Then he picked up a box he had been given downstairs, and started placing his personal items in it. He stared at his crystal graduation certificate from the academy. It had meant so much to him once. He was amazed that it didn’t any longer.
The assistant chief had asked, as a matter of form, what he planned to do next, and he had told her he didn’t know. But he had a hunch. He toyed with working for a Disappearance service, but what if the company was sold and they did the same thing Disappearance Inc did? He would never be able to live with that.
So he had to figure out how to take care of himself and stop Disappearance Inc. He’d gotten an idea as he left the chief’s office. Now all he had to do was see if he could make it work.
* * *
The rumor reached DeRicci as the medics carted off the interpreter. Flint had quit. The reasons varied according to which rumor she heard: He’d been fired for letting the Rev tear up the station; he’d fallen in love with the fugitive; he’d run away himself.
DeRicci didn’t believe that last, and the middle reason seemed preposterous. But she wouldn’t put it past the powers that be to fire him for doing the job they had wanted him to do.
She hurried to his office and found him behind the desk, a box beside his chair and a ratty stuffed dog on his lap.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“It belonged to my daughter,” he said.
She stepped inside the office and closed the door. She had forgotten about his daughter. He’d had a family once, but he never spoke of them. She thought of him as a single man who lived alone, whose driving ambition had been to be a detective. Nothing more.
And there seemed to be a lot more.
“They’re saying downstairs that you’re leaving.”
He nodded.
“Why?” she asked.
“This is not for me, Noelle.”
“Yes, it is. I haven’t seen any one more suited to the job.” She wasn’t sure why she pushed so hard. She knew that she would have to struggle to keep hers, even though she had subdued the Rev uprising that afternoon. But she did love it here, even during weeks like this, even when she said she wanted to quit.
He leaned back in his chair. There was already something different about him, something less restrained. “Have you thought this through, Noelle? Disappearance Inc is selling out its files. We’ll have more weeks like this, more cases just as tough coming through the Port. In fact, that’ll be the bulk of what we do.”
She hadn’t wanted to think about that. She leaned against the door. “We can ask for other assignments. After the way I handled Maakestad, they’ll probably give them to us.”
He shook his head. “I’m not willing to do that. Disappearance Inc should be stopped.”
“They’re not breaking the law,” DeRicci said tiredly.
“I know,” he said. “But what they’re doing should be against the law.”
DeRicci crossed her arms. If she knew one thing about Flint, it was that he usually figured out what his next action was going to be before he took it. “You have some kind of plan, don’t you?”
He didn’t meet her gaze.
There were only a few things he could do that would use all of his skills. And it was clear that Disappearance Inc’s actions disturbed him.
“You’re not going to try to find all those Disappeared, are you?” DeRicci asked. “You’re not going to warn them.”
He didn’t move.
“Look, Miles, it would take you years to find all the Disappeared in Disappearance Inc’s files. By then, they’d probably be dead or in an alien prison.”
“I know.” His handheld beeped. He picked it up and slipped it in his pocket.
From his tone, she could tell that he didn’t care how difficult it would be. He was probably still idealistic enough to believe that saving one person from their past would be enough.
But it wasn’t.
“You can’t do anything about this,” DeRicci said. “You just have to accept it.”
Flint stood, shut down the screen on his desk, and double-checked the desk drawers. Then he picked up the box and came to the door.
She blocked his exit.
“You can’t change my mind, Noelle.”
“Leaving isn’t right, Miles. Stay here. We’ll figure something out.” Her voice rose in frustration. He was the best partner she’d ever had. She didn’t want him to go.
He shook his head.
She looked into his blue eyes. They were long-lashed and clear. She had never noticed that before either.
“You’ll regret this,” she said as she opened the door.
“Somehow, I think you’re wrong,” he said, and left.
Thirty-two
Data Systems’ offices reminded Flint of Paloma’s. They were in the same section of town, and their façade was just as filthy and tumbledown. Their security wasn’t as well hidden as Paloma’s was, probably because they knew their desperate, panicked clients would look for security first.
It had taken Flint nearly an hour, but he had managed to talk his way past the receptionist and two mid-level managers. He was now deep in the warehouse where Data Systems’ staff did most of their work.
He could tell, just from the layout, that their records storage—if they even had any—was off-premise. He suspected that building would be even harder to find than this one.
He sat in a large office with no windows. The walls were decorated with street scenes from various cities, all of them on Earth. He recognized New York and Paris, but some of the other cities where the land seemed flatter, the sun seemed brighter, and the old buildings looked like they had been made of mud, were unfamiliar to him.
The scenes made him realize that in all of his years, he had never been off the Moon. A simple commuter trip to Earth for a week, and he might have seen wonders he only read about. He hadn’t even tried.
