Consequences

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  “I don’t even know who’s functional,” DeRicci said.

  “We have a list. I’ll download it into your system. You gather them outside. We have a specific aircar for you, one that’ll be escorted through the walls. You’re gonna have your own guards in that section, and you’ll need an environmental suit.”

  “A suit?” DeRicci’s breath caught. “I thought the breach wasn’t serious.”

  “They don’t know,” Gumiela said. “Only a few guys have been in there, and they’re suited. It’s a mess, Noelle. You’re gonna need arson investigators and folks who’re used to working in zero-G. I’ve got a few names I think’ll be good, but if they can’t work with you, get someone who can.”

  DeRicci felt that same sense of dislocation she’d felt when she’d come out of the Marathon case. The universe wasn’t the same. Gumiela was being sincere. She actually believed DeRicci would do a good job.

  DeRicci made herself take a breath.

  “I can’t promise results by any deadline,” she said.

  “I’m not asking for that. I would hope you can figure out who did this quickly, but if you can’t, then we’ll muddle through. We’re gonna have eyes all over the city. But what’s really important here, Noelle, is thoroughness. Everyone in Armstrong’s been touched by this. We’ve got more dead than we probably know about at the moment. We’re gonna need answers, solid answers, ones we don’t revise when things calm down. I don’t know anyone better to get them than you.”

  DeRicci stared at her boss. Now wasn’t the time for casually accepting an assignment. DeRicci couldn’t go without saying one more thing.

  “You know,” DeRicci said. “You used to think I was a fuckup.”

  Gumiela smiled. The smile was tired, but sincere. “No, Noelle. I never thought you were a fuckup. What I knew was that you didn’t have a political bone in your body. You still don’t. And what I never realized before last year was how valuable integrity combined with good policework could be. That’s what we need now, Noelle. Your blunt, brash self. You’ll do it?”

  DeRicci sighed. There was no way to refuse.

  “Of course,” she said. “I’ll do my best.”

  Fifty-six

  Flint dozed off somewhere in the middle of the night, and at first, he thought he was dreaming. Voices told him over and over again that contact had been made with the dome, and that for the most part, the people of Armstrong were fine.

  Tired, bruised, frightened, but fine.

  What concerned them the most, however, was the possibility of another attack. Etaen terrorists had set off a bomb inside the city, promising more for Etae.

  Flint wished the voices would stop. Blending his case with that tragedy seemed wrong to him, even in a dream. And then he realized that he was thinking too rationally for a dream.

  He opened his eyes and watched more coverage—seeing that yes, indeed, Etae was involved. His internal link actually ran the message, and he saw the words along with the symbol for Etae.

  Etae. It kept coming back to that place. Carolyn Lahiri had ties to Etae, and had died in Armstrong. Now Etaen terrorists had set off a bomb in the city.

  Flint didn’t believe in coincidences.

  That completely woke him up. He no longer felt like staying in the room, watching as a tragedy occurred in his home.

  He actually had something to do.

  He got up, had breakfast, and was out of the room before dawn. He was going to follow the one lead Ian Taylor had given him—the address of Taylor’s father.

  Taylor’s father, Alan, who had been born with the name Ali Norbert, lived on a ranch in West Texas which was, apparently, quite far from New Orleans.

  The aircar followed a distinct route and was fortunately built for long distances. Flint wasn’t. He had to stop the car at least twice just to move around. He had never traveled so far by car before. Bullet train, yes, to go from dome to dome, and on the Emmeline, but never in such a cramped space, with nothing to do but watch more news reports.

  And the scenery as well. The water and lushness of Louisiana disappeared behind him, until there was land as far as the eye could see. The vegetation changed. It was no longer green and overwhelming. Eventually, the land became something like the Moon, only not as devastated—a vast sea itself of brown and green, of repeating landscapes dotted by small homes.

  He didn’t even see many other aircars, even though his car took him on an established route. Most people seemed to travel by ground car, driving over roads that had existed longer than Armstrong.

