Extremes: A Retrieval Artist Novel

by Rusch, Kristine Kathryn

  There, Flint found Jane Zweig’s retinal scan.

  Flint stored it on his system, then searched the interstellar police logs for the identifiers related to Frieda Tey.

  It didn’t take long to find them. The logs listed Tey as a dangerous felon, a mass murderer who might kill again. And, if Wagner was right and she had killed Rabinowitz, that’s exactly what she was.

  Flint pulled the retinal scan from the Tey file and compared it to Zweig’s.

  One hundred point match.

  He leaned back in his chair, and let out the breath he hadn’t even realized he had been holding.

  For some reason, the confirmation made him feel better. As of last week, Tey was alive and in Armstrong. He could tell DeRicci that and wash his hands of the entire case. It would belong to the police now.

  Then he frowned. Something else had caught his attention, something that hadn’t really registered until now.

  The retinal scan he used from Extreme Enterprises had been a recent one—one from that afternoon, in fact.

  She wasn’t anywhere near the Moon Marathon. She hadn’t even left Armstrong. She was doing business at Extreme.

  Flint logged back into their net. He saw no trace of anyone else in the system. But he double-checked just to make certain. No one was there, but someone had been there not an hour before he was.

  A retinal scan logged in to open the office door. Another to open the financial records.

  Flint could try hacking into those records, but it would take precious time. He had a secondary way to go. The records themselves provided direct access to the accounts, but Extreme’s business net was flimsy. Flint couldn’t get quick access to the accounts, but he could get quick access to the names of the banks which held the accounts.

  He did that, then hacked into the bank records, something he had done countless times before.

  He double-checked to make certain he was seeing the real information, not information that someone had planted—and he was. The information was real.

  That afternoon, Zweig had liquidated all of Extreme Enterprises’ accounts.

  The accounts had been flush, but there wasn’t enough money in them to justify this kind of scheme, at least in Flint’s opinion. She probably had other credits stashed away. She had probably been planning her exit for a long time.

  What she had taken, in the end, would sustain her for weeks, more than enough to get her somewhere else, wherever that somewhere might be.

  Time to leave a message for DeRicci, let her know what he discovered, and that she should probably send cops to various points of exit from Armstrong. He would also have her put space cops on Extreme Enterprises’ private yacht.

  If only he could get to DeRicci immediately. He would have to leave the most urgent message he could.

  He would have put the space cops on the yacht himself, but everyone knew he no longer had the authority. And much as the staff at the port liked him, they weren’t going to do something that would anger the Armstrong police.

  Flint tried DeRicci’s links, just to see if he could reach her. Of course he couldn’t. Someday he would have to prove to her how dangerous it was to leave her links off.

  He left a pointed message, telling her what to do, and then instructing her to call him when she had completed it.

  Then he toyed with contacting Gumiela himself. But she would want to know why Flint had access to a private citizen’s accounts. She’d want to know why he was messing in an obvious police case, and she wouldn’t listen to his reasoning or his argument.

  His best chance was with DeRicci.

  Now he had to hope that she would keep her promise, and check her messages in a timely fashion.

  THIRTY-TWO

  “CLOSE THE DOOR,” DeRicci said to van der Ketting. She didn’t care if the uni stayed in the bungalow or not. She had a few things to take care of and she had to do it quickly.

  The uni, Landres, stepped inside, apparently not wanting to be left out. He looked shaken. Van der Ketting came back to his chair and hovered there, as if he didn’t know what to do.

  DeRicci glanced at the wall across from her. The race—the actual race—continued. Another stupid person was crossing the finish line, and some volunteer was standing there waiting.

  Didn’t they know a crisis was going on here? Or were they pretending that it didn’t exist?

  DeRicci reached up into the wall unit and unceremoniously shut the race off. She no longer cared how many people were still out there, whether they leaped as they crossed the finish line or staggered over it like old people.

  “Three dead,” she said to van der Ketting. “How many ill?”

  He shook his head.

  “More all the time,” Landres said. “It’s apparently really contagious. You’ve got to let the others know. We can’t go into the dome—or if we do, we can’t get near anyone.”

  “It’s an airborne contagion?” DeRicci asked.

  If it was, they were already in trouble, because half the participants in the marathon were already inside the dome. They were having that meal she had assigned them to, and they were breathing the same recycled air as everyone else in Armstrong.

  “Not from my understanding,” Landres said. He was the one who should have been her partner, not van der Ketting. Landres had been efficient and informed all day. And even though he looked like someone who had just received a death threat, he continued in the same professional manner, as if death threats were a matter of course.

  “I guess it’s like Earth colds—you know, transmitted by fluids.”

  “Fluids?” DeRicci asked. If that was the case, then why was it so communicable?

  “You know,” Landres said, “mucus and stuff. I guess the mucus gets everywhere and—”

  DeRicci held up a hand. “More than enough information. Leif, you have to get word of this to the other detectives. We’re quarantined here until further notice.”

  “Says who?” van der Ketting asked.

  “Says me, technically,” DeRicci said. “But I’ll get the official word shortly.”

