“Okay, so what’s Bernadette doing here?”
“Who knows? She had a full diary for the rest of the week: lunches, parties, shows, committee meetings, same stuff as she always does. There was nothing scheduled on Illuminatus. And, Adam, she didn’t tell anyone she was coming, she just dropped everything and got on the train. Right now she’s supposed to be having cocktails with a whole bunch of minor Dynasty socialites at the Rialto Metropolitan Gallery.”
“Okay, keep with her and let me know what happens.”
“We’ll do our best, but there’s only the two of us. Any chance we can have some reinforcements? It’s going to be difficult keeping tabs on her in a city like this.”
“I’ll do what I can; we’re stretched a little thin right now. But, Jenny, you’re reconnaissance only, understand? I don’t want you involved in any incidents. Observe and report.”
“I know. Ah, Kanton says the taxi is heading for the Octavious on the Lower Monkira Wharfside Avenue.”
Adam’s e-butler pulled up the local cybersphere listing on the Octavious. It was a medium-size three-star hotel, a hundred fifty years old. Not the kind of place someone like Bernadette would normally stay at. “Definitely interesting,” he said. “I’ll do my best to get some help for you. In the meantime, under no circumstances check in to the Octavious. We don’t know what’s there, and I’ve just heard there are some wetwired people in this town that don’t belong to any local syndicate.”
“Do what we can,” Jenny said. She closed the call.
Adam closed his eyes, trying to think who he could spare from other operations he was running. He hadn’t been making excuses when he said they were spread thin. In the end he called Kieran McSobel, and told him to bring Jamas McPeierls, Rosamund McKratz, and himself along to Illuminatus on the next express to support Jenny and Kanton. After that, he called Bradley.
“I’m glad our little investment in Bernadette appears to be paying off,” Bradley said. “It was something of a long shot.”
“We’ll know for sure soon enough. She wouldn’t have left EdenBurg in this fashion unless it was urgent.”
“Quite. The timing is significant, I believe. It would appear as if the navy assault on Hell’s Gateway has encountered some difficulty. The unisphere news shows are starting to ask if the Prime wormholes to the Lost23 have shut down.”
“If they had, the navy would tell us; if not them, Doi would want to make the announcement to the Senate.”
“Time is not on our side, Adam. It is only two days until the starships are theoretically within communications range of the Commonwealth. If the news is as bad as everyone is starting to predict, our one window of opportunity might be upon us very swiftly indeed.”
“You think the Starflyer will leave?”
“If we have failed to destroy Hell’s Gateway, the Primes will undoubtedly move to annex more Commonwealth planets. Humanity will strike back as hard as we can. After that, the war will not end until one of us has been wiped out of existence, and the other badly damaged. That is the Starflyer’s goal. Once those final events have started the end result is inevitable; it has no reason to remain in the middle of a war zone. Already, we have built weapons of enormous destructive power in the Douvoir relativistic missiles; and those are only the ones the navy has given information on. There will be others in the pipeline; there always are.”
“Wait a minute, are you saying the war will happen no matter what? I thought eliminating and exposing the Starflyer would put an end to all this.”
“I never promised that, Adam. I had no idea the Primes would be so uncompromising, so brutal. I don’t see how they can be stopped.”
Adam stared out of the hotel’s window across the city where dusk was falling. A beautiful rose-gold sun was already touching the skyline of dark buildings, sending its last orange rays through the layers of mist and cloud to stroke the rooftops and skyscrapers. What Johansson had just said hit him like a particularly volatile police stun charge, draining all the energy from his limbs to leave nothing but sharp tingling. “But…what the fuck are we doing this for?”
“Justice, Adam. It has ruined a world that was once full of life and potential. Far Away was reduced to a desert by the mega flare so it could call across the stars. The Starflyer has brought us to the brink of ruin, too. Surely you don’t believe it should be allowed to leave freely? You of all people, Adam, are possessed of a true sense of justice.”
