Murder on the Orion Express

by Nate Streeper

  He groaned and tried to lift his head. His wound didn’t appear lethal—although I suppose calling any wound lethal was more of a hindsight kind of thing.

  I rushed over to him. Gina rushed to the far wall to grab something that wasn’t there. “Shit! Some jerk’s taken the first aid kit, already.”

  “You’re telling me,” Loche said, holding his gut.

  “What?” I asked, then realized the jerk was me. “Crap, it’s in our room. I’ll get it. Here, Alice. Hold his shirt like this, while I—”

  “Oh, no. Not this time. You hold his shirt, I’ll get the first aid kit.”

  “Alice, seriously, don’t go there by yourself. It’s dangerous, and you—”

  She bolted out the door.

  “Damn. Gina?”

  She nodded and ran after her, a blur in high heels.

  I looked back at Loche. “You’re going to be okay, buddy. Hang in there.” His blood was leaking all over my shirt sleeves.

  Loche slowly shook his head. “I can’t believe it was him.”

  I gave him my fullest concentration. “Can’t believe it was who? Who did this to you?”

  Loche coughed up a wad of blood. “I know who you are,” he said with a faint smile. “Didn’t realize, at first. Didn’t expect to see you, here. You said your name was Alan. But you’re not just any Alan. You’re Alan Blades. The GalactiCop who tried to take down the Leviathan Syndicate. Back on New Gaia.”

  I stopped breathing for a moment. “How do you know that?”

  “Because...” He coughed again. “Because I’m a GalactiCop. Because I followed your lead.”

  “What?”

  “I kept after him. When Denreiker thought we’d called off the hounds. Your dismissal made him think he was safe, but we kept at him. Built off the clues you’d provided. I made a backdoor connection. Working for the campaign. Like you, we still weren’t sure exactly who he was, but we were getting closer.” He gestured down to his stomach. “I guess I got a little too close.”

  Where were the girls? “Hang in there, Michael. It’s Michael, right?”

  “The coffee maker,” he said. “It’s not a coffee maker.”

  “Yeah, we figured that much out. We thought it was a—”

  “It’s a distress beacon. Listen, we know about the net amplifiers. About the deal with the space pirates. The distress beacon will send a message straight to GalactiCop, inform them of this ship’s position. All you need to do is activate it as soon as you emerge in real space.”

  Right. The coffee maker. The one we just destroyed. “Um, about that...”

  “I just can’t believe it was him,” he said to himself. Loche was fading. “He had us all fooled.”

  “Who? Who had you all fooled?” I tilted his head back again. “Michael, who stabbed you?”

  “He told me his name. Can you believe it? He told me his name right before sticking the knife in. Like his pride was on the line. Like he couldn’t go without the recognition. What a bastard.” He coughed again.

  “Who?” I pleaded. Dammit, where were the girls with the first aid kit?

  “Denreiker,” Loche answered. “He said his name was Denreiker. Sorry about your shirt.” He shuddered one last time.

  Then he was gone.

  12

  Pertinent Interlude

  Denreiker. Crime Lord of the Leviathan Syndicate. Wanted in the Five Clusters by GalactiCop, SpaceFleet, CyberOps, and any other group with a NameLikeThis. Say what you will about the bounties on his head, the vendettas against his character, the civil justices seeking redemption on his soul, I had just as much right to take him down as anybody. The bastard got me canned.

  It all came down to a botched operation on New Gaia.

  We had a man on the inside. Perry. I missed the guy, considering he was more than just a fellow GalactiCop to me. He and his wife met up with Margo and I for dinner every second Thursday of the month. He also made for a great drinking buddy at the bar across from our precinct. Had a laugh that shook the walls and warmed the heart. But then we lost touch. Going undercover can kill a friendship.

