by John Meaney
But subsuming Tetsuo would be one way of finding out everything he knew, while dealing with the threat.
The trouble was, Rafael had to strike through Skein, and to do that he needed more reliable, undetectable means of access: high-priority channels which would not log his activities. The sort of channels used by LuxPrime support teams, to dive straight to problem areas regardless of their physical location.
Tetsuo was Rafael's main supplier of mu-space tech, but Rafael had another source entirely for LuxPrime ware.
Beyond the fair's edge, behind gaily coloured tents, lurked a small establishment which obviously assumed its true identity only at night: the Oblivion Café.
Rafael took a seat at an open-air table, and paid for a glass of sparkling water by anonymous cred-ring.
In Skein, he surrounded himself with a blank room, its walls softening to café au lait. Mirrored panels appeared, then a grey sofa, a potted plant.
It was part of the game. To obtain the weapon he needed to ensure Tetsuo's silence, Rafael would have to push his contact farther than he ever had before. The risk lay in pushing the man too far, which would be disastrous.
Back in Skein, he constructed a ghost-Rafael to sit upon the sofa. This was one way to minimize the risks: let him think that Rafael was calling from home.
Then, through the medium of his NetAngel, his ghost-Rafael, he opened up a SkeinLink to his source.
[[Captain Greflar Rogers, ident 5A27187]]
The ghost-Rafael crossed his legs, assuming a comfortable position on the non-existent couch.
<<
In the simulated holo display in Skein, the image of a florid-complexioned man grew into being: Captain Rogers, of the Bureau for Offworld Affairs.
“Rafael. How nice of you to call me at the office.”
Meaning, he wished Rafael had called him anywhere but there.
“Still—” Rogers appeared to relax, realizing this was personal—not a recorded emergency call—and feeling confident in SkeinLink confidentiality. “I was hoping to get together with you, at some point.”
“Can you meet me for lunch?” asked Rafael through his ghost-image. “I can be at the Aphelion Fair on Actrevnia Common in forty minutes.”
Rogers glanced to one side, checking something.
“That's fine. I'll meet you at the fair.”
“There's a place called the Oblivion Café, behind the archery shoot. It'll be quiet at this time of day.”
“I'll see you there.” Rogers’ gruff voice was abrupt. “Endit.”
In the ghost-room in Skein, Rogers’ image winked out of existence.
Rafael kept a straight face in reality, while his NetAngel chortled. The man's attempts at manoeuvring Rafael were pitiful: about what one might expect from a Fulgidus bureaucrat whose ambition seriously outweighed his capabilities.
Rafael checked his bracelet. Still powered on.
He hoped he would not have to make use of it.
Sweet herbs dropped into the glass, colouring the water. Above him, the pale green sky wavered. A caramel-coloured cloud wobbled out of shape, then regained it.
There was an established pattern: Rafael had always turned up for his meetings with Rogers exactly on time. Rogers would not expect him to be here already, and so well prepared.
Rafael sprinkled more sweet herbs from the complementary packet into his drink, and leaned back in his chair. From his table, in the open, he could just discern the ripple of movement which led, like an awning overhead, from the café building behind him, to a dense copse of trees, a hundred metres away. Among the trees, a covered entrance led to the Actrevnia Common metrotube station, and to the network of underground scenic riverpaths which spread out from the city.
Rafael had visited the men's room on the café’s second storey, waited till the corridor outside it was empty, withdrawn a long translucent rod from beneath his cape, pushed it through a window membrane, and placed it across the sill.
By now it would have spread out, a long five-metre-wide ribbon-shaped stretch of smartatom film, like an awning which joined the café to the dense stand of trees. In load-phase, it would be absorbing the ground-image below, and transmitting it, unchanged, vertically upwards.
Rogers’ office was in Bastren East, the next district over from Actrevnia. He could walk here in fifteen minutes, but would probably get a taxi.
<<
The film's main routine would be running now: from above, if a SatScan sweep were running, Rafael would be seen walking into the stand of trees. At Rafael's table, the image of a blonde-haired woman would seat herself, at the chair which he actually occupied.
He ordered a crinchnar from the table's terminal, a kind of open-topped spiced sandwich. He knew as soon as it rose through the table's delivery membrane that it was going to be unappetizing, but he chewed at it anyway.
A SatScan snapshot now would show a fair-haired woman, eating.
The food sat like lead in his stomach.
Remaining out of Skein, Rafael blanked his thoughts, and waited.
Rogers arrived five minutes late.
“Nice of you to come.” Rafael kept his voice urbane, as he rose from his seat and motioned to the other man to sit.
Rogers flushed, though there had been no sharpness in Rafael's tone.
“Sorry I'm late.”
“I'm sure it was unavoidable. Drink?”
Rogers nodded.
A glass of sweetened sherry rose up—Rogers’ favourite, already ordered by Rafael—and Rogers grasped the glass and half-drained it in one gulp.
“Very good.” He sighed as he placed the glass down. “I needed that.”
“Work must be very pressing at the moment. A lot of offworlders around, because of the conference.”
“Yeah, well,” Rogers nodded self-importantly. “A few robberies, but we're hopeful of apprehending the perpetrators real soon now.”
