by Matt Thomas
Lind doubted she would call station security, but the people she might call would probably kill him and dump him into the moon's ocean. Either way, his entire plan, limping to the moon, struggling across its surface, getting smuggled into the station, everything had been futile. In retrospect, he wondered what idiocy had made him think of it in the first place.
He opened his mouth to give one last plea, but she rolled her eyes and dropped a finger.
His glare lingered, not in anger but in the sudden onset of severe depression. Lind twisted towards the door to find some place he could hide, half-hoping she would stop him.
She didn't.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
"Get up, Agent Michaels."
Somehow, through the heat and noise, Lind managed to fall asleep. Sweat clung to him, and steam escaping from the pipes turned his exposed skin red. Fortunately, his pistol remained in his hand, pinned beneath his chest and barely concealed. The grate he pulled over himself what must have been a few hours before sat askew, and two figures blocked the harsh light streaming into his eyes. The shadows concealed their identities for only seconds before he recognized Suksi's voice.
"Glad to see you still have your firearm." She said. Her escort, a stocky man with a stern face, reached down and pulled Lind up from his place amongst the pipes.
Lind said nothing, securing the weapon in the holster in the small of his back.
"Why don't you tell me what's really going on?"
Lind sat on the edge of the access panel, trying not to stare up at them. "I told you."
"Do you know what I learned from watching you on the security cameras after you left my store? Don't bother guessing, I'll tell you. First, I learned that you're scared shitless. I'm pretty full of myself, but even I have a hard time imagining that you put on that entire show just for little old me. Second, you're not scared shitless because of some misunderstanding with the other Thirty-Twos."
"They think I killed someone." He muttered.
"You've got an incredibly over-inflated opinion of your own abilities if you think you'd have to hide in an access tunnel to avoid being found by, well, I guess you." She stared down at him, as did her companion, waiting for Lind to give an answer. He didn't.
"This is how this is going to work." She said, arms crossed as she dictated terms. "You're going to come with me. I'm going to give you some tea, and I'll give you some soup or noodles or whatever the fuck you want to eat, within reason of course, if you want some filet mignon you're shit out of luck, and then you're going to have another crack at convincing me to stick my neck out for you."
Lind looked up at her and nodded weakly.
With their help, Lind pulled himself completely out of his sleeping spot. They guided him into a back alley he'd never been in before, the type of dimly lit and sparely populated nook of the station perfect for the murder of an investigator, though no more perfect than the access tunnel they found him in. Eventually, they came to one of the small emergency stairways that snaked their way through the heart of the facility. When the claustrophobic walls of the passageway parted, Lind found a quiet residential sector. The spacing between doors and the density of inhabitants reflected a middle-class neighborhood, likely comprising low-level business owners and entry employees for the corporations running the sector. Ava took Lind into one such home, a suite cozy enough for someone to live in comfortably but without ostentations. A few piles of electronic components were scattered amongst the floor, but books and pictures of Suksi and her long-dead husband occupied most of the surfaces. Her one luxury was a cat, a spotted Ocicat that immediately rubbed up against Lind's leg. Within minutes of sitting down, Suksi had presented him with a cup of green tea and a bowl of stew she had found in her refrigerator and heated up for him. Her companion stood against a wall silently, watching every move Lind made, in spite of her friendly overtures.
Suksi, more relaxed, leaned against a small table with a single chair. "Why don't you tell me who, besides your fellow investigators, you think is after you?"
"I'm really not comfortable saying." He muttered, although the joking-half of his response must have gotten suppressed by his mouthful of food.
"Then get the fuck out." She spat, pointing to her door without hesitation. Lind didn't move. "I'm not kidding. Get the fuck out." She reached over and grabbed for his half-eaten food, which he pulled away instinctively like a food-aggressive dog. Her companion got off the wall.
"Okay." Lind said, holding his empty hands in surrender. "All I know is I got sucked into this investigation, and since then I've just watched this body count rise. I can't trust anyone. The only reason I felt like maybe I could come to you is because I've dealt with you before. You're strong and you're not the kind of person who would roll over for someone."
"Funny, because that's exactly what you want me to do for you."
"What I mean is that I don't think you're the type to be easily intimidated."
"Thanks, I think." She replied. "So what were you investigating?"
"Someone found a courier dead in his Marlin floating around Iapetus."
"And they didn't just dump the body and steal the Marlin?"
Lind gave what passed for a laugh in his state. "The good Samaritans were pretty disappointed I didn't let them fly off with the ship."
"What was it carrying?"
Lind shook his head. "I have no idea."
He could tell from her look that she didn't believe him. "I'm serious, I have no idea. Some box was stolen, but I have no idea what was in it. I stopped in Iapetus and picked up a hitchhiker . . ."
"Whoa, you, of all people, just randomly picked up a hitchhiker?" Her laugh bounced off the walls.
"It wasn't a great professional decision, no." Lind conceded. "Anyway, then we headed to Titan, where the Marlin had been towed, and someone blew it up. So we left Saturn and headed for Ephemeris to find chase down a lead, and we find a Guppy floating out in deep space with a dead crew, and it turns out that Guppy left Iapetus at the same time as the dead courier. When we got to Ephemeris Station, I find out the hitchhiker I picked up is probably a key witness who managed to not say anything to me about it for the entire trip there."
