Flint made himself smile, even though he inwardly cringed. The expensive nature of this place was visible in the cabinet materials, the high-end tile, the countertops. He should have left Nyquist on a private link, but hadn’t thought it through.
“You got something?” Flint asked, not really willing to discuss his apartment.
“I got a lotta somethings,” Nyquist said. “None of them any good.”
He ran a hand over his face, a sign of exhaustion. He actually looked a bit gray. Flint wondered if Nyquist’s health was breaking down. The man had nearly died a few years ago, and even though his systems got rebuilt, rebuilt systems were never entirely the same.
“Designer criminal clones,” Nyquist said, “do not exist.”
“Um,” Flint said, about to argue. “But—”
“At least, as far as the Armstrong Police Department is concerned.” Nyquist sighed. “I can’t search for that phrase. I find myself catapulted out of our information systems when I even try. This is what happens when something is classified.”
When it was ostentatiously classified. Flint knew because he designed the system. If someone had to know that the inquiry was not allowed, the system spit the inquiry back. If the inquiry was quietly classified, the questioner would get sent to similar ideas or concepts and might never ever know that their original inquiry got bounced.
“Which you probably know,” Nyquist said. “Sorry. Tired. Forgot who I’m talking to.”
“It’s all right,” Flint said.
“So I just looked for multiple arrests of similar clones and yeah, there are a few on Armstrong, but it’s small stuff, not the kind of thing you’re talking about. Clones of criminals manufactured in large numbers never made it here. There are some older cases on Earth, of all places, but they’re political—someone cloned old historical figures and tried to have them speak on the current situation, stuff like that. Nothing like what we saw on Anniversary Day.”
Flint sighed. He should have expected that.
“But here’s the thing,” Nyquist said. “If I look outside the Earth Alliance, I find a lot of these cases, often involving Earth Alliance corporations. I can’t investigate far, mostly because some outside agency steps in and shuts down the inquiry or because the corporation decided to investigate in-house, but your rumor from your friend isn’t a rumor. It’s something the Earth Alliance knows about, has classified, and is really touchy about. Which I don’t like at all. Because that means, well, what it means is something I’m not going to say even on a secure link.”
“I know,” Flint said. “I found out more this evening, and you’re right to be cautious. Look up the term blowback.”
Nyquist cursed. “I know the term. And yeah, I was beginning to suspect as much.”
“I’ve been trying to figure out who made these weapons systems,” Flint said, “but I’m not working in a secure area at the moment.”
Nyquist’s eyebrows went up. “That’s your kitchen? Hell, man—”
“I keep getting stuck by the same things that are interfering with your investigation,” Flint said quickly, so that neither man would focus on Flint’s kitchen.
Nyquist gave him a small grin, clearly aware of what Flint had just done.
“Here’s what I’m thinking,” Nyquist said. “I’m thinking this all fits, even the blowback. Particularly the blowback. If you really consider it, what Ursula Palmette and all the others like her, the ones that opened doors for these cloned killers, as you call them, or provided them with weapons or whatever, what these folks did was a form of blowback. They used systems designed for one purpose against the designer. It’s like a signature of the entire attack.”
Flint felt lighter, the way he did when pieces he had seen came together into a realization. Then he shuddered. “This means whoever—whatever—is behind these attacks has a real solid knowledge of the way that systems within the Alliance work.”
“Which gives us a clue as to who they are,” Nyquist said.
“More a clue as to who they aren’t,” Flint said. “They aren’t outsiders.”
“Or if they are,” Nyquist said, “they were inside once.”
Flint nodded. He felt breathless. He felt like they had made more progress in one day than they had made since the attacks.
“It probably gives us a clue as to motive as well,” he said.
“Probably,” Nyquist said. “But we won’t figure that out until we have a name.”
“Or at least a suspect,” Flint said.
“Yeah.” Nyquist picked up a coffee cup that looked like the same cup he had used at dinner, hours ago. “It also means our investigation needs at least two prongs. We have to work within the system to back trace what they did, but we also need to go outside the system to find out what happened.”
“Because they know that we can’t research the clones,” Flint said.
“And they probably know lots of other things too.” Nyquist leaned back in his chair. The little squeak it made carried through the link. “But here’s the thing I realized as I was researching all of this stuff. If these clones were designed for use outside the Earth Alliance—not the PierLuigi Frémont clones that attacked us, but the weapons system—then there is no reason to use someone famous like PierLuigi Frémont as the original. You just find someone less famous, someone who was probably more efficient at whatever you believe he did, and then use the so-called inherent abilities of these clones as your basis for whatever was done. Or you use clones of someone famous in the place you were going to attack, not famous in the Earth Alliance.”
Flint had been looking at the fame as a clue to the reaction the orchestrators of the attack wanted, and he knew tracing the clones might bring him to the attacks, but he hadn’t thought of the fame being a clue in and of itself.
He let out a small whistle. “Brilliant.”
“Nah,” Nyquist said. “Just something to consider. It doesn’t make sense to have a famous original unless you want to make a point with that original. If you’re designing these things to infiltrate somewhere, you pick the best one for the job.”
