Sol Arbiter Box Set: Books 1-5

by Chaney, J. N.

  Jones sighed. “You’re right, Arbiter. A lot of what’s going on here just doesn’t make sense. I don’t know what Franklin Emmet told you about me, but if you think I know all the things you want to know, I’m sorry. I’m fumbling in the dark, just like you are.”

  “Not just like I am. You know things you aren’t telling me, even if you don’t know everything.”

  As bland as ever, he didn’t even try to dispute this fact. “Do you usually share information freely with people you just met? Is that how they train Arbiters?”

  “Look, another crack about Arbiters.”

  “It’s not a crack. No, seriously, Tycho, it’s not a crack. Okay? I’m just making a point here. If I don’t put all my cards on the table as quick as you want me to, can you really blame me? I have to do what I have to do.”

  “I thought you said you were a consultant.”

  He smiled and sat back. From the look on his face, it was like I had broken an unwritten rule. He just looked at me for a minute, as if he wasn’t sure what he should do with me. “So, what do you have for me?” he said at last.

  This was it. The moment when I had to decide whether to trust him or not. And I really didn’t; all my instincts told me he was as shady on the inside as he was slick and charismatic on the outside. But here’s the thing—I had no other options. And having no other options is a hell of a trust builder.

  Slowly and carefully, so he wouldn’t think I was going for a weapon, I pulled out the dataspike. The expression on his face went from skeptical to deeply impressed so quickly I thought he was going to gasp out loud. Of course, Andrew Jones was way too smooth for that. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “August Marcenn’s dataspike.”

  “From the amount of time we just spent fencing around with words, anyone would think you didn’t have a half-million people to save… or however many are still alive out there.” He held out his hand, and in a surge of doubt I almost didn’t give it to him. But I knew I had no choice, so I handed it over.

  He shook his head and sighed. “If I’d had this yesterday… but never mind. Let’s get this done.”

  He manipulated the controls, then closed his eyes and lapsed into silence. I couldn’t see it, but I knew he was staring at screens filled with code, trying to bypass the dataspike’s security features. I expected the process to take a while, so I leaned back on the couch and looked around the room. There wasn’t much in that apartment. Jones had some furniture, but no decorations or knick-knacks. Nothing personal. It was more like a safe house than an apartment.

  “Hang in there,” he said. “This won’t take a minute. The security on this thing is a joke at best. The last thing he expected was for anyone to take this, not when he had floors with guards and androids protecting him.”

  It took more than a minute, but not as long as I would have expected. That room wasn’t pitch black, so I didn’t notice the change at first. The light from outside went from gloomy to cozy, then several different things happened at once.

  A coffee maker in the kitchen started gurgling. An oven started beeping. A clock a few feet away started flashing. The lights were on, including the huge artificial daylights outside.

  As the power returned, I heard fire alarms going off all over the neighborhood. With a distant hiss, fire control systems activated across the level. If it had gone much later, we all would have burnt alive in a massive firestorm before we even ran out of oxygen. As it was, Andrew Jones had just bought us the time we needed to solve the underlying problem.

  Jones opened his eyes, and I held out my hand for the dataspike. He didn’t hand it back; instead, he snapped his fingers. “That’s right. The android proxies.”

  He closed his eyes again and returned to the abstract world of cyber warfare. I waited patiently. The man had just proved himself, although I still didn’t understand why he had to be so mysterious about everything. When he opened his eyes again, he absent-mindedly placed the dataspike down on his own lap instead of handing it over. Or was it something more than absent-mindedness?

  He looked pleased with himself. A little too pleased. “I just rescinded all their active commands, so the whole android army is sitting quiet. That should make it a little easier to deal with the Nightwatch.”

  I don’t know why I felt this way after what he’d done, but if anything, my suspicion about him was not only back… it was increasing. He was so thoroughly in control, I found it hard to believe he had held onto the dataspike unintentionally. And even though I knew he’d turned the lights back on, I had no way of knowing whether he had deactivated the androids or not.

