by C. Gockel
While Hildree had been in transit to Rekoria, Harado had intercepted information from her source at La Plata, uncovering an address for what he was sure was the missing researcher. The frecking halfwit then sent the theft crew, not a professional wetwork crew, to end the woman. The same theft crew he’d used before, who knew the Loyduk Pharma name. The same crew that had made a mess of the kills in the warehouse and were already being hunted by the police. And if that wasn’t bad enough, because Harado couldn’t be bothered with details while fantasizing about his soon-to-be crowning success, the crew had killed the woman in such a sensationally grisly way that the details were still topping the news trendlines, and it was the wrong frecking woman. Frecking freaks and amateurs.
The miserly pharma company had come to heel nicely by offering her double her already high fee, sidelining Harado, and giving her a generous budget and free rein to take care of business quietly and professionally. Not that she wouldn’t be earning her fee and benefits. Harado’s actions had left a jumble of burned sources and dead ends. Her instincts told her that competitor pharma companies were sniffing around for unprotected Loyduk assets. She was still buying her way into police investigation records, and she was days behind in knowing what La Plata was doing. The Etonver police were as underfunded and overworked as everywhere else, so she wasn’t worried about them, but La Plata continued to be a problem.
However, from problems arose opportunities. The only good thing about Harado’s ineptitude was that it lulled La Plata into thinking they were in control of their investigation. La Plata was likely a lot closer to finding the missing researcher than she now was, so if she played her cards right, they’d lead her to the target. Since her La Plata conduit had dried up, she was arranging for a civilized, painless conversation with a key player as to their progress and plans.
A soft gasp and a sensuous moan told her that her bed companions were waking and re-engaging in pleasures from last night. Hildree had only a couple more pings to take care of before she could rejoin them.
8 * Planet: Rekoria * GDAT 3237.035 *
SHIZUKESA YOROKOBI, AN upscale Japanese-themed joyhouse, prided itself on multi-talented and versatile employees, satisfied customers, and fulfilling special requests and custom orders. For an extra fee, they promised anonymity within their walls and had an impressive track record in keeping that promise. It made for an ideal location to hold a discreet business meeting with a woman by the name of Dr. Tansa Onndrae, who until six standard weeks ago, had been a research chemist for Loyduk Pharma on Gasprélodid Prime.
The day before, Foxe—Mairwen couldn’t let herself think of him as “Luka” while she was on duty—had made good use of her information about Loyduk and had combed through Balkovsky’s hidden files to come up with what they needed to find the real informant. Although it had officially been Mairwen’s day off, she’d gone to the office anyway to qualify with a standard-issue projectile handgun and a beamer on the company’s weapons range, as required by the contract for her new position. She’d been careful to end up with unremarkable scores.
She hadn’t been able to stop herself from slipping by the third floor to check on Foxe, then ghosting away before anyone saw her. Seeing that he was all right had relaxed a tension she hadn’t known she’d been feeling. She ran twice the usual distance that afternoon to try to neutralize the almost magnetic pull he had on her. It had been instantly negated when he’d pinged her later that evening to tell her he’d initiated contact with Onndrae and wanted her to go with him to the meeting. All it had taken was the sound of his voice and the low-res holo for her memory to fill in the rest—his scent, his warmth, the feel of his face against her palm, his thumb stroking her hand.
He was thinking she could somehow help him control his talent, and she couldn’t even control her need to touch him and want more. The universe apparently loved irony.
Mairwen stood now in the tastefully decorated joyhouse client room, playing the role of the recording equipment operator for the meeting. The resulting holo wouldn’t be admissible in court, but it would point any criminal investigation in the right direction. Onndrae was a tiny, almost painfully thin woman with long, deep black hair and light hickory-toned skin. She could have passed for thirty or been mistaken for sixty, though the bio La Plata had put together pegged her at thirty-six. Her voice was thin and reedy, and she was jumpy.
