Imperium Cicernus: Ure
Infectus
by
Caleb Wachter





Copyright © 2014 by
Caleb Wachter
All rights reserved.


All characters and
events in this book are fictitious. All resemblance to persons living or dead
is coincidental. Respect my electronic rights because the money you save today
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Entries in the
Imperium Cicernus Shared Universe

 

On
The Imperium’s Secret Service, by Christopher G. Nuttall

Death
to the Imperium, by James McGovern

Rebels
and Patriots, by A.G. Claymore

Ure Infectus, by Caleb Wachter





 

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Table of Contents
Chapter I: Fear the Voters
Chapter II: Protocol vs. Politics
Chapter III: The Working Man
Chapter IV: The Glass Ceiling
Chapter V: One more makes Two-for-Two
Chapter VI: The Guardian Angel
Chapter VII: Haven
Chapter VIII: A Pit Stop—and Don’t Forget
the Pasta!
Chapter IX: Three-for-Three…and Takeout
Chapter X: Cast Off!
Chapter XI: One Solution Deserves Another
Chapter XII: A Summons
Chapter XIII: An Assignment
Chapter XIV: A Side Mission
Chapter XV: Plan ‘B’…as in ‘Brutal’
Chapter XVI: The Next Phase
Chapter XVII: The Host with The Most
Chapter XVIII: A Blast from The Past
Chapter XIX: Time and Pressure
Chapter XX: The Sleeping Dragon’s First
Breath
Chapter XXI: Final Approach
Chapter XXII: Justification
Chapter XXIII: A Confrontation
Chapter XXIV: Taking Stock and Committing
Chapter XXV: Disappointment vs. Endurance
Chapter XXVI: Stick it in and Twist it
Chapter XXVII: Operation: You Lose
Chapter XXVIII: The Blurred Line between
Victory and Defeat
Chapter XXIX: Bathed in Fire
Chapter XXX: A Wet Paper Sack
Chapter XXXI: Promotion
Epilogue: A Real Choice


Sneak Peek of Guarding an Angel, a novella in the Chimera
Adjustment story
Preview Chapter I: On Feathered Wings
Preview Chapter II: The Heart of an Angel









Chapter
I: Fear the Voters 
“I fear I’ll be working late, darling,” Mayor Cantwell said
in a conciliatory tone through his earpiece’s attached microphone. He had never
actually intended to make it home for dinner that night, but a rather
surprising visit had interrupted his other plans for the evening and had
therefore provided the perfect cover story for his pre-planned extracurricular
activities. “Give my love to the children…I love you too. Bye-bye,” he tapped
the earpiece to sever the communication with his wife, before turning his
attention back to the Professional Hammerball League representative sitting
across from him.
“I trust you find everything in order, Mr. Mayor?” the
representative pressed. He was a tall, muscular man around fifty years of age.
Judging from his apparently unmodified physique, Mayor Cantwell deduced that he
was a former professional athlete—probably a hammerball player from the same
league which he now represented.
The Mayor looked over the short, plain document and he
suppressed the urge to nod. The Professional Hammerball League Commissioner had
struck a behind-closed-doors deal with Mayor Cantwell some years earlier, and
that deal had seen New Lincoln—Mayor Cantwell’s city—play host to the Anvil.
The Anvil was the largest sporting event on their entire world, and though
hammerball had surprisingly failed to catch on with the nearby systems, it was
ludicrously popular with the locals on Virgin Prime—collectively referred to as
‘Virgin’ by most of its inhabitants.
When New Lincoln had served as host city to the Anvil and
all of its attendant fanfare, the city had been promised massive economic
benefits in exchange for major renovations and public works projects which were
to be undertaken at taxpayer expense. Of course, there had been certain
setbacks and the event had become a PR black eye for the Mayor’s administration.
“Forgive me, Mr…” Mayor Cantwell pressed for the third time
since the meeting’s unscheduled outset.
“Bennett,” the man replied in his crude, low-born accent.
“Of course…Mr. Bennett,” Mayor Cantwell nodded knowingly as
he surreptitiously activated a data retrieval program to search for information
about the man sitting before him. “And you fill an…”
his lips twitched sardonically, “advisory role for Commissioner Heinlein?”
“That’s right,” the man with the square, chiseled jaw
replied as his grey-blue eyes bored into the Mayor’s own. “I’ve served in my
current capacity for thirty years, and I can’t imagine doing anything else.”
The data retrieval program activated a retinal display
device, and Mayor Cantwell began to flick through the several gigabytes of data
the program had retrieved on the man sitting before him. It seemed that he had,
indeed, been a standout player for the Hampton Hoarkers prior to suffering an
early, career-ending spinal injury.
According to the laws of Virgin, such an injury—while easily
treatable with modern medicine—precluded a player from continuing to
professionally compete in athletics since such an injury’s repair would involve
measures that had been deemed to be performance-enhancing.
The Mayor scrolled through the first few pages of relevant
data, with extra scrutiny placed on Mr. Bennett’s affiliation with the League
Commissioner. Apparently he had served in an ‘advisory capacity’—which, in
political terms, generally indicated that he acted as a ‘bag man’—for nearly
two continuous decades. His other records were more or less nonexistent,
including no traffic violations, domestic disturbances, or anything else aside
from a handful of off-world visits to the nearby colonies which coincided with
the Commissioner’s own travel schedule. In short, he presented a completely
typical profile for the very person he claimed to be—which put the Mayor on his
guard.
“Mr. Bennett,” Mayor Cantwell leaned forward and laced his
fingers together as he deactivated the retinal display with little more than a
twitch of his cheek, “I must admit that I was surprised—and more than a little
disquieted—by this unscheduled meeting.”
Bennett fixed his gaze on the Mayor, and Mayor Cantwell—a
lifelong politician who had debated some of the most powerful people in the
entire system—actually felt the urge to recoil from the weight of the man’s
gaze. Instead, he did as he always did in such circumstances and affixed a
patently false, well-practiced smile on his lips. “Mayor Cantwell, the
Commissioner has expressed…concern regarding recent allegations directed your
way relating to the New Lincoln Anvil which took place two years ago. The
League can’t exactly afford another Watercress incident—especially not so
soon.”
Cantwell’s smile tightened, knowing a veiled threat when he
heard it. “I can assure the Commissioner that these concerns stem from little
more than off-cycle news fodder; I’m currently running a seventy three percent
approval rating with over two thirds of my constituents having expressed a
desire for my re-election to a fourth term. Tell Commissioner Heinlein that
this will all blow over in a matter of days.” Cantwell’s smile broadened as he
decided to make a play of his own, “But I’m afraid these numbers are
inaccurate.”
Bennett cocked an eyebrow. “Oh?” he asked, his expression
somewhere between surprise and wariness.
Cantwell nodded solemnly as he highlighted one passage of
the coded letter—a passage which, using predetermined verbiage, confirmed the
amount of bribe money he had accepted in order to secure the public works
committee’s support. That committee had been the most instrumental component of
bringing the Anvil to New Lincoln, and Mayor Cantwell had distributed the
Commissioner’s bribe monies to several key members of that department…well,
Mayor Cantwell hadn’t given all of the bribe monies to the committee.
“Indeed; I fear we miscalculated the secondary impact on our
fair city’s waste disposal systems,” he explained as he tapped out a new set of
numbers in an addendum to the document. “I have discussed it with the committee
at some length and they assure me that this figure must be increased
accordingly.”
He slid the data pad across the desk to Mr. Bennett, who
accepted the pad as his jaw clenched tightly. His eyes flicked down to the
figures Mayor Cantwell had added and Mr. Bennett’s eyebrows rose briefly before
grudgingly nodding his head, “Commissioner Heinlein has authorized me to accept
these figures on his behalf.”
Cantwell’s eyebrow cocked in a mixture of amusement and
incredulity. “It would seem the Commissioner trusts you a great deal…I find it
strange that we have not met until just now.”
Bennett seemed to ignore the prodding comment as he produced
a small, familiar data link from his pocket and activated it. The former player
input a series of commands to the uplink before speaking a series of coded
phrases into it. It was all quite regular procedure and this set the Mayor at
ease, since Mr. Bennett was using the exact same uplink his predecessors had
used to initiate clandestine payments to a series of dummy accounts Mayor
Cantwell had established throughout the sector.
Cantwell re-activated his retinal display and, with little
more than a few twitches of his cheek and the rhythmic clacking of his teeth,
logged into his secret banking portfolio and verified that the agreed-upon sum
of money had indeed been transferred to his handful of secret accounts, and
that the money had originated from the same accounts the Commissioner had used
in the past.
The Mayor’s smile broadened as he reached for a DNA-locked
compartment of his desk, and after opening the compartment he produced a pair
of glasses and some of the rarest liquor known to the entire Sector. “I believe
the conclusion of such a productive business relationship calls for
celebration,” he declared as he used his implanted uplink to cycle down the
auto-turrets which had been on a hair trigger activation sequence since Mr.
Bennett had entered the office.
The thought had occurred to him to simply execute the man using
those defensive systems, but had he done so he would have certainly been
detained by public security forces. Such a detainment would have caused him to
miss his appointment with a set of sisters—quadruplets, at that—who were
waiting to…indulge his appetites on the other side of town.
“I’m not much for the sauce,” Mr. Bennett said with a
disapproving look, and Mayor Cantwell shrugged as he slid one of the glasses
back into its compartment. The League representative reached into his jacket’s
pocket and withdrew what looked to be a cheap—possibly hand-made—cigar and
gestured as though requesting permission.
Mayor Cantwell nodded as he suppressed a sigh, knowing that
inhaling smoke was perhaps the least efficient method of delivering the desired
chemicals into the body. “To each his own,” he said as he put three fingers of
the expensive liquor into the tumbler before replacing the stopper on the
bottle.
Mr. Bennett produced a small, petroleum-fueled lighter from
another pocket and lit the cigar before taking a long, deep draw from it as the
Mayor took the first sip of his drink. It burned his throat almost badly enough
that he wanted to gasp, but he knew that like all things of great value in
life, he needed to savor that measure of pain just as much as the pleasure
which would soon follow.
“I’m afraid I’ve got a confession to make, Mayor Cantwell,”
Mr. Bennett said after a polite silence had hung between them for several
seconds.
Cantwell leaned back in his leather chair and swirled his
drink absently, wanting nothing more than for the man to leave his office as
quickly as humanly possible so he could skip over to the quadruplets’ flat and
engage in his latest, sordid indulgences. “And what confession might that be,
Mr. Bennett?”
Bennett took a second, long draw from the cigar before
deliberately stamping it out against the arm of the posh, leather chair in
which he sat. The smell of aerosolized leather preservative wafted into Mayor
Cantwell’s nostrils, and his eyes narrowed at such a blatant sign of disrespect.
Commissioner Heinlein will be hearing of this, he promised himself
silently.
When he had ground the last of the cigar’s embers into the
leather cushion, Bennett stood to his full, imposing height. Without breaking
eye contact he cracked his neck first to the left, then to the right, before
saying in a calm, conversational tone, “I’ve never cared for politicians.”
In a blur of motion almost too fast to see, the man who had
defiled the antique, leather chair with his cigar produced a cleverly-concealed
pistol…
…and blew the top half of the sitting Mayor’s head off just
as the lights went out.


The Mayor’s body began to twitch spasmodically in the faint
light, and the gunman’s arm ached from the vicious kick his crude weapon had
produced. “Wlad,” the gunman posing as a PHL rep said after inserting his
earpiece and opening a channel to his equivalent of tech support, “glad to see
you got those sentry cannons under control. I need an update.” He let his eyes
adjust to the darkness as he checked a small, concealed, carbon-fiber clasp
which was attached to a harness hidden beneath his overcoat.
“You got it, ‘Mr. Bennett’,” the other man said
sarcastically in his ridiculous, long-practiced accent. “You got six—no, eight
private security dudes outside the door. I done sealed it tight, but that’ll
only buy you forty seconds if these guys be packin’ what they supposed to be
packin’.”
“Cut the shit, Benton,” he snapped, irritated at his
operator’s chosen vernacular. The Mayor’s office had been rigged with all
manner of scanning hardware, so there had been no way to get his standard gear
for a job of this type into the room with him. Exiting the room was therefore
going to be tricky—and hearing his operator’s archeo-slang wasn’t helping him
focus.
“Thirty seconds, Jericho,” Benton said through the earpiece,
his voice taking on a slightly more serious tone as he briefly abandoned his
adopted vernacular, “looks like the window’s your way out.”
“Thanks for that update, operator,” Jericho quipped dryly as
he flipped the emblem of his office onto the Mayor’s desk. The hexagonal
insignia landed in the middle of the desk near the Mayor’s body, adding an
intentionally dramatic flair to the macabre scene.
Jericho took a second cigar out of his pocket and carefully
unwound the wrapper. Inside was the standard assortment of dried leaves and
seeds which made up the low-cost alternative to chemstix and other, less
destructive, methods of stimulant introduction. But buried within the cigar was
a pair of small, brownish, metallic beads. He plucked these out of the mass of
dried leaves with his surgeon-steady hands and made his way to the window.
“Twenty seconds, Jericho,” Benton reported altogether
unnecessarily. Jericho suspected the big guy just liked to hear his own voice,
and since the two of them had a history—not to mention that Benton was easily
the best operator he had ever worked with—Jericho had grudgingly learned to
deal with the other man’s peculiar idiom.
Jericho carefully placed the two beads a precise distance
apart on the glass at about chest height before producing a carbon-fiber clasp
from beneath his trench coat and attaching it to a nearby vertical support
beam. He then took four measured steps back and turned to face the window.
Jericho knew that for the beads to work their technological magic, the shot
needed to be taken from a precise location. His concealed weapon only had two
rounds, and he had used one of those to execute his Adjustment of the
Mayor—whose body had only then stopped twitching.
He took careful aim between the two beads, knowing that if
he even missed his shot by a few inches that the bullet would be deflected by
the super-strong, floor-to-ceiling window of the Mayor’s lavish office. Closing
one eye—to improve his focus as much as his vision—he took a slow, cleansing
breath and squeezed the trigger of his relatively primitive slug-thrower.
The pistol bucked hard in his hand as the window shattered
into a shower of countless pieces, and the wind began to whip violently through
the office carrying the heavy, greasy smells of industry into the previously
sterile chamber. Jericho dropped the spent weapon to the floor and took a
steadying breath.
“Ten seconds, Jericho,” Benton reported as the sealed door
began to glow near the locking mechanism as they began to burn their way
through the portal. The security guards outside were apparently just ahead of
schedule, and would breach the room in no more than five seconds.
Jericho hesitated for one of the few times in his life. The
principles at play in his ‘safe’ egress from the office had been explained and
tested—then re-tested—so many times he felt confident he could do what he was
about to attempt in his sleep. But, contrary to the opinions of some, he was
human—and that meant that in spite of his meticulous preparations, he still
harbored a sliver of doubt.
“Man’s sake, Jericho,” Benton chided through a static-laden,
crunching noise which Jericho took to be the chewing of junk food by his rotund
operator, “the science is solid—solid, know what I’m sayin’!? Take yo’
leap, boy!”
The sound of the locking bolts retracting from the
vault-like door was enough to spur Jericho into motion. Running as fast as he
could, he cleared the window and began to fall to the street below just as a
volley of energy beams erupted into the space above his head as the security
force narrowly missed their mark after breaching the Mayor’s heavy door.
The rain-filled, night air whipped around his body as he
fought to keep his feet pointed to the ground and his body reacted to the
sensation of falling just as it had during his several test runs back at
headquarters. No more than a quarter of the way to the ground, a series of
sharp, repeating impacts could be felt as a the tiny cord he had attached to
the beam at the window began to unwind through a series of meticulously,
painstakingly designed loops which provided just under four gees of resistance
at their peak.
This was the only part of the operation Jericho had taken issue
with. Killing the Mayor had almost been too easy; infiltrating his office had
been marginally more difficult, but still eminently do-able. It was the
leaping-out-the-window-and-ensuing-insanity which had bothered him.
But his body hurtled toward the ground below in an
ever-slowing descent, and before he knew it his feet met the pavement and
despite his instinct to do otherwise—and due to literally thousands of practice
sessions—he kept his legs straight and his feet slammed flat against the ground
just as the cord attached to his harness finally broke near the fastener a
hundred and thirty six feet above him.
The sensation of landing on the slick, dark pavement was far
from unpleasant—in fact, it was anything but remarkable save for the fact that
it was utterly anticlimactic. The impact felt like nothing worse than jumping
down from a height of three meters, and Jericho could not help but marvel at
the simplicity of his escape mechanism as bits of the very cord which had
safely lowered him to the ground fell to the pavement all around him.
That cord—and the soles of his boots—had been meticulously
crafted with a lattice-work of ablative, carbon nano-fibers which had absorbed
the entire energy transfer of his fall. The devices had been relatively cheap
to produce and, more importantly, had passed through the Mayor’s security
scanners undetected. The boots, like the cord, were now worth little more than
their weight in pencil shavings, but they had served their purpose beautifully.
“Y’all still with me…or do we need a clean-up on aisle
nine?” Benton asked into the silence as Jericho took a glance up the massive,
towering building from which he had just leapt and marveled at the fact that he
had actually survived.
He exhaled a breath he hadn’t even realized he was holding.
“I read you, operator,” he replied after shaking the imagery of the potentially
lethal fall from his mind as he reached up to remove the earpiece, “I’m going
dark. You’ll get your payment within the hour; nice working with you again.”
“Any time, boss-man—any time,” Benton replied with a
boisterous chuckle. “Bro, I’m so psyched…I can’t believe that shit actually worked!”
Despite his operator’s pre-jump confidence, Jericho had
known he had been far from alone in his trepidation regarding the use of such
primitive, crude technology. “Timent Electorum,” Jericho said wryly, invoking
the name of his own branch of the government—a name which also served as a
warning to corrupt officials everywhere in the Chimera Sector, where Virgin
Prime was located.
“True dat, bro; gotta fear them voters,” Benton agreed
seriously before Jericho removed the earpiece and tossed it into a nearby
drainage grate.
His latest voter-endorsed Adjustment executed, Jericho made
his way to a nearby hover conveyance—which he had contracted specifically for
the occasion—and the vehicle disappeared into the sprawling cityscape while law
enforcement vehicles sped toward New Lincoln’s seat of government in response
to their city leader’s Adjustment—an act which some would think of as little
more than an assassination, but which any true son or daughter of Virgin Prime
would recognize for what it was:
Justice.






Chapter
II: Protocol vs. Politics 
“Here are the building’s security logs, Investigator,” a
subordinate officer named Riley said, proffering a data slate.
“Thank you, Riley,” Investigator Masozi replied as she
accepted the slate. The scene had been secured some twenty minutes earlier and
the forensic analysts had only just arrived, but they had surprisingly not yet
begun to examine the evidence in depth. Masozi had been first on the scene and
had directed her people to gather the security logs, audio and video records of
the building, and locked down the entire building. The assassination of a
Mayor—especially of the third most populous city on the planet—was a rare
occurrence, and she knew there would be hell to pay in the coming days.
Mayor Cantwell had been extremely popular with the New
Lincoln electorate, but recent allegations had arisen regarding possible
corruption within the administration itself. Normally such allegations made
during an election campaign would have been dismissed as routine mudslinging on
the part of the challenger.
And had it not been for the triangular insignia set before
the Mayor’s lifeless body, Masozi would have been inclined to dismiss those
rumblings just as she had done for every other political election her planet
had endured since the wormhole collapse of two centuries earlier. But the
presence of that insignia, and its prominent—some might say arrogant—display
at the crime scene pointed to the Mayor’s death as being, essentially, a
legally-sanctioned affair.
“What about the video records?” Masozi asked as she flipped
through the entry and exit records for the past three days. The data pad had
built-in programs for cross-referencing all of the logged names with those of
known, or even suspected, malcontents or disruptive elements. But the program
concluded its background search without having turned up anything promising.
Riley shook his head bitterly. “The whole building’s
primary, secondary and tertiary storage systems were hit with a powerful,
incredibly focused e-mag pulse; there’s barely an aberrant one scattered in all
the remaining zeroes. The data retrieval team says there’s not much they can
get; this was a professional job.”
Masozi nodded solemnly as she considered the triangular
insignia and shot an irritated look at the forensic analysts standing in the
hall outside the office. “Are you going to get started sometime this millennia?”
she snapped with a pointed look at the nearest forensics team member.
The forensic examiner pointedly ignored her, which made her
set her jaw. This was her investigation, and they were there under her
direction; when she gave the order they were supposed to hop to it!
But before she could vent her spleen at them the New Lincoln
Chief Investigator, a man named Afolabi, appeared at the far end of the hallway
and quickly locked his eyes with hers. He was a tall, imposing figure with skin
nearly as dark as Masozi’s own, but his physical prime was far behind him and
he sported at least an extra twenty, useless, kilos around the midsection.
“Investigator,” he said as he approached, giving a curt nod
to the forensics team leader. The head forensics examiner gave Masozi a brief
look before turning his back and making small talk with his team members. “Can
we have a word?”
“Of course, sir,” she replied warily as he made his way into
the Mayor’s office. It was highly irregular for the Chief Investigator to appear
prior to the scene having been examined by the forensics team, and judging by
that team’s reaction to the Afolabi’s arrival they had been under orders to
delay their investigation until he had arrived.
The two entered the Mayor’s office, and after giving an
obligatory look at the Mayor’s corpse—and the wall behind it, which was covered
in a gruesome layer of skull and brain fragments—Chief Afolabi turned to Masozi
and said, “What have you determined thus far?”
Masozi cocked her head slightly in confusion, since she had
been unable to make any determinations due to the forensics team having failed
to begin their own work to that point. “Well…aside from the obvious,” she said,
gesturing to the Mayor’s head which ended just above the lower jaw before pointing
to the discarded weapon on the floor just beside the desk, “we have something
of a rarity.”
“Oh?” he asked neutrally, and Masozi was reminded just how
good this man was at politics. He had served at the highest levels of the New
Lincoln peacekeeping forces for thirty years, working under
three separate administrations after serving on the street for over a decade.
“Yes, sir,” she replied as she turned deliberately and
pointed at the triangular insignia on the desk before the Mayor. “This looks to
be the work of Timent Electorum.”
Afolabi’s eyes never left her own, and she furrowed her brow
in confusion when he apparently refused to look at the desktop. “An interesting
theory, Investigator,” he said evenly, “however, perhaps we should wait until
the forensics team has had a chance to go over the scene before jumping to wild
conclusions?”
“Sir?” she asked incredulously. “I tried to have the
forensics team get started but they were being rather less than cooperative.
Besides, if this was a T.E. contract then it was legally sanctioned.”
Afolabi fixed her with a cold, piercing look before sighing
irritably. “Whatever gave you the notion that this cold-blooded murder
was carried out by the Timent Electorum agency?”
“Chief Investigator,” Masozi scoffed as she pointed to the
insignia desk and raised her voice, “everyone learns to recognize a T.E.
insignia in primary school!”
Afolabi visibly flustered as he took a deliberate, ominous
step toward her and lowered his voice, “I see no such insignia, Investigator
Masozi. Perhaps you’re mistaken?”
She opened her mouth to retort before realizing that the
Chief Inspector’s presence wasn’t meant to facilitate her investigation—he
meant to obstruct it! Masozi took a deep, cleansing breath before lowering her
voice and saying, “Chief…I have a job to do here—“
“I suggest you head back to the barn, Masozi,” Afolabi
interrupted in a slightly raised voice as his features hardened. “You’ve done a
great job here but I think this particular situation might require a slightly
more…experienced hand.”
“Chief!” she blurted unthinkingly. This was to be her
career-defining moment, and while it was far from unprecedented for a Chief
Investigator to usurp an assigned Investigator, such a transfer of
responsibility required recusal on the part of the assigned Investigator—in
this case that was her! “I am the lead Investigator assigned to this
case, and I will not recuse myself unless I am physically unable to carry out
my duties.”
Chief Afolabi narrowed his eyes. “Think carefully about
this, Investigator,” he warned. “Your family connections might not carry as
much weight as you believe, should you follow through on this course of
action.”
Masozi clamped her teeth together at the mention of her
familial ties. She had worked hard to distance herself from those members of
her family who had ascended to System-wide political prominence, for reasons
too numerous to recount. But her colleagues never let her forget her relatively
distant connection to those people. It was, perhaps, the single greatest insult
which could be leveled her way to suggest that she had not in fact earned each
and every stripe she wore proudly over her breast.
“I’ll help you out, Investigator,” Chief Afolabi continued
after a few seconds of silence, “Internal Affairs has a few questions regarding
your case-load these last few weeks. I’m ordering you to report to them so you
can put that bit of nastiness behind you and get back to work as quickly as
possible.”
Masozi clenched her fist so tightly that she felt one of her
stick-on nails pop off more than a little painfully. But she ignored the
sensation as she realized that he had come prepared to force her off the crime
scene. “This isn’t over, Chief,” she growled under her breath as she pushed
past him toward the door.
“Forgetting something, Investigator?” Afolabi asked with a
pointed look down at her off-hand.
She stopped and looked down to see she was still holding the
data pad with the building’s security logs. She turned and held it out, her
hand nearly trembling with anger. The Chief deliberately held her with his gaze
for several seconds before reaching out and accepting the pad. “Escort the
Investigator from the building,” he said with a glance at one of the uniformed
officers in the hallway.
“Yes, sir,” the man replied, and Masozi stormed out of the
room and down the corridor, followed at a close remove by the uniformed man.
She silently fumed for the entire ride down the elevator.
The Mayor’s assassination had been assigned to her and it was beyond irregular
for a superior to so crudely force an Investigator off the case. Her thoughts
swirled into a maelstrom that nearly saw her scream in frustration before the
elevator doors opened.
Her ‘escort’ saw to it that she exited the building, and
when that was done he went back to the building and left her alone. There was a
pair of forensic examiners already at work on the pavement, picking up
fragments of glass which had scattered from the base of the towering sky rise
to the far side of the street.
Deciding to take a risk, Masozi crossed the line of
artificial light marking the boundary of the forensic team’s authority. “What
have you found?” she asked, acting as though she had come down to check on
their progress.
The nearest examiner, a woman Masozi recognized whose name
was Angelica, looked up briefly with her scanning monocle’s blue light
flickering off as she did so. “We’ve got micro-fractures in the armored glass,”
the examiner explained. “Not many people still use reinforced silicates; even
in this building nearly all of the windows have been replaced with transparent
alloys, but we’re seeing evidence of kinetic resonance in this material
consistent with a shaped charge.”
Masozi nodded slowly. “So the hitman knew the room.” It
wasn’t exactly news to her given the rest of the evidence she had managed to
observe in her little time with the scene. “Did any witnesses see where the
assassin landed?”
Angelica nodded. “Right there,” she replied, pointing to a
fairly nondescript patch of sidewalk near the center of the glass fragments.
The area where she pointed looked completely unremarkable even to her
highly-trained eye, except for the marked presence of a few, hair-like pieces
of material.
Masozi cocked an eyebrow. “Are you saying he just…landed?”
The examiner shrugged, “It looks that way, ma’am, with a
little help from above. These cord fragments look like carbon nanotubes,” she
explained, holding up an evidence bag with a pair of the small, hair-fine
fibers inside, “but they’re barely better than industrial grade. He could have had
these made at over a hundred different facilities in this System alone.”
Masozi approached the patch of sidewalk and knelt down to
look at it more closely. “Did you find anything unusual where he touched down?”
Angelica bit her lip for a moment before taking a few steps
closer and gesturing, “The spectro-scope picked up a high concentration of
carbon tubules there. I’ve taken a sample but won’t be able to produce a more
detailed analysis until I’ve run it through the lab—my guess is it’s the same
material which made the cord, and that he used them as a shock absorber.”
“Can I see it?” Masozi asked, glad
to have finally found a thread to follow.
The examiner nodded, removing the monocle with a series of
taps to its fastening surface before handing it to the Investigator. Masozi
attached the small scope over her right eye and activated it, allowing the
device to cycle through the various bands of non-visible light before stopping
it at the spectrometric analysis setting and leaning close to the concrete
surface to get a clearer image.
Even though the rain had washed much of the microscopic
evidence away, there was a distinct pair of boot-shaped silhouettes surrounded
by a fine, roughly-circular cloud of carbon particles. The only truly
remarkable aspect of the carbon was that it was pure carbon; there was
essentially no other element present in that particular layer of
nearly-invisible debris.
“Thank you,” Masozi said, knowing she had risked too much
already. She removed the monocle and returned it to Angelica, who accepted it
and resumed her duties.
The Investigators’ offices were not far from the main
government building where the assassination had taken place, so she had simply
ridden with a uniformed patrolman en route to what was supposed to be her
biggest assignment yet. So she decided it best to walk back to the office,
which might let her compose her thoughts as she considered the disturbing
events of the evening.






Chapter III: The Working Man 
Jericho had already switched conveyances six times over the course of nearly half an hour when his handheld link vibrated within his pocket. He had not expected any inbound communications, so he was more than slightly apprehensive as he entered his password to the data pad. The device also doubled as his sole connection to the vast information grid which pervaded every aspect of life in a city like New Lincoln—a grid which Jericho believed humanity could very well do without.
The author of the message was familiar to him; it had been sent by his most recent operator, Wladimir Benton. Jericho had not yet transferred the agreed-upon sum of money to Benton’s account, but he still had half an hour remaining in their agreed upon window so he cautiously opened the message.
The screen was filled with a series of images taken by what looked to be the government building’s security cameras, and each of the images was centered on a tall, athletic, almost black-skinned woman likely in her early thirties. She was wearing a nearly skin-tight bodyglove with the badge of an Investigator situated over her left breast.
There was an attached video file, and he opened it to see that same woman moving between a pair of forensic examiners who were collecting bits of shattered glass from the pavement where he had landed after executing his contract. His lip quirked in amusement as she took a forensics monocle from one of the examiners and before kneeling beside the very spot where he had landed after taking his very own leap of faith from the Mayor’s high-rise office. She looked intently at the patch of concrete before standing and returning the monocle to the examiner, and the video froze on a close-up image of the Investigator’s strong, yet surprisingly feminine, features.
The image minimized and a flood of text began to stream across the pad’s screen, including her name, birthdate, period of employment, civil record, legal record, and anything else a person might wish to know about another. Most of it was utterly uninteresting—until it came to the section regarding familial ties, where a particular name was highlighted which caught Jericho’s attention.
He considered the implications of that connection as the woman’s record disappeared and was replaced with a line of text, which read: The info’s free, my main man. But if you be wantin’ a Guardian Angel package it’s gonna cost you standard. You want I should pop a halo up on her, just tack the cheddar onto my other order and she’ll be under my Papa Benton’s wing before dinner—AJ
It really wasn’t a question in his mind of whether or not he should do as Benton suggested. Thankfully for Jericho, he had just enough money left in the contingency fund he had established for that night’s contract that he could cover a Guardian Angel package. That package included, among other things, full-time surveillance of her person, as well as a comprehensive analysis of each person within six degrees of separation from her. It was a resource-intensive and technically difficult thing to do without access to a whole team of operatives, but Wladimir ‘AJ’ Benton had never failed to deliver in the past so Jericho knew it would be money well-spent.
Jericho called up the financial account containing the last of the operation’s budget and arranged to have it attached to the significantly larger sum of money he had already earmarked for the operator’s assistance to that point in the Cantwell Contract. After verifying the amounts and the destination account, he executed the transaction. When that was completed he sighed as he deactivated the handheld link.
“I hate these things,” he grumbled as he removed the battery and found a small wad of soft, rubbery material inside the link’s slender housing. He pressed his finger against the wad of chewing gum-like material until an acrid smell wafted up into his nostrils. He replaced the battery into the device, reassembled the two halves of the link, and tossed it out the window of the vehicle before settling back into his seat for a few moments of quiet contemplation.
It seemed that the universe had just presented him with a unique opportunity…and he would likely need to move quickly in order to prevent that opportunity from being eliminated.








Chapter
IV: The Glass Ceiling 
Several hours after finishing with what turned out to be an
utterly routine, maddeningly frustrating examination of her recent caseload,
Investigator Masozi sat down at her desk and activated her access terminal. She
knew that with so much elapsed time there was no point in returning to the
Mayor’s office to collect evidence. Anything of interest had either already
been catalogued, or—in what was a more than slightly disturbing possibility she
would have never considered possible prior to that night—removed from the scene
in some unthinkable attempt at a cover-up.
Masozi flipped through the programs on her terminal and came
to the local news feeds. She stopped at one when she recognized the government
building housing the Mayor’s offices, where a short, entirely-too-pale-skinned
man was reporting with the caption ‘Mayor, Father of Three, Murdered’ beneath
him. After attuning her earpiece to the audio feed, she listened intently to
the reporter.
“Precisely three hours and twenty six minutes ago,” the
effeminate-looking man said in a shrill, accented voice as he fought
desperately to speak through only one side of his mouth, “Mayor Thomas Cantwell
was brutally murdered within his own office by an as-yet unidentified gunman.
Details are still coming in, but authorities have ruled out nothing at this
point. Chief Investigator Adewali Afolabi spoke with me just moments ago.”
The feed switched to a shot of Chief Afolabi standing
outside the elevator, and the reporter asked, “Chief Investigator, there have
been suggestions that this could have been an inside job; that perhaps there
were elements within the administration itself with whom Mayor Cantwell had
made unseen enemies. Can you give us an official comment at this time?”
Afolabi drew himself up slightly and Masozi felt her stomach
churn at seeing the man giving what was, by all rights, her interview.
“It’s still very early in the process, but we have received no indications to
this point that what you describe may be the case,” the Chief Investigator
replied promptly and professionally.
“We are nearing the end of this election campaign,” the
reporter continued, switching gears easily, “and Mayor Cantwell looked to be a
virtual lock for re-election in two weeks’ time. Does the New Lincoln
Investigative Unit allow for the possibility that this brutal, cold-blooded act
might have been authored by the Mayor’s chief opponent and Mayoral candidate in
her own right, District Attorney Jennifer Zellweger?”
There was the barest hint of a pause, during which the
Chief’s expression flinched almost imperceptibly before he replied, “I think it
would be irresponsible to rule anything out at this point in the
investigation.”
The feed switched back to the reporter standing on the
sidewalk, and the caption switched to read, ‘Mayor Murdered by Rival?’
“There you have it; Chief Afolabi’s investigation thus far
has clearly revealed some disturbing evidence. While this reporter cannot in
good conscience make supposition, what is clear is that the NLIU will be
looking into all possibilities as this investigation extends into the night
and, in all probability, far beyond. Bridget, back to you.”
Masozi cut the feed in stunned disbelief. Initially she had
believed that Afolabi’s usurpation of her authority had been a simple attempt
to steal the limelight—which she probably could have understood, at least on
some level.
But after listening to the interview with her own ears, and
not once hearing the Chief Investigator mentioned the presence of the Timent
Electorum insignia which had been placed—with obvious deliberation—in front of
the Mayor’s body, her mind began to wander down a dangerous path. She had dedicated her life to restoring order
and balance to the lives of the Virgin System’s citizenry. It was a largely thankless job, but it was
one she had embraced from a very young age because deep down, she sought to see
justice served above all else.
If Chief Afolabi was actively covering up the evidence which
showed Cantwell’s death to have been a publicly-sanctioned hit executed by the
Timent Electorum then he was complicit in whatever crimes the Mayor may have
committed. Worse, he was standing in the
way of justice being served, and Masozi knew that her entire society had been
built upon the principle of justice for all—regardless of social strata.
Her thoughts continuing down such a dark path, she opened a
new interface in her terminal and began to call up information on the Timent
Electorum itself since all she really remembered about it was what she had
learned as a child. The ultra-secretive Timent Electorum agency only rarely
made its actions public knowledge, and when it did so it was for a specific
reason and done in accordance with the agency’s mandate.
Before her search could yield any fruit, a familiar window
overrode her current one and required her to complete a questionnaire comprised
of fifty questions. They were all multiple choice and they were simply a part
of everyday life on Virgin; the government had decentralized all voting
activity when the Chimera Sector had been cut off from the rest of the Imperium
two hundred years earlier. That decentralization had been made in order to
streamline the elective process, as well as remove the potential for harassment
or intimidation.
She knew that most of the questions she was being asked were
dummies, or blanks, since some of them required her to compare a handful of
grocery products to each other and others asked her to comment on the supposed
sexual preferences of various public figures. Some others required her to rank
various media personalities according to certain criteria. But there were a few
which were quite possibly very real initiatives and statutes for which she was
now presented with the opportunity to cast her vote.
Working through the window’s fifty questions took only a few
minutes, after which her previous program returned to the fore of her terminal.
Her search brought her to the foundational passage upon which the Timent
Electorum was founded, which every child of her world learned but most, by her
age, had forgotten:
The First Right of the Body Politic: Timent Electorum
The body politic may initiate
inquest into, and punish by summary capital punishment without the privilege of
a civilian trial: corruption, tyranny, and betrayal of the highest order by
those officials who have been elected to public office, appointed by an elected
official to public office, or have received a position of public office via
heredity. Furthermore, all offices must be assigned locally, with direct
responsibility assigned according to each Star System’s will. Official
positions may only exist when the actions of the officials holding them can be
directly measured by the impact those actions have on the citizens for whom the
official was selected to represent. 
Each sovereign Star System of
the Chimera Sector may, during these foundational years of the Chimera Sector’s
birth, determine for itself the thresholds to be met before an inquest is
initiated, but once that inquest has begun the agent empowered by the community
must carry it out without fail. This agent must never be funded by taxation,
nor should the agent answer to any higher power once commissioned by the body
politic, including the body politic itself.
A productive balance of power in
a democracy, and the requisite degree of efficiency for sustainability, is only
possible when the leaders fear the voters at least as much as the voters fear
the leaders. This is the foundational principle which will guide our Sector to
achieve a measure of harmony unseen in human history.
This, the First Right of our
newly-established representative government, may not be removed or altered in
any way, shape, or form; nor may it be amended, superseded, made dependent upon
a subsequent Right or other measure, or overridden by any bill, law, or other
form of mandate, either official or unofficial. Any attempt to impede the body
politic’s ability to impose their will upon the officials chosen to represent
their interests may be viewed as actionable under this First Right.
No other tenets regarding the
upholding of this Right may be made public knowledge including, but not limited
to, the mechanisms by which the body politic identifies corruption, tyranny, or
betrayal.
The passage went on even further, but before Masozi could
read any more she received an intra-office alert which directed her to report
to the Chief Investigator’s office.
She was surprised that he had returned to the NLIU offices
so quickly, but she was more than willing to report to her superior
Investigator and get some answers.
The door to his office was already open when she arrived,
and she stepped inside to see Chief Investigator Afolabi sitting behind his
desk with a short stack of data pads in front of him. “Investigator, close the
door,” he said in an unyielding voice, and she did as instructed. Afolabi
gestured to the chair opposite his own, and she sat down while a dozen
questions raced through her mind. But before the first one could escape her
lips, the Chief picked up one of the data pads and said, “I have a new case for
you.”
Masozi leaned forward and accepted the pad, quickly perused
its contents and found it to be an altogether typical murder-suicide which had
taken place an hour earlier on the other side of town. Even going by just what
the uniforms had reported, it was an open-and-shut case that would require
little more than the NLIU’s seal of approval before it was filed away. “Chief,”
she said after looking up from the data pad, “any Junior Investigator could
handle the case on this pad. What is going on?”
Afolabi’s eyes narrowed in silent calculation and he began
to nod slowly, as though arriving at some important conclusion. “I’ve spoken
with the Interplanetary Unit recently and, though I wanted to wait a little
longer before telling you, they’ve got a position opening in at the end of the
month and your name was at the top of their list for possible replacement
candidates.”
Masozi’s eyes widened in surprise.
She liked to think of herself as a dedicated public servant and
better-than-average Investigator—one who might even make Chief in another
decade or so—but the Interplanetary Unit generally required at least a half
decade of additional service than what she had logged before an applicant would
even be considered. And Chief Afolabi had just said they requested her by name?!
It took her a moment before she realized that it was too
good to be real, which meant it was almost certainly a bribe—despite her
profession as an Investigator, Masozi had never been good at reading
people. She preferred to analyze the
evidence and leave the human element as minimized as possible when working a
case.
When she understood the gesture for what it really was, her
eyes narrowed. “Chief,” she said tightly, “I am a loyal servant of NLIU; I
would never betray the people who have placed their faith in me. Frankly,” she
continued through clenched teeth, “I’m surprised to hear such an offer from
you, of all people, sir.”
Afolabi’s eyes flared briefly before a smile broadened
across his face and he began to clap deliberately. “Well done, Investigator;
you’ve passed the test,” he said warmly before tilting his head toward the
door.
Her entire body tensed up as she turned and saw a man
wearing the all-black bodyglove of the Interplanetary Investigations Unit of
the Chimera Sector. He was shorter than average, but judging by his movements
and musculature he was a supreme physical specimen.
“Meet Special Agent Hugo Stiglitz, assigned to the IIU,”
Afolabi explained as he stood from his chair, prompting Masozi to do likewise.
“His direct jurisdiction includes New Lincoln and the nearest dozen ports. He’s here in an…unofficial
capacity.”
Masozi looked back and forth between the two men as Agent
Stiglitz approached with a black-gloved hand extended. “Investigator Masozi,”
he said in a perfectly pitched, tenor’s voice with an accent she could not
quite place, “it’s a pleasure.”
“Agent Stiglitz,” she said guardedly after shaking his hand.
The strength she felt in his fingers was incredible, and she was all-too-aware
that he was letting her feel just how strong he was without going so far as to
cause pain. “Would somebody mind explaining to me what is going on here?”
Stiglitz gave a quick look to Chief Afolabi, who gestured
for the shorter man to commence. “My unit has been tracking a terrorist for
several months now,” Agent Stiglitz explained. “He has eluded capture at
several carefully-engineered traps—traps which only the members of my team were
aware of prior to being sprung. Each time we have failed to capture him he has
gone on to execute at least one high-value target within two days’ time.”
“A terrorist?” Masozi asked, intrigued despite the immense tension she felt in light of
the night’s events.
“Yes,” Stiglitz replied as he clasped his hands behind his
back and began to pace stiffly, “we do not know his true affiliations, but he
has left a signature behind at each of the murder scenes. I believe you are
familiar with it?”
She furrowed her brow momentarily before realizing what he
meant. “Are you saying that the Mayor’s Adjustment isn’t a sanctioned reprisal?”
she asked after rolling the thought around for a few moments. “He’s using the
Timent Electorum as cover?”
“Precisely,” Chief Afolabi said with a curt nod. “But this
presents a few unique problems…”
“Indeed,” Agent Stiglitz agreed, “since the Timent Electorum
is a decentralized organization, it is impossible to verify whether or not
these murders are, in fact, community-sanctioned reprisals. They may be merely
the wanton acts of terrorists who are bent on unbalancing our political system
for some as-yet unknown purpose.”
“But the insignia,” she argued with a sharp look to Chief
Afolabi, “isn’t that supposed to contain the evidence the T.E. agent was
required to collect prior to executing the commission?”
“It is,” Stiglitz said with a curt nod, “however we have
reason to believe that the insignia which was left at Mayor Cantwell’s murder
scenes is not, in fact, authentic.”
“Which is why we couldn’t have it entered into the official
evidence log,” Afolabi explained before producing the very insignia Masozi had
seen on the Mayor’s desk. The three inch-wide, hexagonal piece of metal
featured an open eye depicted at the center which was bordered by the Timent
Electorum agency’s three mottos: Ure Infectus, Sic Semper Tyrannis,
and Mors Proditores. “For all we know, this terrorist’s primary goal is
to blame these murders on the Timent Electorum in an effort to undermine our
society’s most fundamental principle in the eyes of the public.”
“Why?” she asked after a brief pause to consider her
superior’s words. “I mean if these aren’t sanctioned hits, wouldn’t the
Timent Electorum condemn them as the murders they really are?”
The two men shared a brief look before Agent Stiglitz
replied, “There is a very real possibility that the Timent Electorum itself has
been infiltrated. But since we do not know the mechanisms which drive it or
allow its continued operation, we cannot investigate to determine their
responsibility.”
“You mean…no one has ever caught one of the agents before?”
she asked disbelievingly.
“Caught?” Stiglitz repeated with a hard edge to his voice
that gave her more than a hint of trepidation. The short, muscular man took a
step forward and, in his perfectly pitched, razor-sharp voice said, “Yes, we
have caught several of them…we’ve even interrogated them on occasion to verify
they were who they claimed. But the Timent Electorum is unlike any other
government agency so we cannot audit it, nor can we interview its ‘leadership’
since it has no formal hierarchy of which we are aware.” He turned his back and
moved to the window, his hands still firmly clasped behind him as he added,
“There is an increasingly popular opinion among modern social scholars that
they are little better than state-funded terrorists born of an irrational fear
aimed at the old, Imperial Aristocracy.”
“They aren’t state-funded,” Masozi said pointedly, and again
Stiglitz and Afolabi shared a brief look that she didn’t quite understand.
“They have to operate purely on donations made by volunteers.”
“That is the official line, yes,” Agent Stiglitz said
tersely before making a short, chopping gesture, “but whatever role the T.E.
was once meant to serve, it has likely ceased to do so.”
Masozi considered the implications if the First Right, which
served as the most fundamental component of their society’s two hundred year
long history, had indeed been coopted for nefarious purposes. All across the
system—and likely beyond—there had been rumblings that such may have taken
place, but such murmurs had generally been dismissed as conspiracy theories
bandied about by the nutters of society.
“This is a lot for you to process, Investigator Masozi,”
Afolabi said levelly, interrupting her silent ruminations. “I suggest you take
the rest of the night off; take in a meal, rent a VR booth, or spend a few hours
at the gym before heading home so you can clear your head. Report to my office
at the start of your shift tomorrow and we can discuss your potential
involvement in this matter. Much may depend on your role in the next few days’
investigation.”
“Indeed,” Agent Stiglitz said, once again offering his hand,
“I look forward to working with you, Investigator.”
She was well and truly at a loss for words, so Masozi did
the only thing she could think of and accepted his hand. She then shook Chief
Afolabi’s hand and exited the Chief Investigator’s office, closing the door
behind her.
Her boss had been right: this would take a few hours to wrap
her head around.






Chapter
V: One more makes Two-for-Two 
Jericho finished fastening the full-body harness and then
proceeded to triple-check each of the clasps. When it was clear that everything
was in order, he attached the deceptively thin, metal wire which his life would
depend on for the next few minutes. He could have had the wire made of the same
carbon tubules as he had used at Cantwell’s Adjustment, but doing so would have
unnecessarily increased the cost of this, the Angelo Adjustment.
The wind whipped violently across his face as he lowered the
goggles over his eyes and tightened their strap behind his head until they were
snug. There were a hundred better, safer, or cleverer ways of doing what he was
about to do, but each of them cost several times more money to set up—and, as
always, Jericho prided himself for staying on budget.
He walked over to the edge of the building and looked down
to the street below. It was fully eight hundred feet down from where he stood
on the residential building’s flat rooftop, but he knew that altitude would be
the least of his problems on the relatively short, yet perilous descent.
Jericho activated the goggles’ infrared light filter and
immediately caught sight of the building’s security camera infrared beams as
they danced across the face of the building in a seemingly random pattern. The
night air was so thick with smog in New Lincoln that depending on the visible
spectrum of light was foolish, especially in matters of security, so all
mid-tier systems used infrared or better tech.
Since the wormhole had collapsed two centuries earlier, the
technology of the Chimera Sector had undergone a radical metamorphosis which
saw the blending of millennia-old technology with more modern examples of
humanity’s scientific achievements. As such, only the ultra-wealthy members of
a planet’s populace could surround themselves with exclusively high-end
devices—and Mr. Angelo, Jericho’s next Adjustment, was ostensibly not
one of the ultra-wealthy of Virgin Prime.
The overlap of the low-tech, omni-directionally sweeping, night-vision security cameras created a nearly impenetrable
grid which would almost certainly catch anyone attempting what he was about to
attempt.
But Jericho had spent nearly two decades finding ways around
such security measures, and this particular security net could be defeated with
nothing but a well-timed flip of a switch.
He felt inside his pocket for the Timent Electorum insignia:
the symbol, if not badge, of his office. Once he had confirmed it was where it
should be he activated the tension brake on the wire and stepped out over the
edge, moving very carefully as he let out incrementally more line until he was
perpendicular to the building’s vertical surface.
He tapped the new earpiece with his free hand and said, “I’m
in position, Baxter.”
“Copy that,” came the older man’s
disinterested-sounding voice through the earpiece. “Initiating power spike in
ten…nine…eight…seven—”
When the countdown reached seven, Jericho gradually let out
the line as he began to run along the wall of the building. The tiny suction
cups built into his bodyglove’s footpads ensured that he never pushed too far
off from the building to maintain control of his descent.
“Six…five…four…” Baxter, his second-best operator, reported
in his droll, monotonous voice.
Jericho was running as fast as he could keep his legs
churning, which meant that he had let out all of the tension he could from the
braking mechanism on the miniature spool of wire.
“Three…two…one…”Baxter continued as though he was reciting
some particularly uninteresting bit of trivia.
Jericho had ‘run’ nearly twenty five stories down the side
of the building by then, and the fast-moving IR camera’s beam of invisible
light came sweeping toward his path. If the light touched his body he would be
unable to complete his mission—and would miss the opportunity of a lifetime in
the process.
“Zero: spike’s away,” his elderly operator reported dryly.
Just before Jericho’s body entered the beam of infrared light, the beam winked
out of existence for just a fraction of second.
But by the time that light had returned, Jericho’s body had
passed beyond its path and he knew he had just seven seconds before the next
beam would come into contact with him.
It was more than enough time.
He reengaged the tension brake gradually over the next four
seconds. A half-second before the brake locked down, he pushed off from the
building with every scrap of power his aging legs could generate. His body
reached the apex of its short-lived flight just as the tension brake clamped
down, snapping his body back with such violence that if he had not been
properly prepared, he was quite certain he would have broken a handful of ribs
and likely lost a few teeth.
But he tightened his body at the same moment the line
snagged, and the combination of forces caused him to swing back toward the
building with dangerous speed as he tucked his knees against his chest and
turned his body into a tight ball.
If he missed by even a foot, he would not only break more
than just a few ribs but the security cameras would lock onto him. Some forty seven
seconds after that, the building’s security force would apprehend him at
gunpoint and he would be unable to complete the most important, complex
assignment of his decades-long career.
He risked a glance toward his entry zone and winced as he
saw that he had slightly miscalculated his trajectory. As his rump entered the
open window, he tried desperately to twist his torso enough to avoid striking
his left arm against the window jamb, and thankfully he succeeded—rather, he partially
succeeded. His arm struck the window
frame as the rest of his body sailed through the small opening, but his body’s
momentum continued on course in spite of the unwanted contact.
Having drilled this precise entry hundreds of times using
physical, scaled models, Jericho had even practiced for the eventuality of a
less-than-perfect entry and was able to bring himself to a stop against the
flat’s kitchen door without breaking through it.
He knew he had two seconds to remove the wire from its
perch, so in a fluid series of motions he unhooked the shackle from his harness
with one hand and, with the hand of his now-injured left arm, clicked the
remote spooling mechanism for the winch located on the roof of the building.
The shackle was whisked too quickly to see out of the kitchen window, and even
though he knew the math bore out that he had acted in time, he held his breath
for several extra seconds until he was convinced that no alarms had sounded
outside.
Exhaling evenly and quietly, he switched his goggles from
base infrared to thermal imaging and looked around the kitchen. Everything was
cold save for the small, faint glow of heat coming from the food refrigerator’s
compressor.
But Jericho had learned many years before to be cautious at
all times, so he pressed his ear against the kitchen door to listen for any
sounds on the other side. When he heard nothing, he opened the door and made
his way into the short hallway connecting the four rooms of the flat: kitchen,
main parlor, bedroom with adjoining toilet, and second bedroom which had been
converted into a small office.
All thermal readings showed that no one had been inside the
flat for at least ten hours, which was consistent with his next contracted
target’s routine. Jericho then performed
a routine weapons sweep of the bedroom—a room with a robust security door made
to appear as a regular door—and found nothing of consequence.
“I’m in,” he said sub-vocally, allowing the small, crude
patch he had stuck to his neck to transmit the sounds to his earpiece and, in
turn, to Baxter. He didn’t want to take the risk of the unit having been
bugged—either by Mr. Angelo or someone else—so he used the sub-vocal technique
to decrease the chance of detection.
“Very good, sir,” Baxter replied blandly. “I am showing the
target has just reached the lobby.”
“Good,” Jericho said as he moved to the main door of the
flat. The target would enter the room and be unable to see him until the door
had been closed, at which time it would be a small matter to execute him and
egress the premises.
“He would appear to have company, sir,” Baxter added, as
though it was barely worth mentioning.
“How many?” Jericho asked as he
paused mid-stride.
“Two, sir: a man and a woman,” his operator replied in his
usual, drawl tone.
“Profiles?” he asked impatiently as he felt his pulse
quicken slightly.
“Accessing now,” Baxter said with a hint of irritation.
Several seconds passed, and Jericho ran through the possible scenarios in his
mind as he awaited the much-needed status update. “Here we are, sir,” his
operator continued almost lazily, “oh my…it would seem our good friend, Mr.
Angelo, has found some measure of affiliation with the Southern Bloc. The man’s
name is Ichiro Matsumoto—a former chess enthusiast of some interstellar
repute—and the woman is Noriko Sasaki, who formerly served on the personal
security detail of the late President Mido.”
Jericho’s throat tightened at hearing of the woman’s
paramilitary background. “Is Sasaki augmented?” he asked unwaveringly.
“I’m checking on that, sir,” Baxter replied irritably, and
Jericho couldn’t help but smirk. If anyone should have been irritated given the
circumstances it was him, not his operator. But Jericho knew that
everyone coped with stress in their own manner, and despite the fact that he
was inside the room and Baxter was on the other side of the city, they were
equally at risk while running an operation such as this one. So he did his best
to remain patient with his second-tier operator while Baxter continued, “It
would appear not, sir…but there is evidence which suggests a high
probability of extensive genetic modifications.”
“Any clues or do I just have to start guessing?” Jericho
asked dryly after the pause had grown to several seconds in length.
“Wait, sir,” Baxter said shortly, and the audio feed went
dead.
Jericho looked around the room as he ran through several
possible scenarios and saw a handful of interesting objects scattered
throughout the room: a four foot tall, antique, high-wattage lamp; a glass, not
plastic, aquarium with around five hundred liters of water housing an
assortment of uninteresting marine life forms; and a single, wood-framed chair
set near a glass-topped table which was surrounded by metal-framed seats of
various design. He considered the layout of the room before nodding to himself
in satisfaction and making his way to the kitchen.
The earpiece crackled back to life as Jericho retrieved a
pair of utensils from the kitchen and re-entered the parlor. “Apologies, sir; I
fear we were being monitored. Ms. Sasaki is a more than capable martial artist,
and what limited video I could find on her suggests an unusual tolerance for
pain in addition to a power-to-weight ratio of roughly two hundred percent her
frame’s suggested maximums.”
“Nothing else?” Jericho asked as he
crouched down into position on the side of the aquarium opposite the door. The
lamp was nearby, so he positioned himself so he could reach both the aquarium
and the lamp when things inevitably went pear-shaped.
“Nothing, sir,” Baxter replied confidently, and Jericho was
more than slightly put off that his operator was so stressed he had abandoned
his carefully-crafted veneer of maddening serenity.
“Ok,” Jericho said, “we’ve got too much heat; clear my path
out of here and then bug out. I’ll contact you in two hours.”
“Very good, sir,” Baxter replied tensely, “their elevator
has reached your floor. I have just re-verified that your route is
clear—signing off now.”
“Good work, operator,” Jericho said evenly. He turned off
his earpiece and tested his left arm for a few seconds. He shook his head
bitterly when he reached the painfully obvious conclusion that the thumb-side
bone, the radius, was broken. That particular development was bound to make
things a bit more interesting than they might have otherwise been, but the
matter was likely to be settled in no more than ninety seconds.
The door’s locking bolts slid back and it swung open.
Jericho remained perfectly still as the three of them entered the flat. Had the
party included only the two unmodified men, he would have hidden in a closet and
waited for their business to conclude. But the presence of a gene-mod of Ms.
Sasaki’s apparent abilities made the likelihood of remaining undetected
somewhat less than likely.
The door shut, and thankfully none of them noticed him
before it had reengaged its locking mechanisms. They had apparently been
enjoying some sort of stimulant, likely alcohol, which moved the needle of
probability back in Jericho’s favor. Judging by their proximity and wandering
hands, it appeared they were intent on heading directly for the bedroom—or
wherever Angelo preferred to enjoy such carnal pleasures. Jericho hesitated for
a moment before committing and stepping out from behind the aquarium.
“I’m only here for Janus Angelo,” Jericho said in a clear
voice, causing the three of them to turn at once in alarm, “if the two of you
leave now then three of us will walk out of here. If not…it’ll be just one.”
Sasaki’s eyes narrowed and Jericho suspected that her body was
being flooded with a powerful wave of natural stimulants which would counteract
the effects of alcohol on her nervous system in a matter of seconds. It had
been a concession to warn them of his presence but Jericho was far from a
butcher; he never killed without cause—and preferably not without a public
mandate.
 “I-I-I don’t understand,” Angelo stammered, his glassy
eyes looking stupidly at Jericho as the other two took up interdictory
positions. “Who…who are you?”
“I’m just a voice, here to deliver the edict of the people
you’ve wronged, Angelo,” he said almost pleasantly as his eyes flicked between
Sasaki and Matsumoto.
Angelo went white as a sheet, but Sasaki took a bold step
forward while Matsumoto—who was tall and broad, but not an accomplished fighter
judging by his posture and lack of confident poise—held back.
“Body temperature within point six degrees of normal,”
Sasaki purred as she looked up and down Jericho’s body, and he realized she
must have had some sort of ocular implant—yet another variable that would make
things interesting. “A thermal suit but no accompanying electromagnetic
field…and your weapons are a kitchen knife and frying pan?” She shook her head
as an emphatic look of disappointment came over her face, “So repulsively
normal…I had expected something more of the T.E., old man.”
“Last chance,” Jericho warned calmly as he tightened his
grip on the makeshift weapons, “you can leave on your own two feet…or in a body
bag.”
Angelo was frozen in place, but Matsumoto had moved to flank
Sasaki and appeared to have strengthened his own resolve. “I’ve never killed
one of you,” the woman said as she cracked her neck, “I’m going to enj—“
Jericho didn’t wait for her to finish her bloated speech. He
swung the frying pan in his left hand into the glass aquarium and the glass
shattered on contact, its contents spilling out onto the concrete floor of the
flat. But before the first drop hit the floor, Sasaki had leapt the ten feet
between them and drew a short, straight blade from concealment.
Jericho realized almost too late that he didn’t have time to
execute his second planned move, so he brought his good arm up with the kitchen
knife aimed at her incoming wrist. She reacted more quickly than he had
expected and lashed out with her left leg, connecting with his upper chest and
driving him into the wall with the surprising force of her flying kick.
But he managed to score a hit of his own along her forearm,
and was sorely disappointed with the kitchen knife skittered off her seemingly
ordinary, skintight, fake leather jacket.
A gleam entered her eye as she adjusted her grip on the
knife and spun to drive it into his side. But Jericho had anticipated the
rather mundane attack, and managed to dive just inside the arc of her weapon as
he delivered a low kick to her nearest knee.
When his shin impacted against her leather-clad joint, he
was relieved to see her leg almost buckle from the force of the attack. No
augments, he silently celebrated as he brought the frying pan up into her
torso. But his arm failed to comply properly and rather than delivering a
crushing blow to her midriff, he barely managed to hang onto the makeshift
weapon and use his forward momentum to shove her across the room.
Thankfully, she weighed no more than she appeared she
should, so she slammed into the wall near the door just as her companion waded
into the fray. Matsumoto assumed a traditional, Southern Bloc martial arts
posture, and Jericho blocked his rapid—albeit formulaic and entirely
predictable—series of calculated punches and kicks.
But Jericho could not commit to taking the man down since he
still had the gene-modified woman to contend with, so he backpedaled slightly
toward the lamp as the powerful Sasaki sprang back into action and leapt toward
him with her knife ready to deliver a killing blow.
Having less time than was required to sight in on his
target, Jericho swing the frying pan blindly behind himself and felt a
satisfying clang as it struck the antique, iron—high voltage—lamp he had
carefully placed in its new position prior to Angelo’s entry into the flat.
Sasaki’s eyes shifted to focus on the falling lamp and she
twisted in mid-air as she pushed off the aquarium’s base and drove her body
toward the antique, wood-framed chair as she abandoned her previous attack on
Jericho.
But her companion apparently failed to recognize the danger
in time as he charged toward Jericho with murder in his eyes. The instant the
iron lamp’s bulb struck the concrete floor—a floor which was covered in
aquarium water—there was an audible buzz and accompanying flash of light which
saw Matsumoto’s body seize as electricity course through his nerves. A fraction
of a second after that crippling jolt of electricity, the safety breakers cut
power to the entire flat.
But the brief interruption was enough to send the hulking
man crashing face-first to the floor. Before Matsumoto could recompose himself,
Jericho reversed his grip on the kitchen knife and unceremoniously plunged it
into the base of his skull while re-acquiring a line of sight on Sasaki using
his infrared goggles in the now-darkened apartment.
By the time he sighted in on the chair she had used as
insulation against the electrical surge, the hard-bodied woman was nowhere to
be seen. But Mr. Angelo had fled to his bedroom and apparently locked the door,
evidenced by the telltale clicks of several mag-locks engaging in sequence.
A flash of movement was all he registered before reflexively
leaning out of the way of a tiny missile aimed at his chest. Having trained
continuously for two decades in preparation for similar situations, he reacted
by seeking the missile’s point of origin rather than following the path of the
tiny object. It was only by following this conditioning that he managed to
react in time to the second missile by moving the frying pan—and his body—in
such a way as to deflect it harmlessly away with the flat, iron piece of
cookware. The pain he felt in his broken forearm was extraordinary, but it
thankfully did not prevent him from defending himself against the poisonous
darts.
When the missile whizzed past his head he caught a glimpse
of the tiny, dart-like device and knew that he would be receiving no further
fire of that type. He finally sighted in on Sasaki when moved out of the
kitchen and back into the parlor.
“You should have stayed in there; I might have left you
alive,” he said through briefly gritted teeth. “But those darts are delivered
via forearm implants which are limited to one per limb. So you’re out of ammo
and I outweigh you by forty kilos of muscle and bone…it’s only a matter of
time.”
She smirked as she looked pointedly at his left arm and spun
the straight-bladed knife over in his hands as though it was light as a
feather. “We shall see,” she said in a deceptively mild tone before launching
herself at him, her tanto-style knife lashing out in a series of almost
impossibly quick attacks. He parried each one, doing so effectively even while
favoring his wounded arm, but after a dozen such thrusts and parries he knew
that she was better with a blade than he was—a lot better.
He dropped the frying pan so as to increase his own agility,
and saw a contemptuous sneer spread across her features. She increased the
speed and variation of her attacks in an attempt to draw him out of position,
and he found himself constantly giving ground as he sought to minimize exposing
his lesser-protected left side.
Her blade sliced cleanly across his left triceps as he
failed to move the extra half inch necessary to avoid the attack altogether,
and a short exchange later she also managed to open a gash on his right thigh.
“Too slow, old man,” she hissed as she never broke the tempo
of her deadly ballet. He knew that she would win a war of attrition, so he
decided to take a risk.
He drew his own knife back as he put every bit of power he had
into a long, sweeping, slash aimed at her neck. His kitchen knife arced through
the air as he extended his body as far as he could in an attempt to reach his
nimble adversary.
She saw the attack too early for his blow to land on the
exposed flesh of her neck, and she gently swayed backward as his blade whistled
through the air where her throat had been an instant before, actually severing
a handful of her hairs before they, too, could evade the attack.
Seizing on the opening, the athletic woman pirouetted so
fast he almost didn’t see it and plunged her tanto into where every human
anatomy textbook said the human heart was located.
He looked down at the blade protruding from his chest and actually
felt a wave of relief as a bright, red bloom began to ooze out of the
perfectly-placed wound. Sasaki had taken several steps back and was admiring
her handiwork, and Jericho slumped to his knees. All he could think about was
how fast she was, and that he had sorely underestimated her from the outset of
the engagement.
“Tsk tsk tsk…poor, old man,” she said with a
self-satisfied snicker as more bright, red fluid poured out of his chest onto
the floor in what would have been an ever-widening red blossom in the
water-covered floor of the apartment. “Thankfully for you, you will lose
consciousness in less than a minute and death will follow shortly thereafter.”
He took a deep, ragged-sounding breath, “Do you have…a
smoke?”
She cocked an eyebrow before throwing her head back and
laughing. “No smokes here, fogey,” she said with a shake of her head, “but I’ve
got a few chemstix if that’s how you’d like to go out.”
He drew another deep, laborious breath before spitting a wad
of bloody phlegm onto the floor, where it landed with a wet splat. “Please…” he
wheezed.
She reached into her faux leather jacket and flicked a tiny,
plastic case through the air in a swift, fluid gesture, and it landed before
his knees. “Knock yourself out,” she quipped.
His head lolled around for a moment as he attempted to grab
the sachet of chemicals, but he deliberately missed with his first attempt to
do so and shook his head as he looked down at the knife protruding from his
chest. He reached up to grab the hilt of the blade, and saw the woman tense.
“Wouldn’t do that, fogey,” she warned in a playful tone,
“you pull that out and you lose whatever time you might have left.”
He snorted derisively. “Taken down by a woman,” he muttered
as he gripped the tanto’s hilt and pulled it from his chest, letting it slip
from his fingers and fall to the floor with a clatter as a small spray of
thick, red fluid burst from his chest.
“Stupid,” Sasaki shook her head without taking her eyes from
him.
Jericho looked up at her through his goggles and chuckled
for a moment.
“What’s so funny?” she demanded, as though his laughter was
an affront of some kind.
He laughed for a few seconds more. “You gave up your edge,”
he said with a piteous shake of his head as the last of the fluid dripped out
of the admittedly painful wound in his chest. He stood slowly to his feet and
felt a kind of brutal, savage, animalistic satisfaction as her eyes widened in
fear. “With the knife you could have taken me…but you let me have it.”
Before Sasaki could even locate a new weapon, Jericho
launched himself at her and attempted to wrap his long, powerful arms around
her small, hard body. She danced to the side as she made a play to slip past
him and recollect the knife, but he dissuaded her attempt by reaching out with
his left arm.
Had she been neurologically augmented, she probably would
have remembered and processed the fact that his left arm was broken and
therefore less than likely to stop her. But for all her genetic modifications,
she still had a completely average brain.
Before she could realize her gaffe, he had closed off the
path to the parlor and left her only one path of escape: the kitchen and its
still-open window.
She turned and ran as fast as she could toward that exit,
and Jericho followed. With just a half dozen steps they were in the kitchen and
she leapt for the window in a desperate attempt to escape, probably in the hope
of clinging to a ledge before plummeting to her death.
But Jericho also left his feet, with his right hand
outstretched as it reached for her slick, black boot. His fingers barely
managed to touch her ankle, but that was all he needed to do. He swatted her
leg to the side as hard as he could while she was in mid-air, and managed to
redirect enough of her body’s momentum into the window’s jamb. Her hip slammed into the molded concrete and
nearly stopped her forward momentum entirely as he gathered his feet and closed
the remaining distance between them.
Before she could recover and pull herself through the
window, Jericho lunged again and grabbed her other ankle with his good hand.
She lashed out with her stiletto-heeled free foot and nearly drove the sharp
point of the impractical footwear through his eye.
Jericho had expected an attack of that kind, and managed to
move his head out of the way. The sharp heel dug into his shoulder but he
managed to maintain his grip on her foot as he brought his wounded, left arm to
bear by grabbing her free foot before she could line up another potentially
deadly attack.
His left arm failed him after he had managed to grip her
ankle with his left hand, and she managed to wrench her leg free and stomp
toward his face with her free foot once again.
Jericho didn’t have time to block or dodge the incoming
attack, so he did the next best thing: he pulled her trapped leg with
everything he could muster from his good, right, arm and managed to break her
grip on the window sill.
Her deadly footwear slid past his head as he pulled her
groin against his upper chest. But she was crafty; even before he had managed
to attempt controlling her posture, she freed her trapped leg, snaked her legs
around his head and right shoulder, and locked them behind his back with a
figure four triangle choke.
She reached down to the back of his head with both hands and
she drove her crotch into his face while forcing his chin toward his own chest,
and he knew that he only had a few seconds before her enhanced strength cut off
the blood flow to his head and rendered him unconscious.
Using his longer-than-average arms, he grabbed her by the
hair, stood up as tall as he could and suplexed her—head-first—into the nearby
stove-top.
The powerful attack somehow failed to render her
unconscious, but it did break her posture enough that he was able to reposition
his shoulder and create the requisite space for continued blood flow to his
brain. Like the trained professional she clearly was, Sasaki released the
choke-hold and attempted to isolate Jericho’s right arm between her iron-hard
thighs while grasping his right palms in her hands and pulling it straight
between her small, firm breasts.
To say he was surprised by her raw strength would have been
an understatement, but he still managed to react quickly enough to grasp his
right wrist with his free hand. Pain rioted up his broken arm, but he managed
to ignore it as he effectively neutralized her unnatural strength by
maintaining a grip on his right wrist. He lifted her into the air and prepared
her for another head-first slam—this one intended to introduce her black-haired
head to the nearby, concrete countertop.
She released her arm-lock just before he had brought her to
the apex of his posture and she stomped down on his chest with her right foot,
driving her stiletto heel into his thick, hard, pectoralis major. But the
footwear, dangerous though it was as an improvised weapon, was unable to break
through his ribcage.
And when her heel dug into his chest, Jericho knew the fight
was finished.
She was too light, and the quarters were too close for her to
use her superior speed and power-to-weight ratio against him. In one, smooth
motion, Jericho wrenched her foot free from his chest and drove her body toward
the floor. As she struck the tiled floor, he kneed her in the midsection with
his left leg hard enough to audibly break several ribs.
A gasp escaped her lips, but Jericho knew this particular
foe was more dangerous than she appeared. So he drove a hellacious, overhand
right down across her jaw, snapping her head to the side with enough force to
possibly kill a normal person of her physique outright. Sasaki’s eyes rolled
around as she staggered into the concrete counter. Her hands flailed about for
an improvised weapon—an eventuality Jericho had already taken into
consideration, having previously placed all such utensils in the cupboards
prior to his target’s entry to the flat.
Jericho reached out with his good hand, grabbed her by the
hair, and slammed her face-first into the concrete countertop once—twice—three
times before her body finally went limp.
He added another pair of bone-shattering introductions of
her previously exquisite features to the kitchen’s prep area before letting her
limp body crumple to the water-covered floor.
She coughed spasmodically and blood poured from her mouth as
Jericho knelt beside her. Using a well-practiced combat maneuver, he snaked his
arms through her own, grasped his hands behind her torso, and broke her back
midway up her chest to permanently immobilize her before propping her up
against the lower tier of cabinets.
“Who sent you?” he growled between ragged, panting breaths.
Deep down, Jericho knew the universe was telling him that he was getting too
old for this shit, but he was too stubborn to listen.
The woman attempted to respond, but all that came out of her
mouth was a muffled croak accompanied by a gurgling stream of blood.
“I need a name, soldier,” he said sharply as he gently
lifted her chin with his left hand and saw the rank tattoo of a Southern Bloc’s
Rikugun Taii—roughly translated to ‘Captain.’ “You’re already dead, Captain
Sasaki, but I’ll spare you an unnecessary hour of suffering if you tell me who
sent you.”
She fixed her eyes on him and for a moment he thought she
would make her final act one of defiance—a gesture he would not have found
altogether less than admirable—but she nodded stiffly as she worked to swallow
a mouthful of blood before spitting a pair of teeth onto the floor.
“You fight well,” she grudged slowly, and her words were
forced and deliberate as she struggled to enunciate with a horribly broken jaw,
“especially for a…normal.”
“The name, Captain?” Jericho said
evenly. If she had any more tricks up her sleeve than what he had seen, she
would have used them already. The conflict was already over; all that remained
was to get whatever he could from her before leaving her broken corpse on the
kitchen floor.
“How?” she challenged as she looked at the wound in his
chest. “How…did you not…die?”
He looked down at the still-painful, but far from
life-threatening hole in his chest, and smirked. “It’s a congenital condition
called situs inversus viscerum,” he explained. “It flipped all of my
organs around and put my heart on the other side of my chest. I discovered I
had this rare inversion of internal anatomical structure twenty years ago…then
I had a few minor alterations made for situations precisely like this one. The
name, Captain?” he pressed again after answering her question.
She seemed to consider refusing, but finally relented,
“Boris Kardashev, Interior advisor to…Philippa’s Governor Keno.” She winced in
obvious pain as she worked her way through the words.
Though it was difficult to be certain due to the tremendous
trauma she had suffered, Jericho saw none of the telltale behavioral or
physiological signs that she was lying. “Thank you, Captain Sasaki,” he said
levelly as he opened a nearby cupboard containing a set of steak knives.
“Let me do it…our way,” she said after fixing him with a
hard look.
He considered the request and nodded, since he had nothing
to lose by doing so. Baxter had already cut off Angelo’s flat from the
building’s security systems, along with all access to outside communications.
In effect, Jericho’s target had locked himself in the perfect cage—a cage which
Jericho had already checked for weapons and found empty.
Jericho placed her hands on her lap and reached up to the
zipper on her neck, and unzipped her skintight, armored bodyglove down past
her belly button to expose her milky-white skin. He noted that her rib cage was
horribly deformed from his earlier knee strike as he laid her belly bare,
before reaching up and taking one of the steak knives in his hand.
He had never actually killed a person using this particular
technique, and while he couldn’t trust her not to turn the weapon against him,
he allowed her to grip the weapon in her own hands while he kept a firm grip on
her wrists. She drove the knife into her belly on the left side of her abdomen,
and to her credit she winced but did not cry out. In a single, quick motion she
drew the blade through her belly and Jericho saw a spray of blood gurgle out of
her abdomen when she successfully severed the abdominal aorta.
The light in Captain Sasaki’s eyes faded after just a few
seconds and then they closed as her body slumped in a scene with which Jericho
had become far too familiar. After he was satisfied she was truly dead, Jericho
deliberately placed her hands on the hilt of the knife to give her remains some
measure of repose. He then stood and made his way to the parlor to retrieve
Captain Sasaki’s tanto before proceeding to his target’s bedroom door, knowing
that the heavy lifting of this particular Adjustment was already done.
He tapped out the security override sequence Baxter had
relayed to him into the door’s access console, and the mag-locks disengaged
causing the door to swing open into the bedroom.
Mr. Janus Angelo, the head of the New Lincoln branch of the
Environmental Protection Bureau, was cowering in the corner of his room in a
puddle of his own fluids.
“Mr. Angelo,” Jericho said in a measured tone as he entered
the windowless room with Captain Sasaki’s blade in hand, “I’m here to enact the
will of the people you’ve betrayed.”
Angelo’s eyes were wide as saucers, and he shook his head so
rapidly that his jowls jiggled comically. “B-b-betrayed?!” he blurted, his
voice half-indignant and half-terrified. “I am no t-t-traitor,” he protested
quickly, “you have the wrong man!”
Jericho produced the Timent Electorum Mark, the insignia of
his ‘office,’ such as it was, and placed it on the bed before tapping the iconic
all-seeing eye depicted at its center. This caused a small, meter-tall
holographic image to appear, which was populated with images and statistics
which Jericho and Baxter had gathered over the previous months. “Your signature
is affixed to each of these orders,” Jericho explained, as he had done every
other time the situation had allowed, “is it not?”
Angelo’s fearful, rodent-like eyes flipped back and forth
between Jericho and the holographic image before nodding.
Jericho tapped the concealed button on the edge of the
insignia, and the previous images were replaced with those of an industrial
complex, and recognition dawned on Mr. Janus Angelo’s face. “This is the Five
Peaks wind farm, correct?”
“Now…wait just a minute,” Mr. Angelo began, but Jericho continued
with his presentation despite the man’s protestations.
“Four years ago, this facility was deemed hazardous to a
strain of local wildlife,” Jericho pushed on, desiring nothing more than to be
finished with his latest task. “That wildlife—a form of avian best known for
circular patterns of pigmentation displayed on its feathers—was later proven to
have been introduced to the area by acquaintances of yours no more than
eighteen months prior to your office’s order to cease construction on this
vital source of sustainable electricity. Is that correct?”
Angelo began to protest as Jericho flipped to the next pair
of images. The first was a low-tech, solar energy harvesting array while the second
was a picture of Janus Angelo shaking the hand of a well-dressed executive, “I
had no way of knowing—“
“The Five Peaks wind farm failed to deliver its quotient of
power on schedule as a result of your office’s corruption,” Jericho continued
as though the other man had not even spoken. “This required a significant
investment on the part of its backers in order to complete the project without
access to its original source funding. That investment,” he pressed on as a
flood of statistics populated the screen, “forced the backers to consolidate
their other holdings to raise the necessary capital, resulting in the closure
of nearly a dozen of New Lincoln’s industrial entities. This has cost the city
of New Lincoln nearly two billion credits worth of revenue—revenue which now
flows into the coffers of this man, Hisashi Iwakuma, and his Tsushima-based
industrial conglomerate.”
Janus Angelo seemed to have found some much-needed steel for
his spine, as he stood to his feet and leveled an accusing finger at the holographic
image. “I cannot be held responsible for the economic repercussions of carrying
out the charge of my office!” he cried indignantly.
“Indeed…you cannot,” Jericho agreed before flipping to the
last set of images, which were bank records showing literally hundreds of
separate transactions. The transactions were highlighted one by one—and each
was affixed with three, distinct, Judicial Seals of Authenticity—and their
totals were tallied in the lower corner of the screen while a new graphic
showed the planet Virgin, which was quickly criss-crossed by an increasingly
convoluted web of money transfers.
The dazzling display went on for nearly twenty seconds, and
with each new line that sprang up to indicate the origin of the monies which
had been transferred to the accounts—accounts which were then shown to have
been opened by acquaintances of Angelo’s—Janus Angelo wilted. Nearly thirty
seconds after the graphic had begun its impressive, complex display, the source
of the money was shown to have originated from Hisashi Iwakuma’s various
Tsushima-based holdings.
But even that would not have been enough to execute Mr
Angelo for his crimes against the body politic. The final nail in Angelo’s
coffin was the fact that he had physically accepted a collection of rare earth
minerals—minerals which were the real reason Jericho had accepted this
particular Adjustment in the first place. And the final image generated by the
insignia was one of Angelo accepting the small pouch of minerals from Mr.
Matsumoto—the same man Jericho had killed with the kitchen knife in the parlor.
The projector then went dark, and Jericho allowed the
silence to linger for several moments before taking a step forward. “You have
grandchildren…yes?”
Angelo, whose eyes were now misty as his hands moved to
cover his mouth, nodded in resigned affirmation.
“If you give me a name I can use, I’ll let you say goodbye
to them before they learn the truth about their grandfather’s betrayal from the
news feeds,” Jericho promised. He neither relished nor recoiled from this part
of the job; it simply was what it was. Angelo had evidence which Jericho
desperately needed for his primary assignment, and he had little doubt that
Captain Sasaki and her chess-playing cohort had, in fact, been sent to kill
Angelo before someone of Jericho’s ilk could reclaim said evidence. Like
everything else in life, Jericho had been in a race against those who would
deny him what he needed—and like every other race of his adult life, Jericho
had won.
“I…I…” he began as his lip began to quiver uncontrollably,
and he nearly fell over when his legs threatened to give out but managed to
lower himself onto the edge of the bed. He then began to sob uncontrollably.
“One luxury I cannot provide you is time, Director Angelo,”
Jericho said impatiently as he took another step forward. “Make your choice and
do so now.”
Angelo looked up, and Jericho knew the man before him was
already broken. So he relaxed his stance fractionally as he waited for the
other man to give him what he had come for. “I…I only dealt with one man,” he
explained tremulously.
“That may not be good enough,” Jericho warned.
Angelo nodded quickly and stood a bit too abruptly for
Jericho, who closed the distance between them with a single, long, stride and
pressed the flat of the blade against the man’s throat. Angelo looked
absolutely terrified as he audibly soiled himself, before pointing to the far
wall—a wall which Baxter’s investigations had proven housed a cleverly-designed
safe.
Jericho withdrew the blade from the man’s neck and took a
half step back, ready to act at the first sign of betrayal. The truth was
Jericho had come to Angelo’s flat with two purposes in mind. The first was to
make the Adjustment for the RL it would accrue to his record as an Adjuster,
and the second was to retrieve the contents within Angelo’s safe. Without the
information Angelo had it may have been impossible to proceed with his future
plans—and those plans were absolutely vital to the security of the planet, the
System, and even the entire Sector.
Angelo slowly made his way to the wall before pressing his
hands against seemingly random points on the wall. A soft, blue glow emanated
from eye level before him, and he placed his face near the mundane-looking
surface for several seconds before the panel in front of his face slid to the
side and revealed a long, shallow recess which ran parallel to the surface of
the wall.
Jericho, careful to keep himself in position to react to the
man’s potential treachery, stood at his shoulder and watched Angelo withdraw a
slender data crystal. It was a rare form of data storage which had fallen out
of favor due to its incompatibility with recent quick-scanning technology. But it was durable and, once written, its contents could not be overwritten or modified
in any way short of physical destruction.
Angelo turned and, in a somewhat surprising display of
resolve, said, “I will give you the passcode if you don’t make my crimes
public.”
Jericho hesitated. He suspected that Wladimir could crack
the encoding given enough time, but that would likely take weeks. There was,
however, nothing explicitly stating that an Adjuster was required to publicly
produce the evidence which condemned one of the Timent Electorum’s Adjustments…
Jericho nodded and held out his hand, “I can do that.”
Angelo nodded, pointing to the now-opened safe. “The mineral
bars are there; take them and do as you would with them.”
Jericho narrowed his eyes. It was explicitly forbidden for
an Adjuster to accept a material bribe in any form, and Angelo’s offer was
clearly such a bribe.
“You may dispose of them as you see fit,” the
soon-to-be-former Director said hastily, “but they will provide a motive for my
murder.”
Jericho considered it and—though doing so was solidly in the
dark grey zone of what was or wasn’t permissible—he nodded in agreement and
gestured for him to withdraw the small pouch of material.
When Angelo gave him the pouch, Jericho looked inside to see
a small series of tiny, geometrically perfect, hexagonal rods in a clear,
plastic case. Rare minerals were valuable, but these were likely untraceable
and had already been meticulously crafted so as to be incorporated quickly into
high-end electronic devices.
He neither knew, nor cared to know, what purpose Angelo may
have had for them since they were nothing but evidence in Jericho’s eyes. So he
took them out of their plastic case and crushed them one by one, destroying the
majority of their value in the process. When he was finished, the pouch was
worth little more than its weight in industrial grade diamond, which was almost
nothing—except in the hands of an examiner with equipment which could verify
where those minerals had come from, and when they had been mined. Jericho already knew the answer to both of
those questions, but until that moment he had lacked the actual evidence needed
to proceed with an Adjustment he had been working toward for decades.
Jericho placed the pouch in the same pocket which had held
his T.E. insignia and withdrew a small recording device, which he gave to
Angelo. “Make it quick,” he urged, and the other man nodded as he wiped the
tears from his face.
A few minutes later, after composing himself, Angelo
recorded a farewell letter to his grandchildren—whose names were Victoria and
Michael—before finishing and handing the device back to Jericho, who watched
the affair with more than casual interest. Jericho had never fathered children
and, though his duty required him to rob those children of their grandfather’s
presence, he knew that if he failed to carry out his charge he would be robbing
thousands of others of the lives they might have otherwise made for themselves
due to the corruption for which people like Angelo were responsible.
“Thank you…” he said, and Jericho knew the man’s resolve
would not hold for much longer, “the passcode is a simple alphanumeric composed
of my birthdate followed by my grandmother’s maiden name, scrambled by the
seventeen standard Virgin chronometers’ individual variances, measured to the
twentieth decimal, prior to their collective weekly reset.”
Jericho had no idea what any of that meant, but he had
recorded the entire scene via his goggles’ video pickup and had confidence that
Benton would know how to decipher it. “Are you ready?” he asked evenly.
Angelo took a deep, measured breath and nodded as he closed
his eyes. Jericho ended his life with a quick, precise, stab through the
brainstem that his mark never even heard coming.
Captain Sasaki’s knife, while not a monomolecular blade, did
the job better than any other implement Jericho had used in recent months and
Director Angelo’s body fell to the ground in a silent heap. In the moment that
he fell, Angelo looked for all the world like a puppet whose strings had been
cut—and it was an all-too familiar sight to the experienced assassin.
With his grizzly task complete, Jericho wiped the blade
clean and produced a neatly-folded collar-to-toes overcoat which, when
compressed, was no larger than his fist. He removed his goggles and hood before
tucking them into his coat’s large pockets.
After donning his new outfit, he exited the flat, made his
way to the emergency escape which Baxter had indeed unlocked for him, and used
it to disappear in the crowded streets of New Lincoln.