“And the best ones for this job made us focus on Frémont,” Flint said, “not on what they actually did.”
“Precisely,” Nyquist said. “I mean, if you look at Frémont himself, he was more a cult guy who happened to commit mass murder rather than a mass murderer on some kind of rampage. If you wanted efficient killers, you wouldn’t recreate Frémont.”
Nyquist was right. Again, whoever was doing this understood the system, almost better than the investigators.
Although that wasn’t entirely true. Whoever designed these attacks knew how investigators worked, how fragmented the law enforcement system was, and how information didn’t come in large pieces. The designer also knew that a lot of information would get lost or never found and that everyone would focus on the most obvious connection—PierLuigi Frémont and the statement—not on actually tracking the designer.
Which meant that the attacks had another, larger purpose, one Flint hadn’t seen yet—no one could see—because they didn’t know how or what caused all of this mayhem.
Or what they got out of it.
Who benefitted from mayhem? And how would they benefit?
Flint felt an answer tantalizingly out of reach.
“So here’s the thing that I can’t investigate because it’s outside of my jurisdiction,” Nyquist said. “Who provided the DNA from PierLuigi Frémont? I checked the family. They had no access to his DNA and most of them wanted nothing to do with him. He was in a maximum security Earth Alliance prison until he died, and his DNA was closely monitored, just like all of those people’s DNA is, particularly the famous ones or the culty ones.”
“Did he distribute DNA before he got captured?” Flint asked. “Sperm, maybe, or something else?”
“All of it destroyed,” Nyquist said. “Or at least, that’s what the records tell us. The fires in Abbondiado destroyed his compound, then the arresting of
ficers did a search, double-checked by Earth Alliance officials, to make sure no one was keeping anything—including DNA—for Frémont.”
“That would be hard to track,” Flint said.
“The Alliance has bots that can look at the smallest skin cell for its origin, and those bots get used in cases like this, cases where the Alliance believes the alleged criminal might become or already is a cult figure. No bit of that person’s actual DNA leaves an area. Theoretically.”
“You sound like you believe that,” Flint said.
“I do, actually.” Nyquist sounded surprised at himself. “I worked on one of those investigations once. It was scarily complete. You’d be amazed at how much DNA you shed, and how much can be collected and theoretically disposed of.”
“You keep using the word ‘theoretically,’” Flint said.
“Yeah,” Nyquist said. “I’m an old-fashioned, cautious kinda guy. I don’t believe anything happens unless I do it myself.”
Flint grinned in recognition. People often saw that as a can’t-play-well-with-others trait, but Flint liked that perfectionism. It actually made him more comfortable to work with someone like Nyquist, rather than less.
It also explained why, despite their prickly relationship, he liked the guy.
“So you’re thinking the DNA came from the prison,” Flint said.
“Yeah, and if so, there’s some coordinated activity going on. I would wager that someone is selling DNA or something,” Nyquist said.
Flint sighed. “Are there enough major criminals with the right reputations to do that? Or did someone get approached?”
“I don’t know the answer to that. You’re going to have to find out.”
Flint glanced out the kitchen door. He had no idea how he would find out. In the past, he would have gone to the prison himself.
“Can’t someone take care of the kid?” Nyquist asked, ever prescient.
“Theoretically,” Flint said.
Nyquist let out a small laugh. “Okay. Point made. We’ll have to see what we can come up with.”
“I have few ideas,” Flint said. “I’m not sure you’re going to want to know what they are.”
“If they violate Armstrong law, it’s better if I don’t,” Nyquist said. “No matter how committed I am to this cause.”
Flint nodded. “Let me know if you find anything else.”
“Oh, believe me, I will,” Nyquist said, and signed off.
Flint stared at the pantry/cooler door. Now all it showed were the foods inside along with their expiration dates and a request to see if he wanted recipe suggestions.
He shut down the door entirely and went back to building his sandwich.
It seemed to him there were three kinds of designer criminal clones: the ones designed by the Earth Alliance to infiltrate troublesome crime syndicates like the Black Fleet; the ones designed to help organizations like the Black Fleet pull off a particular kind of crime (usually theft); and the kind designed to both commit the crime and scare the non-victims into some kind of compliance.
The Moon had just experienced the third. He had no idea if any other place had. He wasn’t even sure there were enough famous criminals of the PierLuigi Frémont stripe to make this kind of designer criminal clone a viable business option.
He opened the cooler and got some Armstrong-grown lettuce, along with a chutney that Talia had made. He spread that on the bread, then assembled the sandwich, and put all the ingredients away.
He carried the sandwich across the stupidly large apartment, all the way to his office. He paused in the living room. He still didn’t hear Talia, which was a good thing.
He went to his desk. Even though he wouldn’t let himself search for things on this particular network, he liked sitting here. He did some of his best thinking in front of an active screen.
He couldn’t go to the prison. He couldn’t leave Talia here, even with a trusted friend. He simply wouldn’t be able to concentrate properly if he did that. He also couldn’t bring her to the prison.
He would have to find someone else who could get this information for him.
