The Disk Mirror Solution (Galaxia Mortem Book 1)

by Danielle Ste. Just

  Instead of answering, he turned and gave her the dolphin approximation of a grin. “You always said you wanted to be a forger, right? Well, this is where the sharks swim. Keep up.”

  They swam through blue water. “If you stray out of this current, you’ll be slagged immediately,” said Tanto. Sunlight glinted on the surface above. “Stay below the surface. The ocean surface is the easiest for forgers to navigate, and it’s where the majority of Traveler’s secuforgers patrol.” The thin, frondy tubes drew nearer as the sea floor continued to rise. “And watch out for that sea spaghetti.”

  Redcholate struggled to keep up. “What does the sea spaghetti do?” She was rewriting licks on the fly, modifying her dolphin body to better move through the water-not-water.

  “It’s a visual representation of the Dark Destro.”

  “The Dark Destro,” Redcholate breathed. The worst of the worst. A worm that destroyed someone’s real-flesh cranial embed. Some recent splices even exploded eyehooks and thumbnail implants. If the Dark Destro got you, you were morter than mort. Like what happened to Sylvey, only without the mummification.

  But even the Dark Destro couldn’t distract her from the blood-red orb emerging from the watery distance. It looked immense. And surrounded by dreadly sea spaghetti.

  Another flock—

  School.

  —school of purple mug fish swam toward them. This time they were immense, about 10-person-skimmer size. And aggressive. Their underbites, so cute when the fish were mug-sized, were now suposcary huge and filled with needle-sharp teeth. The mug fish surrounded Tanto’s protective ocean current and started head-butting it.

  “Looks like they got an upgrade,” Tanto said. He started mumbling some licks, so fast his dolphin mouth blurred trying to keep up.

  Redcholate ran her inspection mode prog. It turned every lick in the Underworld visible to her. Now Tanto, the mug fish, and Tanto’s protective ocean current had scrolling white code superimposed on them like an extra skin.

  She inspected Tanto’s protective current, trying to find some way to strengthen it. But his progging was so intricate she didn’t dare change anything. So she inspected the mug fish. They were blunt instruments, with one mission: find and destroy. To stymie forgers like Tanto—and apprentice forgers like Redcholate—their essential progging was hidden in lick after lick of meaningless code.

  Tanto gave a strangled cry. “They’re breaking through!”

  The immense mug fish rocked back and forth, their fins flapping in crazy blurs. Their toothy jaws snapped open and closed, as if they were already munching on Redcholate’s melon.

  Her mind raced through her options. They’d obvs just been reprogged, or Tanto’d know about it. The new licks wouldn’t be integrated like the previous ones.

  Run my syntax distinction prog, she shouted at her OS.

  Two of the giant mug fish broke through the current. Tanto darted away and they chased him, jaws snapping. She had to protect him. He was her ticket to the golden land of forgery intel.

  Her OS finished running the prog. Now all the different forgers’ licks were color coded. She ran a recent syntax trends finder prog, and two colors remained: green and pink. So two forgers had added recent updates.

  “Hurry, Red,” Tanto yelled. The fish were centimeters away from his fluke. If they touched him, he’d be blasted in the braincase. His cranial embed scoured. And she needed his braincase to be whole, and unslagged, and willing to help.

  She scrolled madly. There. Upgeed infiltration licks.

  To her right, two more mug fish broke halfway through the current’s protection. She backed away from their huge purple jaws.

  Change that semicolon to a period! she shouted.

  Her OS made the change. All the mug fish instantly ceased moving. Their code turned from white to red. She’d just sniped their asteroids.

  “Red,” shouted Tanto. “Hurry.” He swam as if he were still being chased.

  “I got them,” she said.

  He turned, saw the mug fish that had been chasing him now listing in the water. “Oh. Good job.” He muttered a lick and his current expelled the four mug fish.

  “Wait. You could’ve defeated them,” said Redcholate.

  He nodded. And when she started to protest, he said, “It’s your first test as my apprentice. You passed. So be happy.”

