Offspring

by Steven Harper

  Kendi stood outside the closet a moment later, the open box in his hands. “Candles!” he shouted. “Tallow dips! Tapers! Get your tapers here! Free for the taking! Tapers! Tapers! Can’t finish the rally without a taper!”

  There was a pause, and then shadowy fingers took candle after candle out of his hands. Yellow points of light flickered and shed golden circles all about the gymnasium. Tan appeared beside him with a scowl on her face.

  “Can’t stay out of the spotlight for ten minutes, can you?” she growled.

  With an unrepentant grin, Kendi handed her the box of candles and ducked back into the closet, where he found a second box. When Tan ran out, he gave it to her.

  “Tapers!” he shouted. “Come get your tapers!”

  The glowing candles created a cozy, if primitive, atmosphere. Petrie stuck a pair of tapers at the corners of Salman’s podium. Apparently whoever was in charge of Salman’s personal security had decided that her safety wasn’t in question—or she had given them orders to let her stay—because she quickly took up her post again.

  “My friends,” she said, shouting to be heard without the P” system, “it seems we have overcome this campaign’s first obstacle.” Shouts of laughter and hoots of amusement followed this remark. “My informants tell me we’re able to continue today thanks to my grandson-in-law Father Kendi Weaver. Kendi, you have our thanks. Nothing can keep us down as long as we have our tapers.”

  The room erupted in laughter and applause. Kendi raised his candle in salute. A voice started up a chant: “Tapers! Tapers! Tapers!” Somehow a line of dancers got started, snaking through the gymnasium with their candles held aloft like trophies while everyone else chanted. Tan came to quiet attention, scanning the dimly-lit crowd with experienced eyes. Kendi wondered if he should be worried, then discarded the thought. Tan acted paranoid so Kendi wouldn’t have to.

  At last Salman called for quiet. “Well done, my tapers,” she said to more laughter. “But now we have more serious issues to address. We have a job to do and an election to win!”

  And speaking of jobs, Kendi thought.

  “Lewa,” he said quietly as Salman continued her speech by candlelight. “I have a friend who could use a little help.”

  The post-rally party was lavish, as befit a newly-declared gubernatorial candidate. High-level Unionist senators, officials, and supporters gathered in cheerful knots of murmured conversation in the living room. Glasses of champagne and troughs of wine hovered about the room. The buffet was piled high with delicacies both human and Ched-Balaar. Kendi was able to enjoy none of it. He was currently perched on the edge of an armchair in Salman’s spacious home office. The doors were firmly shut against the party, and Salman herself was furious. She didn’t pace or wave her hands, but her expression reminded Kendi of a gargoyle ready to fly off its pedestal and kill something. A handful of aides scurried about, trying to look busy and avoiding her gaze. Kendi sank back into his armchair and tried to look inconspicuous. Salman’s fury filled the room like a thunderstorm, and he didn’t want to attract her attention any more than the aides did.

  “I want information, and I want it now,” she howled. “I want to know why the hell the power went out when it did, I want to know who was responsible, and I want to know how they’re going to pay.”

  Yin May, Salman’s chief assistant, checked his data pad. His expression was calm as a talltree. “I do have some preliminary information, Senator.”

  “I have better things to do than wait to hear it, Mr. May,” Salman growled.

  “Of course, Senator. “s most buildings and homes do, the gymnasium rents its water generator from Treetown Energy, which dispatched a fusion repair crew the moment the power went out. The crew examined the generator and reported a problem in the transformer. According to their report, it overloaded and shorted out. Treetown Energy apologizes for the inconvenience.”

  “I’m sure,” Salman said. “And who, pray tell, owns Treetown Energy?”

  “The Bellerophon Energy Consortium.”

  “I hope you can predict my next question, Mr. May.”

  “Mitchell Foxglove owns a substantial portion of the BEC. He was once the chief operating officer, but he stepped down to run for office. He is still a majority stockholder.”