  He’d been working three years within the Leviathan Syndicate, gradually worming his way up the mafia’s illicit ladder, gaining Denreiker’s trust by performing job after job. I didn’t want to think about the hairy shit they must have made him take part in. I couldn’t imagine having to betray your own conscience. It could get murky, convincing yourself to break the law time after time, commit atrocity after atrocity, in order to finally achieve the greater good. Not only that, but to have the temptation of wealth and power consistently at your fingertips. Better men had fallen into corruption’s favor.

  Most people who worked in the Syndicate had never seen Denreiker. Or maybe they had, but they didn’t know it was him. Rumor had it he liked working alongside his underlings, but they wouldn’t know he was there. He’d simply pretend to be one of the crew—help load the hovertruck, scour the empty office, whack the client, or whatever other grubby task needed doing, and they’d never know the difference. I think he’d leaked the rumor himself—that he was perhaps among them, just to keep his people on their toes. If they thought he was in the same room, but they didn’t know who he was, they’d be sure to do their job that much more efficiently. For all I knew, he was never in the same room with them at all. It was simply a scare tactic.

  But that’s when Perry verified the rumor was true. He’d worked his way so high up the ladder that he actually knew what Denreiker looked like. Sending a digital image of him to us was out of the question, encrypted or otherwise, as the communication would most likely be usurped by Leviathan’s internal hackers. The identification had to be done in person, and in a scenario that guaranteed his capture on the spot, in order to protect Perry. Anything less than that, and Denreiker would make sure the rest of Perry’s life was a living hell.

  After weeks of looking for an opening to slip us a clue, Perry found an opportunity to tip us off about a ball that Denreiker would be attending. It was a fundraiser for a children’s park on the outskirts of downtown. At least, that’s what it was on the surface. Its underbelly intent was to create a safe haven for dealing bile. There were clauses built into the land agreement that would prevent arrests from transpiring on the park’s property, twisting the practice of “recreational activities” into legalese that would, given a good lawyer, exempt such transactions from penalization. And Denreiker had plenty of good lawyers. It sickened me to think that something as destructive to the lives of children as bile was being fed to them under the guise of a private park that was supposed to help them play and stay healthy.

  Gina and I attended the ball undercover. Arrangements had been made, thanks to Perry, to get us into the event. I still remember what Gina wore that night—a blue silk dress with gold earrings and a matching hand purse. She didn’t need cybernetic surgery to look like a million bucks.

  The valet took our hovercar. I took her by the arm, and we made our way up the outer stairs to a mansion with a facade made entirely of white marble. A scrawny looking doorman, dwarfed by towering double-doors that must have relied on hydraulic assistance to open, greeted us with a pompous grin. For such a small body, the guy had a tremendous jaw. I imagined he’d had facial reconstruction to compensate for being picked on throughout his childhood. His mug was as intimidating as a bulldog’s.

  The main hall was illuminated by floating paper mache balls of red and blue and yellow. A band played on the left, all its members dressed in white tuxes, whether man or woman. The wealthy were mingling, laughing politely at mild jokes, charming the hell out of each other. I saw Perry on the far wall, past the sea of elaborate hats and wine glasses. He gestured for us to follow him through a tall red double door. Gina and I crossed the floor clad in smiles and fake discourse, eventually making our way to him. By the time we reached his side of the room, he was no longer there.<
br />
  We entered the doorway he had signaled us to and discovered an ornate, softly-lit waiting room with finely crafted furniture imported from Quartermast. It only took a moment to realize that something wasn’t right.

  The double doors slammed shut behind us. Gina and I both reached for our bio-concealed sidearms when two jerkwads executed brown belt karate chops from behind. Jerkwad Number One got lucky, the blow hitting Gina squarely on the back of her head and taking her down. Jerkwad Number Two was a bit slower, and the extra split second gave me enough time to shift slightly to the right. His blow landed squarely on my left shoulder.

  I’m a southpaw. So much for grabbing my sidearm with my good hand.