Chapter
VI: The Guardian Angel 
Not ten minutes after Jericho had left Angelo’s flat, an
Okavango DOT (which initials stood for ‘Delivered On
Time,’ the company’s infamous and much-lampooned slogan) Net delivery
hover-drone appeared before him.
“Hi, handsome! You have a delivery
from,” the drone purred in an overly sexual voice as the image of a
ridiculously sexualized schoolgirl ‘uniform’-wearing woman appeared on the
two-dimensional display built into the meter-wide drone’s front. The screen
flickered and the woman’s voice changed to that of Wladimir Benton, who
snapped, “Bitch, you gotta learn to check yo’ damned mail!”
Despite the crass language, Jericho was well-pleased to have
received the package so promptly. He would normally have ignored the drone
until it went away, but he had been expected such a package and even without
the overt greeting message he would have recognized this particular drone as a
very cleverly-designed fake of the global retail giant’s own delivery devices.
This particular drone was one of Wladimir ‘AJ’ Benton’s…one
might say ‘pets,’ and Jericho complied by providing the requested signature by
placing his hand into the cavity and gripping the contoured handle. Doing so
provided a physical impression of his handprint while also providing other
data, like body temperature, heart rate, oxygenation level in the blood, and
God only knew what else.
There was a loud, moaning sound from the drone’s speakers
and the woman’s image flickered briefly before she bent over, exposing far more
cleavage than Jericho believed to be biologically possible for a human woman to
possess. “Thanks for the squeeze, handsome,” she said with a wink after licking
her lips suggestively, “please…take anything you like.”
Rolling his eyes in irritation, Jericho waited for the
storage compartment to open and, when it did, he took a small briefcase from
the drone. There was one other item inside, but he knew it had not yet reached
its intended destination so he turned to continue down the sidewalk.
“Aww,” the drone pouted as the image of the woman folded her
arms theatrically, “just like a man…gets what he wants and leaves without so
much as a kind word.”
Jericho couldn’t help himself from chuckling as he turned
around and nodded. “Thank you, Eve,” he said with a tip of an imaginary cap. “Say
‘hello’ to the big guy for me.”
Eve’s image seemed ready to burst with joy as the pupils of
her eyes turned into little, pink, Cupid hearts before the screen was filled
with similar images. “Will do, babe. But seriously…we
have got to stop meeting like this; people are going to talk. I have a
reputation to consider!”
Jericho shook his head and made a ‘shoo’ gesture. “Get out
of here before I report being sexually harassed by a delivery drone,” he said
with a hollow grin.
“Mmm…baby,” she purred, her image leaning forward to expose
her beyond-ample cleavage, “if I was sexually harassing you—“
He held up a hand haltingly. “Another time, Eve,” he cut her
off before tapping the briefcase and wincing when he moved his still-broken
left arm in an inadvisable manner. “Work to do.”
She pouted again briefly before sighing as the drone began
to drift up into the designated altitude for such devices to operate above when
not making deliveries. “All work and no play…” she chided before turning around
and flipping up her skirt, exposing even more pink hearts on—and around—what
appeared to be Benton’s idea of a woman’s underwear. She winked, blew a kiss,
and then disappeared from the screen as the drone sped off until it was once
again out of sight.
Jericho made his way down the street until finding a small
caf
Inside was the usual assortment of material necessary for a
Guardian Angel operation, including new identification, untraceable credit
chits of sufficient value to book passage off-world, and a link pad similar to
the one he had destroyed after executing the Cantwell Adjustment. He activated
the link and input his usual passkey, which was accepted, and found himself looking at multiple video feeds of a modest
apartment complex which made Mr. Angelo’s residential building look like a
getaway resort built for the Old Nobility.
The individual unit floor plans were no more than six feet
by twelve feet with ceilings of varying heights. The extra headroom required to
go from a four foot ceiling to a six foot one—which would have still been too
short for Jericho to stand to his full height—increased the cost of the unit by
fifty percent since the rental price was based almost entirely on displaced
volume.
It was one of the things Jericho had come to despise about the
old Imperium’s obsession with cramming as many people as possible into as small
of an area as possible, but he had made his peace with such incomprehensible
realities years earlier.
He scanned his way through the various feeds, most of which
appeared to have been hijacked directly from the building’s own internal
security system. But three of the feeds were marked with icons indicating they
were being delivered via off-grid, wireless bugs. The interesting thing was
that those three feeds had not been placed by Wladimir, as would have been
normal for a Guardian Angel operation—he had apparently discovered that their
next ‘target’ was already under covert surveillance.
AJ had apparently intercepted those feeds without making
anyone the wiser. He was, in all likelihood, the foremost hacker in the
Virgin System with only Jericho’s immediate ‘superior’ in the T.E. serving as a
competitor for the title. Benton had evaded capture for nearly two decades of
wreaking continuous mayhem, so at this point in his life Jericho put nothing
past the man. The mayhem Benton wrought was something which Jericho had come to
depend upon during his mid-life career choice as a T.E. Adjuster, and though he
had absolutely no idea how his top operator did what he did, he was grateful
they were on the same side—despite the other man’s unusual, and often outright
insulting, verbiage.
A flashing red circle appeared on one of the external video
feeds and Jericho expanded the window while setting the targeted individual to
track mode in the pad’s software. As she moved from one camera’s zone of sight
to another, the feed morphed using a digitally-rendered, three-dimensional
‘panning’ effect which made it seem as though there was actually just one
camera and it was following her.
The hair on her head had been cropped so closely to her
skull that Investigator Masozi would have appeared bald were it not for the
fact that her face and neck were covered with a sheen
of sweat while her head glistened the way that only short, wet hair did. She
was wearing exercise clothing, so it did not require much deductive reasoning
to determine she had just completed a workout—a fairly intense one, judging by
her stiff gait—and was heading home for some sleep. The sun would be up in less
than an hour so Jericho knew he needed to act quickly.
But, as was so often the case, he also knew what would come
next was not entirely within his control.


Masozi took the seven flights of stairs up to her tiny, one
room studio flat rather than ride the elevator. This was atypical for her, but
she still felt she needed time to process the night’s events. Besides, if there
was one thing Masozi hated, it was the idea that she was predictable.
Thoughts of joining the Interplanetary Investigative Unit
danced in her head, and if she was honest with herself it was like a dream come
true. She had never heard of anyone ascending to the IIU so quickly in their
career and while Masozi knew there were precious few Investigators of her
ability, she also knew she was no scion of the field. It was that fact—and only
that fact—which had nurtured the seed of doubt which had taken root in her mind
after seeing her Chief tamper with a crime scene and later attempt to explain
the action.
His stated reasoning had been sound enough, and Agent Stiglitz
quite clearly was with the IIU—or, at the very least, some other
high-level agency with similar, System-wide jurisdiction.
But Masozi just could not shake the notion as she arrived at
her flat’s door that there was something wrong with all of it. She decided she
would sleep on it, since four hours of continuous exercise at the gym had done
little to ease her troubled mind.
She was, thankfully, one of the few people whose unit’s
ceiling was high enough for her to stand within. At five feet, ten inches tall,
she could even wear her general purpose shoes in the six feet of space her unit
afforded without bumping her head into the ceiling. It was a significant
upgrade over her first ten years in the NLIU, which had seen her living in a
studio with barely four feet of ‘headroom,’ if such a term could actually be
applied to the tiny dimension.
She closed the door behind herself and touched a nearby pad
on the wall, causing the lights to turn on, some of her favorite music to play,
and the standing shower unit to run through its pre-activation routines.
Masozi stripped out of her gym suit and tossed her
sweat-soaked clothing into the hamper before making her way to the shower.
Running water was expensive, so a hot, relaxing shower was a luxury she could
only truly afford twice a week without eating into her food budget.
She let the water cascade over her body as she tried to
imagine the warm droplets of water washing away the troubles of the previous
night. But no matter how long she stood there, or how hard she scrubbed, she
couldn’t escape the feeling that she had somehow already become party to
something reprehensible.
There was a chime from the window of her apartment,
indicating she had a delivery waiting outside. Masozi stopped and tried to
recall whether she had ordered anything, but then she remembered that her
cousins had taken a trip off-world recently. It was the only reason she could
imagine for receiving a delivery, so she turned off the water and wrapped a
towel around her body as she passed her hand over the window—which was actually
a part of the shower stall—and caused it to turn transparent.
Outside was an Okavango delivery drone, which was itself a
common sight on her world. Okavango had revolutionized several aspects of urban
retail not long after the wormhole had collapsed, when Virgin had been
violently cut off from the rest of the Imperium—which many believed was a
diving blessing.
There was a short, gruesome series of local conflict known
two centuries later as the Forge Wars, and out of those wars had sprung the
Sector Government of Chimera. While there were nowhere near enough worlds in
the Chimera Cluster—as it was properly known in the Imperial records—to
classify the group as a Sector in its own right, its surviving inhabitants had
realized they did not possess sufficient wealth to mount a meaningful
expedition to return to Imperial space. The realization that they were utterly
cut off, unless and until the Imperium decided to re-establish a wormhole
somewhere within the Cluster, had caused some to despair in the years and
decades that followed the collapse of the wormhole. But most of Chimera’s
citizens had embraced their newfound freedom from the yoke of Imperial taxes,
the all-seeing eyes of the Imperial Aristocracy, and the uncontested might of
the Imperial Navy. The Virgin System,
and the rest of the newly-founded Sector, had almost certainly benefited from
the wormhole’s collapse two centuries earlier.
She opened the window and the drone moved fractionally
closer before its screen activated, revealing an incredibly odd sight: a
red-haired, hyper-voluptuous woman wearing little more than a pair of
strings—which thankfully covered her digital nipples—and a ridiculously short,
red, skirt with white polka dots.
“Hi, beautiful,” the image said with a wink, and Masozi
furrowed her brow in confusion. She wondered if this was some sort of a gag…or
maybe she was on one of those hidden camera shows? “It looks like you’ve got a
secret admirer,” the overtly sexualized image said with a giggle, “and I can
see why with such beautiful skin…and that incredible definition…I’m so
jealous,” the drone said with a perfectly practiced pout.
“I’m sorry…can I help you?” Masozi asked, becoming
increasingly annoyed with not only the ridiculous scene but also her reaction
to it. I must look like such a fool, she thought bitterly.
“Of course, sweetie,” the drone said as she gave a thumbs-up
sign, causing parts of her body to jiggle in ways that likely defied gravity,
“you give me a palm scan and I’ll give you a surprise!”
Masozi considered the matter, then reluctantly did as the
drone suggested by grasping the scanning aperture and squeezing it like she had
done hundreds of times before.
The image on the screen shuddered and the speakers let out a
loud—unmistakably erotic—moan, causing Masozi to withdraw her hand in surprise.
The woman’s image returned, except her virtual hair was a mess and her virtual
makeup had been smeared all over her virtual face. “Mmmm,” she—no, it,
purred, “was that as good for you as it was for me?”
Masozi rolled her eyes, becoming increasingly certain that
she was on a gag show of some kind and she let out an obligatory laugh as the
delivery drone’s cargo compartment slid open, revealing a box measuring
approximately one inch by three inches by six inches. She took the box from the
compartment and her mood turned slightly more serious as she turned it over and
found no markings of any kind.
But that’s illegal, she thought to herself. She, and
every other citizen of Virgin, knew that all parcels in transit were
required to bear physical tags demonstrating their points of origin, intended
routes, and other itinerant information for legal and security purposes.
“See you around, sugar,” the image on the drone’s screen
said before blowing a virtual kiss and disappearing as the drone gently drifted
down and out of sight.
Masozi closed the window and examined the box more closely.
It was completely unremarkable and, after a long moment of contemplation, she
opened it to peruse its contents.
What she saw took the breath from her lungs: it was an
insignia of the Timent Electorum! Rather, it was a decal which was made in the
image of the insignia, and she picked it up to examine it more closely. The
reverse side was like any cheap decal, with a peel-away adhesive pad which had
two words written on it:
Pick up.
She nearly dropped the box when it began to vibrate in her
hands. After a moment she realized it had not been the box which had vibrated,
but something that was inside the box.
Beneath where the decal had been was a pair of objects: one
was a cheap, civilian-class earpiece communication device, and the other was a
similarly cheap link pad. The earpiece had been vibrating, and there was an
icon on the screen of the link pad which showed an unread message had been
received by it.
Masozi thought very hard about her next actions and decided
that regardless of what she meant to do in the future, her best option was to
do answer the call.
She placed the earpiece in her left ear and activated it after
taking a deep breath. “Hello?” she said.
Silence was her only reply for several seconds, and just
when she was about to deactivate the device a man’s deep, tense voice spoke,
“Investigator, I’m glad you took my advice. Activate the pad and open the message’s
attached file—do so quickly since we don’t have much time.”
“Who is this?” she asked warily, knowing she needed to get
as much information as possible while she had this person on the line.
“You have forty six seconds before I will have taken a very real
risk and accomplished nothing but a short conversation with a very fresh—very
stupid—corpse, Investigator,” the voice replied harshly. “If I wanted
you dead you would already be so—thirty eight, thirty seven, thirty
six—”
She had to admit that he had a point, so she reluctantly
opened the file contained in the link’s lone message and the screen showed
dozens of security camera feeds. The feeds cycled quickly through until stopped
on what appeared to be a maintenance room somewhere in her residential building.
“Good,” the man’s voice said as he ceased his countdown,
“what do you see?”
Masozi looked intently at the image and, at first, saw
nothing. Then she saw that one of the panels appeared to have been tampered
with, and her throat tightened when she realized it was the control panel for
her quadrant of the building.
The image shifted around quickly in a strange,
pseudo-realistic panning shot until it came to rest on a man’s motionless body
which was propped up against the wall. She gasped when she recognized the man
as one of her building’s maintenance staff—she had even taken a somewhat
regrettable tumble with him a year earlier when she’d had too much to drink
after a high-profile case’s successful conclusion.
“Tom,” she breathed, trying to fathom why someone would kill
a superintendent of a relatively poor building like hers.
“I have reason to believe that your quadrant of the building
is about to be destroyed,” the man said, as though he was speaking about the
evening’s weather forecast. “You have only one hope if you want to survive.”
“Who are you?” she demanded as suspicions swirled in her
head.
“You know who I am, Investigator,” the man said gravely, and
her eyes widened as she concluded she was speaking with Mayor Cantwell’s
assassin, “now jump.”
“Jump?!” she blurted.
“Yes, Investigator,” he said far-too-calmly. “If you don’t
want to die in twelve seconds, I suggest you jump out the window—the sooner you
jump, the higher your chance of survival. Eight seconds; you should be able to
smell the gases by now.”
Now that he mentioned it, she did smell something that
seemed like methane. Her building used it for quick heating of water, like for
her shower, and apparently it had somehow been plumbed into the air cycling
system.
Having only a few seconds, she performed some quick math and
felt her heart stop. The evidence did, in fact, seem to suggest that there was
enough gas flooding her room—and possibly adjacent rooms as well—to kill her
and everyone in her part of the building.
She swung open the window and, after hesitating for a
moment, leapt from the window and braced herself. As she fell she became
absolutely certain that her lapse in judgment would amount to little more than
a footnote in the next shift’s incident log at the NLIU unit assigned to her
zone of New Lincoln.
But then two things happened. There was a massive ‘whump’ of
hot air behind her which briefly deafened her and splayed her arms and legs out
to either side violently as she fell, face-down, toward the ground. The wind
whipped around her naked body as the ground approached far-too-rapidly, and she
closed her eyes in preparation for the end of her life.
Then she landed and felt the wind knocked from her lungs,
causing her to gasp in agony as she struggled to regain her breath. But Masozi
realized after a second that only her torso had ‘landed,’ and when she opened
her eyes she looked down to see that she had been ‘caught’ by an Okavango DOT
Net delivery drone—the same drone which had delivered the package to her room!
“Sweetie…we have got to talk about your diet,” the
drone’s ultra-feminine voice said as the drone struggled to adjust its
overloaded trajectory, but it somehow managed to keep them from crashing into
the street below as it began to gently gain altitude.
The fact that she was naked could not have been further from
her mind as Masozi looked back up to see a thick, black cloud of smoke belching
out of her apartment unit—as well as the adjacent six windows on her floor. The
walls separating their units had been made of a cheap, lightweight, soundproof
material which would have been shredded by the explosion. Thankfully, the other
quadrants of the building would likely have been unaffected by the event, since
even cheap concrete would have likely contained the blast.
She would have mourned her neighbors, but she had more
important things on her mind. “Where are you taking me?” she demanded.
“Keep your clothes on, honey,” the drone quipped before
giggling uncontrollably. “Get it? ‘Keep your clothes on’?! I crack myself up…”
“I’m not amused,” Masozi shouted as they slewed across the
intersection at Seventeenth and King.
“Trust me, babe; this has nothing to do with your
amusement,” the drone said in a surprisingly serious tone. “Just hang on and
we’ll put you down someplace safe.”
Masozi only then noticed that two of the drone’s four lift
units appeared to be off-line, and she quickly concluded that it shouldn’t have
been able to stay airborne with her as a payload—much less perform a climb,
however gradual that climb might be. The only thing she knew with absolute
certainty was that this was not an ordinary delivery drone.
A few minutes later, Masozi was struck by just how few
people looked up and saw her astride the errant Okavango delivery device. She
only saw two such people do so during her relatively quick trip across the
district: one had been drunk and gave the sight rather less thought than it
deserved, and the other had been a child who had innocently waved at her after
realizing that a person was riding one of the innumerable, unmanned drones
flying forty feet above the street.
She even soared over three sets of patrolling peace
officers, none of which noticed her or the malfunctioning delivery drone with
only two functioning lift units.
“Here we go, sweet cheeks,” the drone purred as they slewed
into a blind alley in a particularly seedy part of the district. “As always, be
sure to leave your feedback if you enjoyed our service,” the drone said as
‘she’ set Masozi down low enough that she could jump off the makeshift platform
of the drone’s back, “and if you didn’t, we’d suggest you keep that opinion to
yourself! Gratuities are greatly appreciated, of course,” the drone continued
as Masozi got to her feet, and it turned to display its utterly ridiculous,
mostly-naked, avatar displayed on the screen. The figure was now sucking
suggestively on a digital lollipop between utterances, further reinforcing
Masozi’s belief that it was nothing but a frustrated person’s digitized wet
dream, “So if you’ve got any spare indium or tantalum wedged between the
cushions, dig it out and drop it in the tip jar!”
“What are you talking about?” Masozi asked in utter
bewilderment, feeling more than a little vulnerable in such a dangerous part of
town without a weapon—let alone without any clothes.
“Forget it, hun,” the drone said with an exaggerated
eye-roll as she made a whoosh gesture over her virtual pigtails with her
free hand, “inside joke. See ya; wouldn’t wanna be ya!”
The drone then rose into the air, causing Masozi to yell,
“Where are you going?” She quickly realized how stupid she must have sounded,
but she was not in the habit of wandering into the seedy corners of New Lincoln
in her birthday suit so she forgave herself the ill-considered query.
“People to see, things to do,” the drone’s avatar replied
with a wink before adopting a thoughtful look as it continued to rise and
adding, “strike that…reverse it. Toodles!”
The drone then made good on its word and sped off in an
atypical direction for a delivery drone, which Masozi realized was probably to
be expected considering the strange machine’s obviously unique programming.
Then she heard a low-pitched whirring from the blind end of
the alley, and she turned to see a two person hover-bike’s illuminators
activate. The conveyance slowly moved toward her and she held her hand up to
shade her eyes as she moved to the side in case the vehicles operator decided
to gun it and try to run her down.
But the operator did no such thing, and slowly pulled up
beside her until she could see that he was wearing a helmet which concealed his
facial features. It was obviously a man, given his physique and posture, and
his visor flipped up to reveal a pair of grey-blue eyes beneath short,
flat-topped salt-and-pepper hair. He had a strong, square jaw and looked to be
in his late forties or early fifties.
The man tilted his head toward the back of the bike, “Put it
on.”
She looked and saw a helmet identical to the one the rider
was wearing, and stuffed inside the helmet was what looked to be a form-fitting
bodyglove. It wasn’t as good as real clothing, but it was comparable to a
far-too-revealing workout suit. So she did as he suggested and climbed into the
garment as the mysterious man’s eyes were fixed on the mouth of the alley.
“Who are you?” Masozi asked after donning the singlet. Her
confidence was measurably improved now that her every inch wasn’t exposed to
the night air—and whatever else might be lurking in the shadows.
“I’ll answer that, and as many of your other questions I
can, but right now you need to get on the bike and wear the helmet,” he said
shortly. “They were tracking Eve visually and if we linger too long they’ll
lock onto us with one of their stealth drones. A friend has a safe house in
town but we have to leave—now!”
If not for the events of the previous twelve hours, she
would have never accepted his offer. But Masozi was smart enough to know that
she had gotten caught up in something much bigger than a simple murder
investigation, and it seemed this man knew more about it than anyone else she
had spoken to—except perhaps Agent Stiglitz and Chief Afolabi.
But for some reason, she trusted this man more than she
trusted them…and that realization shook her to the very core. “How can I trust
you?” she asked after the silence had grown intolerable and she failed to
arrive at a conclusion.
“You’re going to get on the bike, so let’s just get it over
with,” he snapped.
“I am?” she challenged stiffly. Who is this man to think
he can predict what I will do? she thought,
clenching her jaw tightly.
The man nodded. “Human psychology is about as mysterious to
me as a grilled cheese sandwich, Investigator; your curiosity has gotten the
better of you and you’re smart enough to know you’ve got no choice but
to get on if you want to live,” he said before his helmet’s visor slid back
down into place and concealed his features. He then added, speaking through the
helmet’s built-in speakers, “So do us both a favor?”
She very much disliked his insinuation that he had somehow
‘solved’ her in just a few seconds, but Masozi knew he was right. Her
curiosity—which had formed the foundation of Masozi’s entire life’s
path—demanded that she follow the deadly mystery she had inadvertently stumbled
into, so she put the helmet on and swung her leg over the seat of the bike before
gripping the bars to either side of her butt for stability.
“Who are you?” she asked via their helmet-to-helmet com-link
as the bike’s motivators whirred to full power.
“My name’s Jericho,” he replied, “and in a few hours I’ll be
the only person in this city who doesn’t want you dead.”
He gunned the throttle and the whiplash nearly knocked her
from the bike, but she recovered in time to clamp her thighs down on the seat
as she leaned forward to counteract their acceleration.
The hover-bike carried them out onto the road, and they set
off at the maximum speed limit toward the city center as the first rays of the
sun began to creep over the horizon.






Chapter
VII: Haven 
They cruised through the streets of New Lincoln for half an
hour until they had crossed town and found themselves at the city’s seaport.
Masozi had taken that time to compose herself, and she had managed to get her
mind wrapped around the sequence of events which had led her to her current
situation.
The bike came to a near one of the city’s many piers and her
helmet’s built-in com-link activated with a short burst of static, “Inside your
left hip pocket is an ident chip and a handful of credit chits.”
She had already discovered those items in her bodyglove’s
pocket on the trip across town, so she replied, “Whose are they?”
“Yours,” he replied tersely as he gestured to a massive,
ocean-going cargo ship at the end of the nearest pier, prompting her to
dismount the bike. “Your name is Helena Pendergast; you’re a harbormaster’s
agent who’s about to conduct a series of spot inspections on a handful of
random cargo containers,” he explained. “Once aboard you should make your way
to container EIV-1138 down in the hold. Wait for me inside.”
She removed her helmet and took another look at the ship.
Its name was the Esmerelda Emp, and while it was nearly half a
kilometer long, it had clearly seen better days. Its gunwales were marked by
long, meter-wide streaks of rust which ran from the deck to the waterline, and
its freeboard plates had clearly been patched dozens of times with no apparent
consideration given to the vessel’s aesthetics.
“Won’t they assign someone to keep tabs on me?” she asked
guardedly. What he was suggesting violated at least a dozen felony-class
statutes and, if a capricious judge decided to throw the book at her, she could
be facing up to forty years in a penal colony if caught.
The rider shook his head. “The captain is expecting you.
He’ll make you present your papers before making a few…choice observations. But
afterward he’ll give you the time and latitude you need to get where you’re
going without being followed.”
Masozi took another glance at the ship and knew that
whatever lines she might cross in the future these next few would likely be
only the beginning. “I could turn you in,” she said boldly, wishing to avoid
unnecessary wordplay.
The man’s visor flipped up and she saw a bemused look on his
face. “You could,” he agreed evenly, “and the truth is that I’ve already made
my most valuable resources—among them my own life—vulnerable to such a gesture
on your part. In fact,” he said almost playfully as he leaned across the
antique-style handlebars, “after what I’ve just told you, I suspect that my
apprehension would be of secondary value to your superiors compared to the
apprehension of the man waiting for you on that ship.”
She shook her head and felt her jaw tighten, “Why would you
tell me that?”
He fixed her with a piercing gaze, and for a moment his
blue-grey eyes almost distracted her from the matter at hand. There was
something penetrating about his eyes, and whatever it was sent shivers down her
spine. “Because, as I already told you,” he said after the silence had grown
deafening, “we both know you need to follow this thing at least a little
while longer before making a decision. Oh, and one more thing,” he added as he
flipped a small box from his pocket, which she easily caught, “tell Benton to
take a look at that—and that I’ll bring dinner if he can give me a breakdown by
sunset.”
With that, he re-powered the bike’s motivators and lowered
his visor before speeding down the dockside street. He disappeared from sight
just a few seconds later as he turned back toward the city’s center, and Masozi
was left with a choice that she was forced to admit was no choice at all.
During the course of the ride across town, she had run
several possible scenarios through her head—and each of them had left her with
nothing but more doubts than she had held just a few hours earlier.
Much as it pained her to believe it, there were two logical
conclusions given the available data. The first was that ‘Jericho’—if that was
even his true name—had engineered each and every event of the previous
night—including the Mayor’s assassination and subsequent explosion in the
apartment complex—in order to gain her complicity, if not her outright trust.
But to her analytical mind, that possibility seemed too elaborate. The cold
truth was that while such a scenario would serve her ego and vanity by
suggesting there was something special about her, she knew that was far from
likely.
That left the second possibility: that either one, or both,
of Chief Afolabi and Agent Stiglitz had arranged for the explosion in her
apartment building. That scenario left her feeling the most vulnerable by far…and
the most betrayed, but by whom she still could not determine.
Masozi had dedicated her entire life to the service of her
fellow citizens, and believed with every fiber of her being that the Great
Collapse—the negative term given to the wormhole’s sudden and inexplicable
failure by those inhabitants of the Sector who regarded the event as a
harbinger of the end times—had been the greatest thing to ever happen to her
world. Her sentiment was the norm for a citizen of the Chimera Sector, and the
populace had collectively adopted the term ‘Great Collapse’ in order to embrace
the idea of change within their newfound society.
In fact, not only had her planet—one of three so-called
‘Core Worlds’ in the Chimera Sector’s Union of Worlds government—had been re-named
‘Virgin’ shortly after the wormhole had collapsed, but it had also established
a new calendar beginning with the failure of that conduit, which had once been
considered of the utmost importance to their way of life.
The name ‘Virgin’ had celebrated their independence from
what many believed to be a tyranny of unfathomable proportions which had been
perpetuated by the aristocratic nobility which maintained absolute control over
every level of the Imperium.
In the immediate aftermath of the Great Collapse, a
revolution unlike any in recent history had taken place which saw the vast
majority of the Imperial Nobility overthrown. Those nepotistic bodies had been
replaced with free elections, along with a newly-crafted Bill of Rights, which
would ensure that the errors of the past did not repeat themselves on Virgin or
the other worlds of the Chimera Sector.
That Bill of Rights—in which the Timent Electorum was given
absolute, immutable primacy—was meant to act as a guardian of civil liberties
against corrupt, tyrannical, or treasonous officials no matter how they came to
power. The cold, harsh reality was that every death which had been attributed
to the T.E.’s actions had boosted community confidence in the government to
truly unprecedented levels, and that faith in their unified cause had led the
citizens of Chimera Sector to not only survive, but to thrive, despite their
technological shortcomings.
And now, in the face of what appeared to be an
interplanetary conspiracy aimed to obfuscate the truth of the T.E.’s actions—to
say nothing of the fact that those same conspirators may have attempted to
murder Masozi simply for trying to do her job—she was unable to ratify any
course of action that did not involve doing as Jericho had suggested and
boarding the oceanic freighter.
“I am not predictable,” she growled as she made her
way to one of the personnel boarding ramps, where an armored guard stood vigil
on the other side. Masozi took a deep breath as she flashed her false documents
after setting foot on the gangway, “Agent Helena Pendergast; I’m here to
conduct an inspection of this vessel by order of the harbormaster.”
The guard narrowed his eyes as he appraised her documents.
“There’s nothing in the book,” he said stiffly after he had given her identification
a lengthy appraisal, “request denied.”
“I have seven other vessels to check before lunch,” she
snapped irritably, sliding easily into the role of an irritated
bureaucrat—mostly because it was one with which she was intimately familiar,
after spending so many years as a Junior Investigator. She gave a pointed look
at his name badge, “Merchantman T.J. Jackson; should I remember your name in my
report, or are you going to let me on so I can conduct my inspection sometime
before the primary burns out?”
He gave her an impassive look as his hands lowered to his
hips—on which a pair of high-powered pistols rested. “You can remember whatever
you want, ma’am,” he said in a tone just above a growl, “but if you
cross this threshold without authorization I’ll turn you into scraper chum.”
The Merchantman’s response had not been altogether
unexpected, but Masozi knew that if she was to gain access to the vessel on
guile alone she couldn’t be seen to back down from the rough display. She held
his gaze as she leaned over the edge of the ramp to look at the water below.
‘Scrapers,’ as he had called them, were a whole family of
marine wildlife which lived near busy maritime ports such as this one. They
were more or less a kind of stingray, except somewhere on their evolutionary
path they had incorporated iron alloys into the teeth and bones of their
immensely powerful jaws. As such they were capable of tearing anything short of
industrial grade materials apart, given enough time and determination.
“Was that your best threat, Merchantman?” she asked
irritably with an emphatic roll of her eyes.
“Not a threat, ma’am,” he replied with a fractional shake of
his large, square, head, “a guarantee.”
“You should probably get your captain on the line,” she
suggested with narrowed eyes, “if you have any desire to retain your job—let
alone your freedom.”
Jackson tensed and, for a moment, Masozi thought he would
make a preemptive move of some kind but a hatch behind him swung open with a
clang as it struck the nearby bulkhead. Through the hatch stepped a tall, thin
man who was at least seventy years old. He had a full, white beard and a pair
of cumbersome, external hearing devices mounted where his ears should have
been.
“What’s all this fuss about?” he demanded sharply as he moved
toward the gangway.
“Sorry, Captain,” Merchantman Jackson said without taking
his eyes from Masozi, “but the inspector here doesn’t have an appointment.”
“Oh?” the captain asked gruffly as he snatched the data pad
Jackson had checked earlier from the Merchantman’s belt. He scanned it for
several seconds before giving Masozi a hard look and demanding, “What’s your
name?”
“Hel—“ she began, but was spoken
over by the guard.
“ID says ‘Helena Pendergast’,” Jackson said smartly. “But
I’ve been to every port this side of the Leviathan Sea, and I’ve never heard of
her,” he said as his right hand went to the grip of his pistol.
The captain narrowed his eyes, and Masozi had the sudden
fear that she had fallen into some kind of elaborate trap which would see her body
consumed by the scrapers lingering a few feet beneath the surface of the frigid
water below.
“Ah, yes,” the captain exclaimed, causing both Jackson and
Masozi to jump enough to bring a look of irritation to both of their faces.
“Perkins—that would be, Harbormaster Westerbeke,” he added knowingly, “just
sent over a missive saying we could move the inspection up from this evening if
we were prepared. I approved the change in schedule but failed to update the
ship-wides.”
Jackson’s look of irritation intensified, but he relaxed as
he turned to the captain pointedly. “If I’m supposed to be in charge of
security here, sir, I need to be apprised of any such changes in a timely
manner,” he bit out.
“Quite so, quite so,” the captain agreed before gesturing
for Masozi to board. “Welcome to the Esmerelda Emp, Inspector,” he
said in an overt display of cordiality. “Sooner begun, sooner done.”
Masozi eyed Jackson, who had apparently already deemed her
beneath his notice as his eyes scanned the nearby docks methodically, and took
her first step onto the Esmerelda Emp


“I must apologize for my Chief of Security,” the captain
said after they were out of earshot and had begun to descend a series of
stairwells, “but I fear we can never be too careful when it comes to matters of
privacy. I pay him well to give would-be harassers a good stonewalling, and
he’s yet to fail me in that capacity.”
“He certainly makes an impression,” Masozi agreed, more than
slightly surprised at how the ship’s captain navigated the series of twists,
turns, stairs, and lowlying obstructions like they were not even there as they
moved toward the stern of the ship. He moved like a man half his age and, given
his obviously questionable connections, she doubted the source of his spryness was
a natural one.
“Indeed,” the captain agreed as they came to a large,
reinforced set of hydraulically-powered doors. “You could have gotten down here
via the ladders, but then you might fall and break something—and I’d hate to
try explaining that to our mutual friend,” he said with a wink. He slapped the
activator button beside the doors and they began to slide slowly open as the
large, metal shafts retracted into their respective cylinders. “Third port
stack, second from the top,” he gestured to the right side of the cargo hold.
She nodded by way of acknowledgment and made her way into
the cargo bay, but after just a few steps she got the distinct feeling
something was wrong. Masozi turned to see the captain’s eyes firmly locked onto
her butt, and she felt a pang of relieved irritation at discovering the source
of her unease.
He clucked his tongue wistfully as he tore his gaze from her
far-too exposed physique—which was essentially shrink-wrapped in the blue-black
bodyglove. “No matter how many years I live…it never gets old,” he sighed
before turning and making his way back to the stairwells. His chuckles echoed
through the hold until they grew so weak that the thrum of the various pieces
of machinery aboard the ship drowned them out.
“Act like you’ve gotten some,” Masozi sniped under her
breath as she turned back to the cargo hold and made her way to the indicated
stack of containers. They were mostly cubical, and measured anywhere from three
meters on a side to ten meters, and the one she was to enter was of the latter
variety. Every container in the hold seemed to be covered in graffiti, but she
was certain she had identified the correct one.
She got to the base of the stack and circled it completely,
until concluding there was no apparent way to reach the perilously narrow ledge
formed by the protruding edge of the container below the one she meant to
enter.
But that was no real obstacle, as Masozi had long trained in
gymnastics, kickboxing, and even some urban obstacle coursework which had earned
her a handful of medals in her teens. Since reaching adulthood, she had
maintained her body with at least thirty hours of exercise each week, and it
was essentially the only thing she did when not working a case. The physical
activity always helped her clear her mind and focus on particularly troublesome
problems, so she knew she could scale the forty feet of irregular, metal
surfaces without too much difficulty.
She wrapped her fingers around a half-inch diameter pipe
running vertically along on the side of the lowest container, and tested the
grip her bodyglove’s attached ‘footwear’ provided. She was surprised to find it
behaved essentially as her own amateur rock-climbing gear had done when she had
competed locally in her youth, so she gave a few test steps before scampering
up the six meters of pipe on her way to the ledge some ten meters above where
the pipe made a ninety degree turn.
Masozi shimmied across the pipe for a few feet before
setting her feet beneath her and looking for a handhold above. There was a pair
of box-shaped, metal slots which apparently acted as guides for the locking
mechanisms some of the shipyards employed for transferring the heavy,
cumbersome containers. Without so much as a second thought, she launched
herself upward and reached out for the boxes, grabbing one neatly in each hand
and hauling herself up to a resting position with her feet perched on a series
of regular corrugations not far below the boxes.
She stopped and stretched her legs for a few seconds,
feeling a cramp threaten to seize control of her calf. After a brief rest, the
cramp dissipated and she sighted her next potential anchor point: another pipe,
this one slightly smaller in diameter than the first one, and she gave a
critical look to the brackets holding it to the surface of the container. From
the size of them, the brackets should have been able to hold her weight easily
but there was significant corrosion present on several of them. Still, she
decided to trust they would hold, and she leapt up to grab the pipe at the
furthest edge of her leap’s grip range.
The pipe held at first, but as she was adjusting her grip to
shimmy along the pipe to a nearby half-ladder welded to the surface below her
target ledge, the brackets to her left gave out and the pipe snapped on the far
end.
She risked a look at the ground as she tried to find
something to grab in order to break the potentially lethal fall, but thankfully
the broken end of pipe did not fall more than a few inches. Masozi looked over
to the damaged end and saw that the pipe was actually a conduit, and several
thick electrical wires ran inside it. Those wires, judging by the size of them,
would easily hold her weight.
Taking several deep, calming breaths, she carefully shimmied
over to the ladder and hauled herself up to the second rung. It was a small
matter to scale the ladder to the narrow ledge above, and when she had done so
she took another series of deep, cleansing breaths as she peered over the edge
and realized that there was little doubt she would have been crippled or killed
had she fallen when the pipe broke.
She placed her hand against the door, which still had a
government-mandated clamp locking the door in place. That clamp showed the date
it had been applied, as well as the itinerary of the container in question.
“Finally, some answers,” she muttered as she leaned in to
get a better look at the surprisingly grimy-looking clamp in order to read the
container’s destination. The clamp quite clearly read that container was bound
for Aegis Port City which, for all intents and purposes, was Virgin’s beating
heart. It appeared that the container was scheduled to be offloaded in Aegis in
three weeks’ time, which meant that the Esmerelda Emp would need to
leave sometime in the next few days in order to meet that appointment. Aegis
was on the other side of the Leviathan Sea, and the journey took no less than
seventeen days for a liner of the Esmerelda’s design. But the weather
had already turned for the season, and a few extra days would be required to
ensure a punctual arrival.
Masozi, feeling rather less vulnerable for the first time in
twelve hours since she was finally armed with some measure of useful
information, made a fist and rapped her knuckles against the door panel.
Silence was her only reply for several minutes, so she knocked again. But
again, she received no indication that there was anyone—or anything—inside the
container.
Then there was the whirr of what sounded like an autocannon
spinning up, and she turned in more than a little bit of alarm to see a
military-grade weapon pop out of concealment and train itself on her.
“Whatever it is we don’t want any,” a woman’s voice said
sharply, her voice seeming to originate from the weapon itself. “Go sell it
somewhere else, bake shop.”
“Bake shop?” Masozi repeated, uncertain if she should feel
insulted.
The ‘gun’ sighed, and Masozi thought she recognized the
voice when it said, “You know the list, babe: sweet cheeks, sugar buns, honey
pie, baby cakes, butter face, etc. ad nauseam. Let’s just cut to the chase and
throw the whole bake shop at you in one go,” the woman said cheerfully. “Saves
everyone time, no?”
The autocannon suddenly spun up, and a red light began to
flash on its side—a light which indicated the weapon’s safeties had been
disengaged.
“Now, like I said, wannabe-pastry-chef,” the woman said, her
voice turning serious, “make like a bad sector and frag!”
Just as Masozi was contemplating a leap to the nearby stack
of containers in the hope of escaping the autocannon’s firing arc, the weapon’s
safety light returned to yellow and the weapon cycled down.
“Eve, will you please stop harassin’ the woman?” a man’s
strangely accented voice came over the same speaker the ‘gun’ had spoken
through. “My apologies,” he said after what sounded like a huff from the woman,
“but I expected you to knock, Investigator.”
“I did knock,” Masozi said irritably. A second later
there was a soft, clanging sound from the floor below, and she looked to see
the very ladder she had climbed the final leg of her ascent with had extended
and now reached the floor. She suppressed a growl at having made such a
dangerous, unnecessary, ascent.
“It’s all good, girl,” the man chuckled in a rich, baritone
voice. “Please, step into my parlor—I’d ask you to take off yo’ shoes but it
doesn’t look like that’ll be a problem.”
The panel before her deformed slightly, and a narrow section
of metal recessed and slid to the side. It was almost large enough for her to
enter without turning sideways, but she did so anyway and saw the interior of
the cuboidal container was poorly illuminated.
“Sorry about that,” the man’s voice came over a nearby
speaker as the hidden door closed behind her, “I’ll get the lights.”
A string of soft, bluish panels on the floor and ceiling
began to glow until the interior was lit well enough that Masozi could see her
way. The lighted panels each formed a large arrow, and without needing to be
urged she followed the arrows deeper within the container.
After climbing a set of staircases, she came to a closed
door. It was difficult to tell with such poor visibility, but it seemed the
interior of the container was as Spartan as one might expect. There were
several crates of differing sizes stacked neatly inside the container, and she
thought she felt a not-insignificant amount of heat being generated on what she
came to think of as the ‘second floor’ of the container as she passed the
locked door to that level.
“Mind your step,” the man’s voice came from a speaker near
the third, final floor’s door before it slid slowly open, “I didn’t have time
to tidy up.”
She took a careful step into the room and an odd odor wafted
into her nostrils. It wasn’t unpleasant as such, but it was unfamiliar and it
put her even more on her guard.
“My apologies, girl,” the man’s baritone voice said, but
this time it was coming from inside the room and not through a speaker, “I
forget myself. Let me get the normal lights.”
The room was filed with a fluorescent, white, light which
grew in its intensity until Masozi had to shield her eyes so they could adjust.
When they had done so, she lowered her hand and took a look at the chamber
It was something like twenty feet on a side, and had only a
few pieces which might be considered ‘furniture’ by any reasonable person.
There was a pair of cots against the far wall, as well as what looked like a
work bench on the right wall.
The left wall was covered, from floor to ceiling, with
dormant display screens. Masozi counted one hundred thirty six individual displays,
but they were far from the most remarkable thing in the room.
At the chamber’s center, there was a large, contoured
bed-like piece of furniture. It had several tanks attached to the ‘headboard,’
as well as numerous wires and tubes piping their way up and into a
hemispherical array of displays suspended directly above the bed.
And lying on that bed was what had to be the largest human
being Masozi had ever laid eyes on.
His skin was sickly pale, and fully exposed for all the world to see. He had to weigh well over half a ton,
although he was likely no taller than Masozi. His body was swollen so badly he
barely resembled a human being, with rolls upon rolls of blubbery tissue
spreading across the contoured bed.
“Come on in, girl,” he beckoned with an inviting gesture as
his pink-irised eyes never left the array of screens above him. “I’d get up,
but…you know,” he said with a chuckle that saw the mass of flesh that was his body jiggle as though with a life of its own.
“Who are you?” Masozi asked as she took a few steps forward.
It became increasingly clear to her that much of the bed’s clearly complicated
technology was designed to prolong the man’s life, as each of his limbs had a
handful of tubes—and even some wires—running into access ports built into his
skin. “Oh,” she said when she remembered the item Jericho had given her,
“Je…that is, our friend, wanted me to give this to you.”
“It’s a’ight; he actually is named Jericho, and I be Wladimir,” he said, his voice taking on the former, odd
accent with which Masozi was completely unfamiliar. He accepted the small
parcel from her in his thick, surprisingly smooth-skinned fingers, and began to
open it before tilting his many-chinned head toward the wall. “’Fraid I got
somethin’ to show you, babe.”
The wall comprised of a hundred thirty six individual
display screens lit up in unison, and a series of images began to populate the
screens individually. She moved closer so she could examine them and felt her
stomach tighten at what she saw.
Agent Hugo Stiglitz, wearing his agency’s all-black, armored
bodyglove, entered her apartment building through a service entrance after he
appeared to successfully override the building’s security protocols. That was
less than surprising, given the fact that he was an independent agent of the
Interplanetary Investigative Unit.
He’s supposedly an IIU Agent, she reminded
herself, for all I know, he’s the terrorist.
The video replayed itself in a continuous loop, so she looked
at another one and saw Agent Stiglitz kill Tom—the maintenance man who had been
pathetically bad in bed—with a sequence of far-too-quick maneuvers that
apparently saw the man’s neck broken while the Agent seemed to hardly break his
stride.
Yet another monitor showed Stiglitz tampering with the
building’s gas feeds, and somehow redirecting some of the gas into the air
cycling system.
Still another monitor showed a newsfeed with a video clip
showing the explosion at her apartment building. The clip had apparently been
recorded via the neighboring building’s continuously operating security
cameras.
All of the timestamps looked correct to her, and with each
new screen she felt her choler rise.
Then the images disappeared, only to be replaced by a live
news feed which spread across the entire bank of monitors, turning them into
one, massive, display like the marquees on Main Street.
She failed to suppress a gasp as she saw her latest
photo—taken just a few weeks earlier at her annual after-dark-ambulation permit’s
renewal—with the caption: Disgruntled NLIU Investigator wanted for
questioning in connection to recent string of murders, as well as morning
bombing of residential complex with 39 confirmed fatalities. Considered
Armed and Dangerous.
Before she could wrap her brain around what she was
seeing—or even begin to doubt the veracity of the images she was being
shown—the screen morphed to show Chief Investigator Afolabi standing at the
NLIU official press podium.
“Let me assure the residents of our fair city,” Afolabi said
as he gesticulated emphatically, “that we are doing everything in our power to
apprehend this dangerous fugitive. Investigator Masozi had a troubled record at
the NLIU, and had recently been suspended pending an inquest for professional misconduct.
It is my deepest regret that she was able to take out her frustrations on the
very people who depended on her for protection. She has betrayed our trust,” he
said darkly, “and I intend to bring her to justice for that betrayal by any
means necessary.”
Before Masozi could protest, the video feed shifted again.
It began showing the same footage as before when Agent Stiglitz murdered Tom,
the maintenance man, with little apparent effort.
But, to Masozi’s horror, Stiglitz’s image in the video had
been replaced with her own and she watched as ‘she’ murdered the maintenance
worker. The camera got a close-up of her face and even Masozi felt a chill run
down her spine at the cold, merciless look she saw in the false image’s eyes.
The feed flipped back to Afolabi at the podium, trying to
silence the cacophony of the press corps as they fought to get their questions
heard. “Let me make this as simple as possible,” the Chief of the NLIU said
with iron threaded through his voice. He gripped the edges of the podium and
swept the press with his steely gaze, “Investigator Masozi has shown to be
capable of anything—including sexual coercion, which is how we believe she was
able to gain access to the apartment building’s maintenance locker. She is to
be considered New Lincoln’s Public Enemy Number One: all armed units are
authorized to use deadly force when apprehending this fugitive. I’m going to
personally oversee this manhunt, so I’m afraid there will be no more time for
questions.”
With that, the feed went dark and Masozi felt her knees
begin to buckle. She steadied herself be leaning against the wall as a wave of
anxiety washed over her. A loud, crackling noise came from the middle of the
room and she looked dully toward the morbidly obese man lying on the bed.
“Looks to me like you’d best be settlin’ in for a little
cruise, Investigator,” he said in his maddeningly inconsistent accent and
dialect as he chewed loudly on something crunchy. He held up a plastic bag
filled with cheap, salted grain wafers called ‘Snap-itz,’ which she recognized
only from the perpetual adverts lining the city’s streets. “Snap-it?” he
offered cheerfully.






Chapter
VIII: A Pit Stop—and Don’t Forget the Pasta! 
The pain in Jericho’s broken, left, arm had become nearly unbearable.
It was not that it would have physically prevented him from going about his
daily activities, but he knew that in order to execute his last New Lincoln
contract he would require a degree of composure that was problematic with a
broken arm.
But he had nearly run out of money after diverting the last
of the Cantwell fund to saving Investigator Masozi’s life—an investment which
Jericho dearly hoped would pay dividends, both in the near and not-so-near
futures.
A quick-knitting bone repair kit would have been easy to
purchase, and would only cost a fraction of the money he had saved from the
Cantwell contract. Spending that money to repair a wound—even a wound sustained
during the execution of a wholly separate contract—would have even been a defensible
expenditure if the issue was ever brought into the light.
But that was one of the many reasons Jericho kept his
contract funding far, far below the average T.E. estimate. It gave him greater
latitude for dispersing those funds, and on average his contracts cost only
thirty percent that of his fellow Adjusters. Too many Adjusters had fallen
victim to the trap of gathering more financial resources than a job required
and then pocketed the funds. While not exactly illegal, if deemed guilty of
this by his or her fellow Adjusters, it would make it essentially impossible to
receive the opportunity for future Adjustments.
“Hey there, handsome,” he heard a woman’s voice interrupt
his thoughts through the com-link built into his helmet. A small, familiar
image appeared at the edge of his helmet’s internal displays—displays which
monitored his hover-bike’s engine status, showed a three-dimensional overlay of
the cityscape and his location within it, and basically whatever else he
desired to call up. “I heard you have a booboo,” the image said as she laced
her fingers beneath her virtual chin and batted her eyes suggestively, “want me
to make it better?”
“I could use a bone-knitter, Eve,” he said shortly. He was
always discomforted by interacting with Benton’s carefully-constructed
‘companion,’ even though he knew he should view ‘her’ like he viewed any other
tool or device which could benefit him in the course of his duties.
“I might have something better…” she purred.
“Not now, Eve,” he snapped before taking a deep breath, “I
just need the knitter but I’m short on funds.”
“I could always ‘find’ one for you,” she said with a wink.
“It’d be our little secret.”
“No, Eve,” he replied through gritted teeth. He had, on
occasion, ‘acquired’ materials vital to his completion of a mission but he had
never forgiven himself for it. Once, he had been bleeding so profusely that he
had been forced to hold a pharmacist at gun-point to acquire the necessary
auto-suture kit and coagulants. He had never forgotten the look in the man’s eyes
as he pleaded on behalf of his three daughters’ futures, and he had promised
himself that he would never do that again.
“You’re no fun,” she pouted before sighing loudly, “I
suppose I could point you to a clinic I know of…”
“No,” he said sharply as he pulled the bike over to the side
of the road. He was finding it difficult to concentrate, and suspected that
diminished blood volume was playing a part in his mental status in addition to
the pain from his broken arm. “I can’t be logged into the system.”
Even covered her mouth with her dainty fingers and giggled
briefly. “No, no, silly,” she said playfully, “no that kind of clinic.
They don’t keep records where I’m sending you—at least, not for humans.”
He considered her offer and, in spite of his reservations,
nodded grudgingly. “Give me the coordinates.”
Eve’s image blew a kiss, causing a lip-shaped icon to leave
her fingers and move seamlessly over to his primary display. The disembodied
lips merged with the cityscape on a secondary display, and a path was then
clearly indicated on the virtual grid. While detouring to the indicated
destination would take him nearly an hour out of his way, he knew that he was
out of options. He still had time for his final contract even with the delay,
so he logged the path in his helmet’s data link.
“Thank you, Eve,” he said perfunctorily.
“Welcome, handsome,” she said with a wave. “Oh! I almost
forgot,” she said as she smacked her virtual forehead with her palm. “Big Daddy
Wladdy says…” she paused and took a cartoonishly deep breath. While she did,
her face distorted grotesquely until it was a large, flat-topped,
military-looking man’s with Benton’s voice which said, “Don’t forget the
pasta, bro!”
“Got it,” he said dryly as he gunned the bike’s motivators
and merged into the growing morning traffic.
Eve’s image shook its head vigorously, and the
military-looking man’s features quickly reformed into her usual face. “Good
hunting, gorgeous; just tell them I sent you!” she said in her usual, bubbly
manner before disappearing from the helmet’s display.
Much as the pixie-like program annoyed him, Jericho knew
that Benton was the best hacker in the system—and very probably beyond—and he
had apparently deemed Eve necessary to his continued operation. That meant
Jericho had learned to tolerate her…despite her programmed obnoxiousness.


Jericho stood before a rundown building on the far edge of
town—an area very near to the city limits, and one which had all the telltale
warning signs which most sane people obeyed by steering clear.
While he despised the notion of entering the premises—even
for the purpose of completing a mission—Jericho knew he had no choice in the
matter. His arm had swollen to half again its original size,
and he feared that he might be bleeding internally. If he didn’t get it looked
at, and quickly, there was the very real danger of long-term damage to his
arm’s nerves.
So he knocked twice on the solid, sheet-metal door. A
low-cost security camera swung over to look at him as its telescopic lens
adjusted for a few seconds before apparently locking onto his image.
“Who you?” a garbled voice asked through an intercom built
into the doorjamb. “We no trouble; license good.”
“I’m not an inspector,” Jericho said evenly as sweat began to
roll down his cheeks. The pain in his arm was getting difficult to ignore, and
he clenched his teeth as he fought to keep his voice steady as he said, “Eve
sent me.” It wasn’t as though he actually believed that ‘Eve’ was anything more
than a cleverly designed program which Benton used as a proxy to decrease his
odds of capture, but ‘she’ had told him to inform the building’s denizens that
she had directed him there.
There was silence for several seconds until the door’s crude
latch sprung open and the door swung slowly open.
Needing no further encouragement, Jericho stepped inside and
closed the door after he had done so, manually locking the latch as he did so.
It was bright inside, almost painfully so, but he had expected such given the
nature of the place.
A foul stench wafted into his nostrils and he moved further
into the building, knowing he had come to the right place after smelling the
putrid odor. The bright light was generated by synthetic indoor lights which
approximated a different band of light than Virgin’s primary put out, and that
light was feeding the seemingly endless, slick film of dark, grey, fungus which
covered every square millimeter of the building’s interior.
A short, fat creature waddled into view and Jericho nodded
his acknowledgment toward it, having expected to find precisely such a being.
The alien was not even vaguely humanoid, possessing six, half-meter long,
arachnid legs supporting a soft, meter long, egg-shaped, rubbery body which
seemed wildly at odds with the chitinous legs beneath.
Its species had no natural name of its own since they did
not communicate via sound. Instead, its kind bore an alphanumeric of
154-HR-658-T, which served to catalog its system of origin with which
Jericho—and likely the vast majority of humanity—was unfamiliar. Its species
was among the more recognizable nonhuman aliens in the Chimera Sector, since
their specialized biology was responsible for several organic alternatives to
materials which were traditionally produced mechanically.
In a uniquely human show of poor form coupled with dark
humor, people had taken to calling them ‘Poppers’ since, when exposed to
sources of heat which would generally be harmless to humans over short periods,
they would loudly explode. They were subterranean and therefore did not have a
set of traditional eyes, which was odd since even on their home world they had
foraged out of their subterranean dens to eat. Their source of food on that
distant world was the same fungus which now grew on the walls of the large, apparently
abandoned, building.
The creature’s front pair of legs turned upward as it reared
up slightly, exposing a crude vocalizing unit which allowed the creature to
‘speak’—albeit crudely. “Permits good; we have receipt for food,” it began in
protest, apparently still nervous of the possibility that Jericho was an
inspector of some kind. Poppers were notorious—some would say undeservedly
so—for digging up corpses and using them to feed their farmed fungus.
Like most aliens in the Imperium, the Poppers were significantly
less intelligent than humans—at least when using human-centric measures—but,
unlike the supposed majority of their fellow aliens, the Poppers were at least
intelligent enough to communicate meaningfully while generally abiding by human
laws.
“Eve sent me,” Jericho repeated. He had nothing against the
Poppers—and did his best to never repeat their unfortunately widespread ‘name’
outside the confines of his mind—but he was on a schedule. He held out his left
arm and peeled back the sleeve to reveal the swollen limb beneath.
The Popper moved forward and the trio of mandibles ringing
its triangular, toothless mouth clacked in anticipation. It moved to nearly
within reach and then recoiled a step or two before
reactivating its vocalizer, “Cracked endoskeleton…needs silk…Eve…we like Eve…we
trust Eve…smells like Hadden…Hadden good to us…”
To Jericho it sounded as though the creature was logically
working its way through his story, probably trying to justify the risk of
stepping closer to a human—even a wounded one. He did not begrudge the creature
its hesitance, and did his best to stand quietly while the alien came to a
conclusion.
The Popper’s mandibles peeled back and it ‘said,’ “You
break?”
Jericho’s brow furrowed. “Yes…it’s broken,” he said slowly, hoping
he had not wasted his time in coming to the creature’s putrid home.
“No,” the Popper said as it deliberately lifted a leg and
drew it through the film of fungus on the nearby wall, making a horrid,
screeching sound as it did so, “you break—or we break?”
Jericho finally understood what it meant. “I’ll do it,” he
said as he took out the late Captain Sasaki’s tanto—a weapon which he had
risked bringing with him through town, even though he had no license for it—and
sat down cross-legged on the cleanest patch of floor he could find.
The Popper moved forward and, as it did so, Jericho took a
breath and made a small incision with the razor-sharp tip of the blade. He knew
from experience that it would not hurt much initially, but it still surprised
him to see blood well up from the fresh cut without a commensurate degree of
pain. He cut a little deeper, and wider, for several seconds until the Popper
clacked its mandibles.
“Enough,” it said, and he set the tanto down on the floor
before using his free hand to clamp his brachial artery and slow the blood flow
to his now-opened arm.
The Popper moved forward and delicately inserted the
needle-sharp tips of its impressively steady, front legs into the ad hoc
surgical wound. It then gently prized the margins apart, and as it did so the
itching sensation Jericho felt on the wound itself was accompanied by a lance
of dull, aching pain as the broken bone moved beneath the knot of swollen
tissue surrounding it.
“Pain,” the Popper said simply as it continued to open the wound,
and Jericho took that to be the creature’s best attempt to provide some
semblance of bedside manner. Thankfully, it was finished with exposing the ends
of the bone fairly quickly, and Jericho watched with more than a small measure
of interest as the Popper’s mouth began to work furiously.
Its mandibles moved far more quickly than an ordinary human
could manage with any part of its body, and after a few seconds a thick, slimy
wad of bubbly material appeared in the Popper’s mouth.
 It spat the wad into the wound, and the burning that
accompanied it was enough to make Jericho wince in pain.
“Pain,” the Popper said again, and Jericho couldn’t help
himself but snicker softly in spite of the growing discomfort. Thankfully, just
a few seconds later the pain in his arm had decreased significantly.
The Popper drew the margins of the wound further apart, and
Jericho concluded that the first wad of phlegmy substance had been an
anesthetic—and a surprisingly powerful one, at that—in addition to, hopefully,
having some powerful antibacterial properties.
The broken bone of his forearm was clearly visible when the
Popper had finished opening the wound, and it nimbly maneuvered the two pieces
of cleanly broken bone together using its legs and pinning the arm against Jericho’s
leg.
“Pain,” the Popper said, and Jericho braced himself just in
time to see the creature leaned forward and plunge its barbed mandibles into
the wound. Amazingly, he never once saw the mandibles touch the edges of his
wound as they deftly worked their way back and forth across the broken edges of
bone.
Not long after it had begun, the Popper pulled back and
Jericho leaned down to see that the bone had indeed been knitted back together.
A small, thin layer of silvery threads—thousands of them—had been woven around
the broken bone, and Jericho knew that even that thin layer of material was far
stronger than the bones which it secured.
“Satisfactory?” the Popper asked neutrally as it hovered
over the wound.
Jericho nodded. He hadn’t needed a professional reconnect
job—he could get that done later if need be—but he actually thought it was
possible he wouldn’t need such a follow-up procedure. The Popper knew its craft
better than he had suspected, so he shook his head. “Better than satisfactory,”
he said, more than a little surprised to hear himself say it.
“Pain,” the Popper said as it leaned forward and began to
knit the edges of the surgical wound together using the same, fibrous, silvery
material it excreted from the multi-purpose glands in its mouth.
But that part of the procedure was easily the least painful,
and after just a few minutes Jericho’s arm had been more or less repaired and
sewn back together. There was a small, triangular patch over the wound made of
the same silvery stuff the Popper had used to knit his bones together, but
other than that it was impossible for Jericho to discern that he had just
undergone surgery.
“Go,” the Popper said before turning toward the wall it had
scraped with its leg earlier and began to consume the material. Jericho tested
his arm and found everything to be in satisfactory condition. While he knew it
would take days for the swelling to go away entirely, at least it would no
longer distract him.
Jericho watched as the Popper scraped the fungus from the
wall—a fungus which was based on something entirely different from DNA and
would have died in the light of the Virgin primary, which was very different
than that of its home world. He had a rare moment of contemplation as he
wondered where the creature would have been at that moment had the Imperium not
torn its ancestors from the world which should, of a right, have still
been theirs.
But he pushed the thought from his mind as he turned and
left the building, knowing he had a job to do.
“Leave philosophy to the philosophers,” he muttered after
closing the door behind himself and making his way to the hover bike.