  Justice Ched-Mulaar made a chuffing noise, the Ched-Balaar equivalent of a polite cough. His immaculate reddish fur gleamed in the light of the fireplace. “Before we make public accusations, Salman,” he said, “we will need some sort of proof.”

  “I doubt we’ll find any.” Salman grabbed the glass that hovered near her elbow and drained it. “If Foxglove was clever enough to sabotage the building’s fusion generator and disrupt the rally, I’m sure he—or his agent—was clever enough to cover his tracks. Bastard. I should have realized something like this would happen eventually.”

  “You don’t suspect Ched-Pirasku?” Kendi said. “The Populists have a certain amount to gain by disrupting your campaign.”

  “I suspect everybody,” Salman replied. “But right now—”

  “Excuse me, Senator.” Another aide entered the office with a tiny data button. “This just came for you.”

  “What? Why didn’t they message it to me?” Salman said. “And where’s Petrie? I need to talk to her.”

  “A bonded carrier brought the message,” the aide said. “It was no one I knew.”

  Salman waved at Yin May, who took the proffered button and slotted it into his data pad. Thick black eyebrows drew together as he read. Kendi’s danger instincts prickled the hair on his neck, warning him of an approaching storm. Deciding he’d already been rained on enough lately, Kendi left his chair and sidled toward the door.

  “Well?” Salman demanded.

  “You are being cited for violating local fire codes at the rally,” May said.

  Kendi fled the office.

  Lucia dePaolo pulled herself over the gutter and rolled onto the slanted roof. Wood shingles clattered softly beneath her. She froze, listening. Chirps and creaks of night lizards and birds chittered around her. Overhead, the talltree canopy made a black umbrella suitable for a giant. Enormous branches thick enough to hold up a mickey spike stretched into the darkness. Only a few public lights shed a golden glow, and none of the light touched the house. The air was chilly and bit damp. Nothing moved.

  At last Lucia eased into a crouch and slipped across the roof, her camouflage jumpsuit automatically blending her with the shadows. The house had a pair of dormers on the second floor, and Lucia was able to reach the windows set into them without difficulty. One was lit, the other dark. The curtains of the lit window were drawn, so Lucia peeped cautiously around the sill of the dark one. The room beyond the glass was empty, as far Lucia could tell. The same was true of the house. Lucia had already watched the building for several minutes and seen no signs of life. While she was waiting, she had made several anonymous calls to the Days’ home number. “ll had gone unanswered. It should be safe to go in.

  Lucia ran a gloved hand around the edges of the first window, and the tips of her fingers glowed green, indicating the security system was inactive. It was amazing how many people left home without turning on the burglar alarm. Still, they had locked the windows.

  Lucia’s hand dropped to her belt and came up with a cutting tool. With exquisite care, she drew the cutter around the edge of the glass. A tap, and the entire pane fell inward to land with a quiet whuff on the carpet beyond. Lucia pulled the suit’s mask over her face and climbed in after it.

  The bedroom was the usual sleeping place—bed, dresser, closet, night stands. A collection of frilly human dolls sat on a long shelf, staring at the dim room with shiny blank eyes. Helen Day’s room, then. Her brother and housemate Finn must have the other bedroom. The house had a sour smell to it, as if the inhabitants didn’t often open the windows. Lucia made her way downstairs. Only the bathroom light was on, though it shed enough illumination to let Lucia navigate the floor freely. After some searching, she found an
office area with the main computer terminal in it. She sat down and found the chair was slightly warm. The Days must have left just before Lucia arrived. Good—it meant they would probably be gone for a while yet.

  Lucia conjured up the holographic screen with a tap of her gloved finger, then called up the net connection. The Irfan figurine she habitually wore around her neck seemed to glow with a serene warmth beneath the suit, and Lucia allowed herself a small smile. Like most people, Finn Day left his home computer system linked to the nets, along with his message system and general files. At his job—Finn and his sister were lucky enough to retain employment—he no doubt kept everything passworded and voice-coded, but here in his own home, convenience beat out security.

