It was the mother of all hangovers.
“Latrine’s over there, if you’re going to barf,” Kahlo said. “Just be sure to aim away from me. I put a fresh-pressed uniform on this morning.”
Dev peered blearily around. A bunk, wipe-clean walls and floor. Recessed overhead lighting behind shatterproof plastic.
Holding cell. He was back at the Calder’s Edge police headquarters.
“I must lodge a complaint with the management,” he said. “This isn’t the five-star penthouse suite I was promised. Where’s my hot tub?”
“Hey, count your blessings. You got a private room and your own bed. You could’ve been stowed with all the other drunk-and-disorderlies, but last night was a busy one. Seems like half of Calder’s went on a bender. The drying-out tank was full. They were packed on the floor like sardines. Can’t blame them, I suppose. These quakes. The pressure’s getting to people.”
Dev did a quick inventory of his injuries. Contusions everywhere, several stiff muscles, swollen knuckles. One loosened tooth. A half-closed eye. What might have been a cracked – but was probably just a badly bruised – rib. Maybe a torn rotator cuff tendon.
“Ouch,” he said as he experimented gingerly with the shoulder. If not torn, the tendon was certainly wrenched.
“You treat these host forms like rental cars, is that it?” said Kahlo. “Doesn’t matter how many dents and dings you put in the bodywork because they’re not your own?”
“No,” he said. “Well, kind of. Not exactly. Put it this way: it doesn’t matter as much. I’m only in it for the short term, not the long haul.”
“Hence you pull these stupid stunts. I mean, you had me beating you up about three minutes after you got here. Then you assault the doorman at Inferno.”
“You know about that?”
“Jacko Dusenberg, the owner, filed a complaint. We extrapolated backwards, cross-checked security footage, found you in the vicinity of the club at the correct time. Dusenberg IDed you. You assaulted him as well, but I talked him out of pressing charges because he was associating with Franz Glazkov.”
“Who I was tailing.”
“Right. I put two and two together and threatened Dusenberg with arrest for consorting with a known dealer in unlicensed pharmaceuticals. He caved.”
“You’re my guardian angel.”
“Don’t get cocky,” said Kahlo. “And now, to cap it all, you wind up in a bar fight. You hospitalise three mine employees.”
“I didn’t start it. I only made sure I finished it.”
“Fortunately for you, I believe you. We have eyewitnesses saying the three guys followed you into the men’s room. They were talking about teaching you a lesson. They didn’t want ‘your kind’ stinking up their favourite watering hole.”
“They weren’t the most enlightened human beings I’ve met. You could have them up for hate crimes, if you like.”
“I think they’ve been punished enough already. But Harmer, help me out here. Why is it you can’t seem to stay out of trouble? You haven’t been on Alighieri one day, and shit just keeps happening around you.”
“It’s not something I encourage.”
“Were those miners another attempt on your life, do you think? Did somebody pay them?”
“No, it was a... misunderstanding. They got an idea into their heads that they shouldn’t have. They’re the sort of people who don’t need much of an excuse to pick on the sort of people they don’t like.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“As much as I can be.”
Kahlo grunted in annoyance. “So, doesn’t tell me why you’re incapable of keeping a low profile and simply getting on with what you’re supposed to be doing.”
“I told you, that bar thing, it genuinely wasn’t my fault.”
“You were drunk, though.”
“That wasn’t my fault either.” Or was it? Maybe it had been, just a little. The Alighierians weren’t the only ones who were feeling the pressure and needing an outlet, a way of alleviating it.
“I just find it baffling that you’re so... so irresponsible. So cavalier. Such a damn liability. Why have ISS sent us someone like you? Do they hate us?”
“We can’t all be by-the-book cops,” Dev said. “I’m unconventional. I have my own methods. But I’m known to get results. Otherwise ISS wouldn’t use me.”
“Well, they must see qualities in you that I don’t. If you were under my command, I’d have fired you by now. Maybe ‘consultant’ means something different to your bosses. Like: ‘shambolic trouble magnet.’”