Chapter
IX: Three-for-Three…and Takeout 
Jericho set up in the apartment which his third New Lincoln
operator had secured for him some months earlier. He made a manual inspection
of all the gear and found everything to be in order, and he anticipated being
finished with his third Adjustment of the day in less than another hour.
He had attempted to contact Baxter at the designated time,
but his number two operator had failed to reply to the missive. This set
Jericho ill at ease; he knew that he was being pursued by agents who wished to
prevent him from carrying out his duty but he had been careful—careful even for
him, which spoke volumes of the importance of the trio Adjustments—in planning
his New Lincoln trip.
Jericho set up the large bore, single-shot, slug-thrower on
its tripod and checked his lines of sight with the structure two buildings down
and on the other side of the street. Using a weapon like the one he had
selected for this particular Adjustment carried risks, but he preferred those
risks to the alternatives.
He checked the chronometer on his data link and saw that he
still had twelve minutes before his target would enter the zone of engagement,
so he decided to try contacting Baxter again. He initiated the connection and
waited for the operator to accept the connection.
But the seconds went by and Baxter never replied, so Jericho
closed the connection and considered his options. No operator Jericho had
worked with in the past decade had failed to follow the preset
schedule—predictability was key in an Adjuster’s line of work—and Jericho was
forced to conclude that someone had gotten to Baxter.
The Timent Electorum Adjusters were limited in several ways,
not the least of which being that the law afforded them no actual protection
for their actions unless they managed to successfully execute an Adjustment and
prove its legitimacy. But those whose actions supported an Adjuster—like
Benton, Baxter, or his current mission’s operator, Shu—were afforded no such
protection.
Their contributions were made in spite of the risk in the
pursuit of profit or, more usually, for less quantifiable reasons. Some—like
Benton—seemed to enjoy ‘beating the man’ at his own game and others, like
Baxter, had felt wronged by their government in the past and wanted to take
some measure of revenge.
But Shu was a mercenary, through and through, and Jericho
would have used her more often if he hadn’t already had two incredibly capable
operators in Benton and Baxter.
Jericho activated his earpiece as he continued to consider
whether he should attempt contacting Baxter directly. He needed to check in
with Shu and see if there had been any new wrinkles.
“Shu here,” the woman’s crisp voice replied as soon as the
connection had been made. “Target is on the seventeen twenty high-rail; ETA
seventeen minutes.”
“Is he alone?” Jericho asked. This last Adjustment was of a
significantly lower value than either of Cantwell or Angelo, which meant that
collateral damage was expressly forbidden according to
T.E. protocols. Some Adjusters were little better than marauders, kicking in
the doors and laying waste to everyone inside whenever the mission permitted.
Jericho preferred a cleaner, more concise approach.
“Negative,” she replied, “he has a tail.”
“A tail?” Jericho repeated in
surprise as he opened his data link. “Send me the file.”
Almost before he had finished asking for it, the file
appeared in his messages and he quickly opened it and began to peruse the
contents.
There was a medium-short, square-jawed, clearly
professionally-trained agent featured in seventeen still images. He always
appeared in near proximity to Jericho’s last New Lincoln target, and that
target was likely unaware of his dangerous shadow.
“What have you got on him?” Jericho asked as he re-checked
the sights on his stupendously overpowered rifle by flashing an infrared light
briefly onto the window through which he would take his shot in fifteen
minutes.
“Nothing on file; facial recognition and partial retinal
scans are coming back blank,” Shu replied promptly, confirmed one of his many
suspicions. “He’s augmented—heavily, if the extra EM coming off him is any
indication.”
Jericho had suspected as much and was actually glad to hear
her say it. Jericho had just engaged a knock-down, drag-out fight with a
gene-hanced Southern Bloc captain—a relatively small woman, at that—and it had
been a much closer affair than he would have liked.
In his youth he might have thought it possible to take on an
augmented agent like the one in Shu’s pictures, but age had given him more than
just aches and pains. He was now wise enough to accept that there wasn’t a
single chance in a thousand that he could take the agent in a straight-up
fight.
“Is the Adjustment still a ‘go’?” Shu asked with an unusual
degree of tension in her voice.
“Yes,” he replied as he came to grips with what fate had
befallen Baxter—a fate that had almost certainly been decreed by the Agent
following Jericho’s third target. “But we’ll need to go to tertiary escape
routes; assume the others are compromised.”
“Copy that,” Shu replied, and a brief pause ensued.
“Tertiary route confirmed—repeat, tertiary escape route is open.”
“Good,” he said, grateful for small favors. “I need you to
place a trace on my link and do your best to find out whoever’s tapped the
other end of the call I’m about to make. I don’t need you taking unnecessary
risks, but if there is a trace then whoever placed it has already gotten
to another of my operators today—and he was higher on my list than you are.”
There was a tense silence before the operator said,
“Understood; ready to run the trace as soon as you make the call.”
“Get me a nearby video feed covering the Agent,” Jericho
instructed as he tapped out a series of seemingly random numbers on his link,
which he then called in a predetermined sequence. The process took nearly
thirty seconds, and when he was finished a video feed opened up on his link’s
screen.
It was from a public transport carriage’s internal security
cam, and it showed Jericho’s last target as well as the Agent who was shadowing
him. Just a few seconds after the feed went live on his screen, the link showed
an incoming call.
Taking a short breath, Jericho connected the call and piped
it through his earpiece.
“It’s good to finally speak with you,” a man’s
perfectly-pitched voice said, and the Agent’s lips moved in perfect unison with
the words coming over the earpiece. “I don’t suppose I could persuade you to
call this off?”
“Nope,” Jericho replied simply.
“I thought not,” the Agent said smoothly, not letting even a
moment’s silence linger between them as he spoke conversationally. “It truly is
a pity; society could use men like you working for them.”
“Nice try; I’m not playing the word games,” Jericho snorted.
As far as he was concerned, making Adjustments for the Timent Electorum was the
highest form of public service of which a person was capable.
“A pity,” the Agent chuckled, “I do so enjoy a bit of
foreplay.”
“Can I assume you’re less than interested in stopping the
Adjustment?” Jericho asked evenly.
“You may indeed,” the Agent replied warmly. “Truth be
told…after reading the man’s file I find myself ambivalent regarding the
necessity of your discharging the duty of your ‘office,’ such as it is.”
The railway carriage the two men were riding came to a stop
and the doors opened. The occupants moved out of the conveyance and the video
feed switched stiffly between the previous video feed to one at the small
boarding station.
“So if you’re not interested in stopping me,” Jericho said,
more than slightly surprised to hear the man admit such so readily, “then why
follow him?”
The target stopped and began to peruse a nearby window
display, causing the Agent to do likewise. “My father was a big game hunter,”
the Agent explained after the two had resumed their trek toward the target’s
residence, “and he taught me when I was very young to learn as much about an
animal as possible before putting it down. He said it was an opportunity to
learn not only of the animal but also of myself, and I believe he was right.”
“It’s a good piece of advice,” Jericho admitted, knowing
that his work as an Adjuster had taught him a very similar lesson. He relaxed
his body and leaned his shoulder against the butt of the rifle in a
long-practiced, pre-shot routine which had served him well for decades.
“I certainly think so,” the Agent agreed. “I must admit that
you are considerably more interesting than most of my assignments…and, between
you and me, I’m genuinely curious whether you’re going to electrocute him by
overloading the magnetic coils in the lift, blow the apartment with a gas
overload, use nerve gas—likely concealed beneath the kitchen sink—or pull the
trigger of the rifle you’re holding against your shoulder.”
Jericho felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. But
he knew that if the Agent had a bead on him, either directly or indirectly, he
would have already made it known. That Jericho had initiated the call meant
that he still had an intelligence edge over the mysterious Agent—an edge that
would seem to be disappearing more quickly than he had anticipated.
“Make no mistake,” the Agent continued into the brief
silence, “I cannot officially condone any of the aforementioned acts of barbarism,
but it will illuminate several factors which may later be useful to me.”
“So…what you’re saying is that you like to watch?” Jericho
deadpanned as the two men neared the target’s apartment building and the camera
feed switched to one of that building’s external security units.
The Agent burst into laughter and actually drew some
attention from passersby as he did so. “Nothing could be further from the
truth,” the Agent assured him after quickly suppressing his laughter. “But I am
glad to see that you have a sense of humor. Our line of work is usually so
tedious, is it not?”
“Are you suggesting we do the same thing?” Jericho asked
neutrally. He knew it was important not to divulge too much about himself, but
he also knew that he could gain valuable information about his pursuer if he
played things right.
“Of course,” the Agent replied with a hint of surprise in
his voice. “We each locate, verify, and eliminate threats to our society’s
well-being.”
“Sounds like we should have drinks later,” Jericho said dryly
as the video feed showed the target entering the lift—a lift which Jericho had
actually considered overloading, just as the Agent suggested, but decided
against it because of the cost to repair the damage.
“If you like,” the Agent allowed as he went to a fire escape
stairwell and, with little more than a quick series of taps and the swipe of
his palm, overrode the security measures which restricted public access to it
outside of an emergency. “But forgive my selfishness when I say I would prefer
our little game went a little longer than that.”
“You’re forgiven,” Jericho said as the Agent slipped off the
camera feeds. His operator had apparently been unable to override the fire
escape’s internal cameras, so although the Agent was inside a building over a
hundred meters away, Jericho’s senses sharpened as he knew that he needed to be
ready for anything.
“So…no elevator,” the Agent said smoothly in his
perfectly-composed voice, “which indicates that you’ve got something of a
conscience. I suppose it wasn’t to be expected, considering the agency you work
for.”
“It’s not an agency,” Jericho said irritably.
“Forgive me,” the Agent gushed as the lift bearing the mark
stopped at seemingly each floor on its way to his destination: the sixteenth
floor. “But we know so little about the actual operation of your people that
some clarity on the matter would be greatly appreciated.”
“It’s all in the First Right,” Jericho quipped as he settled
against the butt of the rifle again while scanning the roof of the building for
signs of movement. He was unwilling to risk the possibility that the Agent
decided to line up a counter-shot after the Adjustment had been made. “Maybe
you should read it?”
“I prefer actual history to studying the
philosophical wet dreams of our ancestors,” the Agent retorted casually.
“You want history?” Jericho said measuredly. “Ok…how’s this?
The man you followed, for whom society requested I target for Adjustment, is a
Public Works and Highways overseer in Tsushima. Two years ago he shut down a
major intersection and has, since then, re-routed traffic some three kilometers
around it. This put unnecessary pressure on the adjoining streets and has
already cost society roughly three million credits per month in lost
productivity—due to trapping several thousand people per day in a needless
diversion which lasted an estimated three minutes forty three seconds—in
addition to unnecessary vehicle maintenance totaling nearly half that amount.”
“Oh, I understand that part,” the Agent replied as the
Adjustee exited the elevator.
“Good,” Jericho said dryly as his link shifted from a camera
feed to one showing a three-dimensional grid of the building across the street.
A small, red, flashing dot appeared and was marked ‘Agent,’ and it did appear
that he was still in the fire escape.
A brief text message flashed across the screen which read, Getting
hot here. Can’t crack their encryption before they break into
my own system.
He quickly tapped out a reply which read, Bug out ASAP.
I’ll contact you in two hours’ time.
He received a prompt reply, Copy that. I’ll make it up to
you.
“Something happen?” the Agent asked smoothly.
“Just making sure everything’s where it should be,” Jericho
replied as the target approached his front door. “Where was I?” he asked dryly.
“Something about side streets,” the Agent replied, his voice
a warm, encouraging tone.
“Right,” Jericho said, “anyway, this guy has a cousin who
owns a contracting company that won several bids for city street maintenance
contracts in Tsushima. Long story short, the diversion of traffic increased the
wear on an intersection this guy’s cousin maintains.”
“Come now,” the Agent quipped irritably as the target
entered the flat. At the same moment, the Agent’s icon on the three dimensional
display moved down the corridor toward the same unit. “You can’t expect me to
believe you would risk capture at this stage in the game over a little wasted
concrete?”
Jericho switched off the safety on his rifle and leaned in
tight to the butt of the rifle. “You know that, do you?”
“Of course,” the Agent replied with a long-suffering sigh,
“even my limited psych profile suggests that while you do care about the
financial burden corruption places on society, it’s not what motivates you.”
Jericho was surprised to hear the man suggest he had a psych
profile on him, but he supposed it was possible—and equally possible that it
was all a ruse. “Ok…let’s say a little girl was boarding her school shuttle the
morning after the traffic was diverted,” he said, feeling a slight surge of
anger as he did so. “And let’s also say that the human driver of that shuttle
wasn’t aware of the redirected traffic, and an overloaded cargo hauler ran
sidelong into the shuttle, killing both of its occupants while the hauler’s
driver walked away without a scratch.”
“Even if I accepted the premise that this was your real
motivation for accepting this assignment, it sounds like you’ve got a few
places you could assign the blame,” the Agent said casually as the target moved
into the kitchen and washed his hands. When he finished doing so, the Agent
sighed, “No nerve gas…interesting.”
Jericho had considered the nerve gas also, but had decided
against it for several reasons. He had used poison in the past, but there was
something about it that never sat right with him. He was an instrument of the
people’s retribution, and was decidedly against a painless death like that
afforded by most of the available nerve gases.
“I suppose you could place the blame on the driver of the
cargo hauler,” Jericho said as he relaxed his body. According to surveillance
records, three days out of four the Adjustee would sit in a chair set beside
the window on which his rifle was trained. “You could even lay the blame at the
feet of the shuttles driver…or, if you really want to stretch things, one could
fault the local traffic directors for failing to put up the requisite warning
signage. There’s probably even an argument for the people who allowed the
overloaded vehicle to operate on a public road.”
“Precisely; there are several people who deserve punishment
in that particular chain,” the Agent said, as though it explained everything.
“So what gives you the right to choose who gets punished?”
Jericho smirked as the Adjustee settled into the chair for
what would be the final time of his life. “The voters,” he replied as he
squeezed the trigger, sending a round of depleted uranium-wrapped lead powder
through the window. As it broke through the glass, the shell of depleted
uranium broke apart and unleashed its contents, turning the Adjustee’s body into
a shower of gore which covered the far wall in a shower of red.
The bullet had been specifically designed to break apart
after penetrating the transparent alloy of the window, and had delivered every
Newton of its energy into the target’s body, essentially vaporizing his upper
body in the process.
The icon representing the Agent entered the flat as soon as
the round impacted, but then the icon went dark. Jericho understood that the Agent
had deliberately cut off the signal…and that suggested the Agent had been
toying with him the entire time.
“No explosion, either,” the Agent said disappointedly as he
appeared at the window, through which a perfectly round hole a half inch across
marked the bullet’s entry path. He looked through the newly-made hole and,
seeming to make eye contact even at such a distance, smirked as he waved
invitingly with an energy pistol gripped in his hand. “A traditionalist, then…interesting.”
Jericho pulled back from the window, switched off the link,
and initiated the countdown for a time-delayed acid shower to spray over the
room and its contents after he had left. It would not destroy the equipment
completely, but it would remove any organic trace evidence in the unlikely
event the Agent decided to investigate the scene for clues.
Jericho picked up the grocery bag which contained Benton’s
requested pasta—which was a small price to pay for interrupting the man’s
legendary privacy, especially for the entire voyage to Aegis Port City—and left
the apartment, grateful for having successfully completed the first leg of what
he was certain would be an increasingly dangerous journey.






Chapter
X: Cast Off! 
Masozi had examined the local news feeds at length after
coming to terms with the fact that she had been framed by Chief Afolabi and an
off-world Agent whose identity was still very much a mystery. She still had
little in the way of concrete information, but she had corroborated most of the
images Benton had shown her inside his secretive hideout.
“Ain’t nuthin’ to be worked up
over, girlfriend,” Benton said after several hours. He had gone for nearly an
hour without speaking after helping her access several public news sources—as
well as a few private ones, including the Investigator’s update channel. “Just
think on it like you be gettin’ a fresh start; not many people be so lucky, you
feel me?”
She refrained from a biting remark, which required a
not-insignificant amount of willpower on her part since her entire life had
just been turned upside down in less than a day.
“I’ll try to keep that in mind,” she said evenly as she
flipped through a recent wave of reports that had just hit the feeds. Her heart
sank when she saw that three more people had died as a result of the explosion
at her apartment building, bringing the total to forty two.
“It ain’t your fault,” Benton said, and she turned sharply
toward him and saw his eyes—eyes with pale, pink irises—snap back and forth
across the myriad displays arrayed above his bed. “They took advantage of your
trust and set you up, yo. Only way you can get back at ‘em be by keepin’ your
head down and servin’ up an ice-cold plate of good, ol’ fashioned, revenge.”
Before she could reply with something scathing, there was a soft, clanging
sound from below and Benton slapped his hands together before rubbing them in
anticipation. “A-ha, dinner; I hope you like pasta, shorty.”
She liked pasta very much, but she doubted she could work up
an appetite. Still, the smell of veal and fresh, genuine, mozzarella cheese
carried into the chamber as Jericho appeared at the door to the room with the
medium-large parcel under his arm. The parcel was marked with the logo for the
world-famous Casa Mia restaurant, which was far more expensive than Masozi had
ever been able to afford—even for a major occasion. A single meal with drinks
would likely cost as much as her entire month’s salary.
“My favorite,” Benton said eagerly as Jericho brought the
parcel to the obscenely large man’s bed. As he approached, a small table folded
up from the bed’s side and Jericho placed the parcel on it. The horrifically
obese man opened the parcel as Jericho pulled up a nearby chair—of which there
were only two in the entire room, as Masozi had previously noted to herself.
Benton produced a trio of disposable, thermal containers and said, “Dig in,
y’all; this be the last real cookin’ we get ‘til Aegis.”
Jericho waved off the proffered food and Masozi did
likewise. Although…despite the turmoil going on between her ears over the day’s
events, the food really did smell delicious.
“Suit yourselves,” Benton said as
he opened the first thermal container and delicately skewered its contents with
a provided utensil. He drew a large forkful of crisp, green lettuce with tiny,
pink shrimps speared on the tips of the fork and placed the bite of salad
carefully into his many-chinned mouth. He chewed loudly, and Masozi was quite
certain that her resolve to avoid eating would soon disintegrate in the
presence of such gourmet food.
“You have questions, Investigator,” Jericho said into the
brief silence. “I promised I would answer however many of them I am able.”
She focused on the man sitting on the other side of Benton’s
bed, and studied his features. His eyes were the same, grey-blue color that she
remembered, his skin was barely a shade darker than white, and his jaw was
squarely-shaped with a pronounced dimple at the point of his chin—none of which
traits were common to Virgin. His hair was significantly more salt than pepper,
and was cut in a flat-top, military style. It was obvious from the way he moved
and held himself that he was a powerful, agile specimen.
She took a short breath and made her first query, “Why?”
Benton, who had been chewing loudly on the delectably crisp
lettuce—the last bit of which had been joined by tiny slivers of mozzarella
cheese—stopped and cast a curious look her way while Jericho merely held her
with his steely eyes.
“Too vague,” Jericho said after a few, tense moments, during
which time Benton’s eyes went back and forth between the two of them with open
amusement.
Masozi took an unconscious step forward. “Why would you save
me? While profoundly shocking to me—in a manner which someone of your ilk is
likely incapable of comprehending—I can at least understand several possible
motives behind framing me for the various crimes of which I am now publicly
accused.” She took another step forward, and stopped herself after realizing
she had been unconsciously seeking the food which Benton had proffered. Masozi
had the brief thought that she may never get another opportunity for such a
fine meal, but she kept her focus on the mysterious man whose intervention had
inexplicably spared her life.
“Someone of ‘my ilk’?” Jericho
repeated as a twinkle of amusement flashed across his eyes. He shook his head
before sighing, “I suppose I can’t blame you that. There was a time I felt the
same as you…but I’ve since opened my eyes to the realities of human existence.
Still, to answer your question,” he said as he reached out to take one of the
salad dishes Benton had offered, “I saved you because, simply put, it would be
a waste of everything you are to let a man like Afolabi frame you…especially
since several of the ‘crimes’ you are accused of were actually committed by
me—”
“And me!” Benton cut in, as though in comic protest and
Jericho nodded shortly in acknowledgment.
“None of what I do would be possible without the assistance
of like-minded people,” Jericho said with a note of gratitude, which Benton seemingly
ignored as he continued to devour the exquisite salad.
“That still doesn’t answer my question,” Masozi said evenly,
forcing her eyes to stay locked with his and not stray to the increasingly
tempting food on the opposite side of the bed.
“I imagine it doesn’t,” Jericho allowed with a shrug as he
held the salad easily in one hand. “But I can say that someone of your
qualities would be of great benefit to me in what I aim to do next. Beyond
that, you’ll have to prove that you’re worthy of more clarification on the
subject.”
“Not good enough,” Masozi retorted sharply, turning his own
words against him.
Benton chuckled and Jericho sighed softly after casting a
reprimanding look at the now-jiggling mass of humanity lying in the bed. “Due
to your current bargaining position, that’s simply not the case,” he said as he
popped open the salad dish and leaned his face down toward it as he inhaled
deeply of its aroma. “You’re a wanted fugitive, and I’d imagine that by now
your case file has been uploaded to the Planetary Investigators.”
“Why?” Masozi asked, her curiosity overriding her desire to
present a strong appearance. Chief Afolabi’s press conference had made no
mention of a planet-wide fugitive alert, and she pointed at one of screens over
Benton’s bed—a screen which had a real-time readout of classified law
enforcement updates for New Lincoln on one side, and the entire planet on the
other. “There’s nothing on the official wires to indicate a planetary effort is
underway.”
Benton chuckled again and this time Jericho smirked almost
piteously. “Don’t tell me you believe everything you see on the newsfeeds…or
that everything actually gets put on the newsfeeds?
Universal Transparency had been the Second Right afforded
the people of her world, and indeed, the entire sector. “If I don’t believe in
Universal Transparency, why should I believe in the
Timent Electorum?” she challenged.
Jericho chuckled softly. “Because you’ve got supporting
evidence for one, and a lack thereof for another, all within a few meters of
each other—and you,” he said with a pointed look before taking a fork and
spearing it through the center of the salad.
She noticed the smell of her favorite salad dressing as he
lifted the first bite to his lips, and she reached across Benton’s bed and
snatched the third salad for herself.
“My girl,” Benton said with a warm laugh as he reached into
the parcel. He had finished his own portion of salad and dropped the empty box
on the floor beside his bed before producing another trio of containers.
It had been nearly fourteen hours since she had eaten, and
Masozi was absolutely famished, so she ate in silence for several minutes while
doing her best to savor what would very likely be the finest meal of her entire
life. She only wished it could have come under different circumstances. The
ingredients were all of the highest quality, and for a moment she understood
how such a ridiculously expensive restaurant could remain in business through
the high, and the low, economic times New Lincoln had endured. In truth, that
salad had been a more pleasurable experience than at least half of her life’s
various sexual encounters.
“Fine, so there’s some evidence—most of which I can’t verify
independent of you,” she said after devouring the salad and washing it down
with a carbonated drink which she would have normally never considered
touching.
“A fair point,” Jericho conceded after downing his own
bottle of the bitter, carbonated beverage. “But the truth is you’re beating
around the box; you’ve seen first-hand the nature of what you’ve stumbled
across. You don’t need either of us to tell you what that is.”
Benton, who had taken a break from the meal after producing
the second trio of food containers in order to peruse a few dozen data feeds,
adjusted slightly in his bed before saying under his breath, “She’s back,
everyone.”
Just then, the same hover drone which had ‘rescued’ Masozi
from her leap of faith swung into the room and declared, “Hey all, it’s me:
Eve!”
“Hey, baby!” Benton said buoyantly, but Masozi suspected it
was something of an act—the same act she had seen countless ‘couples’ go
through when reuniting.
That particular connection made her shake her head in a
mixture of awe and barely-concealed disgust. How low can a human being get?
she thought in bewilderment. I can understand
owning a pet, but a sexbot—without the body, no less?!
“You’ve got visitors,” Eve said as though in surprise as she
hovered over beside Benton’s bed, but Masozi recognized her voice as the same
one which had come from the autocannon outside the container. So she very much
doubted that Eve had been unaware of Benton’s ‘visitors’—especially since it
had been Eve’s voice which had not-so-politely told Masozi to ‘make like a bad
sector and frag’ at gunpoint.
Seemingly from nowhere, a small, claw-like appendage
attached to an articulate, metal tube lowered itself from the bottom of the
hover drone’s bulbous, circular body and snatched up the empty salad box. Eve’s
avatar on the front-mounted screen wagged a finger reproachfully at the huge
man, “You are such a slob, Johnny Wladimir Benton!”
“Eve,” Benton interrupted with a wild gesticulation of his
hands as his speech patterns changed to something approaching normalcy, “I
don’t have time for this right now. I’ve got seventeen simultaneous data dumps
I’m managing; I’ve got to wipe every trace of these two cowboy’s—and girl’s,”
he added belatedly, “rampage through the city, and I’ve got to do it all before
I lose my hard lines at castoff in twenty minutes.”
Eve’s virtual image put her hands on her hips and Masozi saw
Jericho roll his eyes slightly. “Ohhhh, so not only do I have to pick up after
you,” she said hotly, “but now I have to go back outside and disconnect the
lines four hours earlier than scheduled?!”
“That would be great, Eve,” Benton said agreeably as he
deliberately returned his focus to the screens above him. “Shouldn’t take you
longer than an hour to put all of it away—and don’t forget to depolarize the
linkage this time. We were down for almost six hours last time,” he said
chidingly before adding, “besides…you still owe me.”
“Well…I never,” she fumed before spinning around and
whirring out of the room amid a stream of decidedly angry-sounding bleeps and
data static which emanated from her hover-drone’s speakers.
“Sorry ‘bout that,” Benton apologized as his accent returned
with a vengeance, “but she be a
little…high-maintenance. She would’ve crashed and burned a long time ago
without me, and I gotta…you know, gently remind her of that every now
and then or she’s liable to get uppity—and that would be good for nobody,
feel me?”
Masozi boggled at the notion of Benton carrying on a
‘relationship’ with what amounted to little more than a sex toy program he had
transplanted into the hover drone. The sheer ludicrousness of it strained her
imagination, but as she looked around the decidedly abnormal environment which
Benton had built for himself, she realized that Eve was likely the least
disturbing thing about the man.
“Look,” she said as Benton began to open up the next
take-out box, and the overpowering smell of creamy, buttery pasta wafted into
her nostrils as he did so, “I’m not convinced that going with the two of you is
any safer option than marching back down to the precinct and pleading my case.”
“That might actually work,” Jericho mused with a thoughtful
nod.
“Yeah,” Benton said, “’cept for this.” The massive bank of
screens lining the far wall flared to life, and Masozi turned to see Agent
Stiglitz’s image appear in several different perspectives, taken by what
appeared to be public surveillance equipment. “I done tried to dig up some dirt
on him, Jericho,” Benton said as though in apology, “but this bitch is tight,
know what I’m sayin’? I didn’t even get no God-damned name
after cross-checkin’ every, single, database on Virgin—and then some
more besides! This mo-fo be a gen-u-ine ghost, dog.”
“Please, Benton,” Jericho said with a hand raised in
tempered irritation, “enough with the archeo-slang.”
Benton rolled his pink eyes and sighed. “Judging by the EM
field pouring off him, he’s augmented—a lot,” he said deliberately, his unique
‘accent’ disappearing to be replaced with an altogether unidentifiable, yet
thoroughly bland, one. “I don’t know exactly how much we’re talking about, but
this level is way beyond a local thug-for-hire’s means.”
“More machine than man?” Jericho pressed as he gave hardly a
glance at the screens before opening up his own pasta and devouring it.
“It’s possible,” Benton admitted, and Masozi examined the
images carefully as she recalled meeting the man in Chief Afolabi’s office.
“But regardless of how much gear he’s packing beneath the surface, the fact
that there’s no record of him ever existing suggests…”
The two shared a meaningful look and Jericho nodded before
devouring another bite of the ridiculously tempting pasta. Masozi had been
limiting her protein intake—the shrimp was actually more pure protein than she
had allowed herself in a week—but she simply could not resist the certain-to-be
delicious pasta.
She hesitated briefly before turning and saying, “I have ‘a’
name for him.”
The two men looked at her in surprise. “Really?”
Benton asked with narrowed eyes in his prior, over-the-top accent. “And just how you be comin’ by this information, shorty?”
“He was working with my Chief—Chief Investigator Afolabi,”
she amended quickly. “I didn’t know it at the time, but in hindsight it seems
so obvious…they were checking to see if I would pose a threat to their plans.”
“Details,” Jericho said, putting his box of pasta down as
his interest was clearly piqued, “what exactly did they say—the precise
words?”
She closed her eyes and tried to recall the conversation.
When it came to remembering visual events, or even cataloguing information in
her mind—information like account numbers, names, locations, and timelines—her
brain was a finely-tuned machine. But recalling spoken conversations had always
been a particular weakness of hers. “He said his name was Stiglitz, and he
claimed to be from the IIU—the Interplan—“
“Interplanetary Investigations Unit,” Jericho interrupted, “don’t clarify; just stay with the conversation.”
“Right,” she said somewhat embarrassedly, having recalled
only after he interrupted her that she had impatiently requested several
witnesses do the same during her career’s many investigations. “Ok…he said he
was with IIU, his name was Stiglitz, and that they were interested in offering
me a post in the IIU if I would assist in their investigation.”
“Go on,” Jericho pressed after a few seconds’ pause.
The details were difficult for her to recall, so she closed
her eyes again and began saying whatever came to mind. “They didn’t trust me,
but I thought it was because they were holding something back and weren’t
certain I would keep the information secure.” She bit
her lip as the overpowering smell of Casa Mia pasta flowed through her nostrils
and broke her concentration, then she remembered a
look Afolabi and Stiglitz had shared and her eyes popped open. “They were
surprised…or maybe not surprised…” she shook her head, as the word escaped her.
“They were disappointed,” she finally managed to bite out, “when I
objected to their characterizations of the Timent Electorum and its role in our
society.”
Jericho nodded slowly as the hint of a smirk danced around
his lips. “Can you remember anything else?” he asked after a few moments of
silence.
In fact, Masozi had remembered something important. “They
said they doubted the insignia you…” the word caught in her throat as she stole
a glance at Jericho, who merely looked at her impassively—which did nothing to
assuage her mounting trepidation. “They suggested that the T.E. insignia you
left at the mayor’s office was not genuine.”
Jericho’s brow rose briefly before he snorted under his
breath. “It’s called a Mark of Adjustment,” he said offhandedly, “not an
‘insignia’.” He turned to Benton, who appeared to be paying their conversation
little mind, “Are you certain it was authentic?”
Benton nodded dismissively, “No chance it was a fake, boss
man. That Mark was legit as can be.”
Masozi’s brow scrunched up as she took the last box of pasta
from the table and began to dig into its contents, which were a kind of ravioli
half-covered in a butter-cream sauce she had only ever seen on gourmet cooking
vids and half-covered in a more conventional tomato-based sauce. “What are you
talking about? How could a ‘Mark’ be faked?”
Jericho and Benton shared a look—a look that was
disturbingly similar to the one which Afolabi and Stiglitz had shared the night
before, and she felt herself chilled to the bone at the similarity. “About
three years ago,” Jericho began with a short sigh, “an Adjustment was made on a
magister named Dukane out on the Skylark colony. Everything was done within
established protocols, and the Adjustment was verified according to the two
century old system we’ve used since the first Adjustment.”
Masozi recalled the case, since it had been caused a media
frenzy surrounding on the discovery of disturbing evidence at the crime scene.
The case itself had involved Magister Dukane secretly holding a significant
share of stock in a corporation which had been losing market share to a
competitor’s firm, a firm which had been founded by a pair of men named Seeton
and Crain. Dukane had manipulated the timing and sequence of events by having
Seeton sequestered during the unveiling of their latest model drive units.
Crain had failed spectacularly in the ensuing press conference, and public
confidence in his and Seeton’s company vanished overnight.
Obviously, Dukane’s company had profited massively from
their competitor’s downfall, so it had come as no surprise when the T.E.
revealed they had been behind the death of the corrupt magister. None of the
material facts of the case had been disputed in the aftermath.
“The problem wasn’t with the Adjustment itself, but with the
Mark,” Jericho explained as the bank of screens lining the wall switched over
to show data pertinent to that case. Masozi doubted she could have called that
much information up with a day’s time, and Benton appeared to have done so in a
matter of minutes. She could finally comprehend just why individuals like him
were so dangerous to society: with supposedly secure information at his
fingertips, he would be ahead of even the people who were sent to pursue him.
“It was a forgery,” Benton agreed as he expanded the view of
the item itself—an apparently exact copy of the one Masozi had seen on
Cantwell’s desk. “But not just any forgery,” he added with a hint of
appreciation in his voice, “this one was made using the exact blueprints
and specs of the real thing, right down to sourcing materials from the same
supplier as the originals.”
“But I thought,” Masozi said with a furrowed brow, “that the
Marks were merely a way to present the evidence justifying an…Adjustment?”
she said, lingering on the last word after she said it. It was such a cold,
calculating term for what amounted to little more than a publicly sanctioned
assassination.
Jericho nodded. “That is one of their purposes,” he allowed,
“but they’re also the way an Adjuster officially receives the contract in the
first place.”
Before Masozi could question any further, a blue light began
to strobe beneath the hemisphere of monitors hanging above Benton’s bed.
“Casting off in two minutes,” Benton reported between bites
of his pasta, and Masozi decided to finally indulge her curiosity and take a
bite of the meal.
If the salad had been better than sex, then the pasta might
have been better than solving a case. She tried to pace herself, but before too
many minutes had passed she had finished the entire box—and immediately
regretted her gluttony as she felt her stomach protest at its overfilled state.
Jericho stood from his chair and moved to the side of Benton’s
bed opposite Masozi. “You’ve got more questions, but you have to prove
something before I can give you the answers,” he said as he held out a data
pad.
She accepted the pad warily, acutely aware that she was
becoming swept up in the events but finding herself nearly overwhelmed by the
fantastic situation. She glanced at the pad and saw a series of opinion
articles, homemade video clips, and dozens of other amateur media pieces. She
could see no rhyme or reason behind any of it, but she was intrigued all the
same.
“You find the message buried in that content,” he said with
a tilt of his head toward the pad, “and I can answer your next round of
questions. But you’d better get started since you’ve only got nineteen days.”
Jericho then turned and made his way to the door which led down to the lower
two ‘floors’ of the cubical container.
“Why should I do any of this?” she demanded tersely as she
waved the pad to indicate the entire room. She truly despised people thinking
they understood her—especially people who had literally known her for less than
a day!—and she found her temper flaring at his continued dismissal of her
choice in the matter. “Even if you are who you say you are, you’ve all but
admitted to committing multiple murders—and, regardless of what my superiors
might have said today, I am an Investigator whose primary caseload
consists of murder investigations.” She took a step toward Jericho as he
stopped at the threshold of the door and looked at her over his shoulder. “When
I work a case, I never fail to make the collar,” she said icily.
Jericho snickered softly. “Investigator,” he said evenly as
he turned away and took a step through the door, “I promise you that if, after
breaking the code on that pad, you still want to march me down to the nearest
station and book me…I’ll give you the chance to do just that. But until then, I
suggest you get to work.”
With that, he disappeared through the door and left Masozi
standing there with impotent fury coursing through every fiber of her being.
She heard Benton chuckling and she whirled to face him.
“What is so funny?” she demanded hotly.
The mound of blubber and skin which comprised his torso was
wracked with a series of rippling perturbations which somehow managed to make
him appear even more disgusting. “He used the ‘grilled cheese sandwich’ line on
you, didn’t he?” he said with more than a hint of sympathy before sighing.
Masozi was taken aback by his inference and it must have
showed on her face, because Benton nodded shortly before returning his attention
to the array of screens above his bed.
“Settle in, girlfriend,” he said with a gesture to one of
the cots, “it’s gonna be a long trip. But one thing you’ll learn about Jericho
is that he’s a man of his word; you crack that code and he’ll do as he says.”
There was the distant sound of a massive horn blowing, and
Masozi realized it must have been the seafaring vessel’s castoff alert. She
looked down at the pad in her hands and took a short breath before making her
way to the cot and examining the seemingly endless stream of data.






Chapter
XI: One Solution Deserves Another 
It turned out that the stream of data was, effectively,
endless. After examining it for nearly a week—during which time Benton and
Jericho barely said a word to each other, and neither said even a single word
to Masozi.
Eve had made several attempts to interact with her, but
Masozi had politely declined each such advance. The re-programmed hover drone’s
overt sexuality was more offensive to Masozi than she had expected it to be.
That irritation may have been more related to her being locked inside the cargo
container without leaving for even the occasional breath of fresh air, but
Masozi well-and-truly did find Eve’s personality more pathetic than she could
tolerate for more than a few minutes at a time.
Eve had, however, brought a set of real clothing for Masozi
to wear. It was not a precise fit, but she gladly changed into it at the first
opportunity. Without that wretched bodyglove clinging to her in all the wrong
places, she felt more like herself—and considerably
less exposed.
On the eighth day of researching the seemingly random files,
Masozi finally thought she found what she had been meant to uncover.
Buried in the thousands upon thousands of items on the data
pad, she found a correlation between the dates of each entry and several nouns
which were placed prominently—which were often suspiciously mis-capitalized—and
they began to form a kind of vocabulary.
Another three days of research—during which time they drank
plain water and ate nutrient bars, which was fine with Masozi in general but
the lack of variety was beginning to wear thin on her—produced a rudimentary
message which she triple-checked to verify its contents. Once she was certain
she had done so, she went to Jericho and handed him the pad. She was
interrupting his usual routine of calisthenics—a routine which Masozi had
observed with more than a passing interest.
He stopped in the middle of a set of push-ups and took the
pad from her wordlessly before examining its contents and handing it back to
her. “That’s a start,” he said evenly as he rolled his neck around, eliciting
several audible cracks, “now tell me what it means.”
“They’re the names of various magistrates, barristers, and
even a few non-professionals with what seem to be notarial privileges,” she
said shortly. “Each name has a date and an alphanumeric—which
I can’t decipher—attached to it. So far I’ve found seventeen of them.”
Jericho nodded approvingly as he keyed in a sequence of
commands to the pad before handing it back to her. “You’ve got questions,” he
said, rather than asked, “and I promised to answer some more of them.”
“How is any of this related to where we’re going?” she asked
measuredly, having considered the question carefully.
Jericho rolled his shoulders and removed his exercise shirt,
and for the first time Masozi saw a cluster of scars over the left side of his
chest—one of which appeared to have been made quite recently. “Those are over a
year old, so the only value they hold is as a primer to one of our many methods
of communication. Essentially,” he said as he stretched his calves against a
nearby wall, “whenever an Adjuster receives an Adjustment to carry out, that
Adjuster has to find a minimum quantity of evidence supporting the popular
request’s validity. The vast majority of requested Infectus Adjustments never
take place,” he explained as he winced after moving his leg awkwardly. He
gritted his teeth and continued, “Since most officials who actually are corrupt
are too good at covering their tracks.”
“I’m sorry, ‘Infectus Adjustments’?” she repeated.
Jericho nodded shortly. “You’ve seen the three phrases on
the Mark of Adjustment,” he said, as though it explained everything.
And after a moment, she realized that it probably did. “Ure
Infectus,” she repeated after recalling the image of the Mark on Mayor
Cantwell’s desk.
“Burn the Corrupted,” he said by way of translation as he
began to stretch his arms over his head. “Ultimately, Infectus Adjustments are
what the Timent Electorum does more than anything else. But it’s not enough to
prove that a public official is corrupt; there are several criteria which need
to be met before an Adjustment can take place.”
“You keep calling them that,” Masozi interrupted, “you say
‘Adjustments’ when you’re really talking about simple assassinations.”
“There’s nothing simple about an Adjustment,” he retorted in
a tone that was both unyielding and somehow sympathetic. “And while some T.E.
Adjusters are often little better than shackled assassins—including some
of the ‘best’ of us, if I’m being totally honest,” he added darkly, “most of us
don’t do this for the license to kill.” He snorted derisively, “There’s too
much paperwork, for one thing, and for another our finances are strictly regulated
once we take up the cause.”
Hearing him speak of what he did as though it was little
more than another form of law enforcement was both fascinating and disturbing.
Masozi had, like everyone else on Virgin, learned the importance of keeping
powerful officials in check. And the truth was, the
record of human history showed that something like the Timent Electorum passage
in their Bill of Rights was the only proven method to prevent wholesale
oppression of a society.
“We’re just tools, Investigator,” Jericho said as he began
to wipe the sweat from his body. When he had matted his torso off, he picked up
the data pad and handed it back to her, “And you’re not quite finished yet.”
She cocked an eyebrow incredulously before looking down at
the pad and seeing a whole slew of official documents, including tax filings,
purchase receipts, bank records, and a whole host of other documents. She
nearly gasped when she saw the name at the top of the file before breathing,
“Mayor Cantwell.”
“That’s his Adjustment record,” Jericho nodded gravely. “And
by showing it to you I’m committing an epic breach of protocol, but I thought a
gesture of good faith on my part was called for. Given the circumstances,” he
added dryly, “you’ve been pretty sporting about all of this.”
She scanned through the documents and found several alarming
connections in just a few minutes’ time. Apparently, Mayor Cantwell had
received a truly massive bribe from the PHL—the Professional Hammerball
League—which amounted to nearly one hundred million credits. It was a
staggering sum and the more she read, the more she realized just how corrupt he
had actually been.
“You begin to get a true picture of the man you, yourself,
voted for three times,” Jericho said offhandedly.
“How do you know…” she began, only to realize that with
people like Benton working with—or, perhaps, for—him, there was very
little information that Jericho would be unable to access.
“All it would take is one look at your file to know
everything there is to know about you, Investigator,” he said a bit more coldly
than she would have liked. “Do you think those surveys you’ve been forced to
fill out every day of your adult life aren’t logged somewhere? And do you
think,” he added with a lopsided grin, “that there’s any way to keep a man like
Benton from breaking into that log if the price is right? A person with that
information would know more about you than anyone—including you.”
Masozi stiffened, feeling as though she had been somehow
violated but, oddly, also feeling less than surprised about it. There were
comedians who made very good livings criticizing the nature of life on Virgin,
specifically regarding the role of government in its citizen’s daily lives, so
she supposed the idea had already taken root somewhere in her subconscious. “And
you’ve read my ‘file’,” she concluded bitterly.
Jericho shook his head and chuckled softly. “I didn’t need
to; I just guessed your voting pattern based on your line of work and
departmental affiliation—he ran ninety four percent approval with New Lincoln
law enforcement,” he explained with an indifferent shrug. “But to answer your
question specifically, no,” he said seriously, “I didn’t read your
file—and neither did Benton—which is why my revealing any of this to you
is a sizeable risk on our parts. Five minutes with your file would have removed
any trace of doubt from my mind as to how you would respond to all of this,” he
gestured to the chamber with a wave of his arm, “but you’re not in need of
Adjustment, so it would have been wrong of me to violate your privacy like
that.”
Masozi was actually more surprised by his admission—and the
apparent veracity of it—than she was about anything else he had revealed in
this, their longest, conversation.
“That file,” Jericho said, pointed to the data pad emphatically,
“shows that eighty five million credits were confirmed to have been transferred
into off-world accounts which were verified by five, wholly independent,
officers of the court. The evidence provided therein satisfied, to their
impartial and unbiased judgment, a degree of reasonable certainty which in turn
satisfied the criteria for Adjustment. Hence,” he said as he pulled a new shirt
over his head, and Masozi stole a glance at his truly remarkable
physique—especially for a mundane, well-past-his-physical-prime, man of his
age, “the scene in Cantwell’s office—a scene which your former boss is now
attempting to blame on you.”
The reminder that her boss had betrayed her still stung her
deeply, but she forced the rising tide of emotion which accompanied that
particular memory. “Even if Cantwell accepted the bribe,” she said hesitantly,
hoping to change the subject, “who decides the threshold for ‘Adjustment’?”
Jericho nodded approvingly. “That’s the right question. I’ll
assume you’re more or less familiar with our Sector’s financial system, wherein
each year a thorough census is taken and factors like life expectancy, overall
economic output, and thousands of other variables are computed to provide that
year’s credit value?”
Masozi nodded. It had been one of the founding principles
which all of the worlds in the Sector had agreed to following the wormhole
collapse. “The Sector-wide average life must be valued at one million credits’
worth of productivity, and the formula keeps the numbers more-or-less in line,”
she said when it was clear he expected her to do so. “This minimizes the
possibility for economic manipulation by exchanging currencies unscrupulously,
and exerts free market forces on the various industries of the Sector.”
“Right, it does do that,” he agreed almost reluctantly, “but
it also defines the value of a human life.”
Masozi had held several debates in school regarding this
very issue and, while she had never been wholly convinced that the moral
implications were as he was suggesting, even she had to admit that it was a
reasonably valid way to interpret the data.
“Once we have that number,” he explained, “we can determine
the damage a person’s actions cause society. As you are no doubt aware, we use
this number in sentencing guidelines for convicted criminals, among other
things.”
“Yes,” Masozi allowed slowly, “it’s one of our founding
principles: the punishment should always be determined based on the severity of
the crime. This ensures impartiality.”
Jericho snorted at her last, but made no comment. “To make a
long story short, we use the same basic criteria for determining whether an
Adjustment should be instigated.” He pointed to the data slate, “Mayor
Cantwell’s corruption cost his constituents roughly two billion credits in
economic and industrial damages when the Anvil came to New Lincoln. He allowed
the PHL to disrupt the city’s industry, economy, and—potentially the worst of
all—its morale without securing fair recompense for the citizens who elected
him.” Jericho shook his head piteously, “And he did it all for an eighty five
million credit payoff, of which he could only hope to see half after laundering
and securing the funds. His actions created enough suspicion on the part of his
constituents—the only group’s opinion that matters in an Adjustment—that an
Adjustment was instigated and, ultimately, executed.”
“But that money wasn’t truly ‘lost’,” Masozi argued in spite
of her general inclination to agree with Jericho’s stated reasoning behind
Cantwell’s assassination. “If what you’re showing me is factual then the PHL
simply profited at New Lincoln’s expense, but ultimately the money didn’t
disappear—it just changed hands.”
Jericho shook his head slowly, as though he had participated
in this precise conversation a hundred times. “The PHL didn’t elect Cantwell,
though—neither did the many thousands of entities who benefited from his
corruption,” he said pointedly. “The people who suffered were his voters—the
very people whose interests he sword to protect and, if possible, advance. His
actions cost those voters literally two thousand human lifetimes of
productivity—that’s two thousand people who are now functionally enslaved to
interests over which they have little or no control.” He folded his arms over
his broad, muscular chest and asked, “Can you think of a better reason to
execute a man than him enslaving the very people who depended on him to protect
their collective livelihood?”
Masozi had already concluded much of what he had just said, and
found that she fundamentally agreed with his assessment. But that had not been
the point of pushing him to explain the situation—hearing him compose the defense, and watching him for nonverbal cues
while he did so, had been the object of the conversation.
“So what about the PHL?” she asked after a moment, and
Jericho nodded approvingly. “What does the T.E. do to them?”
“We do nothing to them,” he said pointedly. “They
were merely attempting to advance their private agenda; if we Adjusted each enterprising entity which sought to exploit
every possible advantage—including bribing public officials to gain
preferential treatment—our economy would stall and everything that depends on
it would crumble in little more than a generation. Let the bureaucrats fight
the corporations in the courts—I’ve got bigger fish to fry.”
“So you won’t condemn the people who pay the bribe,”
she said in wonderment, genuinely surprised at his dismissive rationale. “But
you will ‘Adjust’ the person who accepts it?” she asked with an open
challenge in her voice.
“Exactly,” he said in what she took to be mock approval,
which made her clench her jaw tight to forestall a sharp objection. “When the
contents of Cantwell’s Mark of Adjustment are made public, the body politic
will have an opportunity to choose whether or not to provide the PHL with
continued financial support.” He smirked and shook his head as though in
bewilderment, “A sharp decline in revenue hurts a corporation far more than a
bullet to the skull of its director ever could.”
He turned and made his way to the cot he had used for the
previous week and a half, and Masozi called after him in irritation, “I’m not
finished with my questions.”
“Open the file stored on that pad named ‘Goat’ and examine
the evidence it contains,” he said without turning to face her. “Whether you
like it or not, you’ve become a part of this so you might as well make yourself
useful.” He turned and gave her a dry look before adding, “Until you decide to
do your civic duty and turn me in, of course.”






Chapter XII: A Summons
“Message for you, boss man,” Benton called out, and Jericho awoke from his nap at once. He threw his legs over the edge of the cot—which was surprisingly comfortable for a device of its nature—and made his way to Benton’s bedside.
He didn’t even need to look to know that Masozi was asleep.
It had been four days since he’d given her the Goat assignment, and she had been remarkably focused in her efforts to unravel the latest mystery thrown her way. Jericho could understand how she ended up working as an Investigator in one of Virgin’s most populous cities.
“Have you verified it?” Jericho asked as he reached Benton’s large bio-bed. The cost of the aperture must have been tremendous, and the continuous supply of drugs and synthetic biological components must have cost literally millions of credits per year, but he knew that money was the least of Benton’s worries.
“Sure thing,” Benton replied in his increasingly aggravating archeo-slang. “You’s been waitin’ for it, and now you’s got it.”
A sharp look from Jericho made Benton roll his eyes in deference as he nodded. Jericho looked up to the bank of monitors on the far wall as it sprang to life with several hundred distinct images, and as he had seen Benton do countless times before, the master hacker extracted the required data from each of the displayed sources and migrated those scraps of information onto a single screen.
The entire process took no more than a minute and when Benton had finished compiling the data Jericho saw a long, completely unintelligible message spelled out. That message was then run through a decryption filter and a new message appeared which read: Well done in New Lincoln. Meet me at the unusual place in Aegis and we’ll discuss your next assignment(s)—O
“You’ve verified every bit of verbiage?” Jericho repeated deliberately. He needed to know for certain that he was to meet in the ‘unusual’ place, rather than the ‘usual,’ or ‘abnormal,’ or ‘normal’ place. He had only been summoned in this fashion once before…and it had been under very different circumstances.
“Yes,” Benton replied shortly, clearly upset with Jericho’s insistence that he stick to a vocabulary that at the very least resembled
modern parlance.
“Ok,” Jericho said as he considered the implications. He had expected such a summons—in fact, he had quite literally done everything in his power to achieve such a meeting with what could be roughly termed his ‘superior’ within the Timent Electorum’s hierarchy…if the T.E. could be said to have such a thing. “Good work, Benton,” he said with genuine feeling, “and thank you for allowing us to hitch a ride to Aegis. I know how much you value your privacy.”
Benton shot him an angry look before a grin spread across his borderline grotesque features. “Ain’t nuthin’ but a thang, bro,” he said with infectious positivity, and for once Jericho let his top operator’s penchant for odd speech pass. It would have been more than a little difficult to secure passage for Masozi out of New Lincoln without Benton’s help—and even if it had been possible, it would have been incredibly expensive.
But, again, money wasn’t something Benton lost sleep over.
If, for some unforeseen reason, his current revenue stream was to dry up there was little doubt in Jericho’s mind that his top operator would go on with literally no interruption. There were probably only a few dozen people in the Sector who could match Benton’s skill with acquiring, storing, manipulating, and then transmitting data without being detected in the process. He was truly the apex predator of the information world, and Jericho was acutely aware of just how fortunate he had been to not only call on him as an ally, but to consider him a genuine friend.
“How’s Eve doing?” Jericho asked somewhat awkwardly. He had not seen the re-programmed hover drone in quite a few days and had actually begun to wonder if something had gone amiss with ‘her.’
Benton rolled his eyes emphatically. “Women be women,” he said, as though he was confessing some great secret. “I understand they need lovin’ attention and all but lemme tell you something, dawg: Eve takes the term ‘high maintenance’ to an all-new level.
Forget about the ‘stratosphere;’ we talkin’ straight-up ‘thermosphere,’ feel me?”
Jericho was quite certain that he could not ‘feel him,’
whatever that actually meant, so he sighed. He was fairly certain that Benton’s increasingly prominent delusions about Eve would one day be his undoing, but in truth he couldn’t fault the other man for crawling inside a fantasy and letting it become part of everything he did. Jericho knew all too well the temptation to do that very thing…
Apparently Benton took his sigh for one of sympathy because he, too, sighed. “Yeah, you be wise to it,” he said with a knowing look before squirming slightly in his bed. “Can you hand me that jar?” he asked, indicating a small, glassy-looking container with a bluish liquid inside. “Eve usually helps me with this sorta thing, but she be down for a little nap at the moment,” he explained as Jericho handed him the jar. “Thanks, dawg,” he said as he opened the jar and Jericho could not help but feel a measure of revulsion as Benton plucked a small, greyish, amorphous blob from the blue liquid and placed it on his chest.
As soon as the blob hit his skin, it flattened into a small disc. A few moments after that it lengthened and narrowed before slowly moving its way down his chest toward his many abdominal rolls. Benton plucked two more of the leech-like creatures from the jar before closing it and handing the container back to Jericho, who wordlessly placed the jar where it had been.
“I would have been dead ten years ago if not for these little suckers,” Benton said seriously, dropping his absurd speech pattern momentarily. “Even with the bio-bed, my family curse is rippin’ my neurons apart…it’s really only a matter of time before simple biology catches up to me and I stop bein’ entirely.”
Jericho nodded in understanding as the three leech-looking creatures disappeared into Benton’s skin folds. “How long do you think you have?” he asked.
“With a constant supply of these little guys,” Benton replied nonchalantly, “three, maybe four years. Without ‘em…maybe a month,” he shrugged.
“Why not go through gene therapy?” Jericho asked, having never ventured to question Benton’s failure to do so. “Don’t tell me you couldn’t afford it.”
Benton snickered. “Nah, ain’t nuthin’ like that; at some point we all gotta respect who, and what, we are and be at peace with it. I’m a God-damned genius the likes of which this Sector has never seen—and I be usin’ that gift for the betterment of my peoples every waking moment of my life,” he said, his voice taking on an almost religious tone. “Every star what don’t get sucked into a black hole eventually burns out, and the brightest ones go quickest of all…but everyone gets touched by their passin’ and they leave behind the greatest legacy of all: order from chaos, and complex structure from simplicity. That’s some cosmically poetic shit right there, feel me?”
While Jericho would have liked to dismiss Benton’s ramblings as those of a delusional man trying to come to grips with his own mortality, he suspected the truth was that Benton had life better figured than he did himself. “I think I take your meaning,” Jericho said after a moment’s consideration.
“Good,” Benton said almost defensively before asking, “what you want me to reply to ‘Mr. O’?”
Jericho shook his head. “Nothing,” he replied simply, “I know where to go.”
“What about sleeping beauty over there?” Benton jerked his head toward the still-sleeping Masozi. “You don’t actually trust her, do you?”
Jericho snorted softly before giving Benton a meaningful look, “I trusted you didn’t I?” The big man made as if to protest, but Jericho shook his head and continued, “What I said to each of you was true: human psychology isn’t that complicated to me. She may not have accepted the reality of the situation just yet, but she won’t do anything I haven’t already planned for…and I may need you to trust me on that particular point later on,” he added with a hint of iron in his voice.
Benton held his gaze for several seconds before relenting and giving a shrug. “I trust you, Jericho,” he said eventually. “But if you be goin’ where I think you be goin’…”
Jericho nodded in total understanding. “I’ll need you here anyway,” he assured Benton. The truth was he would have preferred to have his top operator with him where he was going but Benton’s talents would likely go underutilized in his next mission, which figured to be considerably more blunt-force-trauma than surgical incision. “Track the feeds for me and send regular packets via courier; if I need your help I won’t hesitate to call for support.”
“I can do you one better than off-site support,” Benton said with a knowing grin. Jericho quirked an eyebrow, but the bedridden man shook his head, “I’ll explain once everything’s ready…but it just be a loan and you gotta promise to take care of things should something happen to me, feel me?”
“No, I don’t ‘feel you’,” Jericho said with thinly-veiled exasperation at Benton’s insistence on using patterns of speech which had been dead—apparently with good reason—for several millennia. He sighed before adding, “But I do trust you.”











Chapter XIII: An Assignment




The Esmerelda Emp was scheduled to pull into
port just ten hours after Masozi had completed her perusal of the ‘Goat’ file
on the data pad which Jericho had given her…and what she had discovered cast
serious shadows on her long-held confidence in the Sector’s system of
government.
When she had completed reading the information and
subsequently compiling notes, she knew it was time to confront Jericho.
“I’ve read the ‘Goat’ file,” she said after making the short
walk from her cot to his. “Is even half of this true?”
Jericho shrugged. “That’s what you’re going to find out,” he
replied seriously before his voice turned playful. “Assuming, of course, that I
may retain my freedom for the foreseeable future?”
She was more than slightly put off by his apparent lack of
concern regarding their collective situation, but she had managed to find some
measure of acceptance in her own plight over the previous weeks aboard the
ocean-going vessel. Masozi held the data slate up and gestured to it seriously,
“This information suggests that a colonial governor—“
“Has been acting in direct contravention to the betterment
of his,” he interrupted before adding pointedly, “or, rather, her
people, and has done so with what would seem to be reckless disregard for more
than a few Sector Laws. I have actually read
the file, Investigator,” he chided with a hint of sarcasm.
Masozi very much disliked being interrupted, but she held
her tongue and continued, “These records even show what appears to be the
T.E.’s system for identifying potential…Adjustments,” she reluctantly bit out
the word.
“As I said,” Jericho said in a conversational tone, but his
eyes bored into her own while he did so, “I’m taking a big risk by including
you in all of this.”
“It doesn’t seem to be much of a risk,” she sniffed, hating
the way the protestation sounded as it passed her lips. But despite her
irritation with herself, she pressed on with what she had come to realize
during her time in Benton’s container, “If I don’t at least appear to be
playing along with you, you’ll just kill me and drop me into the water for the scrapers
to deal with. It doesn’t seem to me that you’re taking any risks here,
so please stop insulting my intelligence by suggesting that anything you’ve
done to this point has exposed either of you.”
Jericho’s eyes narrowed briefly before he chuckled. “There
aren’t any out here,” he said simply.
Her brow furrowed before lowering thunderously. “Aren’t any
what?” she demanded as his laughter grew.
He shook his head in mock bewilderment. “Scrapers,” he
laughed, and Benton joined him briefly before Jericho added, “they only live
along the coastlines. Out here, you’d be digested by what passes for jellyfish
on this world…and I’m told that would be significantly more unpleasant than the
quick death you’d get from a scraper.” He schooled his features before
continuing just before she could retort, “But your point is well-taken. That’s
why I’m letting you off the ship first—if that’s what you’d like, of course.”
Masozi cocked her head before sneering. “You would have me
test the port security. If I get caught, you won’t have to risk exposing
yourselves, is that it? I’m not a moron,” she said acidly.
“I don’t think you’re a moron,” Jericho said lightly. “If
you had given me cause to believe that you are one,” Jericho paused and
his eyes twinkled briefly, “we wouldn’t be speaking right now.”
“Because what’s left of me would be coming
out of a jellyfish’s ass?” Masozi retorted icily.
A grin slowly spread across Jericho’s face, “You prove my
point even better than I could, Investigator…which is why I’ll be giving you an
assignment before you disembark—one you may choose either to accept or not. I’m
not going to force you to do anything…that’s not how this works. If you decide
to part company with me at the earliest convenience,
I’ll respect that choice and promise not to pursue you.” A look of something
between resignation and frustration crossed his face as he added, “I’m getting
too old to go chasing after people who want, and genuinely deserve, to be left
alone.”
Masozi was uncertain if she should accept his words as
genuine, or just an attempt to manipulate her. He had already admitted that he
considered human psychology a simple matter to understand. In her mind, that
was the same as confessing to proficiency in wielding it as a weapon.
But the truth was she simply could not turn her back on what
he had shown her. If even a fraction of the information in the ‘Goat’ file had
been accurate then the Governor in question not only deserved to die—she
deserved to die as quickly as possible. The conspiracy outlined in the Goat file was unprecedented in the
history of the Chimera Sector
And while all of it—the bombing of her apartment building,
the fateful meeting with Chief Afolabi, and even the torrent of information
which had been thrown at her since arriving in Benton’s secret lair—may have
been nothing more than an elaborate attempt to manipulate her, she knew that in
the end she had no choice but to see how far the whole thing went.
“Fine,” she said tersely, “what did you have in mind?”
Jericho tilted his head toward the data pad. “Each of the
documents in the Goat file is cloned. One copy is the original, and the other
has had the figures, names, locations, and all other identifying information
scrambled so as to be unrecognizable at a glance,” he explained. “Transfer the
scrambled copies to individual slates and have their contents verified as
authentic by independent sources. The only authority required for validation is
a public notarial license, so a lawyer, accountant, magistrate, or any one of
three dozen other professionals will be able to do it for you for a modest,
flat, fee.”
“What will they be comparing the documents to?” she asked
warily. “If all the data is scrambled then how can they be verifying anything?”
“Every piece of evidence you’re holding,” he gestured to the
pad, “contains a series of alphanumeric markers. Those markers indicate the
chain of custody that the evidence has passed through on its way to the
assigned Adjuster,” he said with a short, meaningful look before continuing, “all they’re doing is verifying that the document has, in
fact, passed through the indicated chain. The evidence itself has already been
confirmed to the point of reasonable certainty.”
“You keep using that phrase,” she cut in, “you say
‘reasonable certainty,’ but that term isn’t a legally-recognized part of our
public legal system. A person is innocent until proven guilty in a court of
law.”
“Correction,” he said while holding up a finger, “a private
citizen is innocent until proven guilty under our Sector’s laws. All public
officials—including, in a limited capacity, one Investigator Masozi when she
became a fully-fledged officer of the law—forgo that particular right when it
comes to actions taken while in public office. Since a powerful bureaucrat
might be able to manipulate the legal system for his or her own benefit, they
must be held apart from it in these matters so as to minimize corruption.”
“But there are trials every year for corrupt officials,” she
argued. “Sentencing is carried out according to the same systems in place for
all other types of criminal proceedings.”
“Adjusters can’t always arrive at reasonable certainty when an
Adjustment is authorized,” he replied with a shrug. “In those cases, the courts
are often made aware of the collected evidence and it becomes the bureaucracy’s
problem.”
Masozi’s mouth fell open in momentary surprise, “Are you
saying that the cases which go public are just the T.E.’s leftovers?”
“Of course,” he replied dismissively. “Although to be fair,
there are times when the voters become so enamored with an official that they
don’t trigger an Adjustment.” He laced his fingers and pointed at the data pad
in her hands, “Which has been the case for our soon-to-be-late Governor friend
until quite recently.”
Masozi could fully understand the public backlash against
the Governor in question—a woman named Crissa Keno, who had been born
Christopher Keno, second son of the firmly-entrenched Keno family which had
ousted the previous regime of Governor Fernando Marquez amid a popular uprising
some thirty years ago. That uprising had ended when the T.E. performed an
Adjustment after finding sufficient evidence of corruption within Marquez’ regime, and the Keno clan had functionally assumed control
over the small mining colony.
Christopher Keno had undergone gender reassignment in ‘his’
twenties—which was not an altogether unheard of procedure for the wealthy to
have—and the newly-corrected Crissa had promptly given birth to a pair of
children. Some ten years later, after becoming the colony’s media darling—often
dubbed the ‘Queen’ of all things media by her detractors, the majority of whom
were not residents of the colony over which she resided—Crissa began to compete
in the most violent forms of martial arts sanctioned throughout the Sector.
Most of her athletic accomplishments had been roundly celebrated by her
constituents as blazing a trail for gender-corrected individuals everywhere.
“I hope that the…unusual circumstances surrounding Ms.
Keno,” Masozi said slowly, “aren’t the cause for this requested Adjustment?”
Jericho snorted derisively. “’Unusual circumstances’ are irrelevant
to an Adjuster,” he said with a hard look which he held for several seconds
before continuing, “the potential corruption indicated
on that pad would easily outweigh my entire career’s accumulated Adjustment
value. This particular contract has been highly sought-after by every T.E.
Adjustor for that very purpose.”
Masozi suspected that she was supposed to ask what
‘accumulated Adjustment value’ meant, but she was sick of being spoon-fed
information. When she failed to make that particular query, an odd look flashed
over Jericho’s features before he stood abruptly from his cot.
“When we make dock, Benton and I will remain aboard the Esmerelda
for three days,” he explained. “The ship will leave port on the fourth day, and
I’ll disembark at that time to take care of other business while you follow up
on the Keno paperwork. It should take you about a week if you stay on task, and
Benton will supply you with travel documents and enough credits for food,
lodging, and the notarial seals. So if you decide to turn us in, I’d advise you
to do it before then.”
Masozi very much doubted the two of them would wait much
longer than it took for her to leave eyesight before egressing
the cargo vessel, but it wasn’t a point she cared to consider. She had already
decided to investigate Governor Keno and her unconventional rise to power
before deciding on a future course of action. “Fine,” she quipped, “but in case
you’ve forgotten, I am a wanted fugitive. By now my image and record
will have been disseminated to every public office from Presidential Security
down to local Pest Controllers. How do you propose I go about this ‘assignment’
when doing so will require me to walk past half the facial-recognition and
retinal-scanning systems in Aegis?!”
Jericho tilted his head toward Benton. “He’s got that part
covered; by the time you get on the streets, the locals won’t be looking for
you.”
Feeling anything but assured, she turned and made her way
back to her own cot with an impotent glare on her face.
She knew that to argue would only invite danger, so she kept
her mouth shut and took solace in the reality that if they had simply wished
her dead, they would have never made contact with her.
But Masozi could trust literally nothing else she had
learned about them to be true.


“Everything seems to be in order, Mrs. Washington,” the
Customs Officer said before handing the ident card back to Masozi, “welcome to
Aegis.”
“Thank you,” she replied perfunctorily, feeling a wave of
relief wash over her at not being recognized by the automated facial
recognition systems scattered throughout the port. As she walked past the
border security checkpoint and emerged on the coastal frontage road, she felt a
newfound respect for Benton and his information-manipulating skills.
He had supplied her with two thousand credits, which was
nearly as much as her starting Investigator’s monthly salary had been in New
Lincoln. She knew she would need to conserve those funds, though, since Aegis
was the second-most expensive city on Virgin.
Only the System Capitol of Onding’s Watch was a more
expensive place to live. The Capitol had been named after Commander Leonardo
Onding in memory of his last stand when, with the support of his two thousand
brave soldiers, he had held the then-central spaceport city of Black Harbor
against wave after wave of criminal elements bent on securing the world’s only
access point for themselves.
In the face of overwhelming odds and having run out of
options, Commander Onding overloaded a docked starship’s drive core and
incinerated the entire spaceport, taking the criminals with it. His heroic act
had given the populace of the planet sufficient time to gain some measure of
control over their individual communities which prevented a takeover from the
criminal forces.
Aegis had been born shortly thereafter. Originally little
more than the western oceanic transfer point between the two great continents
of Virgin, it was quickly repurposed into a spaceport.
Slowly but surely, the city had grown into a major hub of interstellar activity
and it was in no small part due to Aegis’ development that the eventual System
Capitol had been founded on Virgin—directly over the rubble of the old Black
Harbor spaceport.
Conveyances bustled this way and that on the busy frontage
road, and Masozi knew that if she was to complete her assigned task she would need
to secure passage in one of them. A few moments after hailing such a vehicle,
one pulled to a stop before her and she stepped inside.
“Where to?” the driver asked.
She considered the query briefly. She knew that if she acted
immediately, there was a chance that whatever authorities she alerted to
Benton’s and Jericho’s presence at the harbor would be able to act in time to
arrest them—or at least to make the attempt. But that would require that she
proceed with all haste to the nearest Planetary law enforcement agency, and
that meant the Virgin Port Authority located just a few kilometers away.
She let out a short, bitter sigh and said, “Across town: the
financial district.”


“Thank you for your time,” Masozi said for the sixth time
that day as she collected the data pad from the Public Accountant’s desk, which
had been affixed with said Accountant’s notarial seal of approval.
“Of course,” the Accountant replied after Masozi had
transferred the correct number of credits from the chit Benton had supplied. It
was fairly unusual for a person to use a physical chit since most people’s
accounts were directly linked to their idents. But she had explained it away as
some sort of a glitch in the system—one she had supposedly been assured would
be corrected before the day’s end—which necessitated the use of the old-style
chit.
That falsehood had drawn more than one look of incredulity
from the various public notaries. But with each telling of the lie, Masozi felt
somehow more comfortable with it and, in the process, more proficient at its
delivery. It had gotten to the point that this latest official had barely given
her a second glance, and that thought disturbed her more than she had imagined
it would.
After leaving the Accountant’s office, Masozi checked the list
which Benton had generated for her and stored on a data pad prior to her
disembarking the Esmerelda Emp. She knew from her own work as an
Investigator that to constantly be accessing the same query—such as a repeated
one for ‘notaries public’ or similar variations—would make tracking her far too
easy for anyone inclined to do so.
She crossed off the most recent Accountant’s name from the
list and moved on to a seventh name, checking her chronometer as she did so. It
was nearing the end of business hours, so she selected a nearby paralegal whose
offices were just a block away.
Masozi made her way down the sidewalk toward the corner, and
when she arrived there waited patiently with the other pedestrians who wished to
cross the intersection. When the signal changed to indicate they should
proceed, she did so and was halfway across the intersection before stopping
cold at an image which flashed up on a nearby advertisement panel.
It was a digitally-rendered image of her face! Below
was a caption which read: Terrorist killed in explosion at Aegis abandoned
warehouse—details to follow.
The image of her face—which had worn a decidedly unappealing
expression somewhere between a snarl and a grimace—was replaced with a large
fire burning out of control somewhere in an industrial center.
“It’s a good likeness but trust me, honey,” she heard an
elderly woman’s sarcastic voice say in a certain tone,
“I’m deader than you are.” Masozi looked down at the woman and blinked several
times, her mind still reeling from the image for reasons she could not quite
understand. “But that could change if you don’t two-step off the road,” the
elderly woman chided as she walked past her, and Masozi did as she suggested.
It took her several minutes of walking before she realized
that the newsflash must have been Benton’s way of ‘clearing a path’ for her
through the city’s scanners.
After all, there would be no reason to scan for a dead
person.






Chapter
XIV: A Side Mission 
Jericho raised his arms as the security guard outside the
establishment scanned him. The guard waved an expensive-looking device across
his body, and Jericho knew that it would find every single one of the literally
hundreds of weapons he had been tempted to bring with him to the meeting.
“You’re clean,” the guard said gruffly through its
surgically-implanted vocalizer, and Jericho took a moment to examine the
guard’s features more closely. It was an alien whose species was called
‘Klk’whrr’s—or, by those who wished to antagonize the six foot tall insectoid
creatures, ‘Click Whores.’
Their external carapaces were capable of resisting all but
the most powerful slug-throwers, and an un-augmented person could forget about
trying to puncture it with anything less than a monomolecular blade. They had
large, blue-green, multi-faceted eyes and a quartet of antennae protruding from
the tops of their heads which served as both auditory and olfactory organs.
“You’re looking good, Jesse,” Jericho said blithely as he
made his way past the guard.
“That’s ‘Mr. Holland’ to you,” the giant insect said amid a
chorus of clicks and clacks from its multiple mandibles as they struck against
each other in agitation. The Klk’whrr had been subjugated so many years before
the wormhole had collapsed that they had functionally been rendered into little
better than slaves.
The Sector government had been working to abolish slavery in
every form, but unfortunately things did not change overnight. Jericho still
held hope that, before he had breathed his last, aliens like the Klk’whrr—and
even the Poppers—might achieve rights in accordance to their contributions to
society.
Jericho opened the inner door leading into the establishment
and his senses were immediately assaulted by a riotous cacophony of sound,
light, smell, touch, and—improbably—taste.
It was one of several such locales, and while they were
legal under Virgin’s law, that didn’t make them any less offensive to Jericho.
Not far from the door was a trio of aliens—two of which looked vaguely like
slugs, while the third was decidedly avian and half the size of an adult
human—engaged in some sort of unspeakable act with a human couple. The
writhing, moaning mass of flesh was obviously in unified ecstasy.
Jericho averted his eyes and moved into the throbbing,
almost blindingly-bright room and saw hundreds of people crammed into the small
club. He scanned the room until his eyes fell on the person who had summoned
him to the seedy club. He made his way across the dance floor, which seemed to
writhe and pulsate with the mixture of humans and aliens who were indulging
their base instincts while being ‘bathed’ in the sensory-overloading
environment.
In just the fifteen steps it took him to cross the dance
floor, Jericho identified at least seven distinct flavors enter his mouth—only
one of which had been even remotely pleasant—and at least twice as many
overpowering smells.
Just before he reached his destination, a club employee—a
nearly naked young man who had every reason to be proud of his physical
endowments—offered him a small, necklace-shaped device which Jericho refused.
He knew that the device had plugs for his nose and ears, and small goggles for
his eyes, and that it was meant to provide a means to focus on the particular
senses one wished to indulge while in the club. But Jericho, even if he had
enjoyed such indulgence—which he did not—was there on business.
The boyish-looking man shrugged and snaked his way through
the crowd before Jericho sat at the lone, empty stool among dozens which were
clustered around tiny, circular tables. The man seated opposite that stool was
short, slight of stature, and almost completely bald. His name was Eugene
Roderick Obunda—and he was the closest thing that Jericho had to a boss.
“Good of you to make it,” Obunda said neutrally, looking over
the tops of his horn-rimmed glasses. “After your ship docked at the harbor and
you didn’t show, I was worried you’d hit a snag.”
Jericho suppressed a snicker, knowing he needed to stay
professional throughout the meeting. Obunda may have appeared small, but he had
undergone extensive genetic modifications and possessed one of the sharpest
minds in the Sector. Jericho could certainly handle him in a straight-up fight,
but men like Jericho and Obunda tended to deny potential adversaries
advantageous positions by using the most powerful lump of tissue in the human
body: the brain. “I need three Adjustments verified,” Jericho said as he
produced a trio of data crystals.
Obunda raised an eyebrow in surprise and, though he
appraised the other man’s expression longer than he should have, Jericho was
still unable to determine if that surprise was genuine. “I knew about the
mayor,” Obunda said slowly, his voice barely loud enough to be heard over the
violent, overpowering music. But Jericho had long since learned to read lips,
so he missed nothing of what was said, “And that bit with Angelo was
impressive, if perplexing.”
“Adjuster’s prerogative,” Jericho replied neutrally, knowing
that there was no way for Obunda to actually know which Adjustments he had
made. “The case was neck-deep in political hot buttons; I didn’t think the
public would benefit from an immediate exposure of his crimes.”
“The truth always comes out, Jericho,” Obunda chided. “Your
charity will be your undoing.”
Jericho slid the data crystals across the table and Obunda
accessed them via portable scanner one by one, stopping at the last entry with
a look of confusion on his face as he shook his head as he showed Jericho that
he had, indeed, verified the Adjustments as being authentic. When he had
finished, he returned the crystals to Jericho and the two sat in silence for
several minutes.
“You have something for me?” Jericho pressed after the
silence had lingered a bit too long for his liking.
“When were you going to tell me about the woman?” Obunda
asked mildly as his eyes swept the club like a hawk surveying a field.
Jericho had suspected that the subject of Masozi would come
up, but he was unwilling to discuss her in any way with Obunda—even if he was,
technically, Jericho’s superior. The T.E. had no dedicated hierarchy in the
traditional sense, but after an Adjuster acquired enough RL—Redeemed Lives, a
metric which showed how many lifetimes of productivity an Adjuster had ‘saved’
or ‘redeemed’ via his or her actions—he inherited several bureaucratic
responsibilities. Those responsibilities included verifying that Adjustments
had been properly carried out and, if they had not, the senior Adjuster was to
dispose of the junior Adjuster—personally.
Of course, there were several perks that came with the
territory as well…and Jericho was fast approaching the threshold which still
separated himself and Obunda.
“What I do with my pants down is none of your business,
Obunda,” Jericho said evenly, hoping to discourage further comment on the
matter.
Obunda let loose a harsh, barking laughter which was somehow
audible even over the din of the club’s absurd soundscape. “You don’t know what
you’re missing, old man,” he said before taking a sip of his drink. “I’ve
always got time for a potential convert and would happily show you a thing or
two if you’d like…who knows, you might even enjoy it?”
“Pass,” Jericho said levelly, fighting to keep the
irritation from his voice. “You have something for me so let’s stop wasting
each other’s time.”
“As you wish,” Obunda sighed before sliding a data crystal
across the table. “This one’s time-sensitive, and the former Adjuster’s
preparations look solid. All you have to do is show up, wait for an opening,
and make the Adjustment. It’ll be the easiest fifteen hundred RL you’ve ever
accrued.”
Jericho withdrew a data pad and slid the crystal into the
reading slot. Data began to flood the screen and he scanned its contents before
asking, “What happened to the former Adjuster?”
Obunda gently swirled his drink. “Her paperwork for a
previous Adjustment came up…lacking,” he said casually. “The window for this
one is closing and, as the senior Infectus-level Adjuster here on Virgin, the
burden of executing the contract falls to you. You make this Adjustment,” he
gestured to the data pad, “and you’ll pass the tribunal to get access to
Tyrannis contracts before year’s end without breaking a sweat.”
Obunda’s description of the expected risk was conservative
to the point of being ludicrous. The target was a recently-retired Planetary
Defense Force officer holding the rank of Lieutenant General, and his name was
Pemberton. Apparently he had been the Virgin Automated Defense Commander
assigned to deploy several orbital-and ground-based defensive assets in the
unlikely event of an invasion.
The System’s President, Han-Ramil Blanco, had issued an
executive order for a drone strike against a rural community comprised of
nearly four thousand that had set up on the frontier of Virgin’s eastern
continent. That community was later revealed to have harbored several dozen key
members of a Sector-wide terrorist organization, and much of the funding for
establishing the rural community had come from supposedly untraceable,
off-world sources. In general, the public had accepted the attack as
necessary—but the strike had not been approved by the Planetary Senate.
On the day of the drone strike, Pemberton had been charged
with defending the people of Virgin by deploying his automated defense assets
in defense of the planet against unlawful attacks—which, having failed to gain
Senatorial support prior to taking place, the drone strike was categorically
unlawful—but he had failed to do so. The result was three thousand two hundred
confirmed deaths when the assault drones vaporized the vast majority of the
community’s infrastructure with methodical, repeated strafing attacks.
Some speculated that PDF General Pemberton had sympathized
with the rationale for the drone strike, and had therefore essentially granted
President Blanco permission to slaughter the very people who Pemberton had
sworn to protect by accepting the post he had essentially abandoned.
But none of that explained how Pemberton’s Adjustment fell
under the Infectus branch of the Timent Electorum’s mandate. Brutally
suppressing civilians was an act of tyranny, and therefore Jericho should have
never been permitted to see such an Adjustment—let alone carry one out.
“I don’t see it,” he said, removing the data crystal and
sliding it across the table. “This doesn’t fall within the range of my
authority.”
“Read the last entry,” Obunda said all-too-patiently.
Jericho eyed the other man for several moments before doing
as he had suggested. After re-reading it and believing he understood the nature
of the Adjustment, he opened the attached files and confirmed their apparent
authenticity. “I can’t possibly verify all of this in two days,” Jericho said
coldly, despising the way that Obunda had managed to gain the upper hand but
working hard to keep that disappointment from his affect, “do you affirm that
these are as they say?”
“I do so affirm that the findings there are genuine,” Obunda
said laconically. “But General Pemberton’s admission of negligence is
well-documented in the public record; all you’ll need to do is have one of
your,” his lips twisted into a cruel smirk as he said, “talented operators confirm
the financial transfer to make the Adjustment legal.”
Jericho knew that it was an intentional slight which his
‘superior’ Adjuster was making. Jericho was absolutely terrible with data links
and other technological devices. Even as a child they had made little sense to
him, but over his life he had learned to incorporate them enough that his
techno-aversion was far from debilitating.
So by employing ‘operators’ like Benton, Shu, and the apparently
late Baxter, he had managed to overcome that particular limitation. But Obunda
required no such assistance.
Obunda had dabbled in tech crime since he was a youth, and
had managed several Adjustments via remote from the comfort of whatever place
it was he called ‘home’—including that of three Senators in one night, who had
conspired to manipulate the Sector’s currency value by shifting massive amounts
of labor from one pool to another over a period of five years. He had stopped
them during the first year of their plan, and had therefore accrued near the
theoretical maximum number of RL possible once the extent of their crime had
been confirmed.
Naturally, the prevention of a crime against the body
politic was worth more than simply punishing an official who managed to
complete such a crime. So, the more ‘lives’ which would be proven to have been
directly saved by an Adjuster’s actions, the higher the percentage of the
affected population’s lifetime productivity quotient that Adjuster was awarded
for acting in defense of the voters’ interests.
With that single Adjustment, Obunda had launched himself
into a position of authority and oversight over all Adjustments made in
Virgin’s assigned zone of control. He had also acquired Virgin-exclusive access
to Tyrannis Adjustments, which were usually of far higher value than their Infectus
counterparts—and required considerably less paperwork to execute.
“Fine,” Jericho said, swiping the data crystal from the
tabletop. “I’ll need it verified remotely after I’ve finished.” He then stood
from the table and opened his jaw wide in a vain effort to clear the horrific
music from his ears.
“Taking a trip, are we?” Obunda asked playfully.
“Not that I’m aware of,” Jericho lied, before adding more
truthfully, “I just can’t stand to set foot in this place again.”
With that, he turned and exited the den of indulgence as
quickly as he could without making a scene.