  I stood up and walked over. “Thank you, Mr. Jones. It should. I’m going to need that back now.”

  He glanced down at the dataspike. His voice was mildly incredulous. “This? Why would you want this back? It’s not like you can do anything with it.”

  “That’s not the point. It’s evidence.”

  Shit. This guy had me rattled. I heard Gabriel’s voice telling me off for even saying that. You don’t explain yourself. Not ever. This man is a civilian; he doesn’t need to know the first thing about the first thing, and when you explain your actions you weaken your authority.

  Too late for that.

  Jones gave me another look. This one seemed to imply that he was surprised by my simple-mindedness. “There isn’t going to be any trial, Mr. Barrett. I thought you knew that. So, this isn’t evidence of anything.”

  “That doesn’t matter. I’m taking it back with me. My superiors can figure out what to do with it.”

  I stuck my hand out, willing him to do the right thing and just hand it over.

  “Nah.” He grinned. “You don’t really want that. More trouble than it’s worth. I’ll just hang onto it.”

  “The hell you will.” I swung my rifle around to the front of my body, but he had his sidearm on me before I could even complete the process. And there we were, both of us pointing our guns at each other.

  “What’s your deal, Jones?” I demanded.

  “Well, here’s the thing. I haven’t been fully honest with you.”

  “You don’t say.”

  He seemed as unfazed by this as he was by everything else. “Don’t take it personally. I’ve never been fully honest with anyone in my entire life. You can’t really expect me to start with you.”

  “You’re pretty glib for a man with a rifle in his face.”

  “I’m a good judge of character. You’re an honorable man; you wouldn’t just shoot the guy who turned the lights back on.”

  He had a point there, but I didn’t want to give away the only bargaining chip I had. Once you draw a gun, you can’t exactly keep escalating. You either pull the trigger or you don’t. Keeping my voice as calm as possible, I tried to reason with him. “As you may know, Arbiters on this kind of mission are authorized to use lethal force. And by authorized, I mean it’s encouraged. We use force constantly. One might even say recklessly. It makes people scared of us, and that makes our job easier. Do you see what I’m saying here?”

  “Absolutely, yes. You eat fire and breathe lightning. But what’s your point? I mean, I still turned the lights on.”

  “I would have shot you already if you hadn’t done that. You’ve pushed my patience to the limit here, Jones.”

  He shook his head in disappointment. “Another training issue. Conflict resolution, de-escalation skills… they really don’t teach you any of that stuff?”

  I couldn’t believe this guy. He’d been escalating with me intentionally since the conversation started. Some men are just like that. They’ll poke you and poke you until you take a swing, then duck it with a shit-eating grin and ask you what you’re so mad about.

  I lowered my rifle with a sigh. I couldn’t win here, and the only way to improve my situation at all was to stop making it worse. He lowered his weapon as well, but he didn’t holster it. “You ready to talk now? I mean, seriously, Barrett. You are one emotional guy.”

  I laug
hed. At that point, I couldn’t help it. I still didn’t know who Jones really was, or what he was doing on Tower 7. I found his personality too slick by half. And yet I laughed, realizing that Jones probably had the same effect on a lot of people.

  Jones laughed along with me, although his laughter had the same unconvincing quality as everything else about him. He was a guy who would laugh if you were laughing, banter if you wanted to banter, and point a gun at you if you were pointing a gun at him. A human mirror.

  But there was something else. I froze in mid laugh, because it wasn’t just the two of us laughing. There was a third voice, somewhere behind me where his eyes had flickered.

  “Who’s there?” I asked, my voice sharp and suspicious. It had been a woman’s voice, but I hadn’t seen anyone else in the apartment with him. I turned to look, my skin crawling when I didn’t see anyone. I’m not a superstitious man, but I could have sworn I had just heard a ghost laugh.

  “Come on,” said the voice. “Stop toying with the mouse. You can see his little whiskers trembling.”

