Tadeo entered the cubic where he’d left Kiva working earlier and got his holo gear ready. He moved Kiva’s handheld beside his own and manually connected the two so he could access her search results and cross-reference them with the archive data Mali had given him.
He twisted his wrist, and dual holo screens appeared before him.
“Jai Florian,” he said.
Jai’s records appeared. He opened Kiva’s files to the list of the traitors’ shift card access dates and dragged them into his handheld’s holo screen.
“Cross-reference new shift card access dates and times with Jai Florian’s shift card access dates and times.”
If any of the traitors had ever been anywhere near Jai Florian, this should reveal that.
Both screens whited out, and a silver infinity symbol spun through the air. After a moment, Jai’s schedule reappeared. At least a dozen of his shifts were highlighted.
Matches. Jai had been working in imports when one of the traitors had also been on zero deck. But it could just be a coincidence.
His heart pumped harder as he leaned forward and tapped each match, selecting them all. He splayed his hands wide and a third screen appeared, overlaying the original.
Match: Jai Florian; Tatiana Carizo
Tadeo’s heart stopped. In the past ten months, Jai and Tatiana had both accessed the same sector of zero deck. They’d both gone to a spot near exports over a dozen times within an hour of one another.
Tadeo needed to find out if supplies from the Meso had come in on those days. He pinched his index finger and thumb together to extract the matches and placed them on his main holo screen. Then he went back to Kiva’s files.
“Find date matches for Meso imports and exports.”
Six matches in the past few months. Each time, a shipment had arrived from the Meso, via the Moscow supply transport. On each of these days, Tatiana had entered the same sector as Jai, and later that day, a shipment had left the Paragon for the Meso.
A thrill shot through Tadeo, and he glanced toward the door. “Match dates with Jai Florian’s imports sector access,” he whispered.
The list populated, and Tadeo scanned down it, his heart thumping faster by the second.
Day 133 SHIFT LOG: Jai Florian - Imports Sector 1.4, First Shift, Second Shift. Hours 09:00-18:00
09:00 SHIFT CARD ACCESS: Jai Florian Imports Sector 1.4
10:45 SHIFT CARD ACCESS: Tatiana Carizo Zero Deck Sector 6
11:00 SHIFT CARD ACCESS: Jai Florian Zero Deck Sector 6
14:32 SHIFT CARD ACCESS: Jai Florian Exports Sector 5
16:30 EXPORT LOG: Exports Sector 5 - Meso shipment scanned out.
What stared back at him was damning. It was the same pattern four times. His mother’s spy had been meeting up with Jai Florian. This was proof. Tadeo’s mother had said Tatiana had a way to send her information. Jai had to have been helping her ship illegal comms.
Did that mean Jai still worked for his mother? Could he have helped smuggle the explosive powder aboard? This was bad. Everything kept leading back to his mother, but he couldn’t believe she would ever put this ship in danger on purpose. Or put him in danger.
Tadeo shoved his handheld into his suit and jumped out of his chair.
The president could never find out about any of this, which meant he had to get to Jai before the chief did.
Tadeo jogged down the stairwell to zero deck, running his hand along the smooth, worn banister. He was sweating freely now, but he didn’t bother wiping it away.
The president had said they could use any means necessary to find the bomb. It was forbidden to even acknowledge the existence of the “encouragement” vials, but Tadeo had heard whispers about them from the veteran guards in the president’s personal squads even before he’d seen Chief carry the case into Era’s interrogation.
One dose caused the lungs to seize up for several seconds and made people feel like they’d been spaced. Every dose after that got stronger, the effects lasting longer. The strongest one was rumored to cause death.
What would Jai confess if the drugs were used on him? Tadeo couldn’t let it come to that.
He walked through the double doors into the wide corridor of zero deck, straight past helio sector to the far side of the ship, and just as he reached imports and exports the buzzer called an end to second shift. Kak. He activated his eyepiece and found the image of Jai.
