The Hidden Throne

by Charlie Cottrell

  “That does sorta tie a couple of possibilities together in my head,” I said. Her description pretty much perfectly matched what had happened to the warehouse Vera’s files mentioned, and the timing was about right, too. “Did he specify what he wanted it for?”

  “No,” she said, scanning the message. “Doesn’t look like he got it, either. But,” she flipped to another message from a few days later, “it looks like someone got ahold of it, though, and he was being investigated by our internal security team.” She scanned through a few follow-up emails. “Doesn’t look like there was any connection found between him and the theft, though.”

  “Did the police or the FBI or anyone ever come ask you about the explosion in the Warehouse District a few weeks ago?” I asked.

  “No,” Dr. Korpanty replied soberly. “We were never under investigation, because only about a dozen people in the country even know about Compound 15. Well, supposedly,” she added, frowning. At my insistence, she pulled up a browser window and found a video of the damage at the warehouses. “The desiccation seems consistent with Compound 15’s known effects,” she said after examining the video. “These could have been attacked with a bomb made of the compound.”

  “Did anyone here at Shurburg investigate the warehouse bombing, or volunteer any information to the authorities when you found out about it?” I asked.

  Dr. Korpanty looked slightly embarrassed. “I’m afraid not,” she replied sheepishly. “An internal memo forbade anyone contacting the police or the federal investigators. Compound 15 is a carefully-guarded industry secret. The powers that be didn’t want word of it getting out.”

  I stared at the screen for a few moments, my mind circling around an idea that wasn’t quite fully formed yet. “I think it’s time I had a talk with Mr. Maxwell,” I said.

  Dr. Korpanty logged out of the terminal, retrieved my computer for me, and led me down several sterile, brightly-lit hallways to a glass-enclosed laboratory. Inside were a number of large tables laden with the sort of beakers, graduated cylinders, and various tubes and Bunsen burners one assumes chemist labs come pre-equipped with.

  This particular lab came equipped with a dead body, as well.

  IV.

  Dr. Korpanty gasped, her hands covering her mouth, barely stifling a scream. I cursed softly under my breath, looking for the door to the lab. I saw it a few yards down the hallway, and made a beeline for it. Dr. Korpanty snapped to her senses and yelled, “Don’t!” right as I put my hand on the doorknob.

  “Why not?” I asked, stopping dead.

  She pointed to a light panel above the door. “The room’s hot right now,” she said.

  “So, I’ll take off my jacket,” I replied, my hand back on the knob.

  “No! It means there are biological contaminants in the room. Go in there, you’ll probably be dead before the door closes,” she explained.

  I took my hand off the doorknob. “See, when you put it that way…” I said. I stared into the room. “What can we do, then?”

  “We’ll alert security, first of all,” she replied, walking across the hall to a glass-covered button. She lifted the glass cover and slapped the button underneath, setting off klaxons and flashing emergency lights throughout the building. I was glad to see she was dealing so effectively with the death of what I assumed was Alex Maxwell.

  “There’s a storage locker around the corner,” she told me, pulling up a vid window and requesting phone tools. “Go put on a biohazard suit and get into the airlock for the lab.” I nodded and headed around the corner, almost running into a tall, thin man removing his own biohazard helmet.

  We stared at each other for a long moment, sizing each other up.

  “I take it you’re not a first responder,” I said, an eyebrow cocked.

  The man threw the helmet at me and tried to duck around me into the hallway. The helmet bounced off my face, busting my lip and causing me to trip backward over my own feet. In the process, I got in the way of his escape route, so he tumbled over my own collapsing body. We landed in a tangle of limbs and cursing, most of the latter from me. The man punched and pushed against me, trying to rise again, as I tried to grab hold of something, anything, to keep my new suspect from running off.

  The commotion caught Dr. Korpanty’s attention. She rounded the corner and let out a yelp as she saw us. “Get security now!” I yelled at her. She nodded, then spoke rapidly to the vid window.

