by Sean Platt
The house of cards was shaking hard. Archer Latham was supposed to be a whale. Sam had saved for months to afford the image of a high roller, but it worked only if everything went perfectly, and even then he was only borrowing the image for hours. The suit he was wearing had cost six months’ wages, and he could only return it spotless. He’d bought it in DZ, so he couldn’t pull his train fare from those funds.
He’d have to walk home, it seemed. Or beg his brother — who’d helped him with so much of his tech, at slightly lower prices — to wire him money. Or beg his parents, who were still shaking their heads at the idea of talented young Sam becoming a low-tier intrepid reporter.
This Braemon piece would put Sam on the map. He’d finally succeed, truly, in Enterprise, once it was published.
But the article could only be published if he was able to turn it in. He could only turn in the article if he got the evidence of Beau Monde Shift tampering that he was supposed to be gathering from Braemon and his cronies, to make his dangerously damning case airtight. He could only get the evidence if he didn’t blow his own cover, revealing himself to be someone other than fancy-pants hotshot Archer Latham — who, if anyone cared to investigate, didn’t exist. And he could only keep his cover if he could pay for his meal.
Which, it seemed, was nearing jeopardy, given that he only had a hundred credits left in his account.
“I’m fine,” Sam told Veronica.
“I could use some air anyway.” She took his hand and stood, almost dragging Sam upright.
A voice boomed from across the table. It was Braemon himself.
“Latham!”
Sam turned. He was losing control of his responses. The bank’s call had started a cascade. The irony was thick: Sam had already recorded and buffered all he’d need to cap his article, implicate Craig Braemon, expose the secret class ruling Shift, and escape scot-free — the great masked reporter strikes again. But instead he was about to doom himself and incur possibly deadly retribution, sweating and bouncing payments all the way down.
But when Sam turned, Braemon’s fat, toothy face was smiling.
“Running out as the check comes, I see.”
On cue, a white-gloved waiter slid a fine leather check wallet in front of Sam. Apparently, dinner was over.
His heart slowed. Dinner was merely over, and Braemon was making a joke. It was no big deal. The cavalry had come. Sam’s poor, hundred-credit ass was saved. He’d been meticulously calculating his bill all evening, toeing the line between wheeling like a big shot and making sure he’d be able to pay, gratuity included.
He was safe. He’d be destitute before dessert, but he’d survive, with one hell of a career-making article in the hole.
Sam gave Veronica a confident look, apologizing for declining her offer to head out for fresh air. He opened the wallet, put an appropriately I-don’t-give-a-shit-because-I’m-loaded look on his face, and raised his thumb to press the identifier and pay.
But before he could, Sam noticed a flurry of activity around the table. None of the others were readying their thumbs. They were all pulling out flat pieces of black plastic and laying them atop the wallets. All but Sam.
Sam’s paused thumb slowly gathered attention. Braemon looked at it, not put-off but curious. Sam tried to sneak a peek at the others’ wallets but couldn’t make out what they were doing. What the hell were those black plastic cards?
Braemon’s eyes flicked from Sam’s thumb to his face.
“Got a fun idea,” he said. “I hear you’re a gambler, Archer. You wanna play credit card roulette?”
Sam looked at Sully, across the table. He’d been hatless all night, but Sam couldn’t help but picture him in a huge white hat, true to his Texan bearing.
“We all toss our cards in,” he explained. “Draw one at random. Then that person pays for everyone’s meal.”
Sam’s eyes flicked to the wallet in front of Sully. His card was jet black and read, American Express. It was a company Sam had heard of but so obscure that he couldn’t finger it without a search. But the name told him what he needed to know, from context: if these were credit cards, then they dispensed credits the same way a thumbprint scan would. A rich person’s status symbol, probably, eschewing the normal way of banking because they had enough money to be antiquated and backward.
“You’ve got a black AmEx, don’t you, Archer?” said Braemon.
“Of course,” Sam replied, fighting a resurgence of nerves — complete with screams from his AI’s behavioral assessments.
“So toss it in.”
“I’d rather not,” said Sam, affecting a casual air.
“Why not?”
