by Sean Platt
Sam’s nose perked up. Something was wrong in the apartment. He was suddenly sure that someone was up to something outside. They’d found him.
He’d expertly covered his tracks and had anonymized his connection and his trail in securing the apartment with trusted hardware. He’d missed nothing, yet still somehow they’d found him.
They were coming, and they were going to kill him. For some reason, the proof of their arrival was something he could smell, and…
It was the soup.
Sam stood in a hurry, scurrying across the room to his hotplate. Not only had he forgotten to check on it after silencing the alarm, but the second heating coil had apparently come back to life. By the time Sam reached it, the soup had boiled over and was spilling down the cabinets onto the floor.
“Fuck fuck fuck fuck…”
Sam grabbed the pot’s handle, found it hot, then wrapped it with a towel and tried again. Everything went into the sink, tomato soup blowing up the sides and onto the tile backsplash like a gory death from a horror vid. He looked into the pan and found a thick mess of blackened soup crusted to the bottom. The air smelled like feet.
“Noah Fucking West.”
Sam grabbed a bag of potato chips, ripped it open, and told himself that he really needed to start getting exercise. His diet was dancing on his heart.
Sam returned to the table and gorged from the giant bag as if it were his lifeline. Anyone watching would have encouraged him. He was waif thin, his shoulders narrow and chest hollow. He had a handsome face atop his mess of a body and wore glasses with thick black frames. There were other poor Enterprise who couldn’t afford vision correction and hence wore dime store glasses, so it worked, but Sam didn’t wear the glasses to help him see. The glasses were an affect meant to make him look older — same as the large, full-sleeve tattoo on his right arm. Tattoos were spectacularly passé these days, so those who had them were always old enough to have gotten them long ago then maintained them like an old automobile.
Sam returned to his papers, set the big bag of chips on the floor at his feet, and promptly forgot what he’d been doing on The Beam. So, with no other ideas, he used the keyboard to access his page, called Shadow Report.
The first thing Sam noted was that Shadow Report was still online. That was good. He had a running backup on what he sincerely hoped was a hidden, untraceable server, and whenever he was online, he downloaded a new manual backup to a slip drive. He did that now then began to plink around the page.
He saw that today’s discussion was lively, with his most controversial content voted to the top. The activity felt encouraging. Moving around as much as Sam did (keeping his head low, moving often, re-uploading his page to reclaimed space on hacked public servers whenever it was taken down), it was easy to feel like a spook creeping around in the dark. The discussion reminded Sam that he wasn’t alone, and that his loyal readers, at least, were as dedicated to uncovering the truth as he was. It also reminded him that so far, none of those readers had divulged the ways in which they were always able to follow and find his new, rotating homes on The Beam — a discovery that, when leaked, always forced Sam to start completely over and wait for those with the means and the will to sniff him out through trial and error.
He didn’t have much new to report, but he really should at least check in. He didn’t always have a lot to say, but he liked to keep the fires stoked whenever he could.
He logged in.
To his readers, Sam was known as Shadow — a mysterious rogue investigator who delved into depths that those in power preferred to remain unexplored. Shadow was much revered, widely respected, and never afraid. Having an alter ego was good because Sam, by contrast, was constantly afraid. As Sam Dial, he kind of wanted to disappear and then post updates about how terrified he was that he might be discovered. But Shadow didn’t think like that, and it was Shadow who insisted that the page be constantly updated no matter what. If Shadow went dark (no pun intended), it meant that another move was about to occur. Shadow was fearless and faithful. If he went missing, it meant that there was certain pursuit behind him.
He accessed the page’s dashboard and typed:
nothing particularly new to report but still frustrated by gibson, with plugged I mean, with the information he didn’t use I mean. can keep posting things here but null is only so loud with only ideas and no plan…and I have no plan. shift is coming up and theres s/thng I think might be happening with the new guy vale, but also with the ryans, isaAc ryan anyway, and his speechwriter, but its all too preliminary to say much. Hmb with ideas in the comments, you have eyes beyond mine. Is vale the idealist they say he is, or is it more act? Not like directorate needs help, but there are some saying that if enterprise won shift, certain dominoes will fall into place. Still looking into costa, don’t want to say more. will keep SR updated. until tomorrow. shadow
Sam didn’t re-read the post or spell-check it, despite the fact that he had dozens of firewalls designed to deflect the kind of AI that would proofread his work. Sam didn’t want AI touching his copy. AI had permanent memories, and that wasn’t always good. Sam never checked his stuff anyway, save for factual accuracy. Updates were like a data download. Straight from his brain to the page, just like what his neural add-on used to do for him back in the day.
He closed the connection, untethered the anonymizer, and pushed his canvas away. He looked at the papers on his table. Again, the red-marked page caught his eye.
Nicolai Costa. Isaac Ryan. The Beau Monde. All of the unused information Sam had given to Sterling Gibson for his book. Gibson had a much bigger audience than Shadow, but Gibson, being public, hadn’t wanted to say what needed to be said. It was understandable, but frustrating. All of that research, and it was just lying around.
