Inescapable Read Online Free PDF Page A

golden-brown eyes, full lips, long
black hair and quite a lush figure on a slim frame. Her father had
contributed something to her genes since Terri was probably
brighter than her mother had been; Jackson Martins left most humans
standing in the dust when it came to brain power and his daughter
was happy to stand in his shade, though he insisted that she was
rapidly catching up with him in her chosen area of expertise, which
was artificial intelligence research.
    That expertise
was why she was up on the Moon, trying to solve some problems in
one of MarTech’s most confidential projects, and the project was
probably why Fox detected a few worrying hints in her friend’s
pretty, smiling face as she walked up to the table in the hotel’s
restaurant.
    ‘Fox,’ Terri
said, ‘I’m so glad you got to come up here.’
    Fox sat down
and checked over the menu Kit was displaying for her. ‘Yeah, you
look like you could use a break. Maybe we should hold off on the
trip to Jenner an extra day.’
    Terri frowned.
‘I’m fine.’
    ‘You’re looking
tired, and worried.’ Fox located something light, an omelette, and
ordered that and coffee. Her stomach was not actually used to the
difference in gravity yet and maybe the coffee was not a good idea,
but… coffee.
    ‘I’m working my
ass off to make sure Yliaster actually functions as advertised.’
Sagging a little, Terri lifted her cup and sipped coffee through
perfectly pursed lips. ‘Okay, so I’m glad of the break.’
    ‘Yliaster?
That’s what you’re calling it?’
    ‘You’ll get the
full briefing soon. We don’t like talking about it away from
Jenner.’
    ‘Good. Now say
hello to Kit before she thinks you’ve forgotten her.’ Kit’s avatar
appeared beside the table, looking like a timid schoolgirl. The
process was, of course, more complicated than it seemed with Kit
instructing Fox’s comms implant to transmit the appropriate data
stream so that Terri’s implant could pick it up and display it. And
Fox was careful to keep her eyes on Terri rather than looking up at
Kit, because Kit could only see what Fox saw, despite where her
eyes appeared to be. Things were easier at home where Kit had
sensors in the apartment to work with.
    ‘Good morning,
Kit,’ Terri said, smiling at her creation.
    ‘Good morning,
Miss Martins. I hope you are not excessively stressed.’
    ‘I’ll cope. And
seeing the two of you is relieving the tension. We’ll do a little
meet-and-greet, spend an evening in the leisure district, and I’m
sure I’ll be recharged and ready for Jenner tomorrow.’
    ‘Oh, I’m sure,’
Fox said, nodding. Not that she really believed it.
    ~~~
    MarTech’s presence in
Luna City was, basically, services only. There was a block of
offices in the first quadrant, the north-east quarter of the city,
among a lot of other offices. That handled technical queries for
MarTech products, took in units requiring replacement or repair,
and acted as a point of contact for sales staff.
    Palladium had
five people there, and that was primarily to ensure that someone
was awake at all times, a policy which was under review since it
was, to date anyway, appearing to be overkill. Two facilities
people took care of the operation of the office, while three
security division personnel took care of security. Big surprise
there then. The most exciting thing they had ever had to do was
track down Sanderson Hunt’s contact earlier in the year after the
man, an intelligence agent attempting to steal company secrets, had
been murdered.
    It took Fox two
hours to meet everyone, hear a potted history of the goings on
there, and determine that there was nothing much she really needed
to know in detail until she really needed to know about it.
By that time, Kit had finished making the arrangements Fox had
asked for.
    ‘Right,’ Fox
said, ‘since I can’t persuade you to take an extra day out of
Jenner, as your security advisor, I am making the decision to take
you for a spa trip