He needed an answer that wasn’t Because this dinner costs more than a year’s rent. So he tried on a sly smile, cocked a thumb at Sully, and said, “I’ll die before I buy this asshole’s dinner.”
A returning smile from Sully. “Fuck you, Archer.”
“Come on, Latham,” said Braemon, still watching Sam. “Just looking at all those tattoos on your arms tells me you’re not pussy enough to back out on a thrill.” He cocked his head. “Unless, of course, you’re a bullshitter.”
A toothy smile was still on Braemon’s face. But it wasn’t all mirth.
“I forgot my card at home. I forgot this was the 1900s and that only old people would still want to pay with plastic.”
Was it plastic, or were the cards made of something else? And was his quip in-line? Sam had never been in a group this rich and powerful. Maybe paying with a physical card was a show of pride, and maybe his joke was out of line.
But the woman two down from Sully, Gloria, fished in her bag and chuckled. She came out with a black card like the others and tossed it on the table.
“Here, Archer.” She looked at her husband, seated beside her, who’d already laid down his own card to pay for both of them. “Use mine. They pull my card, you can pay with your thumbprint.”
Sam fought panic, smiled at Gloria, heart pounding in his temples, and said, “Thanks.”
Braemon gathered the cards and shuffled. He looked around the table at each person, making theatrical faces, but spent more time watching Sam than the others. Sam kept his eyes on the pile, wordlessly instructing his AI to keep track of Gloria’s card. But after a few seconds a man named Victor snatched the cards from Braemon and tossed them in a satchel fashioned from a large cloth napkin, accusing Braemon’s “cheating fingers” of tracking the cards same as Sam had been doing.
The cards went into the napkin. Victor shook it. Sam held his dumb, uncaring smile, his thoughts becoming a jumble of fear and red, screaming panic.
He’d never be able to afford dinner for ten. Not in a million years. He’d be exposed. The waiters would feign fault and offer Sam a dozen ways to pay, blaming their own equipment. But by the end, everyone would still know three things:
The tenth man was Sam Dial, not Archer Latham.
Archer Latham didn’t exist.
And, if it mattered, Sam Dial was dirt poor, bottom of the barrel.
Which wouldn’t matter if Braemon was a tenth as connected as Sam thought he was and if the secrets Sam was about to publish offended Braemon as deeply as Sam knew they would.
If that happened, it wouldn’t matter how embarrassed Sam was about being poor. Because it wouldn’t be long before he was dead, unmindful of social awkwardness.
Victor reached into the napkin bag and pinched out a single black card. He turned the front toward himself and read the name upon it.
“Quincy Dufresne,” he said.
Sam exhaled then closed his eyes briefly, willing his heart to slow. The entire table turned toward the slight man with the mustache and began making good-natured jibes, laughing and pointing.
Everyone but Craig Braemon, who’d been watching Sam throughout the roulette.
Sam allowed Veronica to pat his arm while Braemon’s eyes stayed on him. He allowed the bill to be paid, knowing he had train fare back to District Zero after all, without com
ment. He kept his face pleased while dinner broke up then again allowed Veronica to lead him out, whispering alluring thoughts in his ear.
But as soon as he could ditch his prospective lover for the evening, Sam intended to. Then he planned to head back to District Zero — not tomorrow as planned, but immediately. He’d submit his article and evidence to the Sentinel…but somehow he now doubted it would see publication, once certain unseen forces intervened.
One look at Braemon’s eyes as Sam took his leave said that if he wanted to see many more days — not as an employed reporter, but as a living human being — he might want to start running. He might want to start hiding. And wherever the network was, he was suddenly sure there would be people eager to find him.
Before he and Veronica could slide into a hovercab outside the restaurant, Braemon’s big form appeared at the door, holding it open.
Sam looked up, hiding a swallow. When Braemon didn’t speak first, Sam said, “Thanks for inviting me, Craig.”
Braemon replied, “Thanks for coming…Archer.”
He closed the door, and Sam cued the cab’s AI to take them away, Braemon’s final words playing over and over in his head.
The pause before the big man spoke Sam’s fake name had, in Sam’s clanging memory, seemed hours long.
