by Mel Odom
We followed Jonas down into the plush surroundings. Four couches sat facing each other in a square. Beyond them, a real fire blazed in a fireplace. The walls pulsed with several views of various online gaming experiences that were currently underway. Jonas had designed them all. One of them was the fantasy setting that I had met him in the previous night.
Jonas sat on a couch by himself. I took the couch across from him, and Rachel sat beside me. Floyd seated himself to our right and faced the fireplace.
Jonas smiled and lifted the glass of wine he held. “I would offer you something to drink, but that would be a nonevent for you two, and I know Ms. Beckman doesn’t drink while she’s on the job.” He looked at her. “You are on the job?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
Trying to appear relaxed, though his blood pressure and heart rate told me that he wasn’t, Jonas leaned back on the couch and sipped his drink. “Nothing has changed since we last spoke? You still don’t know who has Mara?”
I shook my head. “No.” I studied him, letting him see me do it because I didn’t need any extra time. “You said Mara was in danger from something—someone—from her past.”
“Yeah.” Jonas set his drink down, drew in a breath, and let it out. “How much do you know about Simon? How much do you remember?”
“I have no way of ascertaining that. I do not remember his childhood. I do not remember anything of him when he was not with Mara.”
“Interesting.” I knew he meant it because someone in his position that worked constantly with neural programming and simulation in his game designs would think so. “I wonder if Mara did that by design.”
“I have no way of knowing.”
He flashed me a weak smile. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t.”
“Tell me about the trouble you believed she was in.”
“That spins out of Simon Blake, too. Do you know what he did before he and Mara hooked up?”
“He was a soldier. A mercenary.”
Jonas nodded. “And he knew neural channeling, too. He was a surprising guy. As interesting in his own way as Mara was—is.” He scowled and looked sheepish. “Sorry.”
Floyd leaned forward. “How much do you know about Simon Blake?”
“Only a little more than that. Simon kept a lot to himself. He didn’t talk about his soldiering days, or the time he spent on Mars with his unit. I knew he’d worked for Al-Jazari Bioroid for a time. During the corp’s waning years. By that time it was clear that Haas-Bioroid was going to command the market.”
I accessed the Net and pulled down information about Al-Jazari. It had been named for the Muslim polymath, the author of The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices. The corp had been one of the giants in the bioroid field for a time, and the first to strive to make bioroids more human in appearance. That had been the mark Al-Jazari had left on the industry, a trait that had carried over from the original Al-Jazari’s initial concepts.
I tried to find Simon Blake’s job history in the limited amount of information the corp had released for public consumption. I found none. That wasn’t surprising.
Jonas nodded. “What I do know is that he and Mara loved each other very much. And that somehow John Rath was involved with Simon’s death.”
Rachel clasped her hands together. “You’ve heard Rath’s name in the media?”
Jonas nodded and picked up his wine glass again. His hand shook a little. “I have.”
“A lot of people don’t believe Rath exists.”
“I’m not one of those people.”
I took up the line of questioning. “Have you seen Rath?”
“No. But I know that some of the security guards that worked for Simon also worked for Rath. When Rath returned, that split the mercs we had working for us. For a while there, everybody—including Mara—was afraid Simon was going, too.”
“Rath returned?”
“Yeah. Everybody thought he was dead back on Mars for years.” Jonas frowned. “A mission went bad over there. That’s all anyone ever said about it.” He ran a hand through his hair, pulling it back out of his eyes. “Then he shows up. Out of the blue. Calls a meeting in New Angeles. Some of the mercs go. Some don’t. Next thing we know, we’re short-handed.” He looked at me. “Then there was that thing in the lab. When we got attacked by mercs that used to work for us.” Unconsciously, he touched his face where his features had been rebuilt.
Rachel pursed her lips for a moment. “You’re saying you and Drake—”
I interrupted her. “Simon. It was Simon.”
“Yeah. You and Simon were attacked by Rath’s group?”
“Yeah.” Jonas sipped more wine. “A lot of guys got killed that day. I was almost one of them.”
“No charges were ever filed against John Rath. I looked over those reports. His name is barely mentioned.”
That surprised me at first, then I supposed her looking into that investigation made sense because not much information was available on Rath. His name had been mentioned in those reports. I had seen them, too.
“That’s because Haas-Bioroid put pressure on everyone to close out the investigation. MirrorMorph, Inc., had been named as the lead developer on a lot of the new, emerging neural channeling for the new wave of bioroids that were coming out. Project Ares. Nobody wanted any negative publicity.”
I was instantly curious. I hadn’t heard of the project. “What was Project Ares?”
“You mean, what is Project Ares? It’s still an ongoing concern. It’s just still in the black. Only people who know about it are the people who need to know about it.”
“Then what is it?”
“Next-gen bioroids. Military units capable of fighting.”
“Warroids?” Rachel’s voice tightened. “Those are just a myth. Everyone has said they’ll be too expensive to be of any real use on the battlefield.”