“Transparent mode,” he said. “Activate facial recognition.”
The main corridor split here, and tired colonists began to file out of doors on every side of him. His holo screen searched the passing colonists for matches as he looked at the sector numbers engraved in the metal panels, seeking Jai’s sector.
Imports: Sector 1.4
He hurried down the corridor, pushing past the flood of colonists leaving cubics, trying to scan every face he passed. A few seemed frightened to see him there, but all of the colonists carefully avoided meeting his gaze and tried to keep their heads down. Would the software even find Jai in this crowd?
The double doors of Sector 1.4 slid open as he reached them, and workers began to file out. A mass of them crowded around the exit, waiting for their turn to scan their cards and check out for the day. He pushed past and stepped just inside, pressing his back to the wall.
Towering pallets of shipping containers lined the massive space in deep rows, and a few helios traveled down distant aisles with their owners. Each metal case contained goods imported from different dekas—the symbol of each ship stamped on the sides of the crates.
Tadeo kept his eyepiece trained on the colonists, his heart beating fast. Jai had to be somewhere in this crowd.
Tadeo’s wristband crackled. Chief was comming him.
“Raines.”
“We’re clearing the stairwell now,” Chief said, his voice coming through faint in Tadeo’s earbud, “and we’re going to come down stairwell C in five minutes so we can lead the president and board out safely. Where are you?”
“I’ll be to zero deck soon,” Tadeo lied.
“I’m about to head up to command to escort them down. Meet us in fifteen at C—we may need more help clearing the corridors.”
Tadeo’s holo screen blinked, and his eyes went to the dot overlaying the scene before him. Facial recognition had found a match. The dot blinked on the face of a short man with a dusky complexion and black hair. He stood at the edge of the crowd, on the opposite side from Tadeo.
Jai Florian. Match: 100%
“Raines?” Chief said.
One chance. He had this one chance to find out what Jai knew about his mother before the chief talked to him. Jai scanned his shift card and headed into the corridor.
“Yes, sir.”
Tadeo switched off his comm and pushed through the crowd, in search of Jai. There.
He walked up beside the short man who glanced up at Tadeo and stumbled right into the wall panel. Tadeo grabbed him by the arm and led him a little further down the corridor, to the first cubic he saw.
“What… what’s this about? I’m scheduled for questioning tomorrow.”
“Not anymore.”
Colonists openly stared at them as Tadeo pulled his shift card from his pocket and scanned it across the cubic’s scanner.
“This is a storage cubic—”
“Good,” Tadeo said.
The door opened, and Tadeo pushed Jai inside and stepped in after him. Lume bars lit up the cramped space as the door shut behind them. Narrow shelves lined the cubic, filled with bins of bolts and tools.
“What’s going on?” Jai gripped the shelf beside him, his hand shaking. “What do you want?”
Tadeo carefully removed his eyepiece and placed it and his handheld on the shelf beside him. His heart rate sped up as he approached Jai.
The man’s eyes widened, and he swallowed. “I—”
Tadeo slammed Jai to the ground and pressed his back into the chipped tiles. “Are you a terrorist?”
“What?”
The man shook, and Tadeo pressed him harder into the floor.
“No… I—”
“Did you work with Tatiana Carizo?”
The man went paler than hulled quin.
“Chief Petroff is on his way right now,” Tadeo said. “What they’re about to do to you is far worse than what I’m doing.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t know what?” Spittle flew from Tadeo’s mouth and landed on Jai’s cheek. “Did you aid the terrorists? Did you smuggle goods on and off this ship? Did you send comms illegally to the Meso?”
“No, I would never—”
“Who do you work for?”
Jai blinked rapidly and pressed his shoulders into the tile as if trying to escape through the floor. Then his expression brightened. “Wait. You’re—you’re Tadeo Raines.”
Tadeo’s breath caught, and he lifted him by the collar, then slammed him into the floor again. Jai groaned in pain.
