“They aren’t state-funded,” Masozi said pointedly, and again Stiglitz and Afolabi shared a brief look that she didn’t quite understand. “They have to operate purely on donations made by volunteers.”
“That is the official line, yes,” Agent Stiglitz said tersely before making a short, chopping gesture, “but whatever role the T.E. was originally meant to serve, it has likely ceased to do so.”
Masozi considered the implications if the First Right, which served as the most fundamental component of their society’s two hundred year long history, had indeed been coopted for nefarious purposes. All across the system—and likely beyond—there had been rumblings that such may have taken place, but such murmurs had generally been dismissed as conspiracy theories bandied about by the nutters of society.
“This is a lot for you to process, Investigator Masozi,” Afolabi said levelly, interrupting her silent ruminations. “I suggest you take the rest of the night off; take in a meal, rent a VR booth, or spend a few hours at the gym before heading home so you can clear your head. Report to my office at the start of your shift tomorrow and we can discuss your potential involvement in this matter. Much may depend on your role in the next few days’ investigation.”
“Indeed,” Agent Stiglitz said, once again offering his hand, “I look forward to working with you, Investigator.”
She was well and truly at a loss for words, so Masozi did the only thing she could think of and accepted his hand. She then shook Chief Afolabi’s hand and exited the Chief Investigator’s office, closing the door behind her.
Her boss had been right: this would take a few hours to wrap her head around.
Chapter V: One More Makes Two-for-Two
Jericho finished fastening the full-body harness and then proceeded to triple-check each of the clasps. When it was clear that everything was in order, he attached the deceptively thin, metal wire on which his life would depend for the next few minutes. He could have had the wire made of the same carbon tubules as he had used at Cantwell’s Adjustment, but doing so would have unnecessarily increased the cost of this particular phase of his plan: the Angelo Adjustment.
The wind whipped violently across his face as he lowered the goggles over his eyes and tightened their strap behind his head until they were snug. There were a hundred better, safer, or cleverer ways of doing what he was about to do, but each of them cost several times more money to set up—and, as always, Jericho prided himself for staying on budget.
He walked over to the edge of the building and looked down to the street below. It was fully eight hundred feet down from where he stood on the residential building’s flat rooftop, but he knew that altitude would be the least of his problems on the relatively short, yet thoroughly perilous descent.
Jericho activated the goggles’ infrared light filter and immediately caught sight of the building’s security camera infrared beams as they danced across the face of the building in a seemingly random pattern. The night air was so thick with smog in New Lincoln that depending on the visible spectrum of light was foolish, especially in matters of security, so all mid-tier systems used infrared or better tech.
Since the wormhole had collapsed two centuries earlier, the technology of the Chimera Sector had undergone a radical metamorphosis which saw the blending of millennia-old technology with more modern examples of humanity’s scientific achievements. As such, only the ultra-wealthy members of a planet’s populace could surround themselves with exclusively high-end devices—and Mr. Angelo, Jericho’s next Adjustment, was ostensibly not one of the ultra-wealthy of Virgin Prime.
The overlap of the low-tech, omni-directionally sweeping night-vision security cameras created a nearly impenetrable grid which would almost certainly catch anyone attempting what he was about to attempt.
But Jericho had spent nearly two decades finding ways around such security measures, and this particular security net could be defeated with a mere flick of a switch.
He felt inside his pocket for the Timent Electorum insignia: the symbol, if not badge, of his office. Once he had confirmed it was where it should be, he activated the tension brake on the wire and stepped out over the edge, moving very carefully as he let out incrementally more line until he was perpendicular to the building’s vertical surface.
He tapped the new earpiece with his free hand and said, “I’m in position, Baxter.”
“Copy that,” came the older man’s disinterested-sounding voice through the earpiece. “Initiating power spike in ten…nine…eight…seven—”
When the countdown reached seven, Jericho gradually let out the line as he began to run along the wall of the building. The tiny suction cups built into his bodyglove’s footpads ensured that he never pushed too far off from the building to maintain control of his descent.
“Six…five…four…” Baxter, his second-best operator, reported in his droll, monotonous voice.
He was running as fast as he could keep his legs churning, which meant that he had let out all of the tension he possibly could from the braking mechanism on the miniature spool of wire.
“Three…two…one…”Baxter continued as though he was reciting some particularly uninteresting bit of trivia.
Jericho had ‘run’ nearly twenty five stories down the side of the building, and the fast-moving IR camera’s beam of invisible light came sweeping toward his path. If the light touched his body, he would be unable to complete his mission—and would miss the opportunity of a lifetime.
“Zero: spike’s away,” his elderly operator reported dryly. Just before Jericho’s body entered the beam of infrared light, the beam winked out of existence for just a fraction of second.
But by the time that light had returned, Jericho’s body had passed beyond its path and he knew he had just seven seconds before the next beam would come into contact with him.
It was more than enough time.
He reengaged the tension brake gradually over the next four seconds. A half-second before the brake locked down, he pushed off from the building with every scrap of power his aging legs could generate. His body reached the apex of his short-lived flight just as the tension brake clamped down, snapping him back with such violence that if he had not been properly prepared, he was quite certain he would have broken a handful of ribs and likely lost a few teeth.
