The Peyti Crisis: A Retrieval Artist Novel: Book Five of the Anniversary Day Saga (Retrieval Artist series 12)

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  He wasn’t quite prepared for it. He’d been here many times, but it always seemed organized. Now there were pieces of desks and chairs in the wrong place. The plants had been moved, and DeRicci’s desk was mounded with all kinds of detritus—some of which, he realized, were shirts and pants. She’d been changing clothes here, possibly on the nights she had nothing to wear at his place.

  She grabbed some water bottles from a nearby fridge—that was new as well—and set them on the table in the center of the room. Then she eased into one of the chairs.

  “Theoretically, I shouldn’t talk to you about what we’re doing,” she said tiredly. “But there’s no one left to yell at me for breaking rules that aren’t even codified into law yet. So, Bartholomew, what do you want to ask?”

  He wanted to hold her. She was so sad and she hadn’t dealt with any of those softer emotions yet. But she kept giving herself away with phrases like the one she just used: There’s no one left to yell at me. She had hated the restrictions before, and now, she missed them.

  Or rather, she missed the people who had imposed them.

  If he were less charitable, he would say she missed having something to push against, but he knew that wasn’t entirely the problem. She used to say that she wanted to be the person in charge, but now that she was, it was eating her up from the inside out.

  Or maybe that was just the nature of the entire crisis.

  He took the two burgers out of the bag. He’d also indulged and bought French fries made the old-fashioned way, in oil, with salt and sugar. He knew that DeRicci loved the things, and he also knew they were the most unhealthy thing he could find.

  But he didn’t care. Food was food. And the restaurant he’d bought this at used only the best ingredients for its meals—as if good grease made the food healthier.

  “I was wondering if you need another investigator,” Nyquist said.

  “Because S-Three tied your hands?” DeRicci asked.

  He nodded.

  “I’m sure you have other cases,” she said, adjusting the bun on her burger. She seemed to know that the guards downstairs had messed with the food, and apparently it didn’t bother her.

  “I do,” he said. “But an unsolved murder from seven months ago seems a lot less important than solving millions of attempted murders less than two weeks old.”

  She gave him a weak smile. “Well, when you put it that way,” she said.

  She took a bite out of the burger, and closed her eyes. She made a sound he thought she only made in bed.

  “You know,” he said after a minute, “you have a staff. Someone could bring you food on a regular basis.”

  He regretted the words the moment he spoke them. But DeRicci just opened her eyes and smiled at him.

  “Then I wouldn’t get to see you,” she said.

  He adjusted the pieces of his burger. The bun was hot. The bag had kept everything just-cooked-fresh, even though the guards had tampered with the food.

  “If you brought me on,” he said, “I’d double as your food-provider.”

  She smiled, but the look didn’t go to her eyes. Something he had said disturbed her. “I thought you were working with Miles on the side,” she said.

  “I thought so too,” Nyquist said, “but I haven’t heard from him since the Peyti Crisis.”

  “Did you contact him?” DeRicci asked.

  “I left a few non-urgent messages for him,” Nyquist said, “in the last few days. I actually thought I’d be busy until those injunctions.”

  She nodded. “Miles was here. He’s got problems with Talia.”

  “Serious ones?” Nyquist asked.

  DeRicci shrugged. Nyquist wasn’t sure if that meant that Flint’s problems were serious or that she didn’t want to tell Nyquist because she felt that he had no right to know.

  He really didn’t.

  “I think you should keep working with him,” DeRicci said.

  Nyquist felt his heart sink. “I’d hoped—”

  “I know, Bartholomew, but I can’t request you, and I’m juggling so much here.”

  “I can take some of that off you,” he said.

  “Can you?” she asked, looking at him. “Because most of what I need done is United Domes political stuff, and you’re no more qualified than I am.”

  He felt his heart sink further. “If anything, I’m less qualified. You’re doing a great job.”