Jonas grinned but he didn’t look happy. “Sure. If you’re talking about a traditional war zone. And by that I mean an open space with two enemy armies heaving everything they’ve got at each other. But what if the war they’ve been designed for takes place in a megapolis? What if these warroids, as you call them, fight in the streets and alleys and houses? No open space. No way for the other side to employ weapons of mass destruction. Just these nearly unkillable bioroids fighting toe-to-toe with humans, or even clones. If you place them in an environment like that, who do you think is going to win in the long run?”
The answer to that was easy to forecast. Humans would be defeated as bioroids marched through them like unstoppable tanks, even limited by non-lethal weapons.
Rachel cursed almost silently beneath her breath, but I heard her.
Smiling and looking ill at the same time, Jonas nodded. “Yeah. That about sums it up.”
The answer made me uncomfortable. “Mara knew this?”
“Yes.”
That didn’t set well with the image of the woman that I had ingrained in my memories. “She had no objections?”
“Her only objection was that the actions of the warroids be entirely non-lethal.” Jonas sighed. “You have to see it from her perspective. Her husband was a soldier. She knows he killed people. In the end, he was killed by people he used to soldier with. What Mara believes is that the warroids might be a way to put an end to the huge losses that war causes. She was seeing this as a benevolent way to fight without losing people.”
“That’s not going to work.” Rachel frowned. “If you fill a war zone with these kinds of adversaries, the human counterparts are going to up their weapons. Pretty soon they’ll be unleashing weapons that do a lot of collateral damage. Civilians will still be killed.”
“Not if the warroids strike quickly enough. These things would be working together, better than any human army can. They would be terribly fast. Instead of taking weeks or months, a war could be over in hours or days. Thousands of lives could be saved.” Jonas spoke quietly. “That’s how Mara sees it.”
“Accepting that, w
e’re still left with one question.” Floyd looked at Jonas. “Who took Mara Blake?”
“Personally, I thought it was Haas-Bioroid. At first.”
“Why?”
“They’re the only ones with a vested interest. But like I said, that was at first. Now, given the events of late, I’m thinking it was someone else.”
“Who?”
“Skorpios Defense Systems.”
I had not expected that. My mind spun, trying to put all of that together. “Why do you think it might have been them?”
“Think about it. The biggest war looming over the system right now is the conflict between Earth and the colonies. If Haas-Bioroid unleashes a new wave of bioroids capable of urban warfare, they could put Skorpios and other corps like it out of business. The day of the well-made weapon will have evolved from pistols and rifles to bioroids.”
“Why Skorpios? Why not another arms developer?”
“No one else knew about Mara’s work with Haas-Bioroid. Skorpios did.”
“How?”
“They were among the initial investors in the program. Once they saw how it would affect them, they opted out, maybe thinking that without the deep pockets of Argus, Inc., Mara wouldn’t be able to complete her work. Skorpios took a few other investors with them, leaving Haas-Bioroid high and dry. Haas-Bioroid didn’t want to be so heavily invested in the project, but they leveraged the capital to get the program to fruition so they could blow past Jinteki in the market, prove once and for all that bioroids are better than clones.”
Rachel spoke levelly. “That still doesn’t explain why you think Skorpios kidnapped Mara.”
“Look at everything that’s happened to Skorpios since Mara’s been kidnapped. Something is going on there.” Jonas inhaled and let it out. “And there’s another thing: John Rath used to work for Skorpios on Mars. I think maybe they were behind Rath’s reappearance all those years ago. I think all of these events are connected. Have to be. This thing has been building to a point of no return.” He paused. “I think we’re there.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
The conversation ended rather quickly after that. Jonas had been drinking before we’d arrived, probably to get his courage up, as Shelly had suggested. After he’d revealed what he knew as well as what he guessed, he’d seemed to deflate. He told Floyd and me that he didn’t want to see us again, and I knew he meant it.
Rachel and I returned to the Moon a few hours before the start of the day while Floyd returned to his work. Rachel caught a few hours of sleep before we once more headed into the public dockyards, but I could tell the long hours were wearing on her.
Deep into the evening, when the lights of Heinlein started to dim, we caught a break. That was what police work was about: repetitive action against immovable targets, recovering ground that had already been covered, going over witness testimony again and again, until something new turned up.
Royo found our newest lead in a bar called Tinker’s, a small dive that featured mostly beer and hard liquor, no entertainment, and only modest fare. The place got its name from model hoppers that hung from the ceiling. In years past, Tinker’s had given away the model kits to cargo crews laying over for a few days that didn’t have the creds to do much other than drink. According to the legend, the original owner had built Old World sailing ships in bottles. Four of them lined the shelves behind the bar.
I waited in the airlock while Rachel skinned out of her spacesuit. The main area of the dockyards was kept in vac because it was cheaper than trying to manage atmosphere for the whole area. The warehouses were in the same condition, though those were airtight and could be filled with atmosphere if necessary. When she was finished, she stashed her spacesuit in a cubby and we went through the final airlock.
Royo and Chyou sat with Jearlean Bagoo, the cargo handler who had come up with a name for us at a back table. During the last few days, Royo and Chyou had forged a good working relationship. Rachel had been surprised.
