Dark Crypto (Thorne Inc. Book 1)

by Neil Mosspark

  “They were the ones chasing me! They were going to kill me and dump my body in the river. Don’t I get a phone call?”

  “Nope. You can talk to a court-appointed lawyer after this if you would like.” He continued with little emotion as he read back his notes. “And you escaped by jumping out of a van and running away?”

  “Basically,” Olivia said, throwing her hands up. The chains of the handcuffs rattled against the looped ring welded to the table.

  The man leaned back in his chair and yawned. “There’s nothing on file about this kidnapping.”

  “It’s because it's not in your district. Look, just call up Gabe, and he will sort all of this out.”

  “I guess. Meanwhile, I have other cases to deal with. We’re going to put you into holding until we get this squared away. It might take a few days.”

  “No, really, call him now. Like right now. I need to get out of here. There’s some serious stuff happening, and I need to tell Gabe about this. It's about his case.”

  “Sure. Sure. Maybe later today.”

  Olivia pounded her fist on the table. “No! I need you to make that phone call now!”

  The man rolled his eyes. “I’ll get to it when I can.”

  Anger boiled in her veins as she sat there seething at the underwhelmed cop. She wondered how much it would take to break the chains so she could strangle him with her bare hands. Gritting her teeth, she put her feet against the edge of the table and leaned back in her chair, tightening the links angrily. Pulling hard, she could feel the stainless steel cuffs cut into her wrists until her hands turned purple.

  "Are you done?" He stood there, looking at her.

  Exhausted, she relented but glared coldly at him.

  The man just watched her with a dispassionate eye. She could see that he was working up to saying something snide about her attitude, but she didn’t care. Her temper was well past the overflowing point. She had been beaten, tasered, shot, almost drowned, and almost murdered. It was well past what a normal person would tolerate in a week, let alone a lifetime.

  She lowered her head to rest on the cool table and sighed. Her attitude wasn't going to help things. Leaning back, she slouched in the chair, focusing on her breathing to drive the anger down back where it belonged. She realized she wasn't going to get anywhere, and acting irrationally wasn't helping.

  The door opened, and an expensive pair of shoes walked in. She raised her head with a quizzical look. The man standing in the shoes was wearing a very expensive suit, and from where she sat he smelled a bit too much like soap and cologne.

  “I am very sorry, Officer, but I have a court order here for Olivia’s immediate release.”

  The fat, uniformed man quietly took the proffered paper and read it for a moment, then shrugged. “Makes my job easier.” The apathy practically dripped off him. Sauntering around the table, the officer slipped the handcuff key into the lock, and her shackles dropped away. “You're free to go. Just don’t kill anyone else, I guess.”

  She massaged her wrists and looked at the lawyer. “Who are you?”

  “Johnathan McMurray. I am your lawyer.”

  “I don’t have a lawyer.”

  “You really should. Judging from the very little research I have done on your background, you will probably need me again.” He handed her a business card.

  “I don’t have any money to pay you.”

  “My hourly fee has already been paid. Your assistant hired me. Unless of course you want me to help you with your release paperwork. I would advise against it, since my billable time runs out in exactly ten minutes.”

  “My assistant? Dana?”

  “I can look for the name if you would like, but I am on a schedule, and your allotment of my billable hours has been used up. I’m sorry, but I have to move on to my next client. This was a simple case, but I have other more pressing matters to attend to at this precinct. Perhaps the good officer could release you so that I can continue my day?”

  The officer shrugged. “Sure.”

  Baffled, Olivia watched the well-dressed man walk out the door and disappear into the busy corridor.

  The officer held out a hand toward the door in faux courtesy. “Ladies first.”

  Olivia stepped out the door and looked for the lawyer, but he was already gone.

  “This way,” the officer stated as he walked ahead to a set of large security doors.

  Hesitantly, Olivia tried to determine who might have called the lawyer. For a moment she wondered if Neotech would be bold enough to get her release so they could kill her once she stepped out onto the street.