  Meanwhile, the suspect had disentangled himself from me and was trying to make a break for it. I grabbed an ankle, yanking him off his feet and causing him to skid face-first a few yards. He kicked at me viciously, catching me in the jaw and ringing my bell pretty soundly. I let go, seeing stars and wondering if he was all or just part jackass. Meanwhile, the killer scrambled back to his feet, shoving Dr. Korpanty out of the way and finally making good on his getaway. I struggled to my feet, ready to give pursuit, but my legs didn’t seem to want to cooperate. They gave out underneath me, dumping me back onto the polished linoleum floor.

  I sat up, rubbing my jaw gingerly where the goon had kicked me, and Dr. Korpanty walked shakily over to me to offer a hand up. I took it gratefully and managed to stay upright this time. “I think,” I said slowly, testing out my tender jaw, “that man might have some information we need.”

  “Security should be able to stop him,” Dr. Korpanty replied.

  └●┐└●┐└●┐

  I sat in a small employee lounge with Dr. Korpanty, an ice pack against my jaw. A brief glimpse of my reflection in a glass partition revealed a bright purple bruise was flowering across the lower half of my face.

  “They couldn’t stop him,” she was telling me, sighing heavily. “We got a pretty good look at him with the security cams, but I don’t know that they’ll be able to get a positive ID on him.”

  “Are your people going to let me in to see Maxwell’s body?” I asked.

  “I don’t think that will be possible,” she replied, frowning. “In a situation where an employee dies in a hot lab, the body is immediately incinerated to prevent the possible spread of infection.”

  “Dammit,” I said, slapping the ice pack down on the small plastic table between us. “So I’ve got nothing at all on this little adventure,” I continued, standing up. “Well, thanks anyway, doc.”

  “Wait,” she said, rising and placing a hand on my arm. “I can at least give you the security footage from the lab. Maybe even a little something else.”

  “Wouldn’t that violate all those forms I signed?” I asked.

  “Honestly, I just want someone to catch the bastard that did this to my friend,” she said, a rod of steel in her voice. I locked eyes with her; hers were full of fire and determination. “I’ll forward it over to you later this evening.”

  “Thanks,” I said, shaking her hand. “I’ll find the guy, don’t worry.”

  “You’d better,” she said, turning away and leaving me with my thoughts.

  V.

  I dragged myself back to the office, arriving around sundown. Miss Typewell was packing up to go home for the day, but stopped to go over the day’s adventures with me and make snide remarks about the bruise on my jaw. I told her about Ellicott’s absence and Maxwell’s death, and the goon who’d donkey-kicked me in the face.

  “So, two no-gos, huh?” she said after I finished.

  “Sort of,” I replied. “I’ll be able to get something on Ellicott tomorrow, and Dr. Korpanty ought to be sending me the stuff from Shurburg anytime now.” In a moment of narrative convenience, my computer buzzed in my pocket, and a vid window popped up with a new message from the good doctor. “Speaking of,” I said, opening up the message. It contained three files: a selection of relevant emails about the theft of Compound 15, a brief document explaining how Compound 15 itself worked, and a video from the security cam in Maxwell’s lab. I pulled up the cam footage in a larger window and played it for Miss Typewell and myself. Unfortunately, there was no audio, just the video feed from the CCTV ca
mera.

  It showed Maxwell working in his lab. After a few minutes, the unnamed man entered wearing a hazmat suit. Maxwell turned and appeared to argue with him for a minute, then the unnamed man threw a vial of something at the chemist. Maxwell writhed on the floor while his assailant grabbed a fire extinguisher off the wall and proceeded to beat the chemist to death with it. It was pretty gruesome.

  “Oh, turn it off, Eddie,” Miss Typewell said, her face pale with disgust. I pinched the vid window closed. “Did you get anything useful from that?”

  “Not particularly,” I said. “The killer’s pretty vicious, and he knew exactly what he was doing.” I lit a cigarette while I thought. “They definitely knew each other, though,” I continued. “That wasn’t a conversation between strangers.”

  “So, the question is, who was that guy, then?” Miss Typewell asked.

