“If he defected to Akkadia like we think he did, and he has access both to Stinton’s research and the research Sam did on entangling viral pairs… what if he combined the two?”
The room fell silent as they contemplated Hyer’s words.
“Are you suggesting that he’s cloning humans, and that they’re somehow more entangled than Micah and Jonathan are?” Valenti asked.
Katie nodded. “If their entanglement works like Sam’s viruses do, then they could have killed this guy from a distance.”
“You may be onto something, Chief,” a new voice cut in.
Micah looked up to see Admiral Toland enter. The woman didn’t look happy about the news she was about to share.
Her gaze landed briefly on Micah before shifting over to Jonathan as she pulled up a seat and joined them. “You’re suggesting they’re entangled in the same way we’ve been entangling viruses at the CID. Where if you alter one in a chiral pair, the other is automatically altered in the same way?”
Katie nodded.
“But that doesn’t happen with us,” protested Micah, waving his hand between himself and Jonathan.
“True,” the admiral allowed, “but that’s more a case of you two being imperfectly entangled in the first place.”
“Anyone else realize she just made a pun? A case for Case?” Katie clamped her mouth shut at a look from Valenti. “Come on. Everyone was thinking it,” she muttered under her breath.
Jonathan’s half laugh broke the tense silence.
“What do you mean by imperfectly entangled?” Micah asked.
Toland looked thoughtfully between the two men. “You aren’t absolute, perfect chiral copies of each other. Stinton made minor tweaks. Why he did it, we’ll never know; maybe it was just a desire to easily tell you two apart. But there’s no denying that Jonathan is left-handed, and Micah isn’t. Your hair is parted on opposite sides, as well.
“The point is, those subtle irregularities have nothing whatsoever to do with mirror-molecular structure. It’s possible that’s why Micah felt Jonathan’s pain, but the injuries did not physically manifest.”
Valenti pursed her lips. “You’re suggesting someone had this man’s twin in custody, and shot him… and our victim ended up with the same bullet holes as a result?”
Toland nodded, but her expression was uncertain as well. “It’s what we suspect,” she clarified. Her face turned grim. “We’d like to be able to confirm this with a greater degree of confidence, but that’s going to be a bit difficult. The body’s disappeared.”
THEFT
en route to the CID
Montpelier, Ceriba
Sam spent the greater part of the trip back to the CID fighting the impulse to constantly check the stasis pod. She wasn’t entirely sure what caused her unease, but finally, a kilometer from the center, she gave in to the need to physically inspect it.
Setting her bracer down on the bench beside her, she twisted, reaching through the window toward the unit’s control panel. Its palmpad was just out of reach, so she turned around fully, bracing her knees on the bench so that she could shove her head through the opening.
“Everything okay back there?” the driver asked.
“Fine,” she called back over her shoulder. “Just running a quick check.”
She stretched out a hand, leaning deeper into the back of the transport until her fingers grazed the unit’s palmpad.
The physical connection was necessary, since the pod was programmed to accept only those security tokens within the CID’s database.
She must have accidentally nudged her bracer in her efforts, because she felt it move by her knee, and then heard a soft thunk as it tumbled onto the transport’s floor.
Sam ignored it. Focusing her attention on the pod, she ordered it to perform a stasis field status check. Once satisfied the unit was operable, she turned back around and bent down to pick up the bracer.
That action saved her life.
The high-pitched whine of energy weapons sliced through the air over her head, spearing into the vehicle’s interior and turning surprised shouts into screams of agony. From where she crouched, Sam could see the driver’s lifeless body slump over the controls as the transport veered sharply left.
A large crump! sounded and they lurched to a stop. This was followed by a second explosion at the rear of the vehicle, which blew the aft doors from their hinges.
Sam sent out an emergency ping to the CID’s security team, keeping her face pressed to the ambulance’s floor, praying no one would see her. But as the ringing in her ears began to clear, she heard feet pounding toward the vehicle.
A jacket belonging to one of the now-dead medics had been tossed on the bench seat beside her. She pulled it down on top of her, hoping desperately it would conceal her presence, crowded as she was into the confines of a space not usually meant to carry people.
How the hell did someone plan an attack so quickly?
Whoever was attacking them had likely been in pursuit of the man, even as he approached them outside the Rieger.
Easy enough to know where this transport’s headed. The CID logo on the side of this thing is hard to miss. It wouldn’t have been hard to ping ahead for backup.
She felt the whole conveyance rock as their attackers hopped in beside the stasis unit and began muscling it out the back. Voices cursed when they realized the pod was security locked and they’d have to physically carry the thing.
Sam didn’t speak Aka’a, the Akkadian native tongue, but the liquid syllables were easily recognizable.
There was a scraping sound as they pulled and tugged, and then grunts followed as the intruders hoisted the unit between them. Their footsteps faded as they retreated with their prize as quickly as they could.
Evidently, it wasn’t fast enough to please their ringleader.
Sam heard a low, gruff voice rasp out an urgent, “Move it, move it, move it!”
