The Thousand Emperors fd-2

by Gary Gibson

  ‘If it were to become publicly known that the architect of the Reunification was murdered in his own home,’ said Cheng, ‘it would be a major propaganda coup for Black Lotus and their supporters, and there are still plenty of those left. I’ve already made it clear that this is unacceptable. Instead of questioning Bailey’s hard work, Zelia, perhaps you should try and find out how it is your vaunted security systems failed to prevent a lone agent, acting with the minimum of support, from entering our sanctuary and killing one of our own like a dog. If it hadn’t been for Bailey’s swift and decisive action here, Falla might have lived to do much worse things than what he so very clearly did to poor Sevgeny.’

  Luc watched de Almeida closely, noting the stricken look on her face. ‘I want to see the evidence for myself,’ she spat, but Luc could see she was shaken. ‘I have that right.’

  ‘You’ll see it,’ said Cripps, regarding her with a smile. ‘I’ll be happy to release the complete details of my investigation to you at the appropriate time.’

  she shot back.

  ‘Mr Gabion.’

  Luc started, and realized he was being addressed by Cheng.

  ‘By the looks of things,’ said Cheng, ‘your investigation has come to an end rather more swiftly than any of us might have hoped. I know it must have been difficult for you to be drawn into all of this at such short notice. You understand,’ he added, ‘that absolute discretion on your part continues to be both expected and necessary.’

  ‘I understand, Father,’ Luc replied. He felt unsure what to do next.

  Cheng scripted.

  She glanced at Luc. ‘You should go back down,’ she muttered, her tone curt. ‘Thank you for your help.’

  she added.

  ‘Father.’ Luc nodded to Cheng, and left.

  Luc waited on the street by the tower for nearly an hour. It started to rain – a thick, cold end-of-year drizzle that cascaded from the skies, painting the street with wet sheets that darkened the decaying shells of the apartment buildings around him. Police mechants came and went, still guarding Falla’s body while SecInt forensics teams carried out their work inside the tent hiding his body.

  They eventually started letting the residents of the tower back in not long after forensics wrapped up their work. Shortly after, a SecInt ambulance that had arrived while Luc was inside the building took Falla’s remains away.

  The police mechants followed the ambulance on its upwards trajectory, and soon the only company Luc had was a couple of civil-engineering mechants tasked with cleaning up whatever blood and tattered flesh hadn’t already been washed away. He retreated into a doorway to shelter from the worst of the rain still gusting down from on high, watching the skyline slowly brighten as morning drew nearer.

  Zelia appeared from out of the building entrance and came towards him, her expression bleak.

  ‘You look cold,’ she said, stepping up beside him and into the comparative shelter of the doorway. Luc could see lines of fatigue around her eyes.

  ‘You look,’ he said, ‘like you’ve been given a hard time.’

  Anger stiffened her face, and he wondered if he’d crossed a line. But then she nodded distractedly, as if acknowledging the point.

  ‘It doesn’t matter what Cheng thinks,’ she said in a monotone, staring toward the patch of pavement where Falla’s body had been. ‘He didn’t do it.’

  ‘Falla?’ Luc shook his head. ‘I don’t think so, either.’

  She regarded him coolly. ‘Explain your reasoning.’

  He shrugged. ‘I told you. I knew Falla. He’d be lucky to outsmart a paper bag. He’s no assassin.’

  ‘Not even if his hand had been forced?’ de Almeida suggested. ‘Desperate people do desperate things, under the right circumstances.’

  ‘Falla had no family after the Battle of Sunderland, and no real friends either – certainly no one who could be used as leverage to force him to do something like that. He was barely any use as an informant, and not much use for anything else.’ Luc shook his head. ‘Try as I might, I can’t picture him as some kind of stealthy killer, finding his way through the White Palace, then flying halfway across Vanaheim in order to slaughter a Councillor in his own home. It just doesn’t compute.’

  ‘Not even with Black Lotus’s resources to help him?’

