As expected, Su was not there, but she exchanged pleasantries with both Rangle and Rosario, slipping each one his own note. Neither noticed her doing it, which had been a concern. She didn’t want any discussion in public.
She tracked down Sven in the computer room. Passing his note was easy. His nose was so buried in some messages that Michi didn’t think anything would register with him.
Michi didn’t want to seem too purposeful, so it was ten or fifteen minutes before she stuck her head in Hokkam’s office. As expected, Cheri was also there along with two people Michi didn’t recognize.
“Michiko,” Hokkam said, rising to greet her. “How are you?”
He was wearing his usual Dashi one-piece, with its sealed pockets. Michi, expecting that, had his slip in her hand, and she passed it directly to his as he reached out to pull her in for a kiss. He didn’t bat an eye as she turned around and gave Cheri a hug, slipping the last piece of paper into her back pocket.
“Good to see you, dear,” Cheri said.
“Greg, K’to, this is Michiko MacCailín, a friend of the chapter. Michiko, Greg and K’to are from Earth Headquarters.”
Greg had started to greet Michi, but his face took a downturn as Hokkam told Michi who he was.
“Oh, don’t worry Greg. Michiko can be trusted. She was Franz Galipili’s fiancé,” Hokkam told him.
“Oh, sorry for your loss. He was a valued member of the WRP family,” Greg said.
Michi thanked him and made nice for a minute before Hokkam said, “Michiko, it’s nice to see you again, but we’ve got quite a bit to do before tomorrow. Will you be coming?”
“Yes, I wouldn’t miss it. I’m sorry for disturbing you, and I’ll let you get back to work.”
She left Hokkam’s office, greeted a few more people, and left the outer office. In the hallway outside, she started trembling and leaned back against the wall, taking some deep breaths. That had been more difficult than she had expected. Slipping the notes and leaving traces of her DNA had been the easiest part. It was just being in there, knowing what she knew, and acting like a good and loyal friend that had taxed her emotions.
Ever-conscious of surveillance, Michi centered herself and walked out of the building. Down the street was an upscale café owned by a cousin—an actual blood relative, not the casual use of the term. She walked in, chatted with Bridgette, and had a cup of Lastermay tea. Bridgette would have been well aware that Michi was not living at home—family matters were hard to keep private, and gossip was traded like gold amongst the First Families—but Bridgette never let on as they talked. First Families like their profit even more than gossip, and even a simple cup of tea added to the day’s take.
Michi hung out, listening to what gossip Bridgette was dishing out—and getting interested despite herself—before finally making her goodbyes at about 7:15. She stepped out into the dusk and made her way towards the Gut, stopping several blocks short. Checking for any obvious surveillance cams, she flicked on her face-spoofer.
When she had asked Doug if there was another face she could use, he had eagerly shown her over a dozen he’d already prepared. She selected one with Indian features. Without a mirror to check, she hoped that was what she looked like.
Then she took a can of a derma-barrier and started to spray her hands and face. Derma-barriers were used by medical personnel to keep them from contracting their patients’ diseases, but as a side-effect, they kept skin flakes and other bodily detritus from littering the area. Hair could still fall, and that could be tested for DNA, but the spray lessened the amount of Michi that could be found by a forensic team. And if they did find anything, well, that is why she had gone to the office earlier and hugged everyone. Finally, she took out a new silk scarf and wrapped it around her head. If a hair would betray her and fall, it would have to work to make it to the ground. Finally, she took a disposable rain poncho out of her pocket and put it on.
With a new face and as safe as she could make herself, she continued on into the Gut and to the statue. Three jacks walked by on patrol, but they didn’t give her a second glance. She felt a stirring of pride knowing that is was because of her actions that the jacks weren’t allowed to walk alone anymore. Doug had assured her that the spot in back of the statue was clear of surveillance, so she switched off the face-spoofer and was Michi again. Then she waited. And waited. She kept looking at her watch. Curfew was approaching, and she wondered if the notes had been a good idea. Her first inclination had been to send a regular message to everyone, but despite Doug’s assurances that they could not be traced, she figured if he could trace something like that, so could someone else. So she switched to printed notes.
