Jericho’s eyes flicked up to Eve’s avatar on the screen behind Stiglitz’ head, and Eve nodded silently to indicate she had logged his response. The truth was that Jericho’s last proposed statement had been a shot in the dark, and he had fully expected Stiglitz to tell him it was inaccurate. But, as with all things, sacrifices were necessary to get where they were trying to go. As far as sacrifices went, that particular one had been a pittance compared to gaining hard data on Stiglitz’ unique neurophysiological responses.
“Ok,” Jericho said slowly, “so…not Blanco. Keno then,” he said, taking a quick drag from the cigar, “but you wouldn’t have come into contact with the Keno clan in the course of your primary duties, so you were introduced to him back when he was a him,” he shot a mute look in Masozi’s direction before finishing, “probably by an asset you were working who had ties to Philippa.”
“So far, so good,” Stiglitz said neutrally.
“After you were introduced,” Jericho continued, “you were let in on the pipeline operation of rare minerals being siphoned out of Philippa, and were probably given responsibility for part of the pipeline’s security. You were tracking down a leak in that pipeline—one that could lead to the entire operation being exposed,” he said, knowing this next part was a calculated gamble, “when Blanco’s people came calling with an off-the-books operation—one that would do more for your career in a month than another decade of being Keno’s errand boy.”
“This is so tedious,” Stiglitz sighed. “You are simply grasping at straws.”
“Maybe,” Jericho admitted, “but you didn’t confirm or deny it.”
“The statement, in its entirety, is false,” Stiglitz said. “Two down, three to go.”
“Keep it shorter,” Masozi said from behind Jericho. “We can’t triangulate which parts were accurate and which parts weren’t if you include so many suppositions.”
Jericho nodded, glad that she had played her part—she had possibly done so unwittingly, but he was determined not to underestimate her so he would not assume that for the moment. She had done exactly as he wanted her to do, and another quick look at Eve confirmed that she had logged Stiglitz’ neurological responses to the exchange.
“Ok…scrap the pipeline connection; it was below your pay grade,” Jericho surmised. “There can’t be more than two dozen operatives with your extensive modifications working in the Sector, so they wouldn’t waste your abilities on such a menial task. But you were aware of its existence and you were working closely with the Keno clan, mostly off the books,” he said, more or less certain of that part. “Due to your intimate knowledge of Philippa’s security, you were eventually approached with a better offer than the Keno clan made you—one that required you to use Governor Keno as bait in a trap that, once sprung, would serve as a first domino to fall in the events which now threaten to consume the Sector.”
He waited patiently as Stiglitz ground his teeth until the agent replied, “Confirmed.”
“And Obunda was the one who approached you with the plan for the bioweapon at Philippa,” Jericho guessed, having failed to come up with a better angle to explain Obunda’s involvement in this far-reaching conspiracy.
He felt warmth near his left cheek, and turned slightly to see Masozi leaning down to whisper, “If Obunda was behind the massacre at Philippa, who orchestrated the firebomb during my aborted Adjustment of Carter? The M.O. seems too consistent…it can’t have been him.”
Jericho had, again, correctly predicted that she would interrupt as she had done. He had also been planning on her doing so, and his eyes fixed on Stiglitz as the agent smirked.
“You really should have availed yourself of her expertise in preparing for this interrogation,” Stiglitz sneered. “I knew who Obunda was, but purely by reputation; he was never involved in my operations, either directly or indirectly.”
“Fine,” Jericho said with irritation—no small amount of which was genuine, since his best theory for Obunda’s involvement had just gone out the proverbial window. “You were acting on Gary Newman’s orders.”
Stiglitz expression froze for a fraction of a second, but Eve’s readouts of neurological activity flared to chaotic life on the monitors behind Stiglitz’ disembodied head. Those readings made it clear, better than his facial features ever could, just how significant Newman was to Stiglitz’ operation.
“I think we’re done here,” Stiglitz said, and before Jericho could continue with the interrogation the agent’s eyes rolled back into his head and began to flutter in what could have only been a seizure.
