Armored Tears by Mark Kalina Read Free Book Online

had been that mess which had led to the uprising
against the UEN in the first place.   

 
 
 

5.

 
    Aran
Silaban Hogan glanced briefly at his wrist-phone to check the time. It was just
after 2pm; less than an hour to go before the train reached the Tannhauser gate
to Arcadia. His partner for this assignment, Ulla Schneider, had her
data-glasses on and her type-pad spread out across her lap, trying to use the
train's uplink to do some last minute research. From her expression, she was
having trouble.
    "No
signal?" he asked his colleague.
    " Nein . No. Perhaps you are used to this,
but I have to tell you, I am not. I expected better from the Americans. This
is... like something out of some third world country," she said, then
broke off, embarrassment reddening her pale European features. "I mean..."
she started to add.
    "No,
I'm not offended. From what my mother told me, Indonesia was like this not too
long ago, true enough. Though not since she was a very small child. I grew up
in Australia, though. I'm just based in Jakarta these last few years. But I
think the uplink interference might be a matter of Tannhauser gate being
active, rather than the decayed infrastructure of this place."
    "Ah,
yes. Of course. Have you been through a Tannhauser gate before?" she
asked.
    "Yes,
several times. Once before to Arcadia, but also, my news service has sent me to
Mars, and to Elysium."
    Ulla
looked impressed.
    He
smiled at her expression and added, "and I once had to take an actual
spaceflight to the lunar mining colonies. It's rather ridiculous, you know, the
politics that keeps them from opening a gate from Earth to the lunar mining
operations. It's actually faster to take the gate to Mars and then the Mars
gate to the Moon, but part of my assignment was to cover cultural interaction
of the Mars-based lunar mining corporations with the Earth-based Orbital
Transport Pilots' Union."
    "You
really are quite the traveller, then," Ulla said, losing some the redness
in her face and favoring him with a rather pretty smile.
    Aran
smiled in turn, an expression he knew most women found charming. Ulla was an
attractive woman, in a classically European-German manner —flaxen-haired,
blue eyed and quite curvaceous— and he had some hopes for their...
non-professional... relationship on this assignment.
    "I
take it this is going to be your first Tannhauser gate transit?" he asked.
    "Yes.
Current biotechnology news doesn't take a reporter off Earth that often, and
before I started working for EuroBiotechZeitschrift ,
I only covered local news in Frankfurt."
    "Well,
it's nothing to be afraid of. Not really. There's sometimes some discomfort,
but my understanding is that it's from some people's reactions to being near
strong induced currents. At any rate, it doesn't last long. And the sight of
the actual Tannhauser gate is... actually quite amazing."
    "Well,
I guess I get to find out. I have to say, I'm more worried about... well, about
the Arcadians, than about the gate. An entire planet of lawless
anarchists..."
    "Well..."
Aran said, wondering how good the listening devices in the train car were. It
was almost certain that the UEN and the government of the Federal States of
North America —the FSNA— had put in some sort of listening devices.
On the other hand, the Jakarta Post and Globe had given him pretty good
counter-surveillance equipment. Doing his job with no counter-surveillance gear
wasn't an option; not unless he and his editors wanted to read the work they'd
sent him to do from a Chinese news service, before they'd even had a chance to
publish it.
    "Just
a moment," he said, and reached into his carry-case to activate a
listening jammer that looked like —and functioned perfectly as— a
portable VR game unit. The little device's readout flickered and then showed
three lines of glowing amber text, giving the details of three listening devices
that it had detected and successfully spoofed. And in theory, the listening
devices