According to Foxe, it had taken a lot of persuasion, precautions, and assurances to get her to meet in person. Mairwen couldn’t blame her. Onndrae had known the woman who’d been tortured and killed in the apartment. Mairwen still wasn’t clear why Onndrae hadn’t already fled off-planet, but that was part of what Foxe planned to ask her.
Mairwen had positioned herself so that she was mostly out of Onndrae’s sight, but easily visible by Foxe, in case his talent ran wild. She assumed that was the real reason he’d wanted her there. She was becoming accustomed to her constant low-level awareness of him, which she’d given up trying to suppress or pretend wasn’t there. She settled into a neutral stance and expression, which she hoped would help Onndrae forget about her.
The joyhouse’s soundproofing was good, though she could still hear well enough to keep from worrying. The scents were sharp and plentiful, and it took her a while to identify and categorize them. She’d been in joyhouses before, but only as a hunter after a target, never as a client. With no interest in sex, it would have been a waste of time.
Even now, her interest stirred only for one man. He was attractive and personable, so he doubtless had a lot more ordinary experiences in joyhouses. Would he want that level of skill in a bed partner? She had none to offer, and her sexual experiences during her tracker days had been less than pleasant. She had never regretted her lack of normality until now.
Pondering her personal inadequacies was not productive. She made herself pay attention as Foxe patiently drew Onndrae into talking.
“Vadra died… horribly because of me.” Her voice was shaky. “I knew her in school. I dragged her into it.” Her English was softened by a Spanish accent.
“You couldn’t have known.” Foxe’s voice was quiet and warm. It was a marked contrast to how he’d sounded when he’d talked to the imposter informant in the spaceport.
“I should have.” Onndrae was close to tears. “All Loyduk Pharma cares about is profit, and their vaccine is killing people. What’s one more life to them?”
Foxe handed her a tissue, then asked her to explain how the vaccine was produced.
“We all thought NVP 70 was just another novel virus-phage that someone could create a quick vaccine for and it’d be over before it started.”
Mairwen guessed Onndrae’s “we” meant the pharma industry as a whole. Loyduk didn’t have other vaccines in their catalog.
“No one anticipated the pathogen would be so easily transmitted, or have such a long incubation period that it was spreading before quarantines could contain it. We’d already agreed to produce and distribute the drug that Thang Panjutamai Research was working on, as usual. But once NVP 70 went pandemic, it had higher than usual casualties. Now we were racing against every pharma in the Concordance to be the first to market and skim the profits.”
Foxe had been smart to get Onndrae to give them a recitation of the facts, because it seemed to help her settle into her personal story.
“I work… worked in the lab that produced the vaccine. Like they always do, the research company provided us early prototypes, and we did test runs to work out any issues that might be encountered with mass production. Higher than normal quantities would be needed in this case, since NVP 70 had already hit twenty or thirty systems hard, and projections said it was spreading fast. Management was anticipating windfall profits. We all thought we’d get bonuses.”
She started to take a sip of coffee, but her cup was empty. Foxe poured more for her from the carafe.
“We were working killer overtime. Every day brought news that the pandemic had arrived somewhere new. One of my co-w
orkers lost both her great-grandparents when it hit her home city. The latest prototype from Thang Panjutamai was stable, and the preliminary production run looked smooth as ice. They told us the final trials were only one month from completion and to get ready for a full production run. They made it sound like the trials were a mere formality.”
“That was the usual practice, wasn’t it?”
Onndrae nodded. “Then the pandemic hit Shinnowar. That’s where my whole family lives. I’m the only one who ever left. Local girl makes good.” Her last sentence was laced with sarcasm.
Foxe’s expression sharpened and Mairwen recognized the signs that his intuition was sparking. “You helped Loyduk release the vaccine early.”
Onndrae nodded, her voice barely a whisper. “I panicked.”
“What did you do?” Foxe’s tone was soft, inviting.
