Overhead, he saw some flittabats, keeping pace with the brightly colored humans. Flittabats were tiny and hard to see when they weren’t flying in a pack.
Flint mentioned them as he stepped through the first security portal, and the officer—someone he didn’t know (there were a lot he didn’t know, now that he’d been away from Space Traffic for years)—glanced up, looking surprised.
So many ways to circumvent the security in the Port. So many ways to infiltrate the Dome.
So many ways to cause a crisis.
Yet there wasn’t one.
Except maybe for him.
Once he got past the three security barriers, the crowds lessened. A few people sat at the café, eating sandwiches made with real ingredients, and drinking real coffee. The smell made his stomach rumble, but he didn’t stop.
He hurried into the docks and ran for his yacht’s berth.
He hadn’t read Rhonda’s police file. He wasn’t sure if she was still on Callisto—just because he’d seen a few other things that said so, didn’t make it so.
Which meant he had to be there before Oberholst left.
Oberholst had retired. What caused him to leave Armstrong in such a rush?
Flint reached the ship, short of breath. He’d been running faster than he’d realized, and was probably on all the security cameras inside the Port. People in Space Traffic and in Port Security were probably staring at him through those monitors, wondering what he was up to now.
He almost turned and waved.
Instead, he pressed his hand on the side of the yacht, and the stairs came down. He hurried up, let the yacht identify him through an eye scan and a secondary DNA scan, then stepped inside.
The airlock smelled musty, even though he’d only been gone a few days. The exterior door shut behind him, and even though he was in the Port, the interior door remained closed for the minimum thirty-second security procedure.
He used that time to catch his breath.
This could be for nothing. He might get to Callisto, find out that Rhonda was having a problem with her job that she wanted Oberholst to handle or an inheritance that Flint didn’t know about or something mundane.
Then she and Oberholst would think Flint was being ridiculous.
Maybe he was. But Rhonda would want to know about the interest the Gyonnese lawyers had in her old case; she’d want to know that files – updated files—existed on her and Emmeline.
She’d worry, too.
The interior door opened. He stepped inside, and didn’t feel safe until the interior door closed.
Odd that he even thought of feeling safe. He hadn’t realized he felt threatened until he came to the only home he really had.
He made sure all the systems were in order, then he went to the cockpit. It looked untouched, but he was paranoid enough to run a diagnostic before he started the departure procedure.
Nothing. No one had even been near the Emmeline since he’d left her.
He let out a small sigh. Just because things had changed for him didn’t mean they had changed for anyone else. He simply had more questions than he’d had a few days ago. Nothing more.
Even though it felt like more.
He felt as young and naïve and scared as he had felt when Emmeline died. He needed to calm down. He needed to gather himself, and become the man who had opened his own business, retrieving Disappeareds.
He had to think clearly, or he would do no good at all.
He would use the journey to calm himself.
He would also look at the files he’d taken on Rhonda.
He would be prepared—not panicked.
So that he could listen.
So that he could learn what really happened to his family all those years ago.
Forty-three
Valhalla Basin’s Silver Sunshine Hotel was the most luxurious place Celestine Gonzalez had ever seen. It rose sixteen stories and kissed the top of the Dome. It seemed to be made of the same material as the Dome, but when the Dome changed color—as domes always did—the Silver Sunshine reflected the change in its silver sides.
It looked like a silvery mirror image of a sunset or a bright sunny day or a dark night with nothing but the looming presence of Jupiter above them.
Gonzalez had taken a cab to the hotel instead of calling the car Oberholst had hired. The cab driver was personable when he found out she wasn’t from Valhalla Basin. At first, he thought she was a new hire at Aleyd. When he learned she wasn’t, he thought she was here to do business with them.
Technically, she supposed, she was. She was going to fight them inside Valhalla Basin’s legal system, and if they fought hard, they would generate a lot of business for her.
But she had corrected him on that, too. She was here in a legal capacity, she said, and only for a few days. And that was when he started talking about the Dome.
He opened the roof of his cab so she could see it, how it turned from Dome Daylight to Dome Twilight to Dome Night, just like Armstrong’s Dome. Then he explained how the Dome would sometimes turn random colors, like it did a few days ago when it went from lavender to dark purple throughout a twenty-four-hour Earth Day.
He loved that as much as he loved Jupiter, which sometimes hung so close, he said, that it dominated the entire skyline. During those times, the Dome was often clear, so all Valhalla Basin’s residents had to do was look up and see the reds and oranges and browns, as beautiful as if some painter had designed them for the Dome Show, held every October.
He pointed out the highlights of the city—their corporate museum, filled with art from all Aleyd’s projects; their historical section; and, of course, Aleyd’s headquarters, which filled the city center.
As the cab pulled into the docking ring on the middle story of the Silver Sunshine Hotel, she asked the driver how it felt to be a non-Aleyd employee in a company town.
“You got it wrong, ma’am,” the driver said politely. “I don’t own the cab. Aleyd does. Technically, I work for them.”