She blew out a silent, relieved breath when it appeared that they were more focused on retrieving the pod than they were on checking for survivors—or witnesses.
Cautiously, she began to ease her way toward the passenger door. From the sound of retreating footsteps, that side of the transport was hidden from the raiders’ view. If she could crawl out and get a quick look at the thieves before they got too far away, then maybe she could ID them.
Her eyes widened when she heard the shouted command, “Okay, blow it!”
Slamming her palm against the door’s controls, she hissed a soft “Dammit!” when it slid open several centimeters and then stopped.
The impact must have bent its frame.
Heart slamming in her chest, she crammed both hands into the opening and pushed, her panic lending her strength.
It worked.
She shoved her way between door and frame, falling onto the pavement in her haste. She heard the sound of sirens approaching in the distance as she scrambled to her feet, and looked around wildly for cover; there was little to be found, save for the low wall bordering the office park that the ambulance had rammed into after the driver had been shot.
She raced for it, legs pumping. The explosion followed fast on her heels, the leading shockwave lifting her and sending her body cartwheeling through the air. Shrapnel from the shredded ambulance overtook her, superheated air searing her lungs.
She barely registered the wall as her body slammed into it. She lost consciousness before her body hit the ground.
* * *
The bullpen erupted with exclamations of disbelief at Toland’s news.
Micah lurched to his feet, hands pressing against the table’s surface as the food he’d just eaten threatened to come back up.
“Sam,” he said hoarsely. “Sam… she was with them, in the transport—”
The admiral nodded, her expression sympathetic. “I know. She managed to get out an SOS to the center’s security, but they couldn’t get to her before the attackers blew the transport.”
Micah stumb
led back. Thad was suddenly there beside him, but he ignored him, gaze locked with the admiral’s.
“Is she….”
He couldn’t finish the sentence.
She shook her head. “She’s incredibly lucky. She was on the opposite side of the transport from the people who hijacked it. I didn’t wait around to get the whole story from security. Once I saw she was stable, I left to come up here.”
Micah shrugged off Thad’s hand. “I need to get down there,” he insisted, but Toland held up a hand.
“She has some burns, and took some shrapnel. They’re working on her now.” Toland shook her head. “I’m honestly not sure how she managed to escape; whoever did this shot and killed the medics in the cab of the ambulance before they lit it up.”
Thad’s hand was back on Micah’s shoulder, squeezing.
“I should—”
Toland interrupted him. “There’s nothing you can do right now, Captain. Addy Moran’s treating her; let the doctor do her job. I also posted guards outside medical. Don’t worry, Sam’s in good hands.”
Gabe sent Micah a reassuring look. “She’s right. No one’s going to get past Addy. When it comes to her patients, that woman’s a pitbull.”
Valenti pressed both palms onto the table. Leaning forward, her eyes swept the group. “This attack makes it even more critical that we figure out what happened tonight.”
She turned to Micah’s twin. “Jonathan, contact that analyst of yours at the NSA. Get her to run a report of any suspected Akkadian activity on Ceriba.”
Her gaze swiveled to Gabe. “Alvarez, assume the chief’s theory is right. Trace Janus’s movements up to the point he disappeared; see if you can pinpoint potential moles by the people he interacted with the most.”
The two men nodded and pushed away from the table.
“We’ll need someone to interview the doctor when she wakes up, find out what she recalls—anything that can help us trace these people,” Valenti continued, and she turned to face Micah.
Something moved behind the hardened colonel’s eyes, and though her tone remained as curt and dispassionate as ever, her words had him closing his eyes in relief.
“Go on. Get your ass down there.”
NARROW MISS
Ministry of State Security
Eridu, Akkadia
“The chiral clone has been dealt with.”
The woman who spoke blended so seamlessly into the office’s wood paneling, Che Josza could hardly see her. He pushed his chair away from Rin Zhou’s desk and stood, his gaze searching.
“How?”
Dacina stepped forward into the light, banked anger in her eyes. “Janus had the original dragged from his cell, and then shot the man himself.”
Che felt anger well at the doctor’s audacity.
He rounded the desk and stopped in front of her. “And the clone?”
“Dead, as a result.”
He clenched his jaw. “That call was not his to make.”
She inclined her head but said nothing.
He began to pace, and she maintained a watchful silence, her head turning to follow him.
Ordinarily a man acutely aware of his surroundings, Che passed the priceless antiques and real wood, pre-colonization furniture Rin Zhou had collected without really seeing them. He came to a stop in front of the sitting area the former minister had used for ritual coffee.
Abruptly, he realized he had yet to extend the same offer to the generals under his own command.
Staring unseeingly down at the low table surrounded by piles of pillows, he asked, “What about the body?”
He heard a soft exhale.
“Janus had no plans in place to handle cleanup.”
Che jerked his head around at that.
The Dagger’s eyes snapped with a rare display of annoyance, yet when she spoke, her voice was as measured and emotionless as ever.
“I dispatched a team to handle it. The transport carrying the body had an unfortunate accident, and in the confusion, our people took it.”
