by Ric Beard
To this day, the name James Geronimo Johnson was a Triangle City rallying cry against tyranny. He was the seed that made the 230-square mile walled city possible.
“You screamed,” Reagan said. She was sitting sideways with on one hip in her seat and a hand held close to her chest
“I’m sorry. Bad dream.”
“Apparently.” A sideways smile crept onto her face, revealing a cavity above one tooth at the gum line.
Sean looked out the cockpit’s fusion glass to the road ahead. Two figures on hover bikes rode on either side of The Beast, Jenna on the left, Scruff on the right.
“Pretty clear out here, considering no road crews have made it this far,” Sean said.
“There was a serious logjam near an off-ramp about twenty miles back. The tank took us down an embankment and crossed a field to get us around it.”
“It’s a smart piece of machinery.”
The smart piece of machinery suddenly had something to say.
“Lifeforms detected.”
The HUD traced two forms in a prone position off to the right, about sixty yards out.
“Magnify ten times.”
Reagan sat up straight in her seat and watched the display. The image was magnified; it demonstrated a thermal outline of the heat signatures of whomever was hiding behind a bush or some other obstruction. The heat signatures were dim.
“Definitely human,” Reagan said.
“Yeah. Let’s take a closer look.”
The screen magnified.
“I wasn’t talking to you, Sara.”
The magnification returned to its previous levels.
“Are you sure we should?” Reagan said.
“From what I understand, this monster would repel hellfire itself. As long as it isn’t in the form of fusion plasma. There’s a paper manual in the slot over there. It’s half-redacted though. I guess they didn’t want me to know more than I needed. They just kind of popped me in here, patted my backside, and sent me on my way. Either way, two guys on the side of the road don’t upset me. If nothing else, I can send an electromagnetic blast that will set their fillings on fire.”
“If they’re Chain, it’s unlikely they have access to dental care.”
“I’m glad to hear you haven’t lost your sense of humor.”
He accelerated and waved through the window to get Jenna’s attention. When she looked at him, her knowing smile and the now-ceremonial shaking of her head made him squint. He hated not being on the inside of a joke. He raised two fingers to his eyes and then pointed to the side of the road. Jenna’s smile faded; she tapped her throat mic, her lips moved, and she decelerated. Scruff decelerated on the other side.
“User control,” Sean said. There was a short whirr, and a three second countdown displayed on the windshield. He took hold of the two-handled throttle.
The tank hardly even rumbled when Sean swung it off the highway and down a short incline. The treads rolled steadily across the grass and around overgrown bushes that had probably been planted by some kind of state beautification project a century before.
You take man out of the equation, things tend to live longer and thrive.
Jenna and Scruff fell in behind them.
Though he expected the people to react in some way as he approached, they didn’t.
“Life form terminated,” Sara said.
“What did you do?” Reagan asked.
Sean flashed her a look of indignation.
“You’re sitting right here. I’m just steering.”
He brought the tank to a stop and looked out his side of the cockpit glass, which wrapped all the way around from the driver’s side doorjamb to the passenger’s. The earth beneath the bodies was muddied with blood. Sean thought of a Rorschach test.
“Scan the area,” Sean said. “Detect life forms.”
“Scanning,” Sara acknowledged.
Jenna was standing over the bodies with her rifle at the ready. She tapped the glass. Sean opened the door, since The Beast’s reinforced frame didn’t allow for the kind of windows one could roll down.
“Looks like someone had a bad day,” Jenna said. “Gunshot wound to the head.”
“Projectiles?” Reagan asked.
“Yeah, bullets.”
Reagan leaned across Sean to look out, her small, firm breasts pressed against his arm. He tried to ignore the accompanying sensations. How long had it been?
“They look like Chain,” Jenna noted.
“Yeah, I see,” Reagan replied.
“Scan completed. Twenty-seven life forms detected within five hundred yards, one human.”
“Draw it,” Sean said.
“Life form terminated,” Sara said. The outline of the life form was drawn on the windshield HUD.
Jenna grabbed the corpse’s jacket and slung him onto his back. The hole in his forehead was perfectly centered. She locked eyes with Sean and then looked back down. She knelt next to the body and slapped two fingers on the neck. “Still warm. Someone did this recently and headed for the hills when it was finished.”
“Sara said one of them died as we approached.”
“Sara?” Jenna looked at him with furrowed brow. “Oh. The onboard system is named Sara. Anyway, I don’t know how you get shot through the brain and survive very long. Could be that the tank—Sara—detects heat signatures to determine if something’s dead and then uses audio to check for a heartbeat when it gets closer.”
“Makes sense,” Sean said.
“No powder burns. So it wasn’t up close and personal, but—” she turned the body again and pushed some bloody hair out of her way, “—pretty good sized exit wound. I’d say he got shot from more than thirty yards away. Probably a .38.”
Jenna’s handheld beeped, and all heads turned toward it.
“Is that a message?” Sean asked.
Jenna yanked it out and tapped. There were two words on the screen. She held it out for Sean to read.
