“None of us are,” Van Alen said. “But food is a great comforter. Let’s soothe our bodies and maybe we’ll feel better. Right, Miles?”
He didn’t want to go over there. He didn’t want to have a discussion.
“Just bring me something,” he said.
“I can help you,” Talia said, looking at the activated screen, which now showed mostly code.
“Everything on that computer is confidential,” Van Alen said.
So long as no one broke into the network. And someone had. But Flint was wise enough not to correct her.
“So? My dad doesn’t work for you,” Talia said.
“We trade services. He can keep secrets.”
“So can I.” Talia sounded sullen but she walked to the table, anyway. She grabbed an apple, sat down, and surveyed the feast before her.
Van Alen filled a plate for Flint, mostly finger food. She’d seen him do this before.
He decided to ignore both of them. Instead he focused on the screen.
Van Alen’s maintenance people had managed to trace some of the information. They’d plugged the leak and done everything that Flint had told them to do.
But they hadn’t been able to see where the problem had come from.
It didn’t take him long to find it.
Whoever had invaded Van Alen’s systems had done so rather crudely. They’d used the power glitch to invade, but had isolated the glitch so that it distracted the people in the office while leaving the network up.
That had shown some planning and a knowledge of Van Alen’s systems.
Then a search program, not nearly as refined as the one he’d designed to go through Paloma’s files, had slide into Van Alen’s systems. The maintenance team had managed to disable the search program, so that it didn’t send messages back to its host.
But Flint didn’t care about that. He wanted to see what the search perimeters were.
Most of them were simple: Anything with Bowles’s identification on it, anything to do with WSX, and anything to do with Justinian Wagner.
But there were two other things that caught Flint’s attention. The word Gramming and the word clone.
His hands were shaking now. He worked faster. He decided to enable part of the host program, to see where the information would go.
The trace was simple because he knew what he was looking for.
It went back to a computer system that had an anonymous identification code. But all computers also had manufacturer’s codes unless they were rebuilds like Flint’s. He looked at the manufacturer’s code, then traced it to the buyer.
Gramming Corporation.
“Son of a bitch,” he said.
His daughter and Van Alen both looked at him.
“I think I know who killed Ki Bowles,” he said. “And why.”
“Excellent,” Van Alen said. “Let’s get the police on it and finish our meal.”
Flint shook his head. He needed to think about this. Particularly the families, like the ones raising the other clones, the missing copies of Emmeline.
Yes, they had paid for those girls, but they were also raising them in an existing family, and had done so for years. He’d seen how shattered Talia had been to discover, not just how her mother betrayed her, but also how empty she felt when she realized she was a manufactured person rather than one born the natural way.
She was still coping with it.
“It’s not quite that simple,” he said to Van Alen.
He knew he would have to explain it.
Then he would need some kind of solution.
He disabled the tracking system, then shut it down, and turned off Van Alen’s computer. He picked up his plate and went back to the table.
“Let me explain my dilemma,” he said to Van Alen and his daughter. “Maybe you guys can help me figure out exactly what to do.”
Fifty-nine
When her dad finished talking, Talia got up from the table. Van Alen had been wrong. Food didn’t soothe. Talia’s stomach was queasy from everything she’d eaten.
Or maybe it was what her dad had said—how the other girls would learn that their family wasn’t their real family and they weren’t real people.
Just like she had.
Only maybe their families—or the people they thought were their families—wouldn’t be as accepting of clones as her dad was.
She remembered how it felt: She hadn’t felt real after learning that she was a copy of someone else. Sometimes she still didn’t feel real. Sometimes she felt like a pale imitation of that baby she’d seen in her dad’s arms, the one he still mourned, the one he’d named his ship after.
And he was trying.
Imagine if the other parents didn’t.
“It seems straightforward to me,” Van Alen said. “If what you found is accurate, then someone at Gramming—probably the CEO—has ordered the death of at least one person. The security guard with Ki Bowles was probably collateral damage.”
“He would still be responsible for the guard’s death,” Talia’s dad said.
“Yes,” Van Alen said. “And if he knows that we know his secret, then we might be in danger as well. You have to turn him in.”
“And destroy countless lives.” Talia’s dad pushed his plate away.
“You said not everybody that went through the adoption process at Gramming was bought,” Talia said. “Just a few, right? The rest paid normal fees, right?”
“That’s right,” her dad said.
“What if we don’t turn Gramming in for murder?” Talia said. “What if you turn them in for something else, like—what’s it called when you steal money from your own company?”
“Embezzlement,” Van Alen said. “The punishment isn’t nearly severe enough.”
“And there’s not enough here without revealing the sales,” her dad said. Then he frowned. “But you might be on to something, Talia. There are several crimes here. Including tampering with the power systems in the Dome.”
“Which is considered an act of terrorism,” Van Alen said. She was smiling.
Talia came back to the table. She wasn’t exactly sure why that had cheered them both up.
“I’ll let Noelle know,” her dad said.
“Why?” Talia asked. “What does that mean?”
Van Alen picked up her glass. It was full of wine that Talia’s dad wouldn’t let her have.
“Ever since the Dome bombing,” Van Alen said, “acts of terrorism have special status in the United Domes. All of the domes have passed laws saying that anyone tampering with dome systems—life-enhancing systems, like the power grid—are attempting mass murder. They’ve beefed up not just the punishments, but the liberties the law can take in arrests.”