  She tried to hide her smile. Wait. Dolphins didn’t smile—or were they always smiling? So she grinned as much as she wanted. She’d passed the first test. Tanto’d help her find Watson’s intel. And then help her become a real forger herself. She was going to become the best forger on Bituminous Tarsi.

  “Let’s go,” said Tanto. “We gotta break into a multiplanetary conglomerate and steal some vital intel without getting scoured by spaghetti.”

  They swam toward the red orb.

  Chapter 17

  Llyl, Gallawaygg

  Date: 2419

  They arrived at the planet Gallawaygg on a cold, misty afternoon.

  “Tell me why we didn’t ask for our client to arrange for someone to meet us,” Twomanrie said as they stood in the departure lounge of their interstellar transport.

  “Because whoever she sent would tell us all about the murder,” Armintor said.

  “Precisely correct.”

  Armintor bit her lips together to hide a grin at the praise.

  “Invariably,” said Twomanrie, “we would be encumbered by that person’s preconceptions. Tell me what our mentor has to say about preconceptions,” she continued as they followed the crowd to an autopilot shuttle.

  “I never guess,” Armintor recited from their detecting manual. “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.”

  Twomanrie nodded as they crammed into the departure shuttle. “Exactly correct. Take advantage of any time you can move through a new place without listening to others’ preconceptions.”

  Again, Armintor felt a rush of pleasure at the acknowledgement. Gaining Twomanrie’s praise was the reason she studied so hard, observed so intently, and read so widely. Her mentor’s approval was the currency she dealt in.

  They sped over the short, flat marsh between the spaceport and the ocean-hugging city of Llyl. Wisps of fog gathered near the shore and hid the ocean from view. Mist-obscured, the city was barely visible through the smeared front window. The shuttle banked as the autopilot began its approach into the city. Over the heads of those standing closer to the windows, the mist-shrouded city gained definition. Buildings of buff-colored sandstone emerged from the fog. A new city. A new mystery. She’d come a long way from the Armintor who, four years ago, didn’t even know that a small yellow square expanded into a sandwich.

  Since leaving Variegor, Armintor and Twomanrie had traveled from one planet to the next, solving what the local constabularies had judged unsolvable crimes. Over the first three and a half years, Twomanrie had progressively involved Armintor in the investigations. The past four months, something had changed. Twomanrie now asked Armintor for her opinions and observations about every detail. She’d obviously reached a new level in Twomanrie’s estimation.

  The shuttle disgorged its passengers on a landing pad at the corner of the city’s central park. Armintor pressed the hoverfunction on their bags and grabbed their tethers. They walked north past the cluster of shops to the fancier hotel district.

  “We’re taking a better hotel this time,” Twomanrie said as they navigated the nearly deserted walkways. “Tell me why.”

  A skimmer passed silently overhead, momentarily shielding them from the mist.

  “Because our client isn’t the constabulary this time. She’s a wealthy woman, and she’ll judge us by where we stay.”

  Twomanrie nodded. “And how we dress, and what company we keep.”

  Heavy mist gathered upon Armintor’s shoulder-length hair, making her feel bedraggled by the time they entered the lobby of the chandeliered
and brocaded hotel. A tall, willowy, non-humanoid mecha whisked her and Twomanrie upstairs to two rooms on the next-to top floor. Armintor was fascinated by its short, multi-jointed legs and twelve toes extending in every direction from its circular feet. She wished she could take it apart and see how it worked, but she learned four years ago that if Twomanrie caught her inspecting mechas, it would mean a month’s worth of silent, profound disapproval.

  “This suite is right below the penthouse level,” the mecha said as it showed them around Twomanrie’s rooms. Once Twomanrie gestured her satisfaction, the mecha led Armintor to an almost identical suite across the hallway.

  The mecha showed her the large bed and tiny balcony, then extended a narrow look-c appendage into the bathroom. “I will have more towels sent up.” It retracted its appendage and moved to the door. “Alert staff if your needs are not being met.”