Lights flickered overhead then went dead. A moment later, they came back on.
“Keep shitting on us down here in the ghetto,” Sam said. “It’s cool.”
Chapter 4
“Katherine Rigby,” the inspector said, looking at his dedicated screen. “Beam ID Sector 0041. Shuttle registered on oh-four-one-six 2196.”
Kate looked up. “If you say so, darlin’.”
“Get out of the shuttle, please, Ms. Rigby.”
“No prob.” Then, realizing that she was acting like the man she used to be, she made her voice softer and said, “Sure.”
The shuttle was a low-slung vehicle when in ground mode, and Kate looked like a spider as she emerged. She had a long, athletic build and legs that the old Doc Stahl would have said “went on forever.” Her refurb had changed the lengths of her bones while the nanos had slimmed them, lengthening and shaping her old muscles to match. The process, her specialist had told her, was so incredibly painful in its raw form that even a spinal block wasn’t enough to prevent most patients from screaming through surgery. Before the specialist industry had gotten the knack of using immersion as psychological anesthesia, Beam ID reassignments had to be conducted in soundproof chambers.
The inspector watched her emerge with a look of admiration. On the trip out, Kate had dressed modestly so as not to attract attention. She’d ridden across the lunar basin while wearing a full suit inside the shuttle because the idea of carting across a rock in space with no atmosphere, even in a sealed compartment, scared her silly. But once her business at Digger Base was concluded, with fifty meterbars of Lunis stashed throughout hidden compartments in her conveyance, she’d slipped into a restroom to change into the salacious get-up she had on now. She wore a very short skirt, high heels, and a top that could be played off as fashionable while really doing little other than displaying her breasts. She looked like she was going to a board meeting where business was in serious danger of mixing with pleasure.
The inspector looked her over. “Where are you headed, Miss?”
“Earth.” She giggled.
The inspector looked mostly unmoved by the joke but might have been attempting professionalism. “Where on Earth, Miss?”
&n
bsp; “Albany.”
The inspector stepped out of his booth and began to slowly circle the shuttle. They were in a garage space at one end of the enormous Perseus station. Kate’s scheduled time to dock her shuttle to the elevator’s climber wasn’t for an hour. Plenty of time. After she schmoozed and sexed her way past this slob, she’d have time to grab a coffee in the hub.
“What’s in Albany?”
“I have a meeting.”
“What’s your business?”
“I work for Baris Pharma. We have a lab up here.”
All according to script and agreed with on the moon visa the inspector had surfaced through her Beam ID scan. It hadn’t taken Kate long to get used to playing her old conversational cards as a woman. She could still use most of her tried-and-true salesman’s skills (other than the most controversial ones), but now they all worked better because at least half of Kate’s interactions were shameless in their obvious desire to get inside her lacy pink panties.
“What are you working on?”
“Nano ointments.”
“There’s still room for improvement in nano ointment?”
Kate gave a flirtatious laugh. “Have they stopped advertising improvements in toothbrushes and razors?” She almost made a joke about how only the poorest of Directorate schlubs still needed to use toothbrushes and shaving razors but decided she’d keep it to herself. The inspector was probably one such poor Directorate schlub.
“I guess not. Why is the lab on the moon?”
“Are you inspecting me, or Baris?”
The inspector had made his way around to the shuttle’s far side. He had a pole-mounted sniffer but was only going through the motions of using it. When he paused and looked up, the thing’s tip was centimeters from the secondary concealed bin. It wasn’t impossible that he could release the latch with an errant swing.
“Just making conversation, Miss.”
“Oh. You sounded like you were interrogating me or something.” Kate gave the man a demure smile. She thought she had a bead on the guy, whose name was Inspector Levy, according to his nametag. He wasn’t being awkward, and he wasn’t suspicious. He was trying to talk to the pretty lady because it made him feel good, but he came off sounding gruff because he was so insecure. In his youth, he’d probably been made fun of by girls. Gruffness was his way of deflecting attention while craving it at the same time.
“Nope,” he said.
Again, Kate gave him a friendly look. “I don’t mind conversation.”
Inspector Levy gave Kate the smallest of smiles, but something was wrong with the way his mouth curled up. She’d cracked through his wall and indicated that she might be interested, but what she was already seeing under his shell didn’t look as shy as she’d figured. Now that he was smiling, the inspector seemed almost lecherous.
He stooped to glance under the shuttle, but his eyes detoured first to her chest.
Stooping to kneel under the shuttle, he said, “Are you bringing anything back from the moon?”
“Only paperwork and memories.” Kate kept her voice light but was suddenly glad that Levy couldn’t see her face. She didn’t really want to encourage him anymore. Her permission had changed something in his manner.
Now he was fully under the shuttle. Actually crawling beneath it. Nobody did that. “Nothing you shouldn’t have?”
Kate cleared her throat. “What do you mean?”