  Lucia cracked her knuckles and went to work. Her movements were smooth and calm, as if she were working in Ben’s living room instead of a house she was burglarizing. She came across the Days’ financial records, including Helen’s paychecks from the shipyard where the Poltergeist had been docked. Finn himself did temporary clerical work for the same yard. Before that, he had been a secretary who worked at Federalist Party headquarters. Lucia had uncovered the latter fact while interviewing some of the shipyard workers. The potential connection was too great to ignore, and Ben had asked Lucia to take a closer look as a surprise for Kendi. Although Ben felt like a younger brother to her, Lucia still held Kendi in awe, and she found herself agreeing to Ben’s proposal because it would please Kendi—despite the fact that her methods were patently illegal.

  Lucia skimmed Finn’s finances. No one had made any large deposits into their bank accounts recently, but that came as no surprise—Finn and Helen would be fools to leave that kind of record. With a glance over her shoulder at the door, Lucia closed down the financial files and started a system deepsearch for the name Benjamin Rymar. She held her breath while the computer searched.

  After several seconds, it chimed once and showed her two matches. Lucia’s heart began to pound, though her face remained serene.

  “Serene must you walk the paths,” she told herself, quoting Irfan’s famous proverb, “and serene must you ever remain.”

  Her heart slowed, and Lucia selected the first match. It pointed to a backup file on the house computer. The second turned out to be a record of a file transfer from disk to drive. Lucia called up the backup file and sucked in her breath. It was a genetic analysis for eleven cryogenically frozen embryos. So either Finn or his sister was indeed the blackmailer. More likely both siblings were involved. Lucia wondered which one of them had collected the money and how they had gotten hold of a gravity beam powerful enough to knock Kendi for a loop. Perhaps Helen had stolen one from the shipyard.

  Lucia scrubbed the backup gene file from the computer, then rifled the desk. She came up with several button-sized disks. The third one had the original file on it, and the file markers indicated it had originally come from the Poltergeist. Lucia tapped it thoughtfully on one knuckle. The main computer had the gene file in its backup sector. Where was the original? Lucia could see the Days copying the file from the disk to their computer, but why had they deleted it again? Paranoia? Except if they were that paranoid, why hadn’t they also deleted the automatic backup?

  Lucia ran the deepsearch again, though this time she had the computer look for files that were the same size as the backup in case the Days had renamed the file. Five matches turned up, but none contained the gene scan. Deciding it would be better to puzzle over this later, Lucia shut down the computer and pocketed the tiny disk. The latter was evidence of the blackmail, and Ben had said he would want to keep anything like it that turned up, though Lucia wondered how he and Kendi were going to explain his possession of the disk to the Guardians. Lucia headed for the stairs, then changed her mind and did a quick search of the first floor. In the bathroom closet behind a stack of towels she found the cloth sack. The money—most of it—was still inside.

  Amateurs, Lucia thought with scorn. I’d never leave this kind of evidence in my own house.

  The house’s sour smell was stronger in this room—much stronger. She expected bowel smells in a bathroom, but Lucia had been in the house for quite some time and the odor was noticeably fresh. Lucia’s eye fell on the shower curtain. It was drawn shut. A terrible suspicion crawled over her skin like a thousand spiders. Lucia swallowed, then reached out with a gloved hand and snapped the shower curtain aside.

  Helen Day’s corpse lay face-up in the bottom of the tub. She stared upward with blank, filmy eyes, and her skin was gray. Brown hair was plastered to her skull in wet clumps. A bright burn mark the size of a fist lay between her flaccid breasts. Lucia pressed a hand to her mouth.

  Serene must you ever remain. Serene must you ever remain. Serene, serene, serene.

  Bile pressed the back of her throat in a harsh lump. Lucia slid the curtain shut, snatched up the money sack, and dashed upstairs. She paused at the entrance to Finn’s room, the one with the light on. After a split-second’s hesitation, she poked her head inside.

