by Matt Doyle
“You could try asking them.”
“But…”
“Diu. Let me make this clear to you. I hate you. If I could find just cause, I’d kill you right now. All the time we’re working together, I will talk to you when necessary. That’s it. Now, I’m going to start with the TS Murder Files. You can pick whatever else you want.”
*
“Where are you going?” Locke asks, hearing me get out of my chair.
“To tell Angel you were right about this stuff,” I reply and walk away before he can ask anything else.
I find Angel one room over, working on her own machine. She swivels the chair around to face me when I open the door and crosses her arms behind her head. “Found something?”
I nod. “Have you got anything to drink? It’s hot in here.”
She points under the table to the side of the door, and I see a mini fridge. Inside, there are bottles of water. I take one, too thirsty to ask questions she won’t answer, and sit down opposite her.
“So?”
“He was right about the TS Murder Files. The information he gathered was fairly in-depth, but I had some other bits to add to it. Don’t worry, I checked my surfing was secure using his system first. The case I mentioned before, Roger Watson or Leonard Tomes? Between my own files from the time and the library news archives, I confirmed they were the same person. It looks like all of the victims fit a similar profile; criminals who got away with it and who were murdered brutally by the original Tech Shifters.”
“Well, well. What else did you find?”
“The concept of Tech Shifting first got floated in the year 2055.”
“That’s twenty-five years ago.”
“Exactly. The whole thing was tied to a military contract, negotiated by Dean Hollister with the assistance of Gary Locke’s father. I doubt it took twenty years to complete the research. It was likely a combination of waiting for the right opportunity to release it and a bunch of red tape that needed to be cut to allow the equipment to be used outside the military. My guess is Hollister had an idea and wanted to renegotiate certain terms of use.”
“Given the way it all ended up, it clearly wasn’t just the money he’d make from public sales in play there.”
I shake my head and take another drink. “No. And it gets worse when you look into the people who carried out the murders on the TS Murder Files. Every single one of them was a death row inmate reported as killed in private executions. The names I knew them by were pseudonyms.”
“You sound certain.”
“I am. Even if I didn’t have the files, I remember their faces, and they are the exact likeness of the people in the archived press reports.”
“I’m curious. Given how much is being kept hidden here, why wouldn’t the government purge the library archives?”
I shrug. “I can see two possibilities. One is they slipped up and didn’t think about scans of physical media simply because newspapers and magazines are so rare now, and the column space given over to the reports was so small. The other possibility is it was intentional.”
“Intentional. Interesting. What do you base that theory on?”
“Have you read Casille’s book, Four Steps to Power?” She nods, and I continue, “He told me once that the book, along with a few other little hints he’d left lying around, were designed to root out potential threats to his position. The odd ally here and there, too, but mostly it’s a way to identify risks. This could be the same. The people who look too deeply and put the pieces together are traced and eliminated to keep the biggest secret of New Hopeland from being uncovered.”
“The biggest secret we are yet to uncover.”
“Yeah. Right now, though, I’m more concerned with why the government would intentionally allow the murders to take place. And they definitely had a part in it. The killers all had government contracts under their pseudonyms, and all with no set job description. I’d love to believe it was all just to take care of people who should never have been let out, but I can’t see that alone being the reason. I think the victims were pawns who placed themselves in the firing line through their crimes. Using death row inmates as the killers though? At best, that’s an irresponsible risk. I read the reports. Those three were among the worst this country has produced.”
“What I’m about to say may seem strange to you, Cassie, but understand I’m talking from experience. These men were due to be executed and were capable of terrible things, correct?”
“Yeah.”
“Then perhaps the goal was multifaceted here. Tying up the loose ends surrounding the criminals who got away with it was undoubtedly one of them. If Tech Shift gear was always going to be introduced into the military and law enforcement, creating a culture of fear around it would be useful to enhance the effects of seeing a Tech Shifter coming towards you. And those they used? They were due to die anyway. If they were offered the chance to indulge themselves one last time, and go out in a blaze of glory rather than through the chair or the injection? People who have no boundaries are strangely adept at that. Even if it meant their fun was constrained.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “You’ve worked with people like this.”
“Without reading the reports you found, I could not say for sure, but it’s likely. Consider this though. Is it better for the worst out there to work uninhibited, or to be controlled by someone who can direct them towards an overarching goal? In a way, I’ve probably saved as many lives as I’ve taken.”
I choose to hold my tongue. This is an argument I’m in no mood for. Instead, I ask, “What do we do now?”
“I’ll get our colleague in there to set up a proper cross-referencing system for what we find and have him add the library reports to it. I’ll review it all myself, too, of course. Meanwhile, you can chase up whatever you want in relation to our endeavour.”
“In that case, I’m going to go and visit someone. I had another idea regarding the blood.”
She smiles. “Told you you’d enjoy it.”
