by Sean Platt
“You promised,” said Kai, “but you didn’t deliver. Instead, you kept it all hidden. From me.”
Now that they were talking, Kai couldn’t keep the anger out of her voice. He’d lured her into this life for twenty years using the carrot of the so-called Beau Monde, and most recently he’d dangled the same promise if she’d kill a man she considered a friend. Two weeks of conversation with Nicolai about his own past — about what had been hidden from him — hadn’t made her like Micah’s motives any more. On the contrary, it had strengthened her conviction that there were puppet masters on top of the world, pulling strings and making everyone dance. The idea didn’t bother Kai in and of itself. It was the truth that she’d been living as a puppet rather than a puppeteer that rankled her.
“It’s not that simple,” Micah said. “I couldn’t tell you all the details of what was waiting for you because once you knew and simultaneously knew that you couldn’t have it yet, it would’ve set you off like…well, like you’re set off right now. I can’t just give you Beau Monde status. It’s not a certain number of credits or a checkbox on a form. There are procedures — even a modification that must be made to your Beam ID.”
“Modifications to my ID? What, like a membership card?”
“In a way. You’ll find that once you have that status, more doors will automatically open. Both literally and figuratively.”
“So do what needs to be done. Hook me up.”
“I can’t.”
“You son of a bitch.” Kai shook her head, barely holding her temper. There was more here. He wouldn’t have told her all of this just to yank it away. “I’ve earned this. Twenty goddamned years. I promised you four and gave you twenty, and still you hold out on me.”
“I can’t, Kai.”
“I taught my canvas a neat trick,” she said. “I can point the AI at a name, and it’ll spit a figure back at me. Wanna see? Watch, it’ll tell me just how much any given person’s death benefitted Ryan Industries.”
“Kai…”
“Let’s set aside just how incriminating my bit of software might be because obviously I would never tell anyone. Well. Never is an extreme word.” She gave Micah a look. “But let me share some of what I’ve learned. The obvious starting point is a man whose name I once found on paper, inside an envelope. I remember the way that paper burned, but I’ve never forgotten the name, same as I’ve never forgotten how the light left Bertrand Bernard’s eyes after I broke his neck. I broke my code of self-enforced blindness about my targets, too, as soon as I got home. I found I needed to know about this man you’d so badly wanted out of the picture. Landholder in Alaska, above the Arctic Circle. Somehow, Ryan Industries inherited the land after he died. And the resources under the melted ice.”
“Don’t threaten…”
Kai held up a finger, stopping him.
“I’m not threatening. I’m just sharing data. The way my AI figures it, Ryan Industries is something like 90 billion credits richer today as a result of having acquired the unfortunate Mr. Bernard’s land.”
Micah’s expression hardened.
“There was a woman named Yvette Delafleur in District Two, where Xenia Labs has a manufacturing facility. A ruthless bitch. Part of an organized crime group called ‘Mephisto.’ A company under Mephisto’s protection called Biovette — maybe tied to the organization itself — manufactured many of the same add-ons as Xenia. Xenia’s labs were sabotaged. Its people were killed. Fortunately, Mephisto activities — including the less savory aspects of Biovette’s competitive practice — dissipated once Yvette was found murdered. Due to that slice of fortune, Xenia was able to dominate the market in Districts Two and Seventeen. The numbers on this one are predictive and far from certain, but it seems likely that Delafleur’s life — once ended — benefitted Ryan Industries to the tune of nearly 114 billion credits.”
“Kai…”
“It’s fascinating,” she continued, meeting and challenging Micah’s glare. “Any one of dozens of names; they all spit such large credits figures.”
“It’s not that simple,” said Micah.
“Oh yes, it is. You’ve paid me just under 50 million credits in the time we’ve worked together. With conservative calculations, I figure I’ve earned or saved you at least twenty thousand times that.”
“You’ve been fantastic. And maybe you deserve a significant bonus.”