She still had to pay him—not nearly as much as she would have paid for a comparable ride in Armstrong—but after his confession that he worked for Aleyd, she resented the payment. Still, she smiled at him and thanked him, and got out with her single bag and the extra information chips Zagrando had slipped her just before she left.
Then she walked into the Silver Sunshine.
The lobby extended as far as she could see. An atrium rose several stories above the entrance floor (which was, she guessed, the sixth). The atrium was shaped like the Dome, and she had a hunch it, too, mimicked the Dome’s changes. It felt like she was inside a mini dome, only one that came with exotic plants that seemed to be made of every single color she could imagine and furniture that cost more than her home.
A ʼbot made of plastic so clear that she could see its inner workings took her bag. As the ʼbot passed the bellman’s desk, the thing’s plastic reflected the pinks and blues of nearby plants. If it wanted to—or if someone wanted it to—that ʼbot could blend in anywhere.
For some reason, the thought made her shudder.
She checked in at the front desk, got a code for her room—which was on the fifteenth floor, one below Oberholst—and looked around for stairs or an elevator. Instead, a clear platform floated toward her, and when it reached her, four stairs attached it to the floor. A chair rose out of the middle of the platform, and one of those genderless digital voices bid her make herself comfortable.
She wanted to walk to the room herself, but the hotel didn’t seem to allow it. She wondered what they did in cases of emergency—sent floating platforms to every single room, flying out the windows so that the guests could escape?
After a moment’s hesitation, she climbed the stairs and sat down. The chair was surprisingly comfortable, but it molded around her body, holding her in place as the platform flew to the top of the atrium and then across an open balcony to a glass column.
She could see her own reflection in the column and she tensed, wonde
ring if sensors in the platform had malfunctioned. Then, at the last moment, the glass column slid open, the platform flew inside, and the column closed.
The platform rose quickly, like the best elevator, and exited the way it came in, only into a wide hallway that seemed to have only one door—hers.
She pressed her hand against the door, then slid her fingers across the bar where she had to enter the code. The platform let her down and flew away before the door ever called for the code.
Once she tapped it in, the door swung open on its own.
As she stepped inside, another digital voice told her the room’s amenities. She wasn’t really in a room, per se; she actually had an entire wing of this floor all to herself. A large spiral staircase in the center of what the digital voice called the living room connected her suite to Oberholst’s. She was told to join him as soon as she got settled.
It would take her a while to settle. She needed a shower and something to eat after that stressful session. She also needed to check on the motions she’d made.
She’d filed before she left the police station. She demanded the release of the Shindo’s house, and she asked for temporary guardianship of Talia until Talia’s mother could be found. Zagrando testified that a temporary guardian would be the best for the girl and for the investigation, and he also stated that the guardian should be someone the girl knew.
Talia really didn’t know Gonzalez, not in the way Zagrando had meant, but it didn’t matter. The real point of Zagrando’s testimony was to prevent Aleyd from trying that custody move all over again.
Gonzalez found the oversized bathroom—which was big enough to fit her entire apartment inside—and took a long, hot shower. She checked on the motions while the shower added lavender body wash into the cycle, and as the bathroom itself notified her that it was going to clean and press her clothing, offering to find her something else from her bag or the store in their lobby, while she dried off.
She opted for clothing from her bag. It might be prudent to get clothing from the lobby eventually, so that she looked the part of a Valhalla Basin attorney, but she wasn’t ready to make that leap yet.
She hoped she never would.
Her motions were progressing. No one opposed the release of the house. She was informed that Talia could return the moment her guardianship was confirmed. But the house wouldn’t be released until the guardianship issue was settled and, as both Talia and Zagrando predicted, that would take time.
Her blue suit with its pencil skirt and combination blouse/jacket waited for her on a peg, along with the necessary undergarments. For some reason, having a machine choose her undergarments embarrassed her. She would never have allowed a living valet to touch her personal things; yet this place—this place that cocooned her (and was probably connected to Aleyd)—had gone through everything she owned.
She wondered if she had any confidential materials in her bag, then remembered she had left too quickly for that.
She slipped on the clothing, found the matching shoes that the room wasn’t smart enough to add to the outfit, and ran her fingers through her damp hair. She looked presentable enough, and she felt a great deal better.
As she walked to the stairs, a tray appeared with bottled Earth water and a real apple. She took both, then climbed to Oberholst’s suite.
She’d been instructed to inform the door who she was when she reached the landing at the top of the stairs, but she didn’t have to. The door swung open.
Oberholst sat in the center of another atriumlike room; only its ceiling (she guessed) was part of the Dome itself. It felt like she was outside, sitting as close to the top of the Dome as possible, with only a thin layer of clear material between her and the emptiness of Callisto.
“Took you long enough.” He had his feet on a glass coffee table, and in his right hand, he held a silver drink that sent silver bubbles into the air.
“That’s not a child,” Gonzalez said. “Talia Shindo is a teenage girl, and she’s brilliant.”
As Gonzalez spoke, two assistants left the room. She hadn’t even noticed them as she came in, even though she knew she had traveled to Callisto with an entire legal team.