She hesitated, the movement so slight it was almost unnoticeable, but for Dacina, it was the equivalent to a shout.
“There’s more,” he guessed.
“Reports from the agents who were following him say that the subject made contact with Micah Case and Samantha Travis. Words were exchanged before he perished. This, I believe, is what set Janus off in the first place.”
A headache began to form behind Che’s eyes. He gripped the bridge of his nose, pinching hard as he drew in a calming breath. “What idiot gave Janus secured access to the agents assigned to monitor the clone? Don’t answer that; it was rhetorical.”
He caught her eye. “Do they have any idea who that young man was —or that he was chiral?”
He resumed his pacing, and he saw the beads woven into her brown braids glint as she turned her head to follow his progress.
“Unknown, but we must assume so.”
Irritation flared. Che took a calming breath and focused on counting the steps from the low table to the sweep of clearsteel windows.
Thirteen. Fourteen. I will strangle Clint Janus with my bare hands….
Weariness settled suddenly upon him.
Che turned to face her once more. “Thank you for handling this. You have done well.”
She inclined her head. “There is… one more thing. Three hours after your debrief on Carlisle, the doctor arrived for a private audience with the premier.”
This surprised Che. Janus’s work fell under the auspices of State Security; if Asher Dent had questions on Obelus’s progress, protocol dictated he should have asked Che.
The first stirrings of unease shafted through him.
“Janus is supposed to be kept off-grid and away from Alliance spies,” he said after a moment’s consideration. “That’s why we built the lab thirty meters below ground, inside our most heavily-guarded prison in the heart of the wastelands.”
The Shar-Kali Correctional Facility, Akkadia’s maximum security prison, was located where the Hohen Savannah met the Aksu Desert. It was the ideal way to ensure both Dent’s plans for Obelus and its associated research remained secure.
Dacina’s lips firmed, but she held her counsel.
“Do you know why Dent called him in?” Che pressed.
“I do not. They met behind closed doors.”
The glint of determination in her eyes told him she was up to something.
It was clear that the Dagger did not like to be denied.
“I do not know… yet,” she clarified. “Though I can think of only one reason why he would do such a thing.”
Che could, too.
He nodded. “Whatever it is Dent wants from the doctor, it’s something he does not want his ministry to know about. It could be for deniability.”
Something moved behind Dacina’s eyes. It was cold and deadly, and caused a chill to race down Che’s spine, despite the fact that it was not directed toward him.
“Or it could be that he is plotting against his own people,” she countered. “I will find out.”
Che had no doubt that she would.
“I applaud your initiative in shadowing Janus,” he said finally. “That was a wise move. But proceed with caution; Dent is not a man to be underestimated.”
Dacina inclined her head. “Neither am I.”
* * *
Up the hill from the State Security building, Asher Dent stood, staring out his office window, considering the information he’d garnered from Clint Janus.
Just past Eridu’s main space elevator, he could make out Akkadia’s sister star, Zoser, so close it was visible during daylight hours. The star formerly named Rigel Kentaurus was at periastron right now. At night, it turned Eridu’s blackest sky into a dusk-like twilight.
The vista didn’t even register in Asher’s mind. His memories were drawing a different set of images inside his head.
With a mental command to the room’s systems, he turned the window’s thermoplastic c
arbon fiber surface from transparent to reflective.
He smoothed his business suit as he studied his visage, seeking weaknesses his enemies might exploit. The man staring back at him was tall and athletically trim, with penetrating, dark eyes, and hair that held a natural wave. A flick to the cuff of his suit triggered a command that had its intelligent weave refreshing its crisp lines.
He nodded in satisfaction at his reflection: Asher Dent, eldest son of a man who had once controlled State Security, now the most powerful man on Eridu… and soon to be the most powerful man in the settled worlds.
He had no doubt that last would come someday. He’d accept nothing less than total space superiority for Akkadia.
He’d worked hard to become Minority Leader, his position won by being the most aggressive, charismatic, and ruthlessly calculating leader in the Coalition of Federated Worlds. His meteoric rise had taken some politicians in the Sol, Alpha Centauri, and Proxima systems by surprise.
Not those who knew him.
Not those who had known his sire.
Asher fisted his right hand reflexively as he recalled the rigors of his childhood. His father, who had been head of Akkadian State Security before Rin Zhou Enlai had betrayed him, had forced Asher to cut off his little finger as penance for poor performance when he was eight. Another training failure had him severing his ring finger at age eleven.
He’d been seventeen when he’d been bound by honor to slice off his hand at the wrist. That act had been particularly difficult, as his father had insisted it be done with a traditional blade instead of a plasma one. The leverage he’d needed to achieve to ensure a swift, clean stroke had been… challenging.
None but the elite inner circle of Akkadian State Security had been aware of this grisly practice, for his father always had Asher’s hand repaired. Sometimes this occurred hours later, sometimes days, but it always happened before the son of the most feared military leader on their planet returned to the public eye.
Chiral Justice: A Hard Science Fiction Technothriller (The Biogenesis War Book 3) Page 4