Kai shook her head slowly. “I don’t want a bonus. I want to be Beau Monde. As promised.”
“Oh, is that all?” Micah laughed, but the laugh died on his lips as he looked at Kai’s unblinking face.
“It’s not all, as a matter of fact,” Kai said. “You owe even more to someone else.”
Micah’s head cocked.
“Your cornerstone products were built on a technology that was given to you, gift wrapped. By Nicolai Costa.”
“I’m working with Nicolai already.”
“I’m not talking about working with him. I’m talking about Beau Monde,” Kai said. “For me. For him. We built your company. You owe us both.”
“What do you care about Nicolai?”
Kai smiled without mirth. “We aren’t all eternally selfish, Micah.”
Micah met her eyes. “I told you, I can’t just flip a switch.”
“You’d replace me instead? Because I’ve had it. It’s this, or I walk. Kill me if you must.” She paused. “If you can.”
“You’re not hearing me. I’m not refusing. I’m telling you that I can’t. It’s invite only. You have to be invited into the Beau Monde.”
“Invite me then.” Again, Kai corrected herself. “Us.”
“It’s not up to me.”
“Share my results with the people who decide. Tell them about Nicolai and what you took from him. What you hid from him.”
“How do you know about that?”
“He’s a client.”
“Just a client?”
Kai shook her head. “I’ll walk, Micah. I’m tired of being your toy.” Then she thought of something. “I’ll get Nicolai to walk, too.”
“What makes you think I still need him?”
“I know you. I know how you think. I know that while things look tidy and coincidental, they never are. You’ve been grooming Nicolai for years. Letting Isaac warm him up so that one day you could step in. I can’t know for sure, but I’d bet my substantial-but-still-not-enough Ryan Industries earnings that if he and I left — or were eliminated by my successor — you’d hurt plenty.”
Micah looked at the ceiling then spread his arms. To his credit, he looked honestly uncertain. “I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Tell me you’ll talk to…to whoever.”
“Nobody knows where the invites come from. It’s guarded. Top down. You’ve got to understand: You may be the first person who’s ever been in a position to demand entry. Nobody is knocking at our doors because nobody knows what Beau Monde really is. The term shows up here and there, but only as rumor. The ranting of nerds with tinfoil hats. When invites come, they are a surprise. There’s no one to petition.”
“But you have a guess. You think you know.”
Micah’s eyes flicked to the left. A light lit in her field of vision, but long before she’d had her visual add-ons, Kai had learned to read people.
“I…”
“Don’t bother going on. Whatever you’re about to say to me, it’s a lie.”
He met her gaze for real.
“Fine,” he said. “I don’t know why you — and Nicolai, for that matter — haven’t been invited already. It’s why I made the promise I did, all those years ago. I was sure it was only a matter of a few years before you were called up yourself, especially once you came under my wing. And while it’s true that I don’t know how to get you in, I do know that there’s one and only one thing between me and finding your answer. I can’t promise to get you an invite…but if you do one more job, I can at least find out where the invites come from, and maybe what’s been stopping you
rs.”
Kai felt her head cock to the side, almost of its own accord. “What job?”
Micah seemed to consider something weighty, as if he was having trouble saying what he needed to say — or as if he wasn’t quite sure he wanted to break the seal on some ancient secret.
He took a breath. Then he said, “Kill Rachel Ryan.”
Dominic entered the DZPD station feeling like shit was being thrown at him.
He was keyed up, sweating emergency thoughts about how to get some Lunis into the mountains before the junkies ran dry. His mind was heavy with plots (as chief, he had access to all of the narcotics evidence, but how would he get nano trackers past the sensors?) and with justifications. He had to do this, but it was another example of “right” trumping “legal.” That particular justification felt as worn as an ancient shoe, but that didn’t stop it from sounding good (or at least less bad) in Dominic’s ears. It didn’t matter how the Organas became hooked or how they’d managed their supply over the years — through a kingpin that Dominic had allowed to traffic under the department’s nose or through Dominic directly. It only mattered that an entire village of granola-crunchers was about to crash hard all at once. When that happened, they might stop crunching granola and crunch skulls instead. It would cause deaths, fighting, and damage. It would cause more problems for the police. Right or wrong, maybe the best thing to do was to break the law one more time as the lesser of evils.