  Once through the security doors, they stopped at a small, caged window with a space to slide objects on a counter underneath. After a few pages of paperwork, the female police officer inside dropped a sealed plastic bag on the counter and pushed it toward Olivia. Inside the thick plastic, the torn black dress, her ripped nylons, a mud-soaked bra, underwear, and a single shoe lay inside, enveloped in a thick, putrid liquid.

  The memory of falling into the stagnant river and crawling through the mud to get out washed over her.

  “You can throw that out. I’ll pass.”

  “I can’t. You signed for it; you have to take it with you.” The police woman smirked through the protective wire. She shoved it forward a bit more to reinforce her point.

  Olivia glared at her and snatched up the bag. It sloshed with the motion. She gritted her teeth and prepared to express her anger, but the exit doors had opened, and the officer stood waiting. The idea of spending another minute in the precinct seemed ridiculous.

  Compelling her forward was the morning sun creeping through the front doors of the lobby. As she stepped through, the apathetic officer let the door close, leaving her standing in the entryway.

  Olivia looked for her savior and possible killer. She stood for a moment in the precinct lobby wearing the gray sweatpants and sweatshirt given to prisoners with no clothes. The wet plastic bag hung at her side.

  She felt pathetic, alone, and more than a little angry at the world. Beelining for a nearby garbage can, Olivia could hear the clip-clop of the cheap disposable shower sandals that had been issued to her. They echoed in the room despite the noise from those coming and going.

  Slamming the bag into the trash, she stormed toward the door. The realization hit her with full force that she had no wallet, no money, and no way of getting home. Her empty stomach wasn’t helping much either.

  Olivia made her way through the front doors and stepped into the morning light, looking for anyone who might be out to cause her harm. The small joy of being outside tempered the residing tide of anger.

  “Hey!" yelled a familiar voice. "Olivia!"

  She lifted her hand to shield her eyes. Across the street, Jack was leaning against an older model hatchback with more rust than metal holding it together. He wore a gray knit watchcap to cover his shaved head and raised a hand to wave at her. Olivia barely mustered a wave of her own.

  Trudging down the stairs, she clip-clopped across the street toward her friend.

  “You okay?” he asked, handing her a greasy bag of fast food.

  Olivia’s spirits raised, and she broke out a smile. “Jack, I could kiss you.” Her hands tore into the bag, withdrawing the wrapped breakfast sandwiches. The grease imbued in the wrapper promised salty goodness.

  “Please don’t. I can smell your breath from here. Have you brushed your teeth lately?”

  “I had a rough night. You bail me out? Did Dana send you?" With the wrapper peeled away from the squished condiment-soaked bread and meat, she sank her teeth deep into its mass.

  “Nope. Not me or Dana. It was your creepy friend Mr. Grey. He sent me to pick you up.”

  Olivia swallowed the first bites of the cold burger. “Please explain. I’m exhausted and am pretty sure I have a concussion.”

  “Well, this guy in a suit shows up a couple of hours after I lost comms with you. I honestly thought you were dead.”

&n
bsp; “Yeah, I got tasered and lost the earpiece. Go on?” Olivia said, leaning on the car next to her friend. She jammed the sandwich between her teeth and bit down hard. The wrapper hadn’t lied. The meat and egg flavors ran rampant in her mouth. She smiled with the ecstasy of the moment, closing her eyes.

  “He stands out in our yard in the dark like a weirdo. It’s full-on raining, and he’s just standing there. Not moving.”

  “Really?” Olivia said with her mouth full. A piece of egg fell out, and her quick hand caught it as it bounced off her sweatshirt. Popping the morsel back into her mouth, she continued to chew, but with her mouth closed.

  “Yeah, he tells us that he has sent a lawyer to the police station to get you out and that we need to pick you up.”

  “Why didn’t he just do it?”

  “I didn’t ask questions. He was there one minute and then gone the next.”

