“The third,” he replied, his expression hardening as he swirled the contents of his mug, “is a failsafe…and I sincerely hope we don’t need to use it. As a matter of fact, it’s time we returned to the ship to retrieve it before making our way to Abaca. There’s a hoverbike stowed in the Tyson’s stern cargo compartment that can get us there in just under twelve hours.”
“If there was a hoverbike…why didn’t we use it to come here?” Masozi pressed warily.
Jericho shrugged. “I didn’t want to risk the bike being logged during our visit here; if it was, we couldn’t use it to enter Abaca. Besides,” he added with a hollow grin, “we needed the exercise.”
Masozi considered his reply and decided it was now or never. “Your failsafe wouldn’t happen to involve a bomb, would it?” she asked in a low voice, feeling an immense weight lift from her psyche as she did so.
Jericho’s eyes flashed briefly before narrowing. “What do you mean?” he asked in an equally low tone.
“Don’t play stupid,” she hissed, glancing around to ensure they weren’t attracting unwanted attention. “I saw the Southern Bloc markings—it’s nuclear, isn’t it? Were you ever going to tell me!?”
Jericho also glanced around the room before leaning forward, and Masozi leaned back instinctively as he did so. “You weren’t supposed to see that,” he said as he fixed her with his cold, greyish eyes. “Besides, it’s only a failsafe; if we work together there’s a ninety nine point nine seven percent chance we can accomplish the mission without it.”
Masozi shook her head adamantly. “I can’t be party to that,” she replied, threading her voice with iron.
“Too much—“ Jericho began in a raised voice before taking a deep breath and peeling his lips back in a faint sneer. “Too much has gone into the planning of this Adjustment, Investigator,” he said, his voice carrying a dire, unspoken threat, “I can’t—no, I won’t allow those efforts to be in vain. In the extremely unlikely event that we should fail in our earlier efforts, I have an obligation to ensure that the target is executed…by any means necessary.”
“Including the slaughter of innocent civilians?!” she retorted, barely managing to keep her voice to a harsh whisper as she felt hot fury boiling up inside herself. “I could understand—and, strangely enough, I even agree with—your mandate and function as an Adjuster. But I cannot,” she shook her head sharply, “support the murder of thousands of innocent people.”
“Grow up, Investigator,” Jericho snapped contemptuously. “Do you honestly believe that there are any innocent people on this, or any other, world? If you’d seen the things I’ve seen, and knew the things I know, you wouldn’t let your childish notions of morality interfere with what needs to be done.”
“Those ‘childish notions’,” she said, her eyes flicking to the clock and confirming that the time had, indeed, elapsed and the call would have been automatically made to the nearest law enforcement responders, “are the very ones which created your reason for existing, Adjuster.” The title tasted like ash as it passed her lips, and she stood from the table slowly. Jericho made to do likewise—with murder in her eyes as he did so. It was a look with which she had become all-too-familiar during her career as an Investigator.
“I see that I was wrong about you, Investigator…and that’s a rarity for me. But you should have run while I was in the head,” Jericho said coldly. “How far do you think you can get now that I know you’ll try to stop me from accomplishing my mission? You’ve just become an obstacle—and I’ve made a career out of removing those from my line of fire long before it’s time to pull the trigger.”
“You’re wrong about that last bit,” she quipped, knowing with certainty that she had already committed herself to what had to be done. “That’s why I’m going to walk right out of here,” she replied confidently, “and you’re not going to do a thing to stop me.”
Jericho’s lips twisted in a dark, bemused smirk, “And what makes you think that?”
“Because if you don’t,” she said, meeting his piercing look with one of her own just as the doors to the tavern opened and a quad of armed, and armored, law enforcement officers entered the tavern and set their sights on the two of them, “no one will make the Adjustment while you’re locked away in the nearest detention facility.”
She began to back slowly away from him, and she saw the cold-blooded assassin’s eyes flick back and forth between her and the approaching police officers. “Clever girl,” he said with the barest hint of approval as he straightened his posture, “but not as clever as you think; when I get out I’m going to find you, Investigator. And when I do I promise we’ll discuss this…betrayal at some length.”
The way he said those words made her blood run cold, but she had already backed far enough away from the table that the quad of fully-armored officers interdicted themselves between Jericho and herself. “Jericho Bronson,” one of them said in a heavily-distorted voice through his suit’s external speaker while the other three trained their weapons on Jericho, “we have an outstanding warrant for your arrest. Come quietly and we won’t use deadly force.”
Jericho tensed, causing the other guards to do likewise as a trio of targeting lasers appeared on his chest, where they remained unwavering. But then he relaxed and nodded as he placed his wrists together and held them before himself, “I won’t resist.”
After they had placed him in restraints, two of the officers frog-marched him out of the tavern under the supervision of the one Masozi assumed was their commander. She was slightly surprised that they had mentioned an outstanding warrant for his arrest, but Masozi guessed that a man in his line of work made several enemies—enemies with longer-than-average memories.
The cold look he gave her before exiting the structure gave her the chills, and the fourth officer approached and said, “You were the one who sent the call?”