“I'm glad. Tell me, Captain, do you think you might be able to help me with my latest venture?”
“I—don't know, Rafael. I honestly don't know.”
“I can give you the specs.” Rafael held out a crystal. “Here's the list of interface instructions I need to be able to call. It's quite low level. Engineering comm-channels in Skein.”
Rogers looked at the crystal, but made no move to take it.
“You mind if I ask the purpose of this? What are you designing?”
“You don't normally bother with those details,” Rafael said pleasantly, though every sense was on full alert. “Surely we can do business without getting into the boring tech stuff?”
“I'm sorry.” Rogers swallowed. The movement caused his jowls to tremble, as though he had been slapped in the face.
“Well.” Rafael paused, as though in thought. “It's a module that will contact a Luculentus through Skein, even if he's not actually logged on.”
<<
A smartatom cloud, hovering above Rogers. Rafael's smartatom film would be preparing a gamma-ray burst.
Rogers said nothing, so Rafael continued. “Quite a useful concept, don't you think? Lots of applications. Soul-parents monitoring their offspring, for example.”
“Are you sure that's all you're using it for?” The strain in Rogers's voice was obvious.
“Of course. What else?”
<<
“By the way, Captain—” Rafael smiled easily. “—Your surveillance cloud has been defused. I just thought you should know that.”
The blood drained from Rogers’ face.
“Just a precaution—”
“Why, Captain. What have you got to fear?”
“We—can't do business any more. That's what I came to tell you.”
“Tsk, tsk.” Rafael shook his head. “The prices I'm offering are increasing. Bu
siness is very good.”
Rogers picked up the sherry glass, then replaced it without drinking.
“There's no contact.” Rogers swallowed. “I've lost my contact.”
“What do you mean?” Rafael closed his left fist around the crystal which Rogers had refused.
Sunlight glinted on his silver bracelet.
“My source in LuxPrime,” said Rogers, “was a courier called Farsteen. And he's dead. Murdered. Don't you watch the NewsNets?”
“And he was your only source?”
“Didn't you hear me?” Rogers’ voice was beginning to rise. He caught himself, looked around guiltily, then continued in a lower tone. “The man was murdered. LuxPrime pride themselves on being incorruptible. Maybe they found out about Farsteen, and did him in.”
“I don't think LuxPrime employ hit squads.”
“For God's sake—with their power, they can do whatever they want. It only takes one man to go over the bounds, you know?”
Like you, Rafael thought. Just one man stepping outside the rules, for his own greed.
“And you don't,” he asked reasonably, “have any other contacts inside LuxPrime?”
“No. We—I—found out about some, er, incidents in Farsteen's past by accident. Sheer fluke.”
“I see.”
“You can't get any handle on a LuxPrime employee, not normally. You know that. That's why they've got that stainless reputation—”
“I know.” Rafael shook his head. “You said ‘we.’ But no one else knows about you and me, do they?”
“God's sake, man. Do I look crazy? Of course they don't—”
Rogers looked surprised.
The bracelet tingled briefly around Rafael's wrist, and Rogers slowly slumped back in his chair. His corpse already had the toneless absence of the suddenly dead.
Rafael left before the inevitable smell rose.
What the hell was going on?
Under smartatom cover, Rafael made his way to the trees. He kept his gait slow, his manner pleasant, but inside he was spitting with the rage. In Skein, a thousand ghost-Rafaels were howling through dataseams, searching for connections between Captain Greflar Rogers and Tetsuo Sunadomari.
He sent the dissolve command to the antisurveillance film. Then he pulled up his cape's hood, drew on a smartmask to disguise his features, and walked through the copse and back out into the fair.
One link came back almost immediately: among the LuxPrime briefing-clusters which he had been sent as Tetsuo's sponsor, there was Tetsuo's immigration authorization, countersealed by Rogers’ ident. So, on one occasion at least, they had met in person.
“Bad luck, sir.” A girl spoke to an unlucky customer, pulling Rafael briefly from his reverie.
Farsteen.
Rafael had always been so careful to keep his tech sources apart, never hinting to Tetsuo that he was interested in LuxPrime ware, never letting Rogers infer that he might need mu-space comms capability.
Now they were linked, and the real tie was a dead LuxPrime courier called Adam Farsteen, whom Rafael had never heard of until his name was bandied about the NewsNets.
“Sir? Try your luck?”
Damn, and damn.
New tactics were required, now.
“Sir?”
Rafael realized he was standing in front of a coconut shy, no different from a Terran fair of centuries past.
“Of course.”
New tactics.
Rafael took four wooden balls from the girl.
He threw the first.
[[Luculenta Lorelei Maximilian, ident 6654к7• {sept5ΘΞ3}]]
Picturing Lori Maximilian's ideogram, he concentrated; a reply immediately returned.
<<
Frowning, he threw the second ball. The soul-daughter, Vin. He had seen her on the bed, skull crushed, tended by those interfering Earther women. Was Vin dead?
[[Luculenta Lavinia Maximilian, ident 6654%8• {sept5ΘΞ}]]
<<
No reason code was appended; she could be alive or dead.
Third ball.
