“That’s a good way to get rid of evidence,” Aberdeen thought out loud. “The question is, how did they get in here to get the ships out in the first place? Can you get into this hanger from the outside?”
“Only through the retractable roof, which you can open using this lever,” he pointed to a set of controls on the wall. “There are no other access points.”
“There are no footprints up here,” Talon yelled from the lip of the hanger. With no wind any footprints would remain indefinitely, but that didn’t mean the blowing fumes from the ships’ take off couldn’t have erased them.
“Are there cameras in here?”
“No and I’ve looked at all the security feeds from that night. There wasn’t a single person caught on camera. Our security system is top of the line…there’s no way they were in the building before the theft.”
“I think the roof was smashed in from the outside,” Talon theorized. “There isn’t any debris up here and you can tell by the way the metal is bent in those pieces,” she pointed to the large panels hanging from their bolts.
“That would make sense,” Aberdeen agreed, “and it would also mean we wouldn’t find any evidence here.” She began to collect samples, but every time she dropped a charred object into a plastic bag she simply shook her head. None of it was going to help their investigation.
Buzz Aldrin had it right, Talon thought, as she stood on the moon’s surface. Sprawled before her was his “beautiful, beautiful, magnificent desolation.” Talon picked up a handful of regolith and studied its heterogeneous contents. How many moons, planets, and asteroids was she holding in her hand right now, she wondered?
Like the ocean, being out here made Talon feel small and all her problems seem infinitesimal. There wasn’t rock closing in on her from all sides, there were no reporters hovering in her vicinity to snap a picture, there was…nothing. The only sounds she could hear was her own breathing and the pumps and fans circulating air and water through the suit. All the clutter seemed to leave her head, and then Levi invaded it.
“Wow,” Aberdeen said, pushing off the last rung of the ladder. “Not too bad of an assignment, eh?”
Talon had to admit all she felt was gratitude, but with Levi on her mind, she contemplated Eon’s words. “Do you like working for the division?”
“I haven’t been working for them for very long, but it seems satisfying enough.”
“No, I mean…do feel like you can balance…things in your life. Like work and relationships.”
Aberdeen looked up at the void and ruminated on her thoughts before answering. “I was told you didn’t get the job you wanted. Working for the OSS Division isn’t as bad as it seems, and I don’t know anything about your personal life, but if it’s meant to be, it’ll work out no matter where you work. After all, it’s just a job, right?” Aberdeen jumped into the air and landed softly in the dust. She giggled like a child when a small cloud formed around her feet. “Haven’t gotten a chance to do that until now.”
“Did you see the people hopping around like jackrabbits?”
“You know you want to try it,” Aberdeen coaxed.
Talon laughed. “What do you think I was doing in my hotel room?”
Next thing they knew, both women were hopping next to each other like they were in a potato sack race without the sack. They laughed wildly, hurdling over barricades set-up around the premises. Aberdeen bent her knees to scale another object, but as she flew into the air, her foot caught the edge of it and she went flying forward, head first, into the ground.
“Aberdeen, are you okay?” Talon ran over and bent down next to her partner.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she assured, propping herself up with her hand.
“You’re limping.”
“It’s an old injury. I’m used to it. This guy must think we’re no better than the LBI frolicking out here,” Aberdeen snickered and brushed the grey dust off of her suit.
“I don’t think we’re going to find anything down there…especially with all the evidence torched.”
“I think you’re right. Interviews will be the most helpful to us right now and it looks like Morten Grey is our only real lead.”
Before they went to look for the fired nighttime security guard, they spent another two hours at LDShips wrapping up the scene of the crime. By the end they left with a suitcase full of dusted fingerprints, bagged evidence, and a file on Morten Grey.
“This guy has only called out sick a week in ten years!” Talon read in astonishment as they took the train to his apartment.
“He looks pretty clean on paper.”
“Clean? The guy is a model employee.”