  I moved much faster this time, leveling my rifle on Jones before he could draw his weapon. At almost the same moment I drew my sidearm and aimed it roughly where I had heard the voice.

  “Throw your weapon down and come out of hiding! This is the Sol Federation Arbiter Force! We are authorized to use lethal…”

  “Buddy, buddy, turn off the amplifier! You’re going to make me deaf here!”

  The voice wasn’t coming from a hiding spot. It was coming from just a couple of feet away, although I had no way to square that with the evidence of my own senses. Then I noticed the shimmer, like a distortion in the air in front of me.

  I spun back toward Jones, compelled by some inner urge. Could he see it too, or was I hallucinating from the thin oxygen?

  “I see it too, Barrett. But it’s old hat for me. She sits around the apartment like that all the time. Don’t ask me why.”

  Whoever she was, she laughed again. At this point, I had a brief moment where I thought I was going crazy. But then I realized what must be going on here—thermoptic camouflage, a suit that allows the wearer to blend in seamlessly with the surrounding environment. It’s rare and high-level military tech, not the kind of thing you run into every day. When I peered a little closer at the shimmering mirage effect, I could just make out the shape of a woman’s body. She wasn’t really invisible, just almost invisible.

  As I stared in her direction, I suddenly felt something yank my rifle barrel up and to the side. But that wasn’t all. Jones not only moved across the room both swiftly and silently to push my gun off-target, he also twisted it in such a way that the strap wrapped around my Adam’s apple. In less than a second, I went from having a gun pointed at each of them to being twisted up like a rubber band, with the edges of my vision going rapidly dark.

  In that condition, it wasn’t difficult at all for the semi-invisible woman to pluck my sidearm out of my other hand. I was now effectively disarmed except for my knife, but there was no possibility of getting anywhere near it. As I fought for air, Jones walked me back to the living room couch and sat me down. Then he let the pressure off and relieved me of my rifle while I struggled to regain full consciousness.

  His face was the first thing I could see clearly as my sight came back to me. He looked concerned, verging on weirdly gentle. “You okay there, buddy?”

  I wasn’t great, but I didn’t exactly want to show him that. “No quips about my hand-to-hand training?”

  “I thought it went without saying.” He shrugged. “No need to salt the wound.”

  When you’ve been humiliated badly enough that Andrew Jones doesn’t want to make fun of you, then and only then have you been truly humiliated.

  “I was distracted.”

  “Obviously. Although most guys wait until she deactivates her active camouflage before they stare at her.”

  She chuckled. “Speaking of which…”

  I heard her walk into the living room. The shimmer effect was plainly visible, but in a complex environment like a battlefield it would be impossible to spot her from more than a few feet away.

  The shimmer seemed to solidify, and the vague shape of a woman in front of me became a tall blonde with long flowing hair. She wore tactical gear, but of some type I had never seen before. Her little diamond earrings gleamed in the light. Just like Franklin Emmet, she had prosthetic limbs—but in her case, four of them. She looked me up and down while I just blinked at her stupidly, then turned to Jones with a grin. “I think the cat’s got his tongue.”

  “Well, you did just materialize right in front of him. Stop staring, Barrett. I’ll introduce you. This is Andrea Capanelli.”

  “I’m Tycho Barrett.”

  “I know who you are.” She smiled. “I was right here, remember?”

  By this point I was so disoriented it was probably a good thing that I was sitting down. Andrew Jones the consultant was a man who boobytrapped his entire neighborhood and had an all-but-invisible armed companion sitting in on his private conversations. Since the start of the crisis, there had been many aspects of the situation I didn’t understand. Now it looked like I was dealing with at least two spooks, but who were they and who did they work for?

  Technically, I was probably their prisoner by that point as they had taken my firearms. But I wasn’t going to let that intimidate me. I swallowed. “Who are you people? Who do you work for?”

  Andrea laughed yet again. “Get me a drink, Andrew, would you?”

  “Red Martian?” he asked.