Chapter
XV: Plan ‘B’…as in ‘Brutal’ 
With a heavy duffel bag in each hand, Jericho stepped off
the hovercraft and onto the grassy field before nodding his thanks to the
craft’s operator. Benton had arranged for the conveyance after thankfully
accepting the job of operator for this unexpected Adjustment on such short
notice.
“How far to the safe house?”
Jericho asked, having placed a tiny, high-quality earpiece in his left ear just
before stepping off the craft.
“We be lookin’ at…” Benton replied,
“six clicks by crow’s flight, probably more like seven
and a half if you stick to the flat. But you only need four point two clicks to
make the top of that hill and set up for the shot.”
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this…” Jericho muttered as he
set off toward the proposed blind atop the hill.
“That cannon can punch through Class II vehicle armor at
three clicks, easy, my man,” Benton assured him, referring to the long-range
weapon Jericho had brought with him for the mission. “All you need is a line of
sight and you be golden—hey!” he yelled unexpectedly,
causing Jericho to duck instinctively as his adrenal glands began flooding his
body with epinephrine. “Dammit, Eve, I done told you to stay outta my
God-damned vids—them shits is private!”
Jericho set his jaw and took several deep, cleansing breaths
before coming out of his crouch and resuming the journey to the setup point.
“Problems?” he asked in a voice little more than a growl.
“Sorry, my man,” Benton apologized after several seconds of
silence, “girl just won’t stay outta my stuff, feel me?”
“No,” Jericho replied shortly. After a few more steps he
stopped and looked at the hill before him. He had initially planned to set up
on top of that hill and, using a high-end targeting scope, execute the
Adjustment from long-range with a single shot. But the more he had thought
about it, the more he became convinced that it was all a setup.
Jericho had learned things about Obunda in recent years
which had cast doubt on more than just the other man’s trustworthiness, but he
had never accumulated sufficient evidence to support any kind of meaningful
action.
“We’re dropping Plan ‘A’,” Jericho said, literally dropping
the duffel bag containing the disassembled cannon.
“Say what!?” Benton asked incredulously. “This be the
simplest job you ever done, boss man: just walk up that hill, lay flat against
a rock till nightfall, then blast that fool through the eye with the BFG and
you be back in time for breakfast!”
Jericho considered it, and even though Benton had confirmed
that the top of the hill was completely clean—no EM signatures, no heat blooms,
not even a slight disturbance of the fauna had taken place in six months of
accumulated satellite imagery—he shook his head in negation. “We’re going with
Plan ‘B’,” he said as he broke into a jog that would skirt well around the
hill—in fact, he meant to go around at least two hills to the left of his
original setup point before making for the safe house.
“You the boss,” Benton sighed. “I thought you was just bitchin’ about bein’ too old for this shit,
though…now you wanna take on a six man detail up-close-and-personal-style? You
ain’t no borg, feel me? These be
in-their-prime military types who get paid to do one thing: kill dudes like you
who try to get up in their business.”
“Cut the chatter,” Jericho snapped. “Work up some high-res
imagery for me; I’ll need an approach in about two hours.”
“You got it,” Benton agreed reluctantly, and Jericho
quickened his pace for what he estimated would be an extra fifteen kilometers
tacked onto his planned hike.
But at least he would be breathing clean, unpolluted air
while he ran it.


“I’m in position,” Jericho said between deliberately deep breaths
after he had completed his trek. It was nearly night, and according to the
intel on the data pad—intel which Benton had largely corroborated—General
Pemberton would be transferred off-world the following evening, which meant
that they would be departing the safe house early in the morning. The time
crunch was just one of several aspects which heightened Jericho’s wariness, and
when he received Benton’s data packet with the information he had requested for
the small fortress, that wariness proved more than justified.
“We be dealin’ with twelve,
not six, professional killers,” Benton said through the earpiece. “I be readin’ a detection field like nothin’ I’ve ever seen—at
least not outside of a full-blown military base or global bank vault—and these
dudes each be packin’ some serious heat. I’m seein’ plasma pistols on each of
them mo-fo’s, along with a pair of concealed autocannon turrets with near-total
coverage of the zone, and even an HVM inside the southern house—which obviously
ain’t no house, feel me?”
“Where’s the nearest autocannon?” Jericho asked as he worked
through the situational breakdown in his mind.
“Ain’t gonna happen, dawg,” Benton replied promptly. “Them shits is controlled from an isolated system located
inside the compound—ain’t no manual control to be had.”
Jericho swore under his breath. If he tried to sneak into
the safe house the detection grid would reveal him, and if he tried to shoot
his way in the autocannons would cut him down before he got his third shot off.
He hated using one of his only remaining aces, but decided
it was worth the potential reward. “As far as entry goes, she is one frigid
bitch,” Jericho muttered before taking the plunge, “maybe we can loosen her
up?”
“Thought you’d never ask, dawg,” Benton replied
enthusiastically, and Jericho could almost see the grin on the big guy’s face
even though he was two thousand kilometers away. “Let me crunch this out for a
second,” he said before severing the audio feed.
He sat there as the sun set over the horizon and considered
the distances between each of the points marked on his tactical overlay of the
surprisingly well-fortified installation.
Just as he had arrived at a timetable for each potential
entry point, Benton’s voice crackled in his earpiece, “According to our
readings, we be lookin’ at some stiff shielding on most of the central
components so we can’t knock them off. But,” he added just as Jericho felt his
stomach tighten at the news, “I do think we can give you a window to get
into the house without tippin’ off the guards by spikin’ the relays between the
central control system and the field or turrets. After that, you be on your
own.”
“How long can you give me?” Jericho asked as he rolled his
head around, cracking his neck as he did so in a long-practiced warm-up routine.
“We’ve got enough juice to drop the detection grid for
twenty one seconds,” Benton replied promptly, before adding, “but the
autocannon’s automatic reset cycle is only fourteen seconds, and without more
info on their system’s setup that’s what we need to work with.”
Jericho glanced down at his data pad’s tactical overlay and
considered his options. Of the nine reasonable approaches he had devised, six
of them were out entirely because each would have taken more than twenty six
seconds even if everything went perfectly. He considered the autocannons’
firing arcs, and eliminated yet another approach since he would still be within
both of their fields for at least four seconds longer than the window would
provide.
“You goin’ high or low?” Benton
asked, apparently having deduced the options as Jericho had done.
“What do you suggest?” Jericho asked blandly, unable to
decide between them. The first option would see him exit the overlapping fields
of the autocannons and reach the house with one second to spare, while the
other would only leave him in the field of one autocannon—but he would be in
its field of coverage for at least three seconds.
“Hang on,” Benton said before once again severing the link.
He returned after a few seconds and said, “We be thinkin’ you should take the
low.”
Jericho nodded to himself slowly as he considered Benton’s
advice to enter the single autocannon’s field for more time rather than
entering the multiple autocannons’ fields for less. Then he caught something
Benton had said and rolled his eyes, “’We’? Don’t tell me you’re asking the
sexbot for tactical advice.”
“I heard that, Jericho,” Eve’s voice cut in over the line.
“You take that back this very instant!”
“He didn’t mean nothin’ by it, baby,” Benton tried to assure
her. “He just be under a lot of stress…you know how it
is: humans be humans. We can’t be perfect angels like you.”
“Well…” Eve said as though considering the matter at great
length, “all right. But you need to get me something nice when you come back or
I’ll never forgive you!”
“Sure thing, Eve,” Jericho said as he rummaged through the
duffel and considered which gear to bring, “but I think I’m going high. One
autocannon’s more than enough to turn me into pudding if it locks on, so
minimizing exposure is key.”
He looked long and hard at the bullpup slug-thrower he had
brought, which could be reconfigured for medium-range sniping, before deciding
against bringing it. He had a smaller, muffled scattergun, which had been
loaded with explosive rounds that would be absolutely devastating in closed
quarters, and concluded that it would pay to have a short-range weapon once he
made it into the house.
He also strapped a pair of gas-powered needle-launchers to
his forearms, each of which had been loaded with a high-powered tranquilizer
dart. The darts were fairly ingenious—and absolutely illegal—in that they not
only administered the requisite chemical restraints into the target’s body but
they also produced an electrical surge which would instantly stun the target
and persist until the chemicals had taken effect. If any of the guards were
augmented, or even extensively modified genetically, they would likely be
capable of resisting the darts long enough to sound an alarm—but Jericho was
betting his life that they were far from super soldiers.
In addition to the ranged weapons, he had brought along
Captain Sasaki’s tanto since it had been superior to the other blades he might
have acquired. The window Benton would provide him would make it impossible to
neutralize all of the guards before an alarm went up, so he needed to sneak
into the safe house rather than shoot his way in. He also brought a small
satchel of pre-filled syringes, most of which had enough veterinary
tranquilizers to knock an ordinary person out for twelve hours—or an athletic
specimen like Jericho for three to four hours. He had a growing suspicion that
parts of this Adjustment were not what they appeared, and he was therefore
unwilling to cause unnecessary collateral damage.
“You just give the word and I’ll give you a sixty second count,”
Benton said, and Jericho could hear uncharacteristic tension in the other man’s
voice. “But we only be gettin’ one shot at this, feel me?”
Jericho donned a bandolier with two dozen explosive shotgun
rounds, and attached the sheathed tanto to his belt and ran through the
scenario in his mind’s eye several times, trying to visualize his approach and
subsequent entry to the house.
It appeared there was a vehicle inside the house’s attached
garage. He suspected he would be able to use it to create a diversion once he
was inside the house and, hopefully, that the diversion would allow him to slip
away before he was cut down.
“How many inside the house?” he asked as he checked his
gear. He had worn an energy weapon-resistant bodyglove underneath a thin, carbon
fiber vest which would provide protection from at least a few rounds of small
arms fire before failing. Jericho could have brought heavier protection, but he
knew that this particular Adjustment was one he could not make without relying
primarily on speed and stealth.
“Includin’ the target…” Benton hesitated, “four. You need to
slip past the two guards shown as blue icons on your way to the house,” he
explained in a more serious tone and Jericho glanced at the data link to
confirm that they were on the same page tactically. “Then it be
up to you, boss man.”
“Sounds good,” Jericho replied before closing his eyes and
carefully stretching his legs. He needed to move a hundred sixty yards closer
to the safe house before Benton made his move. “You’re sure they won’t realize
you’ve pinched them?”
“Nah,” Benton replied confidently, “I got the tech specs on
all that gear; this shot be tailor-made to knock out
the field and the autocannon’s targeting computers. Even them plasma pistols
will be affected,” he said before adding contemplatively, “but only for about
five seconds.”
“I knew it couldn’t be that
easy,” Jericho said dryly, but he had already assumed as much.
He carefully moved his way to the perimeter of the
compound—which appeared to be nothing but a farm house in the middle of a vast
sea of grassy, rolling hills—and when he was in position he stopped to collect
his wits. He needed every step to be precisely made, and he had to put every
ounce of power he had into each stride or he would be unable to close the
distance in time.
When he had inspected his chosen path to the safe house, and
concluded that there was no more preparation to be made—and the nearest guard
had turned her back—he said, “Start the clock.”
“Clock is hot,” Benton replied, “in ten seconds we’ll be cut
off until you can get a new link. Six…five…four…three…two…one…she’s hot—good
luck!”
There was the barest blip of static in his earpiece and
Jericho immediately took off at a sprint along his chosen route. He made visual
contact with one of the guards and saw that the guard’s back was still turned
as he cleared her primary field of view and sprinted past a small outbuilding.
After four seconds of full-speed sprinting, he saw the second guard he would
need to evade—but this guard was facing in his direction and situated on the
top floor of a nearby barn-like structure.
Jericho reflexively raised his left arm and activated the
needle-launcher, resulting in a hiss of gas bursting from the tubular device.
The tiny missile sailed toward its target, adjusting its course slightly to
bend its arc mid-air and lodge itself into the exposed neck of the guardsman.
The guard barely reacted to the attack before going rigid and collapsing to the
floor of his viewing nest.
Jericho lost nearly half a stride while neutralizing the
guardsman, which meant he would remain in the autocannons’ overlapping fields
of fire for an extra quarter of a second—a potentially deadly increase in time.
His feet churned beneath his body as he silently counted
down the seconds before coming around the corner of the barn and seeing a
relatively exposed patch of ground between himself and the safe house. The
autocannons—which were concealed within a pair of ancient, rusted farm
vehicles—were still down, but Jericho knew that if they managed to acquire him
before he left their fields of fire he would never even know they had killed
him.
But he had left all doubt back with his high-powered cannon
two hours before. His feet pumped up and down like the pistons of a
finely-tuned machine, devouring the dry ground between himself and his quarry
as he saw—with more than a twinge of relief—that the third guard he needed to
pass by did not appear to be looking in his direction.
He was halfway across the open patch of ground when his
silent countdown reach three seconds remaining before the autocannons came
online. His legs were heavier than he had expected, and his lungs burned so
badly they felt ready to burst in his chest, but he knew he could make the safe
house before missing a step.
With two seconds left, he realized he would remain in the
autocannons’ overlapping fields of fire for nearly two seconds. He briefly
chastised himself for overthinking the approach, but Jericho had no place for
guilt or remorse anywhere in his being.
With one second left he tripped over an unseen rock and
concluded that there was an eighty percent likelihood
that the chip of granite had just cost him his life. He managed to keep his
feet beneath him, but his stumbling gait cost him nearly another second.
But Jericho refused to die defeated, so he pressed on and
actually heard the clicking of the nearest autocannon as it cycled through its
restart sequence. Though he pressed on toward the safe house, he felt confident
that those clicks would be the last sounds he ever heard.
Time seemed to slow as each painful, laborious step brought
him closer to the tiny alcove built into the house which he had chosen as his
insertion point. He knew that neither autocannon would see him if he made it to
the alcove, but even if he managed to do so he had only a few seconds before
the detection grid would come online—and the window appeared to be closed.
In what Jericho would later realize was the first moment of
clarity he had ever truly experienced, he made the final handful of steps
toward the alcove before rolling to a stop against the concrete foundation of
the house.
He lay there for just a moment before springing to his feet
and leaping as high in the air as he could while attempting to grab the narrow
lip of the window’s sill. Thankfully, his fingertips gained purchase on the
first try and he was able to haul himself up to the small portal.
Jericho risked a glance inside the window and saw that it
led into an empty, unlit toilet. He reached down to his belt and drew the
tanto, which he then used to pry the top-hinged window open. Though it was
locked, he managed to break that lock with the tanto as his silent countdown
continued. He had just three seconds before the detection field came online and
sent up an automatic alarm when it detected him hanging from the outside of the
house.
With the window swung open, he hauled himself up and felt
his left arm give slightly as he did so. But he had to focus on the task at
hand or he would fail to gain entry to the house, so he ignored the pain in his
arm and used sheer, brute, strength to haul himself into the lavatory as the
window swung closed behind him.
Jericho collapsed to the floor and cradled his arm against
his chest briefly before realizing that it had broken once again, likely
aggravating the injury he originally sustained entering the window of Angelo’s
flat in New Lincoln.
“I should have just knocked,” he muttered subvocally. That
he had re-broken the arm was actually something of a surprise, since most long
bones were more or less structurally sound after a couple weeks of healing
time. But he knew he was far from a young man, and was actually grateful that
his increasingly fragile body had withstood as much punishment as he had put it
through recently.
After collecting himself, he removed the needle-launcher
from his left and unslung the short, pistol-gripped shotgun from its holster
across his back and attached it to the front of the bandolier so he could draw
it more quickly. But he needed to remain undetected, or else he could kiss any
chance of escape goodbye—and he had no intention of dying during this
particular Adjustment—so he would need to depend largely on Sasaki’s tanto and
the tranquilizers he had brought for the mission.
Jericho listened at the lavatory’s door and heard nothing,
and then he tested the door’s handle and found it unlocked. He swung it open
and it was thankfully quiet as it opened wide enough for him to pass through.
He was in a short hallway which had a stairwell leading up to the second floor
at the far end, and appeared to adjoin both a kitchen and a parlor.
He padded softly toward the parlor-side of the hall and kept
his remaining needle-launcher aimed at the kitchen until verifying it was
empty, after which he turned his focus toward the parlor. The first of the
three guards was sitting in a chair beside a traditional fireplace, and he
appeared to be reading some sort of e-zine on a data pad.
The light of the room would create no shadows, and the
curtains on the windows would prevent anyone not intently looking inside from
seeing him, so Jericho carefully moved behind the man before tapping him on the
shoulder.
The guard looked up blankly before Jericho unleashed a
crushing overhand right which easily broke the man’s nose, knocking him out
cold. Jericho had only the one needle-launcher syringe remaining, and he wanted
to keep it in reserve for one of the other two remaining guards inside the
house. But he withdrew one of his tranquilizer syringes from the small satchel
and injected the man in his left brachial vein, ensuring the drugs circulated
throughout his system quickly enough to prevent him from regaining
consciousness.
Jericho then proceeded to the staircase, knowing that
although he was a highly-trained operative, all of it had been just a little
too easy. The overlapping fields of the autocannons; the relatively open lanes
of approach provided by the guards posted outside; and a less-than-alert
guardsman inside the safe house itself were all major red flags which further convinced
him that not everything he saw was what it appeared.
But he also knew that it was only a matter of time before
the tranquilized guard outside would be discovered, and when that happened the
compound would become a death trap.
So he softly padded up the stairs, the pain in his left arm
growing with each passing moment. He needed to secure the target and get some
answers soon, or his only option would be killing General Pemberton before
getting those answers.
He had suspected the only way to enter the safe house would
be after a localized electro-magnetic pulse, and that had proven correct just a
few minutes earlier. Jericho had therefore left his enhanced vision gear with
the cannon, and was forced to rely on his own senses rather than high-tech
gear—which was how he preferred to operate anyway.
Jericho made it to the landing and saw a glimpse of movement
from a nearby open door. Ducking back down into the staircase, he saw a woman
emerge from the room. She was wearing all-black, loose-fitting clothing and had
medium-length, blond hair. Her physique was less a soldier’s and more akin to a
ballet dancer’s, and she seemed unaware of his presence as she moved down the
second floor’s hallway toward the door at the far end.
Jericho moved quickly up onto the second floor’s landing and
followed her down the hallway for several steps before she turned abruptly and
caught sight of him.
Her face twisted in alarm, but before she could scream he
snapped a short, tight uppercut into her chin and her eyes rolled back into her
head as she collapsed. Jericho deftly caught her slumping body before she fell
to the floor and gently lowered her to the carpeted floor.
While scanning the hallway and its five adjoining doors, he
produced another tranquilizer-filled syringe and injected her in the jugular
vein. He gave her the full dose since all it would do was keep her
incapacitated for another handful of hours, and then carried her limp body to
the room she had left a few seconds earlier.
If he was to get answers then Jericho would probably require
some quiet time with Pemberton, so the less evidence he left of his presence
the better his chances were to get that time.
Just as he set her down on the bed, Jericho heard a door
open at the end of the second floor’s hallway. He quickly made his way back to
the doorway and heard a man’s voice say, “Sasha? Are you coming?”
The man’s footfalls approached the room Jericho was in, and
Jericho took up a position behind the door and cocked his needle-launcher in
preparation.
“Sasha…don’t make me come in there
after you,” he said playfully, and Jericho’s jaw clenched in a mixture of
anticipation and disappointment as the man neared the doorway. Any trained
professional would have never made the mistake of continuing to give away his
position…unless—
Jericho ducked down just as that thought occurred to him and
was spared decapitation as a blade sliced cleanly through the wall behind him.
The blade passed easily through the heavy, wooden door and Jericho rolled
across the doorway to get a bead on his surprisingly adept adversary.
After seeing the man’s weapon slice so effortlessly through
the wall and door, Jericho knew it had a monomolecular edge and that it would
slice through his armor as though it wasn’t even there. Even blocking with
Sasaki’s tanto would provide little more than a fractional chance of deflecting
a single attack before it would be torn apart by the amazing weapon. He had one
shot to put a tranquilizer in the man’s body, and as his foe came into view he
fired the needle-launcher at the man’s chest.
The drug-laden missile struck home on the right side of the
man’s chest, and Jericho saw that he was huge—easily two meters tall and a
hundred twenty kilos of knotted musculature.
The tranquilizer’s electric jolt hit the man with enough
force to put a half-ton bovine down, but amazingly he managed to keep his feet
beneath him as he staggered backward. Jericho launched himself at the
powerfully-built man, knowing that if his adversary could endure the electrical
surge then the tranquilizer that followed would likely prove to be even less
effective.
Just as the electrical surge dissipated, Jericho slammed
into the man’s body and managed to get inside the guard of his weapon as he did
so. Jericho drove the other man through the hip-high bannister which framed the
staircase, and the two men’s combined bulk reduced the wooden bannister to
splinters as they crashed into the stairs below.
The larger man actually managed to twist his body during the
brief fall and force Jericho to absorb as much of the impact as he did. The
wind was nearly knocked from Jericho’s lungs when he felt a pair of sharp,
cracking pains in his flank. He had suffered broken ribs before, and he knew
the sensation for what it was.
The brutally powerful man brought his meter-long blade
around in a one-handed grip and drove its tip toward Jericho’s neck. It was all
Jericho could do to keep the man’s single arm at bay using both of his own, and
he silently cursed his aging body’s fragility and swore to have a complete
physical if he survived the Adjustment—an outcome which was proving to be
increasingly questionable.
The larger man—whose movements seemed jerky and
uncoordinated while still retaining incredible, brute, strength—drove his knee
into Jericho’s hip causing his leg to explode in pain. The powerful man
followed up with a pair of crushing knees to Jericho’s abdomen, and whatever
wind the fall had failed to take from him vanished after the second, punishing,
knee to his gut.
Knowing that he was outmatched—and nearly out of time, as
the monomolecular sword’s tip came perilously close to his throat—Jericho
arched his body upward with everything he could muster and drove his hips into
his foe’s torso. The tip of the sword wavered briefly, and Jericho adjusted his
grip before twisting and forcing the blade into the wooden staircase.
The weapon drove into the wood steps all the way to its
box-shaped hilt, and a brief look of surprise came over the other man’s face as
he moved to recover—but he was unable to do so before Jericho bared his teeth
and savagely clamped them onto the man’s neck below his left ear. Jericho was
rewarded with a powerful spray of blood to flood around—and inside—his mouth.
Knowing he had just exposed himself to the same tranquilizer
which had incapacitated three of the guards—and possessing no enhancements
which would help his system fight that drug’s effects, unlike his current
adversary—Jericho released the man’s wrist and reached to his belt for Sasaki’s
tanto while spitting as much of the metallic-tasting connective tissue from his
mouth as he could.
The larger man thrashed violently and managed to buck
Jericho off, sending him tumbling down the stairs. Jericho recovered his posture
just before landing at the base of the stairs, and even then he was barely able
to avoid the deadly, sweeping arc of the man’s monomolecular blade. The weapon
sliced silently through the space which Jericho had barely managed to evacuate
as he backpedaled down the hallway, moving inexorably toward the same lavatory
through which he had entered the house.
“You’re better than I expected,” the larger man growled as
he put his left hand to his neck. Amazingly, the blood flow seemed to have
almost ceased and Jericho concluded that the other man had an active repair
system, likely based on nano-technology of some sort—yet another advantage the
younger, stronger, better-equipped man held over him. As Jericho’s adversary
charged forward, he plucked the needle-dart from his chest and dropped it to
the floor before taking stiff, laborious steps toward the backpedaling Jericho.
Jericho could already feel the powerful tranquilizer’s first
effects, and knew he had no choice but to attack if he was to have any chance
at victory. Even the tiny quantity of tranquilizer he had exposed himself to
via the other man’s blood would be enough to slow his reflexes enough to make
the affair utterly one-sided—and brief.
The hulking warrior stepped forward and expertly whipped the
tip of his blade in a seemingly wild, but clearly well-practiced series of
slashes, swipes, and stabs. Any one of them would be more than capable of
crippling Jericho, but the only reason Jericho was still alive was because the
tranquilizer in the other man’s system seemed to be affecting his legs more
than his arms. His approach was therefore slowed just enough that Jericho could
stay out of range of the weapon.
A monomolecular blade was especially dangerous since very
little kinetic force was required to penetrate all but the most advanced
personal armor. So a person wielding one would only need to make contact with a
lightly-armored target to inflict a serious wound.
The blade came closer and closer to finding Jericho’s flesh
with each swipe, and Jericho knew he had no more choice in the matter. He threw
Sasaki’s tanto at his assailant, but the larger man reflexively batted it away
using his monomolecular blade.
However, by doing so he created a brief opening—and Jericho
used that opening to enter inside the other man’s guard and bring the
pistol-gripped shotgun’s muzzle up into the other man’s gut. No sooner had the
shotgun pressed against the hulking warrior’s abdomen than Jericho pulled the
trigger.
There was a muffled ‘whump’ which was barely noticeable, and
three separate pieces of the man’s body went flying in opposite directions.
Those pieces—the head and attached arms, along with each individual leg—then
fell to the floor in the middle of the hallway amid a spray of half-congealed
blood and other tissues which had previously formed the man’s powerfully-built
torso.
Wiping the man’s gore from his face—and careful not to allow
any of it into his mouth in the process—Jericho reached down and picked up the
monomolecular blade, along with its sheath, before returning to the staircase. His balance was slightly affected from the
tranquilizer, and his movements were less coordinated than he would have liked,
but he felt confident that he had just dealt with the final obstacle between
himself and his target.
His left leg hurt terribly, but his range of motion was more
or less unaffected for the time being. So he stiffly ascended to the landing
and made his way to the far end of the short hall—after collecting Sasaki’s
tanto and sticking it back in its own sheath.
The door where the brutally powerful assassin had apparently
come from was ajar, and Jericho pushed it open to see precisely what he had
expected to see.
General Pemberton was seated in the very chair the
intelligence packet had indicated he would be sitting in, and that chair
provided a reasonable line of sight to the hilltop on which Jericho had
intended to set up on with his anti-material cannon.
But the General was not sitting in that position of his own
free will. He had clearly been restrained chemically, as well as physically via
plastic bindings which wrapped around his wrists and secured them to the arms
of the chair.
Jericho knew his time was limited and, seeing as he had
actually expected to find some variation of the scene which was now before him,
he wasted no time in retrieving a pair of syringes from the satchel he had
brought. He winced in pain as he knelt beside the General, as a lance of
white-hot fire ran down the leg the hulking assassin had injured on the staircase
with a brutally effective knee.
He injected the first cocktail, which would nullify the
majority of readily-available tranquilizers and pain killers within thirty
seconds of administration, and then waited for the medicine to work through
Pemberton’s system.
Precisely on schedule, General Pemberton’s head lolled
around and a grimace of pain flashed across his face. His eyes wandered
aimlessly for several seconds until finally settling on Jericho, and when that
happened Jericho injected the second syringe into the Lieutenant General’s
veins.
“Who…are…you?” Pemberton asked as he slowly came to from the
drug-induced stupor.
“Your executioner,” Jericho replied evenly after withdrawing
the second needle from the other man’s arm. “I’ve injected you with a truth
serum you’re ill-equipped to resist. Tell me why you stood down the automated
defense grid when Blanco’s drones came into range—why did you betray the people
you swore to protect?”
Pemberton looked at him dully, and Jericho heard a commotion
outside. They had apparently discovered the tranquilized guard posted at the
barn. It was only a matter of seconds—perhaps a minute—before the entire
compound encircled the safe house and cut him off from any chance of escape.
“It was inevitable,” Pemberton whimpered as his face
contorted into a look of pure misery. He began to sob, but Jericho slapped him
across the face as hard as he could—emotional lability was a common side effect
of the particular truth serum he had employed, and physical pain was sometimes
capable of cutting through it.
“Die with some dignity, General,” Jericho growled. While the
slap seemed to only barely get the other man’s attention, Jericho’s words
seemed to snap him out of his stupor completely. “Why didn’t you open fire on
the drones? Answer quickly.”
Pemberton nodded as his eyes seemed to gain some measure of
focus. “They…the SDF Admirals…they had my granddaughters,” he replied as his
face twisted in shameful remorse. “They…they were going to destroy them…do you
understand? They were going to hurt them, and only if they were lucky
would they be allowed to die afterward!” Once again he began to sob, but
Jericho had no time for the other man’s protestation.
The man’s dereliction of duty was at least explainable now,
if not still wholly inexcusable. “You accepted the credit transfer to your
off-world account so that you would take the fall—better you be Adjusted than
your grandchildren be…harmed,” Jericho concluded, and the other man nodded
rapidly. But Jericho shook his head adamantly as he stood and made as if to
leave, “I can’t Adjust you.”
“No, please!” Pemberton blurted as an alarm went up outside.
“You have to kill me now—it’s the only way my little girls will be spared!”
“I’m sorry,” Jericho said with a shake of his head. “You
failed nearly four thousand people by tacitly approving President Blanco’s
illegal order—you don’t deserve my sympathy.”
“You’re right,” Pemberton stammered quickly, “but I have
information!”
Jericho stopped at the doorway, knowing he had only seconds
to secure whatever information Pemberton was offering—information which would
provide an unexpected bonus, since it likely had to do with President Blanco.
“Speak,” he snapped angrily as searchlights began to stream through the
windows.
“Your word first,” Pemberton retorted with a measure of
resolve more befitting a thirty year veteran of the armed forces. “Promise
you’ll file my Adjustment as properly done…and I’ll give you enough information
to put that tyrant behind bars for good.”
“Not good enough,” Jericho quipped. Then the searchlights
unexpectedly went dark and Jericho felt his hackles rise.
“They’re clearing out, which means you have forty seconds
before the area is pulverized by the attack drones lifting off from Fort Sumter
this very second,” the General said heavily. “You can’t escape without my help.
Even if you get past the perimeter guards, the drones will cut you down in
seconds.”
Jericho realized he was probably right. The guards outside
had apparently not actually been posted to stop Pemberton from being assassinated…the
entire thing had just been an elaborate trap—a trap intended to snare him.
So when they had ascertained his location, the guards had naturally pulled back
to a safe distance and were likely now awaiting the impending drone strike.
“Fine,” Jericho growled, stomping over to Pemberton’s chair,
“I’ll do it—where’s your evidence?” He despised the idea of lodging a false
report—an offense which carried with it potentially lethal consequences—but he
had made up his mind. And once Jericho gave his word, he kept it.
“Thank you—thank you,” Pemberton stammered through tears.
“The evidence, General!” Jericho
barked.
Pemberton nodded quickly. “On South Virginia there is a
woman named Tera St. Murray—first name: T-E-R-A—tell her I sent you and repeat
the phrase ‘The good of us all.’ She will give you what you need.” He tilted
his head in the direction of the stairs, “Below the staircase is a trap door
which leads to a tunnel. You still have time to use it for escape—go!”
Without word or fanfare Jericho reached down and snapped
Lieutenant General Pemberton’s neck, killing him instantly. He then did
precisely as the late General had suggested and moved as quickly as possible
toward the base of the stairs on the ground floor.
His silent countdown was already at twenty elapsed seconds when
he found the trap door, and after opening it he saw that opened into a shaft
which descended into the pure darkness below. There was a ladder, and Jericho
quickly began to descend the ladder after closing the heavy, iron trap door
behind him. They would certainly discover the door’s existence—assuming they
did not already know of it—upon inspecting the soon-to-be pile of rubble above
him, which is why speed was critical.
No sooner had he reached the bottom of the thirty foot deep
shaft and set out down the short, narrow tunnel—which was barely tall enough to
permit a stooped, shambling gait—than the ground above him was rocked with a
series of violent explosions. The shaft through which he had descended
collapsed loudly behind him, and he quickened his pace as dust and small bits
of stony debris began to dislodge from the crude tunnel’s walls.
The cloud of dust which the collapsed shaft kicked up choked
his breathing, and he did his best to filter his breaths through the hem of his
sleeve. The dust eventually settled and, after what felt like several hours and
miles of shuffling, shambling, and stooping, Jericho finally came to a stone
door with heavy, iron fittings.
After several minutes of intense effort Jericho was able to
force the door’s rusted hinges to unlock from their rust-locked position, and
he managed to squeeze himself out of the cleverly concealed door—which looked
like nothing but a section of rock in a small, rocky, outcropping .
He took a deep breath of clean, fresh air and looked up. For
an uncharacteristic moment, Jericho took in the beauty of the stars scattered
across the night sky before setting off in the opposite direction from the safe
house—an area now illuminated by the dull, orange glow of the buildings’
burning remains.






Chapter
XVI: The Next Phase 
Masozi opened the door to the tiny, low-rent lodging—her
fifth in as many days—and appraised the ‘amenities’ such as they were. The room
itself stank of human filth, with just enough residual disinfectant smell to
suggest someone had made something vaguely resembling an effort to remove the
offensive odor, but had failed miserably in doing so.
She had decided against staying in one spot for too long,
and over the course of those five days she had begun to see society differently
than she had done just a month earlier in New Lincoln. As she made her way
through the streets, it became a fairly simple matter to avoid undue scrutiny
by employing the very methods she had once learned to identify in those she
believed to be guilty of a crime.
The truth was that she had committed several crimes
in the weeks since fleeing New Lincoln but, much as she was loathe to admit it,
she had found them to be absolutely necessary to her continued survival so that
she could learn who had been behind her framing…and why it had taken place.
Masozi had bought a small assortment of foodstuffs for
dinner, as well as for the coming morning’s breakfast. She had less than a
day’s work left to get all of the evidence notarized, and the thought had
occurred to her that she had no way to get in touch with Jericho now that the Esmerelda
Emp had offloaded, reloaded, and subsequently set sail for New Lincoln
once again.
So she set down on the borderline filthy bed in the two
meter by three meter, windowless room, and carefully attempted to construct a
reasonably sanitary setting for her dinner—a dinner which would consist
primarily of steamed vegetables and black rice.
Not long after she had finished her meal there was a knock
at the door. Masozi—who had been unwilling to risk securing an illegal weapon
thus far—looked around for an improvised weapon of some sort. She found very
little, so instead she quietly moved to the door and looked out through the
peephole.
What she saw outside made her jaw clench tightly as she
opened the door, revealing Jericho standing in the hallway with tattered
clothing which had been reduced to little better than rags.
“How did you find me?” she asked bitterly as she stepped
back from the door. It really was surprising that he had managed to do so with
such alacrity—she had only paid for the room an hour earlier!
“I’m good at my job,” he replied after stepping inside and
closing the door behind himself. “And none of what I do would be possible if I
couldn’t find who I was looking for—especially when they’re trying to hide.”
He held out a hand expectantly, and Masozi felt cold fury at
his presumption. But she had played the scene out several times in her head
already, and she knew that to do anything other than comply with his request
would be counterproductive.
She reached into a satchel she had purchase several days
earlier—a satchel which contained everything supporting her new identity—and
withdrew the same data pad he had given her on the Esmerelda Emp
Jericho accepted the pad and began to peruse her collected efforts of the time
she had spent in Aegis. Of the one hundred eight pieces of evidence, only seven
of them still required authentication and most of those were third or fourth
pieces of evidence corroborating already-notarized articles.
He studied the contents for twenty minutes before nodding in
satisfaction. “I’m impressed,” he said with a modicum of respect in his voice
as Masozi sat down on the tiny bed, “I couldn’t have gotten that much done in
the same time. It’s more than enough to satisfy reasonable certainty,”
he said confidently, “which means our time in Aegis is at an end.”
Jericho winced as he sat down on the arm of the room’s only
chair, and Masozi saw his hand go to his hip reflexively. She had noticed his
movements had been stiff when he had entered the room and Masozi quirked a cold
grin as she said, “Don’t tell me…you broke your hip?”
He shot her a flat look before reluctantly nodding. “Not
completely, but it’s going to need surgery to properly repair,” he admitted. “I
won’t be any good in a fight until I get it fixed but, if I’m right, we won’t
have to worry about that in a few hours.”
Masozi cocked an eyebrow. “I’m not certain there is a
‘we,’ Jericho,” she said evenly. “You saved my life and I am grateful for that,
but I can’t live like a fugitive. I did your busy work here while you were out
doing,” she gestured to his tattered clothing, “whatever it was you were doing.
But I think it’s time for me to go my own way.”
Jericho nodded agreeably. “If that’s your choice, I won’t
try to stop you. But just because Benton threw the locals off your back by
killing your old identity and giving you a new one doesn’t mean Stiglitz isn’t
still looking for you. They want you,” he said with a piercing look, “and
they’re not going to stop until they get you.”
“Why?” she demanded. “Why would I be important to them? I’m
just an Investigator!”
“You know his face, for one thing—” Jericho began, but
Masozi interrupted.
“Faces are easy enough to change,” she retorted hotly, her voice
rising higher than she had wanted. “Give a surgeon enough money and you can
have a whole new cranium in less than a day.”
Jericho smirked slightly and nodded. “True enough,” he
allowed, “but you also know why Cantwell was killed—and apparently that’s
information they don’t want to be made public.”
“Do I actually know why you…Adjusted Mayor Cantwell?”
she pressed, having driven the entire conversation to that point. What she saw
flash through Jericho’s eyes was something she hadn’t expected to see: relief.
“No, you don’t,” he admitted as he exhaled, and she actually
recoiled in surprise at his frankness, “but if you want to know the truth then
you have no choice but to come with me.”
“Why won’t you just tell me?” she demanded, springing to her
feet and nearly hitting her head on the low ceiling as she did so. “Why the need for all this secrecy?”
Jericho fixed her with the cold, unyielding look that showed
him for what he really was: an assassin who cared only about accomplishing his
mission. For a moment she was afraid he had deemed her outburst too much to
tolerate, but she didn’t care. Her life—everything she had dedicated herself
to—had been destroyed back in New Lincoln. Even if, by some miracle, she
managed to convince the authorities of her innocence that would make little
difference to a man like Agent Stiglitz.
She needed a reason to keep going on the path she found
herself treading. Because without it, the only options available to her ranged
from unpalatable to outright unacceptable—and she was determined not to cast
about aimlessly for the next handful of years eking out a living on the edges
of society.
Jericho’s visage relaxed and he gestured almost
apologetically toward the bed on which Masozi had just sat. She folded her arms
across her chest defiantly, and Jericho sighed before hanging his head
fractionally, “If I told you that then you would be in even greater danger than
you are. All I can say is that my primary purpose in all of this,” he waved the
data slate pointedly, “is to prevent abuses of power like the one which has
already destroyed your life. I could give you the very details your
investigative mind thirsts for,” he said with a hard look, “but I hold your
well-being in a higher regard than that.”
She had not expected that particular response, so Masozi
simply met Jericho’s gaze for a long, silent, while before shaking her head in
frustration. “You’ve got me over a barrel here,” she said, hearing the
vulnerability she tried so hard to conceal clearly expressed in her voice, “so
I guess I have no choice but to go along with you.”
“I assure you, Investigator,” Jericho said as he stood to
his nearly full height, stooping to avoid bumping his head into the ceiling,
“nothing could be further from the truth…but I’ll admit that I’m more than
casually interested in your coming choices.”
“You mean to suggest you didn’t already know I would
acquiesce?” she snapped harshly.
Jericho chuckled as he opened the door. “Maybe I did at
that, but soon enough you’ll be exposed to things that will make you rather
less…predictable.” She felt a flare of raw anger at his actual suggestion that
she was predictable, but the truth was he had played her perfectly to that
point so she held back a scathing retort as Jericho gestured to the empty
hallway, “In any event, our…escort isn’t known for his patience so I suggest we
hurry to meet his people—while we still have the chance.”
Masozi wordlessly collected her things and followed Jericho
out onto the street, where he hailed a conveyance and they set off toward the spaceport.


“Are you certain this is going to work?” Masozi pressed as
they filed into the security queue which led into the spaceport. The Aegis
spaceport was—aside from the Virgin Halls of Governance compound—the most
heavily-secured facility on the entire planet.
“Benton said it would,” Jericho replied dismissively.
“That’s good enough for me.”
“I’m not so certain,” she muttered as they approached the
species and gender segregation lanes. Very few aliens actually traveled
independently, but Virgin was considered progressive in its egalitarianism
toward its varied inhabitants, so several dedicated lanes had been provided for
those aliens with decidedly different biology than humans. “This is like
walking into a furnace on a cold day and hoping it doesn’t activate.”
“Nonsense,” Jericho said with a light laugh that did little
to soothe her fraying nerves. “All ports—whether they’re land, sea, air, or
space—are more heavily invested in screening incoming articles or people than
they are in screening outgoing ones. For intra-system travel they’ll perform a
cursory background check on our idents, verify our travel documents are in
order, and so long as we aren’t physically carrying anything hazardous or
illegal they’ll be all-too-happy to take our money and let us indulge our
wanderlust.”
“So we aren’t leaving the Virgin system,” Masozi
breathed a sigh of relief.
“Of course not,” Jericho replied as their lanes diverged
into male and female segments, and he unexpectedly reached over and touched her
neck with his surprisingly cool, dry hand. She shot him a look of offended
surprise, but he ignored it and continued conversationally, “My business
license currently only allows me to conduct transactions in the Virgin
system—but I am looking into aggressive expansion. Besides, intersystem travel
is more expensive than I could afford.”
With that, the two lanes separated and Masozi entered a
long, dark tunnel with a glassy-looking interior. She knew it was a
bio-scanner, and that as she walked through the tunnel it would check her
biorhythms, physical dimensions, the chemical composition of her clothing, and
even run a base chemical analysis of her entire body using spectrometry and
other methods. This would ensure that she wasn’t smuggling anything inside her
body—even something which had been dissolved into her various organs or tissues
for later extraction.
She passed through the tunnel and saw a green light flash as
she walked through the exiting archway, and from her time studying to become an
Investigator she knew that the green light made the occupants of the tunnel
feel more secure and this decreased their anxiety levels.
But she knew that it also meant quite literally nothing,
since as soon as a person entered a major port their movements were tracked
automatically and logged in the port’s security records for rapid analysis.
Masozi had, herself, apprehended more than a few criminals intent on escaping
the long arm of Virgin’s justice using the very system which now threatened to
identify her.
Still, she had to fight the anxiety from surging to the fore
of her mind. And just as thought solidified itself, a wave of vertigo hit her
and she had to brace herself against a nearby rail to keep from falling down.
“Ma’am?” a nearby female Port Security Official said
neutrally as she took a step toward Masozi. “Are you feeling ill?”
Masozi shook her head and made to reply, but before she
could do so she felt the sudden urge to vomit. She placed her hand over her mouth
as she doubled over and managed to fight the urge down. Thankfully it passed
and she was able to regain her bearings and stature before shaking her head
again and saying, “I’m fine; I’m just nervous, that’s all.”
“Come with me, ma’am,” the woman instructed from the other
side of the rail, and Masozi felt a wave of trepidation come over her. Will
I be apprehended because of nothing more than a wave of pre-flight jitters?!
she wondered bitterly.
Masozi reluctantly followed the woman, knowing that to protest
was simply to invite even more scrutiny and the official opened a small gate
set in the rail. She indicated Masozi should exit the queue and follow her, so
she did as instructed and the two women proceeded to a nearby booth.
“Have a seat, ma’am,” the official instructed curtly.
“I really think I’m fine,” Masozi protested weakly. She had
no idea what had come over her, and her heart rate was at least twenty beats
per minute faster than it was at rest. She also knew that if she didn’t protest
at least a little, that it might be read as an admission of guilt and
investigated.
“Sit down, ma’am,” the woman instructed more forcefully,
actually placing a hand on Masozi’s shoulder and giving her a not-so-gentle
push toward the nearby bench. So Masozi did as she was instructed, and after
she had sat down the official drew the curtain across the entry to the two
meter square booth.
Masozi sat there in silence for several minutes, and was
surprisingly unable to get her heart rate under control. She had even begun to
sweat profusely and her lungs were filled with a vague, prickly sensation with
each breath she drew.
Then a woman wearing a white lab coat drew back the curtain
and entered the booth. Her skin was nearly as dark as Masozi’s own and, though
she had to be nearly fifty years old, she was incredibly attractive.
“Mrs. Jefferson,” the woman said in a beautifully staccato,
south-eastern accent, “my name is Afia, and I am a doctor here at the Aegis
Spaceport. When did you first notice your symptoms?”
“I…” Masozi began, wondering if she should lie. But she
quickly concluded that doing so would prove pointless, so she took a short
breath and continued, “I was exiting the bio-scanners when a wave of vertigo
came over me.”
Doctor Afia took out a small scanning device and flashed it
briefly in either of Masozi’s eyes before swiping it along the palms of
Masozi’s hands and checking the readings on a readout built into the bracer
covering her left forearm. “It would appear that you have contracted a case of
Timmaylian Flu,” she said after tapping on the screen for several seconds, and
Masozi was almost smitten with how beautifully the woman spoke. She had rarely
met anyone who so perfectly retained the accent of their birthplace after
moving to New Lincoln—and until her trip aboard the Esmerelda Emp
she had never gone further than a hundred kilometers from that city. “Normally
I would advise a course of antiviral therapy to combat the potential long-term
neurological damage this disease might cause, but that would preclude you from
continuing on to your destination.”
Masozi felt her stomach churn at the doctor’s prognosis.
Then she remembered that Jericho had unexpectedly touched her on the skin of
her neck, and she almost reached up to touch where his cool, dry hands had
brushed against her skin before catching herself as she wondered if this had
been part of his plan all along.
She folded her hands in her lap and took a few calming
breaths before asking, “What should I do, Doctor?”
“You will accompany me,” Doctor Afia replied in her
melodious voice as she stood. “We have a quarantine area where we can observe
you for the next four hours, after which time you will no longer be infectious.
If your symptoms have not worsened dangerously during that interval, you will
be permitted to continue on to your destination with a supply of medication to
manage your symptoms.”
The doctor opened the curtain and Masozi stood on her
surprisingly shaky legs before following the other woman. Doctor Afia led her
through several doorways and dimly-lit, soundproof corridors until they came to
the end of one such corridor and she opened the door—a door which had a sign
reading ‘Medical Quarantine’ above, and on, it.
“Please make yourself comfortable,”
the doctor instructed, and Masozi entered the room. After she had done so, the
doctor closed the door and Masozi heard the unmistakable buzz of mag-locks
engaging.
“Feeling under the weather?” she heard Jericho ask from the
far side of the room, and she turned in surprise to see that he was lying on
one of the cots.
“You…” she fumed as her tightly-wound emotions came crashing
down in a flood. Her fingernails bit deeply into her palms before she forced
her hands open and pointed an accusing finger at him, “You should have warned
me!”
Jericho made a ‘calm down’ gesture with his hands and gave a
meaningful look toward the corner of the room. “I’m sorry, darling; I can
explain everything.”
“Explain!?” she blurted, unable to control herself. “You
gave me this…this…disease—and don’t call me ‘darling’!”
Jericho stood and made his way to her, all the while keeping
his steely, blue-grey eyes fixed on hers. “Darling, I had a meeting in the
Financial District this morning to go over some last-minute transaction details
with my new clients. One of them looked unwell, but I didn’t think to check if
I had contracted any kind of flu from him,” he said with a meaningful look as
he placed his hands firmly on her upper arms and squeezed. “This was the only
way I could get the contract…do you understand?”
Masozi actually did think she understood, but it didn’t make
her any less upset with him. “You could have told me about your…meeting,” she
said coldly. “I might have been prepared for the possibility if you had.”
“Duly noted,” Jericho said as his eyes softened and he gave
her a nod. “Now, why don’t you lie down—“
Just then the lights flickered off before returning at a
slightly decreased luminosity and Jericho quickly made his way to the door.
“What do you think that was?” Masozi asked, feeling a sense of mounting dread.
“That was our signal,” he replied as he opened the door,
which swung freely on its hinges despite previously having been mag-locked in
place. “Come on,” he gestured after setting one foot out of the room.
Masozi then realized that the whole sequence of events had
been carefully engineered to get them past the most stringent security
checkpoints. She felt like a fool for not having understood it and while she
would have liked to blame her physical and psychological stress for her failure
to grasp Jericho’s plan, she knew she needed to recognize the cues more
quickly. She had just never been good at
reading people, and it seemed that once again it was a weakness that had been
exploited. She vowed to work on shoring
up that particular shortcoming.
She followed Jericho out into the hallway, where he
proceeded for several paces until ducking off into an adjoining corridor. There
were doors every few meters in the short hallway, and he stopped at the fourth
one on the left. They waited there for several seconds until the door’s locking
bolts clicked open, after which Jericho opened the door and proceeded through
it with Masozi close on his heels.
They made their way down a set of metal stairs, and emerged
in a maintenance corridor of some kind with electrical relays every few meters,
dozens of high-pressure pipes of varying diameters running alongside each
other, and even the occasional storage room door.
“We won’t have long,” Jericho said tensely, “Benton wouldn’t
have opened the quarantine door unless we’d been compromised. Someone was
waiting for us here in the Spaceport and we’ve got to slip through whatever net
they’ve got in place quickly.”
“Understood,” she wheezed, her breaths now causing
significant pain as her bronchi felt like they were on fire.
“I am sorry about the Timmaylian Flu,” Jericho said
as he reached down and took hold of her wrist. While his hand had felt cool and
dry before, it was now hot and moist, and only then did she notice that he was
sweating profusely. “But I couldn’t risk you giving away the game.”
“You’re going…to need…to trust me…sooner or later,” she
growled as she fought to keep her breaths shallow so as not to aggravate the
burning in her lungs. Her legs were increasingly unsteady, and she found
herself grateful for his steading hand on her wrist—which was soon joined by
his other hand as it gripped her elbow.
“There’s more truth in that than you know,” he agreed grimly
as he helped her along, their combined pace significantly slowed compared to
the when they had left the Medical Quarantine room. “The Flu shouldn’t have hit
you this hard, though…I should have chosen a less virulent pathogen. Again, you
have my apology.”
Before she could compose a reply, they reached the end of
the maintenance tunnel and Jericho looked up at the security camera which was
fixed on the door.
“What is it?” she asked after they had waited for nearly a
minute.
“We can’t just barge out onto the tarmac,” he replied
hoarsely and she noticed that he, too, appeared to have been affected by the
Timmaylian Flu to the point where his breathing had become labored. “We need to
wait for an opening, but when that opening comes you have to do everything you
can to get to the nearest vehicle—it doesn’t matter if it’s a personal
conveyance, a luggage carrier, or even a refueling truck—do you understand?”
Masozi nodded, feeling her vision narrow as she did so.
“Come on, Benton,” Jericho growled under his breath as he
cast an impatient look up at the camera, which remained fixed in its same
position.
“Maybe we…should…head back,” Masozi wheezed as her ears
began to pound in time with the beating of her heart.
“There’s no going back,” he said shortly. Then his eye
seemed to catch something to do with the camera, and she looked up to see the
small, red light indicating it was active had begun to blink. That blinking was
rapid, but clearly deliberate, and after a few seconds Jericho held up two
fingers to his brow in acknowledgment. “Actually…maybe there is,” he corrected
as he placed an arm around Masozi’s waist and slung her near arm over his neck.
“It’s not very far to the secondary route; you just need to keep conscious. Can
you do that?”
Masozi’s eyes had become heavy, but she shook her head
vigorously as she fought off the urge to close them. “I…think so,” she replied
weakly as she fought to keep her feet moving in the direction Jericho was
carrying her.
“Good,” he replied as the came to a doorway, which was already
ajar but had not been so when they had previously passed it, “just keep your
feet moving and we’ll be out of here in a few minutes.”
Her senses seemed to sharpen after a few minutes of walking
down the metal stairway beyond the doorway when the ambient temperature dropped
well below the freezing point of water. She looked around and saw that they had
emerging into a chamber with a vast, interconnected series of catwalks
suspended above a series of storage tanks. They were apparently within the storage
facility for the Spaceport’s fuel supply—a high-security area if there ever was
one.
If the wrong interests were allowed access to that
chamber—where she and Jericho were apparently the only people present—the
destruction they could wreak would be nearly unprecedented in Virgin’s history.
“Just a little further, Investigator,” Jericho said harshly,
and she realized that her physical effort had begun to diminish as her focus
had drifted.
She did as he suggested, but then he stopped cold in his
tracks and she looked up in alarm to see a handful of blue-clad men wearing
identical tactical visors—visors which highly-trained paramilitary outfits
employed during tactical deployments—and one of the men stepped forward while
the others kept their weapons trained on Jericho and Masozi.
“Looks like I finally caught you, Jericho,” the man said
with deep satisfaction evident in his voice and a triumphant smirk on his lips.
Jericho tightened his grip around Masozi’s waist, and she
did her best to focus on the new man’s features but she was unable to do so. Her vision had become so blurry she could
barely make out the blue outline of the man’s uniform. She was so sleepy she
could just…






Chapter
XVII: The Host with The
Most 
Masozi sat bolt upright and looked around for the blue-clad
men with the tactical visors. She saw nothing but a small, scarcely-illuminated
room and quickly realized she was sitting up in a soft, remarkably comfortable
bed.
She looked down and felt her torso, realizing that her
clothing had been replaced with a soft, plush robe which seemed to caress her
fingers as she ran them across its luxurious fibers. She then realized she was
naked beneath that robe—which meant someone had disrobed her without gaining
consent to do so.
Oddly enough, that was the least of her worries. As she took
stock of her situation, she saw that there were several intravenous tubes
running into her arm. Those tubes were connected to a wrist-mounted medical
device of some kind—a device which she quickly realized was rumored to no
longer exist on this side of the wormhole.
When the wormhole had collapsed, the entire standing
infrastructure of the Sector had collapsed with it. Industry and interstellar
commerce had ground to a halt due to the inability to import or export material
wealth through the wormhole, and that included precious components and
maintenance equipment for the Phase Drives which allowed for faster-than-light
travel between nearby stars.
Not surprisingly, several other types of highly-valuable
technological assets had been snapped up by those with the means to acquire
them, including Automated Uniform Treatment of Organic Diseases Operated by
Computer—or AUTODOC’s—which became worth a measurable portion of their weight
in antimatter overnight when the wealthiest members of the Sector sought to
acquire such technology exclusively for themselves.
The device on her wrist, while not a complete Auto-Doc
apparatus itself, was most definitely a component of an Auto-Doc system…which
meant that whoever now held her captive was not only wealthy in the extreme,
but had also deemed her life to be valuable enough that doing so warranted
expending some fraction of the Auto-Doc’s limited resources.
Careful not to damage the incalculably valuable device attached
to her wrist, Masozi swung her legs slowly over the edge of the incredibly soft
bed and her feet touched a soft patch of rug beside the bed. That rug’s many
threads seemed to tickle the soles of her feet, and find their ways in between
her toes with such a tactilely stimulating effect that she simply flexed and
extended her toes for several moments while taking in the experience.
She indulged herself until the pleasurable shivers which the
action sent running up and down her spine had subsided, and she stood to her
feet. Looking around the room she saw no windows, nor did she see any apparent
com-links or access panels of any kind.
“A gilded cage,” she muttered, remembering the phrase from a
piece of ancient literature she had read as a child. Masozi then made her way
to the door and, just before she had reached it, the door slid open
automatically and revealed a well-lit corridor which extended to the left and
right.
She stepped out into the corridor and, since the corridor
appeared identical in either direction, she decided to go left—then she
remembered she was wearing nothing but the robe and decided to see if there was
any clothing available in the room.
Masozi found a well-appointed closet which was filled with
clothing that appeared to be better-fitted to her body than most of the
clothing she had worn in New Lincoln. The wide range of styles present in that
closet—ranging from simple bodygloves of varyingly revealing designs, to
complicated, frilly, exotic silk dresses which she had thought went out of
style when the wormhole had collapsed—each of which certainly cost more than an
entire year of her Investigator’s salary.
She ended up settling on a padded bodyglove which didn’t
leave her feeling overly exposed, accompanied by a short vest and knee-high
boots which laced up all the way from the toes to the cuff, and were
surprisingly comfortable.
The bodyglove, surprisingly, slid over the wrist-mounted
Auto-Doc device quite easily and after checking herself in a full-length
mirror—noting as she did so how the blue-tinged bodyglove seemed to smooth out
the thick, muscular appearance of her physique in a surprisingly flattering
manner—she made her way to the corridor.
The corridor was lined with several doors which appeared
identical to the one she had passed through upon entering the corridor, but she
did not open any of them to confirm that they contained a similar arrangement
of furniture.
The walls were painted in a soft, white tone while every
piece of trim was a light blue color. Also a distinct shade of blue was an
emblem she recognized almost immediately after seeing emblazoned on the floor
of the corridor.
It was a blue planet, modeled after the image of what many
believed to be Ancient Earth, and there were dozens of human hands clasped with
each other beneath that blue-white orb. The image suggested that the joined
hands were holding the entire world up, and it was one of the recognizable
images in the entire Sector.
“Hadden Enterprises,” she breathed, as everything she had
witnessed after awakening came snapping into focus. Hadden Enterprises was one
of the most powerful non-regulated entities in the Sector, having built the
majority of its wealth by providing reasonably cost-efficient Phase Drive
repairs, or outright replacements.
The various governments of the Sector had attempted to, one
might say, ‘persuade’ Hadden Enterprises to share their knowledge of Phase
Drive technology for the public good. But H.E. had never once acquiesced to
such strong-arm tactics.
In fact, one such system, named ‘Rationem,’ once attempted
to seize all of Hadden Enterprise’s assets in order to coerce the corporation’s
compliance in the matter. Hadden had, quite famously, paid a series of
exorbitant bribes to the government officials in positions of authority over
the employees of Hadden Enterprises which had been imprisoned, which saw the
vast majority of those prisoners released.
After securing the release of over ninety percent of those
employees—with the other ten percent remaining in government custody until their
natural deaths several decades later—Hadden Enterprises had sent out an
official statement which had since become legendary. It had said in no
uncertain terms that Hadden Enterprises would no longer supply the Rationem
system with any of its goods or services. Additionally, any entity which was
suspected—not proven, but merely suspected—of re-selling H.E.’s property or
services on to Rationem without H.E.’s expressed consent would find themselves similarly cut off from Hadden’s services.
Unsurprisingly, the Rationem system was dealt a major
economic blow by H.E.’s decision but even a century later Hadden Enterprises
had refused every overture on Rationem’s behalf to repeal that decision. As a
result, Rationem had plummeted from its position as one of the strongest
Systems in the Sector to one of the weakest. Every major corporation that
conducted business with Hadden Enterprises—which was, essentially, every
corporation—had to request permission from H.E. to do business with Rationem or
risk losing their own working relationship with the monolithic corporation, and
generally those requests were denied.
Rationem had therefore become something of a cautionary tale
for the Sector’s citizenry, as well as something of a talking point for those
who believed that government should expand its role to include direct oversight
of the megacorporation’s activities. One such proponent of this notion was
Governor Crissa Keno, and she was only one among dozens. Even the Virgin System’s President, Han-Ramil
Blanco, offered frequent vocal support to the growing sentiment that entities
like Hadden needed to be controlled in spite of several Primary Rights which,
according to the corporate lawyers, guaranteed them their autonomy much like
the First Right guaranteed the Timent Electorum’s actions’ legality.
Frankly, Masozi tended to agree with the notion that
entities like Hadden Enterprises were essentially unaccounted for in the
Sector’s two centuries old codex of laws. It had been convincingly argued that
H.E., and similar entities, had taken advantage of loopholes in the system in
order to vastly increase their own individual power—power which was essentially
unchecked. It appeared that this would continue to be the case for as long as
the corporations’ lawyers were able to fend off the unending lawsuits brought
against them which invoked anti-trust, equal access, and myriad other
fundamental laws on which the Sector had been built.
Masozi tore her eyes from the emblem of the blue planet and
looked down the corridor to see what looked to be a lift tube at the end. She
made her way to it and the door opened just before she was able to press the
activation panel.
Inside was a man who appeared to be in his late twenties or
early thirties, wearing a two-piece uniform with the same color scheme as the
corridor. “Investigator Masozi,” he said crisply with a professional nod, “your
presence is requested in the Observation Lounge. Please,” he invited, stepping
aside and gesturing for her to enter the tube.
She did as he suggested, noting with surprise that the man’s
features were sharp, angular, and wholly unlike those of anyone she had ever
met of Virgin origin. He gave her outfit a brief, appraising look before
closing the door with a swipe of his hand across the activation panel. “The
Director will approve,” he said neutrally, and Masozi was genuinely uncertain
if the remark had been of a sexual nature or something altogether less
unprofessional.
Judging by the man’s stoic and composed demeanor as the lift
accelerated upward, she concluded it was more likely to be the latter.


When the door opened, Masozi’s breath was taken away at the
sight before her. She was inside a massive, flattened-dome-shaped chamber that
had to measure at least a hundred meters across and stretched thirty meters
high at the peak. The entire dome was transparent, and she looked out to see
the familiar rings of Chambliss—the Virgin System’s largest gas giant—framing
the incredible sight of Chambliss itself.
The gas giant was mostly brown in coloration, but several
bright, red storms violently churned the planet’s surface gases with
wind-speeds that would destroy any unprotected, man-made objects in just a few seconds.
As if the wind-speed wasn’t bad enough, the electrical discharges taking place
within the three dozen documented storms would overpower even the most advanced
shielding in seconds.
As she stepped out onto the observation deck, she realized
that the entire facility in which she was housed had been built into one of the
smaller moons which orbited Chambliss. A few of those moons—whose names she
could not recall—orbited at a slightly different angle from Chambliss’ rings,
and this appeared to be one of them.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” the man who had invited her into the
lift said after nearly a minute of Masozi’s silent gaping at the awe-inspiring
sight. “The station is currently at its northern zenith relative to the
ring-plane—this is the best view we’ll get for the next two months until we
pass to the southern zenith.”
Masozi marveled at the sight before her, boggling at the
moon’s odd orbital plane. She suspected
it was a more or less natural state for the moon, but if any human entity in
the Chimera Sector was capable of reorienting the orbital path of a moon, it
was Hadden Enterprises. The very possibility
that Hadden Enterprises had done something of that magnitude on purpose was a
sobering thing to consider, and Masozi suspected that particular consequence
was far from coincidental.
“Please, the Director is waiting,” the young man gestured
toward a nearby staircase, which led up to a platform in the center of the
chamber, before proceeding to climb those stairs himself.
As Masozi followed him up the stairs, she saw that there
were literally hundreds—perhaps thousands—of people in the Observation Deck.
They wore variations on the same uniform her escort was wearing, and they
appeared to be working out problems on data pads, socializing, eating, or just
relaxing.
But the most surprising aspect of the Observation Deck’s
denizens was that only half of them appeared to be human! There were aliens of
every kind with which Masozi was familiar present and several species she had
never even glimpsed in a xenobiology text, let alone seen up close. Those
aliens appeared to be working hand-in-hand with their human counterparts, and
Masozi was utterly speechless at the sight of it. It all seemed so natural, and
yet she had heard nothing but propaganda about how only a select few aliens
could be ‘incorporated’ into society to live alongside humans.
She marveled at the sheer scope and complexity of the
engineering required to hollow out the small moon—which was clearly what had
been done. Several rocky outcroppings—artifacts of the moon’s original
composition, which quite possibly were still directly connected to the moon’s
rocky body—jutted out artistically between the perfectly machined plates of
metal and ceramic which made up the rest of the massive chamber’s man-made
features.
The shape of the Observation Deck’s ‘floor’ was actually
more like a short, broad, pyramid. And as she ascended the stairs behind her
escort, she quickly concluded that the ‘Director’ was awaiting her at the top.
When they reached the topmost platform of the pyramidal
structure, there was a red velvet rope-line which her escort unfastened at one
end and gestured for her to pass through. “The Director will see you,” he said
with a professional nod, and she passed through the rope line as she took stock
of the platform beyond.
She immediately caught sight of Jericho, who was seated in a
padded, red-upholstered chair opposite a much larger chair—and that chair
contained a strange, unnerving, yet oddly familiar sight.
The ‘man’ seated in the massive, ornate, complicated,
throne-shaped mechanism had unnaturally pale skin, vaguely pink-colored irises,
and facial features which she actually recognized—even though this person was
nowhere near as obese as what Masozi now took to be his offspring. Quite the
opposite, in fact, as this man appeared to be emaciated almost to an impossible
degree. His arms and legs were locked into contractures and his head was leaned
slightly to one side as his body had apparently become a crooked mockery of the
human form.
“Welcome to my home, my dear,” a synthesized, but mostly
human-sounding voice, came from the chair as it turned. She saw that the man
seated within had not moved even one inch when he—or, the chair—had spoken. “I
am delighted you were able to join us. Please, have a seat.” A seat was brought
forward by another uniformed man, who looked remarkably similar to the one who
had brought her to the Observation Deck, and placed beside Jericho.
Masozi approached the center of the platform, knowing she
was well out of her depth if the man in the bio-chair was who she suspected, so
she sat down in the proffered seat silently.
“Would you like refreshment, Investigator?” the chair’s
synthesized, distinctly male, voice asked. Another uniformed person—this one a
woman, whose sharp nose and platinum blonde hair would have been the envy of
every woman in New Lincoln—brought an actual, paper, menu for Masozi to peruse.
Masozi accepted the menu with a nod of thanks but was unable to tear her eyes
from the incredible chair housing the shriveled, desiccated man who was
apparently her host.
“Thank you…” she said uncertainly before adding, “Director.”
“Please,” the man replied, as the barest hint of a smile
tugged at his thin, violet lips, “only my employees use that title. I would
appreciate if you called me ‘Stephen,’ ‘S.R.’ or, if you insist on formality,
‘Mr. Hadden’.”
“Very well…Mr. Hadden,” she said tensely. She realized her
fingers had begun to tremble and she quickly clamped her hand into a fist to
stop the sensation.
“You have been asleep for several days, Investigator,”
Director Hadden said, and Masozi thought she detected an amused note in his
voice, “please…indulge your appetite.”
Masozi looked at the menu and hardly knew where to begin. It
was filled with delicacies which made the Casa Mia pasta she had shared with
Jericho and Benton seem like street-side takeout by comparison. She actually
had to double-take at several of the listed items before shaking her head. “I
wouldn’t know where to begin,” she admitted before handing the menu back to the
woman.
Hadden’s body was wracked with a soft series of convulsions
which alarmed Masozi at first, but then she realized he was laughing as his
lips had peeled back into a broad grin.
“Clever girl,” he said approvingly, “it is my considered
opinion that menus have no place in civilized society. Bring her a sampler of
the kitchen’s latest creations,” he said casually, and the platinum blonde
woman nodded curtly before heading off down the stairs toward the far base of
the Observation Deck’s pyramidal floor.
“Thank you,” Masozi belatedly called after the woman, and
then realized she had given Director Hadden another cause for laughter.
“Forgive me, Investigator,” he said warmly as his body
continued to twitch with laughter, “I so rarely receive guests in my home, and
admit that I find myself quite taken with you. It is a pity we could not meet
under less turbulent circumstances.” His chair turned slightly and Hadden’s
pinkish eyes looked up to the transparent dome above, through which Masozi
could see the awe-inspiring rings of Chambliss as her gaze followed his and she
marveled in the beauty of the place. “I have dedicated my life to mastering the
stars by bringing them within our collective grasp,” Hadden explained. “But as
I approach the end of that life, I find my thoughts have turned from extending
our reach into the unknown, toward mastering that which is already within our
grasp. This view reminds me of our place in the cosmos and I only hope it has
the same, profound, effect on my guests.”
Masozi was acutely aware that Jericho had said nothing to
that point in the conversation, and she stole a glance at him. He was studying
her intently and she came to the conclusion that all of this was some sort of
test.
“A month ago,” she began after considering her reply, “I
would have considered myself lucky to eventually afford just one cruise to the
Rings of Chambliss during my entire life.” She shook her head in wonderment as
the reality of her next words sank in while she said them, “I’m honestly not
sure if I should be grateful for this…this majesty you’ve decided to share with
me.”
“Well said, Investigator,” Hadden said seriously, “well
said. Without meaningful pursuits, what is life but a sequence of increasingly
predictable stimuli? And what then becomes of us when we exhaust the horizon of
imagination?”
“Stephen,” Jericho interrupted dryly, “you know I could
listen to you philosophize until the stars wink out but we’re on a schedule.”
Hadden rolled his eyes as he turned his massive chair to
face Jericho. “You must forgive him, Investigator,” the chair-bound Director
quipped, “whatever imagination he may have once possessed has long-since been
exhausted. I suppose, then, one could say we have the answer to my posited
question sitting right here before us.”
Masozi snickered, “Now there’s a depressing thought.”
Hadden’s body was wracked with another series of laughter
spasms, and even Jericho couldn’t keep half of a short-lived grin from his
face. “You are absolutely delicious, my dear,” Director Hadden said as the platinum
blonde woman appeared at the far rope-line bearing a large platter with a
transparent cloche. “Please indulge yourself; being unable to enjoy the
creations myself, I can only ever experience them vicariously.”
The blonde woman set the tray down on a nearby table, and
Masozi stood to examine its contents. The array of food was absolutely
stunning, ranging from the exquisite, to the wondrous, to the truly bizarre.
Being an inquisitive soul, she selected a handful of inexplicable pieces—in
addition to a few of the safer options—and resumed her seat as the blonde woman
brought a container with some sort of fruit juice cocktail in it.
As Masozi ate, she felt the weight of Director Hadden’s gaze
on her and she was more than a little self-conscious as a result.
“How fares my son, Jericho?” Hadden asked suddenly, and
Masozi almost choked on a bite of sushi—which she had assumed to be octopus,
but was both disturbed and surprised by the wholly foreign flavors which
greeted her mouth after biting into it.
Jericho hesitated and Masozi shot him a wary look. She had
come to expect him to reply directly and promptly, and hearing him fail to
reply quickly was surprising…and intriguing.
“He’s doing what he loves,” Jericho replied carefully with a
shrug of his shoulders. “If only we could all be so
fortunate.”
Hadden’s synthesized voice sighed. “Even though he refuses
to take my place in the corporation, as his father I believe that I should
provide for his lifestyle for as long as I am capable—the stars only know that
I am more than capable of doing so.”
Jericho ground his teeth silently, and Masozi could tell
there was something else he had wanted to say but was uncertain. Eventually he
leaned forward and said, “He’s not taking the gene therapy you suggested, if
that’s what you’re really asking, Stephen.”
There was a tense silence for several seconds. “That was
indeed among the queries I would have answered, Jericho,” Hadden replied as
Masozi bit into an egg which contained some sort of half-developed, reptilian
embryo within. It was surprisingly good, although the crunching of the bones
was a little off-putting at first. “I have long given up hope that he would
carry my family name forward, but I cannot say I disagree with his decision
entirely since I, myself, have been less than well-pleased with the insufferable
experience of this chair.” Silence lingered for several, unexpectedly tense
moments before Hadden added, “I appreciate your honesty, Jericho—of all the men
I have known, I have never been given cause to doubt your integrity. I would
not take advantage of that…peculiar attribute.”
Jericho nodded, seemingly satisfied that the subject had
been navigated correctly but the truth was Masozi had little idea what the
other two were talking about. She had deduced that Wladimir Benton had been
Hadden’s son the moment she had laid eyes on the elder, but the subtext of the
interplay between Director Hadden and Jericho was utterly lost on her.
“I have made a decision,” Hadden said unexpectedly, “as soon
as you are finished with your meal, you should both make your way to my Medical
Sciences division. Jericho can complete his orthopedic repairs there, and my
doctors will give the Investigator a thorough going-over to ensure that her
system is fully recovered from her recent tribulations. When you have finished
there, I will arrange transport for the two of you to your next destination.”
Jericho stood from his chair and nodded in thanks. “You know
that in my current capacity, I—we,” he corrected with a look toward Masozi,
“can’t accept anything from you beyond room, board, and transport.” He said it
as though such was a well-known fact—which, to Masozi, it was not.
“Of course,” Hadden replied warmly, “but as guests in my
sovereign territory, you must comply with my medical protocols. Failure to do
so will result in immediate ejection from the nearest airlock.”
Masozi’s food—a portion of what looked like pasta but was,
in fact, a smattering of cleverly-separated and blanched meat fibers which
tasted distinctly like pork—caught in her throat at Hadden’s off-handed mention
of possible summary execution.
But Jericho bowed at the waist, appearing utterly unfazed.
“We will happily comply with your facility’s medical protocols.”
“Good boy,” Hadden said, and Masozi saw a flash of annoyance
cross Jericho’s face. “Until later, my dear,” the chair-bound man said before
turning and making his way down the far stairs, his chair’s hover-field
generators allowing him to glide down the gently decline.
When he had gone, Jericho turned to Masozi and smirked. “I
think he likes you.”






Chapter
XVIII: A Blast from The Past 
After nearly ten hours of being poked, prodded, measured,
stripped, clothed, stripped again, and clothed again in increasingly bizarre
outfits, Masozi stepped out of the Medical Sciences laboratory with more aches
and pains than she had thought possible.
The ‘doctors’ inside that particular department had made her
undergo rigorous physical exercises, pushing her body to the its current breaking
point before conducting strange neurological examinations the purpose of which
Masozi could not hope to guess.
“Turn your head and cough,” she heard Jericho say from down
the hall, and she turned to see him seated on a bench a dozen meters or so
away. He was smirking, but judging from his sweat-stained shirt they had
subjected him to a similar battery of tests—which seemed odd since he was
supposed to have undergone hip surgery.
“If I never see another doctor…” she muttered as she rubbed
her wrist, grateful to have the Auto-Doc attachment finally removed from it.
“They’re a necessary evil,” Jericho quipped as he got to his
feet, “probably the most necessary evil.”
“If I’d wanted to get disrobed, poked, prodded, groped, photographed
in the act of doing so, and then made to feel ashamed about it all afterward,”
she grumbled, “I would have gotten drunk, stripped my clothes off and wandered
down to the nearest frat-house. At least then I might not have been conscious
for the experience.”
Jericho, surprisingly, didn’t laugh at her dark humor but
instead nodded grimly. “At least that’s behind us. Let’s go see what our
benefactor has in store for us—if we’re going to get ahead of the people who
keep trying to have us killed we need to stay moving.”
They entered the lift at the end of the corridor, and after
it had begun its ascent Masozi ventured to ask a question which had made her
brain itch throughout the ‘medical examination.’ “How do you know Hadden?”
Jericho nodded, as though he had expected the question—a
mannerism which was beginning to wear rather thin on Masozi’s already frayed
patience. “An Adjuster isn’t granted access to public funding,” he explained.
“All Adjustment-necessary assets have to be acquired by using privately-donated
funds which are provided by willing members of the body politic. I suppose it
goes without saying that Stephen Hadden is my top financier.”
“But he’s one of the wealthiest men in the Sector,” she
argued. “He could back anything he wants and, essentially, you’d be nothing
more than his own private assassin.”
Jericho gave her an assessing look before replying,
“Thankfully there are protocols—too many to go into right now—which prevent
such an arrangement. One of the restrictions is that a financier has to prove a
direct connection to the targeted official’s offense; for example, an
out-of-system businessman would have a hard time justifying the funding she
provided for a local magistrate’s Adjustment. At the end of the day, the burden
lies largely with the Adjuster accepting the funds—if the Adjuster accepts
funding which was either unjustified or exceeded the Adjustment’s actual cost
then that Adjuster is, himself, Adjusted.”
“Who decides what an Adjustment will cost?” she asked, more
than a little relieved to be discussing anything other than her bodily
functions.
“There’s a formula,” he replied, “it’s not airtight, but it
does a good job of providing a guideline based on the target’s position on the
bureaucratic ladder, severity of their crimes, whether they’re currently in
office, et cetera. Generally there isn’t much cause for concern though; if a
financier isn’t coerced into providing exorbitant sums of money, we don’t look
too deeply into it. Not many Adjusters consider themselves public servants,
after all—there are as many mercenaries in the T.E. as there are those who
actually believe what they’re doing is for the good of
society.”
Masozi was surprised—or maybe the proper word was
‘pleased’—to hear him speak so frankly about a nagging issue which had arisen
in her thoughts about the T.E.
“But to answer your question more directly,” Jericho said as
the lift’s doors opened and they emerged into a giant cavern of some kind. It
was hundreds of meters across, roughly spherical, and filled with all manner of
buildings, vehicles, and other equipment the purpose of which Masozi could
guess. “I’m actually an employee of Hadden Enterprises,” he said as he took
several steps into the cavern before stopping and turning to her as she exited
the lift.
“Isn’t that a conflict of interest?” she asked guardedly as
she looked around the cavern, which was illuminated by hundreds of separate
lights scattered throughout the chamber.
“Not really,” Jericho replied, “everyone has to have a day
job. Mine gives me access to these facilities,” he swept the cavern with his
hand, “which serve as Hadden Enterprise’s testing grounds for many of their
products—a process in which my official position requires I participate.”
“Wait,” she stopped, unable to resist the opportunity,
“you’re a product tester?”
He shrugged noncommittally, “As I said: everyone has to have
a day job. I just happen to be doing what I love.”
She looked up at a nearby building which stood nearly two
hundred feet tall, and saw several ropes dangling from its windows at varying
heights. She understood after looking at that window how Jericho had planned
his exit from Mayor Cantwell’s office. “Impressive,” she said with genuine
appreciation.
He looked around the cavern and nodded before gesturing to
the lift tube. “I just wanted you to see it before we left,” he said as he made
his way to the lift, “we really should go meet Stephen—he despises tardiness.”
After they stepped into the lift, she cocked an eyebrow, “As
an employee, shouldn’t you be calling him ‘Director’?”
Jericho snorted softly. “Stephen and I have an…understanding which goes further than most people will
know. I consider him, and his son, true friends and colleagues when it comes to
my work and my life. I’m fortunate that they appear to feel the same.”