  “If they know it’s your order—”

  “They won’t pay attention, I know,” she said. “So tell them it’s an order from the city. That should be enough. What’re we doing to stop this?”

  “I don’t know,” Landres said. “We just got word of this.”

  “From someone reputable, I trust,” DeRicci said.

  “Yes,” he said. “The medical team’ll be in touch with you. They’re doing what they can.”

  DeRicci nodded. She didn’t remember much from the media reports of the Tey virus, except that the thing was highly contagious and it had killed people in that dome rather quickly. But she didn’t know what “rather quickly” meant. Trying to remember a casual news report from ten years ago—granted, one of those news reports that repeated so many times you couldn’t escape it if you tried—was a lot harder than she thought.

  She sighed. Mucus. And everyone in environmental suits. Who knew that was possible?

  She flicked her private links back on, and got bombarded with whistles and red flashing lights crossing her left eye. Emergency messages, more than she could ever deal with.

  With a single command, she shut down all the emergency messages. Several didn’t stop. So she sent them back, unopened, to the people who had sent them to her.

  Then she linked up her private link to her handheld, and sent her own emergency message to Andrea Gumiela.

  For a moment, DeRicci thought the message wouldn’t go through. Then Gumiela appeared on the tiny screen.

  “You have no right to go incommunicado,” she said. “I’ve been trying to reach you for an hour. I’m getting complaints from the other detectives on-site. They say you’ve gone crazy—”

  “I’m not crazy,” DeRicci said. “We have a crisis here.”

  “Damn right, we have a crisis. A personnel crisis that’s going to become a media circus if we’re not careful. I told you to handle this
with finesse—”

  “I am handling it,” DeRicci said, “and if you don’t listen to me, I am going above your head. We have a major emergency out here, and it needs attention.”

  “You have no right to go above me.” Gumiela’s face filled the hand-held’s screen, but DeRicci didn’t need to see all of it to know that Gumiela was about as angry as she got. She was also cautious. DeRicci’s threat to go to Gumiela’s boss was an effective one.

  “I’m giving you a heads-up that I’m quarantining the race and its spectators. The detectives aren’t leaving here.”

  “Quarantining?”

  “We’ve got three more dead,” DeRicci said, “and a whole group who happen to be ill. I’m being told that it’s something called the Tey virus, which is apparently really deadly. I’m going to follow up on that, but for right now, I have other evidence to suggest that there’s good reason to believe that diagnosis is right.”

  “Tey, as in that woman who killed all those people on Io?” Gumiela had become calm. She was clearly paying attention now.

  “Yes,” DeRicci said. “Frieda Tey was a Disappeared, and it looks like she was here on Armstrong, calling herself Jane Zweig.”

  “Our non-corpse,” Gumiela said.

  “That’s right.” DeRicci glanced over her shoulder.

  Van der Ketting sat down and was staring at the tabletop, but Landres was watching as if he’d never seen anything like this before.

  DeRicci turned her attention back to the handheld. “None of this is for public consumption. If the good citizens of Armstrong know there’s a potential epidemic here, they’ll panic.”

  “I’ve got that.” Gumiela didn’t even sound offended that DeRicci was telling her how to do her job. “I haven’t had another press conference since the first. As far as the city is concerned, they all believe that Jane Zweig is dead.”

  “Good,” DeRicci said, “because we have one more major problem, and you’ll have to deal with it out there.”

  Gumiela raised her chin, as if she were squaring her shoulders and bracing herself. “What?”

  “I got contacted by a source earlier today, asking about the Tey virus.”

  “What kind of source?” Gumiela asked.

  DeRicci wasn’t about to give up Flint. She wasn’t even going to hint at who he was. “A reliable one.”

  Van der Ketting made a strangling sound behind her. DeRicci looked over her shoulder. He was watching her now, but with a frown—he obviously felt that she should tell Gumiela who the source was.

  “My source had seen your press conference,” DeRicci said, “and heard about Jane Zweig’s death. The source wanted to know if Zweig had died of the flu, because someone else—someone who had had a meeting with Zweig within the last week—died of the flu.”

  Gumiela’s face paled. “Are you saying this flu might be in the dome after all?”

  “If it is,” DeRicci said, “I think it’s got to be a slower-acting version, unless all of the people who are ill here have some tie with Zweig.”

  That wasn’t something DeRicci could rule out. But she thought it unlikely. She figured the main tie had to be the marathon itself.

  “We need the name of that someone,” Gumiela said.

  “I’m not sure I can get it for you in a timely fashion.” DeRicci had more than enough to cope with here; the last thing she needed was to get in touch with Flint again. Besides, he might not give her the name. “I think you’d better contact the hospitals, see if they have flu or viral cases, and see what’s going on. Then look at death records, see if anyone in the past week or so died of complications from a virus or a cold or whatever they call it these days.”

  “Wouldn’t the coroner have found this special virus?” Gumiela asked.

  “I don’t think so,” DeRicci said. “I mean, if it was an isolated case, why look farther than the general type of virus? Why get really specific?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Gumiela said. “To save lives?”

