by Vanessa Muir
6
“You think this guy is going to come back for more thumb-chopping fun?” Eli asked and rested his head against the car seat.
They were parked across from the Mem Store Facility and Bank in Corden Prime Pi Sector, but Charlie didn’t pay the building any attention. Ray was in there, working his magic behind locked doors — she’d spied him on their way in.
No, she hadn’t come for him or for the murderer. She scanned the buildings opposite, squinting as the purple hour settled on the glass and steel.
“Hello? Spade? I’m asking you a question here.”
“No. I don’t think he’s going to come back.”
“Then why are we here?”
“You’ll see soon enough.” If she told him, he’d try to stop her, and that wouldn’t end well for either of them. The last time she’d had a partner, she’d broken his nose for sticking it where it didn’t belong.
It didn’t matter to SSG or Boss Ink that the guy had been corrupt and throwing cases in the State’s favor, only that she’d gotten physical.
“Say, uh, I’ve been meaning to ask you something, Spade,” Eli said.
“Oh yeah?” She continued her search in the semi-gloom.
“You’re young, early twenties, attractive, smart,” he said. “Why didn’t you do the logical thing and go into research? That’s a woman’s position, right?”
Another reason she broke noses. She ignored the question.
“I’m just asking because women like you are rare. I’ve never met one who takes her job this seriously. And there aren’t that many in Stormshield.”
“Uh-huh.” The street lamps clicked on, at last, and illuminated the alleys, chasing off the growing dark.
“You’re attractive,” Eli said. “Did I mention that already?”
Silence. Movement at the far end of the street, and Charlie leaned against the steering column, eyes narrowed to slits, squinting. Was it the target?
“What I’m trying to say is that I like you. We should get a drink sometime. How about this Friday?”
Charlie gave an involuntary grunt. “I — what?” She finally looked at her too-handsome partner. “Are you kidding?”
“No, I thought it might be fun to blow off some steam together. Maybe blow off some clothes too, if you know what I mean.”
“Ah, the subtle humor,” Charlie said. The target had arrived, at last. And perfect timing too. “Sorry. You’re just not my type.”
“Your type? That’s not why you’re rejecting me.”
“Oh yeah?”
“You’re incapable of relaxing,” Eli said. “It’s the reason you got into trouble with Ink and SSG. Why is that?”
Because her father had imbued her with a sense of urgency? That she had to be better, faster, smarter. Except none of it had made a damn difference to him or her or anyone else. And now, she was in the habit of moving full throttle, a train screaming toward the dead end of a tunnel.
One day it would all crash down around her, she knew that now, and she certainly couldn’t afford to take anyone with her, but that day wasn’t today.
“You can let your guard down, Charlie. You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone. You’re allowed to enjoy your life.”
She pointed through the windscreen. “Put on your professionalism. We’ve got work to do.” She opened her car door and city smells embraced her.
Charlie closed in on the streeter, whipped her cuffs off her belt. “Mary,” she said.
The woman looked up from her phone. She took a drag on her pungent cigarette and puffed a cloud of smoke. “What’s up, baby? You looking for a good time?” The fear from yesterday had evaporated, and it only solidified the certainty in Charlie’s mind.
“No,” Charlie said. “I’m looking for answers.” She struck, quick as a snake, and clapped the cuff on Mary’s mottled wrist. She attached the other cuff to her own wrist. “Let’s go.”
Mary spat and whipped her arm back. She screeched, clawed at the cuff.
“What the hell are you doing?” Eli sprinted down the sidewalk. “Have you lost your mind? You don’t have authorization for this.”
“Help me get her in the car,” Charlie said.
7
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Spade?” Boss Ink practically steamed from the ears, beefy arms folded across his chest. His real name was Teddy Marshall, but he was nicknamed “Ink” for the tattoos which covered his face. There were dots and scrapes in red and black. He terrified most newbies at the SSG.
“She’s a witness,” Charlie said.
Mary railed against her bindings in the interrogation room behind them. She shrieked and banged on the two-way mirror. “You can’t keep me here, whore,” Mary screeched. “I’m losing money as we speak.”
“Charming,” Ink said. “This is upsetting the men, Spade. You’re going to pay for this if it doesn’t bear fruit, and there won’t be anything I can do to protect you from what comes. Understand?”
Glass cubicles spread outward from the interrogation room, more employees of SSG, but these part of the specialized interrogation unit. All of them bore pinched faces. They didn’t appear upset. They didn’t appear to be anything but emotionless.
They eyed the window and the streeter, hunger on their faces.
“She’s a witness. I’m sure of it.”
“I fucking hope you’re sure of it. I fucking hope you didn’t bring this — this woman in on a hunch,” he said.
“She was there on the night,” Charlie said. “Just give me a couple minutes with her.”
“You? You go in there?” Ink knuckled his forehead. “For the love of memory, give me patience. You’re not going in there with her. One of the interrogators can do it.”
A ratty fellow, the hungriest of the lot, popped up at Ink’s elbow bearing a syringe of silver fluid. “I’ll do it.”
Ink sniffed. “See? Krent will do it.”
