Rath's Deception (The Janus Group Book 1)

by Piers Platt

  “Damn it. Okay, thanks, Dugar.” He turned back to the tech monitoring the screen. “Show us the feed one more time.”

  “Yes, sir. You want me to go all the way back to her fiftieth kill?”

  “No, start when she meets the Collection Team.”

  They watched in silence for a time. Then the feed cut out.

  “That’s the EMP grenade she triggered,” the tech said.

  “Uh huh,” Altaras said. “Fast forward to her next transmission.”

  The static on the screen blurred, then after a few minutes, it was replaced by blackness.

  “Nothing,” the tech said. “We get biometric data, but no audio or visual. And it stays that way for over an hour, until we lose her again for good.”

  “Maybe she’s wearing a helmet, or a blindfold and ear plugs?” Dugar guessed.

  Altaras frowned. “What are you up to, 339?”

  “Sir!” a tech across the room had stood at his desk. “We’ve got security footage of the collection site now. Sending it to your station.”

  The supervisor’s breath caught in his throat. “Holy shit.”

  “Well,” Dugar noted drily, “that explains why we’re not getting any bio readings on the Collection Team anymore.”

  Altaras ignored her. “Pan up,” he told the tech. “No, there – on the wall. Is that writing?”

  “Yes,” the tech said, flipping briefly to ultraviolet. “In blood.”

  “We’re losing her feed again,” another tech warned.

  “EMP?”

  “No – gradual loss of signal, consistent with a faster-than-light jump,” the tech answered.

  “Fuck me,” Altaras said. “She’s out of system already. And she did it completely blind and deaf.”

  The female supervisor shook her head quietly. “The director is going to have a shit fit over this,” she warned.

  “How did she know?” the tech asked.

  “That’s exactly what the director is going to ask,” Altaras responded. He tapped the screen, where the words NOW WE’RE EVEN appeared in bloody brush-strokes across the wall. “Send a screenshot to my datascroll. I gotta take this to the director right now.”

  * * *

  On the fifth day of the space journey, Rath woke up in the great white bed in the simulated apartment, and rolled over to find Rebecca still asleep. He was still tired, as always, but for the fourth straight night, his sleep had been untroubled by dreams, and the jury-rigged hemobot process had again kept deep sleep at bay. Rath yawned, and slipped his hand under the covers, stroking Rebecca’s back idly. When she slept on, he grinned and slipped his head under the covers, kissing his way down her back and past it, along the curve of her bottom. She moaned softly, and shifted her legs, arching her back. After a while, he threw the covers off and rolled her onto her back, kneeling between her legs. She smiled up at him sleepily.

  “Good morning, baby,” she said.

  He grunted and took hold of her thighs, holding her legs wide as she guided him into her. He was building to his climax when he glanced down at her right leg. Her foot was gone, and her leg was disappearing, pixel by pixel, from the ankle joint upwards. He could see the sinews, muscle, and bone within as the layers were stripped invisibly away. Rath screamed and scrambled back off the bed.

  “What’s the matter?” Rebecca asked, concern on her face.

  “Your leg!” Rath pointed. “Why did you do that to your leg?”

  “I didn’t do anything. Nothing’s wrong with my leg!” She stood on the bed to show him.

  But Rath was looking behind her at the vast picture window overlooking the city. The window panes had turned opaque, and as he watched, Vonn appeared onscreen, kneeling, his eyes closed. Conroy appeared onscreen and wrapped a climbing rope around Vonn’s neck, grinning.

  “Terminate simulation!” Rath shouted. The apartment disappeared, revealing his cabin. Rath tore off his simulator mask and took several deep breaths, trying to collect himself. He stumbled into the bathroom, splashed cold water on his face, and then drank deeply from a bottle of water. When he stepped out of the bathroom, toweling off his face, his eye was drawn to the floor. There, a large pool of blood was slowly spreading across the carpet. Rath patted himself down, wide-eyed, but he could find no wound. His eyes traced backwards along the pool as it spread, and he found the source: the Forge was rhythmically pumping blood out its seams. Rath threw the towel over it and ran out the door, still in his simulator suit.