“No,” Adam groaned. He sat heavily on the edge of his bed, his breathing coming in taxing gulps. Just for an instant he thought he was having some kind of stroke. His body was completely unresponsive as he looked back across the decades to see the diverted passenger train racing across Abadan station, trying to make up for time it had lost on StLincoln. It wasn’t supposed to be on that track, not at that time. The explosion—“That’s not justice. Without validation, killing is just murder.”
“Did you explain that to Kazimir? Do the Guardian villages now under attack on Far Away appreciate your lofty elitist rationalizing?”
“Villages?” Adam frowned, shaking his head to pull the world back into focus.
“The Institute mercenaries are raiding every clan village they can find. Not the frontline forts, not the ones with weapons and warriors. They attack our farmers, our shepherds. Our mothers and their children. The Starflyer has released its uniformed gangsters on our weak and old, hoping we will rush to their aid. It is returning, Adam, it is going back to Far Away. Its slaves are preparing the way for it.”
“What will end the war? There must be something?”
“If you don’t believe me, call Stig. He’s still hanging on in Armstrong City while the firebombs are thrown and the snipers strike unseen. But be quick about it. The Institute is offering the Governor aid in restoring ‘civil order.’ They will soon control the gateway. We will be blocked out.”
“I’m not sure I can do this anymore.”
“My poor Adam. Always believing you are the valiant one, that right will triumph in the end. It’s not always like that. The universe was not built on integrity. In the face of weakness, force can and will triumph. All you can do is choose who wields that force. Us or the Starflyer. Don’t give up now, Adam. You have come so far.”
“Shit.” He wiped the cold sweat from his brow, staring at the moisture on his hand, surprised to see it. I should have known there was no clear answer. Maybe I did. Maybe I just keep going because that’s all that’s left of me.
“Adam,” Bradley said firmly. “Without this there is truly no hope. The planet must be allowed to have its revenge.”
“All right.” Adam stood and looked down on the darkening city. “All right, damnit.”
“Get the train ready to break through the blockade. It’s going to be magnificent, Adam. This journey will be legend.”
After the call ended, Adam never moved, watching through the window until night had claimed Tridelta, and he could see the jungle in all its glory for one last time. “Legend, my ass,” he said with a laugh. His voice nearly cracked, but he didn’t care anymore. He told the maidbot to pack his luggage, and ordered a taxi to take him to the CST station. His e-butler booked a ticket on the next train to Kyushu.
***
Second Lieutenants Gwyneth Russell and Jim Nwan followed Tarlo out of the taxi and into the NorthHarbor precinct house. They’d all left their uniforms back at the Paris office; here in Tridelta they’d be far too conspicuous. Tarlo wore a pale blue sweatshirt with short frayed sleeves and old jeans, with sneakers and a beaded leather necklace. Gwyneth envied him that in the brief dash to the precinct lobby; her more formal cream suit and gray blouse were damp by the time she reached the air-conditioning inside, and the sun was already dropping below the skyline.
Detective Sergeant Marhol and probationary detective Lucius Lee were waiting for them by the processing desk.
“Quite an ordeal,” Jim said to Lucius as the five of them took the elevator up to the fifteenth floor where the dete
ctives had their offices.
“I told him the stakeout was good experience.” Marhol laughed callously, and gave Lucius a hard slap between his shoulder blades. He was overweight, with a belly that rolled over his belt. His clothes were expensive.
A brief expression of contempt flickered over the probationary detective’s face as he rocked forward under the impact. “Your man was good,” he said. “I checked with Mercedes about the FX 3000p. They refused to believe the security system could be broken so quickly. They said it must be an insurance scam by the owner.”
“Did you check with Ford about battery safety on the Feisha?” Marhol laughed again.
Gwyneth imagined she would get very tired of that laugh very quickly.
The precinct detective teams shared identical offices along a central corridor, like glass boxes lined up in a row. It was the end of the day shift, with everyone wrapping up. Quite a few detectives were lingering in the corridor, taking a look at the big-shot navy team as they went down to one of the secure conference rooms at the far end. A couple of people greeted “car-shock Lucius” with grins and cheers. The young probationary detective stood up to it with tight smiles.