  Eventually, he shut off the news—it kept repeating information he had already heard—and simply watched the countryside go by.

  He didn’t entirely understand Earth. It worked together as a unified planet, but it had continents too that weren’t united, and countries which were. But there were subsets even within the countries—places like Texas (and those seemed to have subsets too, like West Texas, although he wasn’t sure how that fit with the concept of Texas)—that seemed as nebulous as the idea of country.

  Flint understood cities: he had lived in one all his life. The cities on the Moon were unified under the governor-general’s auspices, and representatives spoke to their council. But other subsets—countries, states, counties—didn’t exist at all.

  At least Flint understood enough this time not to ask if he needed special documentation to go from one state to another. The last time he had come, he had asked that in the port, and everyone had snickered.

  What they didn’t seem to realize—what he was learning slowly—was that rules changed from planet to planet, place to place.

  His car announced their proximity to the Taylor ranch in West Texas by slowing down considerably. West Texas looked like the most desolate place Flint had seen outside of the Moon. It had flat brown land, and kilometers of nothingness. Some buildings rose out of the dust, but they looked old and ragged, like permaplastic after too many centuries.

  There were black dots along the landscape which his car informed him (when he asked) were remains of old oil wells. He also saw animals moving in packs—cows, mostly, which he’d never seen outside of the vids.

  From the sky, he could see roads and fences that seemed to mark off huge parcels of land. Nothing seemed to delineate the land other than the fences—no hills or trees or vegetation. Just fences that marked boundaries that wouldn’t have otherwise existed.

  Flint’s car had to announce his presence just to get into Taylor’s airspace. And Flint had to speak to Taylor’s security devices, letting them know that he had just come from Ian Taylor, and that Flint was there to talk about Carolyn Lahiri’s death, and issues surrounding Etae.

  He figured if that didn’t get Taylor’s attention, nothing would.

  Taylor’s security cleared the airspace, and Flint’s aircar crossed the invisible boundary, marked on the ground by one of the fences. The car flew only a few meters above a dirt road. People on horseback rode toward another group of cows, and Flint wondered if each of them had to be cleared when they entered Taylor land. He doubted it; the land was too vast for sensors on all portions of it.

  Airspace was something else. Direct routes, like the one Flint took, could be easily monitored, as could main ground roads.

  Eventually, the car crested a small rise, and Flint saw the ranch house itself. The building was long and high, made of reddish adobe, or so it appeared, with barred windows and a raised roof of a type Flint had never seen.

  The house’s front was covered with plants that looked like they didn’t need much water, and pots that had the same type of decoration Flint saw near the roof of the house.

  The road became paved nearby, and several cars were parked in a circle before the house. For all the security measures, Flint saw no bots, no human guards, and no security buildings. Just the house itself, the cars, and the empty land beyond.

  Flint’s car landed on the far side of the paved circle. The car’s doors remained locked. An androgynous voice warned him that
this location was not considered friendly. If he did not return to the vehicle within 24 hours, the car would return itself to Florida, and his account would be charged extra for unmanned travel.

  Flint had to acknowledge the message before getting out of the car.

  He walked around the circle, toward the house, expecting something—someone—to intercept him, but no one did. Perhaps it wasn’t worthwhile to keep guards in such an isolated place. He climbed the red stone steps that led to the main building, saw more plants that he couldn’t identify, some climbing the outside wall, and knocked on the ornately decorated iron that covered the door.

  For a moment, he thought no one knew he was there. Then a voice said, “You’re Miles Flint?”

  “Yes,” Flint said, expecting to have to give more identification.

  Instead the door opened. Flint stepped into cool darkness. The door closed—

  And Flint’s links shut off. All of them, even the ones he had designed to stay on.

  “Hey,” he said, and as he did, a clear cage fell around him, imprisoning him.