  ‘But that’s just it,’ said Luc. ‘Apart from that CogNet piece you produced back up there, I’ve not seen any evidence of him having access to any such resources. There’s no evidence he even had so much as a weapon in his possession.’ He let out a sigh. ‘The whole thing feels . . .’

  ‘Like a set-up,’ she finished for him. ‘Frankly, I’m inclined to agree. With that in mind, I want you to take another look at Falla’s CogNet piece.’

  Luc stared at her. ‘You stole it?’

  She sighed irritably. ‘No. It’s been taken along with everything else as evidence.’

  ‘Then how can I—’

  ‘I copied its complete contents to my lattice – all the data and hacks Falla supposedly used to pass through the Hall of Gates without being detected.’

  Luc looked at her, surprised. ‘That could get you into a lot of trouble if Cheng found out,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Then let’s make sure he doesn’t,’ she said, a hint of steel in her voice.

  ‘So why don’t you think Falla did it?’ he asked.

  ‘For the same reasons as before. Even though Cripps insists on telling Father Cheng there’s some flaw in Vanaheim’s security networks, I can assure you there is no such flaw.’

  ‘I remember you said that before, but it’s starting to look like—’

  ‘What you don’t know,’ she said, interrupting him, ‘is that every one of the Eighty-Five, Cripps included, has override privileges for those networks.’

  Luc ducked his head back in surprise. ‘You mean . . .’

  ‘I could never say it in front of Father Cheng or Cripps, but the more time passes, the more convinced I am that it had to be someone from amongst the Eighty-Five who killed Vasili.’

  ‘And the rest of the Council? What about them?’

  ‘I think we’ll soon be able to rule pretty much all of them out.’ She laughed softly, her expression suddenly bleak. ‘Not that I’m crazy enough to say so to Father Cheng’s face.’

  ‘If that’s the case, then is it possible one of them could have used those overrides to sneak Falla through the Hall of Gates, then had him carry out the murder on their behalf?’

  She gave a tired shrug. ‘Like you said yourself, he’s not exactly anyone’s first choice for a deadly assassin.’

  ‘But surely having such override privileges defeats the point of even having the security networks?’

  ‘Power has its own privileges, Mr Gabion. Most of the Eighty-Five prefer to keep their movements entirely private, even from the greater part of the Temur Council. Any one of them could have covered their tracks if they were of a mind to frame Falla – or commit murder.’

  ‘So all this time you had your suspicions? Why didn’t you say anything before?’

  ‘Because I don’t want to make an enemy of the most powerful men and women in the whole of the Tian Di. It might be one of them, or several of them, or for all I know they all had a hand in Vasili’s murder.’ She shrugged. ‘It would be tantamount to suicide to accuse them, collectively or individually, without rock-solid, unassailable proof.’

  Luc stared at her, scandalized. ‘Surely you can’t be the only one in the Council who came to this conclusion?’

  ‘If any of them did,’ she said, ‘they’re keeping their mouths shut and waiting to see how things develop.’

  Luc licked dry lips and tried to ignore the thumping of his heart. ‘They
’re not the only ones who can override Vanaheim’s security,’ he pointed out.

  She smirked. ‘You still haven’t ruled me out as a suspect, have you?’

  ‘No,’ Luc admitted. ‘Even if I wanted to, how could I? The circumstantial evidence against you is still strong.’

  ‘Why,’ she asked, ‘would I get you to carry out this investigation, if I’d killed Sevgeny myself?’

  ‘To try and make yourself look less guilty,’ he replied. He nodded towards the tower. ‘The question is, what can I do now? Cheng just said the investigation is over, and . . . I still have this thing squatting inside my skull.’

  De Almeida shook her head, keeping her eyes fixed on Luc. ‘I told you I’d do what I could to help retard its growth, didn’t I? And as for the investigation, it isn’t finished until I say it is.’

  ‘If Father Cheng doesn’t want me on Vanaheim, I’m not sure just what you expect me to do,’ Luc protested.

  ‘I run the security networks, remember? I can get you onto Vanaheim without anyone else knowing.’