If no one found the notes, though then it had been a waste of time.
“Michiko, I assume this is as important as you indicated,” a voice said from in back of her. “And all this cloak and dagger was really necessary?”
Michi spun around to see Hokkam standing in back of her. At least he’d read the note. She looked around, but no one was with him.
“Yes, it’s very important, and I couldn’t say it at the office. I’ve got something vital to tell you, and after that, it’s up to you on what you want to do.”
Hokkam gave her a condescending look and asked, “So what’s so important? Curfew’s in 25 minutes, and we’ve got a big day tomorrow.”
Michi looked around as if to check for eavesdroppers. “Not here. Come,” she said, taking his arm and leading him to the small alley where the trash bins for Franny’s were lined up.
“Michiko, just tell me. If you really know something important, then I can take care of whatever it is,” he protested as he resisted her pull. “Stop pulling me. I’m not taking another step until you tell me what it is!”
Michi spun him around, shoving him between two of the trash bins. She jumped forward, putting her forearm under his throat, cutting off any potential cry for help.
“Cheri told me she thought there was a traitor in the chapter, and she was right,” she hissed as Hokkam’s eyes grew large with the onset of panic. “But you knew that,” she said as she pulled Tamara’s 15cm chef’s knife from her belly pocket and thrust it into Hokkam’s belly.
He let out an “oof” sound that escaped past Michi’s arm, and he tried to struggle. He was not a small man, but he couldn’t move his killer.
“I should have known it was you. I saw you edging away from the rest back on the day Franz was murdered, but before any shots were fired. You knew what was coming, didn’t you? Because it was you who set it up.”
Hokkam tried to shake his head, probably to deny it. But he couldn’t deny that it was to his supposed meeting place that the jacks had shown up that afternoon.
Michi rammed the knife in deeper, then twisted it and started slowly pulling it across and down Hokkam’s belly, only stopping when the knife hung up on his belt.
A sudden smell of blood, shit, and piss assaulted her nose. This is what death smelled like up close and personal. She stared into Hokkam’s eyes as they faded and went dull.
She wanted to feel something as she looked into his dead face. She wanted triumph, revenge, anger—anything. Instead, she felt nothing. She stepped back and let the body slide to the ground.
Working quickly, she bent over and started sawing through his neck. No one was going to get him into regen, she vowed. It was much more difficult to separate his head using a kitchen knife, though, than she had expected. It took partly cutting, partly sawing, and partly brute strength to yank the head free.
She had to work quickly. She was basically out of sight from the road, but anyone—from the bar staff to a jack patrol—could happen by.
She looked down at her gore covered legs. Hokkam had had a lot of blood in him. She quickly stripped off the rain poncho and dropped it to the ground. Then off came her slacks. She had liberally applied the derma-barrier to her legs earlier, and it seemed to have worked in keeping the gore in the fabric of the slacks and not sticking to her skin. She pu
lled down the legs of the minishorts she had on underneath the slacks.
Her shoes, though! She hadn’t thought that through. They were covered. Michi bent down, grabbed the slacks, and using the cleaner area around the butt, used them to clean off as much of Hokkam from her shoes as she could. It wasn’t a great job, but it would have to do.
As she stood up, another problem made itself known. Even in the darkness, a bloody footprint could be seen.
Reaching into her belly pocket, she took out the glass bottle that Doug had given her before she left. Very carefully, she poured it on the pile with her slacks and poncho. A vile-smelling smoke arose from the pile as the molecular-debonder reacted to break down the clothing. She had to add a few drops here and there to keep the reaction going. But within a minute, all that was left of the pile were some component chemicals. A good forensic investigator could determine what had been broken down, but identifying DNA should be impossible.