  He put his hands up and touched the walls. They were glass or clear plastic, something that he could see through but couldn’t get out of.

  He made a fist and pounded; then, knowing that wouldn’t work, reached in his pockets for anything that would serve as a weapon. He found nothing.

  Then something hard shoved into the side of his head.

  “Welcome to Taylor Ranch, Miles Flint,” that same voice said beside him. “That pressure you feel is a gun I’ve shoved through the dome. This is a real gun, Texas style. We fire projectiles here, not beams of light. With the velocity and power of this weapon, I expect your head will become a mass of brains and blood on the far side of my trap in a matter of seconds. Care to test it?”

  “Not really,” Flint said. “Do you greet all of your guests this way?”

  “Never said you were a guest. You’re the one who came here, talking about Etae and my ex-wife, whom you claim is dead.”

  “She is,” Flint said, “through no fault of my own. I can prove that to you if you give me my links back. I’m not even asking you to let me out of here.”

  “Glad to hear it, Mr. Flint, because I’m a cautious man. That’s how I’ve lived this long. And nope, no links. You tell me how to find out.”

  Flint sighed. “Without my help, you’ll only get part of the story.”

  “Part’s better than none,” the voice—which obviously belonged to Alan Taylor—said. “Tell me how.”

  Flint told him to look up the Lahiri murders, warning him that most of Armstrong was off-line.

  “What a quaint way to put it,” Taylor said. “Considering it was Etaen terrorists that nearly destroyed the city.”

  “No one knows if the city was nearly destroyed,” Flint said. “But yes, Etae is involved. I’m not involved with Etae, though. I’m a Retrieval Artist. Unfortunately, I’m the man who brought Carolyn back to Armstrong.”

  “She’da gone anyway,” Taylor said. “She believed the pardons.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “I know how Etae works. She was always a tad too idealistic for that.”

  The hardness left the side of Flint’s head. The spot where it had touched ached.

  Taylor moved away.

  “A projectile, like a bullet, will pierce that glass, Mr. Flint,” Taylor said as he crossed in front of Flint. “So just because my gun isn’t pressed against your head don’t mean that I can’t kill you in the space of a heartbeat.”

  Flint let his hands fall to his sides. “I’ll just wait until you check my information.”

  “Good man,” Taylor said, and disappeared into the darkness.

  Flint’s eyes were beginning to adjust. He was in a large entry. The floor was covered with a stunning brown tile done in a patterned design. The walls were made out of the same material as the exterior. The colors were light, and the décor painted onto the wall was as unusual as the tile.

  Flint could no longer see Taylor. Flint had only caught a glimpse of him anyway. The man had seemed taller and beefier than Flint expected, but that might have been distortion from the glass.

  After a few minutes, Taylor came back. He did have the same startling green eyes his son had, but his hair had turned from auburn to a dusty gray. His face had a leathery texture Flint had seen only on old spacers.

  “All right. Now you tell me who killed my wife, and maybe I’ll talk to you,” Taylor said. “But no matter what, your links ain’t coming back on.”

  “I don’t know the name of the man who killed your wife,” Flint said. “I have part of a security video that shows the murder. One of his aliases is Hank Mosby. He’s a killer-for-hire with ties to Etae. He’s been enhanced so that he’s more efficient at killing than anyone I’ve ever seen. He’s got elongated arms and his fingers can become knife blades. His senses of sight and sound are enhanced as well, and I’m sure he has other upgrades that I don’t know about. When he finished with the Lahiris, he came back to Earth—”

  “Back?”

  Flint nodded. “He was here before, but I think I got in his way. After Carolyn died, I found out that everyone in your little team, with the exception of you, is dead now—the last few assassinated in just the last few months.”

  “What team?” Taylor asked.

  “The ones who left Armstrong to fight for better things on Etae. So far as I can tell, Mr. Ali Norbert, you’re the only one left alive.”

  Taylor let out a hissing breath. “Why should I believe you’re not one of the assassins?”