  “No, I’m not,” she said. “Since I’ve become head of security for the Moon, we’ve suffered two devastating attacks. I’m sure there are more on the way. I just can’t find the perpetrators. I can’t figure out what’s going to happen. I can’t foresee them any more than I could foresee the Peyti Crisis.”

  “But you saved lives,” Nyquist said.

  “Did I?” she asked. “Or is that just the lie we tell ourselves to make it all better? Are we sure those Peyti clones would have set off the bombs? Are we really?”

  “I am,” Nyquist said. He remembered standing outside the interrogation room in which he had locked Uzvaan, one of the Peyti lawyers, someone he had known for decades. Their gazes met through the window, and Uzvaan had removed the bomb from his mask, trying to activate it.

  Nyquist still saw that moment in his sleep. Only in those dreams, he was inside the room, and the environmental controls hadn’t shifted to Peyti normal, and as Uzvaan pulled his mask apart, Nyquist knew he was going to die, and there was nothing he could do about it.

  “You’re sweet, Bartholomew.” Her tone was dismissive. She thought he had told her she had saved lives to make her feel better.

  “And you’re tired, Noelle,” he said with a bit more bite than he intended, “or you’d remember that one of the lives you saved was mine.”

  She stared at him. Then she frowned ever so slightly. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “That you saved me?” he said. “I told you that—”

  “No.” She waved what was left of her burger. “That you actually have a reason to see—what was his name? The Peyti lawyer?”

  “Uzvaan,” Nyquist said. “His name is Uzvaan.”

  “You had a reason to see him that day,” DeRicci said. “That’s how you were able to isolate him.”

  “I lied to him, Noelle. I told him I had information on his client, Ursula Palmette.” Palmette had been involved in the assassinations on Anniversary Day. She had supplied the materials used in at least one assassination—or so Nyquist believed.

  Flint’s sources believed the materials came from somewhere else, but that never explained why Palmette was going to try to set off her own makeshift bomb at the Port when Nyquist caught her.

  “But this Uzvaan had a client, and he needed to see you,” DeRicci said.

  “He used it as an excuse to come to the precinct,” Nyquist said. “He was probably excited about how many people he could kill.”

  Nyquist’s words were clipped. He could hear the anger in his own voice. He usually kept that anger down, but the fact that Uzvaan—whom he had known for years—had been willing to kill him so very easily infuriated him.

  “You can’t interrogate any of the Peyti clones about the crisis, right?” DeRicci said.

  “Yeah,” Nyquist said.

  “But they are lawyers,” she said.

  He stared at her.

  “They haven’t been disbarred—at least, not yet. They haven’t been taken off cases. We’ve been reacting to their actions and what the clones turned out to be, but we haven’t removed them from anything.”

  “S-Three would say we’re playing games here,” Nyquist said.

  DeRicci set her burger down. “Of course we are, Bartholomew. That’s what the law is all about. It’s about games. S-Three is going to be playing games with us. They just caught us off-guard, is all. They’ll twist language and ideas and anything else they can to protect their clients. We’ll fight back in the courts by saying that these clones have no right to an attorney, and we’ll meet each challenge with another. Each challenge will b
e all about words and interpretations of the law, but even while we’re doing that, life goes on. Like you said.”

  “I did?” Nyquist’s head was spinning. He set his burger down, remembering to put it on top of the warming bag so that the burger remained hot.

  “You did,” she said. “You said you still had cases, but who cares about them in the face of the Peyti Crisis.”

  He nodded.

  “Start caring,” she said. “Palmette is one of your cases, and it ties to Uzvaan. I’m sure there are others, with other lawyers involved.”

  He let out a breath.

  “Okay, let’s take this a bit slower,” he said. “I was a little relieved that the injunctions came down, because my colleagues aren’t in a cautious mood.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning they believe that destroying property is allowed under the law,” he said.

  “See?” DeRicci said, apparently not shocked. Had she thought of this too? “Twisting the rules to make them work. We’re all going to be doing it.”

  “You don’t care that they were going to harm the clones?”

  “Not for the clones’ sake,” DeRicci said.

