by Watts Martin
“Break it up,” the man stepping between them says, unnecessarily, hands out. “Break it up.”
Handsome, well-dressed, and oh so square-jawed. Jack Fucking Thomas, fucking Interpol agent.
“She’s crazy!” Corbett winces; he’s still in pain. She’s probably ruined his jacket, but better than his back. “I was just in line and she jumped me!”
She wipes off her face. “Fuck you, Randall.”
Suspicious Detective stands near but not too near, trying to look like he’s not interested in what’s happening. She wants to stab him with his cutesy tie tack. Guy Two’s disappeared.
“What kind of grudge do you have against me? It’s been years!”
What grudge does she have against him? After he—
“You two know each other. Interesting.” He gestures between them. “I saw you chase him. Why?”
“He set me up to take the fall for a theft he’s involved with.”
“A theft of what?”
“A databox. I’m pretty sure it’s on him right now.”
“I told you, I don’t know—”
Thomas holds a hand up to Randall, keeping his eyes on Gail. “Is the databox yours?”
“No, it’s my client’s.”
“And your client is?”
“I don’t think I should get into that now.” She glances meaningfully at Randall.
“Ah.” Thomas seems to mull that. “Could you both raise your arms and hold still for a search?”
“No! I have to be on that ship!” Randall spits. “Why are you listening to her?”
“Because I find Ms. Simmons’ story fascinating, Mr. Corbett.”
“Come on, you said you saw her jump me! That’s assault!”
“I saw her chase you after you started running.”
“She looked like she was going to come after me. And she did.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know! Her kind just goes off sometimes!”
She stares across at him. “My ‘kind?’ Are we talking about women, totemics, salvors, or what? I’d like this on record.” The leopard cop holding Randall lowers his ears but doesn’t say anything. Randall doesn’t, either. He just looks away with a stop-putting-words-in-my-mouth expression.
Agent Squarejaw lifts his brows, then waves with both hands. “Arms up.”
She runs a brief calculation in her head. If she’s right, the databox is either on Randall or in his luggage, but probably on him. If she’s wrong she gets cited for the brawl, and faces a judiciary proceeding and restitution fines.
She raises her arms up high. It’s depressing that this is the best outcome she could have hoped for, but work with what you have.
Randall, though, stays motionless. “I know my rights. I don’t have to do what you say.”
“No, it’s my understanding you don’t have to even do what they say.” Agent Squarejaw gestures toward the PFS officers. “But in any resulting court case—or whatever the local phrase is—your lack of cooperation counts against you, doesn’t it?” He pulls something out of his jacket pocket: a thin, foldable display. Bringing it to within about ten centimeters of Gail’s front, he starts panning it around her.
“What is that?” Randall narrows his eyes. “That’s not a standard wave scanner.”
“Databoxes are hard to track, but if you have their serial number you can get an acknowledgement ping from them if you’re in very close proximity.” Agent Squarejaw moves around to Gail’s back. “And it just so happens I have the serial number of a missing databox.”
Gail studies Randall’s face for the micro-expression but the flash of fear isn’t micro at all. The cisform cop notices it, too, giving Gail a raised-brow glance.
Agent Squarejaw finishes another pass, down around Gail’s legs and sandals, then straightens up and looks at Corbett expectantly.
“You don’t have permission to search me!”
Squarejaw looks at the leopard. “Check me on my understanding of your laws here. We’re acting on a report about a stolen databox, so we have probable cause for the stop.”
The leopard nods. “Yes, sir.”
“Ms. Simmons voluntarily submitted to a search, which did not turn the box up on her person. She accuses Mr. Corbett of the theft. Mr. Corbett refuses to submit to a search, and he started to run from her when they recognized one another. Where I’m from, that would be enough grounds for holding him on suspicion of involvement and compelling a search; would it be here?”
“We can hold him,” the cisform cop says. “We’ll have to clear a search but I don’t see why it’d be a problem.”
“Excellent.” He nods toward the exit. “Let’s be on our way.”
Chapter 6
They don’t cuff Gail’s wrists for the walk to the substation. They don’t cuff Corbett’s, either, but the officer walking with him keeps one hand on his pistol. While he mutters under his breath and glares at her occasionally, he doesn’t mouth off to the officers any more. For her part, she does her best to radiate confidence that the PFS will see things her way any moment now.
The path leads them back out of the intersolar concourse, back to the elevators, down to ground level, through doors reading “Authorized Personnel Only.” The air inside smells of age and antiseptic. They pass by a few other doors and side corridors, by a few gawking spaceport employees, and through a door with the Panorica Federation Security logo—a slight variant on the same logo the Federation uses everywhere.
Gail and Corbett get guided to separate rooms. The one they leave her in is nearly bare, just a table and two chairs. And, a quick scan confirms, full-spectrum monitoring equipment embedded in one wall. They shut the door behind her, leaving her alone. The noise of the lock sounds calculated to be melodramatic.
“Kis?” she murmurs. No response. The signal’s blocked.