And besides, the police couldn’t handle any more problems right now without breaking. The station’s chaos wasn’t confined to its files and forms; it had spilled into the air itself. Officers bustled with grim little lines for lips, their manners simultaneously important and tragic. The big room crackled with chatter, the offices shut with detectives on their connections, pacing like caged animals as they talked and gestured. Dominic saw new maps projected on the situation wall along with smaller maps on smaller walls. Each had officers drawing on them with their fingers.
The main map showed glowing dots of every color, many pulsing like infected wounds. Dominic didn’t need to walk closer to know what each color meant. Red spots were riots; he’d made that designation himself. The city had three riot spots, two large and one small. Two of them were dormant, where officers were on-site, patrolling on foot, in car, and on hoverskippers, supervising cleanup. One pulsed, indicating a riot in progress. That seemed to be the rule. One riot at a time, then any malcontents that weren’t arrested would go elsewhere for trouble. The police squads couldn’t snatch them all. They grabbed a few of the worst instigators each time and tossed them behind bars, but they couldn’t hold them long, and Dominic got the feeling that rioters returned to where they would be most disruptive, almost for spite.
But of course, red wasn’t the map’s only color. He’d have to look at the key to know them all, but Dominic could peg a few of the codes by memory. Blue was homicide. Pink meant domestic disturbances. Yellow was armed robbery. All the colors of the feel-bad rainbow.
“Mason!” Dominic snapped, catching sight of a pitted-faced man in his fifties. Officer Mason was overweight, like Dominic, but shockingly lithe. He’d taken down several suspects fleeing on foot after hopping fences and eluding dogs. His nickname around the station was “Sparky.”
Mason spun, a tablet in his hands.
“Captain Long!” He sounded caught, as if what Dominic had found both hands full of was his dick. “I’ve been trying to reach you!”
“I know that, asshole. My mobile is clogged with your fucking mail. What, I can’t leave the station? I’m the only one here who can make decisions?”
“We’ve been proceeding as well as we can, sir. I was just trying to keep you updated, as you asked me to do when you left. You said, ‘Danny, let me know if anything crazy happens and you need me.’ That was what you wanted me to do, sir.”
Dominic shook his head. “Noah Fucking West. Yes, but did you need to run to me with every little thing? I was…”
“Apologies, sir,” said Mason, keeping his eyes averted as if Dominic were the pope, “but these all seemed warranted. The big warehouse fire. FDDZ is still fighting that one, sir. Chemicals and stuff. Hazmat teams are on the job, and the fucking EPA is all up our ass about…”
“The EPA?”
“Because of the pollution, sir. Apparently, it’s noxious.”
“Idiots. What about the city filters? They’re double-thick with purifiers anywhere it’s zoned industrial. They fed the MSDSs of every chemical in the plants through the local Beam node when the factories opened, then update quarterly. The AI tells them what filters to put where and what kind to stock them with.”
“Yes, sir. But the EPA seems concerned about wind conditions in…”
“Wind?”
“Yes, sir. It’s blowing the cloud across the bridge. And that’s the other thing. There’s a bunch of protestors from some environmental group down by the river, all worked up over poisoned fish.”
“Who the fuck is eating fish from the Hudson?”
“They’re worried about the fish for the sake of the fish, sir. Not for eating.”
“Fucking hell. And why hasn’t anyone contacted Biofence about stopping the wind?”
“They’re backed up, sir. Apparently, there’s a rash of lattice-related issues today. They keep saying they’ll get to us.”
“What the hell is the EPA doing?”