  Nyquist felt his world shift. DeRicci, of all people, should have cared. She wasn’t like Romey. She knew—

  “But,” DeRicci added, apparently not noticing his distress, “I don’t want to lose a single one of those bastards. Because we don’t know which one will talk to us. And with that many clones, that many opportunities, one of them will talk. Maybe that one is Uzvaan.”

  “He’s tough,” Nyquist said.

  “And smart, I’ll bet,” DeRicci said.

  “Of course,” Nyquist said.

  “So he’ll know that they’re going to be coming for him, with everything they have.”

  “He’s a failed suicide bomber, Noelle. He’s not going to care about his own safety.”

  She took another bite of the burger, chewed. Thought. Then she nodded. “It’s a dilemma, granted, but I doubt it’s insurmountable. You’re assuming that he wanted to die.”

  “Yes, I am,” Nyquist said. “Because he did.”

  “No,” she said. “He might have believed it was his duty to die. He might have believed in the cause, whatever that cause is. He might have had other reasons to take his own life, reasons that no longer exist.”

  Nyquist shook his head. “I doubt he’ll talk to me for any reason.”

  “He’s smart,” DeRicci said. “He knows he’s lost. He knows—”

  “He doesn’t, though,” Nyquist said. “He doesn’t know he’s lost. If there is a third attack coming, then all he has to do is wait.”

  She finished her burger, then licked off her fingers. He watched her, wondering if she even realized how quickly she had eaten, the way that it showed how ravenous she was.

  “And if he doesn’t wait,” DeRicci said, “if he makes a deal with you, if he’s even willing to talk to you, then we’ll know that he no longer believes in the cause.”

  “We can’t make that assumption,” Nyquist said. “Because he might not know there is a third attack.”

  “He might not,” DeRicci said. “Or he might assume the attack has failed.”

  “He’s a lawyer, Noelle. Even if he wants to talk to me, he’ll want something in exchange.”

  She nodded. “I already thought of that. We can give him immunity.”

  “Immunity?” Nyquist asked. “From what?”

  “Treatment as a clone,” she said, and Nyquist let out a breath of air. He had thought that she would give Uzvaan immunity from prosecution, period.

  “That might make things worse for him,” Nyquist said.

  “That might allow him to live a long life,” DeRicci said. “As a full-individual, he’ll be able to appeal. As a clone, he can be destroyed at any moment.”

  Nyquist thought for a moment. “I can’t offer him anything, Noelle,” he said. “I can’t talk to him about the Peyti Crisis.”

  “So, offer him a deal if he talks about Palmette,” DeRicci said. “What is the standing of a clone lawyer? He’s not subject to laws for individuals. He’s property. So all that confidentiality, all of those protections afforded a normal lawyer, he wouldn’t have—”

  “We don’t want to go there, Noelle,” Nyquist said quietly. “We have decades of cases that would have to be retried if we win that particular argument. All of those cases in which the lawyers’ work would be declared null and void.”

  “We don’t have any Peyti prosecutors in Armstrong, Bartholomew,” DeRicci said. “There’s no prosecutorial misconduct. I’m not a lawyer, but I’ll bet we could get some judge to sign off on a review of the cases, and say that’s enough. Because there’s nothing in Armstrong law that says we need to have a real lawyer defending something. There are laws against prosecutorial misconduct, but not on the type of representation that a defendant must have, as long as the defendant got a competent representative.”

  The burger didn’t look appealing, but the fries suddenly did. Nyquist grabbed some, and ate, tasting grease, salt, and sugar. Enjoying the grease, salt and sugar.

  “That’s a real risk, Noelle,” he said. “It’s not an argument that just anyone could make.”

  So many of his colleagues had tossed out subtlety after the attacks.

  “No,” she said. “But you could. And maybe you could get Uzvaan to talk.”

  “So many maybes,” Nyquist said.

  “So many opportunities,” DeRicci said, and smiled.

  Nyquist smiled back. What she was suggesting was crazy. But crazy in a way that might help them.