“No, I’ll do it. This is highly classified information,” Charlie said, and the streeter walloped the glass again — boink, boink. “I don’t trust Krent with it. No offense.”
Krent squirted a bit of the silver fluid out of the syringe.
“Let the professionals handle their jobs, Spade. This is classified information within Stormshield. It’s not limited to your unit,” Ink said.
“With all due respect, sir —”
“Oh boy.”
“With all due respect, I was the one assigned to this job,” she said and thumbed her chest. “I’m the one who’s going to solve it. Let Krent stab someone else with that thing. Leave my streeter alone.”
“You offering?” Krent squirted the syringe again.
Ink placed his entire hand over Krent’s face and forced him backward. The ratty dude practically folded in on himself. “Go.” Boss Ink turned back to her. “If you get hurt in there, I’m going to fire you for good.”
“Fine.”
“Where’s Eli?”
“Don’t know.” He’d stormed off the minute they’d got back to SSG HQ. Probably, gone to sulk in the bathroom. “I’m fine without him.”
“He’s your partner. He’s supposed to stick with you, whether you like it or not.”
“Or not,” Charlie said. “This won’t take long.” She made for the entrance to the interrogation unit, hundreds of gazes boring into her back. They expected her to fuck it up, and they were probably right.
She wasn’t an expert in this field, but something about this investigation gave her the itches. Her skin crawled. Something wasn’t right, and she wasn’t sure who she could trust.
Eli, no. Ink, maybe not even him.
Her last partner had been corrupt. What was to say those two weren’t? What was to say that the murder wasn’t connected to a deeper issue?
The State purported its leniency and power, and how wonderful the quality of life was under their rule. So wonderful that eyeball-ripping murders were at a minimum.
Charlie jammed her fists against the re
lease button, and the steel bars slid back and admitted her into the room.
The streeter shrieked and attempted to launch herself across the room. She struck a Perspex wall and bounced back a foot. Charlie halted in front of it and knocked on the plastic. “Can’t get to me, I’m afraid.”
“Bitch. You’ve got no reason to keep me here. You can’t!”
“I can do anything I want as an SSG operative,” Charlie replied. And therein lay the problem. SSG and the State, above the law. “Tell me about Corden Prime Pi Sector.”
“Fuck you.”
“You ever see the woman who worked in that facility?” she asked. “Pretty lady. Wore a lab coat? You must have seen her since you worked that street.”
Mary shook her head. Eyes glazed over. “I didn’t see nothing.”
“I haven’t asked you about that, yet.”
“I was high. Didn’t see. Didn’t see it.”
“See what?” Charlie asked, and drew closer, heart beating faster, faster. Krent stood outside the interrogation room, looking in and still holding that damn syringe. Ink had disappeared, off to wherever he went when he wasn’t busting her ovaries.
“Nothing.”
“Tell me,” Charlie said and pressed her palms against the glass. “I can keep you here for days, months. I don’t have to let you go.”
Mary rolled her yellowing tongue across her lips. “I don’t know what he looks like.”
“But you’ve seen him before.”
“The hooded man.”
“When did you see him?” Charlie asked.
Mary shook her head and backed away, trembling now.
“Mary, remember what I said. I can keep you here. Tell me when you saw him.”
Again, shaking that head, left, right, on repeat.
“How many times did he visit the facility?” Charlie asked.
“Always,” Mary said. “Always. Every day.”
Charlie’s eyebrows jounced upward. Every day. Then why wasn’t he on the roster? “You’re sure about that. He’s always there?”
“Yes,” she hissed.
Charlie lingered a moment longer, hoping for more, but the streeter remained tight-lipped. “All right,” she said, at last. “You’re free to go.” She wouldn’t get much more out of her, but what she’d gotten was lead enough.
The murderer had been in that facility before. Either Natalya had purposefully removed his name from the roster, or someone else had. And what the hell had been on that clipboard?
8
Eli fell into step beside her by the time she reached the investigative floor of SSG HQ. He clicked his fingers at his sides, in time with his footfalls.
“What is it?” Charlie asked. “Did you find something on the roster?” A false hope.
“What did she say?” Eli continued that incessant clicking.
“I thought you didn’t want to know,” Charlie said. “You lost interest the minute we got back here.”
“Cut the shit, Spade.”
“Nah.”
He grabbed her arm and jerked her around, in the middle of all the cubicles. A man rose from his seat and peered at them, then sat down with a huff, muttering under his breath.
“Cut it out,” Eli hissed.
“Let go of me.”
“I will when you start taking me seriously,” he growled. “I’m a part of this investigation too, Spade. You can’t keep information from me. I’m not your lackey. I’m your partner.” He shoved her back a step. “Treat me like it.”
“Why should I? I don’t need your help,” Charlie replied, coolly.
“No, you need professional fucking help, but this case isn’t about you!” The last three words escaped him in a desperate shout.
The quiet between them stretched, accentuated by the tap of fingers on screens, and the occasional grumble at the interruption from one of the cubicles. Everyone at SSG had a case to get on with, some less important than others.