There were domes on the Moon he hadn’t been to either. He’d been too consumed with his life—first, raising a family and then, when he lost that, becoming a detective.
How narrow his existence had been.
A woman came into the office and closed the door. She was slender to the point of gauntness, and despite her considerable enhancements, she still had shadows under her eyes.
“My staff tells me you have a proposition for me, Detective,” she said as she sat on the rocking chair near the Paris wall. So this was Colette Bannerman, head of Data Systems. Flint wouldn’t have expected someone so brittle.
“I’m no longer a detective, Ms. Bannerman.” He took the seat across from her, an angular chair that turned out to be more comfortable than it looked.
“I know,” she said. “We checked.”
Which was probably why they had let him get this far into their building.
“Are you here to apply for a job?” she asked.
“No.” He took a deep breath. It was time to see if his idea would work. “Disappearance Inc is selling out its clients. Every file, from the beginning, is available for purchase.”
She raised her eyebrows and her hands gripped the arms of the chair. “Really? How does that concern us?”
He folded his hands across his stomach so that she couldn’t see them shake. His future—and thousands of others—depended on her response to his proposal.
“I have their files,” he said. “You should know that I did not pay for them.”
She frowned.
“And I will turn them over to you if you contact everyone in these files and help them Disappear all over again. Most of them will pay your normal fee.”
“Most?” she said. “Disappearance Inc predates Data Systems by decades, and we have nearly a million clients, Mr. Flint.”
The “mister” sounded odd to him. No one had called him that in a very long time.
“I hate to sound like a businesswoman, but I am. I can’t afford to help clients who can’t pay me.”
“Really?” He willed himself to sound calm. “I’m going to give
you more clients than you’ve ever had, and most—probably seventy-five percent or more—will pay you. You’ll make more money than you know what to do with. You’re already a rich woman. Do something for your community. Consider the remaining twenty-five percent charity.”
She shook her head slightly. “You don’t understand business, Mr. Flint. In order to help that twenty-five percent and to process all these new customers so quickly, I’d have to put out quite a capital outlay.”
His fingers tightened, digging into the flesh on the back of his hands. “I checked your financials, Ms. Bannerman. Data Systems can afford this. And your credit is good. Even if the company can’t afford the upfront money, you can.”
She smiled slowly. “You’re thorough.”
“I want to make sure these people are taken care of. All of them.” He paused. “Including Jamal Kanawa and his family.”
Her gaze flickered just once, and that was enough to confirm that the Kanawas had been there to see her. But of course, she wouldn’t verbally confirm or deny whether they had or not.
She was that good.
“What do you get out of all of this, Mr. Flint?”
“A one-time fee of ten million credits, payable up front.” He had debated that for a long time, and then decided he needed the money. He needed to chose when he was going to work again.
“That’s a lot of money for an ex-cop.”
He shrugged. “I’m a young man, and I’d like to retire.”
She leaned back in the chair. Its rockers creaked as she went back and forth. The movement didn’t suit her, but she didn’t seem to care. She was studying him, probably looking for an angle.
After a few minutes, she seemed to have found it. “You could just give me the information. If you want me to do this out of the goodness of my heart, you should do the same.”
He had expected this argument sooner. “I need an incentive to give you this information.”
“I would think that concern for others would be incentive enough.”
“Concern for others made me get the information. Now I want to make sure the information is in hands that will value it.”
To his surprise, she smiled. “You’re good, detective.”
This time he didn’t correct her. “I’m also right.”
She nodded. “Ten million credits.”
He handed her his account numbers on a card, just like Paloma had done for him. Only his had been hand-written because he hadn’t had much time. “Up front.”
Bannerman didn’t hesitate. She set the card down on her nearby desk, scanned the numbers, and then smiled at him. “Done.”
He checked through his link. She had done it, just like she said. He cursed silently. She had played him better than he had played her. She didn’t balk at the fee, which meant that he should have asked for more.
He took his account numbers back and slipped them into his pocket. Then he gave her the hand-held. He’d never had anything important on it because he’d always used the station’s systems. The only information on it now was Disappearance Inc’s files.
“A pleasure doing business with you,” he said.
“And you.”
They stood, then she extended her hand. He took it. For the first time, she seemed to soften just slightly.
“I promise,” she said. “I’ll make sure these people are safe.”
“That’s why I came to you,” he said. “Because you’re one of the only companies in the business to keep the promises you make.”
Thirty-three
Three days later, after he’d had time to sleep and reflect, Flint went to Paloma’s office. He’d actually gone to the trouble of making an appointment with her and, as he approached the door, he found that he was nervous.
Flint thought that odd. He knew he was making the right decision. If he had had any doubts about that, they faded when Data Systems accepted his proposition.
He had helped more people and changed more lives for the good by not following the law than he had in all the years he worked as a police officer.