  “Can I look at your feet?” Armintor blurted.

  “Copulation mechas are available for hire via the sphere,” the mecha said.

  “No. I mean, I’m not interested in that. I just want to see how your feet work.”

  “I am not permitted to be tampered with.”

  “I won’t touch you, just look.”

  The mecha paused a moment, perhaps consulting hotel regulations. Then it said, “I must comply with all reasonable requests, and this is not on the list of unreasonable requests.”

  For a moment she felt badly at how it was forced by its programming to do what she asked, but her curiosity overcame that feeling and she knelt in front of the mecha. “Can you lift your foot?”

  The mecha lifted its left foot as far as it could off the ground, which was about a third of a meter.

  “Can all twelve of your toes articulate separately?

  “Yes.”

  “Can you show me?”

  It moved its toes in a strange undulating pattern that resembled the ambulation of an underwater creature.

  “And can you just bend all three of your—”

  “My presence is required downstairs,” the mecha said.

  “Sorry.” She stood. “Go. Thank you.”

  After the mecha departed, Armintor opened the door to the balcony. Cold air invaded the room. Even though the sun was still ostensibly in the sky, it had darkened so much the streetlights had turned on and the mist seemed to be gathering around them. She knew it was an illusion, that mist was everywhere in the air although she could only see what was illuminated by the lights. However, it seemed significant. A harbinger of things to come. As if something warned her that danger lay everywhere, though mostly out of view.

  The doorbell chime broke into her musings. She opened the door, expecting Twomanrie. Instead, a compact, four-legged mecha entered, bearing a stack of fluffy towels which it disseminated in the bathroom with spare efficiency. She watched its delicate appendages work in silence.

  After it departed, she sprawled on the reflexive cushioned bed, trying to pretend she didn’t still taste the acridity of danger in her mouth.

  Their client, a slender woman in her middle years, met them in a small meeting room on their hotel’s ground floor. She stood a few centimeters taller than Twomanrie, barely at Armintor’s breastbone. No visible hooks marred her body. Her brown hair accentuated the dark circles underneath her eyes.

  “Roxanya Sixer,” she said, inclining her head at both of them. She walked the few steps to a chair, moving like a dancer. Thin and supple, almost childlike. Quite similar to Twomanrie.

  “Ms. Sixer—”

  Their client held up one graceful hand. “Roxanya, please.”

  “Roxanya. Please tell me about the day before your husband’s death.”

  “The day of, you mean. The day of his death.”

  “No, I’m quite sure what I’m asking.”

  Armintor glanced at Twomanrie, saw the tiny smile of self-satisfaction. Her mentor wanted unrehearsed information, not rote facts chosen to convey a pre-concluded storyline. Making people talk about the day before was a good way to get them off their script.

  After a pause, Roxanya narrated her movements on the day before her husband’s death. Twomanrie leaned back against her chair’s reflexive cushioning, steepling her hands. Armintor concentrated on listening correctly, opening her mind to any crucial hints.

  “And so,” said Twomanrie, “you didn’t see each other all day?”

  “That’s right. We both had meetings all day. He’d left before I got up. We didn’t see each other until the evening meal the next day—”

  “Let’s take the days one at a time. What did you have for dinner?”

  Roxanya paused a blink’s span to access her cranial storage, then related the dishes she’d been served. She made barely any extraneous movements. No brushing a stray lock of hair aside, no shifting in her seat, no glancing around the room. She barely even blinked.

  “Would you like a drink of water?” Twomanrie asked after Roxanya had finished. When the woman shook her head, Twomanrie said, “Then let’s move on to the next day.”

  Roxanya leaned forward, eager to begin her rehearsed recitation. “Well, the first thing I need to tell—”

  “What time did you awaken in the morning?” Twomanrie interrupted.

  “Time?” Another brief pause as Roxanya again queried her OS. “Six-thirty. Local time.”

  “And what did you do upon awakening?” asked Twomanrie.

  “I had my morning coffee.”

  “Who brought you your morning coffee?”