Sighing, she drops into a seat, crossing her arms. Even assuming they let her go, now instead of getting the databox away from Corbett, she’ll need to get it away from the PFS. That’s assuming they even find the databox on him. If they don’t, she might as well start making shit up to confess to. By now Nakimura’s had to have gotten word back that Gail’s been hauled off by the cops. Since the entire point of “hiring” her for this was to keep this out of the legal system, he’s already setting his hair on fire.
But Squarejaw had the databox’s serial number. Nakimura’s the only one that could have come from, isn’t he? Who else is there? It’d have made a great delaying tactic for the real thieves if they’d gotten him to intercept her before she saw Corbett, but if that had been the plan it sure as hell backfired.
It’s twelve minutes and thirty-eight seconds before Agent Thomas comes back in the room. She was counting.
“Sorry to keep you waiting. I wanted to talk to Mr. Corbett first.”
“The hospital scent isn’t as strong in here, at least.”
He takes the seat opposite hers. “I can’t smell it at all here.”
“You have a human nose.”
He leans back and gives her a slight, curious smile. “So do you. You’ve just made yours look like a mouse’s.”
“Rat. And there’s more to it than that. If you’re stationed out here I hope you’re going to learn more about totemics.”
“Totemics aren’t unique to Cerelia River space. There’s millions on Earth. My congresswoman’s a vixen. Third totemic elected to higher office. I voted for her. And I know the basics. You all start as cisform but you get transformed sometime after birth, with some surgery and a lot of gene therapy. In your case that happened right after you were born.”
Given her generation—and her age at transform—almost no surgery for her. She folds her arms. Eventually he’ll get to a point.
He keeps his slight smile for another beat, then leans forward. “Ms. Simmons, who’s your client?”
There it is. What’s the best way to play this? Cards on the table, for now. “Keces Industries.”
“So rather than going to l
aw enforcement, they hired you to find a stolen copy of priceless data.”
This is going to be a repeat of the conversation with Ansel, complete with the skeptical tone, isn’t it? “Do you know much about the way law enforcement works when you’re not in the Panorica Federation out here?”
“Corporate anarchy.”
“All right, that’s a ‘no.’ The judiciaries are private, but they talk to one another, right? Keces has their own judiciary, they’ve probably at least consulted with them about this, but the moment they do anything that brings in another judiciary, they lose control of the information. It becomes public, searchable. I don’t know what’s on this databox, but they’ve been going to insane lengths to keep it all quiet.”
“So they wouldn’t go to the PFS with information about this theft.”
“No. So why are you here?”
“What?”
“Interpol. You’re, like, an investigation unit from the Earth police, right?”
“Earth isn’t one big government, Ms. Simmons. I’m with the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation, and I’ve been assigned to Interpol, an international police agency.”
“Got it. I just don’t understand why you’re involved with this.”
“You and Mr. Corbett were both waiting on the boarding call of a ship bound for Earth. This theft crosses multiple international boundaries.” He steeples his hands in front of him on the table. “Keces is the subject of a Blue Notice. That means they’re a person of interest—company of interest, in their case—in a crime reported to Interpol. This makes you a person of interest in that crime.”
“Discounting orbital mechanics, I’ve never been anywhere closer to Earth than I am now.”
“I’m aware of that. I’ve talked to Mr. Corbett, and now I’d like your side of the story.”
Gail spreads her hands. “I got a tip from Corbett a couple days ago about a wreck, went to investigate it, and learned about the databox being stolen off it. I came to the spaceport because I figured the real thief had set me up as a distraction, to keep Keces from looking for him. You saw the rest.”
As she speaks, he crosses his arms; after she finishes he taps his fingers against his elbow, looking thoughtful. “Mr. Corbett gave you the original tip.”
“Yeah.”
“That contradicts his story. Can you prove that?”
“No. The call was locked against copying.” Also, she’s a trusting idiot.
“So why you?”
“I’m trying to figure that out. We’re both from New Coyoacán, went to the same school. We got along. I haven’t seen him in nearly twenty years. His family moved away after…” Her voice catches unexpectedly and she swallows. “After our mothers died.”
He studies her intently a few moments, then looks at his portable display, flipping through virtual pages with a finger. “In the bombing on Solera. That was never officially solved, was it?”
“No.”
“His mother was traveling with yours to that demonstration?”
She nods.
He flips through more pages, then sets the display down. “In his telling of the story, he ran because he’s afraid of you.”
“Because ‘my kind’ is unstable?”
“Of you specifically, Ms. Simmons. You do have an aggravated assault charge from about ten years ago, one he brought up without prompting. And your history with him is…fraught, based on news reports I’ve scanned.”
Oh, she can feel the heat rising in her ears. “That charge was withdrawn, and I don’t have a ‘history’ with him beyond a few playdates. His mother supported mine in the RTEA. That’s it.”
“Supporting a radical group can mean a lot of things. Was she giving money? Making signs? Making bombs?”
All at once she’s on her feet, chair kicked back hard enough to topple it, hands slammed flat against the table top. She manages to keep her voice just above conversation level, but her tone trembles. “It was a totemic rights organization and I don’t care what the hell you think you know, my mother did not believe in violence.”