*
I enter New Hopeland’s most infamous gun shop and am surprised to find Joe Farrah is not only behind the counter but working alone today. “What can…?” He stops when he sees it’s me. He considers something and then asks, “What can I do for you?”
Well, now I’m confused. “That’s strangely nice for you.”
He shrugs. “You don’t seem interested in getting the point, so I figured I’d try a different tactic. Sort you out as quick as possible so you can fuck off.”
“Charming. No assistant today?”
I had to let him go. For his own safety.”
“Things getting dangerous?”
“For him they were. The little prick was stealing ammo. Please tell me you haven’t come just to chat about my staff.”
“You know, you should try smiling more. It might make you more welcoming.”
Joe looks up at me and pulls his lips back into a perfect combination of malice and sarcasm, masquerading as the creepiest smile I’ve ever seen. Angel Tanner, eat your heart out.
“Okay, forget it. You’ll scare more people off like that.”
He puts the box he was examining down and asks again, “What do you want, Tam?”
“Fine, fine. My current client is being tracked around the city. The problem is, there aren’t any visible tails.”
“So, they’re using the city camera system. Wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened.”
“Agreed. But they know exactly where she is.”
“How do you know that?”
“They call and message her, telling her things like where she’s passing, what she’s wearing, and exactly when she stops.”
“Could still be the cameras.”
“No. They’re too accurate. Even when she goes out of sight of a camera, they can tell her when she stops and goes, and where she’s standing. Unless there’s a whole ar
my of people who are very good at not being seen and following camera paths, there’s something more going on.”
“An army, huh? Maybe she’s as likeable as you?”
“Well, thanks for that.”
“Look, Tam. I don’t care about your client. Unless she’s a customer, and what’s happening affects her money-back guarantee, I don’t see why I would.”
“I’m not asking you to care, Joe. I’m asking for help. Do you have anything here that would let someone track a person with such accuracy?”
“Plenty. That shelf over there.”
I follow his point to a shelf of ankle cuffs, and the sorts of things that have large flashing lights on them. I shake my head. “She’s not an idiot, Joe. She’d notice if someone slipped something so obvious on her. I’m thinking smaller.”
He gives me a disgruntled sigh and grabs a catalogue. After flicking through some pages, he stops and turns it to face me. I scan the page and shake my head again. “These are also too noticeable. I mean, maybe if they could sneak something like this one into her shoe or something, but I doubt they’d manage it. Is there maybe something too small to see immediately? Maybe something you could inject into someone like Angel Tanner was doing during the LV case?”
Joe narrows his eyes and asks, “What exactly are you getting at, Tam?”
“I don’t know, really. I was just thinking. Theoretically, could you have a tracker so small you could get it into someone’s bloodstream?”
A slight tenseness comes across Joe’s face, and when he replies, he speaks slowly, picking his words deliberately. “Nothing I sell would work like that.”
“No? Too costly?”
“No. Nothing so small would be workable as a long-term solution. Even if you had high grade military stuff, it would take a pounding in the human body. A single tracker would be too fragile and need replacing after a few months.”
I give him a disappointed look and say, “It was just a thought. Maybe I’ll give the Ping Box another try near her clothes. Thanks, Joe.”
“You’re welcome.”
I give him a casual wave and leave the shop, making a point of glancing over my shoulder as I enter my car. Joe has already called someone and looks pretty mad. Got you.
I pull out my phone and hit Angel’s number. “You catch any of that?”
“Nope. Joe Farrah’s cameras aren’t on the network.”
“That’s…surprising. Anyway. We need to talk.”
*
“I should have guessed,” I say, stepping into the apartment Angel told me to head to. “The floor above my place puts you close enough to get in and out to set up all that stuff with the holographic projector.”
“It was useful for that. I don’t come here often though. With the way things are looking, I need to move around a little more than I’d like, but I try to spend most of my time at the warehouse. If nothing else, keeping an eye on our pet revolutionary is important.”
“He’s not my pet.”
She smiles. “Regardless. This is where I come to recharge my batteries. Speaking of which…”
Angel flicks a switch on what appears to be an oversized wireless charger and then sits down on a chair next to it. “There’s more water in the fridge.”
I grab a bottle and take up residence on another chair. “You’ve actually got a pretty nice place here. It’s basic, but there’s everything you’d need if you were a real person.”
“I’m less flashy than my sister but yes. It keeps up the pretence. Now, you said we needed to talk?”
“Do you know for certain what the blood is being used for?”
“Yes. So, what did you find out from Joe Farrah?”
“I ran a scenario by him. If someone is being tracked to the degree it appears, then it seems unwieldy for the watchers to simply deploy a massive team. Especially if they need to track more than one person. So, I put it to him that a small tracker could be injected into someone and hang around their bloodstream.”
“And what did he say?”
“Something so small wouldn’t work because it would break up inside the person and need replacing every few months. The thing is, he was really cagey about it. And when I left, he immediately made what looked like a pretty angry phone call. Given how much he hates that the Kings were working with me, I’m almost certain he was calling it in. Which means there is something in the blood.”