Maybe Goudkins and Ostaka could, but if they reported the wrong thing, it might filter its way through the Earth Alliance. He didn’t trust them enough.
He needed a reporter. He needed someone like Ki Bowles who gave up everything for the story. But he no longer knew anyone like that, now that Bowles was dead.
That left only one person, whom Flint shouldn’t trust at all. Luc Deshin. Deshin would be credible to whomever started this scheme. And Deshin would have the contacts that could get him to that prison fast.
But Flint couldn’t trust Deshin. No one could.
Yet the man had seemed sincere. Flint actually believed Deshin when he said he wanted to do something about preventing more Anniversary Day-type attacks.
Flint could either rely on a man he didn’t trust to find out this information, or he could get it himself while compromising a promise he’d made to himself to keep Talia safe.
Two terrible choices. And yet it felt like an easy decision.
He’d contact Deshin—and hope to God that Deshin really did want to do the right thing.
Thirty-six
After her discussions with half a dozen Earth Alliance officials, Jin Rastigan started to believe she didn’t know anything about Anniversary Day. So she went to her office in the Earth Alliance headquarters on Peyla and spent an hour watching the crisis unfold. Then she scanned through half a dozen sites that told her all about the investigation.
Her office was aggressively Earth-centric. Much as she loved Peyla, she missed her home. Sometimes she got tired of the poisonous atmosphere here, the unfamiliar plants, the strange customs. Her office had hard-to-tend orchids and dozens of different species of violets under soft grow-lights. The ceiling had a sky-show program based on her Iowa hometown, and she often had the scent of fresh-mowed grass pumped into the environmental system.
None of that comforted her today. Her meetings had upset her, although not as much as the security vid or Uzvot’s willingness to give up Peyti secrets.
Something was happening here, and no one outside of Peyla seemed to care.
Plus, they all seemed to be feeding her misinformation.
Each site she went to—and the damn vids—all had the same image of the clones arriving in the Port of Armstrong, talking with each other like old friends, and then going their separate ways.
She hadn’t misremembered that at all. But someone—a lot of someones—in the Earth Alliance wanted to downplay that part.
Rastigan didn’t care about the politics of the situation—or any situation, for that matter. If lives were at stake, then someone had to do something.
She just kept getting the sense from the Earth Alliance officials she had contacted that human lives were worth a lot more than Peyti lives.
Of course, because of her status in the Alliance, she had to either work through Peyti representatives or through human ones. The Peyti expected her to handle the humans on this potential conflict; the humans expected the Peyti to come to them if there was some kind of Peyti problem.
She was stuck, and worse, she was beginning to feel like the worst kind of whistleblower—the kind that continually and fruitlessly pissed into the wind until something awful happened, and she was seen as the poor sap everyone should have listened to.
It wasn’t until she was deep into yet another vid that she realized there was one person she could talk to without going through the Earth Alliance: Chief of Security for the United Domes of the Moon Noelle DeRicci.
All of the reports mentioned DeRicci and her unorthodox methods that had saved the Moon, not just this time, but during a crisis with the Disty some years back. Apparently DeRicci knew when to take things into her own hands and when to let the system take charge.
Right now, Rastigan needed that kind of advice. Even if DeRicci couldn’t help her with the Earth Alliance, the woman might give her a touchstone, a way of
approaching the problem from a completely different angle, one that might save Rastigan time and grief.
And maybe, just maybe, DeRicci would understand the significance of Uzvot’s fear and everything Rastigan had seen today.
Rastigan started digging through all her Earth Alliance contacts and protocols. There had to be an easy way to contact someone on the Moon without involving the Earth Alliance.
Rastigan just had to find it.
Thirty-seven
Zagrando sat in the cabin of his ship. The cabin was, as advertised, the most spectacular cabin he had ever seen. The bed alone could have accommodated four huge people. And the mattress, which he had only touched with his hand, was sinfully soft.
He had coded the entire ship to his DNA so that most of the rooms were off-limits to anyone but him. The ship did not inform other travelers how they got locked out of certain areas, only that they were. He imagined it was frustrating.
He hadn’t discussed the frustration with his first passenger, who was calling herself Elise. He had verified—again—that she worked for the Earth Alliance, but she made him nervous. He had a small screen open on his wall, and instructions to follow her. She sat in the lounge, a tablet on her lap, and tapped away at things he didn’t understand. He supposed he could zoom in on her work, but he chose not to. Instead, he let the system keep a record of what she was doing, in case he needed to know later.
She hadn’t moved since they got onboard the ship.
He had. He had programmed their flight path into the navigational system, then moved it all to the secondary cockpit, which was in a room just off the captain’s suite. He would fly from there, but he locked off the main cockpit just to be safe.
Then he had come here to find out who she really was. The cabin had its own dedicated network, one that didn’t interface with the rest of the ship. He had tracked it on his way to Jarvis’s Corner to see what nets it logged onto, and he found that it used systems he hadn’t seen in a long time. Most of them charged for the privilege. He still had money from H’Jith, so he used H’Jith’s account to log into one of the networks and used facial recognition to track Elise.
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