“Hmm, a model employee on the surface. Suspicion haunts a guilty mind,” Aberdeen raised a brow.
“What do you mean?”
“I think Chris was right. It doesn’t look like Morten is a criminal mastermind, but that doesn’t mean someone didn’t pay him to look…or rather sleep, the other way. If we pretend like he’s our top suspect, his nerves will get the better of him and he’ll crack.”
“So freak him out and then run a stake out or something?”
Aberdeen smiled. “Exactly. Maybe he’s not running the show, but that doesn’t mean he won’t reach out to his contacts if he feels like the law is closing in.”
Talon and Aberdeen rapped on the apartment door of Morten Grey. No answer. This is where spy work would come in handy, Talon thought, but she had to do things by the book on the brown team.
“Morten Grey, this is Ohmani State Security. We would like to ask you a few questions concerning a theft at your old place of work,” Aberdeen said loudly. When she was met with silence her brows furrowed into a deep scowl.
“Let’s grab a bite to eat somewhere nearby and knock again after,” Talon suggested.
Aberdeen nodded in agreement and the two women went to eat at a sandwich place down the street. Talon was mid-chew when she saw an old man walk by the window. He had on a nametag that read, “Morten.” He looked familiar somehow, but Talon couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
“How many old people could be named Morten around here?” Talon pointed.
Aberdeen stood so fast her chair went flying behind her with a crash. Talon threw a twenty dollar bill on the table and rushed to the door.
“Activate Lie Detector,” Talon commanded her biocontacts. She blinked twice and saw the symbol for the feature light up in the bottom right corner of her vision. Due to Aberdeen’s leg injury from moon jumping, Talon caught up to her easily.
“Morten Grey?”
Morten turned around and his eyes grew large at the sight of two woman approaching fast. To Talon’s utter surprise, instead of cooperating the old man took off in a sprint. “No!” he screamed. “Don’t kill me!”
“Stop!” Aberdeen yelled.
“Wa—”
Talon fell straight on her face. A tourist was no match for a native when it came to running here. She had just become used to walking without tripping all over herself. Catching up to him would be nearly impossible. She stood back up and tried again.
“No!” Morten screamed, pushing swarms of people out of his path. He flew around the corner and into an elevator that would take him down the rafters. As the doors closed, he turned to look at them with a terrified expression.
Talon peered down and gulped at the height. She could not let Morten, their only lead, disappear into the hive never to be seen again. Talon scaled the paling that kept the herds of people safely enclosed and planted her feet on the narrow strip that extended on the outside. Shuffling her feet, she scooted a short distance on the lip of the rafter, turned, bent her knees, and jumped across the abyss. She grabbed a support beam, and slid down it like a fireman’s pole. Luckily it had standing docks of its own from where pieces had to be welded together during construction. When the elevator stopped, she jumped from one of these docks back to the rafter and, with shaky legs, crawled back through to safety railing. Morten had watched Talon
’s pursuit wide-eyed through the elevator and took off again.
“Morten, wait! I just want to talk to you!”
Continuing full speed ahead, Morten looked back to assess how close Talon had gotten. “No! It’s her!”
Five loiterers jumped out of his path like matadors with an oncoming bull and Talon gasped when she saw there was nothing beyond them. Bright orange signs warned of a construction site. She watched, horrified, as Morten ripped the tape in front of him and slammed into the already broken paling. The excessive momentum sent his body flailing over the edge. He tried to grasp for something, anything that he could latch onto, but the sweat pouring from his hands made gripping impossible. His fingers slipped over the metal like it was coated with butter.
“NO!” Talon screamed, but it was too late.
Morten was falling to his death and there was nothing she could do to stop him. As she watched him fall, he looked up at her in defeat. Talon’s breath caught in her throat as she watched him plummet just like the man in her recurring nightmares. The realization hit her like a train, and she couldn’t seem to look away as Morten’s body slammed into the concrete below, dying instantly. Blood pooled ferociously from his twisted body.
