Most of the offices stood empty now—no one wanted a client to come to a place this seedy—but there was one that was still occupied.
It belonged to Paloma, a retired Retrieval Artist.
Paloma had to be the oldest woman Flint knew. Or perhaps she was just the least enhanced woman he knew. She never upgraded her features, preferring to age naturally. But she was abnormally strong and very healthy, so he suspected she used enhancements that just weren’t as visible as most other people’s.
He had met her when he was a space cop and she was trying to ferry a Disappeared’s family off the Moon to meet their retrieved loved one. Her ship had expired licenses, and he could have busted her for that. He also could have followed her to find the Disappeared and turn that person in, but he hadn’t. Paloma had convinced him to turn a blind eye, just that once.
Over the years, they became friends, exchanging information and helping each other out. Even after she decided that the business had changed too much for her, she still kept her hand in so that she knew what was going on.
Flint didn’t knock, even though the door looked formidable. Paloma had alarms set several yards away from her office and knew when anyone was approaching. The alarms were obviously tied in to some sort of visual system because she unlocked her door automatically for potential clients or friends.
If the door opened when he tried it, he knew that Paloma was inside. She used to be in her office most of the time, but he wasn’t so certain what her schedule was these days. He hadn’t seen her in months.
He tried the knob and it turned easily. He walked inside, feeling lighter than he had in days. Things were changing for him. He could sense it.
Paloma was sitting behind her rickety desk. She looked tiny and frail, almost birdlike. Her white hair made her skin seem even darker. She wore a long-sleeved sweater that covered the muscles in her arms, and it had taken Flint nearly a year to realize that the skin on the backs of her hands was laced with links and security chips of various kinds.
“Hey, beautiful,” he said.
She smiled at him. The look made her black eyes sparkle. “Hey, beautiful yourself. How come you haven’t been to visit?”
“I warned you that we’d have trouble getting together once I made detective.”
“Is it everything you wanted it to be?”
His grin faded. He couldn’t hide much from her.
She sighed. “You’re having to make the tough choices already, aren’t you, Miles?”
He wished she had a chair for guests inside the office. She liked to keep the clients standing. It kept them off guard. But he could have used the momentary rest.
“I like putting puzzles together, Paloma.”
“I know,” she said.
“And I like helping people.”
“That’s why you joined the force in the first place, you said.” She kept her tone neutral. The first time he had told her that, she had laughed at him. Then she had realized he was serious. She had not apologized, but she was careful of his feelings over that issue from that point on.
He nodded.
“They don’t want you to help people any more, do they?” she asked.
“It’s all right when I’m dealing with real criminals.”
“Ah,” she said softly. “You have to turn someone over. Who is it? The Rev? The Ebe? The Disty?”
“The Wygnin.”
She closed her eyes. Her face looked skeletal for a moment. Then she opened them, as if that brief moment of darkness had given her strength.
“You came here on business then,” she said.
He nodded.
“Should I charge the city?”
“No,” he said. “This is personal. Give me your account and I’ll transfer the credits.”
“Tell me what you want first, and I’ll tell you if I can help you.”
“Oddly enough, I need the name of the best and most reliable Disappearance service on the Moon.”
She gave him a sharp look. “Did you cross the Wygnin?”
“It’s not for me,” he said.
She braced her hands on her desk and stood. The gesture made her only a few inches taller than she had been before, but somehow the force and power of it made her seem stronger.
“Did you cross the Wygnin, Miles?”
“Not yet,” he said.
“You can’t cross them. If they have a target, you have to give it to them. They’ll go after you if you don’t, and you have a beautiful mind. They’ll destroy it and think they did you a favor.”
“They won’t come after me,” he said.
She came around the desk, grabbed his arms, and shook him as if he were a child. “They go after everyone who crosses them. No one is immune. You cannot do this. I won’t let you.”
“Paloma,” he said. “I have a window.”
“There is no such thing.” Her grip hurt. “Go away. Forget this. I cannot help you.”
“I’ll find someone who will then,” he said.
She looked up at him, her eyes searching his as if she could read his every thought. “Is it a woman?”
He shook his head. “A baby.”
“A baby,” she said. “Like Emmeline.”
He yanked himself out of her grip.
“You cannot see everything through the prism of your own pain, Miles. Emmeline is dead. Children die. Babies who get taken by the Wygnin have a great life. They just don’t have a human one. Whoever she is—”
“He,” Flint said.
“—Whoever he is, then,” Paloma said, “his fate was determined long ago by some careless relative who never thought actions had consequences.”
“The law is wrong, Paloma,” Flint said.
“You’re telling me that? I’ve seen more than you can imagine.” She let him go and leaned on the desk. He had the sense she was working him like she would work a client she didn’t know.
“His parents thought they were safe,” Flint said. “And they’re not the only ones.”
Then he told her about Disappearance Inc, about all that he and DeRicci had discovered.
Paloma cursed. “I wondered how long it would take one of those services to realize they could profit like that. It would have to be the biggest.”