In Skein, he sent more NetAngels questing. A ghost-Rafael returned from a NewsNet search: the most severely injured partygoers had been flown to Medical Complex Gamma, here in Lucis.
Fourth ball.
Yoshiko Sunadomari. Tetsuo's mother. She, too, was a possibility. Perhaps as bait. Perhaps to die.
“Oh.”
The girl was looking at him, stunned.
His first ball had whacked the coconut off its stand, and the following three had smacked into it one after the other as it fell to the ground.
Very slowly, the girl turned to fetch the coconut.
Another game he had won.
“Don't bother. I don't care for them, anyway.”
He held in his soaring laughter as he strode away.
His strategy was clear. Strike first. Kill the mother, to draw the son out from hiding.
The concern on Yoshiko Sunadomari's face had been obvious. Concern for Vin Maximilian, whose whereabouts the ghost-Rafael had determined to high probability. Sooner or later, Yoshiko would turn up at the med-centre.
The bigger game was growing more interesting, and the stakes were getting higher. Absolute certainty grew in him that he would win again—as he always did. As he always would.
Win.
The bannerman, kneeling, offered her the scroll.
As soon as Yoshiko touched the icon, her h-mail queue opened: a string of three glistening teardrops.
“Would you like to be alone?” asked Jana.
A palm-up gesture to the first teardrop revealed the sender's name. Luculenta Felice Lectinaria.
“Not at all.” Yoshiko smiled at Edralix. “You don't know what a relief it is, being able to use my own NetAgents.”
Though Yoshiko had said she needed no privacy, Edralix got up to perform some task out of her sight, and Jana busied herself with replenishing the cups of coffee.
Yoshiko gestured at the second teardrop. Lori was the sender, so Yoshiko pointed to play that message first.
In text, it said Lori was staying at the med-centre where Vin was being treated. Medical Complex Gamma, Lucis City. A graphic showed the med-centre's location, by Accordia Square in the north of the city.
Vin wasn't dead.
Yoshiko shook her head, then pinched the bridge of her nose, to stop the sudden wavering of her vision. With the injuries Vin had sustained, wasn't death preferable?
After a while, Yoshiko felt able to open the other messages. She pointed to the one from Felice Lectinaria.
“Professor Sunadomari. It was a pleasure to meet you at the Aphelion Ball, despite the dreadful events of later that night.”
In the display, the tall grey-haired Luculenta bowed her head.
“I thought you might be interested in this article,” she continued. “It's not posted yet in Skein, but feel free to cite from it if you wish.”
The woman's eyes looked directly at Yoshiko, very piercing in their intensity, and it was hard to believe this was a passive recording, without AI capabilities.
“Endit.”
The icon was an owl whose head rotated ceaselessly from left to right. Yoshiko pointed, and it metamorphosed into a circle of nine translucent spheres, each containing a tiny moving scene.
Yoshiko worked her way through them one by one, watching intently as each unfurled its full-size image, its attendant text and graphs.
The first depicted a white-trunked tree, growing on a rocky hill in bright sunlight. Later spheres showed a small copse of the same type of tree, then a widespread bush. The bush spread runners along the ground; each clump of growth bore the same spear-shaped copper leaves as the tree.
Yoshiko read intently about both tree and bush: capillary pressures, mitosis rates, photoreactive activity plotted versus sunlight intensity and ambient temperature.
Finally, she sat back
and sighed.
“Very interesting.” Edralix was behind her, and his tone was ironic.
“Well, it is.” Yoshiko pointed at the solitary tree, and its descendant, the bush with vinelike runners. “There are two different forms of the same organism. The bush adapts to the lack of shade caused by its parent, you see—”
She let out a sigh and shook her head.
“The thing is, Edralix—this is my work, you know?” Maybe too much so, thinking of how Tetsuo had turned out. “And if you're good at what you do, you practically are your work.” She paused. “Like you and Jana.”
“I know. I'm sorry.” Edralix waved a hand awkwardly. “It's just, well, you met this woman at the Aphelion Ball, and now she's sending you stuff about a plant.”
Yoshiko stared back at the display, as Edralix continued. “With all the other stuff that's going on, it just seems a little, I don't know, incongruous.”
Yoshiko frowned. “Felice Lectinaria's obviously quite well known in the field,” she said slowly. “But…you're right. Let's forget this, huh? Let's see what the third message was.”
It was from Federico Gisanthro.
“We were going to meet, weren't we?” Federico's pale face was thin, with the strong ascetic look of a long-distance runner. “The events at the ball must have been particularly distressing for you. Please call me any time, or visit in person.”
Yoshiko froze the display with a gesture.
“I forgot to mention,” she said to Jana. “Federico Gisanthro's the head of TacCorps—” When the others nodded their understanding, she added, “He invited me to meet him today.”
She explained how Lori had engineered their meeting, during the Aphelion Ball, and enlisted Federico's help.
“Very good.” Jana sounded impressed.
Edralix started to speak, then closed his mouth.
Yoshiko waved at the display to continue.
“I'm at the TacCorps Academy today, Quatt'Day, and at Peacekeeper Central all day QuinzeDay. See you. Endit.”