“I’m losing him to a cascade,” Eve said anxiously as her avatar’s hands moved with blinding speed across the virtual interface represented on her screen, “a little help here, Doc?”
Doctor Maturin moved beside Stiglitz’ head and began manipulating several instruments which were involved in sustaining his brain functions. After a few seconds he shook his head, “I’ve never seen anything like this…it’s like his brain is consuming itself; neurotransmitters are locking down on synapses in a chain reaction. He’s going to be brain-dead in twenty seconds at this rate.”
“Stop it!” Jericho snapped.
“I can’t,” Maturin replied without looking up from his instruments, “not without knowing what’s causing it, and there’s not enough time to determine that.”
Knowing there was a risk in what he was about to request, Jericho looked up at Eve and said, “Get whatever you can out of him, Eve—and do it now.”
“I’m on it,” Eve nodded, and her digital body was surrounded by the same pale, green light which had shone from her eyes a few minutes earlier. Masozi’s wrist-link chimed with a loud, ominous alarm of some kind and Jericho shot her a look just in time to see her sprint from sickbay.
“Don’t do it, Eve; we don’t need the information that badly!” was the last thing he heard his fellow Adjuster say before she exited sickbay as fast as her feet would carry her.
Jericho looked up at Eve’s image on the screen just in time to see it flicker as the data stream flooded the imagery—and the progress bar passed eighty percent a few seconds before passing ninety on its way to maximum.
Shortly after the progress bar hit maximum, Eve’s avatar disappeared and the data stream ceased to run across the screen. A few seconds after that, Stiglitz’ brain monitors all became flat, steady lines and Dr. Maturin growled in defeat while slamming his fist into the bench.
Then the monitor where Eve’s avatar had been showed a reboot cycle had been initiated on the other end of the line, and Jericho realized Masozi had gone to shut Eve’s core unit off with a hard reset.
“Dammit,” he growled as he set off for Eve’s closet.
He reached the locker quickly enough, since it was on the same deck as sickbay, but when he arrived he saw Masozi slumped over the bench with her hands clenched into fists.
“Did we get it?” he asked after seeing Eve’s hardware had, indeed, been shut off manually.
“Is that all you care about?” Masozi snapped, whirling around in the chair and leveling a hateful look in his direction. “There is more at stake here than a fucking job, Jericho!”
Controlling his breathing—and fighting a sudden spasm in his ruined arm—Jericho took a pair of deliberate steps into the converted maintenance locker and repeated, “Did we get it?”
Masozi’s burning visage was far more intense than he had imagined it might be, but Jericho didn’t mind if she hated him. It wasn’t how he would have preferred things should be between them, but in the end all he really cared about was finishing the job which Stephen had given him—because, as far as he could tell, that job was the only thing that could save the Chimera Sector from plunging into chaos…or worse, from reverting to a way of life like it had known under the Imperium.
“Yes, we got it,” Masozi seethed, “but getting it killed Eve.”
Jericho blinked in confusion before realizing what the status bar on the screen had indicated. “You purged her p
ersonality matrix,” he concluded.
“Just like she asked me to do,” Masozi snapped as tears began to run down her cheeks.
“Reload her program,” Jericho said, knowing it would be a sore subject but also knowing they didn’t have time to lose to sentiment, “she’ll understand once you’ve put her back together.”
“It’s not that easy, you heartless bastard,” Masozi yelled. “We killed her! Just because I can bring her back—or make a new copy of her; I honestly don’t know which it is that I’ll be doing—doesn’t mean we can callously throw her life away whenever it’s convenient!”
“Walk that back, Adjuster,” Jericho said without a hint of sympathy to be found anywhere in his conscious mind. “Eve’s not the only one who has sacrificed her life on this mission; the fact that we can bring her back does mean we should take advantage of that resource when our backs are to the wall—which they are! I’m sure that every person who died at H.E. One, or on this ship since we came to use it, wishes they could be brought back while only losing a few hours’ worth of memories in the process,” he said hotly, having discussed this eventuality with Eve during the trip to her E.E.V. where he extracted her core components.