“So what exactly have you got for us?” Tarlo asked once they were settled in the conference room. Its tall window blinds were closed and shielded, which Gwyneth resented; she’d never seen night on Illuminatus before.
“The Merc snatcher, he fits your man perfectly,” Marhol said.
A holographic portal projected an image of the man in the underground parking garage. It was taken from Lucius’s retinal inserts, showing Beard as he approached the Ford Feisha. Various file comparisons flipped up beside it.
“Looks like him,” Gwyneth conceded.
“Anybody local capable of pulling this kind of stunt?” Tarlo asked.
“One or two,” Marhol said. “Maybe. As Lucius says, the Mercedes would be hard to crack.”
“None of the local mechanics match the physical profile,” Lucius said.
“That’s your man, all right.”
“Thank you. From now on this is a priority navy case.” Tarlo gave the conference room’s array the file on Beard’s truck. “Please load this into your city traffic management arrays. I want any vehicle even approximating this on your roads to be pulled over and searched by patrol officers.”
“Wow, big overtime,” Marhol said with a smirk. “The navy gonna pay us for this?”
Tarlo grinned. “The navy will have anyone who screws up on this placed into suspension for a hundred years. You want to smartmouth me again, or do you want to survive the next twenty-four hours?”
“Hey, fuck you, hotshot. We cracked this case for you, the least you can do is show a little gratitude around here.”
“I am showing a very small amount of gratitude. We gave you this alert for Robin Beard weeks ago, and you sent out one rookie on a stakeout that matched his operation profile perfectly? And by the way, like the suit. Cost a lot, did it? Had your taxes audited lately, have you? It can be a real bitch when central treasury pulls your file. Happened to an old friend of mine, went on for years when those accountant programs started tapeworming his finance records. He went into early rejuvenation from the stress.”
“You think threatening me is gonna get things done around here?”
“I’m not threatening you, pal, I’m asking for your cooperation. So far I’ve been asking nicely.”
“What exactly are you asking for?” Lucius asked.
“This informant of yours. I want to speak to him now.”
“He doesn’t keep office hours, you know,” Marhol said. “It takes a while to set up a meeting.”
“It used to,” Gwyneth said. “Today, it becomes quick. We either tag his unisphere address with a location fix and send an armed arrest team in to wherever the bleep comes from, or we raid his home with even more firepower, or we meet up in the bar of his choice.”
“We can round up as many Stuhawks as we can find,” Jim Nwan suggested. “Shove them into neurolock interrogation, maybe a memory read, and extract Beard’s whereabouts that way.”
Tarlo nodded appreciatively. “I like that one. That’s got a high probability of success.”
“You can’t lift an entire fucking gang,” Marhol protested.
“Why not?” Tarlo inquired artlessly.
“Every other gang in the city would declare war on the police,” Lucius said. “Right now, with everyone all het up over the navy ships and Hell’s Gateway, we don’t need any more unrest.”
Gwyneth shrugged. “Not our problem.”
“Okay okay,” Marhol said grudgingly. “My guy, he likes to drink at the Illucid bar on Northgate.”
“Thank you.” Tarlo stood up. “Let’s go. I want to be talking to Robin Beard within twenty-four hours.”
***
Mellanie had rented a tiny apartment in a monolith forty-story block on Royal Avenue, not a kilometer from the Logrosan embankment. It was a lot darker than the one she’d left behind on Venice Beach; her one window looked away from the river and into the city, but the air-conditioning worked, which clinched the deal as far as she was concerned. The humidity in Tridelta was unbelievable.
As the sun went down she had the wall screen access the Michelangelo show while she got ready for the evening. He had Senators Valetta Halgarth and Oliver Tam in the studio, asking them what had happened to the attack on Hell’s Gateway. Even used to dealing with the expert evasiveness of professional politicians, Mellanie was impressed by the varied and inventive ways the senators didn’t answer the question.