  Olivia swallowed and looked inside the bag. “That’s weird.”

  “No, what’s weird is that all of my cameras went down for as long as he was in my backyard. All of them.”

  “What? So?”

  “So? The guy took out all of my cameras while he was there. I have three in the backyard and the alleyway alone. I physically was standing there talking to him, and I turned around for a second to go back inside and he’s gone. Poof. Like a frigging magician.”

  “Weird. He probably just jumped the fence.”

  “No. No, he didn’t.”

  “You’re being paranoid. Maybe that thing in your head is affecting your thinking. Ever consider that?”

  “Paranoia has kept me alive this long, and this thing in my head is going to make me a millionaire.”

  “Sure. You didn’t bring my phone, did you?”

  Jack reached into his pocket and dug out Olivia’s phone. “The rest of your stuff is in the car. Can I drop you somewhere?”

  “Yeah, let me make a few phone calls first.”

  “I’m not a cab service. I got things to do, Olivia.”

  “Don’t want to know about the box?” she said, flicking through the contact list on the phone's screen with her greasy fingertips.

  “You find out anything?”

  “Maybe.” She smiled at him, tapping on Mr. Grey’s phone number.

  He just stared at her, waiting like a kid who had been promised candy as she smiled back, holding the phone to her ear.

  It rang twice.

  “Hello, Miss Thorne. I trust you are out of police custody,” said Mr. Grey. His slow, methodical monotone seemed more upbeat this time. “Have you found out any more news?”

  “Yes, looks like I figured out the who, and maybe the why,” Olivia said, wiping the residue of her breakfast from her face with the back of her arm.

  “Please go on,” Mr. Grey said.

  “So it looks like Neotech pulled the box out of the Quarantine Zone shortly after the fall of the black dome. Almost a decade ago. Presumably, they’ve had a Dr. Anita Sanders working on it since then. She has a sort of head jack. It’s a neural interface. It's uncommon tech, but it looks like more and more people are getting these implants. She was using this to decode some sort of thing called a polyptych inside the box. I’ve been told by one of my sources that once the puzzle is solved, it opens something called the Vault of Knowledge. Does that mean anything to you?” She raised a querying eyebrow at Jack, and he nodded in agreement.

  “I had suspected that is what it was intended to be used for,” Mr. Grey said. “Please continue.”

  “Well, it looks like Dr. Sanders got stumped in her research or was hung up on the problem and couldn’t move forward anymore. A peer at Neotech, Dr. Adam Gerrard, decided to take over to try something a bit more aggressive. He hired some mercenaries called Black Anvil who in turn probably hired our Yakuza friend Takeo Kimura to find him some kids and hide them away in the slums. They put the neural interface into the kids and had them work on the puzzle. Gerrard was probably running the project off-site to keep it out of the prying eyes of the company. I suspect it’s bad for shareholders when murder and kidnapping are on the books.”

  “Did they solve the puzzle?”

  “I don’t know. Sanders was less than interested in telling me, and Gerrard wasn’t about to come clean. He was more concerned about killing me than answering my questions.”

  “You should mention this information to the police.”

  “Sure thing. I'll be passing the info on to the officers who are working the case. But it looks like I’ve wrapped up my investigation. I got you the names of who was plugging kids into the box, and I even went so far as to confirmed what the box was used for. I think this is what we both agreed on. This should conclude the contract with the bonus you had mentioned.”

  “Yes,” Mr. Grey said. “I will have a courier drop off the money at your office. Including the bonus.”

  “No, have someone transfer it to my bank account. I can’t go back there right now. It’s a disaster, and Black Anvil is likely staked out the joint.”

  “I assure you, Black Anvil is no longer watching your business,” Mr. Grey stated.

  “How do you know that?”

  “We have a number of their members under surveillance. It is unlikely they will return. They are mobilizing for some form of action.”

  “What kind of action?” Olivia asked.

  “I do not know.”