  “Well,” Flint said, “if your equipment is as sophisticated as I think it is, then it’s already figured out that I am who I say I am. It should also tell you that I’m not carrying a weapon and I’m not enhanced.”

  “No reason you can’t signal someone else to come in the moment I set you free,” Taylor said.

  “Except that you’re going to keep my links down,” Flint said.

  “And the gun trained on you.” Taylor touched the back of his hand, and the glass cage sank into the floor.

  Flint looked down, saw several rings, and then looked up. There were more corresponding rings.

  It didn’t matter where anyone stepped once inside the entry, if Taylor wanted them imprisoned, it would happen.

  “You have quite the defensive system,” Flint said.

  “That assassin you described is only one of many,” Taylor said. “They’re made for close-up combat, and they generally win. I been hearing reports about strangers making inquiries, so I’m on extra alert. I figure if I catch them before they can snake out those arms, I’ve won ninety percent of the battle.”

  “So you’ve seen them,” Flint said.

  “Hell, I fought with them side by side in Etae, back when I was a believer.”

  “You’re not any more?” Flint asked.

  Taylor raised his shaggy eyebrows. “Would they be trying to kill me if I were?”

  “I don’t know,” Flint said. “I don’t understand any of this. You’ve been pardoned. All the Disappeared connected with Etae can come into the open.”

  “Where it’s easier to kill them,” Taylor said.

  Flint stepped away from the rings. Taylor backed up. He held a long-nosed pistol in his hands. The gun appeared to be made of steel and looked more formidable than any weapon Flint had ever seen.

  “I still don’t understand,” Flint said. “I thought you worked with the current government, back when they were the rebels.”

  “I did,” Taylor said. “We all did, all of my old friends.”

  “So what happened? Why did you have to Disappear? Did you betray them somehow?”

  “On the contrary,” Taylor said. “I was such a good little soldier that they paid me to Disappear.”

  “Then why do they want to kill you?”

  “I guess now that they’re trying to join the Alliance, they’re afraid I’ll tell the truth,” Taylor said.

  “About what?”
Flint asked.

  “About the Child Martyr,” Taylor said.

  Fifty-seven

  In the hours it took DeRicci to gather her team, overhead light returned to much of the Dome. Even though the program that rotated the stages of light from Dome Night to True Daylight hadn’t yet rebooted, seeing the sun through the uncovered dome made DeRicci—and countless other Armstrong citizens—feel like things might become right again.

  The city was awash in destruction. The filters had been off for hours in some sections of the dome, and the dust piled ankle-high in some places. People were instructed to sweep as much of it away from filter openings as possible to prevent clogging, but no one was doing so.

  Most people were trying to clean up their homes, apartments, and businesses. So many things had fallen and broken that the entire city seemed like one big garbage dump.

  As DeRicci crossed from one closed wall to another, she also saw a lot of people wearing bandages, or walking around with bruised faces and arms. She suspected people had other bruises as well, ones she couldn’t see.

  The hospitals and doctors had begged the city to ask people to triage; if their injuries were potentially life-threatening, they needed to come immediately. Otherwise, they were to wait for a day or two. People who only had cosmetic problems—bruises, scratches—were to live with them; no enhancements or artificial coverings for the bruises this time. People with cuts or disfiguring but not life-threatening injuries were to make appointments for the following week, with the understanding that those appointments might be moved to the following month.

  So far, DeRicci hadn’t heard anyone grumble. Most people in Armstrong seemed happy to be alive.

  Many of the dome walls had gone up by the time she took the chauffeured aircar to the disaster site. She was arriving well after the first members of the team she had assembled. The rest of her team would arrive in a few hours, as soon as they could find transport to the site. Very few departmental aircars were working in the unfiltered air.

  Emergency medical units had been on-site since the engineers got the wall door open. A few fire squads had been there too, taking care of the chemical fires that still burned in the damaged area.