Science Board on America's involvement with the science and industry of human augmentation technology. The very reason I have that job is because of what I've done to make myself a target for certain criminal groups."

The briefing on Skyler had been clear on all that, Anna reflected. Back home in SoCal, Skyler's hard, pro-science stance on tech smuggling had also led to a crackdown on something the press liked to call "harvester" crimes-the 2020s' equivalent of the old urban legend about guys waking up in a bath of ice sans a kidney… Only this time, victims were unlucky souls killed and stripped for their cybernetic augmentations. In the United States, the high price of many augs put them beyond the range of most regular citizens; trading in so-called recovered cyberware was fast becoming one of the key revenue streams for the triad gangs and their rivals, right after people-trafficking and drugs. Skyler's home state was the gateway to America for the snakeheads in Beijing, Hengsha, and Hong Kong.

As for understanding all the rest of it… well, Anna watched CNN and the Picus WorldView channel just like everyone else. People were always looking for ways to divide themselves, and the line between "augmented" and "natural" was just another take after race, religion, gender…

"My job," Skyler went on, her tone bordering on that of a lecture, "is to determine what kind of stance America should take on augmentation, to find out if this emerging technology can benefit our nation's economy."

The car slowed as they approached Buffalo Bridge. "Are you asking for my opinion, ma'am?" said Anna.

That seemed to amuse the senator. "No, Agent Kelso. But the fact is, the man I'm meeting for lunch runs the company that made those striking eyes of yours. Garrett Dansky, chief executive of Caidin Global. Tell me, did he do a good job?"

Anna resisted the urge to put the glasses back on. "I'd say so."

"And you don't feel… diminished by your augmentations?"

Her lips thinned. "I'm not like the panzer girls on Ultimate Aug Fighters, if that's what you mean." Anna kept her expression neutral; what implants she did have were mostly neural units, small-scale stuff that didn't disrupt her natural profile. "I'm good at what I do. These make me even better."

Skyler seemed to accept that and drew back, sipping her water.

"You okay?" Ryan's voice was a gentle pressure on the back of her head. A telltale at the corner of her optic field showed he was speaking to her on a channel isolated from the rest of the team.

"Fine." She knew what he was going to say next, the question he was going to ask, about the phone call the night before; she headed him off.

"Really, Matt. I'm good." It was a lie.

He didn't reply. Instead, he cut the one-on-one link as the convoy began to slow, the black iron fences of Montrose Park flashing past. They were a few moments away.

"Senator?" said the Belltower operative. He had a soft, polite voice. Skyler nodded and checked her reflection in the limo's windows.

"Dansky's there" said a voice from the lead car. "Taking our station."

"Copy," said Laker out loud.