“I know you worked with Tatiana,” Tadeo said, his voice a low growl. “They’ll airlock you for this. But if you confess before I turn you over to them… you might have a chance to survive all this.”
Jai stared up at him, his face a twisted mask of fear.
Tadeo let go of the man in disgust and stood up. “Tell me what you know.”
The man stumbled to his feet and took a few steps back, crashing into the shelf. “Trading’s never been punishable by death. It’s not treason.”
Tadeo took a threatening step toward him. “Trading? Or aiding the black market?”
Jai licked his lips. “Tatiana came to me when she got here, asking for my help. But I swear I had nothing to do with what she—”
“I have evidence right now that links you with all the terrorists we airlocked.”
“I didn’t do nothin’!”
“I don’t care about your little black market operation. You aided the terrorists.”
He stepped toward Tadeo and grabbed his sleeve, his eyes pleading. “No. Please believe me, I had nothing to do with that hull breach. I’m just a go-between. I’m no traitor. I get things from imports, and I move them. Tatiana came to pick them up. Half the time, I don’t even look at what I pass on.”
Tadeo shrugged off the man’s grasp. “And exports?”
Florian wiped at his mouth and shook his head. “Tatiana had me send cubes. Messages. You gotta believe me. If I’d thought she was a traitor—”
“Listen to me carefully,” Tadeo said, his voice low but harsh. “Other guards will be coming soon. You’re going to tell me who you work for. Then you’re going to tell me everything you ever gave Tatiana or sent her. Right now. Or the guards will torture it out of you. And then you’ll be airlocked.”
“I…”
“Who do you work for?” Tadeo slammed his hand into the man’s chest, knocking him into the metal shelf again.”
The man held up his hands, palms out. “Please—I’ll tell you.”
“Now.”
Jai bit his lip and tried to move away from Tadeo, but there was nowhere to go. “I work for your mother, sir. Captain Raines of the Meso.”
Tadeo’s pulse quickened, and he took a step away from Jai, his stomach twisting. “If you’re lying—”
“I’m not. I’m loyal to her—I’m loyal to you, sir. You have to believe me.”
Bile rose in Tadeo’s throat, because he knew in that moment that he’d kill this man himself if he had to—to protect his mother and her secrets.
“Tell me what you gave Tatiana,” Tadeo said, his voice hard.
“I just hand over cases,” Jai said. “I don’t ask questions.”
“From where?”
“From every deka… through the Moscow. I pull marked cases off the pallets and hand them to whoever asked for them. Tatiana… I think most of her cases came from the Meso. It’s easy to hide things in the quin grain. No one checks.”
Tadeo’s throat tightened. “So… do people in supply on the Moscow put these illegal items in the cases? Or… or did Tatiana’s shipments all come from the Meso? What did you give her?”
“I don’t know who packages it. I always assumed it got packed on the Meso. And I don’t look in every case. It was always just things like… like exec standard lavender soap or some soyad meant for command level.”
“Is there anyone else here working for my mother?”
The man paused, then shook his head. “If there is, I don’t know about ’em. Everything was for Tatiana. The other stuff I get, it’s… it’s just black market trading. Not like the arrangement I have with Captain Raines.”
Arrangement. If the Artex and Zenith canisters had come in a quin crate, they might have come from the Meso. But how had explosive powder gotten on the Meso in the first place? And why would his mother send it here? Heat flooded Tadeo, and he got in Jai’s face again.
“There might be a bomb on this ship right now. You’ll be blamed—for giving Tatiana explosives.”
Jai’s mouth dropped, and his eyes went wild. “What? No!” His voice cracked. “I’d never give anyone that if I knew.”
“Think carefully now—was there ever a time she got anything from a different ship?”
Jai squinted down at the tiles and rubbed his eyes. He wrapped his hands around his temples as if he were trying to extract his memories by force. Then his face jerked up. “A few days before… before the hull breach and her sentencing. The Beijing. She asked for something from there that wasn’t on my list.”