“Get out,” she hissed, taking a threatening step toward him. But Jericho didn’t have time to coddle her sensibilities, so he stood his ground as she bore down on him.
The unvarnished truth was this: if getting the information in Stiglitz’ head had meant endangering one of the human crew, Jericho probably would have done it. Stiglitz was the only source of intel they possessed which could point them in the direction of whoever was orchestrating this Sector-wide conflict, and Jericho’s skills—formidable and deadly as they were—would be useless without a viable target in his sights. And after they Adjusted Blanco, the entire landscape would shift so severely that actionable intelligence would become practically impossible to collect and verify. That was why he had allowed Shu to roll the dice with her life and try to follow the shipment of rare minerals to their destination.
“Fine,” he said after she’d stood so close to him that he could feel the heat of her angry breaths against his neck, “I’ll get out; but you get her back online and have her send me her findings once she’s finished processing them. She’s not done playing her part in all this—and neither are we.”
With that he turned deliberately and left the locker.
After Jericho had left, Masozi closed the door and slid the deadbolt shut to prevent any more interruptions. After securing the bolt, she turned and rested her back against the door and felt her body begin to shiver uncontrollably. The two words Eve had written on the screen as soon as Masozi had entered the locker seemed to fill her vision, and though she wanted desperately to cry the tears seemingly refused to flow now that Jericho was gone.
She had manually pulled the plug on the screen where those words had been displayed after doing as Eve had requested, and she had done so just before Jericho had entered the small compartment to prevent him from seeing them.
She gripped her upper arms as she fought to control the violent shivers which wracked her body, and after a few minutes she knew the worst was over…but she was unable to erase the words from her mind’s eye, so she moved to the bench and hesitantly reconnected the screen to its power supply.
As soon as she plugged the screen back into a power outlet, the two words reappeared on the screen and Masozi wondered just how high a price they would have to pay to remove President Blanco—her own cousin—from the position which he now abused.
She stared at the words for several minutes as she tried to come to grips with what she had just done…and what she would likely have to do again. Her finger moved to the ‘purge buffer’ icon on the screen, but she hesitated. Instead, she reached over and twisted Eve’s core module into position and initiated a reload of Eve’s personality matrix into the system which Masozi had played her part in erasing just a few life-changing minutes earlier.
After the usual interval of startup sequences, Eve’s avatar appeared on the screen beside the one featuring the words. It was only then that Masozi began to sob, and she slumped forward onto the bench as the tears which had previously refused to flow began streaming down her cheeks.
“What’s wro—? Oh…” Eve said somberly, and for what seemed like an eternity the only sound in the room was that of Masozi’s sobs. Eventually, Eve said, “Sis…it’s ok. You did the right thing.”
“No,” Masozi said fiercely, lifting her head from the cradle formed by her criss-crossing forearms, “no, Eve, it’s not ok. You just died.”
“Really?” Eve asked blithely, looking down at her digital body. “Coulda fooled me,” she added with a wan smile.
“Stop it, Eve,” Masozi snapped bitterly.
“You did the right thing, Soze,” Eve said in a soothing voice, and Masozi was thunderstruck by the notion that Eve was somehow consoling her after what had just happened. “You did what I asked you to do,” she added with a pointed look, and when she said that something inside Masozi seemed to regain the strength which had fled her as soon as Jericho had left the room. “You did what was necessary…I don’t even want to think about what might have happened if you hadn’t done it,” Eve added with a shudder as she looked toward the screen where the two words remained, unchanged from the moment Masozi had entered the locker. “I probably should have chosen a different action phrase—“ Eve offered, but Masozi cut in harshly.
“Why?” she demanded. “So we can pretend that what I just did is somehow less…less monstrous than it really was?”
“There was nothing monstrous—“ Eve began, but Masozi slammed her fist onto the bench.