Her fingers tightened on her cup. “I had access because of my position, and I knew how everything worked. I changed the records to show the prototype had been approved as is, and to start the production run. It’s an automated process, and Loyduk doesn’t encourage employee initiative, so no one questioned the production orders. Everyone did their jobs, and the vaccine started shipping.”
Foxe was looking distracted, and he glanced at Mairwen more often. She realized his talent was now flaring. If Onndrae had been more observant, she might have registered the changes, but she was too wrapped up in her own troubles.
“At first, I thought I’d done the right thing, because the vaccine was slowing and stopping the pandemic. I made sure it got to Shinnowar in the first shipments. Then we started hearing rumors of side effects. Bad ones. Fatal ones.”
“What were they?” asked Foxe.
“I never found out. By then, Loyduk was in full-blown siege mentality. They were thinking it was a communication mixup with Thang Panjutamai, but I knew it was only a matter of time before they’d discover what I’d done. I used the pandemic as an excuse to take emergency time off. Once I got to Shinnowar, I kept expecting to see formal recall announcements, but all I saw were stories about vaccine thefts. I was sure Loyduk was behind them.”
“Why do you say that?” Foxe’s expression was encouraging.
Mairwen was impressed that he was able to maintain his empathetic interaction with Onndrae while his talent was operating, and seemed to have it under control. Of course, it probably helped that Onndrae wasn’t dead and bleeding on the floor.
“I don’t have any proof. I worked for them for fifteen years. I just know their mindset. Saving money was always more important to them than people’s lives.”
“So you read about the thefts. What did you do then?”
“If those bastards were willing let people die from taking a bad vaccine, I knew my life wouldn’t mean much to them, either. I didn’t want my family in danger, so I contacted Vadra. I hadn’t talked to her in years. I figured it’d be hard to guess I’d go to Etonver to see her. I told her I was coming to town for a job interview, and asked if I could stay with her for a few days.”
Her hands started to shake. She slid them into her lap quickly.
“The only reason I wasn’t there when… that day was because I’d moved into a cashflow-only hostel the night before. Vadra wasn’t like I remembered her, or maybe she was, and I never knew it, but she was chemmed out of her mind every night. I told her I was turned down for the job and was leaving Rekoria.”
Foxe nodded, his expression compassionate. “You heard about Vadra’s death. You reached out to friends for help, which is how we found you.”
Onndrae took another sip of coffee. Her hand was steadier. “The newsfeed says illicit chem dealers killed her, but I thought Loyduk had done it, and they’d be watching the spaceports.”
Mairwen hadn’t heard the police’s theory of the murder, and suppressed a derisive snort. Foxe had been optimistic when he’d predicted it would take them weeks to figure it out.
Foxe asked Onndrae to give him the names of anyone in Loyduk Pharma who might be involved, but she said as far as she was concerned, all the executives were complicit, one way or another.
“I’m tired and scared, and I’m tired of being scared. I just want to keep my family safe.”
Foxe’s eyes had quit drifting to Mairwen, so she assumed he was done using his talent.
“I can understand that. We’ll do what we can to help you.” He tilted his head toward the camera controller unit, which Mairwen took to mean he wanted to stop the recording. She complied.
“Agent Morganthur will escort you to one of our security teams. They’ll be staying with you until we can get you someplace private and safe.”
That was Mairwen’s prearranged cue. If Foxe had judged Onndrae to be another imposter, he would have had Mairwen call the team in and let them deal with it.
As Mairwen led Onndrae through the joyhouse hallway, she surreptitiously studied her temporary charge. She thought Onndrae might once have been a person who smiled a lot, but was now weighed down with fear, anger, and loss. She had an uncharacteristic urge to reassure the fragile woman that she’d been right to trust Foxe.
Their walk was without incident, and she transferred Onndrae to the two La Plata staff who would become her bodyguards and protectors for the next phase of her life. Mairwen nodded in response to Onndrae’s whispered thanks and left.