"This is the guy who you say you didn't shoot out an airlock?"
Lind tossed up his hands. "I was a little pissed, and I just wanted to question him. But he decided he'd rather blow himself out of the airlock than talk."
"And the Thirty-Twos think you shoved him out, why?"
"Because there was another Mako right behind me when this kid decides to go for a swim. She followed me because, well, I may have made a scene at Ephemeris before I grabbed the guy."
Suksi gave him the slightest nod.
"None of this tells me who's got you so scared your sleeping in access panels."
Lind hushed his voice and leaned it, glancing at the bodyguard. "On the Guppy I found a recording and got the name and photo of this guy named John Vannin. I can't come up with much, but I'm sure he's connected to all the murders between Iapetus and here. The hitchhiker said Vannin put him up to it, and he spaced himself instead of talking about it."
She lost herself in thought for a moment before speaking. "I'd give you the guest room, but that's where Osc . . ." She jerked her head in the direction of her companion. "Sleeps. So you can have the couch. Tomorrow I'm going to figure out whether I trust you."
"How are you going to do that?"
"No idea." She said, turning her back on him and disappearing deeper into the apartment. "Try not to contaminate my cushions."
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The throbbing in his lower back woke him up, either that or the stiffness keeping his neck tilted at a painful angle. Lind's lips and mouth were dry, and he kept swallowing hoping for some relief. The rough pattern of the upholstery left an imprint on his skin, and his clothes twisted around him into an involuntary cocoon while he slept. Nothing about him felt rested, but at least he didn't feel like he slept better in the maintenance tunnels.
He suffered from an exhaustion hangover, the headache, the pain, the disorientation and slight nausea that accompanied successive nights without meaningful sleep.
The stinging in his eyes kept him from noticing his escort still leaning against the wall as though he hadn't moved at all throughout the night. Or day. Or whatever time it was. The blue glowing clocks on the kitchen appliance told him he slept for ten hours, much longer than he slept on even the most mind-numbing transits between planets.
"Where is she?" Lind asked, almost idly as he stretched into an upright position.
"Not here." Osc replied.
"Thanks for the detailed report." He looked around for something to drink, orange juice, preferably, although he realized the low likelihood a criminal he once tried to put in prison left him such a thing.
"Do you know what a QEC Two is?" The guard asked.
Lind shook his head, not because he didn't know the answer but because he didn't understand the question. It didn't go along with his search for something to wet his dry throat. "The radio thing?"
"The Quantum Entanglement . . ."
Lind waved off the rest of the description. "Yeah, the thing that's supposed to send data instantaneously no matter where you are in the system."
"Well, universe, but yes."
He nodded in vague understanding that it involved quantum physics. "They wanted to put that on my Mako, but the thing's so big I wouldn't have anywhere to sleep." He rubbed his face, trying not to make it too obvious he attempted to get his bearings, still.
"L2H has one on satellites around each of the major planets. And the asteroid belt."
"So, what, they can keep track of ships en route?"
"Something like that."
"Good for them."
Osc pulled something out of his pocket, it looked like an over-sized key chain fob, bright orange with the Lamb Higley Hilliard logo splashed across it and a computer access port on the end. "We need you to get one of these."
Lind pointed to the object in the Osc's hand. "I found one."
"This isn't the one we need." The guard had no sense of humor.
"What is it?"
"It's a transmitter they can plug into cameras, tablets, computers, whatever anywhere. It encrypts the data and transmits it directly to the nearest QEC Two satellite."
"My limited understanding of how that thing works is that it only talks point-to-point, it can't broadcast."
"Yes. It's paired with a terminal at the L2H headquarters on Earth."
Now, Lind became a little more uncomfortable. This didn't seem like the kind of message that would be left for him. Even if she wanted some plausible deniability, "Where is she?" He asked again.
"She's busy."
"As much as I'm flattered that she thinks I was sleeping in a ventilation shaft for the sole purpose of busting a, at best, second rate forger, she should come tell me in person. What is this? Some kind of test?"
"It's an exchange."
"An exchange in which I have to prove that I'm not still a Thirty-Two by doing something illegal, you get what you want, and then I hope you help me out."
"Something like that."
"I'm going to need her to tell me that."
The beast of a man snorted. "Enjoy sleeping in the ventilation shaft. I'm sure Vannin won't find you there."
"So you do know the name?"
Osc grinned and crossed his arms. "Anyone who matters knows Vannin's name."
"I feel like I'm doing two things for you, breaking the law and finding one of those key fob things. I should get something else in return?"
"Such as?"
"I want to know everything you can tell me about Vannin."
"I'll see what I can do." There was no pause, which gave Lind little hope he would actually get information.
"So where is this thing? Is there an L2H office here you're expecting me to break into?"
"No, it's something more attuned to your particular talents. We don't know where it is. There was a guy who had it, his name was Zweng Du." The man pulled out a tablet and flashed a photo of some generic worker. The dirty gray coveralls, the sullen expression. It may as well have been a stock photo. Or no photo.