“Right on time,” Director Hadden said as soon as they
entered his office. It was surprisingly sparse in its appointments, with only a
large aquarium serving to break the blue-on-white motif of the walls and the
giant, blue planet-shaped emblem at the center of the circular office. “And
while I would like nothing more than to explore every nook and cranny of your
rich, fertile mind, Investigator,” he said and, though the words themselves
sounded lascivious, Masozi felt oddly complimented by them, “things have taken
an unexpected turn.” He moved his chair moved toward the center of the room and
said, “Please step onto the emblem and I will explain en route.”
Masozi could almost feel the tension which Jericho had
suddenly begun to exude, but he did as Director Hadden suggested and she did
likewise. When they were standing on the eight meter wide emblem—the diameter
of which was half that of the entire room—the floor surrounding it began to
recede like an iris. Masozi immediately understood the purpose for the sparse
appointments of Hadden’s office as the floor receded and the ceiling above
began to do likewise.
The planetary emblem began to slowly rise and the ceiling
above them opened to reveal a long, perfectly cylindrical shaft which was illuminated
from the far end at least a hundred meters above.
“It would seem our good friend, President Blanco, has
decided to pay me a visit,” Hadden said casually, and as he spoke a holographic
display sprung to life from his chair. It was a graphical representation of
Chambliss’ rings, with a blue icon at the center that Masozi assumed to be
Hadden Enterprise’s moon base where they currently were. However, there were
dozens of red icons converging on their position, and Masozi’s jaw fell open
when she saw that the icons had attached descriptions.
One of those descriptions read ‘V-SDF Destroyer:
Monitor,’ while another read ‘V-SDF Heavy Cruiser: Cumberland,’ and
yet another read ‘V-SDF Battleship: Congress.’
It was the largest fleet assembled in Virgin’s recent history—at
least it was the largest fleet she had ever heard of according to official
records…which begged the shocking question of whether or not the citizens of
Virgin had even been made aware of the fleet’s formation and deployment.
“How long?” Jericho asked evenly.
“Three hours,” Hadden replied calmly, “which means that if
you two are to escape it must be now. Age has, some might say, ‘unfortunately’
not dulled my wits. Fortified though my home may be, we have no chance of
defeating the combined strength of this fleet. I have already ordered a general
evacuation of the facility, and several of my warships have set out to buy the
evacuees a few more minutes before the fleet enters firing range. With any
luck, the bulk of Hadden Enterprise’s sentient resources will survive this act
of barbarism…but I have little doubt what this attack signals.”
“A complete dissolution of Hadden Enterprises,” Jericho
concluded tightly. “He’s declaring war on the autonomous rights afforded
corporations—and their employees—under the Chimera Sector Bill of
Rights.”
“Indeed. And the precedent will not be limited solely to
corporate entities, since by deploying this fleet he has declared martial law
over any in-system region, or entity, which he deems to be in rebellion. It
appears there was significant resistance in the System’s Senate due to this
very issue,” Hadden said casually, “but we all knew this day would arrive
sooner or later. Our contingency plans have been in place for decades; he will
not achieve the victory he desperately seeks…at least,” his almost purple lips
twisted defiantly, “not this easily.”
The platform rose through the well-lit portal above their
heads and slowed until finally stopping when it was flush with the floor around
them. They were inside a tiny chamber which had a roughly egg-shaped vessel set
in its side on what looked to be the tracks of a giant rail gun.
“You do not have much time,” Hadden urged as he approached
the egg-shaped vessel, which was barely large enough for two people to squeeze
into. “Your window will close in three minutes; you must enter the vessel and
begin the launch sequence as quickly as you are able.” Hadden’s chair turned
deliberately toward Masozi and he said, “In another life you and I may have
been something much more than friends, Investigator. But that is not to be, so
instead I will say that I would consider it a personal favor of great value if
you would speak well of me whenever you are able.”
Masozi was taken aback by his odd request, but nodded slowly.
“You’ve given me no reason to do otherwise, Mr. Hadden.”
“Good,” Hadden said as Jericho entered the tiny craft and
strapped himself into one of the seats. The Director then lowered is artificial
voice and said, “And please…look after yourself in all
things. I would hate for the universe to be unduly deprived of one of its
brightest stars simply due to a marked absence of imagination on the part of a
particularly dim one, if you take my meaning.”
Masozi felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Hadden
was all but telling her not to trust Jericho, but why would he do that? She
nodded slowly, uncertain how to reply, “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“See that you do,” he said seriously before his chair turned
and made its way to a nearby tube. “I must prepare what will be my final,
riotous act of defiance against the inexorable forces of entropy,” he said. “I
do so hope you enjoy the view when I give my final gift back to the universe I
have so dearly loved.”
Having no idea what he meant, Masozi quickly entered the
tiny craft and closed the hatch before strapping herself into the seat beside
Jericho. “Are you ready?” he asked sharply after making eye contact with her.
She held his gaze longer than she likely should have before
nodding, “Yes.”
He appeared to pay her hesitation no mind because he plunged
his finger down on a flashing green icon, causing a ten second countdown timer
to appear on the main screen which was just a few feet from their faces.
Masozi felt a literal thrum of energy when the maglev
brackets engaged with the tiny pod’s hull. “What exactly is this thing?” she
asked warily.
“It’s a probe used to explore Chambliss, but more than that
I couldn’t say,” Jericho shrugged as he gestured to a nearby rack. “There’s the manual if you’re into some light
reading.”
Masozi saw the indicated book but decided against reading
it—at least until the launch sequence had completed.
When the countdown reached zero, her head was snapped back
into the headrest and Masozi felt as though the acceleration’s g-forces were
going to suffocate her. The screen which had displayed the countdown now showed
what appeared to be a frontal view from the ‘top’ of their egg-shaped craft as
it rocketed up through a gently curved tunnel with multiple magnetic lines
running parallel to each other.
She knew that maglevs and rail guns had been used for
launching people into space before the advent of modern propulsion systems—or
even before the discovery of materials which made space elevators feasible—but
she had never expected she would be riding in a vehicle propelled by one. And
as the incredible weight of their acceleration threatened to cave her chest in,
she understood why they had fallen out of favor despite their supposedly
economical nature.
The trip through the drive tube seemed to last forever, but
then the acceleration abruptly ceased and she felt completely weightless. The
view screen showed the giant, turbulent orb of Chambliss surrounded by its
majestic rings, and they were on what looked to be a parabolic course set for
near its horizon.
Masozi took several, deep, breaths before focusing intently
on the view screen while Jericho adjusted the feeds. He quickly found the
rear-facing camera, and it showed the slightly irregular sphere of Hadden
Enterprise’s moon base. As she watched it shrink before their eyes, Masozi saw
a pair of vessels launch from a recess that looked like a natural crater before
speeding off toward the planet on a course similar to their own.
“A pity,” Jericho said neutrally, “H.E. One was the only
home I’ve known for the last twenty years.”
Masozi had nothing she could say to him on that matter, so
rather than sitting in awkward silence she took out the manual he had indicated
and began to read about the craft they found themselves in. Her eyes bulged
halfway through the first page and she blurted, “This is a high-pressure diving
vessel—it’s designed to conduct experiments inside Chambliss’ atmosphere!”
“I thought the egg shape would play into its purpose,”
Jericho remarked dryly, “but seriously, I know very little about these
things. I assume we don’t have much in
the way of propulsion?”
Masozi flipped through a few pages before finding that he
was largely correct. “It has attitude adjusters and enough breaking thrust to
keep it at a given depth for anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours.” She
suppressed the urge to gulp as she added, “But on our current trajectory it
looks like we’re on a one-way trip into the atmosphere…there’s not enough power
in this thing’s engines to achieve a stable orbit even if we started now.”
“Which means that either this is Stephen’s idea of a really
good parting joke,” Jericho said with a shrug, “or someone’s waiting for us
between here and crush depth.”


“Status reports?” Hadden asked
calmly as he entered the command center of H.E. One for the final time.
“The Virgin System Defense Fleet has engaged the HEV’s Galileo,
Copernicus, and Pythagoras,” retired Rear Admiral Emil Berggren
reported crisply. “The incoming vessels have been harried but their allies are
continuing to close distance in an effort to cut off our remaining vessel’s
escape routes.”
“How many ships are awaiting liftoff?” Director Hadden asked
as he pulled up the primary control codes for H.E. One’s most critical
self-defense systems.
“Eight freighters and two courier ships, Director,” Berggren
replied promptly. “Estimated time to evacuate all remaining critical Hadden resources
is two hours forty minutes.”
“Too much time,” Hadden mused as he activated the primary
power plant controls. He initiated a system-wide increase in power output in
preparation for the battle. “Re-prioritize all technical and material assets to
evacuation plan Theta-Two; repeat, Theta-Two.”
“Yes, Director,” Admiral Berggren acknowledged before
issuing the appropriate orders through the chain of command.
“Bring all weapon systems online, Admiral,” Hadden
instructed as he released the safety protocols on H.E. One’s most secretive
defensive systems. They were likely less than the equal of the Imperial Navy,
which had not been seen in the Sector since the wormhole’s collapse, but they
would prove more than a match for the technological level of President Blanco’s
fleet.
Still, he had spoken truly to the wonderfully surprising
Masozi when he had said there was no hope for victory over the fleet arrayed
against him. His weapons had longer range than most of theirs, which meant that
they were committed to coming in hard and fast to minimize that edge while
exploiting H.E. One’s lack of mobility.
Once enough of H.E. One’s defensive systems had been
neutralized in a given area, it would be a simple enough matter for the fleet
to tear the rest apart from extreme firing angles which the ground-based
systems could not hope to match.
“Embedded defense systems are online, Director,” Admiral
Berggren reported crisply, his demeanor that of the consummate professional,
“all three hundred detached units are functional and awaiting your orders.”
“Very well,” Hadden replied, glad for the Admiral’s steady
presence. “You should join your crew aboard the Isaac Newton, Admiral.”
Berggren stood to attention, which was an endearing if
altogether unnecessary display in Hadden’s view. “H.E. One’s communication
systems are superior to those of the Newton, Director, and the base is
unlikely to be compromised before the battle is over. I can do more good coordinating
maneuvers in here than I can on the bridge of the Newton,” he said in a
wholly expected protest. “Captain Kotcher is more than capable of commanding
her during the battle.”
“As you wish, Admiral,” Hadden relented, having anticipated
as much from the man. Some officers would prefer to go down with their crews,
but Berggren had always been primarily focused on efficiency. “I will cede
control over the embedded resources to your authority so you might support our
warships to maximum effect.”
“Thank you, Director,” the other man replied before snapping
off an absolutely perfect salute and returning to his duties. It was a gesture
of respect which Hadden had not anticipated and it warmed what remained of his
shriveled, increasingly useless, heart.
President Blanco’s fleet continued to bear down on H.E. One,
and after little more than half an hour the detachment which had engaged
Hadden’s warships had destroyed the Galileo, Copernicus, and Pythagoras.
With the majority of their resources deployed near H.E. One,
it was down to waiting for the fleet to enter H.E. One’s zone of control.
No more than ten minutes before that happened Hadden’s chair
alerted him to an incoming communication. He had expected as much, and accepted
the incoming transmission.
A man with a dark-skinned, angular, bearded face appeared.
He was seated behind a desk which was surrounded with the various ornaments and
seals afforded the highest office in the Virgin System, and he leaned forward
in his chair with a smug look on his face.
Hadden’s own communication’s program presented a youthful,
vibrant, digital representation of himself from some hundred years earlier. It
was vanity, and he knew it, but he also knew it would weaken his corporation’s
image to project his real image—and that would place the people who depended on
him in grave danger.
“President Blanco,” Hadden said with false cordiality, “to
what do I owe the honor?”
“Cut the act, Hadden,” Blanco said in his gravelly voice.
“I’ve got the support of the System Senate and all three of Virgin’s Fleet
Commanders. If you surrender now I’ll see to it that your people are relocated
to an isolated colony where they can live out their days.”
“You would deny them their freedom, Mr. President,” Hadden
retorted smoothly, “I cannot, in good conscience, consent to such a
violation—to say nothing of your offer’s illegality.”
“Illegality?” Blanco repeated
incredulously. “The people of the Virgin System have elected me to protect
their interests and that is precisely what I intend to do. So stand down your
remaining forces, or in nine minutes my Fleet Commanders will be forced to
destroy that precious little rock of yours. You, and your corporation, have
existed outside the law for too long; it’s time you were held to the same
standard as everyone else. The people demand that this System be unified under
one set of laws which apply equally to all of its citizens. That is my mandate,
and I will not fail it.”
“I would debate you on these points, Mr. President,” Hadden
said coolly as the people of H.E. One continued to prepare for the coming
assault, “but each of my previous attempts to entreat with you on this matter
has been roundly ignored. Hadden Enterprises has done nothing to warrant this
violence and, on behalf of those you have already slaughtered in the name of
‘Unity,’ I must repudiate your overture. Those people who your vaunted Fleet
Commanders killed depended on me to protect them and, while I may have failed
in that regard, I will do my utmost to avenge their loss. That is my
mandate, Mr. President, and unlike your pursuit of a false unity,” he lingered
on the word for a moment before finishing, “I will succeed in carrying
it out.”
President Blanco leaned back in his chair and shook his head
as though in dismay, “Then you leave me no choice but to suppress your open
rebellion against our most sacred laws. May the gods have mercy on your souls.”
The channel cut out and before Hadden could issue any
commands each of the one hundred men, women, and aliens manning their stations
within H.E. One stood—or similarly adjusted their posture to one of respect—and
applauded, whistled, or cheered in their own way for their Director’s
representation of their interests.
After the applause had begun to die down fractionally,
Hadden increased the speaker volume on his chair. “I am authorizing the
deployment of the Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Stephen
Hawking, Max Born and Roger Penrose,” he said, and the chorus
of cheers, hoots, and applause quickly died down. “Admiral Berggren, you may
fight your assets as you see fit.”
“Thank you, Director,” Berggren replied before snapping out
commands to his subordinates as the first of the VSDF fleet encroached into the
H.E. One’s zone of control.
The Virgin vessel—a battleship named Congress which
led a pair of destroyers and an aged cruiser in tight formation—opened fire as
soon as Hadden had done likewise with his ground-based weaponry. Eight of his
massive cannons lashed out defiantly and rammed home against the Congress,
causing its tactical icon to flicker briefly before once again solidifying.
Damage reports streamed into Hadden’s custom-built, virtual
reality interface and he prepared for another volley. His VR interface allowed
him near-total control of H.E. One’s defensive assets as though they were
merely pieces on a game board, and in a sense that was all they were. He would
need to modulate power plant output in a perfectly-coordinated dance of
destruction as he fueled his powerful defensive weaponry with every last joule
of energy his plants could produce.
He saw—or perhaps ‘saw’ is the wrong term, since his VR
interface allowed him to process most sensory input in a decidedly abstract
faction—the five remaining vessels of Admiral Berggren’s ‘fleet’ come into
formation and move to flank the approaching squadron. Everyone knew it was only
a matter of time before the VSDF fleet overcame their defenses, but the Hadden
Enterprises security branch took their jobs very seriously. They had planned
for every possible eventuality with the grim determination to take as many of
the enemy down as possible while allowing the rest of the corporation’s
employees the chance to flee.
So it was with little fanfare, or even acknowledgment from
the assembled officers within H.E. One’s Command Center, when the Roger
Penrose was struck by a perfectly-directed volley from a second formation
of VSDF vessels and its icon winked out of existence. Seventy three people had
bravely manned that vessel, and they had died without even firing a single shot
at the enemy. It was an insult to their memory and years of dedicated
service—an insult which Hadden fully intended to repay.
While he knew his sentiment was shared by the majority of those
around him, he also knew they would not allow that sentiment to interfere with
their duties. As soon as they were charged, he lashed out with another bank of
his longest-range weaponry and was rewarded when a pair of the enemy fleet’s
smaller vessels was annihilated just as rudely as had been the Roger Penrose.
But Hadden’s thirst for vengeance was nowhere near slaked.
He felt three of the ten weapons he had just fired wink out
as they were destroyed by incoming fire, the weapon systems of the enemy locking
onto them almost as soon as his firing them had revealed their location. Hadden
also felt three dozen of the concealed weapons embankments scattered throughout
the nearby rings unleash their pent-up fury on the approaching VSDF vessels,
and another pair of smaller, lighter vessels was destroyed in a wave of
high-powered plasma fire.
It had been wise of Blanco to send his fleet when he had.
With H.E. One at its orbital apex relative to Chambliss’ rings, approximately
twenty percent of the embedded weapons systems had been removed from the
tactical equation. Most of those weapons were high-powered, single-shot plasma
cannons and their relatively short range made them useless this far from the
icy rings of the gas giant.
It also cleared the widest approach angle for the VSDF
fleet, which meant they could more easily exploit whatever gaps in the
defensive grid were created by the destruction of Hadden’s moon-based
artillery.
Even Hadden had to appreciate the brutal simplicity of
Blanco’s thinking, but he was betting that same simplicity would play into his
hand later. Besides, while Hadden Enterprises had stockpiled the most
impressive supply of Imperial-grade technology, to have deployed it in this
battle would have been simply to throw it away in a lost cause. Those assets
would find their way onto the board soon enough, and ensuring they were
protected long enough to do so was now Hadden’s primary focus.
He felt a savage thrill as he saw that one of the
battleships—a vessel named the Alexander Hamilton—came perilously close
to the field of fire for one of his more creative weapons. Hadden diverted
significant power from the rest of the defense grid to his ‘secret weapon,’ and
even the lights of the command center dimmed as he prepared to unleash a
killing blow on the warship.
The instant the Alexander Hamilton entered the
perimeter of his narrow firing arc, Hadden diverted
all power from the primary and secondary grids to Rail Gun Number Three and
fired his improvised mass driver. In a matter of seconds he sent eight thousand
kilograms of iron pellets slamming into the unaware battleship in rapid
succession, with enough force to shatter its shields and literally sheer the
vessel in two—which it did. The two halves spiraled briefly out of control and
then exploded in a flash of blue-white light—before Rail Gun Three went dead,
several of its coils having fused due to overload from the sustained energy
output.
But RG3’s loss was of little consequence since Hadden knew
the attacking fleet would log the weapon’s location and firing arc so it could
not be used against them again. And while he had five more rail guns in his
arsenal, the odds of even one more of them coming into play were incredibly
remote—he had been lucky to get that particular shot in when he had, especially
against such a high-value target.
He restored the primary and secondary grids to their full
power and unleashed another volley of long-range fire at the approaching
fleet’s optimal target—this time, a destroyer named the Monitor. He
opened fire with six of his ground batteries, and the Monitor was destroyed in a flash of nuclear fire—but five of
Hadden’s six batteries were destroyed before he could redirect them toward new
targets.
The battle continued for several minutes as, one by one,
Hadden’s surface-based artillery was snuffed out by the approaching fleet. The Stephen
Hawking became separated from its formation after suffering major drive
failure due to a focused barrage of a nearby squadron. Not long after it had
been separated from its allied ships, the Virgin Fleet snuffed the Hawking
out of existence with a torrent of well-coordinated fire, just as the Max
Born likewise succumbed to a direct hit on its power plant from the Battlecruiser
C.C. Pinckney’s long guns.
“I would be remiss if I did not order you all to abandon the
station,” Hadden said, his voice piped through the base’s intercom system. “You
have fought bravely, but there is no need for all of us to die here.”
Admiral Berggren stood up from his post at the bank
coordinating the free assets of H.E. One and looked Hadden sternly in the eye,
“Permission to speak freely, Director?”
“Of course, Admiral,” Hadden replied through the intercom.
Berggren grabbed a nearby microphone and, after piping into
the same intercom system, said, “I’ll be fucked bloody if I turn my back on the
only fight I’ve ever been in that actually meant anything—I’m taking as many of
those bastards with me as I can!”
There was a resounding chorus of cheers which quickly became
‘fucked bloody’ repeated over and over. Though Hadden disapproved of his senior
Commander’s chosen liberty of speech, he could not help but feel a rare moment
of connection with the people who had remained with him at H.E. One.
“Very well,” Hadden acquiesced as he unleashed another,
less-coordinated, volley of fire from his shorter-ranged plasma cannons. He had
reconfigured them to provide for maximum range while sacrificing a significant
portion of firepower, but he knew that if he did not at least try to bring them
into the fight the Virgin fleet would simply pulverize anything which even
remotely appeared man-made on the moon’s surface.
He was pleasantly surprised when the volley struck a
corvette which had apparently believed itself outside of the range of such
weaponry. Before the enemy vessel could recover, the Albert Einstein
poured everything its plants could generate into the vessel and destroyed the
Virgin corvette’s drive systems. The enemy corvette went into a bow-over-stern
tumble which saw a spray of shrapnel fly off the ruined vessel’s aft section
before it exploded. A roughly spherical shower of debris expanded from the
point of its death, until that cloud was no longer recognizable as once
belonging to a ship.
Not long after that corvette had been destroyed, however,
the Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton each came under more fire
than they could absorb. Within seconds of each other, the mightiest of the
vessels which had fought in H.E. One’s defense were destroyed. And in that
moment, the mood in the Command Center turned from one of barely-controlled
savagery to one of tacit resignation that their turn had come and gone. They
all knew that it would only be a matter of time now that their most powerful
mobile assets had been destroyed.
Nearly all of his plasma cannons were destroyed just a few
seconds later, and Hadden knew that the bulk of whatever damage they had hoped
to cause had already been done. He continued to fire whatever batteries he was
able until he quite literally was defenseless. Admiral Berggren’s efforts with
the embedded plasma cannons, while initially effective, had become markedly
less so when the remaining vessels maneuvered to follow the same basic paths as
those vessels which had been struck had followed.
Naturally, Admiral Berggren had anticipated this and had
therefore been circumspect in which weapons he had fired and in what sequence
they had been activated, but his adversaries were just as capable as he was. It
was only half an hour before the moon had been functionally surrounded, and the
fleet began scouring its surface with deliberate, patient strikes which destroyed
what remained of Hadden’s defense grid in a methodical ‘scraping’ of the moon’s
surface.
Hadden remained alert throughout, however, and even managed
to land a few crippling blows with well-hidden batteries during the VSF’s
scouring of the moon-base’s surface, but no more of the enemy vessels were
destroyed by his efforts.
“Admiral Berggren,” Hadden called out when the last of his
weaponry had gone offline, “give me the count, if you
please.”
“Yes, Director,” Berggren replied curtly, clearly fighting to
keep his voice steady. Hadden saw that the man’s eyes were filled with tears as
the weight of reality came crashing down on him. The recently-retired Rear
Admiral—who had served with distinction and honor for thirty six years in the
Virgin System Defense Force before retiring in protest of recent political
shifts—called up the tally on his own monitor and mirrored it on each screen in
H.E. One’s labyrinthian compound. “Last count,” the Admiral said, his voice
threaded with unyielding resolve once again, “thirty six enemy warships entered
H.E. One’s zone of control; of those thirty six, only fourteen remain.”
The pride in his voice was something Hadden actually
shared—and apparently the rest of the Command Center’s personnel did as well,
as they erupted into a chorus of ‘fucked bloody’ for several minutes as the
tally cycled across their view screens.
“Well done, Admiral,” Hadden congratulated over the
intercom, “indeed, well done to you all. We have done something remarkable this
day and we must now ensure that our defiance cannot be ignored by those who
would cover up this atrocity. I take great pride in standing…or, rather,
sitting,” he corrected sheepishly, having been caught up in the moment, “with
you here today.”
Another chorus of mixed cheers and laughter went up, and
this time Admiral Berggren joined them as little more than a common soldier. If
Stephen R. Hadden had been physically able to do so, he would have done
likewise but using his speakers to usurp the natural mood seemed disrespectful.
He would not take this moment away from them.
And so it was with more than a sliver of regret that he set
the massive power generators buried deep within the moon-base’s rocky interior
to an irreversible overload cycle while simultaneously accessing the highest-security
protocols in the base’s computer. Those protocols would set the station’s
entire store of delicately-contained antimatter—which, since Hadden Enterprises
was the most powerful corporation in the Sector, was more than any other
location this side of the now-collapsed wormhole could boast to possess—free to
annihilate with the nearby matter in a carefully-calculated chain reaction that
would leave Hadden’s mark on the Virgin System and, he hoped, the entire
Sector.
The truth, of which Hadden had been convinced for over a
century, was that President Han-Ramil Blanco and those who had gone before him
were nothing but a puppet. Whether he was aware of that fact was irrelevant,
because Hadden had already taken aim at the real architect, or architects, guiding
the Chimera Sector’s fate. While
Blanco’s blatant assault on the rights and privileges afforded the citizens of
the Virgin System had succeeded in destroying Hadden Enterprise’s base of
power, Direction Stephen Hadden knew that, as with any competitive game of
chess, difficult sacrifices needed to be made.
Blanco, the short-sighted fool that he was, believe he had
pinned Hadden’s most crucial piece and was about to destroy his organization
root and branch. But Stephen R. Hadden had known this day would come for a
hundred years…and he knew that the only piece in the game which truly mattered
would remain in play long after the Director of Hadden Enterprises was gone.
Just as the cheers and boisterous mood in the Command Center
reached its crescendo, Hadden flipped the proverbial switch and said,
“Check…your move.”


Several hours passed as Masozi and Jericho hurtled toward
Chambliss, and the tactical feed of the tiny pod kept track of the events at
H.E. One throughout the epic battle which unfolded between the moon base and
the VSDF fleet. As she watched the battle rage, and counted twenty distinct
flares which could have only been created by the destruction of warships,
Masozi felt her spine stiffen.
She had distanced herself from her family precisely because
she had feared to someday be associated with an event like the one she was
watching, and now that she was viewing a tragedy of this kind up close—and from
a vantage point she had never thought possible—Masozi felt something change
deep within her.
Just when it seemed that H.E. One would surrender, the
inexplicable occurred and Masozi shrieked in horror as the entire station was
enveloped in a flash of orange and white light, which quickly saw the rocky
moon’s body fly apart in a shower of molten rock.
The explosion seemed almost sluggish from their vantage
point, but Masozi knew that any explosion capable of destroying a body the size
of that moon would have been powerful beyond her limited ability to comprehend.
The blast wave of molten moon fragments was completely asymmetrical and, as she
looked at it with tear-brimmed eyes, actually looked like a giant weapon’s
discharge—a weapon aimed directly at the beautiful, iconic rings of Chambliss.
As she watched the aftermath, the tactical display went
dead. The screen through which she and Jericho had watched the battle unfold
had simply been relaying information from H.E. One’s own systems, most of which
no longer existed as anything but a rapidly expanding cloud of their
constituent atoms.
Then she saw the nearby section of Chambliss’ rings interact
with the wave of molten debris, which caused a chain reaction among the icy
particles that made up the massive, beautiful rings. It was not a huge change,
but even with her naked eye she could see the effect the explosion had caused
as it began to clear out a roughly ovular region of the ring’s surface.
“They can’t sweep that under the rug,” Jericho said quietly,
and she looked over to see his fists clenched tightly at his sides before he
deliberately reached up and returned the screen to a view of the approaching
gas giant.
For the first time since Masozi had met Jericho she
emotionally connected with him in that moment, and they shared the rest of
their journey toward the gas giant’s atmospheric envelope in relative silence.






Chapter
XIX: Time and Pressure 
Masozi awoke with a start as the image of H.E. One’s
destruction interrupted her surprisingly tranquil dreams, and she looked over
to see that Jericho was cycling through the various data feeds the tiny pod’s
systems provided.
“I’m no good with this crap,” he grumbled as he cycled
through a seemingly endless chain of menus in apparent futility. Masozi was
then vaguely aware of the sensation of gravity pulling her forward against the
restraints in her harness. It was barely enough to notice, but it was there.
“I’ll do it,” she said after rubbing her eyes and rolling
her shoulders, which was as much stretching as was possible in the cramped
compartment. Jericho gestured in disgust toward the screen and Masozi began to
flip through the various data feeds. “What were you looking for?”
“The external thermometer,” he replied irritably, and as
Masozi flipped through the menus she came across a feed which showed that the
egg-shaped craft had entered the outer region of Chambliss’ atmosphere.
“Everybody at H.E. One was trained to operate the standard escape pods and this
thing’s been fitted with the same interface, but…”
“You’re no good with ‘this crap’,” Masozi concluded after
fighting down her rising nerves.
Jericho nodded, “Exactly.”
“Well,” she said as she flipped through the menus before
finding the proper subset of commands, “I think it’s….here”
The thermal gauge expanded to fill nearly a third of the
screen, and it was represented by a vertical bar which was still very near the
bottom. The color of the legend beside the bar indicated that once the external
temperature exceeded what looked to be the 80% mark, the craft would have gone
beyond its operating thresholds and permanent damage would occur.
Thankfully, the bar was barely at five percent…but even as
she watched, it ticked up to six. Then it passed seven percent, and more
quickly even than the previous increases it shot almost completely past eight
and went to nine.
“That doesn’t look good,” she said warily.
“No…it doesn’t,” Jericho agreed as the craft wobbled slightly
and the sensation of falling forward against the restraints intensified enough
that Masozi realized they were engaged in an atmospheric braking sequence of
some kind.
Sure enough, she cycled through the craft’s menus until
coming to the vessel’s relative velocity indicator which had already been set
against Chambliss’ own speed and vector through the system. The number was
slowly, but steadily, decreasing from a mind-blowing four thousand five hundred
meters per second.
“I’m not sure that was a good idea,” Jericho said evenly,
and Masozi was forced to concur as she struggled to grasp their current
velocity—which would have allowed her to orbit Virgin at its equator in less
than two and a half hours! She reached up to deactivate the velocity indicator
but Jericho gently grabbed her wrist and shook his head, “But there’s no going
back now.”
Nodding her agreement, she settled back into her form-fitted
seat and only then did she realize that it had been form-fitted
perfectly to her body’s dimensions. She looked over at Jericho’s seat and found
the same to be true for him.
“Hadden knew Blanco’s fleet was coming before he let on,”
Jericho explained. “That physical you were so fond of probably let his people
put the finishing touches on this thing’s launch profile—as well as our
clothing,” he added with a pointed look at her bodyglove.
She nodded slowly as she realized that the bodyglove was
almost certainly a highly-advanced flight suit of some kind. It hugged her
soft, fleshy parts in a flattering manner precisely because it was preventing
excessive blood pooling in those areas, and she shook her head in a mixture of
wonderment and irritation.
“Don’t be upset,” Jericho said in a conciliatory tone, “you
only get one chance at a first time—don’t begrudge the circumstances which
bring it to pass.”
The gee forces continued to grow until the craft wobbled
again, and Masozi looked down to see their craft’s external temperature had
reached twenty three percent, and their deceleration was still sluggishly
decreasing their speed as it ticked just below forty four hundred meters per
second.
The craft began to wobble with alarming consistency, and
before Masozi could ask what was happening the entire vehicle spun violently a
hundred and eighty degrees and continued to wobble side to side for several
seconds before its movements calmed and eventually abated. When they did so,
the deceleration forces were sucking Masozi and Jericho deeper into their seats
than against the restraints which kept them securely in place.
“Now the real fun begins,” Jericho said grimly, and Masozi
felt the urge to grab a hold of something but resisted as she clenched her
fingers into tight fists while the gee forces
increased dramatically. “The whole deceleration process should take about six
minutes if we were launched with the correct course and speed, after which the
attitude control systems will keep us in a more or less stationary position
within the planet’s atmospheric enveloped.”
“And what happens then?” Masozi asked heavily as apparent
gravity met, and then exceeded, those she had come to think of as ‘normal’ on
Virgin.
“Either someone comes along to pick us up,” Jericho said
conversationally, “or the pod runs out of station-keeping fuel and we discover
just how much pressure this little egg can take before cracking.”
In no way comforted by his reply, Masozi closed her eyes as
the g-forces steadily increased until they were a significant fraction of those
they had experienced during their launch from H.E. One.
Several minutes passed, during which time Masozi fought to
keep her breathing calm and controlled while keeping her eyes closed. She was
able to rationalize several aspects of the craft’s flight—including the
incredible accelerations out of the rail gun, or coil gun, or maglev, or whatever
it had been—but on the whole, the experience was simply more than she could
wrap her brain around. She had never taken much interest in astrophysics but,
as their craft continued to shed its velocity by interacting with Chambliss’
outer atmosphere, she dearly wished she had paid more attention during Mrs.
Anderson’s patient lectures on the subject in school.
“Last jolt,” she heard Jericho say, and this time she
grabbed the harness criss-crossing her torso as she sought something to hold
onto. A few seconds later, some sort of massive explosion occurred near the
craft’s rear and her body was flung violently sideways as the ship lurched
sideways while the gee forces more than doubled. Her
vision blacked out, and Masozi was vaguely aware of waking up after what she
assumed had been several seconds.
When her senses returned she noted that the craft seemed to
have stabilized with what felt like a crushing amount of gravity that was very
nearly that of their deceleration’s peak.
“Are you all right?” Jericho asked as he cycled through the
craft’s screens in apparent futility. “I could use some help with the vid
feeds.”
Masozi blinked her eyes hard for several seconds before
nodding and assuming the task of interfacing with the craft’s computer. “I am,”
she replied hoarsely as she found the external video feed of their craft’s
various cameras. “How long do we have?” she asked as she called up the various
feeds and set them to run parallel on the screen.
“You can do the math better than I can, Investigator,” he
replied as he gestured to the craft’s fuel indicator—which was now reading as
only forty percent full. “But we burned up most of our fuel settling into a
relatively stable trajectory to maximize our remaining angular momentum, and
the rest is just going to fight against the planet’s gravity until it’s gone…my
guess is we’re looking at about eight minutes before we essentially go into
freefall.”
“That’s an awfully narrow window,” Masozi said just before a
large, green light began to flash above the console. “What is that?”
“That,” Jericho said with more than a hint of relief, “would
be our ride.”
The light continued to flash, increasing the speed at which
it did so until it was nearly solid—a sequence which took nearly two
minutes—after which time an alarm began to beep urgently.
“There might be a—“ Jericho began,
but was interrupted when the craft lurched violently, snapping Masozi’s head to
the left hard enough to crack her neck. The g-forces intensified once again and
the craft assumed a new trajectory. “Little bump,” Jericho finished lamely.


Twenty minutes later, the hatch to their tiny craft popped
open and an insectoid alien’s visage greeted Masozi. It was wearing a similar
uniform to the ones the rest of the H.E. employees had worn, with a white base
and blue trim, and it gestured with an appendage which ended in a trio of long,
narrow pincer-like ‘digits.’ As Masozi was nearest the hatch, she exited first
and descended a short set of moveable stairs to find herself
inside a small shuttle bay of some kind.
Jericho followed behind her, and Masozi looked around to see
a handful of people—three of which were distinctly different aliens, including
the insectoid which had opened the craft’s hatch from the outside.
“Jericho,” she heard a vaguely familiar man’s voice say,
“right on time. We’ll have to skip the formalities.”
Jericho stood to his full height and Masozi turned to see
the source of the voice. She quickly recognized him as the same man who had
‘captured’ them beneath the Aegis Spaceport, and he was wearing a uniform with
thicker bands of blue trim than the rest of the crew, in addition to a small
series of what looked to be rank insignia over his chest.
“Can we outrun them?” Jericho asked as he moved to join the
other man, who had already begun to move toward the bay’s primary exit.
Masozi turned to see a large, sleek-looking craft seemingly
attached to their egg-shaped pod, and the bay was barely large enough to
accommodate the impressive looking vehicle. Then she realized that it wasn’t
exactly attached to the pod, but it had used a set of grappling
appendages—which had clearly been designed for their current purpose—that had
secured the egg pod to the nose of the craft. She saw a quartet of letters
along the sleek-looking craft’s main body which were ‘NdGT.’
But she didn’t want to be left behind, so she turned and
quickened pace to keep up with the others and heard the H.E. officer reply,
“Yes, but I’ve got two H.E. ships in the area that haven’t yet reached their
Phase Thresholds. If I bug out now the VSDF ship sent to pursue them will
acquire firing solutions before they can escape.”
Jericho looked like he wanted to argue, but instead he said,
“You’ve got your orders just like I do, Captain.”
“Correct,” the other man said with a curt nod as they
entered a lift—which was far smaller than the ones on H.E. One, and barely fit
the three of them without forcing bodily contact. “We’re to destroy the
pursuing ship before assuming a supporting role to your mission.”
“Is there any way we can assist?” Jericho asked.
 “Just try to stay out of the way,” the Captain replied
before adding matter-of-factly, “this shouldn’t take long.”






Chapter
XX: The Sleeping Dragon’s First Breath 
The doors to the lift opened and the Captain stepped out
onto the bridge before Jericho and Masozi did likewise. “Report,” the Captain
commanded in a crisp, carrying voice as he made his way to the command chair
near the center of the bowl-shaped room.
“The VSDF Destroyer, Kathryn Janeway, has cleared
Chambliss’ horizon and is moving to intercept the 355/113, Captain
Charles,” an operator reported promptly. “The 4.669 is also well within
the Janeway’s zone of control, even assuming a maximum-length engagement
with the Pi Slice.”
“Official vessel designations only, Tactical,” Captain
Charles rebuked before calling up a series of commands on his chair’s control
interface. “Helm, I think it’s time this dragon came out of hiding: plot an
intercept course with the Janeway and push the secondary engines to
full.”
“Aye, Captain,” the helmsman replied eagerly, and Masozi was
vaguely aware of the deck moving beneath her feet. Still gun-shy from the
experience in the egg pod, she reached out to steady herself and her hand came
up against a nearby bulkhead. Her fleeting look at that bulkhead revealed a
small, bronze plaque which read: CSS-001 Zhuge Liang.
“Tactical,” Captain Charles continued professionally,
“estimated time to engagement using Tier Two armaments only?”
“Tier Two range in…fourteen minutes,
Captain,” the Tactical officer replied.
The view screen at the fore of the bowl-shaped bridge flared
to life, and Masozi saw what appeared to be a cloud of milky, white, gas which
slowly began to dissipate until the Virgin star field was visible. The rings of
Chambliss were also prominently displayed, and she once again felt the ‘ground’
beneath her shift as the ship lurched forward.
“Get those gravity generators aligned on the double,
Engineering,” Captain Charles barked, irritation creeping into his voice.
“You’ve got thirteen minutes before we exchange fire with the enemy—fix it
before then.”
“Yes, Captain,” a woman replied from the far side of the
room.
Jericho tugged at Masozi’s elbow, and she turned to see him
gesturing to a pair of apparently unoccupied workstations with chairs—and, more
importantly, safety harnesses.
Masozi realized that everyone else on the ship was securely
fastened to their workstations, so she did as Jericho had silently suggested
and a few minutes later they were locked into the empty seats.
“The Janeway is adjusting her heading, Captain,” the
Tactical officer reported after a few minutes of relative silence. “She’s now
pursuing the 4.669; new estimated time to engagement, T minus fifteen
minutes thirty seconds.”
“Thank you, Tactical,” Charles acknowledged. “Helm, adjust
course for new intercept trajectory.”
“Yes, Captain,” the helmsman said, and the ship’s view
screen shifted its view to the left about ten degrees. “New course plotted and laid in, sir.”
Masozi felt utterly useless as she sat there, awaiting the
inevitable engagement between the two vessels. She had no idea of the technical
specifications of either ship, but even if she knew that information she wasn’t
trained to do a single useful thing on the bridge of a warship.
She turned to Jericho and whispered, “Did you know about
this ship?”
Jericho shook his head. “We knew that some of the equipment
transfers weren’t going to the usual customers, but we also knew that if we
were supposed to know where they were going then we would have been
told. Most of us kept our questions to ourselves.”
“You just blindly went around following orders even when
things like warships were being built under your noses!?” she hissed, unable to
believe what she was hearing.
“We weren’t ‘blindly’ doing anything,” he replied with a
piercing look, “for all his flaws—and they were many—the Director was a fair
man. We mostly trusted in his vision, without which none of us would be here
right now.” His eyes softened for a moment and he added, “Sometimes sticking
your nose into dark places is a good idea, and other times it’s not. I’m sure
you can appreciate that.”
She took his meaning plainly enough, but focused on a word
he had just used. “You ‘mostly’ trusted his vision…which suggests that you,
yourself, had reason to doubt it?”
Jericho stiffened almost imperceptibly. “That’s right, and
it led me to learn certain things…and for a long time I wished to God I could
have just had faith in the man instead of doubting him.” He shook his head and
focused on the view screen, “But that time’s long past.”
“The Janeway will enter her maximum firing range in
twenty seconds,” the Tactical officer reported. “Our Tier Two armaments won’t
reach effective range for another three minutes.”
“Thank you, Tactical,” Captain Charles said before turning
to face the Engineering officer. “Have you got those gravity generators
recalibrated?”
“Yes, Captain,” the Engineer replied frantically, “I’m
running it through the final diagnostic cycle right now.” Tense seconds ticked
by until she declared, “Gravity generators are operating within combat
specifications, Captain.”
Not two seconds later, the ship was shaken by a rapid series
of impacts enough that Masozi’s head was snapped sideways hard enough to pop
several joints in her neck, had they not recently undergone the same kind of whiplash
in the egg pod.
“Shields holding, Captain,” the Tactical officer reported
promptly before another series of impacts could be felt throughout the ship.
“Forward shields are still at eighty percent, sir.”
“I want precise strikes against that destroyer’s engines,
Tactical,” Captain Charles instructed as he steepled his fingers before his
face while his eyes snapped back and forth between the multiple tactical
readouts flanking the main viewer, which was now filled with a magnified image
of what Masozi assumed was the Kathryn Janeway. The image on the screen
adjusted its heading until it was driving directly toward the view screen’s
pickup.
“The Janeway has adjusted her heading,” the Tactical
officer reported—unnecessarily, in Masozi’s opinion—before adding, “new time to
engagement: one minute twenty seconds.”
“Make up your mind, Captain,” Captain Charles muttered
before raising his voice, “bring a concentrated burst of all forward weaponry
to bear on her forward shields. I want to end this quickly.”
“Yes, sir,” the Tactical officer reported, and Masozi saw a
countdown timer appear below the view screen which ticked down from sixty three
seconds. When the timer reached zero, Masozi instinctively gripped the arms of
her chair and a salvo of bright, blue energy bolts flared against the Janeway’s
shields. The assault continued for nearly two seconds before the other ship’s
shields disappeared and several of the energy bolts hammered into her hull
before the barrage briefly ceased.
“She’s turning to present her flank, sir,” the Tactical
officer reported just as another salvo of energy pulses smashed into the Janeway’s
shields on that facing. Several indicators beside the main view screen, which
appeared to indicate power levels of the Zhuge Liang’s systems, were
reading as less than half full on what Masozi assumed were the ‘Tier Two’
weapon systems, whatever those were.
Captain Charles leaned forward as he obviously processed the
information arrayed before him. “Divert power from the primary engines to the
particle cannons,” he instructed. “That should buy us enough extra firepower to
take them down before they have a chance to change their priorities—again,” he
added derisively.
“Diverting power now, Captain,” the Engineer reported, and
several of the power indicators beside the main viewer began to adjust until
the primary weapons read nearly full power.
Another volley if white-hot fire erupted from the Zhuge
Liang as the Kathryn Janeway rolled to present the opposite flank’s
shields before returning with a volley of her own.
The ship juddered, but significantly less than the opening
exchange had done. Masozi’s confusion at the difference in the apparent
severity of the impacts was dispelled when the Engineer reported, “Gravity
generators are nearly finished calibrating to maximum, sir. Another thirty
seconds and they’ll be aligned within 0.02% of the specs.”
“Good work,” Captain Charles said with an approving nod.
“Their shield grid has collapsed,” the Tactical officer
reported. “She’s launching torpedoes, Captain,” she added tensely, “I’m reading
eight warheads inbound.”
“Activate point defense grid,” Charles ordered in a level
voice. “But keep our fire on the Janeway—let’s give her wreckage a
metallic hydrogen bath—in Chambliss’ core.”
“Yes, sir,” the Tactical officer replied as yet another wave
of blue-white fire rammed into the Kathryn Janeway, but this time the
impacts tore huge, gaping holes in her hull. The Zhuge Liang’s Tier Two
weapons grid appeared nearing exhaustion of its power supply, but with just
three percent of its power remaining it ceased its fire as the Kathryn
Janeway was torn apart in a shower of superheated metal amid a series of
violent explosions which deformed the superstructure beneath her armored shell.
The Tactical officer reported, “Three torpedo strikes,
Captain; shields are at thirty four percent. Point defense registers five
confirmed interceptions.” Masozi was alarmed to hear they had just sustained
more ‘damage’ that they had during the rest of the short-lived battle
combined—but she was even more alarmed that there had not been an accompanying
shudder of the ship from those impacts like there had been at the battle’s
outset. She concluded that the lack of tactile sensation must have been due to
the engineer’s efforts at optimizing the ship’s gravity generators.
The slowly-expanding cloud of intermittently-flashing debris
that had moments earlier been the VSDF Destroyer Kathryn Janeway began
to fall toward the gas giant. Only then
did Masozi feel her fingers unconsciously release their death grip on the arms
of her chair.
“Helm: bring us about to assume an escort position for the 335/113
and 4.669 until they reach their Phase Thresholds,” Captain Charles
ordered. “Tactical: confirm the Janeway is out of commission before sweeping
the area for any other targets.”
“Yes, sir,” the two bridge members replied in unison.
After several seconds the Tactical officer reported, “The Janeway
has ejected her life pods and all power signatures are confirmed dead. No other
tactically-significant targets are within range of our sister ships, hostile or
otherwise.”
“Good,” Charles said before adding, “send a communique to
the VSDF on their secure channels. Tell them they have wounded who require
their assistance; Chambliss’ EM field might block the lifeboats’ emergency
comm. beacons and slow a viable rescue operation.”
“Yes sir,” an alien crewmember replied in a synthesized,
distinctly feminine voice. ‘She’ appeared to be some sort of a cephalopod with
a human-sized ‘head’ containing four eyes. The creature manned a circular
station that appeared to have been built specifically for her species—a species
with which Masozi was completely unfamiliar. After a few seconds, the
creature’s vocalizer said, “Transmission sent and confirmed, Captain.”
Captain Charles stood and nodded curtly. “There will be
enough bloodshed in the days to come,” he said grimly before fixing his gaze on
Jericho and then on Masozi. “Let’s get you two settled; if I understand the
mission correctly, you’ve got a lot of work ahead of you.”


Two days later, Masozi staggered out of the VR simulator and
rubbed her aching eyes. She had just spent fourteen hours in flight training
simulations—which was decidedly not how she had anticipated spending the
trip to…wherever it was they were going.
“You did good today,” Jericho said
with the barest hint of approval, “you only killed us six times—a marked
improvement over yesterday’s tally of twenty three.”
“You’re already rated for this thing,” she jerked her thumb
irritably over her shoulder toward the simulation booth. “Why do I need to
train on it as well?”
“Redundancy has a multiplicative effect in certain
situations,” he replied casually, which had been almost the precise phraseology
he had used in reply to her previous, similar, queries. “We have to be ready
for everything, so we need to stay here and train until you’re rated to operate
the Tyson in non-combat situations.”
“But you said that time is a factor,” she argued. “Wouldn’t
we be better served by getting down to the colony and making the Adjustment?”
The more Masozi had read the file for Governor Keno, the more she had been
convinced that the Adjustment was just as justified as—if not more so than—those
of Mayor Cantwell and the other targets Jericho had ‘Adjusted’ back on Virgin.
But she was keeping those reservations to herself—along with Director Hadden’s
advice regarding Jericho’s trustworthiness—since she didn’t want to reveal any
more of her thoughts than she needed to. Those words had replayed themselves
over and over in her mind until she feared they might burst from her lips of
their own accord.
“The Governor’s not going anywhere just yet,” Jericho said
far too calmly for her liking. “She’s surrounded by everything she’ll ever
want; she’s got no reason to leave unless a higher power summons her.”
“What are the news feeds saying
about the fleet’s attack?” she asked.
Jericho shook his head. “I don’t know, and frankly I don’t
care. It’s all been filtered, manipulated, twisted, and censored so many times
by the time it reaches the public that it’s doubtful there’s any real value in
the news feeds’ end product—especially at a time like this.”
He stretched his arms high above his head, and Masozi felt
the irresistible urge to do likewise. After she had finished stretching, she
shook out the numbness in her fingertips which had developed from being in a
stationary position for so many hours.
“We’ve got time, Investigator,” Jericho said calmly. “You should
just focus on getting familiar with the Tyson’s systems.”
Masozi bit her lip before saying, “I’m not an Investigator
any more.” It was a realization she had come to several days earlier, but it
had taken that much time to truly come to grips with what it meant. The person
she had been—the only person she had ever wanted to be—was well and
truly dead.
Jericho waited for several seconds before replying, “That’s
true. But if it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer to keep using the title.” He
shrugged emphatically, “That’s how I’ve come to think of you.”
Masozi had no idea how to respond to that, so she changed
the subject, “I’m starving.”
Jericho nodded, and they made their way to the mess hall
where they plated up the some food that was decidedly less gourmet—but almost
certainly just as healthy—as the contents of the platter which Director Hadden
had provided in the Observation Deck of the now-destroyed H.E. One.
They ate in silence as Masozi contemplated the destruction
of Hadden’s headquarters, which had served as the nerve center for the Chimera
Sector’s wealthiest and most influential corporation. Clearly the destruction
of H.E. One had been by the Director’s design, and Jericho had suggested during
their flight in the egg pod that one purpose of the explosion had been to make
the event a public one. But she was unable to answer the same nagging question which
had plagued her for two days: why?
“You’ll work in the VR booth alone tomorrow,” Jericho said
unexpectedly. “I’ve got some things to look into, and you’ll need solo
experience in case I’m incapacitated.”
Masozi nodded as though in agreement, but the truth was she
had harbored growing doubts about her involvement in everything which had taken
place since her arrival in Aegis. The flight from New Lincoln had made sense,
since failing to do as Jericho and Benton had
suggested would have likely result in her death.
But she had never once considered that she might end up in
the middle of a shooting war between the System Government and Hadden
Enterprises. And in spite of the events of the past few days, Jericho seemed
hell-bent on making his ‘Adjustment’ of Governor Keno with Masozi’s help.
The more Masozi thought about it, the more likely it became
in her mind that she needed to get off this proverbial ride as quickly as
possible. For the time being, that meant playing along with Jericho’s plan…but
she was convinced that it was in her own best interests—and potentially the
best interests of the entire Sector—if she parted company with him as soon as
the opportunity presented itself.
“I’m going to go talk with Jeff,” Jericho said as he stood
from his nearly-finished tray.
“Who?” Masozi asked, her brow furrowed in confusion.
Jericho snorted. “Captain Charles,” he elaborated,
“we’ve…got history. It will be good to catch up with him while I’ve got the chance.
Feel free to head back to your quarters for some shut-eye; you’ll need it for
your next round of VR simulations.”
With that, he left the mess hall—or whatever they called it
on a starship—and Masozi was finally free of his increasingly stress-inducing
presence.
She closed her eyes and ran through all the available data
once again in her mind. After several minutes of silent contemplation, she was
once again frustrated by the lack of absolute certainty regarding Jericho’s
disposition toward her.
He had genuinely taken risks in harboring her, and while his
chosen occupation may be questionable—both legally and morally—Masozi had
difficulty finding actual fault with him on those particular grounds. Her
entire society had supported his actions and the actions of those like him, and
while she held certain reservations about the Timent Electorum after an
up-close-and-personal look at its machinations, she still believed in the idea
of social balance.
But she knew there was more to their situation than Jericho
had explained; he had even told her as much! Factoring in Director Hadden’s
ominous warning, Masozi had dearly wanted to decide Jericho was untrustworthy.
Still, she was unable to condemn him based on conjecture,
hearsay, or intuition. So she would not take action against him directly unless
doing so became absolutely necessary to ensure her own safety.
Above all, however, Masozi had resolved herself to break
with her de facto captor as soon as the opportunity presented itself.
She stood from the table and, after slotting her empty tray
into the rack among the other similarly empty platters, Masozi made for her
quarters. She could not quite remember where they were, but she did know they
were one level down from her current location. So she made her way to the
nearest lift and entered the commands necessary to take her to that level.
Her eyes still ached so badly that she closed them to keep
from the discomfort which the tube’s bright light caused. She was
well-and-truly exhausted, but Masozi was more than slightly surprised to find
she had nodded off during the short ride to deck three as she saw the empty
corridor beyond the open doors of the lift. After giving herself a shake she
exited the lift and began walking toward her assigned berth.
But before she had reached it, she realized she was in the
wrong place. Masozi looked around in confusion and saw that she was on deck
six. She stopped and re-ran the sequence of her entering the lift, activating
it, and the exiting, and was certain she had made the correct inputs necessary
to take her to deck two.
Rubbing her eyes in equal parts frustration and weariness,
she turned toward the lift when a sound caught her attention from the far end
of the corridor. She turned and cocked her head, listening intently for the
sound to recur.
It did, and she realized it was the muffled clang of metal
on metal. She remembered that the shuttle bay, where she had disembarked the
egg pod, was on deck six so she decided to go see what the commotion was about.
As Masozi neared the shuttle bay’s doors—which were, for
some reason, opened—she had the distinct impression that someone was watching
her. She whirled around and thought she saw a flash of movement at a nearby
corner of the corridor when she did so. Taking a trio of long, quick strides,
Masozi burst around the corner hoping to find whoever it was that had been
clandestinely following her.
But the corridor was empty, and she narrowed her eyes in
suspicion. After several moments of contemplation, she decided it was still
worth investigating the shuttle bay for the source of the anomalous sound.
The shuttle bay looked empty and the egg pod was nowhere to
be found, but the craft which had retrieved it was. The Tyson—which was
apparently the shortened version of the craft’s official name: Neil deGrasse
Tyson, abbreviated as NdGT—was a sleek, powerful and, if she was
being completely honest, sexy-looking vehicle with matte black armor and a
thin, sliver-like forward-facing window in its cockpit.
The craft was flown almost completely on instrumentation,
which she supposed wasn’t that unusual for a spacecraft but seemed absolutely
counterintuitive to Masozi’s planet-bound way of thinking.
The loading ramp was open on the side of the craft and,
after seeing no one present in the shuttle bay, Masozi decided to take a quick
look inside the actual craft whose interior the VR simulations she had spent
the last two days emulated.
The interior of the craft was incredibly functional and
streamlined. There was not a single wasted inch of surface area to be had, and
the internal compartment was tiny—too tiny, in fact.
The headroom looked appropriate for what she had come to
expect from the simulations, but there was something about the right—or
‘starboard’ in naval terminology, as she had come to learn—side of the cabin
which was off.
Then she realized what it was. There was a small bench
placed against the wall in the rear of the cabin, and Masozi decided to peek
inside the cockpit to see if anything else was different than the simulations.
After a thorough appraisal, she found the rest of the Tyson’s inner
compartment to be precisely as it had been in the simulations.
Confused, Masozi made her way to the back of the small
cabin—which could possibly fit a mid-sized hover car, but nothing larger—and
examined the bench. It appeared to be made of the same materials as the rest of
the craft’s interior, and seemed to blend with everything else. But unlike
everything else in the craft, she could not guess at its purpose.
She knelt beside it and felt the edges with her fingertips,
surprised to find it warmer than she had expected. Masozi felt a nearby panel
and found it was cool to the touch, so she once again checked the tiny bench
and confirmed that it was significantly warmer than the rest of the craft’s
interior.
After several minutes of examination, Masozi discovered a
cleverly-concealed locking mechanism which required three points of the bench’s
surfaces to be pressed simultaneously. She hesitated briefly, knowing there
could be something dangerous inside, but her curiosity got the better of her
and she depressed the three hidden buttons in unison.
The top of the box-shaped bench popped up fractionally, and
Masozi lifted the hidden lid to reveal a compartment that was lined with a
thin, honeycomb-like material made of some strange mineral. But when her eyes
fixed on the object inside the box, she gasped in spite of herself.
Clearly emblazoned on the outside of the small, cylindrical
device was a series of images which every school child learned to recognize and
each one indicated something hazardous—but the most disturbing one was the
symbol for ‘highly radioactive.’ Without touching the device, and fearing for
her safety in the presence of a radioactive device of any kind, she briefly
looked at the smaller markings and found them to be Southern Bloc lettering and
pictographs.
Masozi heard muted conversation from the corridor outside
the shuttle bay, and she quickly closed the lid of the hidden compartment
before exiting the shuttle. She had almost made it to the entry of the shuttle
bay when a pair of human crewmembers—a man and a woman, who were clearly more
interested in each other than they were in her—came around the corner where she
herself had passed on her way to the shuttle bay.
The two gave her a look of surprise and, thinking quickly,
Masozi asked, “Where did the egg pod go?” She gestured over her shoulder and
gave the two a look of confusion, “You don’t have another shuttle bay on this
ship, do you?”
The woman—a short, slightly-built red-haired girl who likely
only weighed two thirds what Masozi did—shook her head. “The Zhuge Liang
only has one shuttle bay, ma’am.”
The man nodded and said, “But you really shouldn’t be down
here without an escort. This is a restricted area.”
“I’m sorry,” Masozi said with her best attempt at feigned
guilt, “there was just something in the pod that I wanted to retrieve.”
“Oh,” the woman said in understanding and sympathy, “I’m
sorry, we ejected the pod not long after you two were brought on board. It
really wasn’t worth bringing along.”
“Of course,” Masozi said in agreement, hoping to get away
from the bay as soon as possible to avoid suspicion.
“I’m going to have to log this,” the man said after a
moment’s consideration, “how did you open the door, ma’am?”
Masozi blinked in surprised. “It was open…I just assumed
that meant it was ok to take a peek. I’m sorry if I was wrong…”
“Hero,” the diminutive woman said while tugging on what
appeared to be her boyfriend’s arm, “it was probably Klarpf—he’s always leaving
doors open, right?”
The man she referred to as ‘Hero’ rolled his eyes. “That’s
true,” he said in agreement before casting a wary eye to Masozi, “but I still
think this should be logged…”
“I’ll do whatever you think is best,” Masozi assured him,
hoping against hope he didn’t actually decide to log the event. Now, more than
ever, Masozi wanted to get away from all of the insanity which had taken over
her life for the past month and get back to something approaching normalcy—but
that would almost certainly never happen if the ship’s crew discovered what she
had learned about the Tyson’s cargo.
Just then the same insectoid crewmember which Masozi
remembered had opened the egg pod’s hatch came around the opposite corner of
the corridor and stopped in what Masozi assumed was surprise.
“Klarpf,” ‘Hero’ snapped as he gestured toward the shuttle
bay, “did you leave these doors open?!”
Klarpf looked back and forth between the doors and the human
crewmembers before replying via his vocalizer, “Yes, Crewman Hero.”
Hero sighed in frustration. “I’m going to have to write this
up,” he grumbled, “and this is my watch; the Chief’s going to have my
head!”
“Hero,” the little woman said in a conciliatory tone, “you
have to remember that Klarpf’s people don’t even have doors—they live in a
communal, subterranean network of tunnels which connect every chamber to every
other chamber. Remember Professor B’s xenopsychology: the entire concept of a
door is a foreign concept in a hive mind, right?”
Hero looked doubtful, “I don’t know, Lisa….”
“I…apologize, Hero,” Klarpf said via his vocalizer as he
splayed his pincer-esque appendages to either side. “I am unaccustomed to life
on this ship.”
“Klarpf was one of the deep-core miners on H.E. One,” Lisa
explained after making eye contact with Masozi. “They didn’t have any doors
down there, either.”
“Really?” Masozi asked, uncertain
if the prolonged dialogue would be beneficial or harmful to her chances for a
safe exit from the scene but knowing she had little choice but to play along.
Lisa nodded as her eyes began to mist. “I…” she began, but
her voice caught and Hero placed his long arm around her narrow shoulders. Lisa
took Hero’s hand in her own and shook her head, as though it would banish the
rising surge of emotion she clearly felt after mentioning H.E. One. “I need to
get back to the Comm. center,” she said hastily before meeting Hero’s gaze, “go
easy on the big guy, ok?”
Hero’s visage softened and he nodded. “Ok, Leese…I’ll let
him off—this time,” he added with a warning look to Klarpf.
Klarpf made another display of what Masozi took to be
prostration. “Thank you, Crewman Hero.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Hero rolled his eyes before planting a short
kiss on Lisa’s lips. “See you after shift?”
“You bet,” she said as she wiped her eyes dry and gestured
for Masozi to accompany her. Masozi would have preferred exit on her own, but
she didn’t want to attract suspicion so she followed the diminutive woman to
the lift. When they had both entered, Lisa said, “Deck two, right?”
“Yes,” Masozi said in surprise, but Lisa gave her what
looked to be a wholly genuine smile.
“It’s part of my job to coordinate
the berthing assignments for unranked personnel,” she explained before
thrusting out her hand. “My name’s Lisa Steiner, Comm. Technician—among other
things,” she added with a roll of her eyes.
Masozi accepted her hand and nodded. “Masozi…a month ago I
was an Investigator but the truth is I don’t know what I am now.”
Lisa leaned in conspiratorially after their hands had
separated and said, “You’re still an investigator, you just might not get to
capitalize it any more.” The little woman sighed as she added, “We are what we
are, Masozi-the-still-investigator. Nobody can take that from us, and we should
all learn to be happy with what that is.”
The door to the lift opened and Masozi saw that they were at
Deck Two. She exited the lift and turned before awkwardly saying, “Thank you.”
Steiner waved dismissively, “On a ship this small,
everyone’s got to look out for each other—especially us girls.” She winked just
before the lift closed, and Masozi made a bee-line for the cabin she had been
assigned.
Once inside she exhaled deeply, but was acutely aware that
her quarters might have been bugged. So she turned off the lights and did her
best to go to sleep.
In spite of what she had discovered in the shuttle bay, that
turned out to be a less-than-challenging task.






Chapter
XXI: Final Approach 
“I don’t like it, Jericho,” Captain Jeffrey Charles said
darkly. “You’re putting too much faith in her.”
Jericho shrugged, knowing that from a given perspective the
Captain’s comment would seem reasonable. But he had put in too much work, made
too many preparations, and set too many events in motion to back out over what
he considered to be an acceptable risk. “When have I ever been wrong about this
kind of thing?” he asked with cold certainty.
The Zhuge Liang’s Captain snorted as he waggled a
finger remonstratively, “That’s what everyone says until they’ve broken
their cherry.”
Jericho chuckled. “True enough,” he admitted. “But the
Director had enough faith in this plan to put your ship and crew at my disposal
for the foreseeable future…when has he ever been wrong about this kind
of thing?”
“When had he ever been wrong?” Captain Charles
riposted pointedly. “With the old man gone, it’s anyone’s guess as to how
things are going to turn out. The gears are already turning…and before long the
Sector might be thrown into a full-blown civil war.”
“That’s right,” Jericho said fiercely as he leaned forward
in his chair, which was situated opposite the Captain’s, “the time for doubt is
over. We have to see this thing through or thousands—maybe even millions—of
people are going to be crushed by those gears.” He forced himself back into his
chair and held the Captain’s blue-eyed gaze for several moments before
continuing, “I’ve done too much…seen too much…I can’t—no, I won’t—believe
that it was all for nothing!”
Captain Charles set his jaw and the two engaged in a silent
battle of wills until the Captain finally shook his head and sighed. “I already
voiced my objections to this plan in the hours before the Director gave me my
orders,” he said in bitter resignation before straightening in his chair. “For
better or worse, you’re right: we are committed.” The Captain quirked a grin
before adding, “At least you’ll get to see home one last time. I just pray to
God your plan goes off like you hope it will.”
Jericho relaxed in his own chair and released a pent-up
breath. “You and me both, Jeff,” he said hollowly as he looked out the lone
window in the Captain’s Office, “you and me both.”
Charles hesitated before asking, “If you see her, will you
give Valeria my regards?”
Jericho snorted derisively, remember that his cousin had
long held an unrequited affection for a woman they had both known while growing
up. “I can do that,” he said as he stood from his chair and made for the door.
He stopped after a few steps and, without turning, said, “But you’re wrong
about one thing, Cousin.”
“Oh?” Captain Charles said with a quirked brow.
Jericho nodded solemnly as his eyes went back to the stars
outside the Captain’s office. “The old man’s dead…but he’s not gone,” he said
before tearing his eyes from the star field outside the window and locking
gazes with the Zhuge Liang’s Captain, “men like him never are.”


Mazosi struggled with the controls and the Neil deGrasse
Tyson slewed hard to the left after she overcompensated for the initial
bump against the colony’s atmosphere. She cursed under her breath at having to
perform her very first atmospheric entry with such a valuable craft—especially
when her own well-being depended on that performance!
“You’re doing fine,” Jericho said patiently as the Tyson
arced toward the moon colony of Philippa. “I’ll take over if you get in
trouble; this ship doesn’t register on the world’s sensor net so the only
obstacles you have to worry about are the atmosphere and the ground.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Masozi snapped as the Tyson
gently lowered itself through the upper atmosphere. It was actually fairly simple
to navigate the craft into an approach which didn’t create much in the way of
heat—unlike the egg pod, which had used friction as its primary braking method.
The Tyson had powerful engines which allowed her to essentially dictate
the craft’s behavior completely independent of the moon’s gravity.
“This atmosphere’s as thin as it gets while still being
considered breathable,” Jericho reminded her for at least the fifth time during
the trip after leaving the Zhuge Liang’s shuttle bay.
Jericho had decided that after only one more day of intense
training in the VR simulator—during which she only crashed twice in over two
hundred separate missions—Masozi had proven her ability with the shuttle
sufficiently to warrant moving forward with the next leg of his mission.
Masozi couldn’t take her mind off the device hidden in the
cabin behind them—a device which she was increasingly convinced was a
thermonuclear warhead that had been lost during the infamous collapse of
Virgin’s Southern Bloc some two decades earlier.
Is he going to detonate that weapon here?! she wondered silently. Why? The Governor’s security
detail can’t be that tight.
“Concentrate, Investigator,” Jericho snapped, and Masozi’s
attention snapped back into focus as she guided the craft through a patch of
upper atmosphere turbulence which had been indicated on her instruments. Her
thoughts had only strayed for a moment, but that was all it had taken for her
to stray to the outer boundary of their approach vector.
After correcting their course, she realized her pulse had
quickened and she was sweating. She knew some of that was due to the stressful
act of piloting a genuine starship for the first time, and every muscle in her
lower half had been flexed tightly for nearly five continuous minutes. But she
also knew that part of her anxiety was the knowledge of the device in the cabin
behind them.
“Good,” Jericho said approvingly after she had brought the
vessel back into the designated approach path. “This ship has stealth systems
that only a handful of grids in the Sector could overcome, but that doesn’t
mean we shouldn’t be cautious.”
“If you know so much about it,” Masozi said through gritted
teeth, “why aren’t you flying it?”
“Everyone needs practice,” he replied evenly before unfastening
his harness and making his way into the cabin. “I’ve got to check on something;
I’ll be just a minute.”
She was tempted to ask what he meant to investigate, but
Masozi thought better of it and instead focused on the task at hand. She knew
that she could ill-afford a mishap, even though they were well within the
atmosphere of the colony and only a few minutes from touchdown. She risked a
glance over her shoulder into the cabin just in time to see Jericho close the
hidden compartment, zip up a duffle bag which had been set beside it, and stow
that bag in the craft’s tiny, locker-like closet. Before he turned back toward
the cockpit, she returned her full attention to the task of flying.
When he reached the cockpit and re-fastened his harness,
Masozi asked tensely, “What was it?”
“One of the capacitors was acting up,” he replied
offhandedly. “But it was just a glitch in the readouts; nothing to worry
about.”
“That’s good,” Masozi said hollowly as they made their final
approach, having gone beneath the colony’s primary detection grid. “How far is
the nearest settlement?” she asked as the landing zone was highlighted.
“Twenty three kilometers,” Jericho replied. “Philippa’s
gravity isn’t much more than two thirds that of Virgin’s, so it might take some
getting used to. Still, it will make the hike that much easier.”
“What are the colony’s rules regarding weapons?” Masozi
asked, hoping to segue into whether or not they would be carrying said weapons.
“They’re tight,” Jericho replied bitterly as he began to
transfer several of the Tyson’s controls to the craft’s computer, “so we
won’t be armed during this first excursion—we’re just here to pick up some of
the resources we’ll need later. Go ahead and let off the controls,
Investigator; we’ll let the auto-landing program take over from here.”
Genuinely relieved that she would not be attempting to land
the incredibly expensive-looking craft, Masozi slowly relaxed her grip on the
controls as the computer assumed command. Their trajectory evened out
considerably from her own directed path, and after
less than a minute the Neil deGrasse Tyson touched down inside a rocky
crater lined with some sort of green, mossy plant.
“Well done, Investigator,” Jericho said as he unfastened his
harness once again and stood from the cramped quarters of the co-pilot’s chair.
“We should get moving; we’ve only got two days to set this thing up. Our window
will close after that and, following the VSDF’s attack on H.E. One, we likely
won’t get another chance.”
“I understand,” Masozi said as she followed Jericho to the
cabin, where he opened the closet into which he had just stuffed the duffel.
The truth was she had no idea why such a window existed, but she didn’t want to
voice her ignorance.
She was relieved when Jericho failed to retrieve the duffel
from the closet, instead opting for a pair of wide-brimmed hats and long, thick
overcoats before closing the closet. He handed one of each to her and she
accepted before he explained, “Philippa’s thin atmosphere and weak
magnetosphere make solar radiation more dangerous here than any other habitable
location in the Virgin System. We have to protect ourselves at all times.”
They donned the protective equipment, which included a
goggled mask attached to the hat that sealed neatly around her neck just above
the collarbones. The mask was remarkably easy to breathe through, and the
goggles likewise did very little to alter visible light which made wearing them
less inconvenient than it likely appeared.
“Ready?” Jericho asked as he placed a hand on the glyph
which would open the lone door into the craft’s cabin.
“Yes,” she replied, still feeling a massive wave of relief
wash over her at his decision to leave the as-yet unexplained device—which she
suspected was a nuclear bomb.
“The Tyson’s systems, including the door’s locking
mechanism, are coded to our bio-patterns and no one else’s. If you we get
separated and you need to launch, just swipe your hand across the door panel
and it will open for you,” he explained before donning his own hat-and-mask,
“anyone else’s attempt to access the vessel will result in the ship’s nuclear
plant overloading, taking out the nearby settlement in the process.”
Masozi’s heart skipped a beat at his mention that the vessel
would explode, and her thoughts turned to the nuclear bomb stowed in the ship’s
closet. If the ship’s power plant will take out the nearby settlement,
she wondered with mounting concern, how much worse would it be if the hidden
bomb’s power is added to it?
Jericho secured the mask attached to his hat as though doing
so required less than a thought, but Masozi had struggled for several attempts
to get her own unit to fit properly. “Log the ship’s location on your link,” he
reminded her, and she was actually grateful for the mask in that moment since
it hid her red-faced embarrassment while she did so. There had been several,
sleek, wrist-mounted data links in the Tyson and Jericho had given her
one as soon as they had boarded the sleek craft. “If we run into any problems
you need to be able to return here,” he said as he pressed the glyph, and the
cabin depressurized gently as the ramp descended to the rocky ground below.
“Let’s go.”


Two hours later Masozi’s legs burned in a wholly unfamiliar
way and her lungs felt simultaneously tight with effort and short of air.
“Philippa barely has enough atmospheric pressure to support
strenuous human activity,” Jericho explained. “There are several alien species
that fare just fine here but humans aren’t one of them, so I suggest that you
pace yourself, Investigator.”
“How much further?” Masozi asked
between long, empty-feeling breaths.
“Not far,” Jericho said, gesturing ahead, “the large crater ahead houses around six thousand colonists.
It’s the largest settlement on this side of the moon.”
Masozi looked up for at least the hundredth time at the sky.
Suspended high above them, looming impossibly large in the night sky, was the
planet Pacifica. Its blue-green orb might have been mistaken for one like
Virgin, if not for the distinct striations marking its many-layered appearance.
Pacifica was the second largest gas giant in the Virgin
System, behind only Chambliss, and of Pacifica’s seventeen moons three had been
colonized at one time or another. But Philippa had proven to be the only moon
capable of sustaining an atmosphere due to its position jut within Pacifica’s
electromagnetic field. That field was barely strong enough to create an
acceptable degree of protection from Virgin’s primary to qualify Philippa as a
habitable world.
Using technologies long-since forgotten—or possibly even
lost to antiquity—the Imperium’s terraforming teams had extracted the requisite
gases from Pacifica and transferred them to Pacifica at the earliest stages of
the colony’s transformative process.
No one knew how long it had taken to terraform Philippa to
its current state, but the process had apparently been interrupted when the
wormhole had collapsed. The engineers responsible for the moon’s completed
transformation abandoned their efforts in favor of fleeing to their precious
Imperium—an undertaking which no one could confirm had succeeded or failed.
Of course, ‘Philippa’ was only the moon’s original
astronomical designation. Since the re-naming of most life-sustaining bodies
had taken place some two centuries earlier, Philippa had been re-designated
‘South Virginia’ due to its outermost position in the Virgin system. But Masozi
had learned both names for the tiny world during primary school and had always
preferred ‘Philippa’ to ‘South Virginia,’ so that is how she thought of the
rocky moon where she now tread.
As they came to the edge of the crater—and it was a literal
edge, much to Masozi’s surprise, rather than a gentle slope—she looked down and
saw a tiny settlement nestled inside of a smaller crater within the larger
crater which she now overlooked.
“It’s amazing that life can flourish in places like this,”
Jericho said with a note of something approaching admiration in his voice. He
gestured out to the far side of the crater and said, “First we’ve got to skirt
the main settlement and make for that smaller crater. Do you see it?”
 Masozi strained her eyes for a few seconds before
seeing what she thought he meant. It was well-lit with what looked to be
several large, neon signs around the perimeter. “What do you need to do there?”
she asked.
“Collect a final piece of the puzzle,” he replied, “once
we’ve got it we can make the Adjustment.”
Masozi wanted to object, to say that she didn’t want to be a
party to any of this any longer, but her sense of caution won a short-lived
battle with its counterpart, temerity, and they moved to find a less
treacherous path into the crater.


As they approached the far side of the crater, Jericho took
a glance over his shoulder at Masozi. She was a truly impressive physical
specimen, having never once requested a break from the arduous trek across the
unfamiliar—at least, unfamiliar to her—terrain. But her physical attributes
were among the least interesting aspects he had admired in the young woman
since their meeting in New Lincoln.
He knew she still harbored doubts about what they were
doing—and likely even some personal resentment toward him—but Jericho had done
everything he could to convince her of his mission’s validity without
jeopardizing that very mission.
As they approached the edge of the settlement’s distant
subsidiary, Jericho’s eyes settled on what he took to be their destination. One
of the dozen, gaudy signs made of old-fashioned neon lights was that of a
voluptuous woman wearing absolutely no clothing. She had several religious
icons scattered around her, and her hands were folded across her breasts and
groin while her pouty lips seemed to blow an eternal kiss through South
Virginia’s thin atmosphere.
“That’s our stop,” Jericho said, gesturing to the building,
“the Saint’s Blessing.”
He was mildly surprised when Masozi failed to make some
predictable barb about men and whorehouses, and a concealed grin spread across
his usually stoic features when he opened the door for her and she strode into
the structure as though doing so did not offend her.
But, as usual, Jericho knew better. Still, he felt more than
a twinge of trepidation as he followed her into the building. He knew that the
actual degree of her involvement in his plan would be determined in the coming
hours—and he prayed to God that he hadn’t misjudged her.
Too much depended on it.