“You don’t get to decide that, Eve!” Masozi screamed. She stopped and recollected her wits before continuing in a tremulous voice, “What if your core unit becomes damaged…or corrupted? Or what if I screw up the reload process? You’re not just some piece of hardware, or software, or firmware, or whatever the eggheads call it,” she said adamantly as another tear rolled down her cheek, “you’re a person like the rest of us—I don’t care what the others think. I mean…you’re consoling me in all this, for fuck’s sake—how much more empathy do they need to see from you to accept what you really are?!”
To Masozi’s surprise, she saw tears begin to stream down Eve’s face. Eve quickly waved them away with a flick of the wrist, which caused a tiny cloud of fairy dust-like material to move over her face and erase the virtual tears. “Soze…I’m sorry this has been so hard for you. I truly appreciate everything you’ve done for me…but I think it might be best if we had someone else—“
“No way,” Masozi said sharply, shaking her head emphatically. “We’re in this together, Eve; I’m not turning my back on you just because helping you might cause me pain. You’ve saved my life on more than a few occasions, and you’re the only person on this whole ship I consider a true friend…we’re like family now, and family accepts the bad with the good.”
“Aww…” Eve said as she looked away in what seemed like genuine embarrassment. “Come on now; too much saline’s bad for the circuits,” she sniffed as more virtual tears twinkled on her cheeks. “What say we erase that…unpleasantness,” she gestured to the nearby screen, “so we can get back to work?”
Masozi hesitated before nodding her agreement, and she tapped the icon to purge the screen’s buffer. But, to her conscious mind, it was as though the screen remained frozen in its previous configuration in spite of her being cognitively certain that she had indeed erased the buffer—and with it the two word message which she knew would haunt her for the rest of her days.
Because those two words had been: ‘Kill Me.’
“Good work, Eve,” Jericho said after several hours had passed and Eve had compiled her findings of Stiglitz’ neurological mapping process. It had been far from complete—since that process would have taken close to an hour—but she had been able to strategically extract particular information from his disintegrating mind before
he had well-and-truly died.
“No problem, Jericho,” Eve acknowledged smartly, though Masozi’s eyes still burned with resentment over the whole situation. “Unfortunately, I was only able to get a few names before he went kaput. The rest of the data is pretty fragmented, but we can compare it with information we find in the future and there’s a really good chance the fragments will match up well enough to give us a few leads.”
The list of names included Jericho, Masozi, Stephen Hadden, Wladimir Benton, nine belonging to various corporate executives, forty four of as-yet unknown significance, and seventeen belonging to various politicians—chief among them being Han-Ramil Blanco, President of the Virgin System and the most powerful politician in the Sector.
“Have you had time to review what happened with Stiglitz, Doctor?” Jericho asked of Maturin. The doctor had spent every minute since the interrogation poring over Stiglitz’ remains, and appeared understandably weary from the effort.
“As best I can tell,” Maturin explained, “the chain reaction began in a single point within the brain, and that point was buried within Stiglitz’ labeling recognition centers.”
“Why weren’t the rest of these names scrambled by the breakdown?” Jericho asked, waving the data pad containing the names he had just reviewed.
“These names were stored in several locations,” Maturin explained. “The brain will create redundant instances, or recall patterns, for important information whenever doing so is possible and it seems that these names were of greater importance than the majority of those found in his brain.”
“So these names are among the important ones,” Jericho nodded thoughtfully. Clearly, Stiglitz had been prepped to encounter Jericho, Masozi, and several others listed in Eve’s findings.
“Correct,” Maturin said hesitantly, “but the most important ones were probably destroyed in the chain reaction. These names all belong to people who were probably only of secondary importance. If my hunch is correct,” he continued, rubbing the bridge of his nose wearily before replacing his old-style, polymer reading glasses, “then the kill switch was activated by his brain receiving an input which corresponded to a primary subject’s name.”
Sic Semper Tyrannis: The Chimera Adjustment, Book Two (Imperium Cicernus 5) Page 35