Angel gives me a round of applause and a wide smile. “I knew you wouldn’t disappoint me. You are correct, yes. When you go for your annual check-up, they take a sample of the blood and provide you with a new set of nanochips with the regular vaccinations.”
“Do the doctors know what they’re doing?”
“They’re highly trained professionals, so yes. In terms of this though? No. The vaccine sample has a bar code on it that gets scanned and matched to your record, and the data is pulled automatically by the government databases, tying up the nanochip reference with the one assigned to that particular sample. Harold checked one of the samples just out of curiosity to see what exactly citizens were being vaccinated against and found the nanochips by accident. It was luck on our part, but it did give us a starting point to work from.”
“That makes sense. It leaves us with another problem though.”
“Which is?”
“If I’m right about Joe calling it in, then the Four Kings of Utah have a hand in the tech. Which means the government is not only responsible for the TS Murder Files, but the whole criminal culture of the city. Nothing else makes sense. I was outright told that most people who discover Casille’s secret are killed, and there’s no way the government wouldn’t notice people meeting him and going missing. Especially as those most likely to find out would be those with access to the monitoring files, and if one of them wound up disappearing, they’d definitely notice. Not to mention Casille’s complete lack of convictions.”
She sighs and smiles. “I’m glad someone else thought of that too. It means I was right to take the action I did with his father, Arthur.”
“Feeling guilty?”
“Not at all. But it would have been a waste if it turned out I was wrong. He was a useful man in many ways. This link means the information I found was correct. And that I will likely become a target again. Unless this all works.”
“The problem is, if we’re right, then it also means they’re going to have started tracking me now.”
“I wouldn’t worry. Once I was sure you were on board, I altered your government files. Right now, if they are tracking you, they’re actually following one of your neighbours. It won’t work forever, which is why I’m going to be making changes again soon, but it’ll work for now. I’ve done the same with Locke.”
“What about you? When you took on the role of Nurse Bridges, wouldn’t you have had a medical?”
“Of course. And Harold carried it out in order to avoid the unnecessary discovery of my internals. The nanochips were also real, but I took care of it before I started following Angela.”
“Took care of it how? More data altering?”
“You don’t need to know. The key point is I’m not being tracked. Now, here’s a question for you. If this tracking tech is in place, why don’t the police use it to hunt down wanted criminals?”
“Before you mentioned how it works in the hospitals, I would have said criminals don’t adhere to the health checks. Now, I’m thinking they don’t know.” I pause. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“You targeted a lot of people during the LV case. How many King’s Guard are there?”
“The majority of the people Harold and I went after were normal people, used as pawns to hide what we were doing. The actual King’s Guard were the main targets, though, so, let’s see…excluding you, there were five. Devin Carmichael, Donal O’Brien, Ethan Cobalt, Joe Farrah, and Rebecca Hanson.”
I
finish my water and shake my head. “I was told Hanson isn’t King’s Guard. She’s…there’s no way.”
Angel laughs. “Do you really think they’d tell you? Look at what we’re uncovering here, Cassie. Lies buried beneath more lies. If you need proof, then look at Hanson’s record. Since she got here, she’s been involved with a number of high-profile cases that should have been problematic for the Kings but turned out not to be. She got lucky with what cases she was handed and rose through the ranks at an accelerated rate. And yet she refuses to take a promotion, simply because it would likely mean her moving away from New Hopeland.”
“That doesn’t necessarily prove anything. Besides, I’m certain Captain Hoover isn’t King’s Guard, and he’d be responsible for what cases she got, and has been trying to push her to take the promotion.”
“Oh, he absolutely isn’t King’s Guard. And yes, he has handed her some cases, but a lot of the time, he’s simply signed off on her taking cases from other people. Eventually, he’ll retire, and then she’ll take the promotion.”
“No. That’s still not enough.”
“Okay then, how about this? Public records show she used to work in California. She transferred out shortly after Casille di Franco disappeared, and came straight here, to a city which had only just been founded. That’s the stuff you can find out yourself. Want to know the interesting part? Her last case down there was to go undercover and try to use Arthur’s ties to my organisation to track me down. It was her mistake that led to me finding out Arthur was beginning to figure out what I am. That all being said, I am surprised Casille is willing to work alongside her.”
“Why? Because, if you’re telling me the truth, her actions led to his father’s death?”
“No. Because she killed his mother. That part is in the public records, by the way. Now, why don’t you head out? I need to rest, and you’re due to meet with said King’s Guard member for some training, aren’t you?”
*
With them both wearing the same form-fitting tracksuit bottoms and sleeveless tops, it’s easy to see that Lieutenant Hanson is not only a little taller than Lori, but clearly more muscular. So, it’s hard to fight back my more protective urges when I see her push Lori back against the crash mat leaning against the wall and move her arm across her throat. Stand down, recruit. All part of the training.