Whether she wanted to admit it or not, he was right. This case wasn’t about her or her quest for absolution from memory alone knew what. This was about Natalya, their Jane Doe, and the man who’d snuffed out her life.
And it was about the State, of course. That factored in too. Somewhere.
But Charlie couldn’t trust him. She couldn’t trust anyone.
Eli ground his teeth. “I know I pissed you off earlier, but we’ve got to get past that. Look, I’m not the best at this investigative shit, but I’m not a chump. Let me in. I might see something you don’t.”
Charlie started walking again, and he chased after her. She reached her cubicle and sat down in the leather chair, then gestured for him to take up residence on the corner of her desk.
“She said he was always there,” Charlie replied, softly. She tapped on her screen, and the computer fired up. “Always.”
“Who?”
“The streeter. She couldn’t identify him, apart from the fact that he was hooded.”
“Just like on the video,” Eli said.
“Correct. But she said he was there, always. Every day.”
“Then his name and identification slip must be on file,” Eli replied. “But, no, I checked out all of the facility’s clients for the past fucking month. All of them had an alibi for the night it happened. And the ones who’d visited that week were high profile. Already returned to Corden Prime Alpha.”
“And the one who was there right before it happened?” Charlie asked and tapped on her tablet to wake the screen. She preferred watching the footage there since she could keep it out of sight from the others.
Nothing was classified in SSG, technically, all of it was shared between the operatives. If not for the corrupt ex-partner, Jones, now in prison, she’d have been all for sharing information. She couldn’t believe that Jones had been the only leak in Stormshield.
“No. He has an alibi too. This is impossible,” Eli said. “It can’t be a regular visitor to the facility if it wasn’t recorded.”
“The surveillance footage will tell us the truth.” Charlie pressed play and shifted so Eli could get a better look. If it prevented him from throwing tantrums in front of their colleagues in the future, all the better.
They skimmed through days of footage prior, weeks, and the cubicles emptied out around them as the sun set, the stars rose, and that annoying building across the way lit up with Mem Store adverts.
“I don’t see anything. No hooded figure. Nothing.” Eli ruffled his hair and leaned back in the chair he’d pulled over from his own cubicle, next to hers. “You got anything?”
“Look here,” Charlie said. “Every day at the same time, Natalya goes to the storage facility door. She swipes, presses her thumb.”
“So?”
“So, look here,” Charlie said and pressed play.
Natalya did the ritual, eyed the scanner, swiped her thumb, and in she went.
“I don’t get it.”
“Watch.”
Natalya reappeared, but this time the bank’s door was closed, and both lights were red. Somehow, she’d transported from inside the memory bank to the outside of it, without the cameras catching her.
“What the fuck?” Eli blinked. “Oh!”
“She tampered with the cameras. I think, and this is just a theory, I think she put them on a timer. She’d go in, activated the timer, switch off the cameras, do whatever she wanted in the Mem Store facility, then reposition herself when the cameras started again.” Charlie marked the time stamp. “It looks like she tampered with the clocks too. It’s fifteen minutes worth of missing time. Fifteen minutes of black out.”
“What was she doing?”
Charlie put down the tablet and opened a browser at her terminal. She searched for the Mem Store removal information Ray had given them. “Ah! There,” she said and clicked on the document.
“Memory removal?”
“Process takes ten minutes, maximum,” Charlie said. “It’s conjecture, but I’d stake my badge on it. She was removing memories
from him.”
“From the perp?” Eli asked. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” Charlie said. “But there’s only one way we’ll find out.”
She brought up Droggo Boersma’s number next. Ray probably wouldn’t help them, and he wouldn’t have the clearance or know-how either, as a relatively new recruit. No, they’d need researcher clearance to get access to those memories.
“It’s been more than two days,” Eli said. “Do you really think they’ll still be there?”
“We have to find out.”
If the perpetrator’s memories were still in the bank, they’d have all the information they needed to make the arrest, and find out what he’d done with those expired drugs.
9
“I’m not sure how comfortable I am with this,” Eli said.
“Relax. It’s legal.” Charlie leaned against the car and studied the outside of the Mem Store facility in Pi Sector. “Everything’s legal when you’re part of Stormshield, remember?”
“Legal doesn’t necessarily equal right.”
“Truer words have never been spoken,” Charlie said and checked her timepiece. There was a standard issue tracker beneath the screen, which meant that Boss Ink would know they’d been here and would correlate what’d happened with their presence.
Too bad. They had to get access to those memories.
Memories had become the new commodity, the hot topic. Plans laid out and hidden within the cloud. Ideas worth millions of bills lay within it, lost in a sea of concepts, summoned only by a particular access code.
And that was exactly what they needed now.
“Someone’s coming,” Eli said.
Droggo had changed out of his lab coat and buried his fists in his pockets, the outlines of his knuckles biting into the fabric. He was tense, all right. It might not be illegal for them to do this, but it was for him.
Especially, if Mem Store had a reason to keep this information confidential.
“Evening,” Droggo said and halted in front of them. He shifted his gaze from side-to-side, scanning the empty street, the flickering lamp. Mary hadn’t made an appearance, and likely wouldn’t after what’d happened last time.