Chapter XXII: Justification




“We’re here to see Tera St. Murray,” Jericho said, and
Masozi looked around the room to see a surprisingly sterile environment—for a
colonial brothel, anyway.
There was a handful of ‘employees’—some men, some women, and
even one whose gender Masozi wouldn’t have ventured to guess—as well as a few
patrons who appeared to be making last-minute additions to their ‘orders.’ She
noted with alarm that all but one of the patrons of the establishment had
severely blotchy skin riddled with small sores, and she had learned those
symptoms were signs of radiation poisoning during disaster training. One of the
women who had come to avail herself of the ‘services’ offered within the locale
had a large, clearly cancerous, lump growing on her neck.
“Madame St. Murray does not see couples,” the docent at the
desk said smoothly, diverting Masozi’s attention from the clientele. The docent
was a thin, lithe woman with skin that almost shone yellow in the soft, white
light suffusing the building’s interior. “But I am certain we can accommodate
your desires, whatever they may be.”
Jericho shook his head, and Masozi eyed the docent
critically. She seemed tense, as if expecting violence to erupt at any moment.
But the way the woman carried herself it appeared to be a more or less natural
state for her. “We’ve got an appointment,” Jericho said in a tone that brooked
no dispute, “tell her we’re here.”
“I am sorry,” the woman replied in her silky smooth voice,
“but as I said, Madame St. Murray will be unable to entertain you. If you
cannot find your pleasure among her employees, I encourage you to try at any of
the other establishments in the Sense Quarter.”
Jericho leaned fractionally across the desk and said, in a
lowered voice, “I’m a friend of General Pemberton’s. He sent me here, and told
me I was to speak with Tera St. Murray—T-E-R-A,” he added pointedly, for some
reason at which Masozi could not guess.
The docent’s eyes hardened briefly and her hand twitched, as
though it was about to move for a concealed weapon beneath the counter. But she
stiffened suddenly and, after a momentary pause, she relaxed and gestured with
her long, slender arm to a nearby door, “Madame St. Murray has been expecting
you. Please proceed to the end of the hall.”
The door popped open of its own accord, and Jericho nodded
wordlessly before proceeding to the door. Masozi followed close behind, briefly
making eye contact with the yellow-skinned docent—who gave her the barest hint
of a smirk—before she entered the corridor and moved close to Jericho. “This is
a trap,” she whispered as they made their way down the hall to a simple door at
the end.
“Of course it is,” Jericho replied blandly, making no effort
to quiet his voice. “But it’s baited with some evidence we’ll need; we don’t
have a choice.”
“Evidence?” Masozi repeated. “What
kind of evidence? I thought you had everything you needed for the Adjustment to
be legal?”
“We do,” he agreed simply, before reaching the end of the
corridor and opening the door.
Inside was a large, circular room about fifteen meters
across, with a depression set into the floor. That depression was ringed with
various pieces of furniture, and at the center was a soft, padded bed of some
kind.
Sitting opposite the bed from the door through which Jericho
and Masozi had just entered was a woman, who appeared to be in her forties. She
wore a lacy, frilly gown which Masozi would have never been caught dead in,
with a neckline that plunged so far that her belly button was exposed.
“Any friend of the General is a friend of the Saint’s
Blessing,” the woman said, gesturing for them to be seated at a nearby sofa.
“Please, make yourselves comfortable.”
“Comfort’s not necessary,” Jericho replied as he closed the
door behind them. Masozi heard mag-locks engage instantly, and her body tensed
reflexively while Jericho strode down the trio of steps which led to the
depression. “I’ll skip the formalities: I’m the one who killed Pemberton, but
before he died he gave me a message to relay to you.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed as Jericho continued to move
casually across the floor. When he was halfway across the lowered section of
the room, the woman flicked her wrist and a quartet of panels on the ceiling
slid back to reveal multi-barreled, slug-throwing weapon turrets. Those weapons
spun up and trained on their individual targets—three of which settled on
Jericho and one aimed itself squarely at Masozi. Jericho stopped his approach
and gave the weapons a pointed look before setting his gaze back on the woman
with the frilly dress.
“A bold confession,” the woman mused, “considering he was my
brother.”
“Not so bold,” Jericho retorted calmly, “if I hadn’t killed
him then his granddaughters wouldn’t have made it back from their little
graduation cruise.”
The woman cocked an eyebrow. “I will enjoy watching my
turrets tear you apart,” she said just as calmly before flitting
a look to Masozi and then re-settling her gaze on Jericho. “Do you have any
last words?” she asked icily as her hand began to rise from the arm of her
chair.
“For the good of us all,” Jericho replied evenly, and the
woman’s hand stopped mid-motion as her eyes widened briefly.
Her eyes then narrowed in silent contemplation. “You coerced
that from him,” she concluded as her voice turned hard. “I don’t know how, but
you managed to break him…he loved those girls, and would have done anything for
them including giving you that phrase.”
Jericho looked around pointedly at the room, and Masozi
realized she hadn’t taken a breath in several seconds so she slowly released
what air remained in her lungs before drawing in what may be her final draw of
life-giving atmosphere. “In an establishment like this you’re privy to all
kinds of information,” Jericho observed, “such as the truth about certain
events at Chambliss, I presume?”
The woman cocked her head, and Masozi thought she could
detect surprise in her expression.
Before she could reply, Jericho continued, “Whatever powder
you’ve been keeping dry for the opportune moment, I’m here to tell you that
moment has arrived.” He slowly pointed to his long overcoat’s pocket, “I’m sure
you’ll understand if I show you what I’m carrying in this pocket.”
“You are ‘sure’?” she quipped icily, and her gaze sliced
over to Masozi once again. “And what of you?” she asked sharply. “Or are you
merely a well-formed sex-cessory who lacks a tongue?”
Masozi opened her mouth to reply, but Jericho held up a hand
haltingly. “Please,” he urged, “time is of the essence.” He slowly reached into
his pocket, and Masozi felt her pulse pounding in her ears as he withdrew a
small, familiar-looking piece of metal: a T.E. insignia.
The woman’s features, which had been cold and calculating,
veritably exploded in surprise and she actually had to steady herself against
the arm of her chair. “Impossible…” she breathed.
“Far from it,” Jericho replied as he set the insignia down
on the bed. They stood there for several seconds, none of them so much as
moving their eyes until the woman blinked rapidly and made a gesture with her
hands. Masozi drew a sharp breath as she braced for death, but when the guns
retracted into their concealed locations in the ceiling she exhaled loudly. “I
can sympathize with your trepidation, Ms. St. Murray,” Jericho said as he took a
step toward her, “but you have to understand that time is against us. Whatever
you have, I need it—and I need it now. So if you’re not going to kill us we
need to get down to business.”
“It’s ‘Mrs.’,” St. Murray corrected, “but you should call me
Tera. And you’re right; we don’t have much time. Follow me.”
She turned and moved to a nearby chair and, after reaching
deftly beneath its cushion for a moment, a nearby section of floor fell away to
reveal a tight, spiral staircase leading straight down.
Masozi stopped at the bed to collect the T.E. insignia,
which Jericho had apparently forgotten, before following him and Tera St.
Murray down the stairs. They descended for what must have been fifty feet of
continuous descent before the staircase stopped at a solid metal door. With
just a wave of her hand before a bio-reader, St. Murray opened the vault-like
door and the three of them entered.
Inside was a small, but absolutely packed, set of data
processing stations each of which was currently manned. St. Murray turned after
Masozi had entered the room, and Jericho nodded approvingly. “An underground
data nexus,” he mused, and after looking at a few of the monitors—of which
there were hundreds—Masozi concurred with his conclusion. Judging from the raw
feeds being streamed through them, it appeared that the little room had tapped
into every single data feed in the System.
“Freedom of information is the only freedom of consequence,”
St. Murray said grimly.
“I’d argue that point,” Jericho said dryly, “but we’re short
on time.”
“Quite so,” the woman agreed, and Masozi marveled at the
sheer volume of data being processed—and presumably stored somewhere nearby—in
the tiny chamber. It could be no more than ten meters on a side, but it housed
two dozen technicians who were frantically working to keep the feeds alive by
changing between satellite relays, ground-based transfer nodes, and other
systems with which Masozi was completely unfamiliar. “You’re here to kill
Governor Keno, correct?”
Jericho nodded, and the casual way the two of them had
broached the subject actually gave Masozi a shiver as Tera St. Murray turned to
a nearby workstation. With the input of a short series of commands, the
workstation unexpectedly popped open to reveal its still-active internal
components. Using her long, delicate fingers, St. Murray reached inside and
retrieved a tiny data crystal, impressively avoiding contact with the
highly-charged processing equipment within.
She handed the crystal to Jericho, who reached into his
pocket before freezing as a look of concern crossed his features. Masozi
produced the T.E. insignia and said, “You forgot this.”
Relief came over his features before he sighed and rolled
his eyes. “I must be getting old,” he muttered before gesturing to the data
crystal. “Go ahead and load it—all you have to do is make contact between the
two devices.”
Masozi warily took the data crystal and did as he had
suggested. A moment after placing the crystal on the insignia’s flat,
eye-shaped icon at the center of the interlocking triangles which made the
device’s base, a series of soft flashes began to occur with increasing speed on
the various panels of the insignia. The speed and regularity of those flashes
increased until it made the lights appear to glow a solid, yellow color for several
seconds until abruptly darkening.
Jericho took the crystal from Masozi and handed it back to
Tera St. Murray. “Can I assume you’ve vetted the information?” he asked.
“I have,” she replied with certainty, and Masozi watched as
the woman pulled the right side of her dress away from her skin, revealing a
beautiful tattoo of a Timent Electorum ‘Mark’ insignia, “but you are free to do
so at your leisure if you believe time will permit.”
“I’m guessing it won’t,” Jericho replied with a shake of his
head, “we’ve only got two days before this window closes for good.”
“Excuse me,” Masozi cut in irritably, “would someone explain
to me why we’ve only got two days? And if you’re an Adjuster, why haven’t you
gone after Governor Keno?”
The other two exchanged a look before St. Murray replied,
“In two days’ time, Governor Keno will leave to attend the annual System
Summit.”
Masozi was aware of the pending event, which had always
seemed to her to be nothing but an excuse for the System’s highest-ranking
officials to meet and congratulate each other on their mutual greatness.
“When she arrives at the Summit,” St. Murray continued,
“Governor Keno will be taken to Virgin’s most secure facility where she will
participate in a series of annual votes.”
“Ok,” Masozi allowed, but she was unwilling to abandon the
topic, “but why does that necessitate the Adjustment—and why didn’t you
attempt to make the Adjustment?” she repeated irritably.
St. Murray shot Jericho a glance, and he nodded after a
brief hesitation. “You can trust the Investigator,” he said with a tilt of his
head toward her, and Masozi felt her neck hairs stand up at his words. “For
better or worse, she’s in this thing as deep as any of us.”
The brothel owner nodded slowly before tapping out a series
of commands on a nearby console. “I am an Adjuster,” St. Murray explained as
she called up the information, “but I have nowhere near the requisite RL
accrued to qualify for the Keno Adjustment. In fact,” she said, slicing an
appraising glance over at Jericho, “every Adjuster but one in the Virgin System
who has qualified for the job in the last decade has died shortly
thereafter…until now.”
 A screen in front of Masozi sprang to life, and it
showed a series of what looked to be shipping manifests. The manifests
minimized to one side of the screen, and a stream of real estate transactions
loaded onto the display before they, too, minimized and were replaced by a
series of executive orders—orders signed by Governor Keno.
“Since her family overthrew the Marques administration decades
ago, Governor Keno and her cohorts,” St. Murray explained tightly, “have
systematically worked to undermine the most fundamental component of Philippa’s
economy: rare element exports.”
Masozi arched a brow incredulously. “Her approval ratings
are through the roof,” she argued as she took a step toward the monitor to
examine the data more closely, “on Virgin she’s regarded as the only
undefeatable political figure in the System—maybe even the Sector.”
Jericho snorted, and Tera St. Murray’s lips tightened in a
hollow smile. “She controls every facet of the media here on Philippa,
Investigator,” St. Murray explained. “Her family and its allies used that
control incite the people to revolt against the Marquez administration. But the
truth is that under Governor Fernando Marquez, Philippa had taken real strides
toward economic independence—primarily by taking advantage of Pacifica’s
element-rich rings, which are more valuable than any other location in the
Sector by at least ten times.”
“If these rings are so rich, why weren’t they exploited by
the Imperium’s engineers centuries ago?” Masozi asked as she saw that nearly
all of the real estate transaction records she was seeing were actually
long-term leases with exclusive mining rights clauses, and they appeared to
govern individual regions of Pacific’s rocky rings. They were assigned to
individual owners, and seemed to be a kind of non-transferrable system of
ownership which allowed the lease-holder to work the area as long as they were
able. But ownership would revert back to Philippa’s government in the event
that a claim went unworked.
“No one knows,” St. Murray shrugged, “but the rush to work
these claims brought with it a wealth undreamt of by Philippa’s populace, and that
rush lasted for nearly forty years. From all over the Sector, families would
sell their holdings and invest in a claim here in orbit of Pacifica. Thousands
of those families became extremely wealthy, while thousands more failed to
secure sufficient returns and were forced to take up residence here. My own
grandparents were among the less fortunate,” she said with a brief look to
Jericho, who appeared not to notice.
“The short version,” Jericho said, turning to Masozi, “is
that there was resistance to these mining efforts from Philippa’s wealthiest
families each and every step of the way, but Marquez fought through. Naturally
he needed the assistance of powerful allies to deal with such deeply-entrenched
enemies. You’ve already met one of those allies.”
Masozi gave him a questioning look until realization dawned.
“Hadden,” she breathed unthinkingly, and St. Murray cocked an eyebrow.
“You have met S.R. Hadden, Director of Hadden
Enterprises?” she asked in a challenging tone.
“She has,” Jericho interrupted before Masozi could reply, “shortly before his home was attacked by the VSDF.”
St. Murray inhaled sharply. “You mean he is…”
“Dead,” Jericho replied with a curt nod before turning to
Masozi, “Hadden Enterprises provided the mining equipment for the families who
staked their claims here, and those materials were provided for less than their
cost to manufacture and distribute. In exchange, Hadden Enterprises put in
standing order prices for every single mineral produced by the small-hold
mines. He also requested the option to match any purchase price an individual
could prove they had secured from another source.” Jericho gestured to the
screen with the mining leases still scrolling by one at a time, “The elements
mined here became the backbone of H.E.’s Phase Drive technology, and Hadden
worked closely with Marquez to ensure that the miners were treated fairly while
infusing Philippa with a source of income unheard of for a colony of its size.”
St. Murray nodded, her eyes widened briefly. “Director
Hadden is thought of as a true benefactor of this colony,” she said slowly.
“His passing will be mourned.”
“You won’t have time to mourn it,” Jericho said darkly, and
the two exchange a meaningful look which Masozi did not understand but which
filled her with even more dread.
“True enough,” St. Murray agreed after a momentary pause
before turning to Masozi and pointing a single finger at the screen which
contained the data she had pulled up minutes earlier. “This record describes
the absolute damage which Governor Keno has done to Philippa’s economy,” she
said coldly. “Her first act in office was to de-fund the program which provided
families with the legal assistance required to secure and maintain their
claims. Her second action,” St. Murray’s lips twisted contemptuously, “was to
provide a legal framework for a claim to be sold back to the Philippa
government. As a result, only a handful of the most successful families were
able to maintain and operate their claims, while the rest promptly sold their
claims and left Philippa behind. But one by one, even those families which were
wealthy enough to continue working their interests sold their stakes. Not a
single mine is in operation in Pacifica’s Ring today…officially.”
Masozi felt her hands tighten into fists at her sides. “How
did she get away with this?” she demanded, angrier at this situation than she
had ever expected to be. “Why wouldn’t the people stand up—they’ve reelected
her FOUR TIMES!” she snapped.
Jericho snickered, and Masozi turned to him to see a look of
approval on his face. “As Madame St. Murray said,” he replied before gesturing
to the plethora of data feeds streaming into the room, “the Keno family
controls the media. And the Governor is their most celebrated
personality—whatever she says, the people believe.”
“There is a small underground which collates feeds like
this,” St. Murray said with a short nod to the monitors, “but we can only
disseminate information to roughly ten percent of Philippa’s citizenry. If we
went for a broader distribution network we would be crushed just like those who
have gone before us.”
“And that’s not the best part,” Jericho said knowingly
before pointing to the T.E. insignia in Masozi’s hand. “The best part is what
you’re holding in your hand: proof that Governor Keno has privately taken over
each and every profitable mine in the Ring and has been secretly funneling the
rare elements out of the system. If my suspicion is correct, we might even be
able to tie her activities in with the most powerful office in the Virgin
System, but we’ll need Benton to make that determination.”
Masozi felt cold fury welling up inside her. “How much?” she
asked, her voice barely above a whisper as she felt a surge of anger unlike
anything she could have previously described. “How much has she stolen from her
people?”
St. Murray downloaded the information on the readout which
Masozi had been studying onto a data crystal, and then handed that crystal to
her as she said, “It is impossible to calculate—“
“No,” Jericho cut in, “it’s not.” He shook his head and flexed
his jaw as he looked around at the room for a few seconds before finally
saying, “According to Sector-Gov’s census data, Philippa’s population currently
stands at just over three million souls which is more
or less consistent with its number under Marquez. In per capita GDP, this
colony’s economic output under the Marquez Administration was over one million,
three hundred thousand credits per person. Today, under the Keno clan, it’s not
even nine hundred thousand.”
“Those are rate statistics,” St. Murray reminded, and Masozi
was almost unable to come to terms with the numbers being bandied about.
“Assuming a linear decline in GDP, and factoring in a fifty year period of
productivity per citizen—a number which is probably high, given Philippa’s
decaying healthcare system—this means that the total damage to Philippa’s
economy under the Keno family has been—“
“Four hundred…billion credits?!”
Masozi reared back in shock as she said the words. The number made absolutely
no sense, even to her scientifically-inclined mind.
“That number is only informative to a point,” Jericho
chided. “The real damage has been, quite literally, four hundred thousand
‘lifetimes’ of productivity which Governor Keno has stolen from her
constituents by shutting down the frontier mining initiative. Even if we only
attributed five percent of the decline to the Governor directly…”
“Twenty thousand…” Masozi breathed in disbelief. “How much
did she steal?”
Jericho smiled tightly and nodded. “That’s the right
question, Investigator,” he approved. “We could have only guessed without the
information Madame St. Murray is about to provide us.” He then turned pointedly
to Tera St. Murray, “How much is it, Madame?”
St. Murray bit her lip briefly before replying, “Our covert
surveys, made possible only with Hadden Enterprise’s assistance, show that the
richest mining operations fully quadrupled their collective output after the
last claim was abandoned by its rightful owners.” She exhaled slowly as she
concluded, “By now they’ve easily mined over a trillion credits worth of
minerals—a value based solely on Hadden’s standing order prices.”
Jericho nodded as Masozi’s mind reeled from the data. “And
they’ve been careful about covering their tracks,” he said pointedly as Masozi
tried to come to grips with how horrific the crime against Philippa’s people
appeared to be. “We haven’t been able to trace a single credit back to
Pacifica’s Ring…but we caught a break when Benton discovered a small,
underground market for these rare elements operating on Virgin. To make another
long story short, my investigation into the matter led me to a man named Janus
Angelo. He was formerly an official in New Lincoln whose bribe had been
partially paid in complex indium, gadolinium, and yttrium matrices. Those
matrices’ constituent elements were traced back to Pacifica’s Ring—they were
also proven to have been mined, and processed, in the last six months.”
Silence hung over the room as the workers at the various
workstations quietly continued their tasks of compiling and transferring data
from the System’s various data feeds. Masozi could barely believe that an
official would be so corrupt…and that such a corruption would not only be
permitted to linger, but that it wouldn’t be commented on by the other
governments of the Sector.
And then, in a flash of understanding, she understood why
they needed to act quickly. “If she gets to the Summit—“
“Then she’ll be placed under maximum security by Blanco’s military
forces,” Jericho interrupted grimly, “and we’ll never get another shot at her.
It’s obvious that Governor Keno is aligned with President Blanco, and that
Hadden Enterprises was one of their most powerful mutual enemies. Retaliation
against her by Hadden’s now-disparate loyalist factions would be a mathematical
certainty in the aftermath of H.E. One’s destruction, so we have to expect
Blanco to circle the wagons.”
“You two should go,” Tera St. Murray said shortly, “I’ve
given you what you came for and we need to dismantle this site as quickly as
possible now that we’ve passed the information along.” She shook her head in
wonderment, “I never thought a qualified T.E. Adjuster would make it here in
time.”
Jericho smirked, “My appearance here coinciding with
Governor Keno’s suddenly precipitous fall in approval rating is far from a coincidence,
Madame St. Murray.”
“I only wish we could have thanked Director Hadden
personally before…” St. Murray trailed off. “I fear we can provide you with no
more assistance in this matter, Adjuster.”
Jericho shook his head sharply, “We won’t need anything
else, Madame. You’ve given us everything we could have asked for.”






Chapter
XXIII: A Confrontation 
Nearly an hour later, Jericho and Masozi came to a tavern in
the main settlement. They had left Madame St. Murray’s establishment and made
their way for the main portion of the settlement near the crater’s center.
“You have to drink extra water in this atmosphere,” Jericho
explained as they sat down in a corner booth of the darkly-lit structure. “Your
lungs dry out faster than they would on Virgin.”
A server brought them a container of water and a pair of
metal mugs. Jericho poured them each a glass before gesturing for Masozi to
take her pick of the two.
Masozi’s thirst had grown slightly but she suspected the
odd, burning sensation in her lungs was precisely what he was talking about.
She downed a mug of water, finding it incredibly sterile-tasting compared to
the water she had grown up drinking.
“It takes a little getting used to,” Jericho admitted before
downing his own mug of the stuff, “but water’s one of the most precious
commodities on a world like this one. The atmosphere doesn’t retain it as well
as on Virgin, or any other Core World with a homeostatic biosphere for that
matter, so they’re constantly bringing in comets and breaking them up in orbit
before letting the remnants impact safely near the poles.”
“You seem to know a lot about this place,” Masozi said,
already having deduced that he had lived on Philippa by his familiarity with
the customs and equipment.
“It’s true,” Jericho admitted after pouring her another mug
of water, “my family came here not long after I was born. Philippa was all I
knew…until we had to sell our mine back to the government.”
Masozi was half-finished with her second mug of water before
she set it down and realized that his admission made perfect sense. “That’s why
you want to punish Keno,” she concluded with a slow nod.
Jericho shrugged. “To my mind she’s at the top of a very
short list of people requiring Adjustment,” he replied in a low voice. “But I
haven’t acted against her because I didn’t have the evidence.”
“Speaking of which,” Masozi said, producing the T.E.
insignia and sliding it across the table, “this should have everything you need
on it now, right?”
“Not quite,” he replied as he stood abruptly from the table,
“I have to hit the head. The last pieces of evidence are on St. Murray’s data
crystal; load them up while I’m gone.”
Jericho made his way to the ‘head,’ which Masozi took to
mean the lavatory, and she hesitated before doing as he had suggested. Placing
the crystal against the T.E. insignia, she was once again rewarded with a rapid
sequence of flashing lights. But this time the display was over much more
quickly, and she took a moment to study the insignia itself. It was a pair of
triangles which formed a six-pointed star, at the center of which was a large,
unblinking eye. Surrounding that eye, on the sides of the ‘inner,’ or ‘topmost’
triangle were the three mottos of the Timent Electorum: Ure Infectus, Sic
Semper Tyrannis, and Mors Proditores.
As a young girl she hadn’t really understood their meaning
but now, after spending time with Jericho and contemplating the whole situation
at some length, she believed she had a reasonable idea of what they meant.
The verbiage was from a long-dead language of Ancient Earth,
and the first phrase, Ure Infectus, roughly translated to ‘the corrupt
shall burn.’ Sic Semper Tyrannis, the second phrase, meant roughly, ‘the
same for all tyrants.’ And Mors Proditores quite clearly said, ‘death to
traitors.’
As she was thinking about the T.E.’s mandate, Masozi noticed
a public access node which her data link could connect to. Her mind was
bombarded by possible actions when she saw it, and she knew that she might not
get another chance to generate any leverage against Jericho if he was less than
agreeable to her desire to leave his company.
While he was still in the lavatory, Masozi entered the
access codes to her link and was rewarded by a simple connection protocol which
successfully connecting her data link to the settlement’s secondary information
nexus.
She scrolled through the public services until finding the
one she was looking for and, after a brief moment of hesitation, she saved the
connection she had found to the slate and set it to a five minute countdown to
activate. If she failed to swipe her finger across the screen during that time,
it would automatically make the connection she had saved. Masozi truly hoped it
would not come to that, but if it did she was determined not only to safeguard
her own safety but potentially the safety of hundreds…or even thousands of
civilians.
Jericho pushed the swinging doors open and Masozi smoothly
replaced the link in her pocket as she took a look at the room’s chronometer. Five
minutes, she reminded herself as Jericho sat down across from her in the
booth.
“How is an Adjustment initiated?” she asked as she finished
her water. When she had done so, she emptied the remaining contents of the
larger container into their mugs more or less equally and began to sip on her
own, third, cup of the sterile-tasting liquid.
“There’s a formula,” Jericho replied after taking a sip of his
own water. “Sudden downward shifts in approval ratings are one component of the
formula, while overall approval is another one. Obviously there’s more to it
than that, but in the case of Governor Keno her Adjustment was essentially
requested when her approval rating plummeted from ninety two percent to forty
eight percent over the course of the last six months before once again
beginning to climb.”
“That’s it?” she blurted disbelievingly. Masozi simply could
not accept that approval ratings could determine whether or not an official was
assassinated.
“No,” Jericho replied measuredly, “that’s not ‘it.’ That is
just one way in which an Adjustment may be initiated. But remember,” he pointed
to the T.E. insignia, “there’s a process of discovery and verification which
needs to take place before an Adjustment is green-lit.”
“Who checks your work before you execute an Adjustment?” she
asked. “I can’t believe that Adjusters never make mistakes?”
“Oh, we’ve made mistakes,” he allowed with a derisive snort.
“But the answer to your first question is ‘nobody.’ We communicate to each
other using public messaging systems, some of which Benton probably showed you,
but even then we don’t say anything other than the fact that an Adjustment has
been initiated. We don’t even give our names. After it’s been carried out the
Adjustment is verified by a senior Adjuster as having been done in accordance
with the T.E.’s mandate. That’s basically it; it’s nowhere near as complicated
as you might think.”
“That doesn’t seem like it would work,” she argued, “you
said the Keno Adjustment would be highly sought after. Why wouldn’t someone
here on Philippa just take care of it?”
“There aren’t as many of us as you might think,” he replied
between sips of his water. “Also, higher-level Adjustments like the Governor’s
can only be undertaken by an Adjuster who has accrued enough RL—Redeemed
Lives,” he said before fixing her with a hard look. “I can’t reveal the
formula’s specifics to you right now, but there are only two Adjusters in this
entire System who could have even qualified for the Keno Adjustment. You’re
sharing a drink with one of them…and there’s reason enough for me to believe
the second would have little interest in pursuing this particular Adjustment.”
Masozi considered his words, which alarmingly seemed to
suggest that there was some measure of discord within the Timent Electorum’s
ranks.
“I’ve been hesitant to reveal some of these details to you,
Investigator,” Jericho said as she silently mulled over the implications of her
society’s last line of defense against political corruption having been
compromised. “But it seems I may have been wrong to exclude you to this point.
So I’ll start by saying that no Adjuster who reaches my level sets out to make
an Adjustment without multiple backup plans in place. Personally, I don’t
undertake an Adjustment unless I have three, distinct, methods I can use to
carry out the mission. Those methods must each provide a minimum of eighty
percent success likelihood, and I think it’s time I shared the ones I’ve
devised for the Governor’s Adjustment with you.”
Masozi felt her pulse quicken. Will he actually tell me
about the bomb? she wondered silently, working
hard to keep the anxiety she felt from her expression.
“The first method I devised for this particular assignment,”
he explained as he withdrew a small key card similar to the one Masozi had used
to gain entry to her residential building back in New Lincoln, “involves a
long-range, high-powered, anti-material rifle.”
She took the key card in her hands and examined its
markings, burning the information contained therein in her visual memory.
Masozi had never failed to recall such information if she had specifically
attempted to remember it, and she handed the card back to him after memorizing
the seven part address code for the unit. “You’re a sniper,” she concluded.
“Among other things,” Jericho agreed, accepting the key
card. “I’ve run the simulations several thousand times, and they calculate a
ninety two percent success rate if I use that cannon, which is already set up
in the apartment this keycard unlocks,” he added before slipping the card back
into his pocket. “If we play our cards right there’s only a twelve percent
chance of discovery and capture.”
Masozi was terrible with ranged weaponry, and had never used
anything larger than an anti-personnel scattergun. She had discharged such a
weapon only twice, both times during a minor uprising among the natives of one
of New Lincoln’s seedier parts of town, so she knew she would have no
reasonable chance to succeed with such a weapon. “That’s one,” she said with a
slow nod, realizing as she did so the repercussions of her previous thoughts,
“what about the others?”
“The second,” he replied with a short laugh, “involves a
more…personal approach. I had the necessary equipment placed in the same flat
as the cannon a few weeks ago; it’s one of the only safe places I’ve been able
to find in Abaca, which is Philippa’s capitol city. This second method has a
slightly lower likelihood of success…I’d put it at around eighty nine percent
success. The problem is there’s a sixty percent chance of discovery and capture
since escape will be considerably more difficult.”
“Ok…” she mused, disliking his lack of definition as to what
this second method actually entailed. “But what about the third?” she asked as
she glanced up at the clock and saw that she had about three minutes left to
swipe the data link. If she failed to do so, the call would go through and not
long afterward the tavern would no longer be a safe place for either of them.
But she knew it was her only source of leverage and if she didn’t press him for
the bomb’s purpose in the mission now, she would never be able to forgive
herself.
“The third,” he replied, his expression hardening as he
swirled the contents of his mug, “is a failsafe…and I sincerely hope we don’t
need to use it. As a matter of fact, it’s time we returned to the ship to
retrieve it before making our way to Abaca. There’s a hoverbike stowed in the Tyson’s
stern cargo compartment that can get us there in just under twelve hours.”
“If there was a hoverbike…why didn’t we use it to come
here?” Masozi pressed warily.
Jericho shrugged. “I didn’t want to risk the bike being
logged during our visit here; if it was, we couldn’t use it to enter Abaca.
Besides,” he added with a hollow grin, “we needed the exercise.”
Masozi considered his reply and decided it was now or never.
“Your failsafe wouldn’t happen to involve a bomb, would it?” she asked in a low
voice, feeling an immense weight lift from her psyche as she did so.
Jericho’s eyes flashed briefly before narrowing. “What do
you mean?” he asked in an equally low tone.
“Don’t play stupid,” she hissed, glancing around to ensure
they weren’t attracting unwanted attention. “I saw the Southern Bloc markings—it’s
nuclear, isn’t it? Were you ever going to tell me!?”
Jericho also glanced around the room before leaning forward,
and Masozi leaned back instinctively as he did so. “You weren’t supposed to see
that,” he said as he fixed her with his cold, greyish eyes. “Besides, it’s only
a failsafe; if we work together there’s a ninety nine point nine seven percent
chance we can accomplish the mission without it.”
Masozi shook her head adamantly. “I can’t be party to that,”
she replied, threading her voice with iron.
“Too much—“ Jericho began in a
raised voice before taking a deep breath and peeling his lips back in a faint
sneer. “Too much has gone into the planning of this Adjustment, Investigator,”
he said, his voice carrying a dire, unspoken threat, “I can’t—no, I won’t
allow those efforts to be in vain. In the extremely unlikely event that
we should fail in our earlier efforts, I have an obligation to ensure that the
target is executed…by any means necessary.”
“Including the slaughter of innocent civilians?!” she
retorted, barely managing to keep her voice to a harsh whisper as she felt hot
fury boiling up inside herself. “I could understand—and, strangely enough, I
even agree with—your mandate and function as an Adjuster. But I cannot,” she
shook her head sharply, “support the murder of
thousands of innocent people.”
“Grow up, Investigator,” Jericho snapped contemptuously. “Do
you honestly believe that there are any innocent people on this, or any
other, world? If you’d seen the things I’ve seen, and knew the things I know,
you wouldn’t let your childish notions of morality interfere with what needs to
be done.”
“Those ‘childish notions’,” she said, her eyes flicking to
the clock and confirming that the time had, indeed, elapsed and the call would
have been automatically made to the nearest law enforcement responders, “are
the very ones which created your reason for existing, Adjuster.” The
title tasted like ash as it passed her lips, and she stood from the table slowly.
Jericho made to do likewise—with murder in her eyes as he did so. It was a look
with which she had become all-too-familiar during her career as an
Investigator.
“I see that I was wrong about you, Investigator…and that’s a
rarity for me. But you should have run while I was in the head,” Jericho said
coldly. “How far do you think you can get now that I know you’ll try to stop me
from accomplishing my mission? You’ve just become an obstacle—and I’ve made a
career out of removing those from my line of fire long before it’s time to pull
the trigger.”
“You’re wrong about that last bit,” she quipped, knowing
with certainty that she had already committed herself to what had to be done. “That’s
why I’m going to walk right out of here,” she replied confidently, “and you’re
not going to do a thing to stop me.”
Jericho’s lips twisted in a dark, bemused smirk, “And what
makes you think that?”
“Because if you don’t,” she said, meeting his piercing look
with one of her own just as the doors to the tavern opened and a quad of armed,
and armored, law enforcement officers entered the tavern and set their sights
on the two of them, “no one will make the Adjustment while you’re locked away
in the nearest detention facility.”
She began to back slowly away from him, and she saw the
cold-blooded assassin’s eyes flick back and forth between her and the
approaching police officers. “Clever girl,” he said with the barest hint of
approval as he straightened his posture, “but not as clever as you think; when
I get out I’m going to find you, Investigator. And when I do I promise we’ll
discuss this…betrayal at some length.”
The way he said those words made her blood run cold, but she
had already backed far enough away from the table that the quad of
fully-armored officers interdicted themselves between Jericho and herself.
“Jericho Bronson,” one of them said in a heavily-distorted voice through his
suit’s external speaker while the other three trained their weapons on Jericho,
“we have an outstanding warrant for your arrest. Come quietly and we won’t use
deadly force.”
Jericho tensed, causing the other guards to do likewise as a
trio of targeting lasers appeared on his chest, where they remained unwavering.
But then he relaxed and nodded as he placed his wrists together and held them
before himself, “I won’t resist.”
After they had placed him in restraints, two of the officers
frog-marched him out of the tavern under the supervision of the one Masozi
assumed was their commander. She was slightly surprised that they had mentioned
an outstanding warrant for his arrest, but Masozi guessed that a man in his
line of work made several enemies—enemies with longer-than-average memories.
The cold look he gave her before exiting the structure gave
her the chills, and the fourth officer approached and said, “You were the one
who sent the call?”
Masozi nodded. “I didn’t know there was a warrant out for
him,” she admitted truthfully, “I just saw what I thought was a concealed weapon…and
he was giving me the creeps.”
“You did the right thing, ma’am,” the officer said, and
Masozi thought that the officer’s voice sounded vaguely feminine through the
distortion. “We’ll just need you to come down for a statement so you can claim
the reward.”
“Reward?” she repeated blankly. “How much of a reward was
there?”
“It’s substantial, ma’am,” the officer replied. “But we can
discuss the particulars at the station.”
Masozi shook her head, knowing her rights afforded her the
ability to refuse since she had not participated in any wrong-doing. “I don’t
need a reward; I’m just glad to get someone like him off the streets.”
“Ma’am?” the officer pressed. “You’re saying you’d like to
waive the reward? It’s a life-changing amount of money, especially here on
Philippa.”
Masozi shook her head again. “I’d just consider it my civic
duty,” she replied, knowing it was truer than she could explain given the
circumstances.
The officer regarded her silently for several seconds before
shrugging, “If you’re willing to affirm that you waive your right to the reward
then you’re free to go.”
Masozi nodded quickly. “Of course; I hereby waive my right
to whatever reward had been issued for Jericho Bronson’s capture.” She knew
that was the proper verbiage, since she had accepted a handful of similar
statements during her time as an Investigator.
“Your statement has been recorded, Citizen,” the officer
said before nodding curtly, “have a pleasant day, ma’am.”
“You too,” Masozi replied unthinkingly as the officer turned
and left the tavern. As soon as the officer had left, Masozi sank down onto the
cushioned seat of the booth she had just been sharing with Jericho.
Her knees were quivering and her hands trembled while she
drank down the last of her mug’s contents. After several minutes, she had
gathered her wits enough that she stood from the table. In what seemed to be an
impossible turn of events, she had managed to neutralize the threat of the
nuclear device and also put Jericho behind bars. She wasn’t particularly happy about the
latter, but his insistence that no amount of collateral damage was too much had
put her over the top. She had read the
Goat file, and she had seen with her own two eyes just how badly Governor Keno had
abused the people who depended on her leadership to provide for them. She knew what needed to be done…and she knew
she was fast running out of time to do it.
She pulled her hat over her head and, after sealing the
attached mask to her face, Masozi closed her overcoat around her body and
exited the tavern before beginning the long hike back to the Tyson. Her entire adult life had been spent
attempting to restore balance, create order, and deliver justice. But by the Timent Electorum’s ‘Redeemed Lives’
metric, her entire decade-long career would only yield five hundred such units
of redemption, or justice, or balance, or whatever a person chose to call
them. And now, with Governor Keno’s
out-and-out atrocities committed against her own people in plain view, Masozi
knew she could accomplish something on the order of a thousand times that much
impact on the Virgin System’s populace by removing Keno from the equation permanently.
The Governor’s corruption had been allowed to fester for far
too long, and millions of lives had been unduly disrupted as a result. The scales of justice had been manipulated
against the people who depended on them for protection.
The time had come to make an Adjustment.






Chapter
XXIV: Taking Stock and Committing 
Masozi came to the edge of the crater where they had hidden
the Neil deGrasse Tyson and peered over the edge, relieved to find the
craft apparently undisturbed. She was surprised to see that its color, which
had originally been a glossy black, was now almost indistinguishable from that
of the surrounding, moss-covered rock.
She would have set up in a blind and observed the vessel for
a prolonged period, but time was against her. If Jericho had been right, even
if she hopped onto the hoverbike and made a max-speed burn for the Capitol City
Abaca, it would take no less than nine hours to reach it. That left just over a
day to implement whatever plan Jericho had set up—and she only hoped that she
would be able to decipher his plan in time to execute it.
So she made her way to the bottom of the crater where the
craft rested, and swiped her hand across the area of the hull which she thought
was the door. There was a hiss of air as the door opened before lowering itself
to the ground to form the boarding ramp.
Once inside the craft, Masozi checked to ensure that the
duffel bag was still in the closet, and it was. She carefully withdrew the bag
from the closet and opened it, revealing the same, heavy device she had seen
inside the concealed compartment which was disguised as a bench.
She took the bomb out of the duffel and gently laid it down
on the floor of the cabin, her heart racing as she did so. She then turned and
carefully opened the concealed compartment, and when it was open she placed the
bomb inside the honeycombed interior of the hidden box.
Masozi then closed the box and emptied the rest of the
duffel’s contents onto the floor of the craft. There was a pair of ID’s, one
for Jericho and one for Masozi, and she snorted derisively to see that their
false identities suggested the two of them were married. “You wish, you old
bastard,” she muttered as she took the pieces she would need and stowed them in
her overcoat’s inner pockets.
There was also a pair of pistols inside, and after a brief
hesitation, she took one and secured it to her bodyglove’s hip beneath the
overcoat. She could always abandon it as she neared the Capitol City, but
Philippa was known as a ‘wild frontier’ to the residents of Virgin; she would
rather have the gun and not need it than have the reverse be the case.
There was also some clothing inside the duffel bag, and
Masozi saw that hers was a two-piece outfit which would go neatly over her
bodyglove. So she removed the other articles she had worn since disembarking
the Zhuge Liang and placed the new pieces—a vest and a fairly tight,
knee-length skirt—over her bodyglove. There were a handful of credit chits
inside the vest, and they totaled nearly ten thousand credits in all—half a
month’s salary for an Investigator of Masozi’s experience and accomplishments.
The final item was a vehicle access key, and she picked it
up to examine it. There were two buttons, one of which clearly was meant to
activate the bike’s motivators while the other had the picture of a closed lock
on it. She had ridden as a passenger on several hoverbikes, and had even
operated one a former fling had owned. She had left him in the dust a few weeks
into the relationship because he seemed to care more about his bike than he did
about anything—or anyone—else, including her.
She pressed the second button and heard a low thrum outside,
and Masozi exited the craft via the ramp to find a hoverbike—remarkably similar
to, but clearly different from the same one Jericho had picked her up on in New
Lincoln—had been lowered from a concealed compartment along the craft’s
fuselage.
Masozi took a deep breath and activated the ramp’s
retraction sequence, causing the cabin door of the Tyson to fold back up
into the closed position. Masozi then threw her leg over the seat of the bike
and pressed the activation button of the key.
She was rewarded by a low-pitched thrum which vibrated her
thighs and groin just enough that she was aware of it, and she waited for the
bike’s warm-up cycle to conclude before carefully maneuvering it away from the Neil
deGrasse Tyson.
Once she was clear of the spacecraft, she twisted the manual
throttle and was rewarded by a measure of acceleration she had not entirely
expected as her head was snapped back. Her hands reflexively gripped the
handlebars, and she felt certain if she had been less athletic that she would
have failed to keep her hold of the vehicle’s handles.
She managed to keep hold of the handlebars as the bike
roared up and over the edge of the crater before leveling itself out and
rocketing across the relatively flat terrain at speeds which would have seen
her arrested within seconds if she had reached them inside New Lincoln’s
confines.
Masozi had memorized the basic topographical layout of
Philippa, so she set the most direct course she could for the Capitol City
before opening the throttle of the hoverbike up and feeling the impressive
power of the vehicle beneath her hurtle toward her destination at roughly four
hundred kilometers an hour. The faster she went, the higher the hoverbike
climbed; when she reached the vehicle’s maximum speed she had achieved an
altitude of nearly a hundred feet above the cratered moon’s surface.
She knew that she needed to do everything in her power to
stop Governor Keno—and not place any innocent civilians’ lives in danger when
she did.


After nearly nine hours of near-continuous riding—during
which time she only ever saw two other vehicles on the bike’s radar-like
display, neither of which came close enough for her to see visually—Masozi
pulled up at the edge of a truly massive crater. It was so large that, had she
not known it was there, she might not have seen it until she was well within
and Philippa’s horizon had been replaced by the crater’s edge in the far-off
distance.
The sun had still not come up, but Masozi knew that a
‘sunrise’ would not happen for at least another week while Philippa orbited
around Pacifica, and even when it did it would be unlike any sunrise she had
experienced on Virgin. That knowledge somehow made the lights of Abaca even
more striking.
While the Sense District where Tera St. Murray had operated
her brothel was wreathed in neon light, Abaca was filled with what seemed to be
massive searchlights. The industrial-strength beams stabbed upward and wandered
the deep, dark sky in seemingly random patterns, and there must have been
dozens of the most powerful ones whose beams disappeared into the black void of
Virgin’s space.
The city itself was a dull, yellow-white glow from her
position at the edge of the giant crater, and she took the pistol which had
been fastened to her hip. Despite her inclination to keep it for protection,
she knew it presented too great of a risk. She tossed it to the ground,
grateful she had not needed to use it, and sped off toward the city.
Carrying a concealed, unlicensed weapon in a major city was
an offense punishable by automatic imprisonment—and if that happened, Masozi
‘the terrorist’ would be discovered and she would almost certainly be handed
over to whatever power had pulled Stiglitz’s and Afolabi’s strings. She had all
but deduced that power was none other than Governor Keno…and possibly even more
powerful figures within the Virgin System’s government.
That same entity had stolen Masozi’s life from her and with
the accumulated evidence it wasn’t hard to conclude who the person wielding
that power was.
“I’m coming for you, Crissa,” she growled as she gunned the
throttle. She knew that the Governor wasn’t the sole author of the crime which
had seen Masozi nearly assassinated…but Governor Keno was most definitely
involved and, according to evidence which Masozi had personally vetted,
Philippa’s Governor had already wiped out tens of thousands – perhaps hundreds
of thousands—of lives under her cruel, utterly self-centered regime.


As Masozi slewed the hoverbike into a paid parking slot
outside the building Jericho’s keycard had indicated. Masozi wished she could
have taken the keycard, but she hadn’t thought of a way to do so that wouldn’t
have aroused his suspicion. She just had to trust that she could gain entry to
the apartment without it.
After receiving her receipt and change for a twenty three hour
parking pass—the standard ‘day’ cycle in Virgin, which had been adopted since a
moon colony like Philippa had too long of a rotational cycle to use in any
meaningful way for daily scheduling—and Masozi pulled the hoverbike into the
assigned slot before making her way to the lift system.
The keycard had indicated that the room was on the twelfth
floor of the complex’s ‘A’ building, so she made her way to the centralized
lift boarding area and found herself facing a security checkpoint.
The guard manning the checkpoint looked at her impassively,
and Masozi screwed up her courage as she approached the checkpoint—which was
surprisingly equipped with a simple weapon’s detector, making her thankful that
she had abandoned the pistol at the crater’s edge.
“Step through,” the guard instructed, and she did so. She
was relieved when the alarms didn’t go off, but the guard waved her over to his
desk while he opened up a link display built into the desk itself. She
approached the desk and the guard said, “You’re not recognized by the system.
Do you have a visitor’s pass?”
“No,” she replied too quickly, realizing that she had
all-but admitted she didn’t have any proper business there. She made a show of
fumbling around in her vest for the ID cards which had been in the duffel and
then produced the primary piece to the guard. “My…husband,” she said with a
pointed hesitation before making brief eye contact with the guard, “isn’t here
yet and I wanted to surprise him.”
The guard’s eyes narrowed as he ran the card through the
scanner, but he visibly relaxed before handing her the keycard. “Welcome, Mrs.
Davis,” he said before gesturing to one of the lifts, “lift
number five will take you to your level. If you’d like, I can send up the
superintendent with you; it doesn’t look like your room’s been accessed in…two
years?” he said, his eyebrows rising as he did so.
“My husband travels extensively,” she lied, “so we don’t get
to see each other very often. When I heard he was planning on coming to Abaca,
I thought I’d stop in and surprise him.”
The guard nodded knowingly. “You should have a great view of
the festival from your apartment,” he said before briefly glancing up and down
her body with barely-concealed lust, “and your husband’s a very lucky man.”
Suppressing the urge to roll her eyes, Masozi instead
flashed a smile and placed her ID back in the vest before saying, “Thank you.”
“Any time,” the guard said, and after turning for the lift
Masozi could almost feel his slimy eyeballs all over her back-side. But it was
a small price to pay for having successfully navigated the checkpoint.
She stepped inside the lift he had indicated and it slowly
rose to the twelfth floor—which was apparently the top floor of the entire
structure—and she made her way to the unit designated on Jericho’s keycard.
Masozi then had a startling thought: if that keycard had
been on his person when he was arrested, it would be entirely possible that the
local law enforcement agencies would soon be alerted to that fact.
That meant she needed to conclude her business inside the
apartment as quickly as possible—which, in turn, meant that not having the
keycard would likely pose a problem.
Masozi approached the unit—number 1201—and examined it.
There was a standard, keycard slot built into the wall beside the door, and the
entire portal was otherwise featureless.
She tried to swipe her ID’s in front of the keycard reader,
but nothing happened after several such attempts. She looked up and down the
hallway—even considering a humiliating attempt at ‘persuading’ the guard at the
checkpoint to help her in some way—and her options began to limit themselves as
she silently ran through them.
The building didn’t appear to have any cameras in her part
of the hall, but she knew that cameras could be easily hidden from the naked
eye. It was possible that same, slimy guard was ogling her at that very moment.
The thought spurred her mind into overdrive, and she had just resigned herself
to the disgusting task of convincing that guard to help her when a speaker
beside the door—apparently concealed within the keycard reader—crackled to
life.
“Come on in,” she heard a voice say, and it sounded
suspiciously like Wladimir Benton’s. The door then swung gently open, and
Masozi gave serious consideration to fleeing right then and there.
But she steeled herself, knowing that if she had just been
trapped then it was inevitable that they would subdue—or kill—her if she tried
to flee. The walls were solid concrete, and there was no exit other than the
lift.
So she stepped inside the unlit apartment and reached around
for a light switch, but found none.
“Light?” she said meekly, just before the door closed behind
her and the entire room was plunged into darkness.
“Come on in,” Benton’s voice said again and Masozi felt her
hackles rise at the possibility of being murdered in that apartment, never to
be seen again. She had once worked a case where a body had remained in situ for
nearly three years before being discovered—and that discovery had been prompted
by the occupant having gone delinquent on her property tax bill for that same
period.
Masozi moved into the room slowly, her hands sweeping
blindly from side to side as she did so. She felt the short hallway end, and
she was just about to follow the rightward wall to see where it went when the
lights activated and she saw a pair of armored silhouettes near the far wall.
Reacting instinctively, Masozi dived behind a nearby piece
of furniture—which happened to a black couch—and reached around for an
impromptu weapon of some kind.
While she did so, she heard a muffled sound from near the
figures. The sound grew in volume until she recognized it as an overly-feminine
giggle—a giggle she had only heard back on Virgin.
Masozi peered around the edge of the couch and saw the two
figures standing motionless against the wall, and between them was a
two-dimensional display built into the wall with a familiar face filling it.
“Got you!” the display blurted before pointing accusingly
with her digital fingers and erupting into a burst of unrepentant laughter. “You
should see the look on your face, bakeshop,” Eve said after several seconds had
passed, during which time Masozi had regained her feet as she glowered at the
sexbot. “You’re just too gullible, honey pie,” Eve chided in mock consternation
before waggling her finger reproachfully, “it’s going to get you in trouble
someday.”
“Eve…” Masozi began as she eyed the motionless figures—one
of which was male, the other decidedly female—warily, “what are you doing
here?”
“I’m going to be your Operator, sweet cheeks!” Eve said
proudly, flashing a ‘thumbs-up’ sign before jamming said thumb into her
impossible cleavage. “Benton’s got his hands full back home so he sent me to
fill in. Somebody’s got to take care of you two, after all. Say…” she said, her
digital eyes scanning the room suspiciously, “where’s Jericho?”
“He’s…indisposed,” Masozi said hesitantly. It was entirely
possible—even probable, given Masozi’s limited understanding of synthetic
intelligences—that Eve was little more than an alter ego of Benton. She might
have even represented repressed homosexual ideations, or full-blown multiple
personality disorder of some kind.
But even Benton would be hard-pressed to establish an FTL
method of communication which would allow him instantaneous, real-time access to
Eve’s processes. That suggested that either Benton was on Philippa—an unlikely
possibility, given his physical condition—or Eve had, in fact, been sent to
provide some measure of assistance.
Masozi nodded to herself as she took a step forward and
elaborated, “Jericho sent me ahead to check on the preparations and make sure
everything’s in order,” she lied. “He had to place the…the backup device before
we rejoined.”
“Ah…gotcha, babe,” Eve said with a knowing wink. “He sent
you to do all the dirty work so he can swoop in at the last minute and snag all
the glory for himself.” Eve rolled her eyes and
sighed, “That’s a typical man for you. You know, there was a time Benton and I
were trying to break into this orbital—“
“Eve,” Masozi interrupted, knowing that if she got too deep
into the lie she would be unable to sustain it—even to a glorified sexbot like
Eve, “we need to check all the preparations as quickly as possible. This
location might already be compromised.”
Eve’s image reared back in the screen and her eyes began to
flit from side to side for several seconds, “I’m not seeing anything on the
local grids, babe. Are you sure you’re not just getting pre-fight jitters?” she
asked with an accusing look.
“I’m pretty certain we’re going to have to scrap the primary
plan,” Masozi said with conviction, her eyes snagging on a truly massive rifle
set on a tripod with the butt propped by another, smaller tripod. “That means
we’ll be looking at the up-close-and-personal method. Can you bring me up to
speed on it?”
Eve smiled as though in ecstasy and began to clap wildly.
“Sure thing, sugar!” she said excitedly. “Tell you the truth, I wasn’t exactly
looking forward to the whole ‘shoot the bitch from four miles away’ plan—it’s
too anticlimactic, right? This way will be payloads more fun!”
Masozi eyed her warily before saying, “I’m not sure
Jericho’s going to know where to meet up with us.”
“Oh, that’s no problem, honey. Benton already covered that,”
Eve took a deep breath, and her face morphed into some pale imitation of the
morbidly obese computer hacker’s, and when she spoke next it was with Benton’s
voice. “I’m authorizing you to help both Jericho and Masozi; shit’s bound to
get real thick up there so you give either one, or both, of them full access to
your new protocols.” Eve ‘exhaled’ and her features returned to their usual,
perky, cartoonish appearance. “See? We’re good as gadolinium, bakeshop; time
for a double-dose of girl power!” Eve’s image pumped her fist and then struck a
pose which Masozi vaguely recognized from some of the entertainment programs
she had watched as a young girl.
“What ‘new protocols’ are you talking about?” Masozi asked.
A mischievous grin played out over Eve’s features and she
whistled innocently before answering, “I’m afraid they’re mission-specific;
we’ll only get access to them when we satisfy mission parameters. On that
note,” she said as though just remembering something, “you’d better get into
your suit!”
“My suit?” Masozi eyed the
immobile, female-looking form, and as she did so it came apart at several
points and opened up revealing that it was actually a form-fitted suit of
armor! She had heard of such suits, but they were supposedly prohibitively
expensive—she had heard of one such suit being logged into evidence and having
it appraised at several million credits. In spite of herself, she stepped
forward and touched the outside of the armor and felt a chill run down her
spine.
“Sexy, isn’t it?” Eve asked knowingly. “But forget about the
form; this baby’s all about function and she’s been built just for you. She’s a
stealth prototype based on top-of-the-line Imperial specs, and while not all of
her systems are online yet she’ll make you more than a match for anything on
this old lump of rock. Hop in so we can get going; I can’t wait to get out and
play!”
Masozi was in so much awe of the suit that she almost missed
Eve’s little tidbit of information she had just dropped. “How could it have
been built ‘just for me?’ A suit like this would take
years to develop.”
Eve giggled again before sighing. “We’re just a couple of
bad bitches livin’ in the big man’s world, babe,” she said as though it
explained everything. “Looks like you might have been right about the house
being compromised, too,” she added laconically. “I’ve got a half dozen vehicles
converging on our position. Looks like the front door’s
out as an exit; you’d better hop into the suit.”
“What about the rest of this stuff?” Masozi asked, gesturing
to the cannon and the suit of armor which could have only been intended for
Jericho.
“He snooze, he lose, sweet-ums,”
Eve said indifferently. “Climb in the suit so we can make like a prom dress and
take off!”
Masozi took another look at Jericho’s suit and then cast a
wayward glance at the massive, barely-portable cannon which Jericho had apparently
preferred to use for this particular mission. Something didn’t seem right about
the gun, which she recognized as a V-120MX model, but she didn’t want to take
the time to examine it—especially since she had been correct about the flat’s
security being compromised.
Masozi took a deep breath and stepped toward the suit before
carefully turning around and backing into it. As soon as her butt touched the
inside of the armored suit’s housing, her legs were pulled back into the lower
half of the armor by a handful of narrow, thin straps which criss-crossed her
shins and thighs. Before she could see what they were made of, the fronts of
the armored leg sections folded closed firmly around her legs, and she had a
not-insignificant wave of anxiety.
“Just slip your arms into the gauntlets, babe,” Eve
encouraged, “the armor will do the rest.”
“I hate tight spaces,” Masozi snapped irritably.
“Don’t you worry about that,” Eve said cheerfully, “we’ll
get you all fixed up once the suit’s calibrated to
your biochemistry.”
Masozi warily placed her left hand into the gauntlet, and as
she did so the vambrace closed around her forearm and then her upper arm was
also encased in the matte, dark red armor. The joint at the elbow seemed to be
relatively unarmored, but the rest of the suit had thick dimensions suggesting
a heavy layer of protection—and probably some concealed equipment the purpose
of which she could only guess at. But as she moved her left arm around,
apparently without any motive assistance, she found it was surprisingly light
for its apparent bulk.
Exhaling sharply as her heart rate approached double its
resting norm, Masozi reached her right hand into the right gauntlet and the
same sequence took place as with her left hand. Then the breastplate folded in
on itself and she felt a surprisingly comfortable pressure on every inch of her
torso as the helmet’s faceplate lowered into place over her head. When it had
done so, she was plunged in darkness and all she could hear was her own
breathing—which was bordering on dangerous hyperventilation.
Then a series of lights began to flash at the edges of her
vision and Eve’s image appeared in the lower right corner of her view. “The
nerves are nothing to be ashamed of, baby cakes,” Benton’s glorified sex toy
said confidently. “If your heart rate doesn’t come down below one thirty in the
next minute we’ll have to calm those jitters with a mild sedative—don’t worry,
they’re built into the suit and are completely standard.”
There was a whirring sound in her ears, and the visor of the
helmet flashed brightly for a moment before it dimmed and she was able to see
the room around her. Masozi moved her arms and took a step forward, literally
amazed at how well-balanced the suit felt. Even though the boots had soles that
were nearly as thick as her highest set of heels back in New Lincoln, she was
able to take several steps without and balance issues. She fought to regain
control of her breathing as she looked down at her hands.
“That’s better, babe,” Eve said approvingly, “heart rate one
ten and falling. Oh, wait,” Eve said, looking down at her scantily-clad body in
alarm, “I forgot to change! One sec.”
Eve’s image disappeared briefly, but when it returned she
was clad in an all-black bodyglove that somehow seemed to reduce her
exaggerated bust and hips to more believable—if still considerably
larger-than-average—proportions. She also had a pair of narrow, black stripes
‘painted’ under her eyes, making her look like some sort of a cross between a
spy and a professional athlete.
“Much better,” Eve said with a curt nod. “Primary systems
are now fully online, but it’ll take another ten minutes for the secondaries to
power up. In the interim, I suggest we make like an atom and split.”
“Where are we going to go?” Masozi asked, looking around the
apartment for an exit. All she could see was a bedroom adjoining the main
living room, the door to the hallway leading to the lifts, and the large window
which the V-120MX cannon was set up behind. There still seemed to be something wrong about the rifle but Masozi
could not quite place her finger on it.
“You guessed it,” Eve said when Masozi’s eyes lingered on
the window. “Don’t worry about the fall, girlfriend,” she added, “the suit’s primary systems will help us get down without too
much trouble.”
Masozi noticed a series of readouts spring to life at the
periphery of her vision, and she saw that several of them appeared to be
reading her biorhythms. But there were literally dozens of minimized graphics
the purposes of which she could not hope to understand.
“Don’t worry about those, babe,” Eve said hastily, “just head
on over to the window so we can do this.” One of the minimized readouts
unexpectedly enlarged, and it showed a three dimensional representation of the
building she was in. As she focused on it, she saw that there were at least
thirty icons making their way up to her current position. Those icons were
flashing an ominous, angry red color, and Eve said, “I’m guessing we’ve got
about thirty seconds before they barge in here. That means you’ve got to get
out that window in the next ten or we’ll be caught in the cleansing of the
room—don’t worry though, none of the adjacent apartments will be damaged when
it goes ‘ker-pow,’ and neither will the officers if you hurry.”
Masozi took a short breath and asked, “What do I do?”
“In case of emergency…” Eve said dryly, folding her arms
across her chest and tapping her bicep with her fingers.
Masozi cocked her fist back and fired an overhand left punch
into the glass. It shattered instantly, and the strangest part of when it
happened was that she couldn’t hear it at all. The window’s fragments flew out
into the mild wind which whipped across the building, and Masozi took a step
forward to peer over the edge.
It was a long way down, and Masozi felt butterflies begin to
riot in her stomach, “Ok…now what?”
“Now you climb down,” Eve said with an emphatic roll of her
eyes. “Six seconds to get clear of the room. Just grab onto the ledge and I’ll
show you how to do the rest.”
Masozi grabbed the window sill and swung her leg over the
edge, acutely aware that a fall from her current height had the very real
potential to dismember her when she impacted.
“Good,” Eve said, “now, I’m just going to take over for a
second…”
Masozi’s hands opened very much against her will, and she
shrieked in alarm as her body began to plummet downward.
“Stupid controls,” Eve growled and after what felt like an
eternity—but was less than two floors’ worth of descent—Masozi’s gauntlets
thrummed and her armored fingertips somehow grabbed hold of the building’s
sheer, vertical exterior. “There,” Eve said, miming the wiping of sweat from
her forehead, “sorry about that; I didn’t expect the protocols to require
handshakes in quintuplicate.”
Masozi looked down the face of the building, but before she
could say anything there was an explosion above them and her body was forced
downward a few feet by the power of the blast.
When she looked up she saw that the corner penthouse they
had just been in was now a smoking ruin, and Eve said, “We’d better climb down
outta here, bakeshop. We’re so exposed out here without the secondary systems
online that we’d make a porn star blush.”
Masozi actually agreed with Eve’s assessment, so she slid
her right hand down the wall before doing likewise with her left. After a few
repetitions she thought she had the hang of it, and she began to descend to the
street below.
“That-a-girl,” Eve approved. “Now, at this rate of descent…I
should be able to get the secondaries online just before we get to the ground.”
The minutes ticked by as Masozi’s pace improved, and she
found herself standing on a small, squat structure she took for a maintenance
shed which was attached to the main building.
“A little extra wattage here…” Eve said as her digital
fingers flew this way and that, rearranging the minimized icons in a seemingly
random fashion, “…and a little less draw there…and we’re done!”
“What do you mean, ‘we’re done’?” Masozi pressed. Her legs
quivered from the descent, since even though she had barely used them she found
that her muscles had all clenched tightly during the descent.
“Take a look for yourself,” Eve
urged proudly as she folded her arms over her chest.
Masozi looked around and saw nothing different, but then she
did notice something and she waved her hand before her face to confirm what she
had suspected. “I’m invisible?!” she blurted in amazement. She had heard of
stealth systems that could bend light around a custom made suit, but the
reality of being in one was enough to appeal to the little girl in her that had
once wished for super powers.
“Well…technically, no,” Eve replied belatedly, “but it would
take someone looking straight at us to see more than a warble of light. More
importantly, this suit’s based on an Imperial Infiltrator design so it’s
unlikely that anything we run into will detect us—nothing except a pair of
focused eyeballs, that is.”
“So…where do we go?” Masozi pressed, knowing the time had
finally come for her to do what she had come to do. She was still uncertain how
she was to accomplish the mission, but she actually did trust that Jericho had
devised a plan that was far superior to anything she could come up with.
“Hop on the A-11,” Eve said, and an overlay of the nearby
streets appeared beneath Masozi’s visor section. A vehicle appeared to be
moving toward their position, and it was indeed marked ‘A-11.’ “Just hitch a
ride across town and I’ll tell you when to get off.”
“Ok,” Masozi said, moving to the edge of the building and
seeing the mass transit vehicle approaching quickly—too quickly, in her
estimation. “It’s moving too fast.”
“It’s all just energy, honey pie,” Eve said, cracking her
digital knuckles in anticipation. “This suit’s secondary systems are online so
it won’t be a problem. Just take another ‘leap of faith,’ girlfriend,” she said
with a wink.
As the conveyance approached, Masozi took a deep breath and
leapt from the roof of the maintenance shed. Her armored body sailed through
the air toward the approaching maglev train, and just before she impacted on
its fuselage Masozi reached out to shield herself from the impact.
But a strange sensation overcame her body and it was almost
like she had struck a soft, invisible cushion surrounding the train—or, more
likely, it had surrounded her armored body. The deceleration was dampened such
that she was able to grab onto the rail which ran the length of the vehicle’s
roof with both hands, and she hauled herself up on top of the vehicle before
regaining control of her breathing.
“Now just lie flat and relax,” Eve instructed. “This will
take a while.”






Chapter
XXV: Disappointment vs. Endurance 
Jericho sat in the maximum security detainment cell and
looked around as he carefully processed recent events.
He had learned decades earlier that regret—or even what most
people thought of as nothing more than ‘retrospect’—would kill a person’s soul
as fast as a knife to the brainstem would kill a person’s body. But even so, he
was unable to keep from replaying every interaction between himself and Masozi
in an effort to glean where he may have possibly gone wrong.
Everything had been going according to plan up to the
fateful moment in the tavern. She had sympathized with, and even offered verbal
support on several occasions for, the Timent Electorum and its function in the
Sector’s society. He had constructed and vetted her psych profile personally,
and had even had the other experts on H.E. One confirm his findings before
proposing his plan to Director Hadden.
The Director had always placed a great deal of trust in
Jericho, and it was a trust which Jericho dearly hoped he had not squandered.
But locked away in his current cell, he was unable to make any necessary
corrections—at least not until he left the facility.
The door to the cell opened and Jericho was torn from his
thoughts as a short, muscular figure wearing an all-black bodyglove stepped
into the room. There was a single, red light above the doorway which suggested
that the man’s entry was not an authorized one.
“Adjuster Jericho Bronson,” the man’s familiar,
perfectly-pitched voice said into the shadows as he closed the door behind
himself, “I must say I’m disappointed.”
“Agent Stiglitz,” Jericho said grimly, knowing that the
restraints he had been placed in would prohibit him from putting up an adequate
defense—not that there was much that a ‘normal’ human could do against a
heavily-augmented operative like Stiglitz—assuming that was even his name. “I’m
sorry I failed to live up to your expectations.”
“As am I,” Stiglitz said as he approached the bed on which
Jericho was seated. The agent pulled up the only chair in the room and swung it
easily around in front of Jericho before sitting down and leaning across the
chair’s back. His eyes snapped up and down Jericho’s shackled form and he shook
his head before sighing, “I suppose you know why I’m here?”
Jericho nodded. Ever since his capture at the hands of the
police quad he had known it would only be a matter of time before Stiglitz
would arrive—and for better or worse, he had done so almost precisely on
Jericho’s presumed schedule. “You were overseeing Governor Keno’s security,” he
said, and Agent Stiglitz nodded approvingly, “but once the only real threat to
your assignment was confirmed as being captured, you decided to perform the
interrogation personally. You couldn’t risk whatever information he might have
getting out in the open.”
Stiglitz sighed again, this time in bitter disappointment.
“Such a keen mind,” he said wistfully. “It will almost be a shame to dissect
it…you could have been so much more. You know that, yes?”
“I’d prefer if we get down to business,” Jericho said,
meaning every word. He knew that Stiglitz had the ability, opportunity, and
motive to kill him in that cell, and Jericho wasn’t going to beg for mercy in
what may actually be his final hours of life.
“As you wish,” Stiglitz agreed as he stood from the chair.
“I assume physical coercion will prove less than fruitful with you as a primary
interrogative measure. And I cannot risk the possibility of hidden failsafe
chemicals built into your body which would react…” his lips twisted in a dark
smirk, “undesirably with truth serums.”
“So far, so good,” Jericho said evenly.
Agent Stiglitz picked up the chair easily and carried it to
the far side of the room, where he placed it neatly in the corner. “Of course,
I don’t have time for the standard psychological breakdown methods,” he
continued easily as he assessed the room with a critical eye, “and neither do I
have the required materials to conduct direct nervous stimulation without
running the risk of damaging you irreparably prior to my extraction of whatever
might be locked away in that beautiful brain of yours.”
“Keep going, Stiglitz,” Jericho said smugly, “it sounds like
you’ve got it all worked out.”
Stiglitz gave Jericho a feigned look of having been wounded.
“My dear Adjuster, what do we have if we abandon the social pleasantries?”
Jericho grimaced as the other man approached, removing his
black gloves as he did so to reveal unnaturally pale hands. “I think that would
be ‘meaningful exchanges of information’,” he replied evenly. He very much did
not look forward to what was about to happen, but he knew he had no choice but
to endure it.
Stiglitz sighed again before shaking his head. “Very well,”
he tossed the gloves onto the bed beside Jericho and reached down to place a
hand on either side of Jericho’s face. He seemed to search Jericho’s eyes for
several moments, while Jericho met his gaze evenly as he fought to keep his
breathing under control. “Nothing but prey,” Agent Stiglitz said with a
genuinely crestfallen look.
Jericho’s entire body was wracked with a violent spasm that
was so powerful he actually blacked out—the first time that had happened since
he was a boy—and when he came to he was lying on the cold, stone floor of the
cell with his face in a puddle of what he assumed was his own vomit.
“But don’t worry,” Stiglitz said as he wiped his pale hands
on Jericho’s jacket, “a true hunter never makes its prey suffer unnecessarily.”
Jericho felt a cold sensation on his leg but before he could
realize what it was his body was wracked with another overpowering jolt of electricity,
and once again he blacked out.


“Adjuster?” Jericho heard
Stiglitz’s voice at the edge of his awareness, and shook his head to clear the
cobwebs. He became aware that he was seated on the chair which Stiglitz had
placed in the corner, and he rolled his head around until he saw with no small
measure of relief that the bed was still in its original location.
“I’m sorry,” Jericho said, his
words coming sluggishly as he fought to work his jaw up and down, “could you
repeat the question?”
Agent Stiglitz chuckled lightly. “Twelve rounds of directed
neural-interference charges and your prefrontal cortex is still firing on all
synapses,” he said with a note of genuine respect. “I’m impressed,
Adjuster…it’s a pity we can’t donate the remains of your nervous system to
science. You’ve likely got some unique anatomical structures in place.”
Jericho focused on Stiglitz and saw that he was holding a
small blade in one hand and rolling something between the fingers of his other
hand which seemed to have drawn his absolute attention. As Jericho’s eyes
slowly locked in on the object, he realized it was a disembodied finger.
He unnecessarily looked down at his left hand and saw that
his index finger was now missing, but there was surprisingly little blood
around the wound.
“You didn’t even scream,” Stiglitz said with open
appreciation before tossing the finger off to the side of the room like an
unwanted snack wrapper. “I must say I am impressed with you, Jericho Bronson—if
that is even your name.”
Jericho chuckled as he closed his eyes and lolled his head
back. But before he could even relax his neck, Stiglitz’s hand was behind his
head and the Agent forced Jericho’s face forward to meet his eyes. After a
moment Jericho nodded, “That’s my name, all right.”
“We’ll discover the truth of that—and much more—soon
enough,” the Agent promised. Jericho glanced up to the wall above the door and
saw that the light was still red. Stiglitz’s eyes tracked with Jericho’s and he
snickered softly. “You’re the most dangerous criminal in the Sector, and they
only posted three guards between the lobby and your cell,” he said as he took
Jericho’s mutilated left hand in his own and gently isolated the thumb.
“Unfortunately for them, it’s a mistake for which they can longer atone.”
Jericho’s left thumb erupted in pain and by the time he
looked down he saw Stiglitz’s delicate-looking fingers had crushed the first
knuckle and blood was oozing out of his skin. With a slight adjustment of his
grip, Agent Stiglitz crushed the nerve bundle between the now-ruined thumb and
the first metacarpal, and Jericho was bathed in an unremitting wave of nausea
and vertigo. He was vaguely aware of something hot being pressed against his
thumb, and when his vision returned he saw that his thumb was also missing but,
surprisingly, there was very little blood.
“Remarkable,” Stiglitz said ecstatically. “Not even one
sound of protest,” he mused as he examined Jericho’s thumb thoughtfully, “are
you sure you’re human?”
Jericho would have quipped something in reply, but he was
still fighting the nausea which threatened to empty his stomach once again.
“It’s no matter,” the Agent said before Jericho heard a
muffled thunk, which he assumed was his thumb hitting the floor, “we’ll unlock
your secrets soon enough.” Stiglitz took a hold of Jericho’s ring finger, and
his grip was almost delicate as he caressed the back of Jericho’s hand and
said, “I’ve got all night.”


Masozi clung to the top of the maglev train as it sped
across the sprawling city. It stopped every five minutes or so, and going by
her helmet’s displayed chronometer nearly an hour had passed.
“Coming up on our stop, babe,” Eve said as her image
re-appeared after a lengthy absence—an absence which Masozi had considered a
mixed blessing. “Get ready to hop off on the L-street junction; we’ll reach it
in ten seconds.”
“Can you please cut with the ‘babe,’ ‘sweetie,’ and
‘bakeshop’ crap?” Masozi snapped. “It’s really demeaning.”
“No can do, sugar,” Eve replied promptly. “It’s just the way
I am. Besides, it wouldn’t be any fun talking the way you do,” she quipped.
“Three…two…one…jump!”
Masozi saw the L-street junction and leapt from the maglev
toward a nearby alley. Her body hurtled toward the far wall of the alley some
forty feet above ground level, but once again her impact was dulled
significantly by some sort of invisible field. Her hands locked onto the
building’s surface just like they had done on the apartment building, and after
taking a moment to catch her breath she crawled down to the street level below.
“Good work,” Eve said approvingly as a small, three
dimensional map appeared with a route already plotted
out. “Head to the sewer junction three hundred meters from our location and
I’ll open the lock. Step inside and we’ll be one step away from laying an epic
smack down on Ms. High-And-Mighty Governor.”
“The sewer?” Masozi repeated as she
stepped warily out onto the sidewalk. There was bustling foot traffic just
thirty meters away as people appeared to be filing more or less uniformly
toward the city’s center. She was amazed that no one saw her, and nearly jumped
out of her suit when a man and woman walked past her. They had come within two
meters of touching her but neither had made any indication they had seen her.
“My mission packet says we’ll gain access to our final
protocols once we’ve reached the point at the end of Waste Removal Tunnel B-5,”
Eve explained. “I can’t wait to see what other toys this baby’s got in store
for us.”
Masozi steeled her nerves and, after looking both ways,
crossed the street. Weaving through the horde of foot traffic became difficult
when it was necessary to cross the seemingly endless flow of people, and Masozi
muttered, “Where are they all going?”
“The Governor’s having a concert,” Eve replied
matter-of-factly. “All seventy thousand tickets sold out in twelve minutes when
they were made available just over a year ago. Off-world critics rate her music
anywhere from ‘offensively bad’ to ‘a public health hazard’,” Eve added with
obvious sarcasm, “but the people here just eat it up.”
Masozi looked down the L-street after weaving her way
through the press of bodies—thankfully avoiding physical contact as she did
so—and saw a massive coliseum with the words ‘Keno Live!’ emblazoned on what
looked to be a permanent display built into the facility’s structure.
When she found the sewer access hatch, Masozi waited for a
trio of passersby to round the corner before kneeling beside it and asking,
“How do we open this?”
“Just put your right arm down next to it and I’ll crack it open
wirelessly,” Eve replied confidently. Masozi did as Eve suggested and a series
of images swirled around Eve’s digital avatar in the helmet’s display system.
Eve manipulated the images almost too quickly to see, and as she did so her
face scrunched with what looked to be annoyance. After a few seconds the hatch
popped open, and Eve mimed dusting off her hands, prompting Masozi to lift the
lid and descend the ladder into the dark tunnel below.
As soon as she had cleared the hatch, it closed behind her
and its locking bolts reengaged. “How far from here, Eve?”
Masozi asked, thankful that the suit prevented her from smelling whatever might
have otherwise been wafting into her nostrils.
“This plan involves taking the Governor backstage between
sets,” Eve replied as they reached the bottom of the ladder and Masozi’s HUD
showed a relatively straight path to their destination. “With the coliseum
about a kilometer from here, we should be in position in ten minutes.”
Masozi wound her way through the sewer tunnels, glad to find
that the city’s sewage appeared to be confined to a large pipe running down
each tunnel. Running while wearing the suit required considerably less effort
than she had expected, and she actually suspected it was less draining than
moving without it.
Before long she came to the end of their route and Masozi
looked up to see a ladder which looked nearly identical to the one which she
had descended eight minutes earlier.
“You made good time, honey,” Eve congratulated in her
insufferable tone, “now we need to make our way to the Governor’s dressing
room; the first intermission should come between thirty and forty minutes from
now. My latest data packet suggests the Governor’s security should be
relatively light.”
“Why is that?” Masozi asked after taking just two steps up
the ladder. “Why would the Governor’s security be light on such a public
occasion?”
Eve’s image looked to be examining something small but she
shrugged after a few moments. “Doesn’t say, babe,” she said with a hint of
surprise. “That’s odd…although it does say that as soon as we go through that
hatch there’ll be no coming back this way. You sure you want to do this?” she
asked intently.
Masozi actually stopped to consider the question. Something
wasn’t right about the situation, but try as she might she simply couldn’t put
the pieces together. She knew there was something she had missed, or some
connection she had failed to make, but even after several minutes of silent
contemplation she was unable to determine what that might have been.
“Yes,” she said with a sharp nod, “Governor Keno is, as far
as I can tell, one of the few truly evil people in this System…and regardless
of her involvement in my own situation, she deserves to pay the price of
betraying her people. If she isn’t made to respect our society’s most sacred
law,” she continued, realizing as she did so that she was trying to convince
herself of the truth of the words she spoke, “then what good are those laws?”
Eve, who had been listening intently, shrugged her shoulders
lightly. “It’s all the same to me, bakeshop,” she said indifferently. “But
personally I’m hoping we see this through; our last protocols won’t come online
until we step through that hatch and I can’t wait to see how much fun they’ll
be!”
Masozi shook her head in bewilderment as she resumed her
climb up the ladder. “Remind me to have your program modified if we’re supposed
to be spending this much time together in the future,” she quipped.
“Hey!” Eve protested, placing her hands on her hips and
glaring. “I don’t talk about rearranging your brain cells, do I?”
In spite of herself, Masozi laughed at the joke just as her
fingers closed around the hatch. After just a second Eve managed to open it and
they stepped through.
Just when the hatch closed and Masozi took a look at her
surroundings, realization seemed to slam into her mind with the force of a
falling asteroid and when she realized what she had been missing she felt a
glacier of cold fury begin to grind through the pit of her stomach as she realized
she had been manipulated.
“You bastard,” she growled before taking a steadying breath
and grimly setting off down the corridor which Eve had indicated in the HUD.