Dominic sat in his office in the DZPD station, trying to ignore the Quark cops’ continued and helpful presence in the front room while Omar’s words ran through his head.
They can’t catch ghosts, Dom.
Dominic still didn’t understand Omar’s plan to infiltrate Craig Braemon’s security…and, in true Omar Jones fashion, he’d only told Dominic the bare minimum. Omar wasn’t withholding because he wanted power over Dominic or anything that might make sense. No, Omar was just a dramatic little cocksucker. Because he wanted to smile his weasel’s smile and wave some fucking magic wand: Presto, change-o, Dom…look how it all came together. That’s the magic of the Omar Way.
What a dick.
Dominic rose from his desk, kicked at his door, and snorted when it failed to close. Doors didn’t open like box tops in the Quark wing; they slid into walls like science fiction films had always said doors should. You could practically have a Noah West avatar butler tending to your every need, and all you had to do was ask it to handle things for you. Close the door please, Noah. Wipe my ass please, Noah. Real cops couldn’t even get their steel doors to sit in the jamb when kicked.
Dominic was mostly back to his seat by the time he realized he’d need to use his hands to close the door and sighed back to sitting with an air of, Oh, screw it. Public relations gold continued to bleed into the captain’s office — Quark cops chattering about all the good this agency was doing for the city in its time of unrest. Unrest that, to Dominic, seemed to have disproportionately included Natasha Ryan, Isaac’s cunt of a wife.
But really, that wasn’t fair. Dominic had bent Isaac over his knee and made the Big Bad Directorate figurehead do his bidding many times over the years, but he’d barely met Natasha. She might not be a cunt. But pretty much everyone, everywhere, agreed that she was. So maybe it wasn’t fair, but it was a safe assumption.
He took a moment to flagellate himself by listening to Quark PR outside, with their fancy holograms and crime location maps, talking about how Quark could do things the normal police force could not: use their superior Beam intelligence parsing of City Surveillance feeds to not only pinpoint crimes in progress, but to predict them, for instance.
To Dominic, that sounded more science fiction than doors that slid into walls on a verbal command. The kind of sci-fi that people once wrote as a warning. That was some Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick’s Minority Report shit right there. Quark was already setting up house inside everyone’s brains (everyone’s but Dominic’s; he’d kept that nano enhancement crap out of his body), so why not start raping their futures too?
He turned from the noise. It was a distraction, and Dominic knew it. He didn’t want to face the deepening grave he was digging with Omar and didn’t want to think about what must be happening with Leo and the Organas. The latter was a one-two-three punch. First, Dominic had failed the Organas as their dust supplier. Then he’d betrayed an old friend by planting Agent Austin’s bug in Leo’s house. And now, as the final insult, Leo and his followers had to be tearing their hair out in withdrawal — or maybe ripping each other apart if the agents who’d raided the compound had failed to restrain them fully enough during the ride back to the city for processing.
Dominic shook it off. Yes, he’d planted the bug. But if NPS had raided the village, it meant Leo had said something damning within range of the thing’s electronic ear. And you didn’t say something damning if you weren’t up to something damning. That meant that whatever Leo was in for, he’d brought it on himself. Same for the withdrawal. If Leo hadn’t wanted to go through Lunis withdrawal, he shouldn’t have started taking Lunis. And if he hadn’t wanted to put his group through the agony, maybe he shouldn’t have introduced them to the drug in the first place.
Dominic looked at his crappy, non-Beam desk. His fingers drummed the wood.
Thinking about Leo was another form of distraction, like thinking about the Quark cops posturing outside.
Omar, you son of a bitch. You’re going to get us all caught, he thought.
Omar’s voice replied, They can’t catch ghosts, Dom.
Dominic touched his console screen to wake it then opened the DZPD Beam connection. What he was doing, by virtue of being captain (and, in time, temporary commissioner) was supposed to be secure and entirely confidential, but even so Dominic found his fingers shaking. This wasn’t just saving his sister or Crumb (ahem, Stephen York) from Respero, which was illegal enough. This was somehow beyond illegal. There were no laws to prevent the specific form of espionage they were planning. If caught, they probably wouldn’t be tossed into a prison flat. Their punishment might be far worse, especially given what he’d already dug up about Craig Braemon and his strange ability to stay untouchable.