How could this man’s death be haunting her subconscious at night when it hadn’t happened yet? Talon’s chest became painfully tight, and she started hyperventilating under the pressure. Her knees buckled as pictures of her mother’s crime scene and memories of shooting Kaylan came rushing into her mind in an unwanted torrent. What had she done? She swore she was going to protect the innocent, not scare them to their death! She scrunched her eyes shut as tight as they would go and banged her head against the metal rail. Was she having an anxiety attack, she wondered? It was becoming harder to breath.
“Excuse me, are you alright?” A woman put her hand on Talon’s shoulder. “Did you know him?”
Talon opened her eyes to see a semi-circle of curious people closing in on her. She swiveled her body away from them, stuck her mouth between the bars and breathed in the draft swirling up from the deadly chasm. Her eyes fluttered open, and standing there, across the gap that had just killed Morten Grey, was a hooded person standing amongst the growing crowd on the other side.
While everyone seemed panicked and anxious, an entirely unnatural calmness radiated from this stranger. The hooded figure slowly turned to look at Talon, who was still hugging the metal in an emotional heap, but instead of a face she saw a mask. Talon stood immediately, all alarm bells firing her neurons to get ready. The masked figure’s head tilted ever so slightly, beckoning Talon like a dog to a bone. She made a step in that direction, and the fugitive turned and launched into a run. No one ever got away from her, and she wouldn’t let it happen here.
Talon gave her body one-hundred percent of her concentration, slowing gaining speed to the nearest connecting bridge in pursuit. It wasn’t long before she was hot on the fugitive’s heels, running back up an escalator into the upper rafters of the hive. Whoever was fleeing from her seemed to have trouble running. That indicated it was an outsider too…and it also leveled the playing field.
Slowly but surely Talon began catching up, and she could see the hooded figure had a limp. The runner abruptly stopped and, to Talon’s surprise, took off the weighted shoes and chucked them into another deadly gap between the hive floors. The fugitive then climbed the stainless steel railing, crouched like a frog on its ledge, and launched upwards. Without the gravity boots, the masked individual went sailing into the air and grabbed the edge of the next floor above.
Talon was nearly standing directly below now. She drew her weapon and aimed it at the legs still writhing to climb up. She couldn’t get a clear shot and wouldn’t dare risk a ricocheting bullet with all the innocent lives around. After assessing everything, Talon knew she would have to pull the same acrobatics if she had any chance of catching this individual. She kicked off her new boots and scaled the railing. The movement of flailing arms snapped her chin up. She saw a piece of paper escaping the fugitive’s person despite a desperate attempt to grab it. The parchment swirled away in a wild frenzy, dropping and rising in a dance with the draft.
It drifted down and whirled towards her. She lunged for it, but it mocked her in a dramatic change in direction. Talon had to make a choice, risk losing her fugitive, or risk losing a probable breadcrumb. She looked up and saw nothing. She looked down and saw the paper falling down to the next rafter, and then the next. Trust your instincts.
Talon sprung from the edge and quickly realized her grave mistake. Without her shoes, she flew like a bird into the air…and was not coming back down. She almost fainted mid-air, fearing karma had planned for her the same fate as the old man. She whizzed by the central support beam on her right, only beginning her descent when she was almost clear across the abyss. She slammed into the paling on the other side, and was even grateful for the pain. She hung like a monkey onto the bars and turned to see the whereabouts of the parachuting parchment. Careful not to make the same mistake twice, she jumped with less leg muscle and caught the center beam between her hands. The inertia of her forward momentum jerked her body and she began spinning down the beam in a dizzying spiral.
“Stop!” someone yelled loudly.
The revolving world made it hard to focus on the person it came from. A buzzing sound grew louder as a hovering craft the size of a large tire came zooming by her head. A policeman stood on the disk that floated seamlessly in the air.
“This is the police! Last warning! Stop!”