  Doctor Kleiner was tending to another patient in a curtained-off bay when Rath arrived, so he stood at the reception desk, fingers tapping nervously on the counter as he waited. He closed his eyes after a minute, hoping to keep the visions at bay.

  “Can I help you? Ah, I didn’t recognize you in the sim-suit, how are you, my friend?” Rath opened his eyes and saw Kleiner smiling at him, stripping off a pair of surgical gloves.

  “I’m seeing things,” Rath told him.

  Kleiner gave him a look of concern, and ushered him to a gurney. As they passed the curtained-off bay, Rath caught a glimpse of the patient inside. He could have sworn it was his mother. He shook his head, rubbing his eyes with both hands.

  “Tell me more,” Kleiner ordered, when Rath was lying on the bed.

  “My job requires me to have hemobots, so I used them to prevent myself from going into REM sleep for the past few nights,” Rath told him. Kleiner showed surprise at the hemobots, but placed a handheld sensor against the inside of Rath’s wrist as he listened. “This morning when I woke up, I started seeing things. I was in the simulator, so at first I thought it was just a bug in the programming, but I saw things when I terminated the simulation, too.” Rath glanced over at the other bay.

  Kleiner shook his head. “I wish you had told me you were going to do that,” he told Rath. “I could have warned you this was likely to happen. Our brains need REM sleep to stay healthy; it’s kind of an outlet valve for our subconscious. When you block off that valve, things pile up in there, and waking hallucinations are a frequent result.”

  “How do I make them stop?” Rath asked.

  “Sleep,” Kleiner replied, simply. “Normal sleep, with REM cycles and dreams.”

  Rath sighed and put his head back on the pillow. “Nightmares, you mean.”

  “Perhaps,” Kleiner allowed. He took the sensor away from Rath’s wrist. “You’re in serious sleep deficit right now, so here’s what we’re going to do: I’m going to keep you here for the next twelve hours or so. I’m going to give you a couple different drugs – a sedative to help you fall asleep now, and an anti-depressant that might … mellow out your dreams a little. I need you to tell your hemobots not to neutralize those drugs, and to let you go into REM sleep.”

  Kleiner walked over to a medicine cabinet and took several pills from it, which he gave to Rath, along with a cup of water. Sleep came soon afterwards, and his dreams returned. They were vivid and disturbing, but whether it was because of his exhaustion or the cumulative effect of the drugs, Rath slept for a solid fourteen hours before he woke.

  18

  The cursor blinked at him expectantly. Ashish tried typing another title: “Wannabe Guildsman Looking for Advice from Pros: How do I Make it to 50 Kills?” He wrinkled his nose and deleted it. He rubbed his forehead and stared at the screen some more. Then he smiled, and typed: “In This Thread: We Prove the Guild Exists.” He hit Post, and waited while the AnonChat forum moderators approved the new topic.

  In the first message in the thread, using the screen name Amateur Conspiracy Theorist, he typed the following: “Had some encounters with the Guild and looking to expand my knowledge of how this shadowy organization works. Any guildsmen out there care to share their stories? Especially interested in those who made it to 50 and got the big payout, what has life been like before/after? Send me a private message with details of how you were recruited so I can confirm you are legit.”

  Ashish moved on to a separate article he was writing about a new movie schedule
d for release, and when he checked the thread several hours later, a lively debate was going on about the existence of the Guild. The general sentiment seemed to lean toward skepticism. He switched to his private inbox, where seven messages were waiting for him.

  StoneColdKilla: “I was recruited straight out of basic training in the Territories. They sent me to special operations training, then I signed the contract. Haven’t made it to fifty yet, but I can tell you about the kills I’ve made so far.”

  EpicApocalypse: “Got booked for murder, judge let me choose jail time or Guild training. What info you got?”

  somewhat_biased: “For $500 I can give you the phone number of a guy in the Guild I hired.”