"'Was?'" Lind knew the answer already.
"Some workers found him floating in one of the fish tanks downstairs two days ago."
"Who's investigating?"
The man laughed. Not because it was funny, but because Lind was so helplessly naïve.
"So, me." Lind said.
"My strong suggestion is that you start down in the fish tank."
"You think maybe it fell out of his pocket while he was drowning?"
"We think he drowned because someone took it out of his pocket."
Lind rubbed his face. "You're not going to elaborate on that 'we,' are you? How do I know Suksi's even involved?"
"You don't. But, again...."
"Ventilation shafts and Vannin. Sure." Lind searched for some way out, either physically or intellectually, but failed to find either. "So, find the killer, find the fob, and you'll tell me about Vannin and help me get off this moon?"
Osc stared blankly, then abruptly shifted from the wall for the first time and headed for the door. "Just find the fob." He started to leave before stepping out into the alleyway. "Oh, and I'm going to need your pistol."
Lind balked, keeping his hand on it, not as a threat but in safekeeping. Osc just laughed outright. "You can give it to me or I can take it. You really think, in your state, you'll be able to stop me?"
Doubting any chance at help if he either refused or shot Osc in the face, Lind complied.
Just as he disappeared, almost as an afterthought, Osc called over his shoulder. "Oh, and Suksi says to get the fuck out of her apartment."
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The lack of evidence, or a partner, didn't turn the ordinary death investigation bizarre. The change in the routine, or, rather, some combination of loss of hope and gain of resignation, tainted the experience. Before, he could keep his depression at bay. Now, it stole his interest in his own vocation rather instead of being covered by his work.
The challenge, at least, captured some of his interest. Ordinarily, Lind would have more to work with. A body, say, or a history, or even a crime scene. Instead, he stood face to face with one of the giant deyo fish, swimming in a glass tank that barely contained it. Where, on any other planet, he may have found crime scene tape or some kind of mark indicating that someone's life had ended there less than twenty-four hours prior. Instead, a deyo had replaced the body, and the only thing dead or dying was the creature two tanks over.
As much as he wanted to not stare in a macabre fascination with the process, Lind couldn't help but watch as they drained the water from the tank. The fish started thrashing about halfway through the process, slamming his body against the glass. It made a shriek mixing a groan and a whistle as its face became exposed to air for the first time in its life. No one seemed bothered by the repeated impacts to the walls of the tank, or the creature's obvious distress. The tank emptied to the last several hundred gallons, just enough to cover the bottom, and the fish became outrageously still. It hadn't died yet, but it froze in sheer panic. Lind had read once before that they killed the beasts so traumatically to make it release hormones that tenderized the flesh to make it almost edible. The beast did not understand why it suffered so, but it expressed its terror through the motion of its head, first freezing, then slowly waggling back and forth, and finally, in a burst of desperation, slamming its own head up and down, crashing against the floor of the tank.
Lind thought about the few fried strips of meat he'd had that morning for breakfast.
He returned to his investigation, beginning with a technique more akin to begging than real police work. Lind walked around, using his limited understanding of Cantonese to get the attention of various workers. He showed them a photo of Du, the victim, and every one of them shook their heads and wandered away. The few times he pushed for details,
most shook their heads in disbelief. After several hours of asking workers, and he had asked several more than once merely because he didn't remember them.
Finally, he elected to do something against his will. Lind impersonated himself, or at least the self he chose to believe in. He found someone in charge who spoke enough English for Lind to get his point across. The man resisted at first, but Lind leaned into him, threatening him with all the consequences of the Contract, all while avoiding the man's repeated requests to see Lind's credentials. Lind broke the man's spirit, not so much through threats of violence or repercussions, but by threatening to take up any more of the tank supervisor's time.
The man pulled out a tablet and sent Lind copies of surveillance video of the murder. His attitude while transmitting the file, a scoff and a shake of his head, may have indicated to Lind that, not only was the murder well known, but the method for retrieving the footage available to anyone with the most basic access.
The security camera footage proved quite the show. Lind watched as two men dragged a third, presumably Du, between them, and dumped him into the empty tank. A fourth man arrived, keeping his back to the camera the entire time as though he knew it were there. He held up an object that fit easily between his fingers. The poor lighting and matching quality of the video obscured any detail, but he could make an educated guess. Du shook his head frantically. There was a lot of shouting. Unfortunately for Lind, it was all in Cantonese. From the way Du didn't try to get to his feet and avoided looking at his leg, Lind assumed that it had broken when they tossed him into the tank. Water poured in. Freezing water under high pressure, forced in from the subterranean ocean just outside the bulkhead. As soon as it hit Du, he shivered so violently it was visible through the recording. The water reached Du's shoulders and the frothing around him as he flailed obscured him. He shouted something loud and clear; then was quiet. The other man, the one with his back to the camera, said something but his volume was so low Lind couldn't distinguish anything. But the man bowed and turned with his two associates to leave Du to his death. The man simultaneously freezing and drowning must not have expected this, given his panicked reaction, but Lind turned the recorder off rather than watch the last few minutes of another life.