  If he could keep his anger under control. If he could manipulate Uzvaan. If Uzvaan knew anything useful.

  If, if, if.

  Nyquist knew what DeRicci would say next. She would tell him to try.

  Because, when it came down to it, he had nothing to lose.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  ZHU STOOD IN the center of what would be the reception area of S3 On The Moon, and stared at the woman he never thought he would talk to again.

  Berhane Magalhães, his former fiancée, whom he’d dumped with his usual exquisite timing. He had left her inside the terminal in the Port of Armstrong just before the news of the Anniversary Day attacks broke. She lost friends, and family members, and he hadn’t been able to comfort her.

  Not that she had really needed comforting. It seemed like Anniversary Day had revealed the inner Berhane, the one he hadn’t known existed.

  She came from one of the Moon’s richest families, and instead of sitting back and letting her money take care of all the problems, she worked for a variety of organizations, doing her best to help victims of Anniversary Day. And then she had started a foundation of her own. All of her work was hands-on. He supposed she was also donating more than time, but he didn’t know.

  He had barely spoken to her since that day, and when he had, the conversations left him feeling inadequate.

  “Berhane?” His voice sounded strangled.

  She turned. Her face had become angular, as if she had lost weight or gained gravitas or something. He had never seen her hair so short. It accented her features. She lost some conventional beauty and gained a luminosity that he hadn’t thought possible.

  When her gaze found his, she frowned.

  “Tell me it’s not true, Torkild,” she said, without saying hello.

  His stomach clenched. He knew what she was talking about, but he pretended that he didn’t.

  “Hello to you too,” he said. “Welcome to the new offices of S-Three On The Moon. I’m setting them up. If you or your father know of any large property for sale—”

  “We certainly wouldn’t sell it to S-Three,” she said. “Not if the rumors are true.”

  He made himself smile, even though his stomach actively hurt now. Funny how before Anniversary Day he couldn’t have cared what this woman thought of him, and now her opinion mattered more than he wanted to admit.

  “I’ve been so busy, I d
on’t have time for rumors,” he said.

  “You’re representing the murderers? How could you, Torkild?”

  He almost took refuge in that most lawyerly of tricks, arguing with her word choice. They’re not murderers, Berhane, until they’re found guilty. Or, he could have said, They’re not really murderers, Berhane. They only attempted murder. Those who succeeded died.

  But he caught all the words before they flooded out of him. His cheeks warmed and he wished he could control that. Normally, he could, but apparently Berhane had found another way in.

  “I’m S-Three’s representative on the Moon,” he said in his let’s humor Berhane voice, a voice he never ever used with anyone else. “The only reason I’m doing all this is because I’m the only partner on the Moon. Luck of the draw and all that.”

  “You’re not denying it. You’re representing those murderers.” She blinked. Her eyes looked moist. Was she going to come up to his new office suite and cry?

  That pissed him off. That was the old Berhane, the one who got her way through manipulation and tears.

  “I’m starting a branch of the firm,” he said. “That does mean I’m handling some matters while I wait for the actual attorneys of record to show up, but that’s all, Berhane. I—”

  “You’re lying,” she said. “I always knew when you were lying, even when you thought I didn’t. You can’t do this, Torkild. You can’t represent them. They’re monsters.”

  The lawyer answers, so rote, rose up first. Everyone’s entitled to a defense, Berhane. But he suppressed that too, and then protected his links so he didn’t accidentally send those answers to her that way.

  “You came up here to yell at me, Berhane?” he asked quietly.

  “I came up here so you could tell me it was all a vicious lie,” she said. “And it’s not, is it?”

  He sighed. “What do you want from me, Berhane? We’re not engaged any more.”

  “Let me hire you away,” she said. “Shut this all down. Become a victim’s advocate. We can use lawyers with vision. You’ll be able to argue for people who’ve lost everything.”

  His shoulders slumped. If only she had offered him that a few days ago, he would have considered it. He had actually asked her for a job when he got here, and she had said no.