  The others were similar. Deleted, Ashish thought, sighing. You knew it was a long shot, though. Wait it out, it might still bear fruit. He went back to the main discussion thread, and posted a new message: “For those keeping track, I have had seven replies to my request, six of whom were posers, one of whom was a troll. Come on AnonChat, you can do better.”

  * * *

  Ashish arrived at the diner fifteen minutes early, selected a table, and ordered himself a mug of coffee. It was one of those retro diners, a throw-back to the pre-Colonial Earth days, when such restaurants had been made out of converted rail cars, with green vinyl seats and polished chrome everywhere. The waitress brought him a menu and set a carafe of coffee on the table.

  “I always know it’s a good diner when the waitress leaves the coffee at the table,” he told her.

  She gave him a smile. “Anything to eat?”

  “Yeah, but I’ll wait until my friend gets here,” he decided.

  “Sure,” she said.

  He recognized Martin Beauceron when the man walked through the door – he was shorter and a bit more overweight than the photos online had suggested. Despite the early hour, he looked alert. Ashish slid out of the booth and stood, waving. Beauceron walked over.

  “Ashish Mehta,” Ashish said. “Thank you for coming.”

  Beauceron shook his hand. “Mm. Nice to meet you,” he said, with little conviction.

  They sat, and the waitress came back over. Beauceron ordered an oatmeal and orange juice, Ashish a plate of eggs, toast, and hash browns.

  “You’re not vegan?” Beauceron asked.

  “Ah … no.” Ashish smiled. “We’ve let the old ways slip a bit in my house. I have a soft spot for beef especially, I’m afraid.”

  “There aren’t many people who follow pre-Colonial customs these days.” Beauceron shifted in his seat, and cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, but I’ve never really been comfortable talking to the press. The media on Alberon had very few kind things to say about me when news of my encounter broke years ago.”

  “I read the articles,” Ashish said. “I know. And I appreciate you making an exception for me.”

  Beauceron nodded. “Anyone who flies all the way from Juntland just to talk deserves a little of my time. I’m willing to hear what you have to say, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to reciprocate. And nothing of this conversation gets published.”

  “I get it. This is just two guys, both searching for the same answers, sharing what we’ve found so far. Completely off the record, never to be quoted, scout’s honor.”

  Beauceron eyed the journalist, studying his face.

  “Look at it from my perspective, Detective,” Ashish continued. “How many editors are going to pick up my story when they hear my credible source is a disgraced detective? No offense meant.”

  Their food arrived, and Beauceron took a sip of his juice.

  “I’m sorry, that came out a bit harsher than I intended it to,” Ashish said.

  “No,” Beauceron finally said, “it’s true enough. I’ve learned to develop a thick skin.”

  “I’m not sure it is true – if you were the problem child they made you out to be, I wouldn’t have called you. That one incident aside, I looked you up: you’ve cleared more cases than any other detective on all of Alberon. I called the District Attorney’s office, they love you – apparently the cases you pass them are nearly always slam-dunk convictions.”

  “So?” Beauceron asked.

  “So, I’m just saying – prosecutors generally aren’t very complimentary of the detectives they work with, at least in my experience. And it suggests to me that there’s more to your story than a lapse in judgment. It reeks of a police whitewashing – you just took the fall.”

  Beauceron shook his head. “No, we have to own our mistakes – it’s the only way to improve.”

  “Fair enough … just be sure they are your mistakes, and not someone else’s,” Ashish said. “What would you say if I told you I have proof the Guild has agents within the Interstellar Police force on Juntland?”

  Beauceron cocked an eyebrow. “I’d say it would confirm a suspicion we’ve had for some time. What proof?”

  “I followed an off-duty cop as he shepherded a kid through the recruitment process for the Guild, and looked up his license plate afterwards. That would certainly help explain why you guys haven’t made significant progress against the Guild, wouldn’t it? How do you know one of those agents wasn’t at your station that day the guildsman escaped?” Ashish asked.

  Beauceron was quiet, stirring his oatmeal.

  Ashish tried a different tack. “Let’s table that for now. Why don’t I share with you what I’ve learned so far, so you can see I’m serious about this?”