Sorry, bud, I don’t have time for you now. All of a sudden Talon felt a bolt travel through her body and was rendered completely numb. She watched, horrified in her state of paralysis, as her hands let go of the pole and she plunged. Time seemed to slow to the speed as molasses as she watched the ceiling of the lava tube grow smaller and smaller. How could that have been legal? The police might as well of shot her in the head! It was at least a thousand foot plummet, so she closed her eyes and decided not to make a big fuss about her impending death. Go out with some dignity, Talon. She pictured Levi standing over her dead body and felt horrible for the pain she would cause him. No, she corrected, they would have to give her a closed casket funeral. At least there would be no pain…
Talon felt her body hit something and her stomach lurched upwards. Relief washed over her when she opened her eyes and saw a net swallowing her from all sides. She bounced several times and lay there, motionless from the paralysis weapon. The piece of paper was still on its cascade, rocking back in forth in a careless dance. She watched as it approached, her eyes moving in a pendulum. It landed in the dead center of her chest.
“Police!” The over-zealous officer came hovering down on his high-tech pedestal. “You are under arrest for public endangerment and resisting arrest.”
“My name is Talon Terry. I am an Ohmani State Security Investigator here on an assignment…and you just interfered with my case.”
The officer gave her a doubtful look. “I need to see your ID.”
Maybe there was something to this allegation that the moon’s order division was inept. “I can’t show you my ID because I can’t move,” Talon said dryly.
“Oh yes, sorry. Here.” The policeman hovered over to her and took a dart out of her leg. “The effects should wear off in the next minute.”
As she waited for working muscles, she looked curiously at the cops flying contraption. “Can I get one of those?”
“They are only issued to law enforcement here. You may be able to get a PAHC issued to you, but they take weeks of getting used to,” he warned.
When Talon could finally move, she grabbed the note and turned it over in her hands. It was blank. “Damnit!” she yelled in frustration and threw the paper as far as she could. It landed at her feet. Just for good measure…or to torture herself later, she shoved the stark white worthless piece of nothingness into her pocket.
“Are you OK?”
“I’m fine. You knew I was going to
land in this net?”
“All the shaft vents have safety nets.”
“No they don’t. I just watched a man plummet to his death down one of these things.”
“Oh, you’re talking about the one between Teddy and Kittyhawk? Yeah, they are replacing it sometime this week. There’s a net every twenty floors. Are those your shoes?” he pointed to the black pair of moon boots her clever fugitive had thrown down the pit. Not so clever when she would get the LBI to run them for trace DNA. One speck of flaked dead skin and she would run them through every database in the universe.
“N…,” Talon looked down at her socked feet. She couldn’t very well continue an investigation without shoes on. “Yes, they’re mine.” She crawled awkwardly on the net and slipped her feet inside. They fit her perfectly. For the first time Talon thought she may have been after a woman, but she made a mental note to ask about security footage later.
“Here,” Talon said, handing the police officer her ID. “Can you fit two people on that thing? I need to get down to a dead body.”
7 THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON
“Henna Thatcher,” the LBI agent extended a hand. She was a head taller than Talon, with silver-streaked blonde hair done up in a bun so tight it pulled the skin around her hairline and magnified her sharp cheekbones.
“Aberdeen Green, and this is my partner, Talon Terry.”
A plump, jolly looking man came jogging up to the crime scene, flashing his badge to get through the police barricade. He stopped next to Henna, out of breath, and began wiping at the big ketchup smudge on the breast of his shirt. It was the last color Talon wanted to see with the metallic smell of Morten’s blood permeating her nose.
“Got here as soon as I could.” He popped a piece of gum into his mouth and began masticating harshly to soften up the chemical wasteland.
“Why are you always eating?” Henna asked exasperatingly. “This is my partner Archie Smythe. This is Agent Green and Agent Terry. They are the ones here from Ohmani.”
An Eagle's Revenge (Across the Infinite Void Book 2) Page 8