“And what was once the best.”
She made a rude noise and shook her head. “Never the best. Only the one with the most publicity which, if you think about it, is exactly what a Disappearance service shouldn’t have. If they’re good, they’re assisting people in breaking these unjust laws of yours.”
“They’re not my laws,” he said.
“They shouldn’t be anyone’s,” Paloma said. “But we have them and we are stuck with them so long as we want trade. Or so the Idiots in Charge tell us.”
She went back behind her desk and sat down. It seemed like she had gone back to her role as Retrieval Artist deciding whether or not to take on a new client.
“You realize that the fact these people were betrayed changes nothing. They still, foolishly, broke laws that put them at odds with the Wygnin. If you help them, you will cross the Wygnin too.”
“Not if the Wygnin don’t know what I’ve done.”
“They’ll know,” Paloma said.
“Give me some credit,” Flint said. “I have a window.”
“A window,” she snapped. “A window means nothing. Opportunities do not exist with the Wygnin.”
“Their warrant is old,” he said, “and it’s not accurate. If I can stall long enough, I might be able to give these people time to escape.”
Paloma stared at him. “You have a plan.”
“Of course I do.”
“A plan in which they will not track you, blame you?”
“Yes,” he said, although his heart was pounding. He was risking his entire being for a child he did not know, for people he did not care about.
But this wasn’t about Ennis Kanawa. This was about Emmeline. Flint was risking his being for her as if she were still alive
, as he would have done if he had known her life was in danger.
Because he should have known her life was in danger. He should have seen the signs. In his own way, he was as much at fault for his daughter’s death as Jamal Kanawa was for his son’s kidnapping.
Paloma studied Flint for a moment. She crossed her arms and frowned. “You’re asking me to trust you, to believe that you’re smart enough to protect your own life when so many others in similar circumstances can’t do the same thing.”
“Yes,” he said.
She sighed and grabbed part of her desk, pulling it forward. It was a keyboard. Flint used to think it odd that she used such ancient technology until she explained it to him once.
The keyboard was silent. Voice commands were not, and she did not use modern screen technology that operated at the touch of a finger because it was easily traceable. The keyboard allowed her to work inside the system, using code, going deep, and if she was smart about it, her movements were impossible to trace.
“You want the best disappearance service on the Moon,” she said. “Not Mars, not Earth. Just the Moon.”
He nodded. “We have to be able to get to it quickly.”
“You realize that best is relative.”
He walked toward the door, feeling restless, wishing this tiny cubicle of an office had a window. “I want someone who can beat you, Paloma.”
She snorted. “No one beats me.”
He wasn’t sure he believed that. But he said nothing.
She worked in silence for several long minutes while he learned the shape of the office, the corners, the uneven lay of the flooring. He avoided the keyboard and computer system altogether.
“All right,” she said. “I double-checked what I suspected. There is only one Disappearance service on the Moon worth your time and fortunately, it’s here in Armstrong. You’ve probably never heard of it.”
A dig at his comment about Disappearance Inc. Was she implying that he wasn’t as smart as he thought?
“Try me,” he said.
She inclined her head toward him, but didn’t tell him, not yet. Instead, something else caught her attention. She was looking at a screen that had appeared on her desktop.
Flint knew better than to try to look over her shoulder. He’d done that once, and she had barred him from the office for a year—even though all her systems were encoded, and she had managed to make whatever had been on the screen disappear before he ever got a chance to look at it.
“Problem?” he asked.
Her gaze met his. The screen went dark. “As I was saying, this is the only reliable company on the Moon. All their clients successfully disappear, and none of the warrants on them get fulfilled. But they won’t work with a cop. I doubt they’ll work with me.”
He let out a small sigh. Part of him wasn’t sure such a company existed. “That’s all right. They don’t need to work with either of us. Who are they?”
“Data Systems,” she said. “They have offices not far from here. They’re as discrete as my offices.”
Ugly and without flash. The opposite of many other Disappearance services he’d seen. Somehow he found that reassuring.
A knock resounded through the small space. Flint turned, hand on his laser pistol. The quickness of his reaction showed just how on edge he was.
“I didn’t know you were expecting someone,” he said.
“I wasn’t expecting anyone,” she said, “but someone has come.”
The image on the screen. That was the warning she had had, and she wasn’t alarmed by whoever was outside.
“Move out of sight for a moment,” Paloma said. “This could be intriguing.”
He frowned. He knew she had a back exit, although he didn’t know where it was. He was surprised that she didn’t ask him to use it.
Flint moved behind the door, keeping his hand on his laser pistol.
The knock sounded again.
“It’s open,” Paloma said.
* * *
Ekaterina hadn’t seen a door without security systems built in since she was a child. The knock felt unnatural, the second one insistent.
This area of Armstrong seemed too impoverished to house the office of a successful Retrieval Artist. Even the roads were coming apart, the material the original colonists had used to pave them crumbling into Moon dust.