Apparently, Oberholst had sent them a message along their links to give him and Gonzalez some privacy.
“Is the girl going to be a problem?”
“She’s an asset if we remember how smart she is, and how young. The problem is that Aleyd wants her.”
“I saw your motion.” He actually sipped from that thing. Bubbles rose around his face, framing it, before they slipped away from him. “Aleyd just countered.”
“Great.” Gonzalez sighed. It had already been a long day, and it was about to get longer. “Mind if I sit?”
“Eat the apple, drink the water,” he said as if he’d provided them. “Then we’ll order something exotic for dinner and set the team to work.”
Gonzalez took a bite of the apple. It was crisp and fresh, certainly not like something that had been sent all the way from Earth. Which meant that there were Growing Pits on Callisto.
“The counter is that bad?” she asked. “We’re going to need the whole team?”
“The counter is interesting.” He made a small movement with his hand and a tiny tray formed in midair. “Have you noticed all the features in this place? I like the snap-trays the best.”
He set the drink on the tray and it moved away from him, hovering just outside his reach like an eager puppy waiting to be summoned.
She didn’t answer his question about the hotel. Instead she waited until he told her about the counteroffer.
“They sent an agreement,” he said, “that Rhonda Shindo allegedly signed more than a decade ago, certainly before she came to Callisto, and maybe before her hire, giving them the right to be guardian to any minors and/or dependents should Rhonda Shindo vanish or become incapacitated or die while in service to Aleyd.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Gonzalez said.
“Nope.” He leaned his head back against the couch and stared up at the clear ceiling. She didn’t look to see if the Dome color had changed or if he had a view of Jupiter.
“Why would a corporation want possession of its employees’ dependents?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” he said. “I haven’t found any reason yet, but I’ve only started looking. I’m not even sure if this is a standard Aleyd provision. That shouldn’t be hard to find. I’m putting one of the associates on that.”
“Aleyd becomes the permanent guardian?” Gonzalez asked, still stuck on the original point.
“Temporary. Until the crisis passes.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
He shrugged. “Then I assume the guardianship is permanent.”
“Interesting.” Gonzalez made that same little motion Oberholst had made and a tray did indeed appear. She put the apple core on it, then waved the thing away. The tray seemed to know the core was garbage, and floated it out of view. “What’s the status of clones on Valhalla Basin?”
“Can they be minors or dependents?” Oberholst asked. “That’s the first question to ask.”
“What’s the second?”
“Does someone else’s guardianship take precedence over Aleyd’s?”
“It sounds like you know the answer.”
“I know the answer if Talia Shindo weren’t a clone. Rhonda Shindo is divorced. Her husband never terminated his parental rights.”
“Because the original child died, right?”
Oberholst looked at Gonzalez sideways and didn’t answer. “There is a third question,” he said.
“Can Talia be emancipated at thirteen?” Gonzalez asked.
“Ah, that’s the fourth,” he said in a tone that let her know he hadn’t thought of that. “The third is whether Aleyd has the legal right under Alliance law to make binding agreements concerning living third parties without their permission in an employment document.”
Gonzalez sighed. “It sounds like we have en
ough to tie Aleyd up in court while the police search for Rhonda Shindo. But it doesn’t help us get Talia out of police custody.”
“I thought of that,” Oberholst said, “and I found a loophole.”
Gonzalez smiled. One of the associates probably found the loophole, but Oberholst liked the credit.
“Under Alliance law,” he said, “neither party in a prolonged custody dispute receives temporary custody of the minor. A third party must take the minor or dependent until the dispute is settled. Do you think any of Talia Shindo’s friends’ parents will step in as figureheads?”
“I doubt it,” Gonzalez said. “This is a company town, and no one here is going to want to get between Aleyd and some strangers from the Moon.”
He nodded. “Then we’ll send for someone from Armstrong. Someone with no attachments to the firm.”
“No,” Gonzalez said. “Let me ask someone else first.”
“You just said no one in Valhalla Basin will do this.”
“No one who works for Aleyd.”
“Everyone works for Aleyd.”
Gonzalez smiled. “Not everyone,” she said.
Forty-four
“You have got to be kidding,” Iniko Zagrando said. “It’ll blow my cover.”
Gonzalez’s request left him shaken. He walked slowly, kicking at the dust that had gathered in the prison’s yard, pretending like he wasn’t feeling uncomfortable, confused, and just a little terrified.
Take custody of Talia Shindo? It would break his cover. But now might be the time to do that.
He just didn’t know.
The request for the meeting hadn’t surprised him. He figured Gonzalez would want an update on Talia’s status, or maybe even a briefing on Rhonda Shindo’s kidnapping—which wasn’t going to happen, since they’d found nothing of importance.
He wasn’t even sure if she had left Valhalla Basin, although his gut told him she had.
So he had agreed to meet Gonzalez in the only private place he knew: the walking path inside the prison’s yard. The path was near the mechanized fence. No links allowed. The surveillance was only visual.
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