  I reached over to my left thigh with my right hand. My energy pistol manifested almost instantly, and snapped into my open palm. I think I said “Freeze! Police!” but I’m not sure. The problem was, since I had to reach over with my opposite hand, I was holding the gun upside down. I wish I could say I had mastered the art of squeezing its trigger with my pinky, but alas, I needed one more second to turn it right side up.

  It was during that precious second that Jerkwad Number One ganged up on me, zapping me from behind with a taser. My gun flew out of my hand. A kick to my face ensued.

  The next thing I remember was waking up next to Gina in an alleyway. It took me a moment to realize it was the alleyway behind our precinct. I looked at her, she looked at me. We were both wearing bibs that read “Call off the hounds, or Perry dies.”

  Denreiker, whoever the hell he was among those there, could have killed us. Probably should have, if he wanted to make his own life any easier. But he was known for having an indiscriminate killing pattern. People who had stabbed him in the back were sometimes given second chances to prove themselves in his eyes. While they still fretfully loaded his hovertrucks with his contraband, their sleeping patterns were forever disturbed at the thought of him someday changing his mind. Yet people who had thrown an empty cup on the ground in his presence were slaughtered due to a perceived slight. The only thing you could count on regarding life and death in his presence was inconsistency—even if he let you go at the time, he was likely to kill you down the road. It was all part of his sick game, like his way of keeping everyone on their toes.

  So the bastard simply let us go, but he made sure we knew that he knew who we were. And he expected us to remain afraid indefinitely, biding our time until he took us down for real.

  Well, fuck that, and fuck him.

  The captain took us off the case, we kept digging. More officers went missing, we kept digging. The captain suspended us, we kept digging. We dug our way to termination.

  And we never heard from Perry again.

  13

  Round Trip

  Gina finally arrived back in the mess hall with the first aid kit and Alice in tow. I looked at them and shook my head. There was no longer a need for it.

  “There’s more to this mission of yours than CyberOps may have told you, assuming they even knew,” I said to Gina, gesturing to one of the long cafeteria tables. “I think you better sit down.”

  “I’m not the one who’s worn out,” she said.

  Alice shut the mess hall door behind her with a slam and collapsed against the wall as she tried to catch her breath. “I’ll try not to... take that... personally.” It wasn’t easy keeping up with a cyborg.

  “Not because you look worn out,” I went on. “Because what I’m about to tell you is crazy.”

  “Crazier than the crap we’ve been dealing with up until now? I think I’ll remain standing, thank you very much. I feel the need to be vertically prepared.”

  “Fine. Okay, here it is: Denreiker’s on board.”

  “What?” Gina dropped the first aid kit on the table and sat down. She looked off to the distance, processing.

  “How... How is that even possible? Our intel suggested the Syndicate, but...” She looked back at me. “How do you know?”

  “Loche told me.”

  “How the hell would Loche know? He’s a campaign manager.”

  I shook my head. “He was GalactiCop. He picked up the ball after we’d dropped it, went undercover as a campaign manager. Which, he claimed, allowed him to get closer to Denreiker.”

  “Is anyone on this ship who they say they are?” Alice asked, exasperated.

  “Nope. That seems to be the theme, here.”

  “So?” Gina prodded. “Who is it? Which one of these freaks is Denreiker?”

  “That’s the thing,” I said reluctantly.

  “He didn’t say.”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “Christ,” she leaned back a bit and rubbed her temples. I was pretty certain her cyberbody didn’t allow for headaches. Old mannerisms still inserted themselves into her actions. It was one of the things that distinguished her in my eyes from the sexdoll identity she’d assumed. “Most likely it’s—”

  “Mannigan,” I answered. “Campaign trail, and all that. You ever recall seeing him back on Orion?”

  “Never. He has a two-year gap off the net, but none of our intel suggested it may be him.”

  “Listic noted the lack of data on him for a couple years, too. It would make sense if it was him, wouldn’t it? The potential for more power by gaining a political seat?”

  “Or not,” Gina countered. “Calling that much attention to himself, in a campaign he’s destined to lose? It doesn’t add up. Denreiker’s always played it more behind the scenes.”