Kahlo let out a breath as though expelling all her pent-up frustration in one go. She then drew a slow in-breath, resetting herself, inducing calm.
“All right,” she said. “I’m going to move past how exasperating you are and how much you’re pissing me off. I’m a big girl; I can handle jerks like you. Have done all my life. If I have to work with you, then so be it.”
“That’s the spirit,” said Dev. “Find your inner tranquillity. Go to your happy place.”
“My happy place would be thumping you in the head until you stop talking.”
“Imagine that, then. Let it bring you bliss.”
Kahlo pretended she was picturing it in her mind’s eye. “Yep. Feels great now. So, between chasing Glazkov and demolishing a men’s room with, by the looks of it, your face – find out anything useful? Any progress at all?”
“Well, Glazkov was a wild goose chase. You were right on that front.”
“Bet it hurt to say that.”
“Like a needle in the eyeball. He’s just a low-level hustler. Bottom feeder scuzz. But he did lead me, inadvertently, to something more promising.”
“Which is...?”
“I know now that the earth tremors have got your moleworms all discombobulated.”
“And? What about it?”
“And I’ve enlisted someone to enquire further into it – someone with the relevant expertise.”
Kahlo leaned back against the cell wall and folded her arms, unimpressed. “Upset moleworms? That’s all you’ve got for me?”
“I think it’s a viable lead.”
She shook her head in wonderment and dismay. “That host form must have cost ISS millions. I hope they think they’re getting their money’s worth.”
“Ultimately it’s TerCon that’s picking up the tab. ISS are just private government contractors.”
“If the taxpayers only knew...”
Dev nodded, then stopped. His head felt as though it was going to break free and topple off his spinal column.
“What about you?” he said. “Any luck with the rail network people?”
“Well, you were right, too.”
“Bet it hurt to say that.”
“Like needles in the eyeball. They ran the Polisware scan like you suggested. It flagged up an external attack on the server by a Plusser malware bot. The bot tiptoed round the firewalls, took over, shut everyone else out, caused havoc, then expired, leaving no trace. At least, none that the standard security programs could detect.”
“They’re pretty sophisticated things, Plusser bots. Like electronic kamikaze cat burglars. Where did it originate from?”
“They can’t seem to find out. It doesn’t appear to be off-world. No ultraspace encryption signature. Somewhere on Alighieri, but they can’t figure out precisely where. Not enough left of it after it self-destructed to extrapolate a vector pathway from.”
“That settles it, then. There’s a Plusser agent on-planet.”
“A Plusser who knows you’re here and who introduced the malware into the rail network server in a bid to get rid of you. Can’t say it’s an unpardonable offence. If you’re half as irritating to Polis Plus as you are to me...”
“Oh, I am.”
“But listen up, Harmer,” Kahlo said. “In all seriousness, the reason I’m continuing to tolerate you – and not planning on leaving you in this cell to rot – is that this Plusser nearly killed me and tw
o of my men along with you. The attempt on your life was also an attempt on mine, Utz’s and Stegman’s.”
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I’m glad it didn’t succeed.”
“That’s sweet. You almost sound sincere. Now, I happen to take very personally an attack on myself, and very, very personally an attack on my subordinates. That’s why I’m going to overlook your sheer blatant inadequacy so far and give you a second chance. Because I don’t know jack-shit about Plussers, whereas you, for better or worse, do.”
“More than I care to.”
“Yes, you faced them in the war. You know what they’re about. Like it or not – and I don’t – you’re our best bet for dealing with them if they’re trying to establish a foothold on Alighieri.”
“Which they are,” said Dev. “All that lovely helium-three. It’s like honey to a bear.”
“So let’s get cracking, shall we?” Kahlo rubbed her hands together demonstratively. “Up and at ’em, soldier.”
Dev levered himself off the bunk. It wasn’t the finest ever example of standing up. Kahlo caught him by the arm and steadied him, and he didn’t quite collapse.