  “Okay,” Beauceron said.

  “This Guild story has become something of a hobby for me,” Ashish began. “I actually started investigating it several years back, but progress has been … slow. I’m coming to you because I’m out of leads. But here’s what I’ve found so far.”

  Ashish started with Jordi’s recruitment and Furene’s murder. After a minute, Beauceron set down his spoon and took out his notepad and pencil.

  “Do you mind?” he asked.

  “No, not at all. I haven’t seen someone using real paper in ages.”

  “Helps me think,” Beauceron told him.

  Ashish shrugged and moved on to the subject of the mobile kitchens.

  “… so I followed the kid through security and onto the shuttle. At the orbital transfer station, she went to the cargo area, and boarded a vessel called the Supra II, heading for a deep-space asteroid mining facility. The Supra II doesn’t exist in any of the ship registries I checked – so either it was removed from a registry, or the transfer station’s records were hacked somewhere along the line. That leaves no way of finding out who owns or operates it. And of course, when I called the asteroid mining facility, they told me they only get inbound ships once every three months, and weren’t expecting the next ship for another fifty days.”

  “Dead end,” Beauceron commented. “You’d have to get a location transponder on the ship’s hull, but they probably scan for them before launch.”

  “I also don’t happen to have any interplanetary transponders just lying around the house, unfortunately.” Ashish smiled. “But couldn’t you just get an undercover cop to pose as a recruit, pass the tests, and send him on board the ship to report back to you?”

  Beauceron shook his head. “No.”

  Ashish waited for him to continue. Finally, he asked, “… why not?”

  Beauceron took a deep breath, and appeared to reach a decision. “Almost fifty years ago, Interstellar Police arrested a social worker for selling narcotics to minors. He made a deal with the prosecutor, claiming to have information about the Guild. He was a recruiter, like the people you followed – he earned a small cash bonus from every recruit that passed the initial tests, and a cut of the money from every kill his recruits went on to make. There were only two specific rules that the Guild had for who he could recruit: they had to be orphans, and they had to be minors.”

  “Minors? Under eighteen? Oh, because you have to be eighteen to join the Interstellar Police,” Ashish said.

  “No exceptions,” Beauceron agreed. “So we can nev
er send an agent in undercover as a recruit – they verify their age via chromosome testing.”

  “So you guys already knew about the mobile kitchens?” Ashish asked.

  “No … that recruiter claimed that the Guild used safehouses to do their testing.”

  “He lied?” Ashish asked.

  “Possibly. I think he told us the truth, and the Guild simply changed their tactics after his capture. Interstellar Police searched several locations he gave us: they were abandoned, but they found some evidence that the testing may have taken place there.”

  “They knew you arrested him?”

  “Yes,” Beauceron said. “They knew he flipped on them. The police found him dead in his holding cell less than a day after he signed the deal.” He took a sip of his juice, and glanced down at his notes. “These mobile kitchens where they do the testing: you think there’s one on every planet?”

  “I don’t know,” Ashish admitted. “Maybe. Can you launch your own investigation?”

  Beauceron shook his head. “No, I’m Homicide, not Organized Crime. And frankly, the Organized Crime Division on Alberon isn’t going to pay much attention to me if I tell them about this. Can you tell the Interstellar Police on Juntland?”

  “Sure, just tell me which cop I can trust,” Ashish grimaced. “Detective, I was scared to even tell you about this. That’s partly why I haven’t made more progress on this story – I’m scared what I might find out.”

  Beauceron tapped his pen on the notepad, thinking. “I can file a report with my division chief. If it comes from him, the Organized Crime Division will probably listen. Have you found anything else?”

  Ashish shrugged. “No, honestly. A couple weeks back I put out a call on the web, I wanted to see if there were any real guildsmen out there who would be willing to chat. So far none have responded.”

  “You posted that publicly?” Beauceron asked, frowning.

  “Well, yeah – how else was I going to get people to see it?”

  “Why do you want to talk to a guildsman?”