  “Well, that brings us to an interesting and likely ongoing problem. Black Anvil is operating here in the city. They want something that you have taken from them.”

  There was more silence on the other end of the phone.

  Olivia pressed on. “What did you take from them that would cause them to come out of the woodwork.”

  “A previously completed polyptych,” he stated. “I have taken it out of the hands of children. They are very unhappy about this and have been looking for me for some time.”

  “How long have they been looking for you?”

  “Four years, three months, and eight days,” Mr. Grey stated.

  “Why?”

  “It is because they want the completed puzzle.”

  “No, why did you take it? What’s so important that you are trying to keep it away from people?”

  There was only silence on the other end of the phone again. She wondered for a moment if he had hung up. Olivia could feel chills run down her spine. “What is so important about some data decryption? You’re not stealing industrial secrets, are you Mr. Grey?”

  “No.”

  “Then what are you doing?”

  “We are keeping the world safe. I promise you that our motives are altruistic and in the best interests of humankind.” There was a long pause again. Olivia got the impression he was speaking with someone else, as though being put on hold.

  “Mr. Grey?”

  “My benefactors have asked me to offer you another contract.”

  Olivia massaged her forehead. She couldn’t go back to the office, and even the remainder of the funds would be required for the deep clean and renovation of the office. She imagined the dried blood and bullet holes in the walls were going to cut deep into the tidy sum paid by Mr. Grey.

  “What’s the job?”

  “Black Anvil may be looking for Mr. Kimura.”

  “He’s still locked up in jail. Probably going to prison for kidnapping two minors. I doubt he’s doing anything right now other than waiting for a trial date.”

  “I have been informed that a solution of the polyptych device is being offered by Mr. Kimura on the black market via a dark net forum. He received bail from his lawyer, and I believe that he may have retained a copy for his own usage. The financial income from the sale of the polyptych solution will likely be very attractive.”

  “And you want me to get it from him?”

  “Yes,” Mr. Grey stated curtly.

  “Why don’t you just buy it?”

  “We do not have unlimited assets to expend on this. It is why we are employing you on a contractual basis.�
�

  “I’m not sure if I should be offended by that.”

  “You should not. We believe your work to be very efficient. Others we have employed in the past have not survived as long as you have.”

  “Oh, that does not make me feel any better.”

  “We wish to hire you to collect or destroy the neopuzzle solution in Mr. Kimura’s possession and identify to whom he is selling it.”

  “Any idea where and when the sale is taking place?”

  “Tonight, at the Renaissance hotel. Room 509. Do you know its location?”

  “The fancy one on Lakeshore Road?”

  “I believe it to be a high-quality hotel,” he stated.

  Olivia sighed. “Sure, I’ll find out who is going to buy the solution and acquire it or destroy it. Same deal as before. Half of a week up front, the second half after the job is completed. I’m sure you can drop that off with the rest of the money from the last job.”

  “Thank you, Miss Thorne. I look forward to hearing from you.”

  The line went dead as Mr. Grey hung up. She lowered the phone and stared at it.

  “Was that your client? The creepy guy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “...And?”

  “He says he’s dropping off my payment at the office.” She shook her head. “Why do I feel like the mouse that keeps getting fed bits of cheese?”

  Jack looked at her. “What’s wrong with that. Work’s work, right?”

  “Yeah, but one of these pieces of cheese is going to be attached to a trap one of these days.”

  Olivia crumpled up the empty fast food bag, balling it in her fist.

  “Maybe, but that’s sort of your line of business, isn’t it? Excitement, adventure, danger.”

  “More like get shot at, have people wreck your stuff, and hurt people who know you."

  She sighed, knowing that she needed to ask another favor. “Want to drop me off at the office? I’ve got to pick up the payment from my client. I’ll settle up with you right afterward. I might need your expertise on my next little outing. Want to make a quick buck?”

  Jack shrugged. “Sure. I've got places to be, but paying bills comes first.”