  “Good point.”

  “That leaves Ken and Bertle, as ridiculous as the latter sounds.” She let her shoulders droop a bit and winced. “We probably shouldn’t have left him alone, like that.”

  “And Stenson,” I added. “Can’t leave out—”

  “It’s not Stenson.”

  “I’m just saying, you mentioned something about a CyberOps agent stealing the net amplifiers in the first place. It could be that he—”

  “It’s not Stenson,” she repeated, shooting me the look that ended any debate we’d ever engaged in.

  Back when we were GalactiCop partners, we’d often share a bucket of fries while on stake outs. Inevitably, there’d be only one fry left in the bucket. She’d give me that look, and I’d let her have the last fry. That’s how powerful that look was.

  I let the notion go, but kept it tucked in my subconscious.

  Alice rifled through a low cabinet, pulled out a canister of another passenger’s noodles, tore it open.

  “Denreiker...” she said under her breath. “Why does that name sound familiar?” She reached above her head from behind and pulled open a shallow drawer, rummaging around for a spork. Flatware chimed a clumsy song. “Wait, Denreiker! Of course! He’s the syndicate boss. The one you almost tracked down. Both of you, actually.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Gina added. “How does she know that?”

  Alice stuffed her mouth with noodles. “Cwiminology two-thooty-six. Uppa division clash.” She swallowed. “We had to write a thesis on a GalactiCop of our choosing. One who got suspended or terminated. Idea was to learn what not to do. Had full access to public records, followed their career paths from academy to suspension. I, uh...”

  “You chose me.”

  “Yeah. I chose you.”

  Gina’s cyberoptics picked up my temperature change right away. I must have been blushing. She rolled her eyes and cocked a smile. “Flattered, Blades?”

  “I don’t know what I am,” I answered. “Surprised? Yeah fine, I think flattered is in there, somewhere.”

  “So I had a crush on you,” Alice said. “Besides, who else was I gonna pick? Anyway, the class didn’t serve its purpose. At least, as far as convincing me to go by the book. I was on your team, as I read through the docs. If I were either of you, I would have stayed on the case, too. De
nreiker’s an asshole.”

  “Thank you,” Gina said earnestly.

  “Now who’s blushing?” I said.

  “Cyborgs don’t blush.”

  “Or get hungry. Or tired. Or cold,” Alice said, toying with her noodles. “Try to keep up, Alan.”

  The three of us let out a short laugh. An uncomfortable silence followed, and we realized we were having too good a time flattering each other in the presence of the recently deceased. I reached over and closed Loche’s eyes.

  Rest easy, fellow GalactiCop. We’ll take the bastard down for you. It’s about time someone did.

  ∙ • ∙

  We deemed it wise to circumnavigate the entire cargo hold and reconvene at the airlock hatch. Gina blinked twice rapidly to take a snapshot of the diagram of the layout from Dave’s booklet, and we established the route each of us would take. Hers involved going back into the cockpit to check on Bertle. Alice would come with me. Along the way, we’d check on Silo. I turned Listic on in order to sync her to Gina’s cybercom so that we could communicate if either of us discovered anything, or anyone.

  “No need,” Listic said as I held her close to Gina. “We’re already intimately familiar.” She glowed brighter for a second, Gina’s right eye simultaneously doing the same. They were residually networked, an effect probably left over from Listic’s time spent in her skull.

  “Should I be worried?” Gina asked.

  I hadn’t thought of any potential repercussions until now. “I don’t think her Manic Virus is contagious. I had this tech guy, Billy, try to wipe it. He couldn’t. In any case, it’s an AIV, not a CTD.”

  “A what, not a what?”

  “An artificial intelligence virus, not a cybernetically transmitted disease.”

  “Don’t worry,” Listic said. Then whispered, “I used protection.”

  We all groaned as we walked out of the mess hall together. Gina went right. Alice, Listic, and I went left. On the way, I took the opportunity to assess the situation.