Masozi nodded. “I didn’t know there was a warrant out for him,” she admitted truthfully, “I just saw what I thought was a concealed weapon…and he was giving me the creeps.”
“You did the right thing, ma’am,” the officer said, and Masozi thought that the officer’s voice sounded vaguely feminine through the distortion. “We’ll just need you to come down for a statement so you can claim the reward.”
“Reward?” she repeated blankly. “How much of a reward was there?”
“It’s substantial, ma’am,” the officer replied. “But we can discuss the particulars at the station.”
Masozi shook her head, knowing her rights afforded her the ability to refuse since she had not participated in any wrong-doing. “I don’t need a reward; I’m just glad to get someone like him off the streets.”
“Ma’am?” the officer pressed. “You’re saying you’d like to waive the reward? It’s a life-changing amount of money, especially here on Philippa.”
Masozi shook her head again. “I’d just consider it my civic duty,” she replied, knowing it was truer than she could explain given the circumstances.
The officer regarded her silently for several seconds before shrugging, “If you’re willing to affirm that you waive your right to the reward then you’re free to go.”
Masozi nodded quickly. “Of course; I hereby waive my right to whatever reward had been issued for Jericho Bronson’s capture.” She knew that was the proper verbiage, since she had accepted a handful of similar statements during her time as an Investigator.
“Your statement has been recorded, Citizen,” the officer said before nodding curtly, “have a pleasant day, ma’am.”
“You too,” Masozi replied unthinkingly as the officer turned and left the tavern. As soon as the officer had left, Masozi sank down onto the cushioned seat of the booth she had just been sharing with Jericho.
Her knees were quivering and her hands trembled while she drank down the last of her mug’s contents. After several minutes, she had gathered her wits enough that she stood from the table. In what seemed to be an impossible turn of events, sh
e had managed to neutralize the threat of the nuclear device and also put Jericho behind bars. She wasn’t particularly happy about the latter, but his insistence that no amount of collateral damage was too much had put her over the top. She had read the Goat file, and she had seen with her own two eyes just how badly Governor Keno had abused the people who depended on her leadership to provide for them. She knew what needed to be done…and she knew she was fast running out of time to do it.
She pulled her hat over her head and, after sealing the attached mask to her face, Masozi closed her overcoat around her body and exited the tavern before beginning the long hike back to the Tyson. Her entire adult life had been spent attempting to restore balance, create order, and deliver justice. But by the Timent Electorum’s ‘Redeemed Lives’ metric, her entire decade-long career would only yield five hundred such units of redemption, or justice, or balance, or whatever a person chose to call them. And now, with Governor Keno’s out-and-out atrocities committed against her own people in plain view, Masozi knew she could accomplish something on the order of a thousand times that much impact on the Virgin System’s populace by removing Keno from the equation permanently.
The Governor’s corruption had been allowed to fester for far too long, and millions of lives had been unduly disrupted as a result. The scales of justice had been manipulated against the people who depended on them for protection.
The time had come to make an Adjustment.
Chapter XXIV: Taking Stock and Committing
Masozi came to the edge of the crater where they had hidden the Neil deGrasse Tyson and peered over the edge, relieved to find the craft apparently undisturbed. She was surprised to see that its color, which had originally been a glossy black, was now almost indistinguishable from that of the surrounding, moss-covered rock.
She would have set up in a blind and observed the vessel for a prolonged period, but time was against her. If Jericho had been right, even if she hopped onto the hoverbike and made a max-speed burn for the Capitol City Abaca, it would take no less than nine hours to reach it. That left just over a day to implement whatever plan Jericho had set up—and she only hoped that she would be able to decipher his plan in time to execute it.
So she made her way to the bottom of the crater where the craft rested, and swiped her hand across the area of the hull which she thought was the door. There was a hiss of air as the door opened before lowering itself to the ground to form the boarding ramp.
Once inside the craft, Masozi checked to ensure that the duffel bag was still in the closet, and it was. She carefully withdrew the bag from the closet and opened it, revealing the same, heavy device she had seen inside the concealed compartment which was disguised as a bench.
She took the bomb out of the duffel and gently laid it down on the floor of the cabin, her heart racing as she did so. She then turned and carefully opened the concealed compartment, and when it was open she placed the bomb inside the honeycombed interior of the hidden box.
Masozi then closed the box and emptied the rest of the duffel’s contents onto the floor of the craft. There was a pair of ID’s, one for Jericho and one for Masozi, and she snorted derisively to see that their false identities suggested the two of them were married. “You wish, you old bastard,” she muttered as she took the pieces she would need and stowed them in her overcoat’s inner pockets.
There was also a pair of pistols inside, and after a brief hesitation, she took one and secured it to her bodyglove’s hip beneath the overcoat. She could always abandon it as she neared the Capitol City, but Philippa was known as a ‘wild frontier’ to the residents of Virgin; she would rather have the gun and not need it than have the reverse be the case.