She showered to rinse away the clamminess of a day spent out on Tridelta’s streets. Once she’d toweled down she put on a simple white cotton halter, over which she wore a sleeveless micro-sweater of fluffy white wool in a loose cobweb weave that was only slightly bigger than the halter so she could show off lean lines of abdominal muscle and the ruby-spark stud in her navel. She wriggled into a white miniskirt; no tights—she’d spent half an hour massaging oil into her legs, giving her skin an arresting sheen. None of the clothes had a designer label; there wasn’t even a copy of anything fashionable, which was about all Tridelta’s stores sold in their voracious quest for the tourist credit tattoo. All she had bought in town were some long costume jewelry necklaces of wooden beads and lavender-tinted crystalline shells that she looped around her neck.
“But why would the navy embargo any information on the Hell’s Gateway strike?” Michelangelo asked reasonably. “I’m sure the Prime aliens know if we’ve attacked them or not. Surely the only logical conclusion is that our ships have failed and the Executive is trying to avoid a panic.”
Mellanie half turned for the answer.
“Our intelligence-gathering capability must remain veiled for obvious reasons,” Oliver Tam replied smoothly. “I’m sure we do have the ability to see if their wormholes at the Lost23 are open or not. If so, that gives us a distinct military advantage. The navy cannot be expected to expose our assets simply to make the media happy. We will all know beyond any doubt just as soon as the starships fly into communications range. Is it possible, Michelangelo, that you simply cannot stand not knowing? Has the media become too arrogant in its assumption that all secrets must be violated to satisfy your lust for ratings, no matter what cost to us as a species?”
“Was that a joke?” Michelangelo asked; he seemed mortally offended by the insult. Anger in someone so large and powerful was imposing. Oliver Tam did his best to show no fear.
Mellanie grinned at the ludicrous posturing back in the studio, and checked the mirror. Her hair was now raven-black, and alive with short waves that made it frizz out around her head. She pinned it back on both sides with cheap orange and yellow cloth bands. After some thought she applied the darkest purple lipstick she could find. Thanks to a dermal genoprotein her face was now covered in freckles; they made her look so cutesy she wanted to hurl. Instead she threw her arms around her head, and blew herself a flouncy kiss.
Per
fect persona.
The face in the mirror certainly wasn’t that of Mellanie Rescorai, ace investigative reporter for the top-rated unisphere news shows, the face that everybody in the civilized galaxy knew. This was some first-life teen ingénue, fresh and keen to be part of the exciting city party scene—yet not quite knowing how. There would be enough volunteers to show her. Men liked that inquisitive youthfulness, and the older and more jaded they were, the more they liked it. She’d known that even before Morty.
The air outside was already noticeably cooler when Mellanie left the apartment, with a modest breeze drifting in from over the water. It had a narcotic effect on the bustling pedestrians, who all shared the same high-spirited verve as they started to search out what the bars and clubs had to offer. Mellanie headed west along the broad avenue, heading for the river. She couldn’t help the happy smile on her face. The streets here were intent on gaudy photonic mimicry of the elegance that resided beyond the water. For the first ten meters above the enzyme-bonded concrete pavements, the buildings were walled in glowing intense neon, sparkly holographics, and the steady burn of polyphoto lighting. Above that, city regulations allowed no light pollution. Looking straight up gave Mellanie an eerie view; it was as if the street had been given a stealth-black ceiling. The brighter stars twinkled directly overhead, when they weren’t shrouded by remnants of the day’s clouds, but the canyon walls of skyscrapers along the city grid were invisible, their glass windows prohibited from transmitting any light from the inside and thus spoiling the view of others.
She could see only one blemish, the brilliantly lit observation deck of an airship as it cast off from its skyscraper mooring. It angled upward to slide into the clear air above Tridelta’s towers, and set out across the river to begin its night-long flight over the jungle.
Mellanie reached the intersection and walked down to the Logrosan south high quay where the ferries docked. The last short avenue leading to the embankment slowly opened out, its buildings reducing in size. There was a large flow of people heading down to the ferries, bustling along together in a carnival atmosphere. Her pace began to slow as she saw what was ahead. Just about all the first-night tourists in the crowd around her had stopped to stare.
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