  “Yeah. This Arbiter and I need to have a conversation. You need a refill, Barrett?”

  I glanced at my glass. “Okay.”

  “One for Mr. Barrett.”

  “You know,” mused Andrew, “just because I have that certificate does not mean I’m a bartender.”

  “Whatever, Andrew, you know you love it. Make me something obscure if you want.”

  “I hope you know what you’re getting yourself into,” he replied and wandered off to the kitchen to mix her something complicated.

  She sat down where Andrew had been sitting a few minutes before. She had a way of looking at people, like she could see right through you but didn’t plan to be mean about it. I couldn’t quite figure her out though. Her hair, makeup, and diamond earrings suggested she was planning to go out to a high-end restaurant. Her camouflaged tactical gear suggested a firefight.

  She noticed me noticing. “I know it doesn’t fit. And yeah, that’s intentional.”

  I shrugged. When it came right down to it, I didn’t really need to know why. Jones came back in the room and handed Andrea a drink. It had the exact same mix of colors as the Venusian atmosphere.

  She gave it a skeptical look. “That’s clever, Jones, but… really? A Venusian acid cloud?”

  “That’s exactly what I plan to call it.”

  He returned to the kitchen and came back again with a refill on my Red Martian. This entire encounter was getting too strange for me to even keep up with. Was I meeting with a security consultant, or had I just been captured by two spies, or was I at a cocktail party?

  Andrea sipped her Venusian Acid Cloud then set it down. I was starting to figure out at least one of their little tricks—call for drinks, then barely touch your own while you let the other person get happily tipsy. An old gambit, but still effective.

  I decided to have exactly one sip every time she did, and no more. She saw me take my sip, smiled knowingly when I put my glass down, then looked me straight in the eyes. “It’s cards on the table time, Tycho. Are you ready for it?”

  16

  I nodded. “I’m ready.”

  Jones kept his distance, busying himself with some kitchen chore.

  As far as I could tell, Andrea was the one in charge here. Jones mixed her drinks, and he kept out of the room when she was talking. She confirmed my impression a moment later. “I’m in charge of this field team, but broadly speaking I’m a combat generalist. My r
ank on paper is Field Commander, Federation Intelligence, Section 9.”

  She held my gaze, knowing I wouldn’t know what to say to that.

  She was right to assume so. I shook my head. “Excuse me, would you mind repeating that?”

  “Not at all.” She took another sip of her Venusian Acid Cloud. “Damn, this is sour. Jones, why do you always have to be so literal?”

  “I’m a poet at heart,” he called from the kitchen, and she rolled her eyes at him.

  “Where were we? Oh yeah, you wanted me to repeat myself. Okay. My name is Andrea Capanelli, and I’m a Field Commander with Section 9 of Sol Federation Intelligence.”

  So, I had heard her right the first time. But it didn’t make any sense. “Federation Intelligence has eight sections: internal security, counter-terrorism, off-world crime, interplanetary conflict…”

  She held a hand up to stop me. “I know the list.”

  I matched her sip, then put my drink back down. “So, you see my problem. If Federation Intelligence has eight sections, you cannot be assigned to the ninth section.”

  She nodded thoughtfully. “That follows.”

  She wasn’t giving me a lot to work with here. “Care to try a different cover story? I can give you a few minutes if you need it.”

  My voice was sarcastic, but I felt the situation called for it. I mean, anyone could have found out that Federation Intelligence had eight sections just by spending a few minutes on a dataspike. As a cover story, it was amateur hour. Nothing else about these two seemed amateurish though…

  “I don’t need another story. What I told you is the truth. I work for Section 9 of Sol Federation Intelligence. So does Jones, and so do the others you’ll be meeting shortly.”

  I let her statement sink in. What she was telling me here was that I had never been told the truth. I didn’t want to accept that, because I had always been told that the Arbiters were the Federation’s cutting edge. Call it professional pride or old-fashioned ego, but the idea that we were not even in the loop for something this big.