  He stared at her. ‘Do you realize what you just said?’

  She nodded stiffly. ‘Of course I do. And yes, I could easily have delivered Reto Falla to Vanaheim without Cheng or anyone else knowing – but I didn’t.’ She paused, her gaze flickering across his face. ‘Why don’t you put your fabulous gut instinct to work and tell me if you really think I had something to do with it?’

  Luc sighed. ‘No, I don’t think you did.’

  She arched her head. ‘Why not?’

  He hesitated, wondering just how much he really did trust his instinct. ‘Because you don’t act like guilty people usually do,’ he explained. ‘Now I’ve got a question for you.’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘I don’t get it. Why do you still need me? Surely if you want to carry out some private investigation behind Father Cheng’s back, you could do it yourself.’

  ‘Why are you so desperate to get out of this?’ she demanded. ‘Don’t you want me to fix that thing in your head before it kills you?’

  He felt like a butterfly squirming as it was pinned to a board. ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘There are places that I may ask you to go, and people I may ask you to speak to, that might present me with problems if I tried to do it myself.’

  ‘What people? What places?’

  She smiled enigmatically. ‘The less you know for now, the better. There’ll be a funeral service on Vanaheim for Sevgeny tomorrow, and I want you to be there.’

  Luc glanced in the direction of the White Palace, mostly obscured by a tower on the opposite side of the street. ‘If Cheng or Cripps found out, they’d have me killed.’

  She nodded. ‘For now, you’ll data-ghost through one of my private channels. That way I can make absolutely sure no one finds out you’re there, although you should still be able to communicate with me in secret.’

  Luc winced as the street lights became suddenly brighter. He pressed his fingers against his eyes and stared down at the ground.

  ‘Mr Gabion?’

  ‘I . . .’

  A high-pitched humming filled his ears. He thought he heard a voice, but far away, and lost in the noise. There was something familiar about it. He staggered slightly as a terrible, throbbing pain consumed his thoughts.

  ‘Gabion? What is it?’ demanded de Almeida. ‘Another seizure?’

  He managed to nod, and she reached up with her other hand, pressing gloved fingers against his scalp. Her touch was softer, more delicate than he’d expected. She was close enough that he could smell her, and for some reason he found himself thinking of Eleanor spread beneath him, her skin painted with perspiration.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he mumbled.

  ‘Pulling data from the neural taps I put in your skull the other day,’ she said distractedly. ‘The growth-rate of your lattice is accelerating.’

  Shit. ‘Can you do something?’ he pleaded, feeling a surge of panic.

  ‘I can only do my best,’ she muttered, and after a moment the pain slowly faded once more to a distant numbness. The relief was overwhelming.

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I made some temporary adjustments,’ she said, taking her hand from his scalp and stepping back. ‘Better?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Now you have another reason to come back to Vanaheim. While you’re there, I can do more to help you.’

  ‘Not if I’m only there as a data-ghost.’

  ‘That’s only a temporary measure,’ she assured him. ‘I’ll bring you there in person soon enough.’

  Even if you didn’t kill Vasili, I can’t think of anyone in a better position to do it, he thought.

  He glanced up at a faint hum from above, and watched as a flier dropped down from out of the gloom, settling onto the road nearby.

  ‘I’ll send a flier for you tomorrow, just before the service,’ she said. ‘It’ll take you to a private office on the White Palace. Once there, you’ll be able to data-ghost to Vanaheim.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Luc, and watched as de Almeida walked away, her long, dark coat swaying with the movement of her hips as she boarded the flier. His eyes followed the craft as it lifted on AG fields that bowed the rain around its hull before finally speeding upwards and into the sky.

  NINE

  Luc dreamed he was back on Aeschere, lost in claustrophobic passageways crowded with mandalas and leering statues.

  This isn’t real, he gasped as Antonov leaned over him, playing with the wriggling worm-like mechant.

  Very astute, Antonov replied, grinning down at him. You’ve met Zelia by now, haven’t you? Be careful of that one.