TURN RIGHT.
Part Fifteen
Triangle City
Chapter Sixty-Six
Pay Your Wager
Day 7
Monday, Mar 25, 2137
Triangle City
A three-dimensional image of Lexi Shaw’s face hovered over the mayor’s desk, her angular features and slightly upturned nose colored in an ivory complexion with cropped red hair, much shorter than Morgan had last seen it.
“Could they have met on the street? Any mutual friends?”
“We’ve completed facial scans of every camera in the city for the past six years,” Morgan said from over the mayor’s shoulder. “At first it appeared that Shaw kept to herself when she wasn’t at JenCorp or out in the city conducting the business of JenCorp. She usually has her groceries delivered and doesn’t step outside her flat on weekends, unless she’s working. But then we realized she frequented The Rusty Digit.”
“The Digit?” The mayor asked. “Isn’t that where SecServices officers spend leisure time?”
“Yes, sir. A lot of them. But that part actually makes sense. In her line of work, protecting JenCorp, it’s in her interest to hobnob with city law enforcement. She probably trades drinks for information and the like.”
“Do we know with whom? About what?”
Police? Morgan thought. About you? Could it be more obvious, idiot?
“The Rusty Digit doesn’t have cameras. With all the law enforcement coming and going, the proprietor probably doesn’t see the point.”
“I guess that makes sense,” the mayor said. “But it’s also convenient for Miss Shaw.” He drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair as he leaned back, staring up into her eyes. “What did she do before she went to work for JenCorp?”
“She was in isolation.” When the mayor looked up at him with a quizzical eyebrow, he elaborated. “Quarantine.”
The mayor sat up.
“She’s from outside?” He asked.
Is the man completely incapable of drawing conclusions?
“Yes,”
Morgan replied. “That’s why she looked like that.” He pointed at the image floating above the mayor’s desk. Dirt was smudged across Shaw’s face. “That’s her C.I.C. Photo.” The City Indoctrination Center was where citizens were acclimated to city life following their ninety-day quarantine period. “She was brought in by the Third Expeditionary Forces six years ago.”
“The Third.”
“Correct. They patrol the east, along the coast.”
“And from Quarantine, how did she end up at JenCorp?”
“That’s the same question I had. It seems to be quite a jump, from outsider to security officer at the most prosperous corporation in the city. C.S.O. in six years.”
“Chief Security Officer?” the mayor asked.
“Yes, sir.”
Morgan watched as his boss, the increasingly incompetent stooge he was, stood and walked in a slow circle around the desk, scanning Lexi’s floating image from all sides.
As if looking at her from all sides will have some effect.
“Give me the backstory.”
Morgan nodded. “JenCorp paid for her to attend the Cyber Counter Terrorism class at the university. When that semester was over, she began working in security at JenCorp and interned with the SecServices Cyber team.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“No, sir. I would not shit you.”
You are my favorite turd.
“That’s our connection. Miles was right under our noses, working in the same division—Cyber.
“I thought you might be pleased.”
“I think it’s time we brought Miss Shaw in for an interview.”
Morgan didn’t bother stifling his surprise.
“I wagered with Sinclair you wouldn’t want to call in the head of security for your campaign rival,” Morgan said, hoping he sounded aghast.
“Too many coincidences. Pay your wager.”
Typical indifference to the man who pulls his puppet strings. Oh well, perhaps I shouldn’t have expected better. He’s going to flush himself down the sanitation tubes and have his remnants ejected from the city at this point. Alas, I must play my role. After all, there might be polygraphs.
“Well, of course, Mister Mayor, but how will it play if you drag her off the street and the press gets wind of it?”
“It will play as if there is something fishy in the Jensen camp. Why else would I have the balls to do something so brazen?”
“I see your point,” Morgan lied. It was weak, at best. It was almost humorous when the man tried to seem politically savvy. “When would you like to see her?”
“Now. Pick her up.”
Idiot.
“Of course, sir.”
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Do You Want to Play, Too?
The goon squad showed up at the front desk of JenCorp with an order from the supposedly-honorable Mayor Vaughn, requiring Lexi’s presence at the courthouse, post haste. The timing had been inconvenient in light of how she’d been straddling Blake in the throes of a nooner aimed at starting the week off right. Though she was confused by the officers’ arrival, she’d made the cops wait. A quickie was better than leaving Blake to rub one out and leaving her to his pouty mood when she returned to his apartment.
She made a mental note to sleep at her own place tonight.
An hour later, Lexi crossed the landing where the attack on Mikael Jensen’s podium had occurred only two days before, on Saturday. She entered the Triangle City Courthouse and was led to a comfortably furnished conference room on the first floor. She wondered why she was being brought to the courthouse instead of City Hall, where the mayor’s office was located.
The mayor’s frail, pale goon led the mayor into the room. Vaughn was looking particularly plump and pink today, but Lexi figured it might be best to resist the temptation to compliment him on it.