Thomas goes quiet again, although there’s that eyebrow lift. She closes her eyes, breathing slowly. Good job keeping her temper there. She hasn’t had a nightmare about that day for years. She’s not seeing it again, right now, not in the frozen moment between what she’d thought were fireworks going off and the start of the screams.
“Ms. Simmons,” he finally says, “we received a tip about you, specifically, this morning. I’d been intending to go to your ship, but we saw you come to us here at the spaceport instead. My working theory so far is that you were there to transfer the databox to another courier. Maybe Corbett, but probably someone else, and he just gave you an opportunity to set him up as the fall guy when you noticed me.”
“That’s the stupidest—” She narrows her eyes. “You found the databox on him, didn’t you? I was right.”
“Or you’ve made it look that way.”
“I’m not the thief!”
Squarejaw rises to his feet, too. “Sit down.”
“I’m—”
“Sit. Down.”
She pulls the seat back and drops into it hard.
“Let’s get something crystal clear here. One or both of you is going to be charged for grand theft as well as any other crimes committed during the course of the robbery. Depending on who we find at the other end of this conspiracy back on Earth, you may be extradited to the United States, where we do not have this private judicial crap. You will make things a lot easier on yourself if you tell the complete truth.”
She can feel herself blanch under her fur, picturing the floating bodies in the SC71 cockpit. “I have been!”
“Assuming that someone else is paying to have the theft carried out, you both have motive. But only you have the connections, opportunity, and means to pull this off.”
“That’s why I was set up! He’s probably the one who tipped you off about me! And what do you know about Corbett’s connections, anyway? What’s his job?”
“Ms. Simmons—”
“Are you sure he wasn’t working with the unflagged courier Keces hired? You haven’t had time to check that out yet. I think he might have been the inside guy.”
“What inside guy?”
“The databox was taken from a wreck of a passenger ship being used as a private courier, right? Someone on that ship staged the wreck and used the escape pod to get away.” She tilts her head. “Keces thinks I did that myself, all without leaving any record somehow, then came back to tell them about it. Does that story honestly make more sense to you then somebody else stealing it and setting me up to make Keces—and you—waste your time with me while they made a getaway?”
“No, it doesn’t. I’m not sure it makes much less sense, though. None of the information I have contradicts your story, but none of it contradicts Mr. Corbett’s, either.”
“What about him claiming I tackled him in front of you, two PFS cops and Keces’ private detective just to plant evidence on him without any of you noticing? Because we both know that’s a really fucking stupid story.”
Agent Squarejaw frowns. “Keces had a private detective there?”
“Yeah, he was the blond guy in the overcoat that was too big for him.”
He taps his fingers on the table. “If you’re working for them why are they surveilling you?”
“They’re paranoid.” She slumps. “Now they probably think I’ve secretly been working with you all along because Interpol wants to steal the box for a company back on Earth.”
“Given what people here think about Earth politics, that wouldn’t be surprising, no.” He tilts his head. “So what’s on the databox?”
“How would I know?”
He does that slight brow lifting thing once more. She’s ready to rip his eyebrows off.
“Look, I don’t even have a good guess.” She throws her hands out to the side. “Keces sure as hell hasn’t told me, and I never had the damn thing, remember? I’
m not even sure what it even looks like. Ask Corbett what’s on it.”
“I have. He gave me two conflicting answers.” Reaching into his inner jacket, Agent Squarejaw pulls out a thin, palm-sized black square. At first glance she’d mistake it for a portable display projector. “And it looks like this.” He turns it over in his hand. “I’ve only seen one once before, about ten years ago, and it was a lot bigger. I was told that was deliberate—it was designed to be too big for anyone to easily hide.” He puts it back.
“What were his two answers?”
He looks at her silently, letting the question hang. He doesn’t have any reason to tell her, but she bets he will. He does. “That he doesn’t know, and that it’s the end of the human race.”
Plans for a weapon? Maybe. That’d fit the picture disquietingly well. “Do you seriously think I hid it on him? You know he’s been feeding you lies this whole time. I haven’t.”
“My suspicion isn’t that you’re lying. It’s that you’re not telling me the whole truth.”
“Look, I don’t have the whole truth. I don’t want the whole truth. I just want to stop being interesting to the wrong people.” She sighs. “I think Keces was transferring that databox to a subsidiary on Panorica, and whoever’s responsible for hitting them planned to steal it and take out all the remaining copies. They got away with the last part, but not the first.” And whatever the data is, someone thinks it’s valuable enough to kill for. She nearly says that aloud, but that’ll create even more complications for her with both Agent Squarejaw and Keces.
“Guesses are still guesses, Ms. Simmons, and those guesses don’t rule you out as a more active participant than you claim. And I’m still puzzled by how you can be helping out Keces while they’re treating you as their number one suspect.”
“Because helping them out clears my name.” She stops herself from adding you idiot. “I can share the recording Kis made of my conversation with their guy. I’m just trying to get my life back to normal.”