  Luc struggled to free himself from the chair he had been bound to. Don’t do this to me, he cried. I can’t go through this again.

  I wish I could stop this, Mr Gabion, said Antonov, shaking his head sadly, I really do. But this isn’t the kind of dream where you can pinch yourself and wake up; you know that already. You’re reliving all this because there’s a war inside your skull, and I’m winning.

  No. Zelia de Almeida is helping me. She’ll undo whatever damage you’ve done to me.

  The neuro-suppressants she put inside you? They only suppress your conscious awareness of a process that can’t be stopped. Didn’t she tell you that?

  She told me she could save me!

  Antonov laughed a rich, hearty laugh, leaning back and raising his face to the ceiling. She’s bluffing, he said, bringing his gaze back down. Or maybe she thinks she really can retard the lattice’s growth, but I seriously doubt it. What I put inside your head is far in advance of the kind of technology even the Temur Council allow themselves. No, my dear boy, she’s more interested in saving her own skin than anything else. At best, you’re a puzzle to be unlocked, so she can find out what I’m really up to.

  Then why not just tell me why you put this thing inside me, damn it! Luc screamed.

  Because we are engaged in a game, Luc – and a very dangerous one, Antonov replied. And it is never a good idea to show one’s hand too soon.

  You’re killing me because I found a way to stop you.

  Antonov looked confused for a moment. You think this is about revenge? He shook his head. I’m saving your life, and mine as well.

  How in hell do you figure that out?

  When you found me, I had no access to my backups, no other way to preserve at least some of my thoughts and memories. What you see before you is all that’s left of me.

  Luc listened, thunderstruck.

  You did a better job than you realized, the dead man continued. I had cached backups, of course, but SecInt, thanks to its temporary truce with Sandoz, managed to locate nearly all of them – and every last one of them auto-destructed before it could be interrogated. He clasped one hand to his injured chest. But this part of me, mere shadow of my former self that it is that now resides inside you, is enough to finish the task ahead.

  He leaned in close to Luc. Speak to the Ambassador, Luc.
With his help, we will both be reborn, and a terrible calamity will be prevented.

  What Ambassador? What—

  Luc woke with a start and jerked upright, lungs heavy and aching in his chest. He was back home again.

  For all he knew, the dream he had just experienced was at best an elaborate fantasy formed from his own fears and desires – at worst, a sign of incipient madness, triggered by the lattice as it grew in complexity and reach.

  But he knew better. Whatever Antonov had done to him, it had been done for a reason. Some part of the dead man, some shadow-aspect, was alive and well inside his skull, drawing out the agony and drip-feeding him whatever tantalizing scraps of information it could use to make him dance to any tune but his own.

  Speak to the Ambassador. Luc had no idea which Ambassador Antonov might have been referring to.

  Every world of the Tian Di but Vanaheim had embassies, but they meant little in this age of instantaneous travel across the light-years. Mostly, the title ‘Ambassador’ was an honorary role given to those who’d served the Temur Council with distinction. They could have told Luc he was an Ambassador as his reward for Aeschere, and it wouldn’t have meant a damn thing.

  He searched the public and secure databases for information on planetary ambassadors currently resident on Temur while he dressed and breakfasted. He vaguely recognized some of the names, but could find no immediately obvious link to Vasili or to de Almeida or anyone else – nothing that might make sense of what the dream-Antonov had said to him.

  Glancing in a mirror, he frowned, then stepped closer. His CogNet earpiece had turned dark, an indicator that it had failed in some way and needed to be replaced.

  He carefully removed it and looked down at it in the palm of his hand. It was tiny, the kind of thing that was easily lost, but as easily replaced at virtually no cost. The technology was entirely ubiquitous, the kind of thing you grew up around without ever really being aware of how badly you needed it until it was gone.

  Except there had been no break in service during his search of several different databases, despite his CogNet earpiece’s terminal failure. Antonov’s lattice, he realized with a chill, had seamlessly taken over from it without his even noticing.