Bagoo was in his forties, a swarthy man who had an island lilt in his words. His file listed Trinidad-Tobago as his country of origin. He had dark hair and a ready smile that seemed only a little nervous. He wore uniform pants and a blouse with the sleeves rolled to mid-forearm. His left arm had been replaced with a cybernetic unit from the elbow down. The bright surface was scarred and it contrasted with his natural skin tone.
Royo made the introductions and spoke in a low voice that wouldn’t be overheard by the bar’s other patrons. When he was finished, he nodded at Bagoo. “He thinks he knows who our cargo captain is.”
Bagoo took us all in at a glance. “This fella you’re lookin’ for, he brings in mercs, right? Straight outta the colonies?”
Royo nodded. “That’s what we think. But there’s something more definite about them. The people we’re looking for, they’ve all got the same tat. A lion.”
Bagoo frowned. “Not just a lion. This one I’m talkin’ about, she’s also part goat and part snake. Very strange. Very…deadly. Like these men and women.” He put his hands together—the flesh-and-blood one and the cybernetic one—and held them in a big fist. “They go together like my hands, yes? Different, but there they are. Like this.”
“Yeah.” Royo nodded. “What’s the captain’s name?”
“Shintaro Masamune. I’ve worked for him before on cargoes. Good man. Very thorough. But he’s very close-mouthed. When you buy him, he stays bought. He will not easily give information.”
* * *
Shintaro Masamune had a record for questionable conduct, and even some lesser charges that had gotten him banned from hauling cargo to the Moon for eighteen months. He’d gotten cleared for trans-space hauling three years ago and had remained clean ever since. During his downtime, he’d hauled cargoes for the colonies. He hadn’t made as much profit, but it had allowed him to keep his ship and his crew together. Getting blackballed could kill bigger ships with a lot of debt. Masamune had kept his operations low-profile and profitable, never going for cargo that would strip him of his license.
I walked beside Royo and Chyou, dressed in a spacesuit myself now because I didn’t want to draw attention to myself or the group. Rachel walked behind us, keeping us covered.
“We’re taking a chance, you know.” Royo sounded tense over the helmet-to-helmet comm. “I think we’d be better off calling in for backup.”
“No.” Chyou shook her head inside her helmet. “Outside of Karanjai, I don’t know who else we could trust at the NAPD.”
“Then maybe we should call in some of your guys.”
“We’d have the same trust problem there.” Chyou sounded frustrated. “I’ve had several investigations go sideways lately. For right now, until we have more evidence, we handle this ourselves. We don’t need to make an arrest at this point. All we need is proof, a chance to connect Masamune to the chimera mercs. Then we try to find the weapons.”
We went, just the four of us.
* * *
Royo approached the hangar where Masamune kept The Rolling Stone and buzzed the comm.
The building was one of the big ones at the back of the docks, farther out into the crater where the spaceport had been built. The area was rough and harsh, just carved into loose shape by earthmovers and industrial lasers and explosive charges. There was nothing pretty about the public docks, and the places zoned for human habitation were just safe enough.
“Who is it?” The voice was male, dry, and husky. He spoke in Japanese.
Royo responded in the same language through the suit’s external broadcast link to the speaker. Like a lot of NAPD police officers, Royo couldn’t read or write in Japanese, but he could hold a decent conversation in the language.
“NAPD. Here to check your certification.” Royo tried to sound bored, but I detected the tension in his words. I didn’t think it was very noticeable.
One of the things we had in our favor was the certification. The public docks were close enough to the megapolis that cargo ships had to be certifi
ed to handle a lot of freight coming from Heinlein. Ships that hoped to make a decent profit stayed certified. Masamune’s certification papers had been up to date ever since he’d been readmitted to ship goods.
“Our certification was checked only a few days ago.”
“Yes, sir, I see that. But we’ve had some trouble with the officer who signed off on these certificates. I’ve been instructed to come back around, see the certifications again.”
Loosely translated, Royo’s explanation suggested that the previous NAPD officer had been caught taking bribes. It happened. No one was going to question that.
“You want to come in here so late?”
The time was currently 2146.
“I’m not happy about it either. If you’re not going to lift over the next three days, I’ll just place your ship on lockdown and get back to you.”
Time was cred in the public docks. Air recycled through the scrubbers, power supplied by the solar charging grid, water treatment, all of those things added up when a ship was grounded. For a captain to be paying his way, he needed to be moving cargo and lifting.
There was also the problem that NAPD officers didn’t come when called. They operated on their own schedules. If Masamune got a cargo in the next day or so, he wouldn’t be able to lift until he was cleared by the NAPD or risk his certification. Depending on how soon a client wanted a cargo off the Moon, a ship’s captain might lose the cargo as well.
Masamune was potentially in a bad situation. And that was if we were just looking for certification.
“Come ahead.”
The hangar door beside the intercom clanked as the locking mechanism released. I felt the vibration through my hand on the wall. Royo led the way inside.
* * *
The Rolling Stone was sixty meters long, forty-eight meters wide, and fourteen meters deep. She wasn’t aerodynamic and didn’t have to be because she didn’t operate in Earth atmosphere, and the thin atmosphere of Mars was very forgiving. The dull grey exterior was pitted from space junk and microscopic debris and showed considerable patching. But she looked spaceworthy.