The Infinity Mainframe (Tombs Rising Book 3)

by Robert Scott-Norton

  Nikoli had passed the telepathy screening which showed he had no telepathic ability.

  Anna Lovett ran those tests.

  It might mean nothing. It was possible that Nikoli’s powers had developed after the screening, but none of this felt comfortable. If Anna Lovett wasn’t linked to Nikoli as a tester, and as the handler of the keepers who would eventually get his eye, she might not have pursued the idea.

  But it might mean everything.

  Ruby entered a query into the archive. She wanted to see Nikoli’s test results for herself. A second later and the record appeared, nothing unusual about it. There was Anna’s signature on the document. No comments or anything unusual. But, maybe there was another way. The certificate contained a link back to the original test results. Maybe there was something in the original test results that had been misread. Ruby clicked the link and stopped.

  Invalid directional link.

  Ruby worked back to the certificate and tried again.

  Invalid directional link.

  Ruby leant forward, sliding her chair closer to the desk. Not one to believe in coincidences, Ruby couldn’t let this go. She picked up the curator device that had been ignored until now.

  “What can I help with today?” The curator’s voice was school matronly—middle-aged, authoritative.

  “I’m looking for the results of Nikoli Wei’s G-Septuplex test, ninth of March, twenty-one ten.”

  “Authorisation is required. Please enter command codes.”

  The unit changed its display so that an eight-digit code could be entered. She tapped at the screen. A ping and the unit spoke again. “There are no test results for those criteria.”

  Maybe it was a different day. “Check again for Nikoli Wei. Any date.”

  A pause, then the unit repeated it’s negative response.

  Unsure what this meant, Ruby leant back in her chair and looked around her. It was an odd feeling, being alone in this vast repository of records, all the while feeling that something wasn’t right. This smelt bad. She wanted to tell Glynn, but she needed to be sure it wasn’t a filing error. There would be backups made of these files. If they’d been indexed wrong, the search would fail.

  She pressed the input button on the curator. “Where are the source records for telepathy examinations in twenty-one ten?”

  A ping and the unit changed its display again, this time to a blinking arrow that seemed to float above the surface of the curator device. She held the unit before her and followed the arrow.

  Signs on the end of the rows suggested a cataloguing system of sorts but the numbers meant nothing to her. Ruby let the unit guide her to a rack about twenty along from the entrance. She proceeded into the racks, admiring the height of the shelving units, wondering how anyone was supposed to get to ones above their reach, then she passed a robotic ladder unit with a platform just large enough to stand on.

  A minute later and the compass flashed and pointed to a shelving unit on her left.

  “Source records are in central store GYT18. Press your palm against the panel to release the files.”

  Ruby did as she was instructed and seconds later a slim tablet slid out of a slot on the front of the unit. She picked it up, and the tablet responded by lighting up its panel and displaying a series of thumbnails. “Excellent,” she whispered to herself.

  She scanned through the list of files, looking for Nikoli’s name, but there was nothing. When the file list passed through March, though, she paused the scrolling and stared at the line in the middle of the screen. Tests were held on the date on Nikoli’s certificate. But the records had been deleted. She didn’t need to see the missing records now. Had Anna faked the results then deleted the evidence?

  Ruby straightened. Finally, a lead of substance. Anna Lovett had to have been involved in Nikoli’s death and all Ruby needed to do was prove it.

  7:04 PM

  Anna hadn't wanted to meet at her apartment or the DRT office, so they'd opted for a pub on the Promenade in Southport. The Victorian architecture nestled incongruously between massive steel apartment blocks.

  Ruby had wondered why this particular spot, but as she walked along the promenade and fell under the crescent shadow of the OsMiTech building she thought she understood perfectly. OsMiTech dominated the skyline. Lights dotted the windows as dusk shrouded the town like a widow's veil.

  The clouds above were dark and rolling. Thunder was on its way.