The Beijing. Where they manufactured Zenith. Tadeo grabbed the man by his suit again, and Jai blanched. “Another case?”
“Yes.”
“I remember, because it was hard for me to get to. It was a tough job, but Tatiana worked for Captain Raines, and I was supposed to get her anything she asked me for.”
“Why was it a tough job?”
“Because… the case she wanted was hidden in a shipment of power cell inserts.”
Power cell inserts. Like the insert in Dritan’s cubic.
“Why would inserts be hard to access?”
“Because they were meant for the power core. Hardly anyone could get near them.”
The power core.
What had his mother said? Tatiana had done maintenance work in sensitive areas on the Meso. Silo sector, transports, command level, power core.
Tadeo released his hold on Jai’s suit. “Turn around.”
The man hesitantly turned, and Tadeo grabbed his wrists and cuffed both to the shelf.
“I thought you said if I—”
“Shut up. Don’t talk. Don’t move.” Tadeo pushed his hair out of his eyes and grabbed his eyepiece and handheld from the shelf.
The power core on every ship was closely guarded and well-protected. Only a few maintenance crews had access, and all were carefully vetted. There was no way Tatiana could have gained illegal access. But… she knew her way around a core. She knew the safeguards. And if you wanted to plant a bomb somewhere where it could do the most damage… Exploding a bomb in the power core could blow up the entire ship.
Tadeo gestured with damp palms, bringing up the files he’d saved in his handheld.
He pulled up the shift card access for every one of the terrorists, Dritan, and Era. “Search shift card access to power core or any access on level P2."
A list of results popped up. The sublevel workers had accessed level P2 hundreds of times as part of their normal duties.
“Sort by proximity to power core entrance.”
The list sorted, bringing up the cubics they’d entered near the entrance. Several identical entries appeared at the top. All Tatiana. She’d visited the same spot next to the corridor on dozens of occasions. In the final entry, she’d stayed there for over two hours, in the middle of a work shift, before she’d entered another corridor in P2.
Tadeo tapped the last entry, and the date appeared.
The morning after the hull breach—only days after the Beijing ship
ment would have arrived, Tatiana had spent two hours right next to the power core. If someone had met her there, their card wasn’t showing up in his data.
Tatiana had been scheduled to fix an air recyc fan in caretaker sector with Samuel Smith, Jonas Keen, and Dritan Corinth that day. The work schedule claimed they’d all been there, that they’d all checked in with their shift cards. But Tatiana had left and gone to the power core. The traitors had covered for her.
Tadeo rested a hand on his pulsegun and whirled back to Jai. “You’ll be the one to die for this, and I’m not letting you take my family down with you.”
“But—but I’m loyal! What are you going to do?” Jai’s eyes shone, and he darted a glance at Tadeo’s gun. He tried to back further away, but the cuffs stopped him.
Tadeo’s mind raced through the scenarios. Sending Jai out the nearest airlock. Pulsing him right here and dragging his body to the airlock to get rid of the evidence. But the corridor outside was teeming with people, so neither of those alternatives worked.
Plus, his mind was a mess—he wasn’t thinking straight—and Chief wanted him at stairwell C.
Tadeo swallowed. “I should kill you. You know too much. But you’re staying here for now. I’ll come back when I decide what to do with you. You don’t make a sound, you don’t try to escape, and maybe I’ll find a way to let you live…”
Dread filled Tadeo as he turned and left Jai cuffed in the room. This situation had suddenly spun far, far out of his control.
But none of it would matter if there was a bomb in the core, and he didn’t get to it in time.
A deep voice woke Zephyr, and she knew he was in a rage, coming for her. She’d screwed up again, gotten in trouble. He would beat her, leave her bruised and broken, and her mother would look away—doing nothing—like always. Whatever Zephyr had done wrong, it wouldn’t be worth the pain he’d inflict.
“Tell me again,” the man demanded. “Why is this medic in here?”
Fractured Era: Legacy Code Bundle (Books 1-3) (Fractured Era Series) Page 32