  Roxanya gave the most miniscule of huffs. “Don’t you want to just download the recording of my day? Like the constabulary did? It will give you all this information without having to ask.”

  “Did the local constabulary download your information?”

  “Yes. Full optical hook recordings. From me, my husband, our—”

  “And did the local constabulary find anything?”

  “No.”

  “Well then. If it were that easy, I’m sure they would have. You’ve asked me here because my methods are unorthodox, so you must trust me to employ those methods.”

  After a long moment, Roxanya Sixer nodded once. “You’re right, of course.”

  “Good. Now, your morning coffee. Did a mecha bring it to you?”

  “I… well, I have a nutrition panel in my room.” As Roxanya said this, she tucked her chin slightly and looked away from Twomanrie. As if she were embarrassed. Armintor filed that fact away to try and impress Twomanrie with later.

  “All right,” said Twomanrie. “So you retrieved your own coffee. Did you hear or see anything unusual?”

  Roxanya shook her head.

  “Who was the first person you saw that morning?”

  “My maid. She helped me bathe and dress, and brought me my breakfast—”

  “She? Your maid is real-flesh?” interrupted Twomanrie.

  “Why, of course,” Roxanya said, with the disdain that could only mean, anyone can have a mecha, but only a few of us employ real-flesh maids.

  “All right. How did your maid seem that morning?”

  “Seem? She seemed like the maid.”

  “Did she say or do anything unusual? Drop something? Seem distracted? Excited?”

  “No.”

  “Consider this deeply for a moment. Any little thing, like dropping something, or stuttering, or mishearing you.”

  Roxanya started to shake her head, then paused. Armintor held her breath and watched as the woman narrowed her eyes and bowed her head slightly, obviously recalling something she hadn’t considered important until now. She finally raised her head. “She did do something odd. You just reminded me. But it wasn’t that morning. Rather, it was that morning that she didn’t do it.”

  Armintor noticed the almost imperceptible tightening of the skin around Twomanrie’s eyes. “And what was that?” Twomanrie asked.

  “Well, for the past several weeks, she has gone to the window and looked out over the street while I take my bath. She didn’t do that on the m
orning my husband… on the morning in question.”

  Twomanrie immediately moved on to the next question, not allowing Roxanya time to expand mentally on the maid’s actions, to embellish them, to assign them values that they might not hold.

  After the interview ended and Roxanya departed—in a skimmer piloted by a real-flesh chauffeur—Twomanrie stood in the hotel lobby staring outside where the skimmer had been parked. “It’s almost like living on Variegor, to be wealthy on Gallawaygg,” she said. “The fashion here is to employ real people, because they’re more expensive than mechas.”

  “But they have mechas here. So only the wealthiest employ real-flesh servants.” Armintor had to force herself not to add, Right? She knew why she constantly sought Twomanrie’s approval, because she was utterly dependent upon her mentor’s good graces. Yet she’d begun feeling more and more resentment. Twomanrie seemed to want Armintor to remain her assistant all her life.

  “Of course they use mechas here,” Twomanrie said, in that voice that meant Armintor wasn’t saying anything new, interesting, or relevant. “Even thinking mechas. They are not as erudite as Variegor, after all. But it’s quite unusual for someone of her status to have a nutrition panel in her room, and to use it herself.”

  “I noticed that she was embarrassed to tell us about it,” Redcholate blurted, before Twomanrie could rob her of that small victory. “Because they don’t want to have to do something for themselves, right? They’d rather pay someone to do it for them.” She winced as she realized she’d said right?

  Twomanrie nodded, but didn’t answer.

  They walked through the park. Tall trees, their boles fuzzed with moss and miniscule ferns, lined the park pathways. Budding leaves decorated the high, ponderous branches. Even though it wasn’t raining, the trees dropped water onto their heads. Armintor looked up at them as they passed underneath. She had a complicated relationship to trees. She loved them… and hated them. They had stolen her family, but they hadn’t meant to. And they were so beautiful.

  Twomanrie said, “Tell me what you thought of the interview.”