  Inside, the bar had an atmosphere all its own. The air laced with the smell of beer, and it draped around her as she headed for the bar. TV monitors hung apologetically in the corners, news streams playing. A chalkboard above the bar told of today’s specials. Behind the wooden bar, scarred with decades of abuse, a short man with a belly straining against the buttons on his shirt glanced up.

  "Water, please," she said.

  He didn’t even try to hide tutting at her but obliged and set a glass in front of her. She sipped and tapped the payment terminal with her HALO before checking out the rest of the patrons. Anna wasn't here. But then, Ruby had made sure to come ten minutes early. She had something to do first and she’d planned to leave it as close to the meeting as possible.

  There were enough people in the bar that she didn’t think she’d be noticed, but as she took a table in the corner, one shirt and tie guy glanced in her direction and his gaze lingered a second too long. He was cute, but when he turned back to his friends, holding pints and laughing, there was a smirk on his face that she didn’t care for.

  The corner table had a bench seat that wrapped around two walls and ended with a partition. It offered a nice level of privacy. Two wooden chairs were tucked under the table. Ruby chose the bench seating as it gave her a chance to observe the room and keep an eye out for Anna when she arrived.

  After a sip of her water, she set the glass down and rummaged in her bag, looking for the ampule she’d taken from Scott Logan on the night of his arrest—the ampule she’d still not declared to Glynn or written up in her reports. She wasn’t prepared to meet Anna without taking precautions. Blocking chemicals were becoming more common, and it was unusual to come across a rogue who didn’t have access to a supply. Whilst blocking patterns were the safest option in resisting telepaths attempts to scan, they were also reliant on the subject’s ability to use them effectively and practice. A good teep could still get through. With this chemical, Ruby didn’t need to worry about being scanned, only about the risk that she did not understand exactly what the chemical was. It might kill her. It probably wouldn’t. It hadn’t killed Scott Logan.

  Discreetly, so no one else in the bar could see, she pressed the ampule against her forearm and depressed the inbuilt injection system. A sharp scratch, a stab of pain, and then a coolness, possibly imagined, as the drug travelled into her system.

  Was it working? No way to know for sure.

  She twisted her neck at the sound of the pub doors opening again and saw Anna. The woman dressed in a grey suit with her hair tied back in a loose ponytail. To Ruby’s annoyance, she didn’t look flustered at all. Anna looked around, stepped further into the room, noticed the group of drinking men before finally seeing Ruby in the corner seat.

  Ruby rose to shake hands as Anna approached. Her grip was tight, controlled. Her expression measured with a practised politeness, the smile just a little too well-timed. Anna pulled out one of the wooden chairs and sat down, placing her bag on the chair beside her.

  “Can I get you a drink?” Ruby asked.

  “No. I don’t have time for that. In fact, I barely have time for you at all. You’ve dragged me here under some pretext that you’ve found something that puts the registration process at risk. I’d like us to cut the bullshit and get down to business. I’d also like to know why we’re not having this conversation on official premises—this place is not secure.”

  And suddenly any ideas Ruby had about manipulating Anna evaporated.

  Anna’s expression remained neutral. The tattoo on her forehe
ad identified her as a class two. She’d need physical contact to read thoughts but she should still be able to pick out strong emotions with no contact.

  “Thanks for meeting me. No bullshit. I promise.”

  The expression on Anna’s face remained unchanged. Ruby shifted uncomfortably.

  “I wanted to talk to you about a rogue telepath our department came across recently,” Ruby started.

  “Wait, you told me this was to do with the registration process. I’ve no interest in your rogue telepaths.” She practically snorted that last comment.

  Ruby continued unfazed. “Bear with me. This is connected. On the night of the InfiniteYou launch, DRT were tipped off to the presence of a rogue infiltrating the event. There were concerns that he might even attempt to assassinate Devan Oster. I caught him before he could manage it. His name was Scott Logan.” Ruby let the name hang in the air, curious as to whether Anna might react.