  “That’s a damn good question,” I replied. “Maybe a goon for the Organization, maybe a freelancer, maybe someone working for whoever’s been giving Vera Stewart the rough business.” I heaved myself into my desk chair, which groaned in metallic complaint but held firm. “Guess I better see if I can figure it out.”

  └●┐└●┐└●┐

  The rest of the night involved digging through the other files Dr. Korpanty had sent over, searching for any kind of clue as to why Alex Maxwell had been killed. The details on Compound 15 were especially enlightening, as it turned out our recently-departed chemical expert had been part of the research team that had developed it. There’d been a half-dozen other chemists and sciencey-type people involved in the process, but it’d been Maxwell who’d made all the big developments and headed the project.

  “He should have been the head of his own department,” Dr. Korpanty had noted in a small memo attached to the file. “Someone in upper management has something against him.”

  Buried in one of the emails was a reference to another chemical weapon Maxwell was working on, called “Compound 16.” There were no details about it at all, save that it was in development at Shurburg. Maxwell didn’t seem too happy about it, if his email was any indication:

  Dr. Rosen,

  Compound 16 won’t be out of the theoretical testing phase until at least Q3 next year, and longer if I can help it. You know my feelings on the subject, and I state, once again, that I think the pressure from administration and our partners on this project is going to push out a product that is dangerous, not only to its intended target, but to its user. I would like to speak with you and Dr. Korpanty again in regards to this test. I think we need to get out of this game altogether, but I need the two of you to help me convince Shurburg of that.

  A note from Dr. Korpanty was attached that mentioned the three of them had intended to have that meeting tomorrow. “Guess that won’t be happening,” I muttered. But what the hell was Compound 16? Whatever it was, it must’ve been pretty terrible, if Maxwell was pushing against it this hard. Korpanty hadn’t included anything else on the subject, though she was clearly aware of whatever the project might be. I’d have to remember to ask her about it later.

  I rubbed my eyes, simple exhaustion and half a bottle of whiskey competing to see which would put me to sleep first. Either way, I was done for the night. I closed all of my open vid windows, pocketed my computer and Vera Stewart’s datachip, and tapped the illumination panel on my desk to turn off the lights.

  As soon as the lights went out, I heard the faint, distinct click of a gun safety. Suddenly wide awake and completely sober, I instinctively dove behind my desk as a gun tore chunks out of all the furniture with wads of hot lead.

  Reaching for my underarm holster, I drew my gun. I don’t carry a standard firearm anymore; instead, I use a Marks & Saunders Peacekeeper 340. I call it the popgun. It’s a non-lethal handgun that fires projectiles that expand as they exit the barrel, creating a semi-permeable membrane made out of some kinda “smart polymer” that encases the target and traps them. It’s not as messy as a regular gun, and it usually surprises the hell out of the person you fire it at. The thing was an experimental crowd suppression piece created a couple of decades ago but it never really took off, probably because the cartridges were so damn expensive. I managed to get a few boxes of them that fell off the back of a truck—if you get my meaning.

  I waited for the gunman to run out of bullets, something that was bound to happen eventually. When I heard the clack of the slide locking back in the empty position, I peeked out around the side of the desk and fired. The popgun launched an expanding bubble at the doorway, where I hoped my assailant was still standing while they reloaded. I was rewarded with a muffled curse as someone was caught in the bubble. Climbing out from under the desk, I tapped the illumination panel and brought some light back into the situation.

  In the doorway, trapped in a semi-permeable sphere, stood the man who’d fought his way out of Shurburg Chemical.

  VI.

  “So,” I said, righting the desk chair I’d knocked over when I was diving behind my desk to save my life, “you’re a hitman. Who do you work for, buddy?”

  The man remained resolutely silent while he reloaded his gun. In this rather more controlled setting, I was able to take a moment to size the guy up and see what he really looked like. It wasn’t pretty. His body was covered in small, rectangular scales, rather like a reptile, and they changed color with his mood. They were throbbing red at the moment, I assumed with barely-contained rage.