Back in the meeting room, Foxe had packed up the holo camera set and was waiting for her. He looked worn but pleased. He’d already put on his greatcoat, as if the room had become too cold for him, or he was anxious to leave.
“Much more interesting than blackmarketers selling bad clones,” he said as he gave the room one last check. “Thanks for making Onndrae feel safe.” He caught her gaze with a warm smile. “Me, too.”
For five heartbeats, the pull of him was so strong she had to fight to keep herself still and her breathing steady. He looked away and the moment was gone. She belatedly realized she hadn’t responded, and hoped he wasn’t offended.
After she drove him back to the office, the rest of Foxe’s day was taken up with meetings. He later holed up in his office in deep thinking mode, barely aware of his surroundings, pouring and forgetting multiple cups of coffee, neglecting to eat. Hours after everyone else had left the building, he finally emerged from his office. He was surprised to find her standing outside the door.
“Have you been out here the whole time?” He looked unhappy as he yawned and rubbed his jaw.
“No, just the last four hours.”
She’d followed him to meetings and back, then parked herself in the hallway, with periodic forays to the stairways, lifts, and the fresher. It was nice to have a stationary security post that was indoors for once.
He shook his head. “Remind me to tell Zheer you deserve a bonus. Let’s go home.”
She was puzzled that he was bothered by her doing her job. Where else did he think she’d be? And more disturbing, how were Velasco and Alhamsi providing security during their shifts if they weren’t near him?
He grabbed their coats and handed hers to her, then put his on as they walked the empty halls to the lift. The lights came on and off as they passed by.
His greatcoat smelled of wool and him, which curled into her nose as she drove him home. He’d taken to always sitting up front with her, and she’d taken to allowing it as a harmless chance to immerse her senses in him. Less harmless was the comfortable familiarity of walking into his townhouse with him, almost like it was where she should be. She was glad he’d gone to bed almost immediately, because it gave her time to stare out the curved window in his darkened living room and think.
For nineteen years, she’d dreamed of freedom, and she’d patiently, painstakingly prepared her escape. The Citizen Protection Service thought she was dead, but as masters of deception themselves, they wouldn’t be entirely surprised if they discovered she wasn’t.
The CPS remade people like her into “paracommando pathfinders,” though everyone, even CPS top brass, called them tr
ackers. They were not-quite-human weapons trained to be patient and relentless hunters—and cold executioners when ordered—but those same skills made them good at deceiving their masters. She wasn’t the first tracker to escape and wouldn’t be the last.
The CPS taught extreme self-reliance and crushed any perceived relationships, but active trackers still found ways to communicate with each other. The fact that a significant percentage of trackers disappeared wasn’t a secret; nor was the fact that a few were recaptured, blank-slated, and returned to limited service as little more than automatons, as if they were capital crime convicts. However much trackers distrusted or disliked one another individually, their common enemy was the CPS, and their common dream was freedom.
She’d made that dream real, but four years into her hard-won new life, she didn’t have any new dreams. She’d read books and watched trids to teach herself to blend into normal society, but she hadn’t recognized in herself the softer emotions they’d described. She’d proven she could live like an ordinary person with an ordinary job, but that was as far as she’d gotten. She had no relationships because she didn’t know where to start, or with whom she wanted to start one. She’d thought she might be damaged beyond repair.
But now, meeting Luka Foxe and being plunged into his investigation was changing her. He cared about doing what was right, about justice. It was what drove him, what fired his intuition and his love of solving mysteries. He dreamed of justice for his friends, for everyone, and sacrificed for it. He cared about others, too, even people he didn’t know. He even cared about her, a little, even if it was just to help him manage the talent that scared him.
Working for Luka and seeing how he lived made her realize she’d been merely existing, content with having freedom but doing nothing with it. And doing nothing with herself or her extraordinary skills, which she’d thought had no place in a civilized world. She’d taken more initiative and risks in the last week than she had in the nearly four years since she’d hidden herself away on Rekoria, and it made her feel alive.