  She was thinking from the perspective of what everyone knew now, a problem that DeRicci had always had with her. Gumiela could never look at the past as a time when information had been different. She always seemed to believe that people had the same facts she did.

  DeRicci didn’t have the strength or the time for the argument.

  “Just assign someone to it,” DeRicci said. “We’ve got more than enough to do here.”

  And then she shut down the link.

  She had never done that before, just disconnected from a conversation with her boss. It felt good.

  DeRicci turned to Landres and van der Ketting. “I need to talk to whoever’s in charge of the medical tent. I have a lot of questions before I know what we do next.”

  “They already know that. They were just waiting for you,” van der Ketting said.

  “The person in charge,” Landres said, “is Mikhail Tokagawa. He’ll probably have all of your answers.”

  “I hope so,” DeRicci said. “Someone has to have an answer or two. God knows, I’m more confused now than I was when I got here.”

  Even though that technically wasn’t true. She wasn’t confused about the big picture. If this virus was the epidemic everyone seemed certain it was, then it would spread to the dome, and there wouldn’t just be a disaster.

  There would be no one left.

  THIRTY-THREE

  THE YOUNG MALE TECH came back over. “The police just contacted us again. They have more questions.”

  He sounded panicked. Oliviari supposed he would be. If the police didn’t know what was going on, someone might leave and spread the damn disease through the dome.

  “Someone told them this is Tey, right?” She still had one hand on the wall. Sweat dripped down her face as if she were in a shower.

  “Told them, warned them, told them to stay in this area.” The tech bit his lower lip. Someone cried out, and he looked behind him as if he were searching for the source of the voice.

  Oliviari was having trouble separating the voices and the coughs and the sneezes now. This place, so full of healthy people a few hours ago, had become a death trap.

  “I guess they’re quarantining the entire area,” the tech said as he looked back at her. “But they still have questions. I think they should talk to Dr. Tokagawa, but you said you’d handle it.”

  “I’m going to do it.” She had to. She had all the information and the history. Besides, she had realized something about Frieda Tey. Something important…if only her brain continued working. It felt like someone had packed it in cotton.

  Oliviari stood upright. A wave of dizziness went through her, but she kept her back rigid so that she didn’t sway.

  “No offense, ma’am, but you should be lying down,” the tech said.

  “None taken.” She made herself smile at him. She wondered how hideous that looked. “But I’m going to be useful, and this is one area where I can really help.”

  She looked across the beds, the sick people wrapped in blankets, some two to a cot. When did that happen? Were they all getting sick that fast?

  She had. She had gotten sick that fast. She blamed it on the guy’s sweat, and it probably was. She had been fine up until that point. She had been in an environmental suit.

  “Let’s go then,” the tech said.

  “Yes,” she said, even though the office seemed very far away. This was not good. She had to hang on. She had to get everyone mobilized to find Jane Zweig. To get Frieda Tey.

  For the families.

  “You have to find the source of this virus,” she said to the tech. “Figure out where it originated.”

  Then, without waiting for his answer, she headed toward the office. She almost put her head down and plowed her way there, like a child determined to avoid punishment. But she didn’t.

  Instead, she looked at the runners around her. They all had familiar faces. She had spoken to every one of them as she processed them into the medical tent. But no one had shown a virus on their diagnos
tic scan—not even the man who had infected them all.

  What she couldn’t remember was if she had spoken to them before or after she had helped him. It seemed like she had helped him right up front. Had he started near Zweig? Had he been near her when they suited up?

  There was no way to know. He was dead and Zweig had Disappeared.

  Disappeared. That was what Oliviari had forgotten.

  She whispered the word, once, as she walked. She had to tell the detective in charge that all of this was an experiment, and that someone—anyone—had to go after Tey or Zweig or whatever she called herself now, before she was gone for good.

  Oliviari stumbled and the tech caught her arm, holding her up.

  “Should I get Dr. Klein?” the tech asked.

  “No.” Oliviari made her voice sound as strong as possible. “You need the medical people out here. Go help Dr. Tokagawa. You have to get those decon units.”

  “He’s found at least one nearby,” the tech said. “It should be here soon.”

  “Make sure it has the right specs,” Oliviari said.

  “It does.” The tech kept a firm grip on her arm. His fingers slid on her slick skin. Sweat. So much sweat. It was as if she had turned into a human waterfall.

  They reached the door of the office. Oliviari went inside, grateful now that Tokagawa had removed the boxes from the desktop. She sat on it cross-legged, like he had.

  “Would you mind getting the detective in charge for me?” she asked.

  “Here?” The tech looked surprised. “But we—”

  “On the link. I’m not as clear as I’d like to be. I think I need water. I’m dehydrating.”

  “Of course you are,” he said, more to himself than to her. “Of course. I’ll get you some miracle water.”

  “The link first,” she said.

  He nodded and went to the wall, establishing the link. She bowed her head, stifled a sneeze, and then ran her fingers through her hair. It was damp. She had to look a mess.