There was no way they had anything on her, but the stories she’d heard at the Rusty Digit about the shit the SecService did to people without evidence was what she coined ‘cause-for-pause.’ In a city where the death penalty was a thing of the past, and the harsher penalty of excommunication from the city was so liberally applied to those who didn’t fall in line, prudence was king. Especially since she planned to leave on her own terms, when her work here was done.
After brief contemplation, she decided upon the sideways smile that accented one dimple. She stood and flashed it as the mayor approached.
“Mister Mayor.” She extended her hand.
The mayor gave her a fleshy handshake that felt wet. She suppressed the urge to wipe her hand on her hip. The goon took up a spot standing in a shadowy corner near a bookcase with old-world legal volumes, looking remarkably like a vampire waiting to pounce. She wondered whether he chose the dark corner as an intimidation tactic or because he had an aversion to light.
“Thank you for coming in, Miss Shaw.”
“Call me Lexi.” The mayor nodded and gestured her back to her seat.
“Lexi, in light of the recent attempt on my opponent’s life, I was hoping that you, as his new chief of security, could shed some light on some questions.”
“I will tell you what I can, of course, Mister Mayor.”
“I would appreciate that.” He unbuttoned his entirely too tight jacket, releasing the pressure on that single button and sending the jacket’s tails flailing to the side. Lexi felt sorry for the button and suppressed a smile. “We’ve been running typical background checks on Mister Jensen’s security staff. You know,” he leaned back into his chair, “to ensure that he is kept safe.”
Right, Lexi thought. She didn’t know the real reason they’d pulled her background information, but something told her she was going to find out. They now knew she was an immigrant, if they hadn’t bothered checking previously.
“Of course,” Lexi said. “You couldn’t have someone thinking that you weren’t being diligent, with all the conspiracy theories floating around about your potential involvement.”
“I find the mere implication offensive, as you could imagine.”
“Of course, Mister Mayor. A ridiculous notion. So, how can I help?”
He looked at her with a slight head tilt, summing her up.
“We’ve completed checks on the men under your authority—”
“But my own background is cause for discomfort.”
“Astute,” the mayor said, with perhaps a twinge of irritation at being interrupted. He quickly pushed it away and presented a politician’s smile. “Thank you for understanding. So, might I ask a few questions?”
“Of course,” Lexi said, drumming a quick pattern on her lap. “I’m an open book.”
“Excellent.”
Lexi glanced at the goon in the corner. He hadn’t moved. She wondered if he breathed like a normal human being, or through his skin.
“You came to Triangle City with the Expeditionary Forces six years ago, is that correct?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Has it been six years already? Time flies in the big city.”
The same flash of irritation crossed the mayor’s face, but it was gone as quickly as it had come.
“Can you tell me how they came to stumble upon you?”
“I couldn’t tell you how they came to be there. I would think there would be some sort of report on that sort of thing, though.”
“Yes, I have read the report.”
Lexi shrugged on one side.
“Let me rephrase the question. Where were you when the Expeditionary Forces found you?”
Lexi didn’t skip a beat.
“I was on the coast.”
“And how had you come to be there?”
“I lived on an island off the coast with my mother.”
“For your whole life?”
“Yes.”
“And it was just you and your mother?”
“My father died when I was four.”
“I’m sorry.”
Lexi doubted it.
“Thank you.”
�
��How did you live on this island? Was there a name for it?”
“Yes, sir,” she replied. “In the Oil Age, it was called Ocracoke Island. As I understand it, it was named for a tribe of natives who inhabited it before settlers arrived from Europe.” She shrugged again and set her hands into her lap. “As to how we lived there, we fished and we foraged. We dried seaweed. We caught crabs that ran up onto the shore as the sun set.”
“It sounds almost magical.”
“Food was abundant.”
“The sunrises must have been wonderful,” the mayor said, looking over his shoulder at the vampire. The vampire forced half a smile and returned his eyes to Lexi.
“I suppose when you see them as often as I did, you become immune to their majesty.”
The mayor chuckled.
“I almost can’t imagine such a thing! What do you think, Morgan? Have you ever seen a real sunrise over the ocean?”
Morgan took a short step forward, into the light. “Only in pictures, Mister Mayor.” He returned to the shadow.
Lexi gave him the whole smile.
“Were you born in Triangle City?”
The mayor paused and furrowed one eyebrow.
“Yes. I am a life-long citizen.”
“Then I could see how you couldn’t imagine such a thing.” She read his momentary expression as confusion. “You know, growing immune to an ocean sunrise.”
“Ah!” the mayor chortled. “I see.” He shifted in his seat and crossed his legs. “So, you lived with your mother on this island. How did you come to return to the mainland? And what became of your mother?”
“My mother passed away a few months before I walked to the mainland.”
“You walked to the mainland? So, had you come to the mainland before?”
“Yes.”
“Why? When?”
“Why wouldn’t we?” Lexi asked. “There was a bridge.”
“Ah, I see. The bridge is still standing then?”
“It’s a big bridge. Seems they liked to make things that way during the Oil Age.”
“Why did you come back to the mainland on the day the forces found you?”