  Her face was stone. “It sounds like you did a good job. And you deserve some credit for keeping it out of the OsMiTech Network feeds.”

  Ruby nodded. “Well, it was Devan’s party. He would have made sure no negative stuff appeared in the feeds.”

  “Quite,” Anna agreed.

  “This rogue, this Scott Logan, he was due to go through the screening process, on the morning following the InfiniteYou launch. He knew he would test positive. That’s why he acted.”

  “It’s no excuse. The Registration Act must be followed. We’d have anarchy without it.”

  “I’m not suggesting we shouldn’t have it. Not at all. I’ve seen how people get when they try to beat the system, and it never ends well. For anyone.”

  “We make people’s lives better. OsMiTech protects telepaths. Why anyone would want to go it alone is beyond me.”

  Anna seemed to be relaxing into the conversation now. Maybe, that initial hostile approach was her way of laying down the ground rules. Ruby decided to move on and adjusted her HALO to cast a photograph onto the tabletop. “Have you ever met this man?”

  “No.” Anna frowned. “Is he Scott?”

  “No. This is Nikoli Wei. The husband of Lavinia Wei whose eye is still inside Jack Winston, your remnant keeper.”

  Anna hesitated. She spent longer looking at the photograph. “I never saw his photo before, but I know the name. Nikoli was DRT wasn’t he?”

  Ruby tilted her head. “That’s right. We’ve worked together for five years at the department. I wondered whether you might have recognised him from when he attended his screening session.”

  “Many people go through our screening process. I can’t remember everyone.”

  Ruby held Anna’s gaze for a moment before allowing herself to smile. “Of course.”

  “From your tone, you’re hypothesising my remnant keeper was attacked to get access to Nikoli’s eye.”

  “It’s occurred to me.”

  Anna shook her head. “It’s a coincidence. It could have been anyone’s eye.”

  Ruby took another sip from her drink. “I’ve recently discovered that Nikoli was a telepath.”

  She watched Anna’s reaction. Anna barely stirred.

  “A telepath. Working in the DRT? You have rules against that.”

  “We do. Nikoli wasn’t registered. He kept it secret. That’s why I wanted to talk to you. I looked into his testing history. His last test was in twenty ten. The results of that test are missing.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t help you with that. You will need to speak to OsMiTech directly. An administrative error.”

  “As you were there, I wondered whether—”

  Anna smiled, then flicked a strand of hair back behind her ear. “What are you implying?”

  Ruby hesitated. “I’d like you to come to our office and talk to my boss about this case. If there’s a problem with the screening process, we need to deal with it quickly before the public hears about it. I trust that won’t be a problem.”

  To give her her due, Anna didn’t balk at the suggestion at all. “Absolutely. Let’s get this sorted. I’m busy for the next few days. How about we do this on Monday?”

  “Sure.”

  Anna got to her feet abruptly, checked her HALO and said, “I’ve got to go. Thank you for bringing me in on this. If there’s a problem, we need to solve it. But, I really must go.” And without another glance, Anna spun around, banging open the pub doors in her haste to leave.

  Ruby had touched a nerve. Anna knew far more about what was happening with the screening programme than she admitted. Perhaps having her outside of her comfort zone inside the DRT office might scare her into talking. Because there was one thing Ruby recognised in Anna, and she didn’t need Anna’s abilities to see it either. A flash of something that passed across Anna’s eyes the moment Ruby had mentioned Nikoli’s missing test results.

  Anna was terrified.

  Sunday, 5 May 2115

  12:04 PM

  Saturday passed in a blur, with Ruby spending most of it worrying about what she'd found out about Anna. It made little sense to her that the woman would manipulate telepath testing results. To what end? The worry was manifesting as a pain in her head that refused to go away despite twice the dose of recommended painkillers. It was the stress of the case, she kept telling herself as she showered and threw some clothes on.

  Dad surprised her by being ready for her on the side of the road beside the habitat block. Already the streets were busy, and she received a few unwelcome looks as her car pulled up to let him in.