But he tightened his body at the same moment the line snagged, and the combination of forces caused him to swing back toward the building with dangerous speed as he tucked his knees against his chest and turned himself into a tight ball.
If he missed by even a foot, not only would he break more than just a few ribs, but the security cameras would lock onto him before he could scramble in through the window. Some forty seven seconds after that, the building’s security force would apprehend him at gunpoint.
He risked a glance toward his entry zone and winced as he saw that he had slightly miscalculated his trajectory. As his rump entered the open window, he tried desperately to twist his torso enough to avoid striking his left arm against the window jamb, and thankfully he succeeded—rather, he partially succeeded.
Having drilled this precise entry hundreds of times using physical, scaled models, Jericho had even practiced for the eventuality of a less-than-perfect entry and was able to bring himself to a stop against the flat’s kitchen door without breaking through it.
He knew he had two seconds to remove the wire from its perch, so in a fluid series of motions he unhooked the shackle from his harness with one hand and, with the hand of his now-injured left arm, clicked the remote spooling mechanism for the winch located on the roof of the building. The shackle was whisked away too quickly for a human eye to see out as it sped back out the kitchen window. Even though he knew the math bore out that he had acted in time, he held his breath for several seconds until he was convinced that no alarms had sounded outside.
Exhaling evenly and quietly, he switched his goggles from base infrared to thermal imaging and looked around the kitchen. Everything wa
s cold save for the small, faint glow of heat coming from the food refrigerator’s compressor.
But Jericho had learned many years before to be cautious at all times, so he pressed his ear against the kitchen door to listen for any sounds on the other side. When he heard nothing, he opened the door and made his way into the short hallway connecting the four rooms of the flat: kitchen, main parlor, bedroom with adjoining toilet, and second bedroom which had been converted into a small office.
All thermal readings showed that no one had been inside the flat for at least ten hours, which was consistent with his next contracted target’s routine, and Jericho performed a routine weapons sweep of the bedroom—a room with a robust security door made to appear as a regular door—and found no such weapons.
“I’m in,” he said sub-vocally, allowing the small, crude patch he had stuck to his neck to transmit the sounds to his earpiece and, in turn, to Baxter. He didn’t want to take the risk of the flat having been bugged—either by Mr. Angelo or someone else—so he used the sub-vocal technique to decrease the chance of detection.
“Very good, sir,” Baxter replied blandly. “I am showing the target has just reached the lobby.”
“Good,” Jericho said as he moved to the main door of the flat. The target would enter the room and be unable to see him until the door had been closed, at which time it would be a small matter to execute him and egress the premises.
“He would appear to have company, sir,” Baxter added, as though it was barely worth mentioning.
“How many?” Jericho asked as he paused mid-stride.
“Two, sir: a man and a woman,” his operator replied in his usual, drawl tone.
“Profiles?” he asked impatiently as he felt his pulse quicken slightly.
“Accessing now,” Baxter said with a hint of irritation. Several seconds passed, and Jericho ran through the possible scenarios in his mind as he awaited the much-needed status update. “Here we are, sir,” his operator continued almost lazily, “oh my…it would seem our good friend, Mr. Angelo, has found some measure of affiliation with the Southern Bloc. The man’s name is Ichiro Matsumoto—a former chess enthusiast of some interstellar repute—and the woman is Noriko Sasaki, who formerly served on the personal security detail of the late President Mido.”
Jericho’s throat tightened at hearing of the woman’s paramilitary background. “Is Sasaki augmented?” he asked unwaveringly.
“I’m checking on that, sir,” Baxter replied irritably, and Jericho couldn’t help but smirk. If anyone should have been irritated given the circumstances it was him, not his operator. But Jericho knew that everyone coped with stress in their own manner, and despite the fact that he was inside the room and Baxter was on the other side of the city, they were equally at risk while running an operation such as this one. So he did his best to remain patient with his second-tier operator while Baxter continued, “It would appear not, sir…but there is evidence which suggests a high probability of extensive genetic modifications.”
“Any clues or do I just have to start guessing?” Jericho asked dryly after the pause had grown to several seconds in length.
“Wait, sir,” Baxter said shortly, and the audio feed went dead.
Jericho looked around the room as he ran through several possible scenarios and saw a handful of interesting objects scattered throughout the room: a four foot tall, antique, high-wattage lamp; a glass, not polymer, aquarium with around five hundred liters of water housing an assortment of uninteresting marine life forms; and a single, wood-framed chair set near a glass-topped table which was surrounded by metal-framed seats of various design. He considered the layout of the room before nodding to himself in satisfaction and making his way to the kitchen.
The earpiece crackled back to life as Jericho retrieved a pair of utensils from the kitchen and re-entered the parlor. “Apologies, sir; I fear we were being monitored. Ms. Sasaki is a more than capable martial artist, and what limited video I could find on her suggests an unusual tolerance for pain in addition to a power-to-weight ratio of roughly two hundred percent her frame’s suggested maximums.”