“Checking filters, sir.”
“Because they know better than AI? Noah Fucking West. Don’t these people know their business? You can’t walk through this city without inhaling a hundred bots the fucking EPA put on the wind to follow the breezes. The filters along the wind’s path will light up. It’s not a problem.”
“I know, sir, but we’re still being inundated with requests for permits…”
“Permits? We’re the fucking police!”
Mason’s face was beginning to flush with the effort of talking so much. How this fat shit could run down criminals, Dominic had no idea.
“No, the permits from the factories. That’s what they want.”
“Why? Search the fucking Beam!”
“That’s what I said. But they keep yammering on and on about something I can’t get because I’m worried about the assholes asking for more permits, about the riots…”
“Rioters don’t have permits!”
“Apparently, one of them started as a demonstration? I forget which one. Anyway, there’s a civil rights lawyer in your office about that, and…”
“You let someone into my office?”
Mason waved his hands in a gesture of negation. “No, no, no…outside your office. He says he needs to speak with you immediately about police action on-scene at the Flatiron riot, and…”
“What does police action have to do with permits?”
“Sorry, sir. This isn’t the permits thing. That’s another issue. The lawyer is here about the Flatiron riots. I sent you mail about it, if you just want to…”
“Just fucking tell me!”
“Oh yes, sir; sorry, sir, the Flatiron riot, sir. The one with the kids? See, there were these kids on their way back from a museum trip, and they got caught in the middle of a…”
“Okay, I know about that one.”
“I sent you mail, sir.”
“I know.”
“All the details you need.”
“I know, Mason,” Dominic said, trying to hold his temper. “And what about this lawyer?”
“Oh. Apparently, the NAUCLU is arguing that the use of nano swarms by the riot police was excessive and is asking for action against…”
“Motherfucker.”
“Yes, sir. But he’s claiming that the keepers should have…”
“Motherfucker!” Dominic yelled. He pushed past Mason, knocking him against a desk, shaking a terminal screen on its foundation. He’d seen that motherfucker Omar right fucking there, and yes, there he was now, right fucking in the middle of the fucking police station, walking right the fuck across the
floor like he was fucking king of the fucking…
But when Dominic reached the spot where he’d seen Omar, the man vanished. Dominic stopped so short that Mason, who’d pursued him across the crowded room, rammed him from behind.
“What the hell?” said Dominic.
“Oh, that’s another thing, sir,” said Mason, nodding toward the corner. “Quark is helping. Sorting some of the conflicting data.”
Dominic looked toward where he’d seen Omar, now realizing that the man had been walking in place. The station’s corner had been converted into a tidy section of Quark, complete with a holopad and — Dominic wanted to groan — the same two Quark PD officers who had done such a fantastic good cop/bad cop job of interrogating Leah a few weeks ago. They were sitting behind a desk like celebrities at a signing. The desk itself was an insult. It was ten times shinier and brighter than any of DZPD’s analog furniture, its surface lit with Beam data. The two officers (clerics, if Leah was right) were scrolling through screens faster than any human normally could, and still Dominic knew they were only doing their little search display for the benefit of the officers clustered around holding tablets. Quark and its AI could operate at the speed of light. They were only slowing down to speak with humans, while their fancy life-size holopad projected top priorities in full 3-D behind them in a loop. The Omar hologram Dominic had seen was just one segment from maybe a dozen in the rotation. Others included riot footage, the warehouse fire, and several violent scenes Dominic couldn’t place.
“Who let them set up here?” Dominic asked.
“Gregor, sir.”
“Gregor can’t authorize Quark coming into our part of the station.” Dominic felt his blood as it rolled to a boil. Chaos in the station was one thing and his pressure to solve the moondust situation was worse, but the presence of Quark police here was an insult beyond measure. They were posturing. There was no need for QPD to set up in Dominic’s space; they had half of the fucking building already.
“We couldn’t reach you, sir, and they offered to help.”