  “You’re not gonna be able to get out of the bubble with that,” I said, gesturing to his gun as I settled back into my chair and pulled a bottle from the bottom desk drawer. I set it on the scarred surface of my desk, drew a small glass from the same drawer I’d found the bottle in, and poured myself a stiff drink. “It’ll be at least an hour before the bubble starts to break down, and it’s bulletproof, so you might as well chat with me.”

  The assassin, whom I’d decided to call Horace until he told me otherwise, said nothing. His scales turned a slightly darker shade of red. Maroon, possibly. It was a rather unique gen-mod, and I wondered why someone would want their emotions worn on their sleeve like this, so to speak.

  We sat there in silence while I had a few fingers of cheap whiskey. Eventually, I decided the man wasn’t going to talk without some persuasion. “All right, don’t want to play ball? Fine,” I said, reaching into my desk and digging out a small capsule. As I walked back toward Horace, I pulled the lid off the capsule, revealing a small syringe. “Here’s what’s gonna happen: this little beauty,” I said, gesturing with the capsule, “is going to do two things: first, it’s going to dissolve the bubble. Second, it’s gonna release a poison inside that will probably liquefy your skin, killing you. Guess which order they happen in though, I dare ya.” Horace looked me in the eye, unblinking.

  “Okay, your call, Horace,” I said, puncturing the bubble with the thin needle.

  Horace held my gaze for a moment longer, then his eyes flickered to the capsule and his scales went gray.

  I smiled, my finger on the plunger.

  “Wait,” he said, holding up his hands in surrender. “I’ll talk, I’ll talk.”

  “Really, Horace?” I said, my finger unmoved. “Because I can do this real easy. Killing you is the simplest thing in the world. I’ve got my private detective license from Arcadia PD. It authorizes me to use deadly force in the pursuit of justice. Only downside is some paperwork on my part. Don’t get me wrong, I hate paperwork, but…”

  “I said I’ll talk, you bastard,” he replied.

  “Well, proceed, Horace,” I said, still smiling.

  “First of all, my name’s not Horace, it’s Clarence,” he bit out.

  “That’s nice, Horace,” I replied, pushing the plunger.

  “Wait!” Clarence said, dropping his gun and slapping the sides of the bubble. His scales were an ashy white, dull and lusterless, and his eyes were wide with pinprick pupils.

  “Oh, relax,” I said, pulling the capsule out and tossing it in the trashcan.
“All it does is dissolve the bubble.”

  Clarence grinned evilly, reaching down to retrieve his dropped weapon. “Idiot,” he said, then frowned. “What…”

  “Well, okay, that’s not all it does. It doesn’t liquefy your skin, but it does knock you out pretty quickly. Damn, there’s always something, isn’t there?” I said as Clarence’s eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed in a heap.

  └●┐└●┐└●┐

  When he came to, Clarence found himself tied to a chair. I sympathized, I really did; I’d found myself in that position more times than I’d care to mention, and it’s never fun. Violence usually follows, and all manner of unpleasant things.

  “Welcome back, Horace,” I said, taking a seat across from him. His eyes widened, and he struggled against his restraints. The scales covering his body flashed bright yellow in his fear. “Easy now, killer, don’t want you chaffing those wrists.”

  “I’m not the only one, y’know,” he snarled, a feral caged animal, the scales shifting back toward red. “There are plenty of others who will come after you.”

  “I’m sure there are,” I replied casually, cleaning under my fingernails, “but I’m also pretty sure none of them will want to bother with me after I’m done with you.”

  His face paled somewhat. “What do you plan to do with me?” he asked, trying to sound unconcerned and failing quite miserably.

  I shook my head, my lips pursed. “See, now, that would be telling,” I replied. “Let’s just say you should reconcile yourself to the fact that you probably won’t be walking out of this office.” I leaned back in my chair, crossing my legs and looking Clarence in the eyes. “Now, tell me who you’re working for.”

  Clarence laughed, a short, coarse sound, and his scales shifted to a greenish-blue color. “You think that’s the real mystery here? You think who I work for really matters? You’re a fool.” The look of disdain in his not-quite human eyes was off-putting. “I’ll gladly tell you who I’m working for, then you can shout it to the rest of the city.