After considering her shoes, she poured a few drops of the remaining reagent on the footprint she had left, then carefully stepped on the sizzling ground. She hoped there wasn’t enough of it to eat all the way through the shoes and into her feet, but she really didn’t want to leave recognizable footprints.
To her relief, her feet weren’t eaten away.
Michi coughed as the fumes from the destruction of her clothes ate at the back of her throat. She had to get out of there. Without a look back at the decapitated Hokkam, she pulled down at the hem of her shorts once more, turned off her face-spoofer, and walked down the alley and out into the street by the statue.
Two men with bottles of beer in their hands spotted her, and one shouted “Hey, where’re you headed?” then “Don’t be like that,” as she ignored them and walked on. Neither followed her, though.
It took almost 35 minutes on the convoluted route she took to get back to the condo, which was well past curfew, but no one stopped her. Tamara wasn’t in. She’d had a date, and Michi guessed it had gone well based on the short “I won’t be making it back” message on the house PA that was cut off with a laugh.
Michi took the knife from her belly pocket. This was a high-end knife with a serial number. She couldn’t leave it at the scene. She shouldn’t even have used it, but this was a thrown-together plan, and she had run out of time. The knife went into the dishwasher, and she started the clean cycle.
Then it was her turn. She put some lilac bath salts in the tub and filled it, stripping out of her clothes and slipping in. She let the salts soothe her, body and mind. As the water began to cool, she got out and emptied the tub. She took her shorts, shirt, underwear, and shoes and placed them in the tub, then poured the remainder of Doug’s solution over them. Doug had assured her the reagent would not harm the tub’s surface, and with the toilet exhaust fan on, most of the fumes went up and out of the bathroom.
Not quite everything was eaten away, however. Michi turned on the showerhead and thoroughly rinsed the tiny scraps left before picking them up and putting them in a trash bag.
She was done.
It was still early, but she went to her small bedroom and got into bed, pulling the sheet up to her chin. She lay there, wide awake for almost 20 minutes before she started to cry. Within moments, she was sobbing, and it was another five minutes before she stopped.
She wasn’t crying over Hokkam. Hokkam meant nothing to her—and that was why she was crying. The first jack had been an accident. Michi had attacked him with violent intentions, but she hadn’t planned to kill him. The thought really hadn’t crossed her mind.
But Hokkam was different. She knew him, she planned out his death, and she had killed him in cold blood while watching his life fade as she stared into his eyes. A normal person would feel something after taking a life in such an intimate manner. It could be sorrow or regret. It could be exultation or thrill. It could be anger or bitterness. But it should be something.
Michi felt nothing.
Michiko MacCailín had been a love-struck teenager, a ballet dancer, a First Family girl with whatever future she wanted. That Michi would have been horror-struck at the idea of taking any life, much less a human life.
That Michi was gone, though, probably forever. And the new Michi cried when she realized that. She wanted the old Michi back, and she was sure she despised the new person she had become.
Chapter 24
Michi waited at Bridgette’s restaurant in a corner table, out of the way of the rest of the patrons, an untouched Danish in front of her. She wondered if the rest of her notes had been read. The rally was scheduled to start in an hour, and all the WRP staff would be there, but she hoped that she had convinced them to see her first. If not, she would contact the council members after, but if Hokkam had any planned role in the rally, then Cheri and the rest should know that he would be a no-show.
At 8:35, just when she had about given up hope, Cheri, Rangle, Sven, and Gabriella came in together. Gabriella spotted Michi first, and all four came over and sat down beside her.
“You wrote that this was vital,” Rangle said, sounding as if he was being put upon. “We’re a mite busy today.”
“What is it, dear?” Cheri asked. “Why didn’t you just tell us yesterday instead of all the mystery? We compared notes, and you gave us all the same thing. Rosario said he had more important things to do this morning, we couldn’t contact Su, and Hokkam’s probably already at the rally.”
“No, he isn’t,” Michi calmly told the three board members. “And he won’t be coming. I wanted to let you know before the rally started that you needed to elect a new chairman.”