“And this is the watchman on the Border Wall,” she said with a despairing roll of the eyes. “Patrolling the perimeter of the Diaspora to keep us all safe.”
“At your service, ma’am,” Dev said with a wonky salute.
“We are so fucked.”
16
AN ENERGY DRINK and a Blitz-Go pill later, Dev felt marginally more human. Kahlo gave him a tube of topical curative gel which he slathered over his tender areas. The endocannabinoids and regenerative proteins went to work, combating inflammation and boosting the rate of tissue repair a hundredfold.
Spruced up, hungover no more, he was a new man.
“Where to?” he asked Kahlo.
She consulted her commplant clock. “As it happens, we’ve a meeting scheduled. Word came down an hour ago.”
“Sounds important. Who with?”
“The governor.”
“Ah. What’s he want?”
“Unclear. He’s the one who put in the application for ISS intervention, so I imagine he’d like to scope you out. Can’t help but think he’ll be disappointed. Patrolman Utz is taking us there.”
In short order, they were scooting along maglev rails in a police pod.
“I see yesterday hasn’t put you off driving after all,” Dev said to Utz.
“I figure the same thing can’t happen to the same guy twice. The odds against must be astronomical.”
“Sensible man.”
“Besides,” said Kahlo, “the rail network server’s proofed against another malware attack of the same kind. ISS bundled a shield in with the Polisware scan.”
“Even better,” said Utz. “Let’s all sit back and enjoy the ride.”
The governor’s residence had its own station and was ensconced within a high rock arch that, though a natural formation, described an almost perfectly symmetrical parabola. The entrance foyer was suspended from the underside of the arch, a disc of glass and concrete with a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree panoramic view. There was hardly an inch of Calder’s Edge that couldn’t be seen from it.
Governor Graydon kept them waiting several minutes, but finally his personal assistant arrived to usher them up to see him. Only Dev and Kahlo went; Utz stayed downstairs.
“Above my paygrade,” he said with a shrug.
The personal assistant, crisp but amiable, made small talk as the elevator rose. She apologised for the delay. The governor – such a busy man.
She seemed to know Kahlo well, treating her as a close colleague. Kahlo’s answers, however, were stiff and curt. Dev got the distinct impression the chief of police was ill-at-ease. If Graydon had the power to unnerve someone like her, then he must be a formidable proposition.
In the event, the man who greeted them in his office couldn’t have appeared less intimidating. He was short and thickset, like any Alighierian, but he had a bonhomie and a polish that most of his kin lacked.
What also set him apart was his entirely bald scalp. Treatment to regrow dermal papillae was inexpensive; no one need have no hair. Graydon therefore either chose to shave it off or else didn’t mind that it had all fallen out.
The effect was striking. You looked twice at him. You wouldn’t forget him in a hurry.
Governor Maurice Graydon was a canny operator, that much was clear to Dev.
Yet his smile seemed genuine. Nothing of the usual politician’s disingenuousness about it.
“Astrid, come in. And you must be Mr Harmer.”
The handshake was brisk but firm.
“Drink? I have Japanese whisky. Single malt. Import. Not the stuff we distil on-planet, and all the better for it.”
He held out the bottle for inspection. Dev let out a low whistle. It was the real deal. Yamazaki, all the way from Osaka.
“Yes, hideously pricey. Transportation costs alone make every drop worth rather more than its weight in gold. My one small luxury. Some say only Scotland knows the art of producing good whisky, but Japan has it down to a science. Tempted?”
Dev was. Sorely. But he recalled the previous night. The hangover might be gone and the aches and pains from the fight fading, but the memory still lingered.
With some regret, he shook his head.
“And you won’t, Astrid,” Graydon said. “Not on duty. So I won’t even ask.”
The governor helped himself to a couple of fingers of the whisky and returned the bottle to the sideboard. Then, cradling the tumbler as though it contained the secret of happiness itself, he led the way across the expansive office to the picture window filling the far wall.