The top of Levy’s head appeared on the shuttle’s far side. She saw his inspector’s cap, a swatch of dark and messy hair, and a pair of eyes. Again, they darted to her chest. Then the rest of his face surfaced, smiling across a five-o’clock-shadowed countenance. But he was stooping, as if still in mid-investigation. His hand, now that she looked, was directly atop a second concealed compartment latch.
“Just kiddin’.”
“Oh.” Kate gave what was hopefully a quasi-flirtatious smile. There was really no proper response. She didn’t want to be stand-offish. Being engaging and charming had helped Kate sail through prior inspections, but the job was still new to her (she’d only made three prior runs) and hadn’t lived it long enough to move without thinking. She didn’t want to engage because something about the inspector was unsettling. It was in the way he was squatting and running his hands across the shuttle’s belly. She’d given him no reason to be suspicious, so he should be paying the inspection nothing but lip service. But no, he seemed to be taking things quite seriously, doing what inspectors were supposed to do but that few did.
Unless the traveller was somehow flagged, tipped, or otherwise reported in advance.
Kate’s heart rate sped up. At least her heartbeat hadn’t changed in her new body. The mRNA-based Beam ID in the cells of her heart had, of course, been completely reset along with that in the rest of her cells, but there had been no need to make anything more than minor structural changes to the organ itself. The slightly smaller heart felt exactly the same in her smaller chest. Nervous still felt like nervous, and scared still felt exactly like scared.
While Levy moved toward the shuttle’s nose, his inspections still overly thorough, Kate blinked and tried to focus. As part of her incredibly expensive overhaul (goodbye, nest egg; hello, return to scrapping), the specialist had given her a trendy set of invisible switches to turn her enhancements on and off. It worked like the first biofeedback machines from a century ago. Once she’d gotten the hang of it, she could think in certain repetitive patterns and produce the brainwaves required to operate her newer add-ons. Using one now, she willed the release of a beta blocker compound to counteract the adrenaline spilling into her system.
Within three seconds — quite an accomplishment, considering how on-edge she felt — there was a sort of mental click, and she felt the chemical’s calming effects. Her heart rate slowed. That was good because proportionately large increases in pulse rate would be recorded by the overhead monitors and flag her even if Levy found nothing, and move her up a tier as an inspection watch. But even aside from the calming she felt from her add-on, she found herself falling into an alert form of quiet. Kate’s fists unclenched. Her jaw relaxed. The inspection still felt worth paying attention to, but to Kate, it no longer seemed paranoid or dire.
“Some people,” said Levy in a conversational tone, poking his head up, “come up here to smuggle moondust. Can you believe that?”
Kate made herself laugh. “Really?”
“Absolutely. They’ll have hidden compartments on their shuttles. Some try to put it into their bodies, too, like sticking it up their…well, into places.”
“Just for some stupid moon rocks?”
“Lunis,” said Levy. “The narcotic.”
Kate met the inspector’s eyes and found them absent of mirth. Pretending not to know what “moondust” meant had been a mistake. It was like pretending not to know the meaning of murder.
“Oh. That.”
“Yeah. That. There were some people pinched just recently. You didn’t hear about that?”
Kate cleared her throat. “I don’t really watch Beam Headlines.”
“It’s important stuff. You should know what’s coming into your neighborhood. What people are up to.”
“Um…I’ll keep it in mind.”
“That’s why we put in all the new sensors this week. To catch a few of the smugglers’ new tricks.” He pointed to a box mounted in an overhead corner that Kate hadn’t noticed.
“Oh.” She swallowed, trying to keep her voice light. All of a sudden, the de-alarm add-on didn’t seem to be working as well as it should be. “What kind of tricks?”
“Sometimes they’ll have magnetic casings that deflect a sniffer. New methods of concealment. I can’t go into details because catching smugglers means staying one step ahead. They can’t know what we know about how they operate, or what we’re doing to counteract it. I mean, what if you’re a smuggler?”
Kate couldn’t bring herself to answer. She smiled and tried to puff out her chest, pressing her breasts against her s
hirt. Why wasn’t it colder in here? It had been cold most other places in the station. She needed her attention-getters to stand and demand the man’s eyes.
“What’s this here?” said Levy. “Wait. Never mind. Sorry. Just part of the docking hatch.”
Kate exhaled.
Levy puttered around for another few minutes. Kate looked at her wrist, again forgetting that the time would never appear there again. She didn’t think she was supposed to touch the shuttle while it was being inspected, so she pulled out her handheld. Nearly twenty minutes had passed. Maybe she wouldn’t have time for coffee after all.
“Excuse me,” she said.
Levy looked up.
“Are all the inspections this thorough?” She forced a small smile. “It’s just that I need to be going.”
The inspector’s eyes ticked toward his booth, where Kate’s roster and profile were still visible on the dedicated screen.
“I show your departure as 4:35 Universal.”
“Well, yes, but I need to…I was hoping to grab something for the trip.”
“That isn’t your lunch on the seat?” He pointed into the compartment.
“Coffee.” She made an embarrassed-sounding “you caught me” noise. “I need my coffee, or I go crazy.”
“Do you get headaches?”
“Well…”
“Is it a medical condition?”