If she had felt dirty before, she felt filthy now.
She was about to knock for a third time, when she realized she had heard a voice telling her to come in. The voice sounded like it had come from inside, yet it was awfully clear.
Maybe Ekaterina was wrong. Maybe the door did have security, only the security was so sophisticated she couldn’t see it.
She grabbed the doorknob and it turned easily. She pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The interior was tiny and dark. It took a moment for Ekaterina’s eyes to adjust. She saw a tiny, unenhanced elderly woman sitting behind a large desk.
“You’re Paloma?” Ekaterina asked.
“Close the door,” the woman said.
Ekaterina did. The lights came up just slightly. She stepped deeper into the office. “I got your name from a friend. He says you’re a reliable Retrieval Artist.”
“I’m retired,” the old woman said.
Somehow Ekaterina had been afraid of that, afraid that anyone who looked so frail wouldn’t be able to do the work required of a Retrieval Artist.
“All I want is information,” Ekaterina said.
“That’s all anyone wants,” the old woman said.
“It’s something you could probably tell me off the top of your head.”
“And why would I?” The old woman’s eyes were sharp. Ekaterina realized that the woman’s appearance might be deliberate, to put people off their guard.
“I’ll pay you for it.”
“Of course you will,” the old woman said, “if I chose to give you information. I don’t help just anyone. In fact, I help almost no one, especially now that I’m retired.”
“It’s just one question. Please,” Ekaterina said and she was surprised to hear her voice quiver. “I’m running out of options.”
“That’s supposed to make me sympathetic?” the old woman asked. “Why should it when your face is all over the vids, and the Dome is locked down because you left police custody?”
Ekaterina’s mouth opened slightly. She hadn’t seen her own image once she entered this oldest part of Armstrong. She had managed to avoid patrols the rest of the way, and she had kept her head down. So far, no one had noticed her.
“Please,” she said. “Just listen to me. I don’t know where else to turn.”
The old woman sighed. “Just tell me what you want. I don’t care what you’ve done or who you’ve hurt.”
Ekaterina felt her breath catch. The old woman assumed she was guilty without letting her speak. Of course. Most everyone in Armstrong probably did.
“You’ll help me, then?”
The old woman shrugged. “I’m intrigued by you. I wonder why someone like you would seek a Retrieval Artist. By rights, I should give you to the police. It’s a Retrieval Artist’s job to find people, and I found you without any effort at all.”
Ekaterina’s heart pounded. She had known this risk existed. She had thought she would be able to talk her way out of it.
“I was told you were honest,” she said, “that you would help me.”
“I don’t do what’s expected of me,” the old woman said. “I do what interests me.”
Ekaterina nodded. She had nothing to lose by telling this woman anything. She was already here. If the old woman wanted to turn her into the authorities, she would.
“It’s my understanding that Retrieval Artists know who runs the most efficient Disappearance services. I’ll pay you for that information. I need it quickly so that I can get off the Moon.”
“The most efficient Disappearance service,” the old woman repeated. “You mean some service that can defeat a Retrieval A
rtist? You want to know who has caused my greatest failures?”
“I’m not asking for failures. I’m asking for someone reliable. I trusted Disappearance Inc, and they gave me to the very group that was searching for me. I just don’t want that to happen again.”
“And they made a tidy profit, I’ll bet.” The old woman made it sound like she approved. Then she smiled at Ekaterina. “You know, I’ve been getting a lot of requests about reliable Disappearance services lately. It seems to be the question du jour.”
“Someone else asked you?” Ekaterina said, not sure why she was getting that information.
“Yes,” a man said from behind her. “I asked her, not five minutes ago.”
Ekaterina jumped, her hand on her heart. The detective with the cherubic face and the cold eyes —Flint?—had been standing behind the door. She hadn’t even seen him when she had come in.
They had known. The authorities had known she was coming here. Shamus had betrayed her.
It was all over. Her sense outside Shamus’s apartment had been right. Her luck had run out, and the Rev were going to take her.
She had no options left—except one.
She slipped her hand in her purse and gripped the laser pistol. She had never shot a person before, let alone two. She wasn’t sure she could pull this off.
But there was only one way to find out.
Twenty-Six
DeRicci had just finished making the list of Maakestad’s former friends, colleagues, and clients who lived in the Armstrong area. Maakestad had been an attorney who was licensed to practice in several interstellar courts, but she hadn’t come to Armstrong often. The list was shorter than DeRicci expected.
Still, it was unusual for a fugitive to remain at large for so long without help. DeRicci had a hunch one of these people was harboring Maakestad.
She had just sent the list through the public links when she got paged by the duty clerk, requesting her presence in interrogation. The Rev, apparently, were getting unreasonable.
DeRicci made it down to the main area as quickly as she could. She avoided the duty clerk and all of the people waiting in the main Division area. Instead, she skirted down a side hallway toward the interrogation room Flint had used to talk with the Rev.
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