Dominic’s connection was supposed to be highly privileged, totally private. But just a little while ago someone had hacked into the station, right into Dominic’s private business, and snooped information about the day he’d saved Crumb’s life and hidden him away.
But there was no choice. He was in too deep. It was either move forward or get trapped in the middle, like a man stuck in tar while predators approach from behind.
Dominic began to search, dragging Beam data into a pile.
Who the hell was Thomas Stahl?
And really, why did Omar care? Once Dominic formed the dossier on this guy Stahl and grabbed the code that Omar wanted him to, what good would it be to Kate? She was a smuggler, not a hacker. Dominic had already considered and rejected the idea of recruiting Leah, who might be able to…well, not penetrate Braemon’s security, probably, but at least get closer than the three of them ever could. But Leah might be under arrest with the remaining Organas, and her priorities would be elsewhere even if she hadn’t been. Besides, Leah was a freedom fighter. She distrusted The Beam the same as Dominic, but there was no way he could convince her that committing high crimes wasn’t just selfishness.
You’re an idiot, Omar, Dominic had said. You can’t slip yourself into a dead person’s shell. If you could, every thug keen on identity theft would be doing it.
Tom Stahl isn’t exactly dead, Dom.
What is he?
He’s something else.
Hmm. And Kate’s going to put him on like a suit? She’s going to log in as Stahl, fool all the AI, and waltz right in.
Maybe it’s just that simple, Omar had said.
But he wouldn’t elaborate. He’d just given that maddening smile and said that Dominic should stop being a spoilsport and enjoy the ride.
Doc Stahl ain’t alive or dead. And trust me, Katie can make his ghost dance just the way we need.
Dominic wanted to disagree on principle. When Omar had said the last thing, Dominic had nearly
punched him in his expensive dental work. Even now, Dominic was half-tempted to turn Omar in instead of following his plan. It would be easy. Omar was slippery in person, but Dominic could send a team first and ask questions later. And really, the way Dominic had felt about Omar recently, maybe Omar would tragically die during his apprehension and the problem would solve itself. Half the force was dirty. Dominic could definitely make it happen.
But it was all fantasy. For better or worse, Dominic, Omar, and apparently Kate were in bed together. As much as he hated Omar and his mysteries and his cockiness, this was his best bet. Possibly his only bet. The only way, maybe, to solve his Lunis problem, the Organa’s issues, and any future dirty dealings with Omar all at once.
Dominic temporarily turned off his wireless, isolating the canvas. He inserted the slip drive then offloaded the data spider. Once the AI pattern-matched and hid like good soldiers, Dominic reactivated the wireless.
This time, when he searched for Thomas “Doc” Stahl, a stream of covered data flowed to the slip drive holding the code. Dominic watched it go, following the blinking of the activity monitor.
Inside the drive, the dossier grew more complete. Not on their target of Craig Braemon, but on an anonymous man, Thomas Stahl, who’d gone missing and was presumed dead. A snake and double-dealer, as far as Dominic could tell. A man who smiled from one side of his mouth while lying with the other. A man who’d sell you shit and tell you it was ice cream. A man, as it turned out, who’d had many encounters with the police according to cross-referencing with the station’s records — encounters that were usually dutifully recorded, sometimes conveniently obscured.
Dominic’s eyes narrowed as he flicked through pages, giving each only the most cursory of glances. He didn’t need to read any of this; the AI was working behind the scenes, scraping what it needed, building a shell that Omar naively believed Kate would be able to don like a virtual coat. But something had caught his eye, so he flicked back.
What was this connection between Stahl and Nicolai Costa? Dominic didn’t know Nicolai beyond the man’s name. Unless it was a coincidence (and Dominic didn’t think so; Nicolai Costa wasn’t a common name), the man was Isaac Ryan’s speechwriter. Or rather, he used to be; Dominic had caught some gossipy stories ranking near BeamTop about drama around Costa. Mostly those stories were drama surrounding Isaac and Natasha, but Costa had been in there, too. He might have defected? He might have started working for Isaac’s brother, Micah? It wasn’t clear.