The panes retracted at the touch of a sensor, giving access onto a broad balcony perched on cantilevered struts. Graydon stepped out and, with a small gesture, invited Dev and Kahlo to follow.
“I like to get outside as much as possible,” he said. “I realise it’s not outside outside, Mr Harmer. Not outside as you would understand the term. But this is Alighieri. The concept of the great outdoors is relative here, and tends not to involve such things as sky and trees.”
The cavern echoed to the sounds of life and industry, a soft reverberant hubbub.
“That,” said Governor Graydon, “is the hum of Calder’s Edge as it should be. Everything functioning. A city going about its daily business. It isn’t a perfect place, as I’d be the first to admit. But when it works, it works.”
He took a sip of whisky.
“Ahh, pleasures of the flesh. Never to be underrated. When we’re gone, they’re gone. Best enjoy them while you can. Where was I?”
“The city doing its business,” said Dev.
“Yes. Too often lately, things haven’t been going so smoothly. Even if you can’t hear it, there’s tension down there. People are on tenterhooks, waiting. They don’t know if, when, another earthquake will strike. They don’t know how severe it might be. They’re scared it might be a big one – an earthquake that will bring everything crashing down. The end of their world.”
Another sip. Dev’s eyes lingered on the amber elixir.
“There’s no saying that’s a likely outcome. We’re in uncharted waters. Nothing like this has happened in the city’s – the planet’s – history. Perhaps, as some are claiming, it’s a natural cyclical event, Alighieri going through a period of stretching and groaning, like an old man with creaky joints, working out the knots of arthritis. The geological record would appear to suggest that it isn’t, but we can’t rely on that.”
“You don’t think it’s a natural event any more than I do, sir,” said Kahlo.
“As I’ve told you countless times, Astrid, there’s no need to call me ‘sir.’ Not when it’s just us here, you, me.”
“I understand, sir.”
Graydon grinned wryly, indulgently. “No, I don’t think it’s natural at all. But I can’t for the life of me figure out what else it is.”
He swivelled
to face Dev again.
“Which is where you come in, my good man. Believe me, it wasn’t something I did lightly, going to the Terran Consensus on bended knee, begging for help. We’re a fiercely independent little world, Alighieri. We like to look after our own. But I couldn’t just let the situation continue as it is. We needed a troubleshooter. A professional.”
“That’s me,” said Dev.
“That’s you. And please don’t be offended when I say I’d rather you hadn’t had to come.”
“I won’t. I’m used to it. ISS consultants tend to be called in only as a last resort. And usually only when covert enemy activity is suspected.”
“That’s the thing. I don’t know if this is enemy activity, but at the same time I can’t rule it out. Alighieri is in a vulnerable position, stuck out at the further extremity of the Border Wall. We’re several hundred light years from the next Diasporan solar system. We’ve got Polis Plus worlds closer to us than human worlds. It’s a precarious position to be in.”
“And your helium-three deposits make you a juicy prospect.”
“We’re a ripe apple the Plussers would love to pluck,” said Graydon with a nod. “An apple they would suck the marrow out of in no time, if you’ll pardon the mixed metaphor. So when something untoward occurs, something worrying and unprecedented, like now, then I can’t help but think that Polis Plus must be behind it.”
He studied both their expressions.
“As, it would appear, do you,” he said gravely.
“It’s looking that way, sir,” said Kahlo.
She summarised the evidence: rail network takeover, Polis+ malware bot, Plusser agent somewhere on-planet.
“They took a bold step,” she said. “Whoever it is, they must have realised that doing what they did was effectively an announcement of their presence. Like hoisting a big damn flag. Which tells me that they’re confident and they’re well-hidden.”
“Or perhaps desperate,” said Graydon. “So frightened of our Mr Harmer that they’ll stop at nothing to eliminate him, even if it entails compromising their own security and anonymity.”
“You can call me Dev.”
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