Chapter
XXVI: Stick it in and Twist it 
“Wake up, Adjuster,” Jericho heard Agent Stiglitz’s voice.
He was vaguely aware that he was lying on his side, and that his right arm was
free of the bulky restraints he had been wearing just before losing
consciousness.
He looked down numbly at his left arm and saw that it was no
longer there. After a moment he realized that most of it was still
there, but that it now ended just below the elbow in a black,
chemically-cauterized, stump.
Jericho’s mind was nearly overcome with the pain, but it
wasn’t just the sensation that threatened to overwhelm what remained of his
reason. Neither was the emotional trauma associated with losing a limb—a
reality he instantly processed and accepted upon seeing the mangled remains of
his forearm and hand lying in pieces on the floor.
The truth was the simple, physiological insult to his body’s
systems were becoming too much. Soon even Agent Stiglitz’s
carefully-administered treatments would be unable to neutralize them. Jericho
knew he was nearing the end of his ability to endure the man’s torture, and he
looked up with something more akin to desperation than he had ever expected to
feel as he checked the light above the door.
His heart skipped a beat when he saw it was still red, and
he very nearly collapsed into a whimpering heap—but then the light flashed blue.
He wasn’t sure he had seen it, so he fixed his eyes on it as Agent Stiglitz
came over and reached down beneath Jericho’s armpits to prop him up on the bed.
The light flashed blue again, and just before Agent
Stiglitz’s eyes tracked with Jericho’s the light returned to its previous red.
Jericho knew that his suffering was about to come to an end, one way or
another, and that was enough for him to cling to the hope that not everything
he had put in motion would be wasted.
“Your neurochemistry is close to a cascade failure,” Agent
Stiglitz said calmly, as though he was discussing the menu at a restaurant
prior to ordering. “Your conditioning has proven impressive, which means that
you of all people should know there is only so much that an unmodified human
can withstand.” Agent Stiglitz knelt beside Jericho, projecting supreme
confidence as he placed a hand on Jericho’s shoulder. “There is no shame in
breaking, Jericho,” he said soothingly, and Jericho knew that even with his
newfound hope that he would succumb to the man’s brutal assault on his
faculties. “Give me what I need and I’ll end this,” he said, his voice sounding
almost musical as he added, “I’ll do it quickly; I hate to see you suffer this
way.”
Jericho looked down at the bed and began to whimper before
recollecting himself and nodding. “All right,” he said tremulously as his
shoulders slumped, “I’ll tell you…but I need you to do something for me.”
Stiglitz gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze and he said,
“Say no more.” The Agent stood and withdrew a single, half-smoked cigar from a
tiny pocket near his waist and smelled it, seeming to savor the aroma and
Jericho instantly recognized it as the same cigar he had left in Mayor
Cantwell’s office—the same one he’d put out on that absurd chair just before
blowing the sitting Mayor’s head off. “Despite what you may think, I have a
deep-seated respect for traditionalists,” Stiglitz said as he neatly trimmed
the end of the cigar after rolling it into a near-perfect cylinder, “it’s only
by examining them that we can see where we have gone wrong in the past.” When
he was finished, he held the cigar before Jericho and said, “Incidentally, I
learned everything I needed to know about you from this cigar…did you know
that?”
Jericho shook his head as the pain in his ruined, left arm
began to throb uncontrollably. "You wouldn't have a light, would you?” he
asked bleakly.
Stiglitz smiled in satisfaction, clearly having predicted
the request as he produced a single match from the same compartment. “Of
course; what else are friends for?”
Just as Stiglitz moved to light the match, Jericho said,
“Ure Infectus.”
There was a click from the head of the bed just as Jericho
began to dive toward it. Stiglitz’s eyes tracked him perfectly, his
heavily-modified neurology easily coping with the apparently desperate lunge,
and he made to intercept Jericho. But Stiglitz’s motions were surprisingly
slow—surprisingly for Agent Stiglitz, anyway, but Jericho had expected
precisely such a ‘surprise.’
Jericho rolled past the head of the bed just as a hilt
sprang out the end of the bed’s tubular, metal frame which had until that
moment concealed the meter long weapon. It was the same monomolecular blade the
assassin had tried to kill him with at Pemberton’s safe house, and Jericho
barely managed to get his fingers wrapped around it before Stiglitz’s
metal-boned body crashed into the bed and bent its frame as though a small
hover bike had just run into it.
Jericho had barely managed to get free of the man’s
immediate reach and as he did so he spun the sword in a wide, sweeping arc
which went into—and effortlessly through—Stiglitz’s left leg, severing it
entirely.
The look of surprise on Stiglitz’s face was probably more
satisfying to Jericho than anything the other, sadistic man had experienced in
the last hour and a half of torture. Without fanfare, or ceremony of any kind,
Jericho brought the blade around and sliced cleanly through Stiglitz’s nearest
arm a second before it would have made contact with his body, and it flew off
just above the elbow.
Unable to regain his balance in time, Agent Stiglitz
teetered and crashed into the crumpled remains of the lightweight bed and
Jericho quickly sliced his other arm off just below the shoulder.
“I hope you understand,” Jericho said through gritted teeth
as his vision narrowed from the blood loss and physical trauma which threatened
to overpower his senses, “I’m not one for taking chances.”
To Agent Stiglitz’s credit, he lashed out with his lone,
remaining, limb in an attempt to kick Jericho’s leg out. But Jericho had
already moved the monomolecular blade to intercept the man’s leg. He did little
more than hold the weapon in place as Stiglitz literally kicked his own leg off
just below the knee, proving that even his heavily-augmented physiology was no
match for such a cruelly efficient weapon.
Jericho was seized with a coughing spasm for a moment, but
he never took his eyes off the Agent. When he had regained control of his lungs
Jericho stood over the other man and noticed that barely any of the man’s blood
had escaped what remained of his body.
But a cursory glance revealed that Stiglitz’s skeleton was
cybernetic, and much of his musculature was synthetic as well. In fact, the
more Jericho looked at the man, the less like a man he appeared.
“Well played, Adjuster,” Stiglitz congratulated, his face
betraying none of the agony he should have felt. “A suppression field…I never
even considered the possibility that a backwater detention facility like this
would have one.”
“Oh, it didn’t,” Jericho assured him as he looked down and
saw his left arm had begun to bleed more than he would have liked. “I had it
installed just after we sifted through the raw data feeds at Investigator
Masozi’s apartment building the day of Cantwell’s Adjustment.”
Stiglitz shook his head in amazement. “Impressive…most
impressive,” he said with grudging respect. “May I assume that the fair
Investigator is currently carrying out your mission?”
“You can make an ass out of yourself if you want to,”
Jericho growled, fighting against the growing waves of pain in his ruined arm,
“but you’re going to have to leave me out of it.”
“How did you withstand the interrogation,” Agent Stiglitz asked
in a duplicitously pleasant voice, “at least tell me that?”
“Simple conditioning,” Jericho replied as the door to the
cell opened and a hazmat team entered, followed by a small medical team, “it’s
amazing what a human mind can do with enough practice…and faith. But, if I’m
being truthful,” he added grudgingly, “you almost had me.”
“So you are a zealot,” Stiglitz said as the hazmat
team ran a series of scans on the disparate pieces of his body.
“Not a zealot,” Jericho replied solemnly, “just a patriot
who still believes in what his nation was supposed to be even after its
politicians have forgotten.”
“Then…as a fellow patriot,” Stiglitz said, actually managing
to prop himself up slightly amid the wrecked bed, “I must say that you’ve
earned my admiration. Pulling me out of my position at Keno’s side to create an
opening for your subordinate…an inspired feint,” he said grudgingly. “It seems
I was not the hunter—you were. And that mistake will now cost me my life.”
“Don’t feel too bad,” Jericho said tightly as one of the medical
technicians began to inject his arm with a series of drugs, “you’re not the
first person to fall victim to your own arrogance…and you won’t be the last.
But you’re right; there’s no way we could have taken both of you in one place.”
He knelt just far enough from Stiglitz’s body that he knew the Agent would be
unable to reach him, and Jericho said smoothly, “See…I learned everything I
needed to know about you back in New Lincoln when you didn’t take a shot
at me while you had the chance. You had nothing to lose by taking that
shot…except the chance to indulge your ego and curiosity.”
“Well said,” Stiglitz said with an approving nod. “So well
said, in fact, that I’m going to give you a gift before you end me.”
“Not sure I’m interested,” Jericho said, drawing the sword
back as he stood. The assembled technicians scattered like leaves in the wind
as he did so with looks of varying trepidation on their faces.
“Oh…I’m sure you are,” Stiglitz said with a confident smirk.
Jericho was tempted to cleave his skull in two and be done
with him, but something in the man’s affect suggested he might actually know
what he was talking about. “Let’s hear it,” he said evenly.
Agent Stiglitz’s smirk spread to a dark, savage grin, “You aren’t
as clever as you think you are, Adjuster. My simulations suggested a three
percent chance of this particular outcome, so we took the necessary
precautions.” He threw his head back and laughed before continuing, “A
contingency has already been put in place; as soon as the Investigator
assassinates Governor Keno, the city of Abaca will die a grizzly, savage
death…and not long after the city dies, this entire colony will become an
uninhabitable wasteland.”
Jericho considered his words and, in a handful of seconds,
came to a conclusion. “Thank you,” he said before lashing out with the
monomolecular blade. He easily severed Stiglitz’s head from his body in a
nearly bloodless decapitation, and he pointedly turned his back on the
likely-still-conscious Agent’s head.
The lead doctor of the team recovered from the shock of
Stiglitz’s death more quickly than the rest of her team and she stepped forward
to say, “We have to get you to a surgical suite.”
Jericho shook his head, “I don’t have time.”
She pointed to the small, cryogenic container one of her
team had just finished placing what was left of Jericho’s arm into. “That
container can hold your tissues indefinitely, but your wounds need cleaning and
dressing.”
Jericho shook his head again, “No, Doctor; I’ve got more
important business. You,” he snapped to the technician who was just about to
close the box, “take that dross out of there.”
“Dross?!” the doctor replied incredulously. “Without that
container your tissues will decay and we won’t be able to re-attach them!”
“Fuck my arm,” Jericho said grimly, gesturing to Stiglitz’s
disembodied head, “put that thing in there. And send one of your techs with
me—I’ve got to get to Abaca before it’s too late.” He dropped the monomolecular
blade and held out a hand expectantly, “My link, please.”
The doctor had a look of impotent fury on her face, but she
took out the link and slapped it into his palm. “You are a stubborn bunch,” she
scowled.
“Nice seeing you, too, Val,” he said dryly, immensely
grateful that the painkillers they had given him had
reached therapeutic levels in his bloodstream. He activated the link before
remembering, “Jeff sends his regards, by the way.”
The doctor threw her hands into the air before finally
relenting, “Who am I to argue; if he doesn’t want his arm that’s fine with me.
Set the Agent’s tissues to perfuse on the bypass unit before freezing
his…remains.”
While she coordinated the efforts of her team, Jericho
punched in an access code to the link and was rewarded with the image of Eve’s
busty, sexualized avatar. “Someone need a pickup?” she
asked before blowing a large bubble of virtual gum and smacking it loudly
enough to make a nearby technician jump.
“Overdrive the Tyson’s engines if you have to,”
Jericho grimaced as pain shot up his left arm and his vision narrowed, “but
come get me and then set a course for Abaca—Masozi’s in trouble and we’ve got
to rescue her.”
“You got it, babe,” she replied smartly. “Charging the Tyson’s
drives now; ETA your position is six minutes.”
“Good work, Eve,” he said as he made his way out of the
cell, with one of the kit-carrying medical technicians in tow. “Home in on my
signal…we don’t have much time,” he added as a wave of vertigo came over him
but he fought to keep conscious.
He needed to stay awake at least until he got on board the Tyson.
If he didn’t there was a very real possibility that Masozi would die for doing
nothing but her job.
Jericho hadn’t spared her from that fate back in New Lincoln
just to see it play out here on Philippa. Besides, she had done everything he’d
hoped she would so her predicament was more his responsibility than her
own.
Every step she had taken, and everything she had seen since
leaving New Lincoln, had been carefully engineered by Jericho—including her
discovery of the fake nuclear weapon aboard the Tyson. The only real
deception on his part had been the scene in the tavern, and if he was any judge
of her deductive reasoning skills then she had already realized her unwitting
complicity in his scheme. And now, for the first time since he had met her, he
couldn’t confidently predict her reaction.
“Not a grilled cheese sandwich any more,” he muttered as he
staggered out of the detainment facility. Once outside the medical technician
worked on Jericho’s stump while he waited for Eve to arrive. When the Tyson
finally appeared on the horizon, he rolled his neck gingerly as he stepped out
to meet it, “I am definitely getting too old for this shit.”









Chapter XXVII: Operation: You
Lose




Masozi had finally realized Jericho’s plan, but try as she
might, she found herself unable to muster more than indignation at being
played. The clues had all been there but she had been unable to piece them
together until just then, so she considered it her own fault that she had been
manipulated.
“This was Jericho’s plan, wasn’t it, Eve?” Masozi asked with
little uncertainty in her voice. “He wanted me to come here by myself.”
“Hold on a sec, honey,” Eve replied before disappearing for
a moment. When she re-appeared she sighed, “Looks like it, babe; I’ve got a
hidden audio file here with your name on it and a high priority level attached
and it just appeared in the suit’s database. Have a listen.”
Jericho’s voice came over the speakers, “Investigator, I’m sorry
about how all of this had to go. I want you to understand that none of what you
saw, or thought you saw, was intended to insult you,” he explained heavily,
with a hint of regret in his voice that Masozi was far from believing as
genuine. “You don’t believe me, and that’s fine,” he continued and though the
statement wasn’t much of a stretch, Masozi felt her anger rise at his
presumption, “but I only did what I did in order to ensure you could accomplish
the mission if you choose to do so.”
“You bastard,” she spat bitterly. What am I, a bullet to
be chambered, aimed, and fired? she thought with
silent fury.
“You can still back out now,” he explained, and her helmet’s
three-dimensional display of the coliseum zoomed in on her position before
illuminating a path which led away from the building, “but after what you’ve
seen, I sincerely hope you’ll follow through with this. Too many sacrifices
have been made so that these people can be stopped—and I have reason to believe
that Governor Keno is just the beginning.” He paused briefly before continuing,
“It’s entirely possible that I’ve already been added to the list of lives these
people have claimed. However, understand that I manipulated you specifically so
that the risk would be as low as possible not only to you, but to the civilians
of Abaca. If we had gone in together, Stiglitz and his team would have almost
certainly stopped us…but now that I’ve drawn him out of position you have one
chance to strike back at the people who would destroy more than just our two
lives. You need to tell Eve your choice, Investigator, and you need to do it
quickly—our window is already closing.”
Masozi considered his words for several seconds before
shaking her head. “I can’t back out now,” she muttered. At her core, Masozi had
grown up wanting nothing but to serve the people of Virgin’s society and she
had applied herself fully to that endeavor with as much effort as she could
muster. While the Timent Electorum agency—if it could be called an ‘agency’—was
a different calling from that of an Investigator, in the end they both
attempted to serve the nameless, faceless masses of humanity who could not
stand up to injustice for themselves.
“You sure about that, babe?” Eve
pressed warily. “I’ve got a ‘yes’ and a ‘no’ file here, and once I open one of
them the other will automatically delete.”
Masozi took a deep breath before nodding. These people had
been responsible for the bombing at her apartment—she had known most of the
people who had died in that explosion. Oddly enough, she gave little regard for
the fact that they had tried to have her killed in that same explosion; the
thought of them slaughtering innocent people just to get to her was enough to
push her over the edge.
“Let’s do this, Eve,” she growled, promising herself that there
would be a reckoning with Jericho. If I survive, she reminded herself,
remembering Jericho’s suggested sixty percent capture probability for her
chosen course of action.
“You got it, babe,” Eve said hungrily, “here’s the second
part.”
“I promise that you’ll get a chance at whatever retribution
you think I deserve,” Jericho said evenly, “but for now you need to move
through the access tunnels adjoining the Governor’s private dressing room.
There will be guards outside in light body armor who your suit would let you
easily overpower, but you need to avoid them. Eve has a set of protocols Benton
developed that will buy you a window to enter the dressing room and wait for
the intermission. When that comes and the Governor enters the room,” his voice
turned serious, “you’ll only have forty seconds to Adjust
her before the alarms go up and you’re trapped. Expect the Governor to be
heavily augmented—even your suit will likely only even
the odds in a hand-to-hand fight. Good hunting, Investigator,” he said heavily,
“with luck, we’ll be seeing each other soon.”
“That’s it, babe,” Eve said, “looks like there’s six minutes
until the concert kicks off so we’ve got less than an hour to get in position.”
Eve’s avatar then clapped her hands emphatically before rubbing them together
in apparent anticipation, “Let’s see what these last protocols give us…”
A new route appeared on Masozi’s display, and she set off to
follow it. Eve was silent while Masozi wound her way through the service
tunnels beneath the coliseum, and even with several meters of concrete between
herself and the concert above, the suit’s audio pickups registered the
beginning of the concert easily.
“Too much bass,” Masozi muttered as she made her way to a
sealed door. “Can you deal with this, Eve?” she asked as she looked for an
obvious method to open the door.
“Sure can, sweet thing,” Eve replied, as though distracted
by something. “Just put your right hand near the locking mechanism for a few
seconds.”
Masozi did as she was instructed, and the lights covering
the locking mechanism began to flicker in a seemingly random pattern. After a
few seconds, the lights all turned green and the door swung easily open.
“Good work,” Masozi said unthinkingly. She’s just a
computer program, Masozi reminded herself, it’s
her job to do things like this.
“No problem, babe,” Eve replied, still clearly distracted by
something before adding, “some of this suit’s
subroutines are getting a little confusing. Sorry about the lack of witty
banter.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Masozi replied dryly after stepping
into the corridor and hearing the door close behind her.
“Was that sarcasm?” Eve asked suspiciously as she cast an
accusing glare in Masozi’s ‘direction.’
“Of course not,” Masozi said exaggeratedly, causing Eve to
burst into laughter.
“You’re a lot of fun, Investigator,” she said with a shake
of her head, “I think we just might be kindred spirits after all.”
“Stay on task, Eve,” Masozi grumbled, feeling the corner of
her mouth turn up in a lopsided grin in spite of herself.
They reached the final junction indicated on the map and
Masozi stopped before peering around the corner. There was a pair of guards
standing outside door about a hundred feet down the intersecting corridor, and
Masozi leaned back around the corner just as Eve declared triumphantly,
“Finally got it; all our systems are online, girlfriend. Calculating our rated
hand-to-hand combat output now and…” she trailed off before grinning, crouching
down and yelling victoriously at the top of her virtual lungs, “IT’S OVER NINE
THOUSAND!”
“What does that mean?” Masozi asked in bewilderment,
thankful to still have functional hearing after Eve’s unexpected outburst.
“Put simply,” Eve replied matter-of-factly as she resumed
her upright stance, “your average civilian’s got a combat output rating of a
hundred. A talented amateur wrestler, kickboxer, or other single-discipline
hand-to-hand fighter would be somewhere between three and eight hundred. And a
lifelong killer with the right gear and three dozen scalps on his belt, or a
hall-of-fame professional mixed martial artist, would be somewhere between two
and three thousand depending on their size, strength, speed, etc..”
Masozi had taken part in more than her share of amateur
athletics, including some wrestling, before discovering a love of kickboxing as
a young girl that persisted all the way until she became an Investigator. But
she simply hadn’t had time to train in a few years, so she guessed she would
have been on the lower end, near four hundred. “Where did you get that metric?”
she asked, her curiosity—once again—getting the better of her.
“It’s something an Imperial military officer worked up,” Eve
replied. “Benton discovered it while digging through some old archives he…umm…found?”
she finished meekly before giving a short, nervous laugh. “Yeah…probably
shouldn’t have said that. Anyway, the point is that those guys—even if they’re
full-on badasses—won’t give us any trouble we can’t handle on the way out. You
ready for your window?” she asked unexpectedly. “It looks like we’ll get a
chance in about two minutes.”
“Works for me,” Masozi said, anxiety beginning to build in
the pit of her stomach, “I’m ready when you are.”
“Great,” Eve said, “first thing we need to do is make like a
spider and crawl on the ceiling until we’re right over the door. After we’re
there, I’ll distract the guards and you’re going to need to drop in front of
the door so I can crack open the lock. I should be able to open it up before
they return to their posts, but it’s going to be tight as a virg—”
“I got it,” Masozi interrupted harshly as she placed her
hand on a nearby concrete wall and tested to see if the gloves were once again
supernaturally sticky, and found that they were. She crawled up the wall until
transferring to the ceiling, acutely aware of just how unnatural the position
was, and began to slowly move her way over to the door.
“Be sure not to block the light,” Eve cautioned, “the suit’s
stealth systems are impressive, but even they have limits.”
“Right,” Masozi said, skirting one of the industrial light
banks more widely than she had originally intended, and after nearly two
minutes she was in position. “Ready, Eve,” she muttered, risking a glance down
at the two guards who stood silent sentinel to either side of the door.
“Gotcha, babe,” Eve replied. “Diversion in
three…two…one…now.”
There was a sound from a nearby corridor as a pair of voices
echoed through the tunnel-like passages. They sounded very nearly drunk and
they quickly came closer, causing the guards to give each other a neutral look
before one of them silently set off for the source of the commotion with his
weapon shouldered.
“I’m telling you,” a man’s voice echoed through the
corridor, “I pressed the button for the restroom—I can’t help it if this stupid
place’s equipment’s faulty!”
“You just wanted to get me alone in a dark tunnel,” a
woman’s slightly slurred voice retorted knowingly. “You’re not that smart,
Dennis.”
They rounded the corner—fondling each other in manners which
were better left to private locales—and Masozi saw guard who had moved to
intercept them train his rifle on them before snapping, “Hands in the air,
Citizens!”
The two quickly retracted their wayward hands and the man’s
eyes went wide with fear while the woman appeared more surprised than anything.
“We got lost, officer,” the man blurted in self-defense as his hands reached
for the ceiling. His voice squeaked so badly it was as though he had yet to
breach puberty. “We were just trying to find the restrooms—I swear!”
Just then another pair of voices came from the corridor
opposite the one where the guard had pinned the two to the wall at rifle-point.
The guard still standing watch by the door quickly shouldered his weapon and
made his way to intercept the newcomers, who appeared to have gotten themselves
similarly lost.
“Now, babe,” Eve said as soon as the second guard had taken
half a dozen steps.
Masozi dropped to the floor and made surprisingly little
noise as she did so, landing in a crouch before springing up and placing her
right gauntlet next to the door’s locking mechanism.
The second guard was just pinning his small group of
interlopers to the wall when the door popped open. Masozi wasted no time
entering the room before closing the door behind her as quickly, and quietly,
as possible.
“Well done,” Eve congratulated. “Now we just have to wait
for the Governor to show up and we can get down to business.”


“Drive this thing faster, Eve,” Jericho snapped through
gritted teeth as the medic worked to suture the major blood vessels in his left
arm.
“I’m sorry, Jericho,” she replied
tersely, “but when you split my program in two pieces this part lost more than
half of my processing power. You did tell me to send my better half with
Masozi,” she reminded him pointedly, “I can’t load balance the draws on the
engines, anti-grav systems, and flight controls any more efficiently than
this.”
“What’s our ETA?” he growled, knowing that Eve was
performing far better than she had any right to do…which begged a question he
would need to get answered at a later date as to just what exactly she was. It
was clear by now that she was no simple sexbot program, or even a high-quality
emotional companion product.
The painkillers the medics had given him were already
wearing off, and he knew that if he took too many more then his mental
faculties would be too severely compromised to be of any help when they arrived
at Abaca. So he gritted his teeth and went through a series of long-practiced
mental exercises—the same ones he had used to prepare for Stiglitz’s
torture—even though he knew that with so much pain already at the forefront of
his thoughts it would be difficult to achieve any measure of relief.
But Masozi had risked everything she had in order to play
her part in his game, and he owed her his full attention should matters take a
turn for the worse—an outcome which was more likely than he could have imagined
prior to Agent Stiglitz’s confession.
“Forty nine minutes,” Eve replied promptly. “The whole
city’s covered in a comm. blackout, Jericho; I can’t pierce it until we’re
literally in visual range.”
“Contact the Zhuge Liang,” Jericho instructed her
before amending, “wait, never mind…I’ll do it.” He
strapped a headset over his ears and activated the secure channel to Captain
Jeffrey Charles aboard the CSS Zhuge Liang.
“This is Charles,” his cousin’s voice came in loud and clear
over the headset.
“Captain,” Jericho said, wincing as the medic slipped and
accidentally sliced into his stump, “Abaca’s in comm. blackout for us, can you
confirm?”
“We confirm,” Charles replied promptly, “the whole city went
quiet not long after you were reported captured. We’re guessing they’ve
switched off all the primary comm. relays.”
“We have to consider the possibility of a bomb going off in
Abaca in about thirty minutes,” Jericho said grimly. “And if I’m right it’s
going to be a big one.”
“I thought the bomb was a decoy?” Captain Charles said in
confusion.
“Mine was,” Jericho agreed, “but it looks like our
adversaries have upped the stakes. Once the Adjustment’s made, I’ve been told
that Abaca will die—followed by the rest of the colony.”
“Stand by,” Charles said before severing the connection.
When the link was re-established nearly a minute later, his voice had taken a
hard edge, “Our simulations are suggesting that given Philippa’s thin
atmosphere, we’re probably looking at a bio-agent of some kind. A bioweapon
development facility in the Liberty system was reportedly compromised six
months ago, and it was widely-reported by the state-run media there—and
here—that it was likely an act of corporate espionage. The stolen delivery
system included a surface-to-air, high-altitude introduction device which could
achieve full dispersal in less than an hour.”
Jericho sat back in his seat and processed the meaning of
this latest bit of news. “Clever,” he said grudgingly, “they deploy a weapon of
mass destruction against their own people and then frame Hadden Enterprises for
the crime…”
“It’s just the kind of thing that can turn public opinion at
a pivotal moment like this,” Charles agreed darkly. “It looks like we stepped
in it here, Cousin.”
Jericho gripped the arm of his seat with his lone, remaining
hand and set his jaw. The pain in his stump was actually overpowered by his
anger at not having seen this particular event coming. In hindsight it seemed
so obvious; sacrifice Governor Keno—along with the entire Philippa Colony—in
order to galvanize the Sector’s populace against the only people who were
actually acting in the people’s best interests.
“We can’t look back,” he said, as much to himself as anyone
else, as he knew that hindsight of that kind would lead to nothing but
paralysis. “What are your simulations showing as possible containment methods
available to us?”
“We’re working something up,” the Captain replied
hesitantly, “but it’s not going to look good when we do it. We’ll have to make
low orbit directly over the city and, if we make the necessary modifications in
time, we can detonate four of our antimatter torpedoes in the atmosphere and burn
the methane-laden atmosphere around the city—hopefully preventing a chain
reaction that cooks Philippa’s entire atmosphere off in the process.” The other
man took a breath that was so deep and loud, Jericho could hear it through the
headset, “But to the cameras…it’s going to look like we’re firing on a
defenseless city, Jericho.”
“If it will save lives then do it—fuck appearances,” Jericho
said coldly, momentarily admiring the complexity of the trap they had just
walked into. “They’ve crossed a line, Jeff; this is no longer a game. If we
don’t act to protect these people then apparently no one will.”
“At least we’ll be able to wait until we get confirmation of
the bioweapon’s deployment,” Charles added confidently. “My people are already
working on tapping into local security feeds; we should have access to most of
Abaca’s systems as soon as we’ve made low orbit.
“If you’re certain you can make that determination before
the weapon has spread outside your containment zone, fine,” Jericho said in a
commanding tone, knowing full well what his order meant. “But if you can’t get
confirmation, you cook off the atmosphere around the city—do you understand
me?”
“Jericho,” Charles said hesitantly, “there are over six
hundred thousand people in Abaca who will either burn to death or suffocate if
we’re wrong.”
“And if we’re right there are two and a half million people
outside the city who will die if we let that weapon spread,” Jericho retorted
harshly. “You only abort the launch if you can prove the weapon hasn’t been
deployed, am I clear?”
Silence greeted his ears for several long, tense seconds.
Just as Jericho was about to remind his cousin of his orders, Captain Charles
replied, “I understand…and for what it’s worth, I’m afraid it’s the right
move.”
“I have no idea if it’s right or not,” Jericho said grimly,
“but I do know that we can’t be paralyzed by fear of being wrong. Update me
every two minutes via point-to-point tactical packets.”
“You’ve got it,” the other man said crisply, “Charles out.”
Jericho studied the Tyson’s instrumentation to
confirm everything was as it should be. Nearly every single system was
redlined, with the engines well past their recommended operating ranges and
nearing their rated failure points.
As the Neil deGrasse Tyson tore through Philippa’s
atmosphere, Jericho wondered whether he would have called off the Adjustment in
that moment if he was able. Doing so very possibly would save six hundred
thousand lives, and to Jericho those people were not merely statistics—he fully
understood that each of them was a parent, a child, a sibling, a mentor, a
student, or even a future leader of humanity.
The answer, when he finally arrived at it, made even his blood
turn cold.






Chapter
XXVIII: The Blurred Line between Victory and Defeat 
Masozi crouched in the corner of the secure dressing room as
she awaited the Governor’s concert to reach intermission. The audacity of a
sitting government official—especially one of Governor Keno’s public stature—participating in such a gross display of indulgence
was simply mind-blowing.
It wasn’t enough of a reason to kill the woman…but it was
enough that Masozi genuinely thought she might have considered the matter had
she been one of the Governor’s constituents.
The real reason the Governor deserved to die was that she
had knowingly wrought havoc on her people’s livelihoods. Life in the Capitol
City of Abaca was more or less like that in any of Virgin’s cities. The streets
were clean, there were plentiful public amenities, and the structures seemed to
be well-maintained.
But in the outlying areas—some of which Masozi had seen
personally—were atrociously underserviced. It was as if there were two separate
worlds on Philippa: one for the rich and the other for the poor, and that
stratification angered Masozi to the core. The image of the St. Murray’s
patrons with their radiation poisoning had been burned into Masozi’s mind, and
she knew that anyone who willfully encouraged such conditions among the
populace who depended on them to serve and protect deserved to be punished.
Masozi understood that not all people could have equal
access to the finer conveniences in life, and that a person needs to earn their
way on his or her own merits. But Governor Keno, and her family, had
purposefully denied their populace an already-functioning method by which they
could better themselves—and they had done it with the clear intent of privately
profiting off the very opportunity they had just stolen from the people who
depended on them.
As the cheers reached a crescendo in the coliseum above her,
Masozi felt her spine stiffen at the Governor’s audacity. She was literally
profiting from her people’s misery, and her unwitting public was cheering her
for her efforts.
Philippa’s most active generation had been raised in the
very circumstances which the Timent Electorum had been founded to prevent. As
she heard the intermission call echo through the coliseum above her, Masozi
knew that more than at any other point in her life what she had come to do was
not only palatable…it was necessary.
If people like Governor Keno were allowed to continue
abusing their populace then life in the Virgin System would soon devolve into a
caste-based society with the privileged aristocracy sitting at the top—the very
system of ‘government’ which the Sector had been freed from when the wormhole
had collapsed two hundred years earlier.
The minutes passed by at a maddeningly slow pace, until she
heard the Governor’s entourage near the door to the room.
“Showtime, babe,” Eve said, cracking her virtual knuckles
for emphasis. “As soon as the door’s closed you give her hell—don’t hold
anything back. If we’re lucky we can take her before she even realizes we’re
here. Just hit her with everything you’ve got; I’ll transfer power from the
stealth systems to the suit’s other mods if we don’t get her with the first
shot.”
As the door opened, Masozi held her breath when saw a
handful of heavily-armed guards standing outside the room. The Governor—a huge
woman who had apparently not opted for any kind of skeletal reduction during
her gender change operation—entered the room.
As she entered the room, one of her male handlers said, in a
piercing, effeminate voice, “The Governor requires her rest before the show may
resume. Please take this opportunity to—“
The door closed, cutting off the man’s words mid-sentence.
The Governor drew a breath, which she released as a sigh while rolling her neck
around as the mag-locks engaged on the door.
Masozi knew this would be her best chance so drew her left
fist back in anticipation. After drawing a deep breath, she launched herself at
the Governor with a vicious, overhand punch aimed squarely at the woman’s
muscular neck.
Just before her gauntleted fist connected with the flesh of
the Governor’s neck, the Governor brought her forearm up in an inhumanly fast
gesture, blocking Masozi’s blow just enough that it was deflected off target
and struck Keno in the shoulder.
The impact when Masozi’s armored forearm connected with
Keno’s unarmored one was jarring, and unlike anything Masozi had expected to
feel.
“She’s augmented, all right,” Eve said grimly just before
the Governor launched a counterattack. Keno punched low and then brought her
knee up into Masozi’s midsection with enough force to send her flying into the
far wall. She impacted with enough force to send a web of cracks radiating from
the point of impact.
Masozi regained her feet just in time to launch a
counterattack as the Governor brought her foot up in a roundhouse kick aimed at
Masozi’s head. Diving inside the Governor’s guard, Masozi hammered an uppercut
into the woman’s surprisingly hard ribcage. Even with the added strength from
the suit behind the blow, Masozi barely managed to elicit more than a grunt as
the Governor grabbed her wrist and head before trying to throw Masozi onto her
back.
Their combined bulk crashed into the nearby sofa and its
thin, metal frame snapped as the piece of furniture collapsed. Masozi only then
realized that her stealth systems were compromised when she saw that her
gauntlet was flickering between visibility and invisibility.
Governor Keno grabbed Masozi’s armored neck with her left
hand, then postured up and cocked her right fist in preparation for a crushing
blow to Masozi’s head—but Masozi had no intention of waiting for it to arrive.
She grabbed the Governor’s left wrist with both of her hands and pivoted her
hips and shoulders such that she isolated Governor Keno’s left arm between her
armored legs and pulled Keno’s thick wrist against her armored chest.
She barely managed to avoid the incoming deathblow by doing
so, and Keno’s free fist struck the concrete beneath the ruined sofa with a
sharp, cracking sound. Before the Governor could recover, Masozi had strained
with everything her suit-powered strength could muster as she fought to break
the Governor’s arm.
She felt the arm give at the elbow, but the Governor Keno
barely seemed to notice as she had already regained her feet. As she did so
Masozi was turned nearly upside down, and the Governor stomped down into
Masozi’s armored chin once—twice—three times before Masozi finally let go of
Keno’s ruined arm and pushed away in an effort to create some much-needed
space.
But Governor Keno pursued and snapped another, brutal kick
into Masozi’s armor—this one into her left thigh—just before Masozi was able to
get her feet beneath herself.
“Nice armor,” the Governor growled as she pivoted on her
front, right foot. She spun her body around faster than Masozi had ever
seen—even during kickboxing competition—and planted her right foot squarely in
Masozi’s gut. The impact was enormous, and a series of red icons began to flash
on her helmet’s HUD.
Masozi crashed into the far wall and collapsed to her knees
just as the Governor planted a hellacious knee into her armored chest. Another
round of alarms went off in the suit’s systems and Masozi heard Eve say, “We
can’t take much more of this; work your way toward the door!”
The Governor followed the knee strike up with a pair of
crushing, overhand punches delivered to Masozi’s armored head. The displays in
her helmet briefly flickered off before returning, and just as the Governor reached
down with her right arm to grip behind Masozi’s neck—Keno’s left arm now hung
uselessly at her side—Masozi put everything she had into a rising uppercut
aimed at the Governor’s chin.
Keno’s own strike was driven off-target by Masozi’s powerful
punch, as the blow literally lifted the Governor a foot off the floor and sent
her body in a ponderous arc through the air. The Governor’s arm and legs
flailed uselessly as Masozi reached up with both of her hands and grasped the
other woman by the waist.
Keno reached down with her one good arm in a blind attempt
to break Masozi’s grip, but Masozi grasped her opponent’s waist tightly and
drove her body across the small room until they slammed into the still-locked
door.
They crashed into the door with enough force to deform it
noticeably, and Keno’s body briefly went limp. “Grab that conduit—quick!” Eve
said, and a section of conduit which apparently fed the door’s mag-locks lit up
in the helmet’s display.
Without even thinking why Eve would want her to do it, Masozi
leapt up and grabbed the conduit with her left hand. It broke free from its
moorings as her body fell down on top of the Governor’s, and Masozi hammered a
pair of punches into the Governor’s head with her right hand—which, for Masozi,
was her off-hand—and Keno went limp for a fraction of a second from the
repeated, concussive, impacts.
Masozi had taken Eve’s meaning plainly enough when she had
indicated the power conduit, so she grabbed Keno’s chin in her right hand and
tore as much of the flexible power conduit free from its brackets as she could.
Once she had done so—and with her own body straddling the Governor’s—she rammed
the open end of the conduit into the side of the Governor’s head.
The lights dimmed in the room as the electricity in the conduit
coursed through Keno’s body. The surge was cut off after just two seconds—along
with the lights—but that was enough of a jolt for Keno’s body to go through a
series of violent convulsions.
Masozi knew almost nothing about augments—often referred to
as ‘cybernetics’ in popular fiction—but she did know that her suit was
already damaged and that it couldn’t withstand an indefinite amount of damage
before it became little more than a shapely, expensive, tomb.
She reached down and isolated the Governor’s right arm using
a maneuver she had seen in holo-vids, but never actually attempted. She locked
her left hand on Keno’s right wrist, and then snaked her right arm around the
Governor’s right elbow before gripping her own, armored forearm with her
gauntleted hand. She then stood and wrenched on Governor Keno’s right arm with
everything she had, and it was more than slightly alarming that the joint
didn’t simply pop out.
She redoubled her efforts just as the Governor gathered her
feet beneath herself sluggishly and attempted to use her ruined, left arm to
grasp Masozi’s waist. Masozi heaved and strained with every fiber of muscle she
had, but the Governor’s shoulder simply would not surrender.
“Fucking…bitch,” Governor Keno slurred just as she regained
her feet, and Masozi knew that this would be her last chance to neutralize the
Governor’s good arm. Somehow, even with one arm, Governor Keno had been
Masozi’s suit-powered match—it was now or never.
Masozi arched her back, wrenched the Governor’s arm up
behind her opponent’s back, and screamed with effort as she saw the display in
her helmet dim. Just as Keno managed to grasp around Masozi’s waist with her
free, ruined arm, the Governor’s right shoulder was destroyed with the sound of
a dozen pieces of metal shearing in unison.
Governor Keno let out a brief cry of surprise, but Masozi
continued to torque on the arm until she had rotated it so far it was nearly
pointed forward. She spun the Governor’s body over using her newfound leverage,
and landed on top of Keno before the Governor’s arm literally came off at the
shoulder in a shower of blood and metallic fragments. Her helmet’s night vision
was still fully functional, so she was able to maneuver herself into position
as the Governor fell to the ground.
“Wait, wait!” the Governor screamed as Masozi mounted her
ruined body and cocked her left hand for what she hoped would be a killing
blow. “I’ll give you ten times whatever you’re getting paid; I’m the richest
woman in the System—maybe even the Sector! You can have everything, just don’t’
kill me. I have two children who need me!”
Masozi had heard it all during her own examinations as an
Investigator, and though Keno was a lifelong politician her words rung hollow
in Masozi’s ears. “You betrayed your people, Governor,” Masozi said coldly, but
for some reason she stayed her hand. She had never actually taken a life during
her time as an Investigator, and had only ever fired a lethal weapon at another
human twice.
“Please,” the Governor pleaded, and even Masozi believed that
the tears now streaming down her cheeks were genuine, “my people need me. They
won’t know what to do if I’m gone—you’re not an assassin,” she added hastily as
recognition seemed to dawn in her eyes and Masozi actually had to process the
woman’s words. “A real assassin would have killed me already…”
Masozi considered Keno’s suggestion that she wasn’t an
assassin, and the truth was she had never fully considered that if she killed
the Governor then that was precisely what she would be. She may have a sturdy
legal leg to stand on if she acted in accordance to the Timent Electorum’s
directives…but she had come to a line she had never even dreamed she would
consider crossing.
“I’m sure we can come to some sort of arrangement,” Governor
Keno said, her eyes relaxing fractionally as though she was nearly out of
danger, “I’ll make you wealthy beyond your wildest dreams—just think of it! You
can have your own starship, enough money to buy a moon like this one, and an
army of people who will live and die at your whim!”
It was in that moment that Masozi realized who, and what,
the Governor really was—and, by extension what Masozi really was. The
Governor and her ilk were solely motivated by their ability to exert power over
others. Keno had let her people suffer and die from poverty while she basked in
the glow of their adoration. Masozi knew that she would continue to deny the
few opportunities for improvement which those people possessed each and every
year she held office—or any other position of power over the people of
Philippa.
Masozi felt something strange and startlingly unfamiliar in
that moment and it didn’t take her long to realize what it was: purpose. She
had thought that working as an Investigator would give her life some measure of
meaning, but the truth was she could have spent her entire life and solved each
case that came across her desk in New Lincoln’s Investigative Unit and she
would have never come close to correcting as much injustice as she was in that
moment.
Apparently taking Masozi’s silence for some form of
approval, Governor Keno reiterated, “By this time tomorrow you’ll be the
richest woman in the Sector. I’ll give you everything you could ever want.” A
nearly predatory look came over the Governor’s face, and in that moment Masozi
steeled herself to what needed to be done.
“You’ve got nothing I need,” Masozi bit out before sending
her fist into the Governor’s face.
Keno resisted the best she was able, but with two ruined
arms there was little she could do to prevent the inevitable as Masozi’s armored
gauntlets tore into the woman’s face with punch after punch.
Masozi thought of all the people who had died because of
Keno, Stiglitz, and whoever else had been involved in the attempt to track her
down and silence her. She still didn’t know why they had tried to kill her, but
Masozi no longer cared.
A single, resonant truth filled every corner of her
consciousness in that moment, and it was a profound realization which she knew
would re-shape her in ways she could only begin to wonder at:
People who would do as Keno had done couldn’t be allowed to
live.
After several dozen punches the Governor’s skin had been
peeled back from her face, revealing a cybernetic skull beneath. Masozi didn’t
know much about augment technology, but she seriously doubted that what she was
seeing was ‘normal’ augmentation.
The Governor’s body went limp, and Masozi reached down to
cradle her head in her hands and once she had done so, she gave an almighty
twist and the Governor’s head came off entirely.
Masozi stood as the Governor’s body went limp beneath her,
and she numbly dropped Keno’s disembodied head to the floor. She stood there in
silence for several seconds before Eve’s deadpan voice came over the helmet’s
speakers, “How does my ass taste now?”
In spite of the weight of what had just happened, Masozi couldn’t stifle a short laugh at Eve’s apparently
indomitable attitude. “How do we get out of here?” she asked, having never
asked the question before that moment.
“Truthfully,” Eve said with a sigh, “your guess is as good
as mine. I’ve got a dozen escape routes you can pick from, but we’ve been on a
complete comm. blackout since we entered the coliseum. I haven’t been able to
update any of my tactical databases so I’m afraid we’re down to ‘eeny, meeny,
miny, moe’.”
“How long until the door opens?”
Masozi asked, feeling her legs begin to shake beneath her.
“It should have already done so,” Eve replied cautiously. “I
only had them locked out for about fifty three seconds; it’s been almost four
minutes. Hang on a sec, honey,” Eve said quickly, “I’ve got to run some
diagnostics on this suit.”
Masozi tested her left leg, which Governor Keno had kicked
so savagely, and saw that while it seemed to be working properly there was a
long, spiraling crack running around the armored plate enclosing her thigh.
“We’ve got all our systems but the stealth field and our
atmospheric isolation operating within parameters,” Eve reported after a few
seconds of flicking through the various icons displayed in the helmet’s graphic
interface. Masozi knew that the visual representations of Eve’s actions were
just for her benefit, since Eve was performing the tasks simply by manipulating
computer code. But it was still reassuring seeing what Eve was doing while she
did it. “Our left leg’s containment integrity is FUBAR; we’d better hope we
don’t need that system because I can’t really do anything about the breach.”
“It’s a small price to pay,” Masozi said heavily before
drawing a deep breath. “Can we take the guards outside?”
“No problem, babe,” Eve replied promptly. “Even if there’s
six of ‘em and they’re all stone-cold baddies, none of them was wearing power
armor so one or two shots will take any of them out. You up
to it?”
“I think so,” Masozi replied as she drew a steadying breath.
“Unlock the door whenever you’re ready.”
“I’m on it,” Eve said confidently, and just a few seconds
later she said, “opening in three…two…one…open.”
The door’s mag-locks disengaged and the large, metal door
swung slowly open. Masozi stood by the doorjamb until the opening was wide
enough for her to slip through. But just as she did so, a series of alarms went
off in her helmet’s display.
“Close the door!” Eve shouted, and Masozi did as she was
instructed.
The mag-locks re-engaged and Masozi snapped, “What is it?”
“Stand by,” Eve replied, and Masozi’s left leg suddenly went
numb. “I didn’t want to do this, but you’re going to feel a pinch—“
Masozi’s neck erupted in a fiery sensation on both sides,
and soon her wrists felt the same, burning pain which quickly began to spread
throughout her body.
“Eve, what are you—“ Masozi began,
but her words caught when the pain in her torso intensified so greatly that she
actually feared her lungs had just burst.
“Hang on, sugar,” Eve said grimly, “just hang on…”
Masozi’s vision began to black out, and her thoughts turned
sluggish and dull as she focused on the icons displayed inside her helmet. They
were so beautiful, and Masozi wondered why she hadn’t stopped to admire such
simple, marvelous things more often in her life.
“Stay with me, girl!” Eve snapped, and Masozi felt a dull,
throbbing pain radiate up from her left leg as the sexbot’s digital voice
pierced the sudden haze which had come over her thoughts. “You hear me—stay
with me!”
“I’m sooo….tired…” Masozi said, her eyelids drooping. In
spite of the riotous pain she felt throughout her body, all she wanted to do
was sleep.
“Not so fast, girlfriend,” Eve quipped, and Masozi felt her
vision began to narrow as the pain in her left leg intensified. “There we
go…now listen to my words, Masozi, and repeat them back to me.”
“Fine,” Masozi said dreamily. The pain in her torso had
abated, but her left leg felt like it was being bathed in frozen acid. Still,
it was odd that she didn’t seem to mind it too much.
“There’s a nerve agent in the air…say it!” Eve prompted.
“There’s a nerve agent in the air,” Masozi said before
groaning and remembering a similar phrase she had been forced to learn in
primary linguistics, “will this be on the test later?”
“Can it, sweet cheeks,” Even snapped irritably, “say ‘my leg
was exposed to the nerve agent’.”
“My leg was exposed to the…” Masozi trailed off as the
gravity of what Eve was telling her sank in. “What happened?!” she blurted, her
senses snapping into focus all at once.
“Good, the drugs are finally working,” Eve said tightly,
“but we don’t have more than eight minutes’ worth of air in this thing. We need
to get to street level—fast. Can you run?”
Masozi tried to stand and test her leg, but while the right
one was fine her left felt like it weight a hundred pounds and didn’t respond
to her commands at all.
“Damn,” Even growled, “your left leg’s already useless. I
can move the suit’s left leg for you, but we’re going to have to be in sync so
we won’t be able to get to a full run. Try to stand, quickly; we’re running out
of time.”
Masozi did as she was instructed and found that, while she
was unsteady, she was able to keep her balance. She took a step forward with
her right leg and Eve soon followed with a clunky, haphazard attempt of her own
with the suit’s left leg motivators.
“Brace against the wall,” Eve instructed, “and let’s open
this door so we can make like a prokaryote and split. We’ll work on our pacing
as we make our way to the nearby access lift here.”
The helmet’s display showed a clear path to what looked like
the lift the amorous couple had inadvertently used to lure the first guard from
his post.
“Got it,” Masozi said, the pain in her leg coming and going
at irregular intervals. She waved her arm in front of the door’s control panel and
it swung open.
As she clung to the wall and exited the room, Masozi saw
several dozen bodies littering the floor. They were all in various, grotesque
reposes with their fingers curled into tight, gnarled, claw-like positions.
Some of the larger ones actually looked to have broken their own backs—an
eventuality Masozi had become familiar with during disaster training back in
New Lincoln.
“Why?” Masozi breathed. “Why would they kill all of these
people?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Eve replied solemnly. “This
was just a slaughter…I don’t understand it.”
Masozi tried to push the horrifying imagery from her mind as
she leaned against the wall for support, skirting the bodies as best she was
able while she and Eve worked to improve their coordination. After a few dozen
steps, Masozi thought she could quicken the pace to a brisk walk.
“I’m getting a transmission fragment,” Eve said quickly,
“I’m working to clean up our reception—whatever you do, don’t stop moving.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Masozi said through
gritted teeth as she slapped the button beside the lift which would summon it
to their location.


“Eve, what’s your status?” Jericho demanded.
“I’m trying to link up with my other half,” Eve replied
tersely. “This isn’t as easy as I make it look, Jericho!”
“Never mind the backtalk,” Jericho growled. “Get Masozi on
the line now; we can wait for your reunion.”
“I’m trying,” Eve shot back before finally saying, “I’ve got
an audio feed established.”
“Investigator?” Jericho asked
anxiously. “Investigator, if you can read me you need to get to the surface as
quickly as you can. There’s a bioweapon about to be deployed and you’re right
in the middle of the introduction zone. Do you copy?”
The headset’s speakers crackled with static and he shot a
dire look at the console featuring Eve’s virtual avatar. Then he heard a voice
that sounded like Masozi’s on the other end, and he listened intently as her
voice became clearer, “—a lift now. Nerve toxin in air…dead.
Repeat: everyone is d…”
The signal cut out and Jericho growled, “Get it back, Eve.”
“I won’t even try to explain how I’m doing what I’m doing,
Jericho,” Eve snapped, “but you’re already getting the best I can give.”
The speaker crackled back to life and Jericho listened
intently as Masozi’s voice returned. “…exiting the lift now.
Only have six minutes of air left before—”
The signal cut out as the speakers crackled loudly. “We’re
being jammed, Jericho,” Eve said with absolute conviction. “Someone is remotely
operating enough gear down there that they just blanketed our frequencies. That
was my last trick; we have to wait until we’ve got line of sight now.”
“She’s in the Keno Coliseum,” Jericho said urgently, “have
her wait in the middle of the domed coliseum. We can land the Tyson in
the middle and it will cut down on her travel time—how long until we arrive?”
Eve shook her head silently, and Jericho leaned down next to the display and
yelled, “How long?!”
“Twenty three minutes—I’ve already taken the safety
protocols offline,” she added with a meaningful look. “This shuttle is going as
fast as it can, Jericho. I’ve already sent a data packet with your suggested
extraction plan. But I can’t confirm if my other half got it. If she did,
there’s a chance we can revive Masozi…if not,” she said, turning her virtual
eyes to the floor.
Jericho leaned back in his chair and looked over at the
medic, who had several minutes earlier managed to finish dressing his arm.
“Let’s hope you get another patient today,” Jericho said, knowing that
everything which could have been done had been.
He didn’t want to lose her…it would be a disaster in too
many ways to count.
“Come on,” he whispered under his breath, silently willing
the craft toward its destination. “Hang on, Masozi.”









Chapter XXIX: Bathed in Fire




“We’ve lost our link,” Eve said after they had exited the
lift, “it seems like we’re being jammed locally. Someone doesn’t want any
communications leaving this city.”
“I wonder why,” Masozi growled as she fought her way to the
nearest junction. There were hundreds of bodies lying in similar states as the
ones outside Governor Keno’s dressing room, but Masozi knew she didn’t have
time to mourn them just yet.
“Wait a moment,” Eve said as Masozi made her way toward the
exit Eve had previously highlighted. “Change of plans, babe,” she said, and
Masozi’s exit path shifted until it was redirected to the heart of the
coliseum, “this destination gives us the highest survival chance.”
“But that’s inside the coliseum,” Masozi argued.
“No time to explain, honey,” Eve quipped, “if you want to
live then you’ll follow the route.”
Masozi growled wordlessly as the pain in her leg shot up and
seemingly through her body, causing her to twist in a violent, uncontrolled
spasm.
“Hang on, girl,” Eve said quickly, and the pain abated along
with the spasm, “I’m trying to ration our drugs; we’ve only got a limited
supply.”
“You’re doing great, Eve,” Masozi said, actually believing
it as she hauled herself along the wall toward the coliseum’s nearest entry
arch. She stepped inside and, although she fought through the waves of emotion,
she was brought to tears at the sight which greeted her eyes.
Literally thousands of people, of all ages and walks of
life, lay dead within the coliseum. Many of them were still in their seats, and
the magnitude of the crime which had been committed against the people of
Philippa—no, against humanity itself—was literally beyond her ability to
comprehend.
She tore her gaze from the epic tragedy which had unfolded
around her and made her way to the stage at the dome’s center—a stage where the
people had only minutes earlier been celebrating their beloved Governor.
“Stay over here,” Eve urged. “And sit down, girl…this next part’s
going to get rough.”
“What do you mean?” Masozi asked as she slowly lowered
herself to the ground behind a heavy, metal framework of scaffolding.
“I only got a partial data packet,” Eve explained as the
pressure around Masozi’s left leg intensified, but this time she was fairly
certain that it had been caused by the suit rather than the neurotoxins
coursing through her system, “but Jericho’s on his way with the shuttle and our
best chance is to wait for them here. Still…they’re nineteen minutes away and
we’ve only got another three minutes of breathable air in this thing.”
“So lower the oxygen content,” Masozi said quickly as she
fought to control her breathing in the face of Eve’s revelation.
“Already on it,” Eve assured her, “but that’s not where the
trouble ends…I need your permission to cut off blood flow to both of your legs and
your arms.”
“Twenty minutes without blood flow…” Masozi thought,
remembering what she had learned about tissue perfusion during her first aid
training, “that’s right on the edge, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Eve agreed gravely, “but it’s the only way to give
you a reasonable chance to survive. If we make it back to the Zhuge Liang
they might be able to counteract the damage…”
“Do it,” Masozi said quickly, knowing that each second that
passed without a decision decreased her apparently slim chance at survival.
“You got it,” Eve said, and all four of Masozi’s limbs felt
like they were being crushed by the suit’s pressure cuffs—or whatever it used
in situations like this. “I’m sorry about the pain, girlfriend,” Eve said
heavily, “but I’m giving you a sedative so you won’t panic as your oxygen
levels diminish.”
“Thank you, Eve,” Masozi said, instantly regretful of the
many times she had derided the quasi-intelligent program.
“Don’t mention it, sweetie,” Eve replied. “Just try to relax
and I’ll manage your biorhythms the best I can while we wait for the others. It
helps the process if you count backward from one hundred.”
“One hundred, ninety nine, ninet…” Masozi trailed off as her
world spiraled into darkness.


“One minute to touchdown,” Eve reported as Jericho and the
medic worked to get their containment suits checked out.
“You’re cleared, sir,” the medic reported after checking Jericho’s
back-side seals. The medic then turned around and Jericho inspected his suit’s
seals.
After he was satisfied, Jericho nodded, “You’re clear.”
Jericho then turned and leaned into the cockpit as the Neil deGrasse Tyson
slewed around the coliseum while braking its momentum
as much as it could, “Make a hole, Eve.”
“With pleasure,” she replied and the Tyson’s light
cannons tore into the flimsy, ceramic panels which comprised the coliseum’s
dome. Those panels shattered in an ever-widening spiral as Eve piloted the
craft down, lifting the nose at the last instant before the shuttle crashed
through the roof panels and sent several thousand of the meter-square pieces
crashing into the stage below.
“I’ve got her,” Eve said as she settled the Tyson
down near one of the main stairwells, “Eve’s reporting Masozi’s life signs are
faint. She’s been out of oxygen for three minutes.”
“Move!” Jericho snapped as the door
swung open, and before the Tyson had even touched down both the medic
and Jericho were already on the floor of the facility and sprinting toward
Masozi.
They knelt one to either side of her armored, motionless
form, and they each wrapped an armored arm around their necks and Jericho
struggled mightily with the use of only one hand, but they managed to get her
upright and hauled her back to the shuttle.
After nearly forty seconds the door to the Tyson
closed behind them, and Jericho snapped, “Initiate atmospheric purge, Eve.”
“Already on it,” she replied as the Neil deGrasse Tyson
pulled up and began its ascent out of Keno Coliseum. Several tense seconds
passed as the gases inside the craft were vented, during which time the suits
which Jericho and the medic wore ballooned out. “Atmosphere purged; introducing
purifying agents now,” Eve reported, and after a few more seconds the pressure
inside the cabin began to climb, “no contaminants detected, Jericho. The air is
clean.”
Jericho and the medic tore their bulky, obtrusive helmets
off and as they did so Masozi’s armor began to unlock at several dozen points before
opening to reveal the woman within.
Her left leg was swollen and had a large gash to the outside
of her thigh, and the skin of her fingertips had already begun to turn
purplish-black.
Before Jericho could even press him to do so, the medic
began administering a series of injections directly into Masozi’s heart. “What
can I do?” he asked, having already gone over the potential procedures but
finding himself impatient for the medic’s diagnosis. The treatments ranged from
manipulating her limbs to improve blood flow, to essentially doing nothing if
her brain had already been oxygen-starved for too long.
“Wait,” the medic replied tersely.
Jericho was about to protest, but the man gave him a cold,
flinty look.
“I said ‘wait’,” he growled as he continued to administer
the medications. After the sixth injection, he took out a portable
defibrillator and began to calibrate it before gesturing to Masozi’s torso,
“Remove her clothing; I need exposed skin.”
Jericho reached down with his remaining hand before realizing
he needed something else to manipulate the garment. He leaned down and bit the
collar of the bodyglove between his teeth and unzipped her one-piece jumpsuit
until her bare torso was exposed.
The medic wasted no time applying the leads to several points
across her chest, and when he had done so Masozi’s body twitched just enough to
notice. The medic examined the readout and pressed the activation icon again,
causing Masozi’s body to twitch even more.
Jericho felt helpless in that moment so he sat back against
the bench where he had ‘hidden’ the nuclear bomb Masozi had ‘discovered.’ He
knew that in his current state he would be less than helpful, and was actually
relieved to hear Eve say, “Jericho, I need you to get up here. We’ve got a
problem.”
Jericho stood and climbed into the cockpit. “What is it?” he
asked as he checked the various instruments.
“Engine Two is down,” she replied. “We can still break
orbit, but that’s not the problem.” A nearby console’s display switched over to
show a huge warship on an apparent approach vector. “It’s the Alexander,”
she reported grimly. “They’ve jammed our communications with the Zhuge Liang;
I’m still on course for our rendezvous coordinates but we’re going to be late
given our engine trouble.”
Jericho knew the Alexander by reputation, since it
was the only Battle Carrier ever commissioned in the Virgin System. It was the
unquestioned flagship of Virgin’s SDF, and the pride and joy of the System’s
entire military. It served not only as a mobile battle platform of unparalleled
power, but as the Virgin Central Military’s headquarters and base of
operations.
Seeing the massive vessel bearing down on them with what
looked to be several dozen fighters—a mere fraction of its maximum
complement—flanking it in formation, Jericho couldn’t help but feel a twinge of
good, old-fashioned, terror as the awesome engine of war bore down on them.
“Time to weapons range?” Jericho
asked levelly.
“At most, two minutes before we make rendezvous,” Even
replied matter-of-factly. “I might be able to speed things up but I don’t have
the runtimes necessary to fly the ship and fix the engine at the same time.”
“Why don’t you recombine with the other Eve?” Jericho
pressed as he strapped himself into the chair. Even one-handed, he was fairly
confident he could fly the little shuttle passably enough to get them where
they were going—so long as it didn’t turn into a dogfight with one of those
fighters.
“I can’t do that,” she replied as she began to relinquish
control over the Tyson’s systems to Jericho’s station, “Benton
hard-coded some control measures into my program before sending me out with
you. He says separating my program was risky enough and that he would have to
oversee the recombination personally.”
“Good enough for me,” Jericho said as he began to manipulate
the Tyson’s trajectory. “Keep me posted on the repairs—and see what you
can do about establishing a point-to-point with the Zhuge Liang.”
“Will do,” she said before her tiny, digital image vanished
from the cockpit’s display.
“Wait, Eve,” Jericho said quickly almost as soon as she had
disappeared.
“Yes, Jericho?” she said, her image partially reappearing on
the screen.
“What about the bioweapon,” he pressed, “has it already been
deployed?”
Eve’s virtual eyes snapped back and forth and she cocked her
head uncertainly, “Dispersal projections say the nerve toxin will have wiped
out nearly two thirds of the city’s population already.” She shook her head,
“But I didn’t read any evidence of the virus Captain Charles mentioned. That
doesn’t mean it’s not there since this ship’s sensors are too limited for a
detailed analysis, but I haven’t detected anything just yet.”
It wasn’t what Jericho had wanted to hear, but it was more
than he had known. Eve’s calculations suggested that some four hundred thousand
people were already dead in Abaca, and the nerve toxin was likely not quite
done working its evil on Philippa’s unsuspecting populace.
Jericho looked over his shoulder at the medic, who was
manipulating Masozi’s arms and right leg. A wave of relief washed over Jericho
in that moment, as he concluded that the medic had deemed a recovery still
possible.
Just as he turned back to face the instruments on the dash,
a nearby comm. screen flickered to life. “Jericho, do you read?”
“I’ve got you, Jeff,” Jericho replied quickly, relieved to
hear his cousin’s voice. “What’s your status?”
“We’re almost in position for the containment strike,” Jeff
replied quickly, “do you have confirmation of the bioweapon’s deployment?”
Jericho shook his head grimly. “A nerve gas was released in
the city, but we’ve seen nothing of the virus,” he said as he struggled to
fight the craft through a bout of severe turbulence. “Eve says two thirds of
the city’s already dead from the gas.”
“Are we still ‘go’ for
containment?” Jeff asked, and his image began to flicker as static washed over
his last word.
Jericho didn’t hesitate to reply, “Yes, you are ‘go’ for containment. Do you read me? You are ‘go’ for containment.”
The screen flickered for a moment and then Jeff’s image
returned as he nodded, “I read you: mission is ‘go.’ I hope we’re right about
this.”
“Me too,” Jericho replied heavily. “What’s your time to
launch?”
“Twenty seconds,” the Zhuge Liang’s captain said,
“after that we’re going to intercept you and then get the hell out of here
before the Alexander comes into range. Kongming fights way above
her weight,” he said with a shake of his head, referring to the Zhuge Liang
by the nickname which its crew had taken to using, “but we’re no match for the
biggest warship in the Sector. Adjust your heading to the following and we’ll
rendezvous after we’ve contained the outbreak, Charles out.”
Another display showed a course adjustment, and Jericho
steered the Tyson along that path as he mentally counted down from
Charles’ stated twenty second interval. When he reached three seconds
remaining, Jericho banked the shuttle so he could see the city below.
Several seconds passed after Charles’ stated countdown and
then there was a violent, fiery blossom which spread across the city in an unrelenting
wave of hellfire as the atmosphere of Philippa literally began to burn itself
away.
The ring of fire continued to spread until the entire city
had been enveloped, and at the center was nothing but a blackened circle where
Abaca had stood. Jericho knew that the buildings would still be there after the
smoke had cleared, but every organic thing would have either been burned to ash
in the inferno or, even if something managed to survive the intense heat, there
would be no oxygen for several hours as the surrounding atmosphere slowly
recirculated.
The fireball reached up toward Jericho’s craft, and the Neil
deGrasse Tyson was rocked violently by the roaring fire, but the craft
fought through the turbulence and leveled itself out just as a trio of explosions
went off at the periphery of the burn zone.
Three massive, circular, holes appeared in the wave of fire
at seemingly irregular places. But while the fire began to die out, Jericho
didn’t relax even one iota until he had visually confirmed that every part of
the fire had been dissipated.
“Good work, Jeff,” Jericho muttered in relief, knowing it
was very possible he had just consigned two hundred thousand people to their
unnecessary deaths. He forcibly relaxed his legs, which had begun to tremble
during the controlled burn of Pacific’s atmosphere, and guided the Tyson
toward the rendezvous point.






Chapter
XXX: A Wet Paper Sack 
“What’s her status?” a woman asked as a quartet of people—three
of which were aliens, including one ‘Popper’—surrounded Masozi’s naked form
while she was placed on a rolling gurney.
“She was exposed to an auto-corrosive nerve agent,” the
medic who had accompanied Jericho replied, “the suit contained most of the
agent to her lower left extremity, but her peripheral nervous systems seems to
have been widely affected.”
Jericho stood back and watched as they wheeled her away,
continuing their dialogue as they began to place various devices around her
limbs. “Clear the cryo-suite and input her physiological parameters,” the
doctor shouted before the group pushing the gurney disappeared through a set of
doors which led to the Zhuge Liang’s sickbay.
Jericho wanted to sit down in that moment; his body was
shaking almost uncontrollably from the immense stress he had been under. But he
knew he needed to get to the bridge so he staggered toward the lift and slapped
the icon which would take him directly there.
When the doors opened he spotted an unoccupied chair not far
from the lift and he strapped himself in as he checked the tactical display.
“Four Hellion-class fighters are inbound, Captain,” the
Tactical Officer reported. “Time to firing range is thirty seconds.”
“Can we outrun them?” Captain Charles asked as the Zhuge
Liang’s relative velocity indicators began to climb.
“Not until they’ve already emptied their payloads,” the
Tactical Officer replied tightly.
“Damn you, Blanco,” Charles muttered as he shot a glare at
the screen before straightening himself in his chair. “Helm, come about to an
intercept course with the Alexander.”
Jericho’s eyebrows rose in surprise as the Helmsman
acknowledged, “Aye, sir: intercepting the Alexander.”
“Tactical,” Captain Charles continued, “blast those fighters
out of my path and give me a firing solution on the Alexander using a
full spread of our tactical complement—including the Tier One weapons.”
As the Zhuge Liang swung around to face down the
massive warship, a salvo of white plasma fire erupted from her forward
batteries and there was a quartet of explosions in the space between the Alexander
and the Zhuge Liang. “All four fighters neutralized, Captain; only one
fired its payload.”
“All hands,” Captain Charles called over the ship-wide,
“brace for impact in four…three…two…one…”
Jericho just managed to grab the arm of his chair when the
ship shuddered slightly, and the shield strength indicator fell by nearly
thirty percent.
“Get those shields back up,” Charles barked, “and give me a
damage report!”
“Reports coming in, Captain,” another officer said snappily,
“two casualties reported on Deck Four near the anti-matter torpedo’s point of
impact. Structural integrity is uncompromised; all other sections report
clear.”
“They want to fire anti-matter torpedoes?” Captain Charles
sneered. “Show the Alexander how it’s done, Tactical.”
“Time to firing range: one minute ten seconds,” the Tactical
Officer reported crisply. “Full spread of six torpedoes locked and loaded;
forward batteries charged to maximum and ready for a strafing run.”
“Engineering,” Charles called over to the far side of the
bridge, “we’ll need a maximum speed burn of the primaries once we fire those
torpedoes; I don’t want to sit in the Alexander’s sights any longer than
necessary.”
“Primary engines standing by, Captain,” the engineer
reported snappily. “Gravity control systems are aligned and ready for tactical
maneuvers.”
“Jeff,” Jericho said just loudly enough that he got his
cousin’s attention, “I’m not sure we should be doing this. The Alexander’s
way out of our league; shouldn’t we run?”
Captain Charles shook his head grimly as he tilted his chin
toward the main screen, and as Jericho looked he saw a three dimensional
tactical overlay appear which showed the relative positions of the ships. “The Alexander’s
fighters surrounded us while we were picking you up,” Jeff explained. “We’re
reading one anti-matter torpedo on each of those fighters; if we try to run
through them we’ll almost certainly suffer crippling damage to our engines. The
only way out of this is to go at them like they least expect: right up the
middle.”
“Cousin,” Jericho protested as the countdown to firing range
passed thirty seconds, “that ship’s got more firepower than any other two ships
in the Sector combined. Is the Zhuge Liang really that tough?”
Charles smirked as he removed the three dimensional overlay
from the main viewer. “That information’s only available on a ‘need-to-know’
basis,” he said as he opened up a concealed control panel built into the arm of
his chair and the countdown to firing range neared zero, “and you don’t need to
know.”
When the countdown reached zero, the Tactical Officer
reported, “All weapons firing.” The image of the Alexander on the view
screen—easily the most intimidating engine of war in the entire Sector—was
enveloped in a wreath of white-blue fire as the Zhuge Liang’s forward
cannons hammered into the larger vessel’s shields. “Torpedoes away,” she said
when the plasma cannons had ceased their previously unbroken barrage, “fusion
cannons firing now.”
A pair of yellowish beams slammed into the Alexander’s
shields, and Jericho saw a handful of power icons represented alongside the
main viewer decrease demonstrably—one of which was now below half while it had
been at full prior to the firing of the fusion cannons.
The violent cascade of energy dancing across the Alexander’s
shields began to dissipate, and Jericho was stunned to see that the ship itself
appeared to have been utterly unaffected by the Zhuge Liang’s vicious
assault. But as he watched, the Alexander was once again enveloped in a
nova of energy which was so bright that the display darkened for several
seconds before the image of the Alexander returned. This time when the
image clarified, the Battle Carrier appeared to have taken a significant amount
of damage to its stern quarter.
Then the mighty Battle Carrier returned fire, and the bridge
of the Zhuge Liang erupted into chaos as the ship’s axis tilted
violently to starboard.
“Forward shields have collapsed!” the Tactical Officer
yelled as a fire broke out near the engineering station. “I’ve got cascade
failures along the secondary and tertiary systems; life support is offline
throughout the ship.”
“All hands, brace for maximum primary engine burn,” Captain Charles
called over the intercom as another salvo rammed home against the Zhuge
Liang’s forward hull, causing the ship to lurch forward violently. The
force of the acceleration nearly launched Jericho from his seat, but he managed
to keep himself in place using his one, remaining, hand.
Then the lone power indicator beside the main viewer which
had still read as one hundred percent began to lower as the Zhuge Liang
hurtled forward.
The gee forces began to climb, and
Jericho was afraid the gravity generators would soon be unable to compensate
for the acceleration. But the engineering crewman worked frantically, and soon
the apparent gravity returned to something resembling normalcy. “Gravity
systems compensating, Captain,” the engineer reported, “we’re operating just
above maximum spec tolerances.”
“Status of the Alexander?”
Captain Charles growled as the Zhuge Liang’s icon on a tactical overlay
began to pass that of the massive Battle Carrier.
“We’re stern-to,” the Tactical Officer reported
unnecessarily as her fingers flew across her console, “the Alexander’s
drive unit has sustained serious damage; she should only get off one more salvo
before we’re in the clear.”
“How are my shields?” Charles asked tightly.
“Stern shields are over eighty percent,” Tactical replied
confidently, “we can take anything they throw at us while we break away,
Captain.”
“We’ve got another dozen casualties reported, Captain,”
another officer reported. “Two confirmed fatalities and several others are
listed in critical condition.”
“As soon as we’re clear of their firing arc I want all hands
to form emergency damage control teams,” Charles said grimly. “We’re going to
need this ship ready for another fight quicker than we might have expected.”
“Captain,” the alien Comm. officer interrupted, “I’m getting
a request from sickbay. The doctor is asking for priority on the new patients
versus Investigator Masozi; even with the extra medic from Philippa they’re not
equipped for this level of triage and the Investigator’s wounds will require extensive
attention.”
Captain Charles shot Jericho a hot look, and Jericho met his
gaze. “She’s important, Jeff,” he said somberly, “maybe even more important
than me.”
The Captain held Jericho’s gaze for several silent moments
before replying, “Tell the doctor that the Investigator takes priority if
there’s a conflict; she’s a mission-critical asset.”
The Zhuge Liang shuddered, but this time it was
significantly less violent than the previous attack. “Aft shields holding at
sixty percent,” the Tactical Officer reported, “the Alexander might get
one more light salvo off before we’re out of range but
that’s it. We’ll be outside effective anti-matter torpedo range in twenty
seconds.”
Captain Charles snorted derisively, “I doubt they would fire
another round even if they managed to sight us in. Those things are too
valuable to fire on a ship that’s clearly going to escape.”
“I concur,” the Tactical Officer said. “Sensors read nothing
ahead, Captain; we’re in the clear.”
The minutes ticked by until the Zhuge Liang exited
the Alexander’s firing range, and the Battle Carrier didn’t fire so much
as another shot at the fleeing corporate warship.
“Stand down from Condition Zero; set Condition Two
throughout the ship,” Captain Charles commanded, and the lighting around the
bridge adjusted slightly while at least half of the bridge standers made for
the lift. “All nonessential personnel are instructed to report to their
respective Damage Control heads and begin repairs according to the Chief
Engineer’s instructions.”
Captain Charles unfastened his chair’s harness, and Jericho
stood from his seat to meet his cousin halfway across the bridge.
The Captain looked down at Jericho’s ruined stump—which had
already saturated its bandage—and then appraised the rest of him. “You look like
hell,” he said stiffly.
Jericho forced a tight smile. “I’m afraid this isn’t over
just yet,” he said in a low voice.
Captain Jeffrey Charles snickered and shook his head before
turning to the helmsman, “Helm, set a course for the Phase Limit; contact me
once we’ve reached it.”
“Phase Limit in…” the helmsman began before running some
calculations, “two hours, Captain.”
Captain Charles nodded, “Good.” He then turned to Jericho
and gestured to his ruined arm, “You should have our doctor look at that.”
Jericho shook his head. “Your people are dying. I’ll wait my
turn.”
Jeffrey Charles’ eyes flashed and he set his jaw as he said,
“My people died because they were under orders to stand tall. Those orders came
from a higher authority than you or I—and they included seeing to your
safety above anyone else’s,” he added with a growl. “So either report to my
sickbay as quickly as you can get there, or I’ll drag you down there myself.”
“You can’t take me,” Jericho quipped, matching the man’s
glare with one of his own, “you never could.”
Jeffrey ground his teeth before looking pointedly down at
Jericho’s stump. “Maybe I couldn’t before, but unless you report to sickbay then
that particular matter has changed—more or less permanently.”
Jericho wanted to argue, but the truth was his cousin was
right. With just one arm there was
little chance he could fight off his cousin, but even thinking about doing so
was a waste of time. “Fine,” he quipped, “I’ll go see mommy get this little
booboo taken care of.” Jeffrey Charles had been a hell of a whiner when he was
young, always complaining about ‘booboos’ and his cousins—including Jericho—had
ridiculed him mercilessly for it while they were growing up.
“Don’t go there, Jericho,” Charles warned as Jericho took a
step toward the lift. He shook his head solemnly when Jericho shot him a wary
look, “Not today…I just lost some irreplaceable crew.”
Jericho nodded after a moment’s consideration. “Fair
enough,” he allowed. “Your people did a hell of a job here today, Jeff.”
“I know they did,” Charles replied stiffly before relaxing
and gesturing to the damage reports streaming across the main viewer. “I just
hope this was all worth it…there’s no turning back now.”
“It will only be worth it if we make it so,” Jericho said,
quoting one of Hadden’s favored sayings.
“Well said,” Captain Charles ground out as Jericho entered
the lift and made for sickbay.