“Why, has Hokkam resigned?” Gabriella asked. “He never told me he was considering anything like that.”
Cheri stared into Michi’s eyes for a moment. She saw something in the young woman that spoke more than mere words could. “It was necessary?” she asked.
Michi nodded.
“What was necessary? What are you talking about?” Gabriella asked, her irritation beginning to show.
“Rangle, you are the acting chairman for this. If need be, you will talk. You wrote the talking points for Hokkam, so you are the most familiar with them,” Cheri said, taking charge.
“But what about Hokkam? Can somebody please tell me what is going on?” Gabriella persisted.
“There’s no time for that now, Gabby. Hokkam’s gone, and we’ll leave it at that. And no, you cannot call him. We’ve got a rally going on, and I suggest we get there.
“Gabby, get a hold of Su. Tell her to get to the office for an emergency meeting at 6:00.”
She held up a hand when Gabriella started to protest. “Not now, Gabby. Let’s get to the square. Michi, are you coming with us?”
“What the hell’s going on?” Rangle muttered as they left, but he followed Cheri’s commands.
The five made their way to the square, but even from two blocks away, people filled the street, making progress almost impossible.
“We cut that too close,” Cheri said, awe in her voice evidence that the numbers of people who showed up was a surprise to her. “Rangle, try and worm your way up. Tamberlane and Fort will already be there.”
“Fort” was Fortitude Fein-Simak, their rally master. He was part stage director, part cheerleader, and he was nominally in charge of the rally. However, this was not just a WRP event. Other organizations had been approached, and several had already sent reps to the WRP office to help plan, and more than a few had probably just shown up to take part.
A person holding a placard turned back, and Michi saw the image printed on it. It was her, in her red-headed glory, looking particularly fierce. The words “Red Athena” were printed under her photograph.
“That’s pretty impressive. Tamberlane’s doing?” Michi asked Cheri.
“No, ours says ‘The People’s Valkyrie,’” Cheri told her. “And the photo is a little different. That means your performance must have caught on. That’s reassuring.”
The three women worked their way forward, kee
ping close to the buildings lining the street. Up ahead, they could hear chanting, but it wasn’t until they managed to worm their way into the square itself that Michi could make out what the chant was.
“Red Athena! Red Athena!” the crowd yelled out.
“Looks like Fort went with the other name,” Cheri said matter-of-factly. “His call, and whatever catches on. The ‘Valkyrie’ was my idea, though. Oh, well.”
Michi felt uncomfortable seeing so many placards with her photo on it. The overtly sexual flair to the WRP version bothered her. At least it was that of her redhead alter-ego, and that put some psychological distance to it. She was glad when the chant shifted to “Worker Justice Now!”
Crowd chanting was a science. Fort might be leading the chants, but he had a team scattered around the rally, taking measurements of the volume and intensity of the crowd. All of that was fed to an AI that calculated when to change chants and when to try new ones. It might seem like mob rule, but it was a carefully choreographed and continually changing ballet.
At 8:15, Fort stopped the chanting, and through his bullhorn, told everyone that it was time for the Propitious Interstellar anthem. The crowd booed him unmercifully, but as the recorded music played, most of the people joined in, singing as far out of key as possible and changing more than a few of the words.
After the anthem, Rangle took the bullhorn and welcomed the crowd in the name of the WRP. He stressed that this was to be a peaceful rally, to which some people booed. He spoke for a few minutes, seemingly as ease. Michi wasn’t sure she could have pulled off speaking in front of so many people with so little advanced warning.
He turned the bullhorn over to representatives from some of the other organizations that had gone public in opposition to martial law and the presence of the Marines. Michi listened to them with only half an ear. She jumped up on a fire hydrant and looked at the line of jacks blocking B Street. Unlike at the rally in which Franz had been killed, this time they were backed up by about 30 Marines in their armored combat suits, “PICS,” they called them. The stood motionless behind the jacks, looking impressive, Michi had to admit. Michi wondered what options they had if it came to an open confrontation with them.
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