  The walls in Finn’s bedroom were covered with color prints of abstract art. Eye-twisting designs swooped, spiraled, and spun across paper and canvas. Sprawled on the floor lay the form of a brown-haired man. Lucia ran inside just long enough to touch his neck. Her shaking fingers found no pulse. The body was still warm.

  Lucia’s mind raced, and the clues she had been too stupid to see snapped into a complete picture. The deactivated alarm. The sour smell. The warm chair. The missing file. The alarm had been deactivated because the Days were home. The killer had probably knocked at the door, or had perhaps even simply walked into the house uninvited. He or she had killed Helen in the shower—the burn mark reminded Lucia of a neuro-pistol discharge—and had then gone upstairs to wreak the same fate on Finn in his bedroom. Once the Finns were out of the way, the killer had sat at the computer and deleted the file on Ben’s siblings. Unfortunately, Lucia had broken in at that point, and the killer had been forced to flee. Lucia swallowed, remembering the body heat left in the chair, the heat of a murderer. And she hadn’t even realized it.

  Lucia had to get out of the house. If she were caught now, the charge would be far worse than simple breaking-and-entering. She ran into Helen’s darkened bedroom, tossed the sack out onto the roof, and pressed her gloved palm to the pane of glass on the floor. It stuck to her hand. Her heart was pounding and every instinct screamed at her to run far and fast, but she climbed out the window backwards and with great care, fitting the glass back into the hole behind her. Once it was back in place, she took a stylus from her belt and ran it around the edge of the pane. The stylus secreted an epoxy that heated the glass and melded it back together. A close look would reveal something wasn’t quite right, but only if someone looked. Lucia wondered if anyone would. Once the bodies were discovered and the police called in, the house would become a crime scene crawling with technicians. Thanks be to Irfan she'd worn her camouflage suit and prevented herself from leaving any telltale traces of DN”.

  She ran across the rooftop on shaky legs and dropped to the balcony behind it. Then she eased over the rail and dropped straight down. There was a dreadful moment when she was falling, then the stretchy polymer netting caught her. Lucia scuttled like a spider along the safety net, staying in the shadows and out of sight beneath the walkways until she judged she was far enough away from the Day house. Footsteps sounded overhead, and for a horrible moment Lucia was sure someone—the killer?—was following her. She froze, and the footsteps continued along the walkway. When she was sure the coast was clear, she hauled herself back onto the wooden path, stripped off gloves and mask, and changed her jumpsuit into a nondescript blue. She jogged a little further along the dark and swaying walkways.

  Treetown had become a frightening place at night, dark and eerie. Most residents rented their home fusion generators from Treetown Energy, and the rent was determined by the amount of power each plant produced—more power meant more upkeep, or so Treetown Energy claimed. In times of privation peopl
e used fewer lights. Treetown itself had cut back on the number of lamps it left burning. Lucia walked the dark paths and long balconies, trying not to feel threatened. A dinosaur roared far below, and she jumped, heart pounding. She passed dark houses that stared at her with Helen Day’s glassy eyes, and every time she turned a corner, she wondered if anyone would be—

  “Spare a freemark, lady?”

  Lucia leaped back, her hand already going for the knife she kept in her belt. The human who had accosted her stood in a shadowy stairwell. The moonlight revealed scruffy hair and a dirty coat. Her upturned palm was grubby, and she smelled of old sweat. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen.

  Heart still pounding, Lucia flipped the girl a coin. She caught it with a quick snapping motion. Lucia said, “Have you tried the Church of Irfan? There’s a mission not far from here. They can give you good a meal and a place to sleep.”

  “They’re full up tonight,” the girl said. “They’re always full up. You got somewhere I can sleep?”

  Lucia’s heart wrenched. She wanted to take this young woman home with her, clean her up, feed her, give her hope. But Lucia knew that would be foolish in the extreme. She had no idea who this girl was or what she might do once Lucia got her home. It was this way all over Bellerophon, and there wasn’t anything she could do about it, except continue to volunteer at the Church. She made a mental note to put in extra hours this week.