There was also some clothing inside the duffel bag, and Masozi saw that hers was a two-piece outfit which would go neatly over her bodyglove. So she removed the other articles she had worn since disembarking the Zhuge Liang and placed the new pieces—a vest and a fairly tight, knee-length skirt—over her bodyglove. There were a handful of credit chits inside the vest, and they totaled nearly ten thousand credits in all—half a month’s salary for an Investigator of Masozi’s experience and accomplishments.
The final item was a vehicle access key, and she picked it up to examine it. There were two buttons, one of which clearly was meant to activate the bike’s motivators while the other had the picture of a closed lock on it. She had ridden as a passenger on several hoverbikes, and had even operated one a former fling had owned. She had left him in the dust a few weeks into the relationship because he seemed to care more about his bike than he did about anything—or anyone—else, including her.
She pressed the second button and heard a low thrum outside, and Masozi exited the craft via the ramp to find a hoverbike—remarkably similar to, but clearly different from the same one Jericho had picked her up on in New Lincoln—had been lowered from a concealed compartment along the craft’s fuselage.
Masozi took a deep breath and activated the ramp’s retraction sequence, causing the cabin door of the Tyson to fold back up into the closed position. Masozi then threw her leg over the seat of the bike and pressed the activation button of the key.
She was rewarded by a low-pitched thrum which vibrated her thighs and groin just enough that she was aware of it, and she waited for the bike’s warm-up cycle to conclude before carefully maneuvering it away from the Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Once she was clear of the spacecraft, she twisted the manual throttle and was rewarded by a measure of acceleration she had not entirely expected as her head was snapped back. Her hands reflexively gripped the handlebars, and she felt certain if she had been less athletic that she would have failed to keep her hold of the vehicle’s handles.
She managed to keep hold of the handlebars as the bike roared up and over the edge of the crater before leveling itself out and rocketing across the relatively flat terrain at speeds which would have seen her arrested within seconds if she had reached them inside New Lincoln’s confines.
Masozi had memorized the basic topographical layout of Philippa, so she set the most direct course she could for the Capitol City before opening the throttle of the hoverbike up and feeling the impressive power of the vehicle beneath her hurtle toward her destination at roughly four hundred kilometers an hour. The faster she went, the higher the hoverbike climbed; when she reached the vehicle’s maximum speed she had achieved an altitude of nearly a hundred feet above the cratered moon’s surface.
She knew that she needed to do everything in her power to stop Governor Keno—and not place any innocent civilians’ lives in danger when she did.
After nearly nine hours of near-continuous riding—during which time she only ever saw two other vehicles on the bike’s radar-like display, neither of which came close enough for her to see visually—Masozi pulled up at the edge of a truly massive crater. It was so large that, had she not known it was there, she might not have seen it until she was well within and Philippa’s horizon had been replaced by the crater’s edge in the far-off distance.
The sun had still not come up, but Masozi knew that a ‘sunrise’ would not happen for at least another week while Philippa orbited around Pacifica, and even when it did it would be unlike any sunrise she had experienced on Virgin. That knowledge somehow made the lights of Abaca even more striking.
While the Sense District where Tera St. Murray had operated her brothel was wreathed in neon light, Abaca was filled with what seemed to be massive searchlights. The industrial-strength beams stabbed upward and wandered the deep, dark sky in seemingly random patterns, and there must have been dozens of the most powerful ones whose beams disappeared into the black void of Virgin’s space.
The city itself was a dull, yellow-white glow from her position at the edge of the giant crater, and she took the pistol which had been fastened to her hip. Despite her inclination to keep it for protection, she knew it presented too great of a risk. She tossed it to the ground, grateful she had not needed to use it, and sped off toward
the city.
Carrying a concealed, unlicensed weapon in a major city was an offense punishable by automatic imprisonment—and if that happened, Masozi ‘the terrorist’ would be discovered and she would almost certainly be handed over to whatever power had pulled Stiglitz’s and Afolabi’s strings. She had all but deduced that power was none other than Governor Keno…and possibly even more powerful figures within the Virgin System’s government.
That same entity had stolen Masozi’s life from her and with the accumulated evidence it wasn’t hard to conclude who the person wielding that power was.
“I’m coming for you, Crissa,” she growled as she gunned the throttle. She knew that the Governor wasn’t the sole author of the crime which had seen Masozi nearly assassinated…but Governor Keno was most definitely involved and, according to evidence which Masozi had personally vetted, Philippa’s Governor had already wiped out tens of thousands – perhaps hundreds of thousands—of lives under her cruel, utterly self-centered regime.
As Masozi slewed the hoverbike into a paid parking slot outside the building Jericho’s keycard had indicated. Masozi wished she could have taken the keycard, but she hadn’t thought of a way to do so that wouldn’t have aroused his suspicion. She just had to trust that she could gain entry to the apartment without it.
After receiving her receipt and change for a twenty three hour parking pass—the standard ‘day’ cycle in Virgin, which had been adopted since a moon colony like Philippa had too long of a rotational cycle to use in any meaningful way for daily scheduling—and Masozi pulled the hoverbike into the assigned slot before making her way to the lift system.
Ure Infectus (Imperium Cicernus Book 4) Page 28