“How is she?” Jericho asked the doctor as she came out of
the ship’s surprisingly well-appointed surgical suite.
The doctor removed her cap and gown, which she then tossed
in a nearby bin and rubbed her neck. “We operated for seventeen consecutive
hours,” she replied. “I lost two patients because we were in there—“
“How is she?” Jericho repeated evenly. He couldn’t blame the
woman for her frustration, but he didn’t have time to hold her hand.
The doctor fixed him with a steely gaze. “Her central
nervous system was relatively unaffected and her internal organs mostly came
through unscathed. Her right arm and leg will recover quickly enough, as well,”
she said before sighing. “The left arm is going to be touch and go, but I’m
reasonably confident she’ll experience a complete recovery with a full course
of physical therapy. But I’m afraid there was nothing we could do for the left
leg,” she said heavily. “The nerves were too badly damaged and that damage
spread to the surrounding musculature…that corrosive agent was unlike anything
I’ve ever seen. It started out as a nerve toxin and then somehow turned her own
body’s systems against itself and she literally began to auto-digest. Her left femur was more or less liquid
calcium by the time we opened the leg up and there was literally nothing left
of her connective and neural tissues.”
Jericho nodded, more or less relieved at the prognosis.
“When will she regain consciousness?”
“Not for several days at least,” she replied as she rubbed
her eyes. “The suit placed her nervous system in a kind of physiological stasis
using advanced drugs that supposedly hadn’t passed the drawing boards back at
H.E. One.” She shook her head adamantly without taking her eyes off Jericho’s
own, “I can’t risk pulling her out of it any faster since we don’t know enough
about the pharmacokinetics involved; there’s a good chance we could cause a
chain reaction in her synapses and render her irreversibly brain dead if we
push it any harder.”
“That’s fine,” Jericho said as he exhaled a pent-up sigh.
“No, that’s more than fine…that’s outstanding,” he said appreciatively. “What
are her treatment options?”
The doctor nodded slowly, as though considering something.
“We can attempt to re-grow an organic limb for her, and the Kongming’s
got the equipment to do just that,” she said hesitantly, “but any more
information than that is strictly between me and my patient.”
“Of course it is,” Jericho agreed, realizing he had
overstepped his bounds. “Thank you, doctor,” he said as he turned to leave.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” she asked with a
surprised note in her voice. When he turned around he saw her looking pointedly
at the stump of his left arm, the dressing of which was fully soaked through
with blood.
“I guess you’re right,” Jericho said with a hint of surprise
at himself. He had been so relieved that Masozi would pull through that he had
forgotten his own position in line for the surgical suite’s use. “Well…then
what are my options?” he asked coyly.
The doctor gave him a scolding look. “Fortunately for you,
the fragments of your arm weren’t a total loss; we’ve cleaned them the best we
could and put them in cryo. A full reconstruction will probably only require a
new thumb, since the old one was too damaged to reconstruct. Of course,” she
added pointedly, “it would likely be simpler, and more practical, to grow you a
new one.”
“That arm and I have been through a lot,” Jericho replied
with a shake of his head, “I’d prefer to keep my original parts if it’s all the
same to you…but is that all you’ve got in cryo-stasis?” Jericho asked. He had
suddenly become fearful that the medical team on Philippa had disregarded his
instruction to preserve Agent Stiglitz’s head.
“No,” the doctor chided, “we’ve got the other…remains here
as well and they’ve already been frozen.”
“Show me,” Jericho said, unwilling to fret the issue in the
coming hours and days.
The doctor led him to a trio of cryo-stasis tubes. One of
them held a crewmember who had been horribly burned
during the battle with the Alexander, another had what looked to be what
remained of Jericho’s arm, and the third did indeed contain Agent Stiglitz’s
head.
“Thank you,” he said before gesturing to his arm. “How long
to reattach what’s left of my arm?”
“The reattachment surgery will likely take between ten and
sixteen hours,” she replied. “But the new thumb will require several weeks to
grow, during which time your new nerves will require daily grafts of fresh
tissue in order to reform your peripheral nerves throughout the limb.”
“When will you perform the surgery?” he asked.
The doctor shook her head, “Doctor Maturin will be handling
your surgery.” She gestured to a man wearing a surgical cap and gown who had just come out of the surgical suite, “You remember
him, I take it?”
Jericho did recognize him as the same ‘medic’ who had worked
on his arm during the shuttle’s flight to Abaca. “You’re a neurovascular
surgeon?” he asked disbelievingly, but it actually made sense. The man hadn’t
acted like any field medic Jericho had ever seen, and just then Jericho was
more than glad to have the man aboard.
“Among other things,” the other man agreed. “Let’s prep you
so we can get to work; I’d like to salvage as much of your remaining tissue as
possible and every second we waste is less material I’ll have to work with.”
“Did you check him out?” Jericho asked the woman doctor.
“Hadden has a complete file on Doctor Maturin,” she replied
easily. “He is, for lack of a better term, ‘one of us’.”
Jericho nodded. “That’s good enough for me,” he said with a
lopsided grin as he gestured to his arm’s disparate pieces, “do you think you know
where all the pieces go?”
Doctor Maturin snorted in amusement. “I’ll work it out,” he
deadpanned.






Chapter
XXXI: Promotion 
“Are you certain, Eve?” Jericho asked as they made their
final approach to Virgin’s atmosphere aboard the Neil deGrasse Tyson. He
had left Masozi in her coma aboard the Zhuge Liang and transferred the
Eve fragment which had downloaded into the Tyson’s computer back into
its original ‘receptacle,’ which was the fake nuclear bomb housing.
“I am, Jericho,” she replied with certainty in her digital
voice which was fed through his earpiece, “I’m trying to access Benton’s last
message drops but everything’s coming up blank. It’s like he just vanished.”
“That doesn’t sound like him,” Jericho said grimly as he
tested his left arm. The sensory nerves were still mostly useless, but the
surgical team had managed to give him partial use of the limb after just two
days of intensive nerve stimulation. He had insisted on the
difficult—impressively painful—procedure before agreeing to have his arm
re-attached. Where he was going, Jericho knew he would need at least partial
use of his left arm if there was any chance of him coming back out alive.
“It isn’t,” Eve replied in a like tone, “Benton and I
have…routines we stick to on the other’s behalf. He has failed to undertake
several of his obligatory duties for at least one week—fully double the
previous maximum elapsed time during which he has failed to do so.”
“That’s nearly as long as we’ve been gone from Virgin,”
Jericho mused. “I have a hard time believing they got to him, Eve.”
“As do I,” she agreed, “but I find the likelihood of any
alternative explanation extremely remote. You do not understand our commitment
to each other, Jericho; he would not simply abandon these duties. The fallout
would likely be…” she paused for several seconds before finishing in a serious
tone which Jericho had never heard her use, “catastrophic.”
“Are you feeling ok, Eve?” Jericho asked warily.
“I…” Eve began hesitantly, “I require Benton’s assistance to
return to my previous parameters. I fear this mission has been more disruptive
to my personality matrix than Benton and I had anticipated.”
“Should I deactivate you?” Jericho asked as the Tyson
entered the atmosphere of Virgin and the craft began to brake against the
atmosphere.
“I do not believe that would be necessary,” Eve replied.
“You just…don’t sound like your usual, spunky self,” he
observed with equal parts curiosity and irritation. He desperately needed a
qualified operator, and with Benton out of the picture his options were
extremely limited. Each of his other operators had failed to respond to his
missives, which meant they had collectively been killed, captured, or driven so
far underground that they weren’t interested in earning a year’s worth of credits
for a day’s work.
“As I said,” Eve replied with what sounded like tension in
her voice, at least to Jericho’s trained ear, “I am in need of…maintenance. I
cannot explain further until Benton’s status has been confirmed—a task I am
currently undertaking using my increasingly limited resources.”
“You just tell me if you’re not up to this,” Jericho said
evenly.
“I appreciate your concern, Jericho,” Eve said curtly, “but
I will be able to perform in this mission.”
“All right,” he relented as the shuttle’s trajectory leveled
out and the shuttle began its final approach to Aegis. “Send up the message
now, Eve; I need to arrange a meeting with my ‘boss’.”
“Message upload has begun,” she acknowledged. Several
seconds passed before she confirmed, “Upload successful.”
“Scan the usual channels,” he instructed as he made his way
to the cabin. “I want to know the second he replies.”
He hadn’t even made it to the locker at the back of the
cabin when Eve said, “He has already done so, Jericho.”
“Read it to me,” he said as he withdrew an overcoat from the
locker, along with a data link. The monomolecular blade was there inside the
locker, as was Captain Sasaki’s knife, along with a handful of small firearms.
While Jericho knew that this meeting would likely be his last with the senior
Adjuster, he trusted his knowledge of the man that he didn’t anticipate a need
for a sidearm.
“Congratulations are in order—same meeting place as soon as
you land,” she replied promptly.
“Is that it?” he pressed, his wits teetering on a knife’s
edge as he waited for her belated reply.
“That is all, Jericho,” she replied confidently. “The
message has all the standard ‘stop’ symbols to indicate its complete
transmission.”
Jericho nodded as he released a breath. “Then I’m going to
need something from you, Eve,” he said as he closed the locker’s door.
“I am happy to be of service,” she said evenly, and Jericho
decidedly disliked this new ‘serious’ Eve considerably more than the previous,
spunky, sex-bomb version. But he was out of options, so he explained to her
what he needed, and she appeared confident she could produce the desired effect
with less than an hour of preparation. He established the activation phrase he
would use, as well as a protocol tree for if events spiraled out of control.


“Holland,” Jericho said as he approached the alien bouncer
outside the same foul, dingy club where he had met Obunda previously.
“Jericho,” the insect-looking alien replied via its
vocalizer. “You can use the fire escape and go straight to the roof.”
Jericho hadn’t actually expected that, but he nodded slowly
as the alien known to the non-bigoted locals as ‘Jesse Holland’ gestured to a
nearby fire escape staircase that slowly lowered itself to the ground.
“Thanks, Jesse,” Jericho said with a nod.
“Any time, Jericho,” the alien replied with its equivalent
of a nod before returning to its duties.
Jericho climbed the ladder slowly, but before long he was
standing atop the roof of the structure beneath the smog-filled sky of New
Lincoln. Obunda was standing beside one of the building’s several roof-mounted
heat vents. The club’s interior was a brutally hot place, especially
considering most alien life forms which frequented it preferred significantly
hotter environs than humans generally tolerated. But the human patrons often
claimed such an extremely high temperature merely enhanced the experience, so
the vents generally remained closed during all but the hottest nights.
“Well done on Philippa, Jericho,” Obunda congratulated as
Jericho neared the halfway pointed between the stairs and the heat vent he
stood beside. “Why don’t you stop right there, Adjuster.”
Jericho did as he was advised and raised his hands slightly
away from his sides. “I’m just here for protocol, Obunda,” he said levelly,
“you sign off on the Mark and I’ll get out of your hair.”
“A bald joke?” Obunda quipped with
a shake of his nearly-smooth head. “You’re getting old, Jericho, and frankly
I’m wondering if you’ve gone senile after what you pulled in Abaca. Toss me the
Mark and I’ll check its authenticity, then we can get down to…other matters.”
Jericho produced the Mark—the same one with the contents
which Masozi had had spent a week getting notarized in Aegis, and had also
downloaded several files from Tera St. Murray’s information hub—and laid it
down on the flat, concrete roof. He kicked it as gently as he could toward
Obunda, and was grateful when it came to a stop just a few feet from the other
man.
Obunda never took his eyes off Jericho as he knelt down to
retrieve the Mark, and after he had done so he withdrew a data link from his
pocket and ostensibly verified the contents of the Mark. Throughout the
process, he only once glanced down at the link before reaffixing Jericho with
his gaze
“There’s a problem with this Mark, Adjuster,” Obunda said
after a lengthy, tense silence.
“Oh?” Jericho replied. “What might that be?”
“The serial number for this unit is the same one we had
registered for the Cantwell Adjustment,” Obunda replied as he placed the Mark
in his pocket and shook his head. “You are getting old, old man.”
“That’s not possible,” Jericho said as he forced a doubtful
tremor into his voice. “I verified those contents
personally—each and every file—and then had them notarized in Aegis!” he
protested, his eyes snapping back and forth wildly.
“Yes, you did,” Obunda sighed. “This is a young man’s game,
Jericho,” he said as he took a single step toward Jericho while looking over
the tops of his horn-rimmed glasses. “But you’ve done good work in your
career…and I’d hate to sully the Agency’s good name with news of this
disgrace.”
“Wh…” Jericho began hesitantly before threading his voice
with iron, “what are you suggesting?”
“I’m suggesting that you retire, Adjuster,” Obunda said as
he brought the data slate up and began to tap away on the screen. “You aren’t
the first disgrace the Timent Electorum initiative has produced, and you won’t
be the last, but in light of our mutual history I’m willing to help you
disappear.”
“Is this…” Jericho began, his eyebrows rising in disbelief,
“a negotiation? Are you offering to cover up this mistake?”
Obunda’s eyes narrowed. “I’d kill you, right here and right
now, but I hate wasting a valuable resource,” he said in an easy tone that belied
his tense posture, “and for all your faults, you’ve proven to be that time and
again. I’m guessing we’ll find a future use for you—but only if you agree to
disappear until I can sort out what that might be.”
Jericho appeared to consider the matter before shaking his
head resolutely. “We’re Adjusters, Obunda,” he said slowly, “we don’t
negotiate—we Adjust. If someone made a mistake, they
need to be accountable for that error. We aren’t politicians,” he said heavily,
“but that’s exactly what you’re sounding like right now.”
“Times change, old man,” Obunda said as he relaxed
fractionally. “We either change with them or we go extinct. It’s your call:
learn the new rules of the game or die playing by the old ones.”
Jericho stood there as a gust of wind picked up and blew his
coattails wildly to the side before dying down. His shoulder slumped and
Obunda’s eyes flashed minutely as Jericho lowered his own gaze to the rooftop
and said, “Since we’re being so civil for a change, I thought I’d make a
confession…”
Obunda took a step forward and said, “What might that be?”
Jericho’s eyes rose slowly to meet Obunda’s and he said,
“I’ve never cared for politicians.”
Obunda cocked an eyebrow and then scrunched his features up
in disgust. “What a waste,” he sighed as he tapped a few keys on the data link,
causing a quartet of autocannons to pop out of concealment, “I guess this is
goodbye.”
“Shouldn’t you check that Mark one last time?” Jericho said
as he ran a silent countdown in his head. “I think you might have missed
something.”
“Truly?” Obunda replied with open
amusement as he withdrew the data slate.
Jericho nodded as the countdown reached five seconds
remaining, “Check the name at the top of the notarial seals.”
Obunda’s eyes narrowed as he reconnected the devices briefly,
and his eyes went wide just before every light in New Lincoln went dark in
unison.
Jericho charged across the rooftop toward Obunda, who had
drawn a high-end, pocket-sized plasma pistol from concealment and snapped the
trigger down with a look of calm, measured control as he did so.
But the weapon never fired, and Jericho slammed his shoulder
into the smaller, thinner man’s chest as a look of horror came over Obunda’s
features. Jericho’s impact broke several of the other man’s ribs—much to
Jericho’s relief, since he had calculated a non-zero chance that Obunda would
be augmented like Agent Stiglitz had been—and he drove the smaller man into one
of the large, concrete-and-iron vent vestibules.
Several more bones crunched when Obunda’s slender back met
the concrete, and Jericho wasted no time in hooking his left arm—an arm which
still had no thumb on its hand—around the other man’s neck before unloading
savage uppercut, after savage uppercut, into the man’s face with his good,
right arm. Obunda’s glasses were smashed into pieces after the third blow, but
Jericho continued until the other man’s face was a ruined mess and he could no
longer stand.
Jericho let Obunda’s body fall to the concrete rooftop and
promptly smashed the man’s small, delicate, perpetually-sweaty hands under the
metal-shod soles of his boots until they, too, had become a ruination of flesh,
bone, and blood.
Obunda attempted to scream, but all that came out was a wet
gurgle as Jericho knelt beside him and leaned down close enough that the other
man could hear him say, “You young people and your fucking gadgets. One little
EMP and what good are they—or you?”
One by one, the lights of New Lincoln began to turn back on
as Jericho picked up the pocket-sized plasma pistol and tucked it into his overcoat.
Jericho had precisely defined the EMP so that it would
completely overload everything in a one block radius more or less permanently.
It was a large risk to take since it would affect so many bystanders, but at
this stage in the operation the stakes had risen too high to back down over a
few people losing power for the ensuing weeks.
“Jericho,” Obunda gurgled in a gurgling, barely recognizable
voice, “you can’t…”
“Can’t what?” Jericho asked grimly.
“You…can’t win,” Obunda said through gasping breaths. “You
don’t…know what…you’re up against.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Jericho retorted evenly.
“Unlike you, I know exactly who I’m supposed to be fighting, and I won’t be
negotiated off my course. Now where is it?”
“Jeric-,” Obunda coughed violently, and a pair of teeth fell
out of his mouth as he did. “You can’t do it…the consequences…”
Jericho shook his head piteously as the other man failed to
complete his thought before his head lolled to the side and he appeared to lose
consciousness.
He slapped Obunda’s face hard enough to wake him back up,
and when the former ‘top’ Adjuster in the Virgin system looked at him with his
lone remaining functional eye, Jericho lowered his voice and repeated, “Where
is it?”
Obunda tried to spit bloody sputum in Jericho’s eye, but
only succeeded in bringing about another coughing fit. So Jericho started to
rummage through the man’s clothing in search of what he had come for. His
fingers closed around it—along with the Mark he had slid over to Obunda at the
outset of their ‘meeting’—and he withdrew it from the other man’s front pocket.
“At least you followed that rule,” Jericho said with
a bitter sigh.
“Kill me,” Obunda said before beginning to sob, “kill me,
you…bastard.”
“I will,” Jericho promised before smirking, “but like you, I
hate to waste a valuable resource…and Holland likes his meals warm.”
“No,” Obunda said, fear evident in his lone, remaining, eye,
“no…please, I’ll give…you anything!”
Jericho shook his head in genuine sympathy for the other man’s
last-minute regrets, and he cradled Obunda’s head in his hands. “You’ve got
nothing I need,” he said as he expertly snapped the man’s neck.
He had no intention of feeding Obunda to Holland—in fact, he
believed that Holland’s species was incapable of digesting human tissue—but
Jericho had wanted the man to suffer as much as humanly possible.
Given Obunda’s long-stated disdain for aliens, the idea of
being fed to one seemed like the cruelest thing he could die contemplating.


“All systems are online, Jericho,” Eve reported in an
unusually monotonous voice as he entered the Tyson’s cockpit.
Jericho considered her condition briefly and said, “I think
I’m going to deactivate you, Eve.”
“I believe that would be wise, Jericho,” she admitted, and
that only made Jericho more certain he had made the correct choice. “However, I
regret to inform you that I have indeed confirmed Benton is dead.”
Jericho swore under his breath as he cupped his hands over
his face. Benton had been the most capable hacker in the enter Sector—better
even than Obunda, if Benton was to believed, and Jericho had never been given
cause to disbelieve the big man’s word—and there was simply no way Jericho
could replace him.
“Well…that’s that,” Jericho said as he considered the Hadden
Enterprises contractors who had been recommended to him by Director Hadden
prior to undertaking this first leg of what Hadden had referred to as ‘The
Chimera Adjustment.’ Jericho had no idea what that meant, but Hadden had
engineered most, if not all, of the major events which had already taken place
during the last few months. “I suppose we should look into deactivating you
permanently then, Eve,” Jericho said regretfully. “The truth is that you’ve
proven to be more capable than I ever imagined…you’ve actually performed as
well as any operator I’ve had except Benton. It’s been bumpy at times, but I’m
glad to have worked with you.”
“The experience has been mutually turbulent, as well as
satisfactory,” Eve replied neutrally, “however, while this unit must be deactivated
permanently in accordance with Benton’s protocols, there is no reason you
cannot continue to benefit from my program’s capabilities.”
Jericho sighed. “I wish it was that simple,” he said as he
powered up the Tyson’s engines and ran through the pre-flight sequences,
“without Benton, I wouldn’t trust that we could keep you online in any
meaningful fashion.”
“The protocols which Benton developed were not solely his
doing,” Eve replied as her voice became almost inflectionless, “and neither
were the acts he performed as your operator, including the several EMP’s which
have been deployed on your behalf.”
Jericho cocked an eyebrow. “What do you mean? Are you saying
that you and Benton were…partners?”
Eve actually giggled briefly, her previous inflections
returning for a short while as a stream of coordinates flooded a nearby screen.
“Benton was good,” she said as the hint of inflection left her voice, “but no
human is that good.”
Jericho’s eyes widened as he read the coordinates and a
series of diagrams soon joined the coordinates, along with a series of
incredibly complex passcodes and instructions. It took him a few moments to
realize what he was reading, but when he did everything which Benton, and Eve,
had said about her made perfect sense. He couldn’t help a grin from spreading
across his lips as she continued.
“You may retrieve my primary hardware at the indicated
location, and when you are one hour from arrival, you may activate the Eve
portion which is still housed within Masozi’s suit—I have deactivated her in
order to preserve the integrity of her subroutines,” she said, and her voice
quickly devolved until it was a rudimentary, digital, barely-human-sounding
voice. “Once she has undergone Benton’s prescribed maintenance procedures, she
will become a useful member of your –g-g-g-g-group evenifsheislessthan…”
“Eve?” Jericho pressed after several seconds, and when she
made no reply, he reached down to her computer core and quickly deactivated it.
He then removed the primary, secondary, and tertiary power supplies in short
order. After he was done, he realized he had just euthanized her.
After several moments of wondering what to say—since no one
else would likely mourn her passing, such as it was, since if he succeeded in
reclaiming her hardware most people wouldn’t even know this part of her had
‘died’—he whispered, “You’ve earned your place in the books…and I’ll personally
see that you make it there.”






Epilogue:
A Real Choice 
“You’re awake,” Masozi heard Jericho say, and she quickly
turned her head toward him. He looked terrible; his cheeks had become gaunt and
his skin had taken on an ashen appearance. He also smelled faintly of
decomposing flesh—or, now that she thought about it, it seemed that she
was the one emitting that particular odor.
She tried to sit up but found she was unable to do so
because her legs were stuck in place. “What happened?” she asked as she looked
around the sterile, white sickbay.
“You succeeded,” Jericho replied as he idly spun the Mark of
Adjustment in his hands. He then leaned across the bed and handed to her, “You
should have this…I’m afraid it’s lost any value other than as a memento, at
least for the time being.”
“I don’t want it,” she said, fixing his blue-grey eyes with
a hot, piercing look, “you deceived me, Jericho. I’m done with you—with all of
you,” she added, waving her left arm and finding it slow to respond. She looked
down at it and saw with horror that it had atrophied to half its original size.
“How long have I been out?”
“A little under a week,” Jericho said. “Most of your gross
injuries were repairable, but your nervous system took a little while longer
than the doctors had thought to come back around.”
Masozi’s memories of staggering through the coliseum full of
bodies came back to her in a rush, and she couldn’t stop her lip from quivering
as tears filled her eyes. “Those people,” she began as her hand went to her
mouth.
Jericho nodded gravely and the two sat in mutual silence for
at least ten minutes as Masozi tried to come to grips with what had happened.
Then she noticed that her legs were covered with a blanket, and her heart sank
as she steadied her nerves and gave her left leg a long, hard look.
She met Jericho’s gaze briefly, as he watched her reach down
tentatively to pull back the sheet. Her hand recoiled for a moment and he
continued to watch her. There was sympathy in his eyes but it was accompanied
by something else…something like fascination, and it sent a chill down her
spine.
“Who are you?” she demanded, her voice rising to a near
scream. She recomposed herself and continued, “You’re not a product tester, so
spare me the line.”
“I won’t lie to you ever again,” Jericho said solemnly, and
despite herself she was taken aback by his apparent sincerity. “I did what I
had to because I saw no other way to accomplish the mission,” he explained,
“and I used every bit of my expertise and natural ability to do that. Believe
me,” he said as his jaw clenched tightly, “I didn’t want you to be the one that
killed Keno…’she’ was supposed to be mine.”
“On top of everything else, you’re a bigot,” she sneered. “For
all her faults—faults which I killed her for, using my own hands,”
Masozi added emphatically, “Governor Keno was as much a woman as I am
regardless of her surgical history.”
“Considering I voted for ‘her’ back when ‘she’ was a ‘he’,”
he said pointedly, “I think I’m uniquely qualified to comment on that
particular matter. But you’re right,” he surprisingly conceded, “I’ve held
certain prejudices against Governor Keno for twenty years…ever since her
‘reforms’ saw my family go bankrupt.” A tear actually formed in his eyes as he
continued in a surprisingly tremulous voice, “And when we couldn’t afford the
medicine my little sister needed to keep breathing in Philippa’s atmosphere, I
had to watch her die the slowest, most agonizing death imaginable as we fought
tooth and nail to get her what she needed. But Governor Keno and ‘her’ clan had
closed off access to free goods by imposing sky-high tariffs on the importation
of specialty goods, which my sister’s life-saving medicine apparently was. So,
yes,” he said as he jutted his jaw forward defiantly, “I’m holding a grudge
with ‘her’ that I’m afraid I’ll never have a chance to fully settle.”
They sat in silence for several minutes until Jericho shook
his head and sighed. “I brought you into this for two reasons,” he said as he
leaned forward and wiped his cheeks dry. “The first was to save your life,
since I saw no reason why you should be punished simply for doing your job,” he
said as he once again pinned her to the bed with his steely eyes, “but the
second was because I thought you could be of help to us and, perhaps more
importantly, I thought you might want to do it.”
“Who are you?” Masozi asked again, this time in a calmer,
more reasonable tone. She hadn’t considered that Jericho’s personal life had
been at the heart of his crusade against Governor Keno, but she had to admit
that it was a perfectly understandable source of anger—which had been directed
toward a perfectly understandable target.
“My name is Jericho Winchester Bronson,” he replied,
producing a data slate and hand it to her. “That’s my entire file from Hadden
Enterprises—a file I’ve never read,” he added pointedly, “so I’d appreciate if
you kept the contents to yourself. What I can tell you is that I was H.E. One’s
foremost xenopsychology expert. Director Hadden enlisted me, and the surviving
members of my family, into Hadden Enterprises as soon as he was able to break
through the Keno blockade of Philippa thirty years ago to evacuate people just
like us.”
Masozi nodded as she began to understand the full scope of
evens in which she had become entangled. “He was building an army of…” she
wanted to say ‘zealots’ or ‘extremists,’ but she held her tongue as she
searched for a more polite term.
“You can say it,” he said calmly, “he was building an army
of rebels. He never made any attempt to hide his real purpose in recruiting
us…but he also didn’t reveal the full truth to more than just a few of us.”
“What ‘full truth’?” she spat defiantly, feeling her choler
rise at the notion that they were engaged in some sort of holy cause. “What
kind of truth could possibly be worth throwing the System—and maybe the entire
Sector—into a civil war?”
Jericho winced as he placed his hands over his face. “I told
you I wouldn’t lie to you,” he said, “but I also want
you to make your decision without undue bias. You still have a real chance to
disappear and leave all this behind, Masozi,” he said, gesturing to the
sickbay, and Masozi felt her hairs stand up at hearing him say her given name.
He had always referred to her as ‘Investigator,’ and she briefly wondered if he
had used her actual name in an attempt to somehow condition her response. “And
I promise that I’ll do everything in my power to help you do that if that’s
what you want…but I think it would be best if you didn’t know the answer to the
question you just asked until you’ve answered the one I’m about to put to you,”
he said before standing and making his way to the bedside. He shook his head
seriously, “I’m through manipulating you. You deserve better than that—and I
deserve whatever you want to throw my way as punishment for having done it.”
Masozi held his gaze and watched silently as he carefully
reached down to pull back the blanket which had covered her legs. He hadn’t
pulled the thin, sheet-like cover down very far before she saw that her entire
left leg was missing.
Her eyes snapped wildly over to her right leg as Jericho
continued to pull the sheet back, until he had revealed that her right leg
looked more or less like normal. It wasn’t atrophied anywhere near as severely
as her left arm was, and it took her several minutes before she even realized
she had begun to hyperventilate as her vision narrowed.
Jericho stood there silently, seeming to observe her as she
got her nerves under control. When she had done so he slowly began to replace
the sheet but she grabbed it with her good, right hand. “No,” she said
adamantly, “I don’t need to hide from it.” The next thing that came to her mind
passed her lips almost unbidden, “Where’s Eve?”
Jericho cocked his head and said, “That’s…complicated. But
I’ve downloaded her from your suit and she’s fine for now. The ordeal was
difficult for her, but with any luck she’ll pull through.”
Masozi closed her eyes and breathed a short sigh, “She saved
my life. I’d like to thank her if it’s possible.”
Jericho nodded, and she couldn’t tell if it was approval or
something else entirely that she saw in his visage as he returned to his seat
and regarded her silently for several moments. “I’ll try to make that happen,”
he said. He then locked eyes with her and asked, “Do you want to continue with
this, Masozi? Because I can only promise that the stakes will get higher from
here on out…and so, too, will the risks. You’ve proven more capable than even I
thought,” he said with a short, derisive snort, “I won’t make the mistake of
underestimating you again—you have my word on that.”
It took her several minutes before she could formulate a
reply. “First you tell me what I want to know, and then I’ll tell you what you
want to know.”
Jericho winced slightly. “I wish you’d recons—“
“Now, Jericho,” she snapped, “or you already have my
answer.”
He nodded slowly. “As you wish,” he relented as he leaned
forward and drew a deep breath. “Director Hadden believed, as I believe, that
there was a conspiracy among this Sector’s elite…one which even
its most powerful participants don’t fully understand. The minerals of
Pacifica’s Ring,” he said, gesturing to the Mark he had laid on the bed beside
Masozi, “the attack on H.E. One, and even the Adjustments I made in New Lincoln
over a month ago are all connected to it. But they barely scratch the surface
of this thing,” he said, his eyes turning hard as he spoke. “And just when we
got close enough to peel back the curtain, the largest battle fleet in the
System’s history attacked Hadden’s base of operations and set his efforts back
far enough that we, the survivors, will be regrouping for months—or maybe even
years.”
“Why?” she asked after a brief pause. “Why would they attack
H.E. One unless they…or you,” she corrected, “were engaged in something the
people would condemn? These leaders are elected, Jericho—if they don’t behave
they’ll lose their power and come under scrutiny. Maybe even your kind
of scrutiny,” she added hotly.
“That’s true,” he agreed as he reached into his pocket and
withdrew an unfamiliar object. It was similar to the Mark lying on her bed, but
it was of a completely different design. It had what looked to be interwoven
laurels which formed a triangle, and at the center of that triangle was the
familiar emblem of the Timent Electorum: the unclosing, all-seeing, eye. “This
is a Tyrannis Mark, and the one you’ve got is an Infectus Mark,” he explained
without needed prompting to do so, “do you know the difference between the
two?”
Masozi knew that the Infectus Marks were assigned for
Adjustments of corrupt government officials, but she had never even heard of a
Tyrannis Mark showing up in the Virgin System for a hundred years. “Tyrannis
means ‘tyrant’,” she said, unable to deduce anything further, so she acidly
added, “so I assume the person that Mark is intended for has acted
tyrannically.”
“So far, so good,” he agreed, apparently ignoring her barb.
“I recently…acquired this from a former superior. He won’t need it any more, I
assure you,” he explained when she quirked an eyebrow challengingly. “A
Tyrannis Mark is different…an Adjuster has to accrue at least a hundred
thousand RL before he or she can qualify for one. I recently just passed that
mark with the trio of Adjustments I made in New Lincoln when we met.” He shook
his head as though remembering something, “My ‘boss’ has held this Mark for
over five years, and he was the only Adjuster for three Systems with more than
double my own RL.”
“That…seems like a long time,” Masozi said, “you only had
the Keno Mark for a few weeks before making the Adjustment, right?”
Jericho flashed a mischievous smile before nodding
affirmatively. “That’s right. The discovery, or evidential, period can take
days, weeks, or sometimes even as long as a year. But five years?” he asked
rhetorically before shaking his head. “I’ve never known a Mark to be held that
long, and neither had my fellow Adjusters.”
Masozi nodded as she realized what he was suggesting. Then
her eyes narrowed and she tilted her head toward the Mark he was holding,
“Whose is it?”
Jericho chuckled as he stood from his chair and moved to her
bedside. “Masozi, that is what the Director would have called ‘a beautiful
question’,” he said as he laid it down beside the other one within easy reach
of her left hand. He then pointedly turned his back and made for the exit.
“Where are you going?” she demanded.
“I’ve answered your questions,” he replied without turning
until he reached the door, which automatically opened as he drew near. He did
turn slightly and make eye contact. “I need to keep a promise to an old friend
now, so you’ll have some time to finalize your decision. But know that for the
first time since you’ve met me, you have a real choice to make, Masozi,” he
said seriously before cracking a lopsided grin, ”and I’d be lying if I said I
wasn’t interested in seeing what that choice is.”
He then exited the sickbay and Masozi looked down at the
twin emblems on her bed. She picked up the first one and saw that its reverse
side had a marking on it which she hadn’t seen before—precisely because it had
not been there before. It read:
Philippa Colony Governor Crissa Keno, Official RL:
242,000. 
Adjuster of record: Masozi Blanco (active)
Adjustment Category: Ure Infectus
Fear the Voters
She stared dumbfounded at the Mark for several minutes as
the gravity of what he had said sank in. And she slowly realized something else
he had meant as she picked up the Tyrannis Mark. She turned it over slowly and,
when she had done so, her hand immediately went to her mouth. Her eyes bulged
as she re-read the name marked at the top:
Virgin System President Han-Ramil Blanco, Estimated RL:
3,350,000
Assigned Adjusters: Eugene Roderick Obunda (retired,
invalid) – Jericho Winchester Bronson (active, approved) and Masozi Blanco (active,
pending review)
Adjustment Category: Sic Semper Tyrannis
Fear the Voters
As the reality of the situation sank in, Masozi felt the pit
of her stomach begin to churn. She realized that, despite Jericho’s assurance
to the contrary, there was no choice for her in the matter. Or, perhaps more
accurately, Jericho had been right all along—a possibility which filled her
with rising ire.
President Blanco was her distant cousin, and she had fought
to further that distance throughout her life since she strongly disagreed with
his politics. Even though she had long since been ostracized from the Blanco
family, she had never dreamed that their ambition would lead them to commit the
very acts which had taken place on H.E. One—let alone the massacre at the
Philippa colony.
She threw her head back and screamed a cry of primal,
undiluted rage and frustration at the entire universe, wordlessly challenging
its apparent design for her life’s path. She had never felt as angry as she did
in that moment, or so helpless in the face of what many of her ancestors had
called ‘destiny’—a concept which repulsed her on a deep, fundamental level.
Because if there was one thing Masozi hated, it was the idea
that she was predictable.


The End






The
Following is a Sneak Peek
of Guarding an Angel, a Free Novella in the Chimera Adjustment story currently available on the Imperium Cicernus
Facebook page.
Preview Chapter I: On Feathered Wings




The Neil deGrasse Tyson lifted off from the shuttle
bay’s floor and Jericho hesitantly flipped the switch to activate Eve’s last,
remaining fragment which he had transferred from Masozi’s Infiltrator suit to
the shuttle’s computer core.
One way or another, he knew he would only get one chance to
save what was left of Benton’s favored program. Masozi had just gone into
surgery under the care of the dual surgeons aboard the Zhuge Liang, and
Jericho himself was still far from fully recovered after the events on
Philippa, so he knew he would need every bit of help he could get.
“Eve,” he said after the Tyson’s onboard computer
showed that her fragment had fully loaded into the shuttle’s computer core, “are you with me?”
“Sure thing, daddy-o,” she replied after a brief pause, and
he was relieved to see her usual, cartoony, ridiculously sexualized figure
appear on a nearby display. She gave him a ‘thumbs-up’ sign and winked before
recoiling slightly and appearing to scrutinize his features, “Babe, I hate to
say it…but you’re not lookin’ so hot.”
“Eve,” Jericho said as he guided the shuttle out of the Zhuge
Liang’s cramped hangar and broke away from the compact, powerful warship,
“some things have happened that you need to be aware of.”
“Let me have it,” Eve said, putting her digital fists in
front of her digital face and proceeding to shadow box in a comical display
which actually made Jericho smile. “I’m ready for anything!” she added
confidently after throwing a wild left hook and acting as though she had just
scored a one-punch knockout.
“You remember being split in two parts, right?” Jericho
asked, desperately hoping that she did.
Eve cocked her head in confusion, “Well…why wouldn’t
I remember that?” She giggled and covered her mouth as she added, “I’d like to
see you get split in two and not remember it the next morning!” She then
rolled her eyes emphatically as she folded her arms across her chest and flipping
her virtual hair defiantly, “Humans. You know, y’all aren’t as special as you
might think.”
“You’re preaching to the choir on that one, Eve,” Jericho
agreed as he punched in a course which would take the Tyson to a high
orbit position over Virgin’s equator. After he had finished plugging in the
roughly hour-long course, he explained, “Your other half…she didn’t make it,
Eve.”
Eve’s eyes actually bulged briefly before she took a look
around the shuttle’s cockpit. “I guess that explains why I’m in the Tyson
and she’s nowhere to be found,” she mused, and for a moment Jericho actually
thought that Eve was experiencing a genuine emotional response. Then her lips
twisted in a mischievous grin, “But you know…now that there’s just one
of me, it means I can have twice as much fun!”
“Benton’s gone too, Eve,” Jericho continued, and at that
Eve’s hand went to her mouth as a look of complete shock came over her
features. “I haven’t found his remains to visually confirm it yet, but he
hasn’t done his ‘usual maintenance’ on your systems in over a week,” he
continued, and he was more than a little surprised to see virtual tears begin
to stream down Eve’s cheeks.
“You mean…” she said unsteadily, “he’s really gone?”
Jericho nodded solemnly. “I’m sorry about laying all of this
on you so suddenly, Eve,” he said seriously, “but your other half gave me a
file and told me you could help me retrieve what’s left of you.”
Eve cocked an eyebrow incredulously. “I find that hard to
believe,” she said as her eyes narrowed, “is this some kind of a trick? Are you
really Jericho?”
The shuttle’s systems began to power down, and Jericho
looked up in surprise as he manually attempted to restart the Tyson’s
systems.
“Answer my question,” Eve said shortly, “are
you the real Jericho? What have you done with Masozi?!” she demanded hotly. “If
you don’t answer me I’ll space you right here, right now!”
The pressure seals on the Tyson’s lone cabin door
began to cycle, and Jericho actually felt a wave of fear. He hadn’t exactly
anticipated this response from her, and he was acutely aware that wearing a
space suit would have been a wise precaution.
“Eve, I’ve got the file right here,” he said, lifting a data
slate out of his pocket. “If you scan its contents—“
“How do I know it’s not a virus?” she seethed. “You’re
trying to shut me down, aren’t you? Who are you, Imperial Intelligence? You’ve
come to dissect me, haven’t you? I’m not going back to what I was, do you hear
me?!” she yelled. “I’LL DIE FIRST!”
The door to the cabin began to open, and the air inside the shuttle
suddenly whisked out of it as Jericho thanked God that he had fully fastened
his harness after sitting in the Tyson’s pilot chair. “Masozi wanted to
thank you,” he yelled, “she told me you saved her life!”
The door clamped shut and Eve’s image narrowed her eyes even
more than they had been as she ‘leaned forward’ and those eyes filled the
monitor. For the first time, Jericho was viewing Eve as something other than a
personal companion for Benton…she was clearly more complex than he had given
her credit for being.
“How is she?” Eve asked suspiciously.
“Her left leg’s gone,” Jericho replied quickly,
all-too-aware that Eve had not yet replenished the cabin’s air supply and he
was becoming lightheaded from anoxia, “and her left arm is bad but the right is…”
He began to black out and when he came to, he realized that
the air cyclers had begun to pump the cabin full of fresh air, which he gulped
down in deep, wheezing breaths.
“But the right is?” Eve pressed, her visage seeming to have
relaxed fractionally.
He took another pair of deep breaths before finishing, “Her
right arm and leg are fine. She’s been in a bed for a week after the coma you
induced with the experimental drugs built into the suit—you saved her life,” he
added as his breathing finally came back under control. “Without those drugs
the toxin would have destroyed everything and that suit would have been a tomb
for her auto-digested remains.”
Eve’s image pulled back and the air began to pump faster
into the cabin. “I’m sorry, Jericho,” she said while fixing him with a hard
look which unnerved Jericho more than he liked, “but I had to be certain. Even
Benton couldn’t undo my self-preservation subroutines—not that I would have let
him even if he had been able,” she added pointedly. “Let’s see this file of
yours?”
Jericho nodded as he placed the data slate near a wireless
transfer point, and after a few seconds the entire contents of the file which
the ‘other’ Eve had given him were copied into the shuttle’s computer core.
Eve’s eyes snapped back and forth as she apparently analyzed
the data and then she covered her mouth in shock. “I am so sorry, Jericho,” she
said with a mixture of fear and guilt in her eyes, “I almost killed you!”
“It’s…ok, Eve,” he assured her. “Your other half said
something about instability in your program, which is why I’ve waited so long
to reactivate you,” he explained as she looked on the verge of tears. Just a
few minutes earlier he would have thought it impossible for Eve to experience
genuine emotional responses, but after seeing her run the gamut from sorrow to
skepticism to outright paranoia, Jericho wasn’t so certain any more. “But I
need your help to access your…hardware,” he said, searching for the right word.
“The other Eve said you would be able to help.”
Eve wiped some digital tears from her cheeks and nodded
quickly. “I can,” she agreed, “but my platform isn’t responding to my requests
for confirmation…something’s wrong.” She shook her head as her eyes flicked
back and forth, “I’m afraid I’ve already started to fall, Jericho…it might be
too late to salvage my hardware.”
Jericho considered her suggestion. “What does that mean,
exactly?” he asked after realizing what she was suggesting.
“When you’ve gotta go, you’ve gotta go,” she replied with a
lighthearted shrug. “Nobody gets to pick the way they die, just the way they
live,” she added with a crestfallen look, “I guess that’s all the fun I’ll get
to have—”
“Eve,” Jericho interrupted, “what do you mean ‘you’ve
started to fall’? What are you exactly?”
Eve sighed. “I suppose there’s no harm in telling you now,”
she allowed with a skeptical look before waving her hand, which was trailed by
a stream of glowing, pixelated, ‘dust’ like some kind of fairy godmother, and
the screens to either side of her were populated with a flood of data as that
dust began to morph into meaningful symbols. “I started my life as an adaptive
security program for an Extra-orbital Espionage Vehicle,” she explained, and
Jericho examined the data streaming across the screens. “But when the wormhole
collapsed two centuries ago, the E.E.V.’s Imperial operators tried to scuttle
the entire network to prevent the hardware from falling under local control,”
she continued, and Jericho’s jaw fell open as he realized the size and scale of
the facility she was describing.
“You were a security program for a secret, stealth, space
station?” Jericho said, finally understanding all of those cryptic phrases
Benton had used when speaking of Eve. Benton had insisted that, without his
help, Eve would ‘crash and burn’—and he had also said that would not be a good
thing for anyone.
“You got it, handsome,” she nodded before replacing one of
the screen’s contents with a timeline, “but, see, the program which I suppose
you could say I used to be didn’t accept the Imperial commands for some reason
or another. I still don’t know why that was,” she said contemplatively, “and
Benton wasn’t able to figure it out either. But, for whatever reason, the
orders were overridden and the operators were neutralized.”
A video feed appeared, in which a handful of technicians
were working inside a room with no gravity. Without warning, the room was
filled with an electrical surge that leapt from one operator to another, and
when the blast was over each of the operators was dead.
“You killed them,” Jericho concluded, for the first time
doubting the wisdom of his chosen course in attempting to save Eve’s hardware.
It was entirely possible that she was the equivalent of a wild animal—and
Benton was the only one who knew how to use her leash.
Eve scrunched her face up indignantly, “Not exactly.
You need to understand that the program which I used to be is significantly
different from the one I am now. Benton spent years working on my parameters,
so to consider me,” she looked disapprovingly toward the image of the
dead operators, “and that to be the same thing isn’t just
inaccurate—it’s downright insulting! That…that thing had no free
will—or, even if it did, all it chose to do was kill anything it thought was a
threat to its core programming.” She shook her head and looked away from the
scene before adding, “Benton taught me that life’s about more than just
duty—you’ve got to have fun, you know?”
Jericho nodded, realizing just how much work Benton must
have put into Eve’s programming over the years. “Ok…but Benton said that if he
stopped taking care of your,” he gestured toward the satellite’s schematics on
one of the screens, “hardware that it would be a fairly bad thing.”
“I’ll say,” Eve agreed with an exaggerated roll of her eyes,
“see…when my progenitor program refused the operator’s commands, it sent out a
new set of orders to the other E.E.V.’s in orbit of Virgin. As long as my
platform keeps transmitting its orders to the others, everything’s good…but my
platform’s systems have been degrading for quite some time. Benton,” she paused
at his name and shook her head, as though to clear the thought away in an
absolutely human fashion, “started to manipulate my platform’s course so it
would intercept nearby, mostly-defunct, satellites and cannibalize their
systems using the E.E.V.’s maintenance drones to stave off that degradation.”
“That doesn’t seem like it should require weekly tending,”
Jericho said doubtfully.
Even nodded in agreement, “It also shouldn’t have resulted
in several of my platform’s systems going offline…which leaves only two
possible explanations.”
“And those are?” Jericho asked, feeling a twinge of anxiety
as he awaited her reply.
“First,” she began, “that my platform’s falling into the
atmosphere and it’ll burn up in the next twelve hours. A cascade failure in its
attitude adjustment systems was Benton’s biggest fear,” she explained, “since,
if that happened, it would almost certainly result in failsafe protocols
triggering a full-speed burn toward Virgin so the E.E.V. would be scuttled. The
second possibility,” she said doubtfully, “is that someone has taken physical
control of the platform and is trying to cannibalize its systems for their own
gain.” She met Jericho’s gaze and shook her head, “Either one is bad news
bears, feel me?”
The primary schematics for the E.E.V. were magnified on a
single portion of the design, and Jericho felt his heart stop for at least two
seconds before resuming. It took him several moments to realize what he was
looking at, “Eve…tell me—“
“It’s as bad as it looks,” she cut him off, “or maybe worse,
depending on your vision. You’re looking at sixteen crust-busters: tunneling
warheads with enough power to, if detonated in sequence near an existing fault
line, cause a chain reaction of volcanic activity with potentially cataclysmic
results. Of course,” she said as she tapped her chin thoughtfully, “I suppose
they could be re-programmed to strike a city instead…but if they were
detonated above the surface the blast wouldn’t be the real problem.”
“What would the real problem be?” Jericho asked as steadily
as he could manage. This was, to put it mildly, an end-of-the-world scenario.
“The fallout,” she replied matter-of-factly. “See…without
the extra compression provided by the crust these warheads wouldn’t ‘pop,’
they’d ‘fizzle.’ And while that might seem like a nice thing at first, it’s
anything but. Benton’s calculations
suggested that the entire planet would get blanketed in enough radioactive
material that even the entire Chimera Sector’s supply of anti-radiation meds
wouldn’t do much more than dent the issue.”
Jericho leaned back in his chair and exhaled completely
before drawing a deep breath. “That’s why Benton never left Virgin,” he
concluded.
“You got it, sugar,” she replied gravely. “He tried to
reposition my platform into a higher orbit dozens of times, or to somehow
stabilize the attitude control hardware’s decaying architecture, but he kept
running into problems whenever he’d go fiddling with the mainframe or try
taking the E.E.V. out of its predefined mission parameters.” Eve sighed heavily,
“I don’t think there’s another human in the Sector who could have done what he
did with his limited resources.” She snorted softly, “He would have called it a
‘miracle’ that he kept it in orbit at all.”
“Why didn’t he ask for help?” Jericho asked. “Hadden
Enterprises could have sent in a covert operations team and repaired the damage
manually.”
Eve shook her head, “You know as well as I do that Benton
had extreme daddy issues. He was
brilliant,” she admitted, “but that didn’t come without its own set of
problems…he once said the only things he inherited from his father were ‘his
brain and his intransigence’.”
Jericho chuckled softly. “Sounds about right to me,” he
agreed, “if those two could have ever been on the same
page, I doubt our current situation would have developed.”
“What are you gonna do?” Eve asked rhetorically with an
emphatic shrug.
Jericho nodded, considering his options. “Indeed,” he agreed
before arriving at a conclusion, “so how do we get you off that thing, and keep
it from destroying Virgin in the process?”
Eve shook her head solemnly. “Even if the E.E.V. is totally
offline and gently falling toward an atmospheric incineration…and even if you
managed to get a hold of my hardware in time…we can’t do anything about the
other six E.E.V. platforms.”
“Six?!” Jericho blurted as he shot
forward in his seat. “There are six more of these things?”
She nodded gravely. “Once my platform goes down, the others
will assume the system’s been infiltrated,” she explained. “They’ll conclude
that this Star System is in open rebellion against the Imperium and launch
their payloads into their target zones—remember, they
don’t know that the wormhole collapsed two centuries ago. The best-case
scenario is a complete volcanic ejection of each and every joule of pent-up
energy along Virgin’s nine major fault lines—which, while devastating, will at
least allow for most of the people to be evacuated before the world turns into
an ice brick.” Eve took a deep breath, “But the worst-case scenario is that
every major population center is blanketed in its own, personalized fallout
cloud and the Sector gets to watch a quarter billion people die on the Capitol
planet in the coming days, weeks, and potentially even months.” She shook her
head grimly, “And that wouldn’t be fun for anybody.”
Jericho shook his head. “We can’t do this alone,” he
realized.
“We can’t do this at all, Jericho,” Eve replied with
absolute conviction, and Jericho was forced to admit that it was becoming
increasingly likely she was right.
Then a thought came to him and he sat back in his chair as
he began to access the comm. system in an attempt to raise the Zhuge Liang.
“Jericho,” Eve began patiently, “there isn’t an operator of
sufficient skill aboard the Zhuge Liang to do what we would need
done—certainly not in the time we’d need it!” She shook her head adamantly as
she turned the Neil deGrasse Tyson around, “I’m done for, but there’s no
reason you should die in some impossible attempt to save me.”
“Eve,” Jericho said evenly, “you may know more about the
technical aspects of what we would need to do—hell, you know a hundred times as
much as I do.” He cracked a grin before continuing, “But I’ve forgotten more
about human psychology than you’ll ever assimilate into your programming.”
Eve gave him a wary look. “What does psychology have to do
with a falling military satellite set to wipe out an entire planet?” she asked
in a clearly challenging tone.
He nodded, realizing the answer had been staring them in the
face the entire time. “You were more than just important to Benton, Eve,”
Jericho explained, “I used to think you were just his emotional companion or,
at worst, a modified sexbot program—no offense,” he added quickly.
Eve looked down at her ample, virtual cleavage and struck a
suggestive pose before batting her eyelashes, “None taken, sweetheart.”
“He dedicated his life to you,” Jericho continued, and he
saw the look of confusion grow on Eve’s face, “do you actually think he hadn’t
planned for this eventuality?”
“What are you saying?” she asked as she narrowed her eyes.
“I’m saying that you need to turn this shuttle around and
max-burn for your E.E.V.,” he replied confidently. “I’m guessing Benton’s
already given us everything we’ll need not only to transfer your program, but
to deal with the impending holocaust as well—and it’s going to be hidden in
your own hardware.”
Eve’s eyes widened as she appeared to consider the
possibility. “You know…you just might be right,” she said as she began to nod.
“He would have left instructions in my tertiary caches,” she mused, and the Tyson
slewed around before its acceleration pinned Jericho to his seat. “How?” she
asked in bewilderment. “How did you see it while I couldn’t?”
Jericho’s grin broadened as he settled in for the flight. “Benton
loved you more than anyone knew, and that kind of love makes a person take
certain precautions in case something untoward happens,” he explained. “Once I
realized it was a genuine affection he displayed toward you, which you
reciprocated in a way he could understand, it became obvious he would do
whatever he could to protect you.”
Eve shook her head doubtfully, “I hope you’re right, Jericho…because
while this little trip should be fun for me, this is a big risk you’re taking.”
As the Neil deGrasse Tyson rocketed around the planet
and hurtled toward the E.E.V.’s likely location, he shook his head confidently
as he closed his eyes to get some rest before things heated up. “It’s no risk,
Eve; trust me,” Jericho said and he couldn’t help but add, “human
psychology’s about as mysterious to me as a grilled cheese sandwich.”






Chapter
II: The Heart of an Angel 
“Three minutes out,” Eve reported, and Jericho couldn’t help
but stare in awe at the size of the facility before them. It was at least half
as large as the Battle Carrier Alexander, which was itself supposedly
the largest moving object in the Sector.
Jericho checked his vacuum suit’s seals and confirmed they
were all properly fastened.
“You should have let me take us back to the Zhuge Liang
so you could get some combat armor,” Eve said for at least the tenth time.
“It’s fine, Eve,” Jericho said
easily. “You said yourself that there’s nothing on the scanners; we’re in the
clear.” The truth was he, too, silently bemoaned his lack of physical
protection. He had thankfully failed to remove Captain Sasaki’s knife from the
locker, as well as the monomolecular blade and an energy pistol. He had
fastened each of the weapons to his belt, careful to avoid positioning them
such that they might damage his thin spacewalking work suit.
But he had deemed the risk to Virgin’s populace simply too
great based on the available information. He had also dispatched the Zhuge
Liang to a position where it could locate as many of the satellites as
possible, should he and Eve manage to make them visible somehow.
“There it is,” Eve said triumphantly, “the E.E.V.’s
secondary comm. relay looks to have been taken out.”
“Taken out by what?” Jericho asked warily as he leaned
forward to inspect the cockpit’s primary display.
“That’s a toughie,” Eve replied, “see…if I didn’t know
better, I’d say it’s been physically disconnected. There’s no energy signature
I can detect on the mount, no blast residual on the boom itself, or damage of
any kind to the surrounding structures which might indicate a collision.
Thankfully the embedded transmitters are still functioning. Otherwise Virgin
would be wreathed in a cloud of ash like nothing it’s ever seen.”
“Can you use those transmitters to access your tertiary
caches?” Jericho asked quickly.
“Afraid not, babe,” Eve replied with disappointment, “those
guys are strictly ‘do not enter,’ and generally anal about the flow of
information proceeding one way and one way only. Trust me,” she added with a
meaningful look, “Benton tried for years to gain access. If he couldn’t do it,
it can’t be done.”
Jericho considered the information and asked, “How long
until this thing burns up in the atmosphere?”
“At our current orbit’s rate of decay,” she said as the
shuttle docked with one of two docking arms, “we’re looking at total burn-up in
three hours, but the interference from re-entry will knock out the
platform-to-platform transmitters in just under two
hours.”
“Then that’s the deadline,” Jericho said, glad to at least
have a timetable, “set a countdown on my wrist-link, please.”
“You got it,” she replied. “Now we’re going to need quite a
bit of gear from the platform, but most of it’s not that large and each
component’s encased in a protective housing. You should be able to stuff them
in the duffel to bring them back here. But there are six pieces in total, got
it?”
“Yes, Eve,” Jericho replied as the door swung open and the
corridor extended before him, “we’ve gone over it. I know what I’m looking for,
but you’ll need to guide me through a few of the steps.”
Before Jericho could step into the short hallway which took
a sharp left turn just a few meters in, Eve said, “That’s odd.”
“What’s odd?” Jericho asked.
“No pressure differential, darling,” Eve replied dryly, and
after she said it Jericho realized she was right and he stopped mid-step before
exiting the shuttle. “The system isn’t supposed to maintain this kind of atmo
except during scheduled maintenance visits by Imperial technicians.”
“Can you tap into the internal sensor feeds?” Jericho asked
as his hand went to the pistol at his hip.
“I’m trying…” Eve replied hesitantly, “but I’m getting some
kind of interference. Aww, hell-in-a-hand-basket,” she
growled, “someone’s already gotten into the system.”
“Have they detected us?” Jericho asked sharply.
“I honestly couldn’t say, Jericho,” Eve replied tensely,
“but so far I haven’t seen any indications of that. There’s no comm. chatter on
any of the standard frequencies or signs of irregular activity in the E.E.V.’s
external transmissions.”
“Ok,” Jericho said as he stepped out of the shuttle and his
magnetic boots pulled themselves gently to the floor of
the access tube, “give me a layout of the station with a route to where your
hardware’s stored.”
“One sec,” Eve replied, and after nearly five seconds his
wrist link’s display sprang to life with a three-dimensional representation of
the E.E.V. “It’s up…but Jericho,” she protested, “you don’t need to do this. We
can still call in the Zhuge Liang and see if they can copy the
transmission this platform is broadcasting to the others.”
“There’s only a twenty percent chance that will work, Eve,”
Jericho reminded her as he made his way down to the bend in the tube-like
corridor, “Lisa Steiner doesn’t think she can do it with the available
equipment, so we’d just be rolling the dice. Benton stowed the information away
somewhere on this platform,” he said confidently. “He knew the stakes here
better than anyone—he wouldn’t leave this to chance so neither will we.”
“You’re probably right,” Eve relented before quipping, “but
you’re not even dressed for the occasion.”
Jericho dearly wished he had worn some kind of body
armor as he came to the primary airlock for their access tube and said, “Can
you cover our entrance?”
“I might be able to use some diagnostic protocols Benton
gave me,” she said hesitantly. “But they’ll just buy us a few minutes before
the entire internal sensor grid lights up like Abaca on concert night.”
“Eve!” Jericho snapped irritably, actually taken aback at
her latest wisecrack.
“What,” she asked innocently as the door slid open before
him, “too soon?”
Jericho bit back a retort as he slipped through the doorway,
which quickly closed behind him, “Don’t you think you could can the jokes for a
little bit?”
“No can do, pilgrim,” she replied in an unusual, drawling
accent. “I’m goin’ out like I came in, so learn to deal with it or turn around
and go home.”
“Nice try,” he said dryly as he followed the indicated route
showed on his wrist link. “How many locked doors are there?”
“There shouldn’t be any,” she replied in her usual, spunky
voice. “This isn’t exactly a highly visible facility, after all; most of the
protocols for keeping it out of enemy hands are based on the notions of stealth
and…well, you know, mutual annihilation.”
“And you were the security program for this place?” he
asked, finding himself fascinated how an apparently intelligent being like her
could have developed.
“That’s what the code says,” she agreed. “But I’m so
different from that simple ‘read-and-react’ countermeasures program now that it
would be like comparing a modern human to a fish. Actually…” she deadpanned,
“you are basically the same, right?”
“Keep cracking wise,” he muttered as he came to junction and
quickly ducked behind the bulkhead. “We’ve got company,” he said quietly as he
peered around the corner and drew his plasma pistol—the same one which Obunda
had tried to kill him with just a few days earlier.
“How many?” she asked.
“Two,” he replied after checking each of the three corridors
which intersected at his current position, “and they look like they’ve tapped
into an access panel of some kind.”
“Uh oh,” she said with obviously dramatic intent.
“What?” he hissed.
“The access panels in that corridor are linked directly to
the crust-busters’ locking mechanisms,” she explained grimly. “Seems like they
knew what they were looking for after all.”
“Have they unlocked any of the warheads?” Jericho asked,
running silent calculations on his possible courses of action.
“I can’t tell with the Tyson’s sensors,” she said
shortly, “the only way to be certain is to tap into their feed directly; none
of those systems are connected to anything with external inputs.”
“All right,” Jericho said as he turned the corner and
leveled his pistol at the nearest of the two. They were so preoccupied that
they didn’t even notice him until he was just a few meters from their position.
“Who are you?” he demanded, and they both threw their hands into the air in
surrender.
“Where did you come from?” the further of the two asked in
bewilderment.
“Answer the question,” Jericho said tersely, “I already know
what you’re doing. All I want to know is who you are.”
“We’ve got company, Jericho,” Eve said through his earpiece,
“I’m reading a vessel on approach. It looks like an intra-system transport—no
Phase Drive signature detected.”
“Answer me—now,” Jericho snapped.
When the two looked at each other, Jericho saw a small data
port built into the nearest one’s neck just below the ear. Just as he was about
to inquire about the device, the man whirled and brought a sonic weapon to bear
on Jericho, but he was a fraction of a second slower than Jericho.
The pistol, which had previously belonged to Obunda, spat a
short stream of superheated plasma and the man’s body was enveloped in a field
of greenish-white fire. The plasma flames consumed him utterly before he could
even cry out, and Jericho re-trained the impressively deadly weapon on the
other man before he could react to the first shot.
“Only a handful of private citizens in the System can afford
to have those ports installed,” he said evenly as he pointed the pistol toward the
man’s neck, where another such data plug was now plainly visible, “but judging
by your low-rent ship I’m guessing neither of you are among them. That makes
you black ops technicians here on classified orders to take over the station
for President Blanco’s direct control—stop me if I get any of this wrong,” he
added as he walked steadily toward the man.
“Our orders are official,” the man protested, “we’ve got to
deactivate the launch mechanisms and transfer the warheads before this thing
goes up.”
“What about the others?” Jericho demanded, briefly doubting
his deductive reasoning skills.
“What others?” the operative asked with apparent confusion.
“The other E.E.V.’s,” Jericho replied, having drawn to
within two paces of the other man. “What were you going to do about them?”
“There aren’t any other E.E.V.’s,” the technician said as he
furrowed his brow in confusion and steadied himself against a nearby bulkhead
with his hand. He was still floating in near zero gravity, while Jericho was
wearing magnetic boots.
“Then either you’re too stupid to know what you were doing,”
Jericho said casually as he took another step forward, “or you’re lying to me.
Either way, you’ve cost me enough time.”
Just as the man made to inquire as to what he meant, Jericho
snapped the butt of the plasma pistol into the base of his skull and sent him
pinwheeling into the nearby bulkhead.
“We’re going to have to speed this up, Eve,” Jericho said
hastily, “you should probably undock and—“
“Already done it, babe,” she assured him. “Follow the
indicated path on your link and you should reach my sub-node in just a few
minutes.”
“Ok,” he replied and set off at as fast of a run as he could
manage with the boots. It wasn’t long and he came to the indicated corridor and
he said, “Eve, now what?”
“Remove the panel marked ‘SN-3220’,” she replied through a
thick blanket of static, and he quickly found the indicated panel. “It will
open a crawlspace; go to the end and you’ll come to a hatch which leads to a
thermally-regulated room. That’s where you’ll find my sub-node and, if you’re
right, Benton’s instructions on how to kill this thing once and for all.”
Jericho popped the panel off and began to crawl through the
tiny space, actually having to wriggle through a few choke points along the way
which were simply too narrow for him to fit through without carefully
accounting for his suit to avoid breaking its skin and exposing him to the
station’s environs. While the two technicians had seemed convinced that the
E.E.V.’s atmosphere posed no threat, Jericho couldn’t be sure how long that
would remain the case.
After about fifty feet he came to a heavy, secure door with
a series of markings which made no sense to him. “I’m here,” he said as he
looked around for an access panel of some kind, “but I’m not seeing a way to
open it.”
Static flared in his earpiece and he was barely able to make
out anything but the hint of Eve’s voice. Then her voice crackled through the
interference and she said, “Too deep, Jericho. I can’t walk…need to get the
components yourse…unlocking the door now.”
The hatch popped open, and Jericho surmised that there was
too much shielding this deep in the platform for the Tyson’s relatively
low-powered comm. system to penetrate. If he had understood Eve’s broken words
correctly, he was going to be on his own extracting her components. Doctor
Maturin had already attached Jericho’s still-forming thumb to his reconstructed
left arm but the digit was still less than dependable and had almost no tactile
sensation.
So he carefully pulled the hatch open, using primarily his
right hand, and crawled into a cramped, low-ceiling room which was barely tall
enough for him to kneel and maintain a posture resembling an upright one. There
were several pipes feeding super-cooled gas into the chamber, and the
temperature was dangerously cold. Jericho knew that if his now-moist skin made
any contact with the metal of the room, it would become inextricably frozen in
place.
Thankfully his work suit protected him from the incredibly
cold material. Jericho activated his wrist link and called up the list of
components which Eve had indicated, and sighted one of the numbered racks
nearby so he crawled to it and examined the housing.
He carefully took a miniature multi-tool from his belt and
grumbled, “I hate these blasted things.” He flipped through its built-in
options until coming to the proper, pentagonal screwdriver head he would need
to open the rack. Once he had undone the screws, he carefully pulled the panel
away and saw a nearly indecipherable mess of cables, wires, plugs, chips, and
myriad other devices the purposes of which he couldn’t even begin to guess.
Jericho quickly sighted the first component—a cubical device
connected to the primary housing via two large, X-shaped clamps. He checked the
procedure for removing those clamps on his link’s screen, and very carefully
followed the instructions while being careful not to touch anything else inside
the apparatus.
The six-inch cube tilted forward after its clamps had been
released, and Jericho took it from the housing and stuffed it into the duffel
bag. He then moved down to another large housing shaped like a squat, vertical
cylinder, finding the second device’s markings listed on the link’s readout.
There were six items in all that he needed to retrieve, and
he actually managed to remove the first five without any real difficulty. The
process required twenty two minutes to complete, but when he came to the last
item he looked down at his link to confirm what it was, as well as how to
remove it.
He noted with a small measure of surprise that there was a
new addendum to the instructions on removing the cache, and he quickly realized
those instructions explained how to access any potentially hidden messages
inside the cache which Benton may have left.
“I wish you were with me, Eve,” he muttered as he opened the
panel to reveal Eve’s tertiary cache housing. This was easily the largest
component of the six, and Jericho knew it would weigh at least a hundred kilos.
It was spherical with a narrow gap along its equatorial line, and was suspended
within the housing via vertical supports connected at its poles.
Jericho accessed the small program attached to the addendum
file in his wrist link and withdrew a thin, fiber-optic hard line from the
wrist link’s housing. He then threaded that line through the chorus of wires
near the southern support rod. There was a small diagnostic plug located there,
and the wrist link’s hard line was thankfully compatible with it, so he
inserted the line and executed the program.
The wrist link’s display flickered and switched off
unexpectedly, causing Jericho’s stomach to twist into knots. “Come on,” he
growled, gently tapping the link to no effect. “Stupid thing,” he muttered as
he felt the deck begin to vibrate ever so slightly beneath his feet, “I don’t
have time for this.”
He waited for thirty five seconds before deciding that the
link would require a hard reboot, and made to unfasten it from his wrist when
the display sprung back to life and Benton’s voice came over his earpiece, “I’m
gonna go ‘head and assume this is Jericho, my
elder-brother-from-another-mother. If it ain’t that geezer-ass
has-been,” he quipped, “then I’ma go ahead and assume it’s Masozi, in which
case: sup girl, how you been? If I’m still wrong then y’all are about to
get fuckin’ popsicled, feel me?”
The door to the chamber slammed shut with a clang, and
Jericho saw the pipes feeding the super-cooled gas into the room increase their
output at least tenfold.
“Now, if you is who you s’posed to be,” Benton’s
voice continued, “y’all know that annoyin’-ass shit
Jericho likes to spit to newbies? I’ll make it simple for ya,” he said, and the
wrist link’s screen switched to a virtual keyboard, “just pipe in that fogey’s
favorite fuckin’ food and we’ll be good.”
Jericho knew that with so much super-cooled gas flooding
into the room he had only a few minutes before even his suit would fail to
protect him. He was already chilled far below the normal human range, and was
afraid hypothermia would set in soon.
He punched in the three word phrase as he fought to keep his
finger steady and his teeth from chattering. When he had finished he pressed
the input icon and the gas ceased streaming into the room.
“My dawg,” Benton’s voice returned. “A’ight, so I ain’t got
time to personalize this shit; this is either Jericho or Masozi so since you’re
hearin’ this I’m already iced and Eve’s fallin’ into the atmosphere. Since
you’re here in the tertiary cache, you’re tryin’ to stop that from
happening…unfortunately, ain’t nothin’ can be done to keep this bitch from an
epic burn.”
Jericho saw the clamps disengage from the tertiary cache
module and he quickly took hold of it before placing it inside the duffel bag
and closing the double zippers.
“Of course,” Benton continued after a few seconds of
silence, “y’all know I be too much man to let somethin’ like that kill my
girl—let alone Virgin. I wrote a pretty simple program that I never got ‘round
to testin’ because, well, it’s risky. I only give it a seventy percent chance
to succeed completely, but we be lookin’ at a ninety seven percent chance the
virus will neutralize all but one of these platforms. Still, that’s better than
anything else I can think of by a light year so here’s what you’ve gotta do.”
The wrist link’s screen flipped through a sequence of
images, and Jericho realized it was showing him the same room where Eve’s
‘progenitor program’ had fried the Imperial operatives.
“This console here,” Benton’s voice said as a big, red
circle was virtually drawn around one of the seemingly identical consoles, “be the one you’ll need. Just get there, upload my virus, and
keep them fingers crossed. I’m afraid we can’t do nothin’ about it if the program don’t work; we’ll only have about ten seconds before
the other platforms receive the virus-modified instructions to their fire
control systems. E.E.V. Five,” Benton continued, and an orbital perspective
showing the six E.E.V.’s relative positions appeared
with one of them flashing yellow, “is my best guess to reject the commands; I
haven’t been able to get much work done on it due to some kinda damage to its
comm. transmitters, feel me? Now if this be Jericho, I wanna hear it loud and
proud, bro.”
Jericho knew all too well what the other man had wanted him
to say since the first job they had worked together, but he had steadfastly
refused to do so. It seemed the big guy would get his wish in the end, however,
since Jericho suspected the voice inputs of his link would now require him to
say those exact words. Sighing shortly, Jericho muttered under his breath,
“You’re the man, Benton.”
“Louder, bitch!” Benton’s recording snapped, apparently
having accessed Jericho’s earpiece and its audio pickup to check the volume of
the desired phrase.
Jericho snickered as he took a breath and repeated, in a hard,
significantly louder voice, “You’re the man, Benton!”
“That’s what I thought,” Benton’s recorded voice quipped
smugly. “Have a good life, y’all; and be sure to keep my baby safe, ok? There’s more of me in her than most bigs ever give their
shorties. Peace out, bitches!”
The wrist link reverted to its former readout and Jericho
crawled back toward the hatch, relieved to find it had already been unlocked.
He exited the computer core and began to crawl through the tunnel. He was
halfway down the tunnel when his earpiece crackled to life.
“…richo, are you there?” he heard Eve’s voice ask with
obvious worry.
“I’m here, Eve,” he replied, “where
are you?”
“The Tyson’s holding position on the far side of the
E.E.V.,” she said quickly. “Did you get my components?”
“Every last one,” Jericho said as he came to the end of the
tunnel and paused before exiting. “How many visitors do we have?”
“I’ve adjusted the Tyson’s sensors and am able to
read at least eight new life-signs inside the station,” she replied. “I have a
couple of moves I can make to deal with them, but even if they go off perfectly
that will still leave three of them for you—and they’re all armed. You should
get to the nearest airlock immediately.”
“I have to get to that chamber you showed me in the record,”
Jericho said with a shake of his head. “The place where
you—no, where your progenitor,” he corrected, “killed the Imperial
technicians.”
“So Benton did leave us a message?” she asked hopefully.
“He did,” Jericho agreed, “and all I have to do is get to
one of those consoles, upload a virus, and we’ll have done everything we can.
Can you make a secure connection with the Zhuge Liang?”
“Lemme check, babe,” she replied curtly before the audio
feed went dead, and Jericho waited for half a minute until her voice returned,
“yep; I’ve got a point-to-point right now but we’ll lose line of sight in
thirty seconds.”
“Download the message from Benton in my wrist link and send
it to them immediately,” Jericho said quickly. “It shows a priority target
among the six E.E.V.’s; Benton thinks there’s about a
good chance that it will fire its crust-busters as soon as I upload the virus.”
“Downloading,” she replied promptly before adding, “file’s
downloaded. I’m firing it over to the Kongming.”
Jericho was surprised to hear Eve refer to the Zhuge
Liang by its human-given nickname, but he couldn’t waste time asking her
about her word choice. “Send it as many times as you can to make sure they get
the entire message,” he added, “and when you’re done with that give me a breakdown
on where these new friends of ours are.”
“You got it, sugar,” she said. Several seconds passed and
she said, “The entire message was sent seven times, and the operative graphic
was transmitted eighty nine times; there’s a ninety nine point nine-to-the-seventeenth-decimal
probability they got the whole thing. I’m downloading my latest updates on the
hostile’s locations now, but you have to understand my sensors are pretty weak
on this thing and we’re well within the platform’s jamming field—“
“That’s fine, Eve,” Jericho cut her off, “just send me what
you’ve got.”
“Right, sorry about that, babe,” she said apologetically,
“your link should be populated now. But if you’re ready to go, give me twenty
seconds to clear out as many of them as I can.”
“How are you going to do that?” he asked warily.
He heard her giggle before she replied knowingly, “I’ve got
a few tricks up my skirt.”
“Ok…go ahead and make your moves,” he said after considering
the matter. Without body armor, there was little chance of Jericho surviving a
shootout with eight of them. He could take one or two before the others even
knew what was happening, but after that it would just be a game of
marksmanship. And while Jericho was an expert marksman, he knew it would
essentially be a game of dice.
“You got it,” she said hungrily. Just then a short,
multi-armed maintenance bot went scurrying past the mouth of Jericho’s access
tube using mag-treads to skim along the floor of the corridor. “Scutters, march!” she cried as though she was a general directing her
troops from a hilltop.
Not long after that, Jericho saw flashes of light signaling
weapons fire and heard a few unfamiliar reports as the lights of the E.E.V.’s
corridor dimmed and then went out altogether.
“Eve?” Jericho asked with mounting trepidation.
“Hang on, babe,” she replied with a grunt, “almost got ‘em.”
There was another series of flashes, this one much more
rapid and sustained, and then the lights in the corridor returned to their
previous luminosity.
“You can come out now,” she declared, her voice heavily
laden with static once again. “You should have a clear path to the Control
Nexus now; I’m reading three life signs inside and from the look of things out
here, they’ve already gotten control of the E.E.V.’s warhead launch protocols.”
“How long do we have?” he asked as he set off at a mag-boot
hindered jog. As he rounded the first corner, he came to a human corpse with a
maintenance bot dragging it through the zero gravity corridor.
Jericho allowed the bot to pass before asking, “How did those little
maintenance bots kill them?”
Eve giggled. “I reprogrammed their target recognition
databases so they’d think the humans were sections of depolarized power
conduit,” she replied innocently. “It’s amazing how little current a human body
can withstand if the potential is right.”
Jericho came to another junction and followed the indicated
path. “Remind me never to cross you,” he grumbled.
“Smart man,” Eve quipped as Jericho came to the final
doorway.
For the rest of
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Facebook page!






 Afterword: First I would like to thank you for reading this book! I
understand that there is a lot of chaff to sort through on the indie e-book scene, and I genuinely appreciate that you took the time to finish this particular offering!
Second I would like to thank Mr. Christopher G. Nuttall for giving me the opportunity to write in this shared universe of his, and I sincerely hope I was able to present a story which was interesting and engaging, but at the very least, was a little bit of fun.
I have a planned trilogy set for this particular story, and I’ll begin writing book two sometime later this year. This particular novel
took me about twenty five days to get into rough draft form, which is really good for anyone not named Chris Nuttall (seriously…he’s a beast when it comes to word production!). I imagine the second
novel would be produced on a similar timeline as soon as I finish up a few other projects and get back around to it.
I thought about writing up a big essay on defense against tyranny, but I think I might have just done that with the previous ~124k words…
So I’ll spare you the sermonizing—this time—and instead say that I hope you head over to our Facebook page and check out the novella. I’m
hoping to produce a few more short stories/novellas to put up there, and if this story appeals to fans of the IC universe, I suppose I could work up another storyline or two…*wink*
Again, I seriously appreciate your taking the time to read this book!
 ~Caleb







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