“Nothing else?” Jericho asked as he crouched down into position on the side of the aquarium opposite the door. The lamp was nearby, and he positioned himself so he could reach both the aquarium and the lamp when things inevitably went pear-shaped.
“Nothing, sir,” Baxter replied confidently, and Jericho was more than slightly put off that his operator was so stressed he had abandoned his carefully-crafted veneer of maddening serenity.
“Ok,” Jericho said, “we’ve got too much heat; clear my path out of here and then bug out. I’ll contact you in two hours.”
“Very good, sir,” Baxter replied tensely, “their elevator has reached your floor. I have just re-verified that your route is clear—signing off now.”
“Good work, operator,” Jericho said evenly. He turned off his earpiece and tested his left arm for a few seconds. He shook his head bitterly when he reached the painfully obvious conclusion that the thumb-side bone—the radius—was broken. That particular development was bound to make things a bit more interesting than they might have otherwise been, but the matter was likely to be settled in no more than ninety seconds so there was little use worrying about it.
The door’s locking bolts disengaged and it swung open. Jericho remained perfectly still as the three of them entered the flat. Had the party included only the two unmodified men, he would have hidden in a closet and waited for their business to conclude. But the presence of a gene-mod of Ms. Sasaki’s apparent abilities made the likelihood of remaining undetected rather less than likely.
The door shut, and thankfully none of them noticed him before it had reengaged its locking mechanisms. They had apparently been enjoying some sort of stimulant, likely alcohol, which moved the needle of probability back in Jericho’s favor. Judging by their proximity and wandering hands, it appeared they were intent on heading directly for the bedroom—or wherever Angelo preferred to enjoy his carnal pleasures. Jericho hesitated for a moment before committing and stepping out from behind the aquarium.
“I’m only here for Janus Angelo,” Jericho said in a clear voice, causing the three of them to turn at once in alarm, “if the two of you leave now then three of us will walk out of here. If not…it’ll be just one.”
Sasaki’s eyes narrowed and Jericho suspected that her body was being flooded with a powerful wave of natural stimulants which would counteract the effects of alcohol on her nervous system in a matter of seconds. It had been a concession to warn them of his presence but Jericho was far from a butcher; he never killed without cause—and preferably not without a public mandate.
“I-I-I don’t understand,” Angelo stammered, his glassy eyes looking stupidly at Jericho as the other two took up interdictory positions. “Who…who are you?”
Jericho cracked a half-grin. “I’m just a voice delivering the edict of the people you’ve wronged, Angelo,” he said almost pleasantly as his eyes flicked between Sasaki and Matsumoto.
Angelo went white as a sheet, but Sasaki took a bold step forward while Matsumoto—who was tall and broad, but obviously not an accomplished fighter judging by his posture and lack of confident poise—held back.
“Body temperature within point six degrees of normal,” Sasaki purred as she looked up and down Jericho’s body, and he realized she must have had some sort of ocular implant—yet another variable that could make things interesting. “A thermal suit but no accompanying electromagnetic field…and your weapons are a kitchen knife and frying pan?” She shook her head as an emphatic look of disappointment came over her face, “So repulsively normal…I had expected something more of the T.E., old man.”
“Last chance,” Jericho warned calmly as he rhythmically tightened his grip on the makeshift weapons, “you can leave on your own two feet…or in a body bag.”
Angelo was frozen in place, but Matsumoto had moved to flank Sasaki and appeared to have strengthened his own res
olve. “I’ve never killed one of you,” the woman said as she cracked her neck, “I’m going to enj—“
Jericho didn’t wait for her to finish her bloated speech. He swung the frying pan in his left hand into the glass aquarium and the glass shattered on contact, its contents spilling out onto the concrete floor of the flat. But before the first drop hit the floor, Sasaki had leapt the ten feet between them and drew a short, straight blade from concealment.
Jericho realized almost too late that he didn’t have time to execute his second planned move, so he brought his good arm up with the kitchen knife aimed at her incoming wrist. She reacted more quickly than he had expected and lashed out with her left leg, connecting with his upper chest and driving him into the wall with the surprising force of her flying kick.
But he managed to score a hit of his own along her forearm, and was sorely disappointed with the kitchen knife skittered off her seemingly ordinary, skintight, fake leather jacket.
A gleam entered her eye as she adjusted her grip on the knife and spun around to drive it into his side. But Jericho had anticipated the rather mundane attack, and managed to dive just inside the arc of her weapon as he delivered a low kick to her nearest knee.
When his shin impacted against her leather-clad joint, he was relieved to see her leg almost buckle from the force of the attack. No augments, he silently celebrated as he brought the frying pan up into her torso. But his arm failed to comply properly and rather than delivering a crushing blow to her midriff, he barely managed to hang onto the makeshift weapon and use his forward momentum to shove her across the room.
Thankfully, she weighed no more than she appeared she should, so she slammed into the wall near the door just as her companion waded into the fray. Matsumoto assumed a traditional, Southern Bloc martial arts posture, and Jericho blocked his rapid—albeit formulaic and entirely predictable—series of half-strength punches and kicks. Normally Jericho would trap one of the kicks and take the man to the ground, where he would finish him in short order.
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