He let himself inside the office. Paloma was sitting behind her desk, smiling at him. “So, what’s so important that you have to make an appointment like a real client?”
Something in her voice caught him, some concern, some worry. Did she actually think that he would use her to find a Disappeared? He didn’t have anyone to search for. He had thought she’d known that.
“I don’t suppose you know what I did the other day,” he said.
“Besides quit?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“And let a woman Disappear when she should have gone into police custody with you?”
“Yeah.”
“No,” Paloma said. “I don’t know what you did.”
So he told her about Data Systems and the way he’d sold them all of Disappearance Inc.’s files.
To his surprise, she didn’t laugh or compliment him. Instead she looked at him gravely. “How do you know you can trust these people?”
“You told me I could.”
“And you trusted me?”
Ah. She was testing him. She had always tested him. So he told her something he had planned to leave out. “I double-checked your information. I did some digging on my own as well.”
She threw her head back and laughed. It was a rich, warm sound. “Good boy. You’d make a good Retrieval Artist.”
And that was his opening. “I know,” he said. “I want to buy your business.”
Her smile faded. “There’s no business to buy. I haven’t had clients for years.”
“But you have expertise,” he said. “I want you to train me.”
She looked more serious than he had ever seen her. “I’m not like those other Retrieval Artists. I have standards.”
“I know,” he said, sitting on her desk and taking her hand. He was finally stepping into his future, and it pleased him like nothing had in years. “I want to learn from the best.”
* * *
The Disty had turned a sickly shade of green. Its eyes were lined with blue and its lips were yellow. Its hands shook.
It stood alone on the narrow street, a light rain falling on it, making its skin shiny. Disty looked so tiny when they were standing near human structures. Even the aircar parked across the street looked bigger than the alien standing on the stoop.
Ekaterina Maakestad had to look down to see the Disty. She stood near the door of the Vancouver Addiction Center and smiled.
“Come on in,” she said to the Disty. It was shivering. The rain was cool, which wasn’t unusual in this part of Canada, and the creature didn’t have a coat. “We help everyone here.”
The Disty stepped inside, its movements dainty. Ekaterina smiled at it, hoping to put it at ease.
“My name is Emily,” she said. “I’m going to do a preliminary interview and get you to a counselor.”
As she walked him toward the interview room, where they’d have some privacy, she marveled that she would be working with the Disty after all. Every kind of addict came to this center except Rev. The Rev didn’t believe in letting other races see their weaknesses.
The only thing she didn’t like about her move to Vancouver was her proximity to San Francisco and Simon. But she had learned in the last month the importance of self-control.
She was lucky to be here. Staying here, as the people at Data Systems told her, was up to her. Most people got discovered because they tried to return to their old lives.
She wouldn’t, no matter how much she missed Simon.
She valued this new life too much.
* * *
The outer edge colony was new, so new that the buildings were made of modern permaplastic. The dome was half constructed and shook in the planet’s bitter winds. This place, which didn’t have an English name yet, was inside the Rev’s home system. The Rev had given the colonists a small continent toward the Arctic Circle, where it would always be cold and somewhat dark.
But Ja
mal didn’t care. His new house was so small that his old house in Gagarin dome now seemed like a mansion. There wasn’t even a separate bedroom for Ennis—not yet, anyway.
He pulled the blanket up to Ennis’s shoulders. Just that morning, his son had informed him in broken English that he was too big to sleep in his baby bed. He wanted a real bed, like Mommy and Daddy’s, and he’d get one soon.
Ennis sighed, his eyelashes twitching as he dreamed. Both Jamal and Dylani had agreed that they would stop watching him sleep, but so far they hadn’t. By unspoken consent, they took turns staying up all night, making sure that nothing came through a window to steal their son away.
They knew that they would have to stop this over-protection soon. And they would.
But not yet.
Jamal kissed his son on the forehead, then settled into the chair. He loved these long nights, watching Ennis sleep. These moments were precious; he was lucky to have them.
And this time, he knew it.
About the Author
International bestselling writer Kristine Kathryn Rusch has won or been nominated for every major award in the science fiction field. She has won Hugos for editing The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and for her short fiction. She has also won the Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine Readers Choice Award six times, as well as the Anlab Award from Analog Magazine, Science Fiction Age Readers Choice Award, the Locus Award, and the John W. Campbell Award. Her standalone sf novel, Alien Influences, was a finalist for the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke Award. I09 said her Retrieval Artist series featured one of the top ten science fiction detectives ever written. She writes a second sf series, the Diving Universe series, as well as a fantasy series called The Fey. She also writes mystery, romance, and fantasy novels, occasionally using the pen names Kris DeLake, Kristine Grayson and Kris Nelscott. For more information, go to www.KristineKathrynRusch.com.
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