The Only Game in the Galaxy
continued. ‘But you were saying, before you murdered him –?’
    Maximus suppressed an urge to kill her there and then. Too difficult to explain away, and certainly too unimaginative. He wanted to savour the cleverness with which he finally dispatched her. ‘Hard times make for hard choices, Anneke.’
    His use of her name made her flinch.
    ‘That’s what I’m called? Anneke?’
    ‘Anneke Longshadow. You have no recall of this?’
    She frowned. ‘I guess it feels – right.’
    ‘It should. It’s your – code name. You were born on Normansk, a 1.9G world. You later relocated and settled on Se’atma Minor where you attended a RIM training academy. Excelling in all your classes.’
    ‘I’m an agent?’
    Maximus leaned forward. ‘Not just an agent. A member of a special force of mnemonic agents.’ Anneke stared at him. ‘Such agents routinely have their memory erased before going into the field to maintain and protect their cover.’
    Anneke looked overwhelmed.
    Maximus went on. ‘Anneke Longshadow is your cover name. You were on assignment to investigate an illegal organisation known as the Imperial Myotan Combine – a hit was involved. An error occurred and we had to evacuate you immediately via jump-gate. Unfortunately, the transmission was hi-jacked and instead of ending up at a safe destination you were ricocheted elsewhere. The effect of a ricochet can easily cause partial amnesia, compromising the pre-existing memory erasure. We shall just have to wait to see if your mission parameters return …’
    ‘And if they don’t?’
    Maximus sat back. ‘Cortical stimulation has been successful in such cases.’
    ‘And what if they –’
    Maximus’ screen buzzed. He activated it. The face of the Envoy appeared. Maximus felt better immediately. ‘You’re – back?’
    ‘As you say. I see you have company.’ He acknowledged Anneke Longshadow from the screen, unsurprised by her presence. Of course, I’m permanently unsurprised, Maximus thought.
    ‘Agent Longshadow has returned,’ he said, giving the Envoy an almost imperceptible signal that said, ‘Play along’.
    The Envoy nodded. ‘Good to see you again, Agent Longshadow.’
    Anneke stared at the visual. She nodded curtly, unable to explain her unease.
    ‘When can you get here?’ Maximus asked.
    ‘I am on Wolf’s Bane, scheduled for a jump in two hours.’
    ‘Good. We’ll talk when you arrive. But expect some revision of the other matter. The leveraging issue can hold off for another day.’
    ‘I understand,’ said the Envoy, cutting the link.
    Maximus turned back, smiling. He felt inverted pleasure that, via code, he had ordered Anneke’s execution right before her own eyes! Not before, of course, she accomplished a mission for him.
    This was turning out to be not such a bad day after all.
    ‘Can you tell me more about my assignment?’ Anneke asked suddenly.
    ‘That will have to wait for the debriefing,’ said Maximus, thinking fast. ‘First things first. We must get you to a safe house and cover your tracks. Clearly the Combine has tracked you from the nearest jump-gate and knows you are here. We need to make you disappear again …’
    Maximus took her out through a secret exit built into and under RIM headquarters, a subterranean corridor that led under the street to a staircase three blocks south. There it branched away again, but Maximus took the staircase up into the basement of a department store. From there, he led Anneke through adjoining sub-basements to a voice-secured elevator that took them up fifteen floors. From there they moved into the public domain, taking a drop tube back to street level and then a series of zigzagging journeys through alleyways and crowded shopping malls.
    The final leg of the journey was made inside a closed, field-dampened auto-cab, which Maximus removed from the grid by inserting a RIM jack into the vehicle’s input port. The city’s mainframe AI couldn’t track them. An anti-satellite
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