  "Morning, Dad." She leant over and kissed him on his stubbly cheek. He smelt clean but his clothes looked crumpled and there was a faint tang of something off. Domesticity had never been part of his make-up. Since his descent into whatever this condition was things had got worse. It must have taken him a good effort to at least wash for this morning's visit to the clinic.

  "You're looking troubled," he said, settling into his seat. Ruby kept her hands on the steering wheel and ignored the car's prompt to take control for her.

  "I'm fine, Dad. Don't worry."

  "You're my daughter. It's my right to worry about you."

  "Don't. You don't need to."

  "Are we on time?"

  "Yes. You did good."

  "I'd been waiting for forty minutes. I thought you weren't coming."

  "I'm not late. I'm on time. You were early."

  "That doesn't sound like me."

  Except it did sound like Dad. Time was a concept somewhat alien to the man now. When he was back in the force and fit and healthy things had been different. He'd been the martinet of the household, keeping everyone moving like clockwork to his own beat. Ruby always arrived at school at the exact time the teachers opened the doors every morning and was in bed every night at the same time. No deviations allowed. There were times she’d hated her dad for that regime, but she also knew that his strict parenting still had a positive impact on her life today.

  "I only went to the clinic last week. Why am I going again so soon?"

  "We've spoken about this."

  "Have we?"

  "They have a procedure they'd like to try. We talked about it. Dr Pemberton walked you through it. Try to remember."

  "Telepaths." The way he said the word made Ruby's arms tingle. He had never liked them. The Registration Act was far too lenient. He'd told her and her mother that enough times over the years to make her half-believe it. "Have you caught any today?"

  "It's nine-thirty. It's my day off. I'm taking you to the clinic."

  "You didn't need to take a day off. I could have gone on my own."

  "It's fine. I want to do this."

  "What time will we be finished? Only, I've a service to get to later."

  Ruby bit her tongue, refusing to be drawn into an argument with him today over his support of that church.

  Dr Pemberton met them in the foyer minutes after Ruby had announced their arrival at reception. His hand was hot and sweaty and he looked like he'd just woken up. Ruby fought back the urge t
o straighten his unruly hair and instead held Dad by the hand and squeezed it gently.

  "Excellent. How are you this morning?" the doctor asked them both.

  "Fine," Ruby replied.

  Dad nodded in agreement, the man who'd been chatting away only moments earlier had shut himself down.

  "Everything's running smoothly this morning. I've got things set up down the hall. If you'll follow me."

  They followed the doctor who led them both into a room with a bed, an open window letting in the sounds of the distant road, and a man she'd never met before. The dark-skinned stranger smiled when they entered the room and walked confidently towards her dad, his hand outstretched.

  "I'm Berko Afolayan."

  Her dad had his hand out ready to make contact then suddenly pulled it back to his side. Ruby noticed Berko's class three tattoo at the same time. This must be the medical teep who'd been assigned to perform the procedure Dr Pemberton had told them about. Apparently used to such reactions, Berko smiled genially and clasped his hands together, backing off a little. It would make little difference, Ruby thought, as a class three telepath he didn’t need physical contact to read their minds. It was only his following the teep code and any blocking patterns they were using that limited him. Ruby cycled hers.

  Dr Pemberton offered the bed to her dad, and Ruby took a chair beside him. With Dad sitting on the edge of the bed, looking like he was ready to leave, she patted his elbow gently. She wanted to tell him not to worry, but knowing how that might set his worrying off even more, she stayed quiet and glanced at the doctor.

  Dr Pemberton smiled. "I'm glad you're here. Berko is truly excellent at what he does. We've been lucky to have him available."

  Berko stood in silence, gazing in Ruby's direction. Did he know who she worked for? Teeps often found it uncomfortable to speak to her once they found out she worked for the DRT.

  "So, what happens now?" her dad asked.

  "We've some paperwork to fill in, to get you admitted. Then I'll talk through the procedure with you both."