“They can seize everything in a home or an office if someone in those places has committed an act of terrorism,” Talia’s dad said.
He sounded pleased.
Van Alen’s smile faded. “You know, I’ve been protesting these new laws for years. I think they’re harmful.”
“But they exist,” Talia’s dad said. “So we’re going to use them. I’ll contact Noelle.”
Talia still wasn’t sure she followed everything. “What will she do?”
“She’ll make an arrest in the name of the United Domes,” Talia’s dad said. “She’ll make sure no one ever comes after us.”
“And maybe,” Van Alen said, “no one will ever know why the CEO of Gramming invaded the public power grid.”
Talia’s dad nodded. “No one will even care.”
“I will,” Talia said. “The records will be open to anyone. Do you know how many families will be destroyed?”
“Yeah.” Her dad looked serious. “Which is why I’m going to ask to go along on any arrest. I’ll make sure the information disappears, Talia. No one will know.”
“Except us,” Van Alen said.
Sixty
DeRicci stared at the information in front of her. It made no sense—and she’d already interrogate
d her techs about it.
The glitches could all be traced back to an adoption agency. One computer inside that agency caused all the problems.
And the techs told her they believed the problems were deliberate.
She cupped her cheeks with her hands and rested her elbows on her desk. Sometimes she felt buried in too much information.
She’d found—on her own—that some of the glitches were tied to crime reports. One happened near the time that Roshdi Whitford was murdered. Another near a break-in at a bank, although all that was stolen were transaction records. Not account numbers, not identifying information, not even passwords.
Just a few transaction records.
The bank’s backups didn’t have them, but one of the officers claimed that judging by the size of the hole in the transaction record, the information removed was probably for a sizable deposit or withdrawal.
Or both.
Normally, DeRicci would think that someone was covering his tracks, but so far, it made no sense.
Maybe the trail to the adoption agency was a false one.
Or maybe one of the employees had another agenda, one that had nothing to do with children.
Her links beeped at her. She had an incoming visual contact.
It was from Miles Flint.
He rarely used visuals. That, more than the urgent tag he’d put on the contact, made her answer.
He appeared as a holoimage on her desk. She didn’t know he had that capability. In fact, she didn’t know that her desk could show holoimages.
Then she realized he wasn’t using his usual system. He was coming through someone else’s security filter, and instead of creating a two-dimensional visual image of his face in front of her vision, it created a holoimage.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“My lawyer’s,” he said, apparently not minding that she hadn’t said hello.
DeRicci nodded.
“We had a power glitch here,” he said. “I traced it to the source. It came from Gramming Corporation.”
“We’ve had a number of those glitches,” DeRicci said, “and we know that Gramming is causing them. Do you know why?”
Flint’s mouth narrowed. DeRicci knew that expression. Her old partner wasn’t going to tell her everything.
She hated it when he did that.
“Let’s just say that Gramming is trolling for information it shouldn’t have.”
“In a lawyer’s office?” DeRicci asked.
“And other places,” Flint said. “It’s also deleting records.”
DeRicci frowned. “Do you know why?”
“It’s a security breach,” Flint said, not answering her at all. “A serious one. Gramming has gotten into the public database and now it’s working on some private ones. The company is misusing minute power failures to interrupt and destroy information in various locations. It seems to me that such behavior should worry the Security Chief for the United Domes of the Moon. Imagine if this gets bigger. Imagine if they want to shut down the environmental systems domewide.”
“Imagine if you just answered my question instead of giving me information I already know,” DeRicci said. “Do you know why?”
“Shouldn’t you stop them and ask them yourself?” Flint asked.
DeRicci grinned at him. “You want me to go into Gramming and seize their equipment.”
“Seems to me the situation warrants it. And the police can’t do it. Only the Moon’s security chief has the authority for such a large seizure.”
“And you want to come with me, right?” DeRicci asked.
Flint smiled back at her and nodded. “You know me well, Noelle.”
“I know you well enough to know you have your own agenda here. You’ll compromise my raid.”
“I will not,” he said.
She tilted her head, unsure how he would see her. “You realize you’re transmitting a holoimage.”
“Yeah. It’s one of the security protocols that I haven’t shut off yet. When this system feels threatened, it goes to more complex matrices.” He paused, then gave her his most charming look. “Take me along. I promise I won’t compromise anything.”
“A civilian on a government raid will compromise this,” DeRicci said. “Especially when said civilian just completed an adoption of his own.”
“I didn’t work through Gramming,” Flint said.
“Yes, but Ki Bowles mentioned them in that brand-new report of hers.” DeRicci was finally glad she’d watched it more than once. “Is that what got her killed?”
“Probably,” Flint said with reluctance.
“Have you told Bartholomew yet?” DeRicci asked.
“No,” Flint said.
“You probably should.”
“You’re not going to take him on the raid, either, are you?” Flint asked.
“Nope,” DeRicci said. “Although I will share information with him. Which is more than you’re probably going to do.”
Flint’s entire body looked deflated. Or maybe that was just the smallness of his image, standing there on her desk.
“You’re going to need me on this, Noelle.”
“I already have enough to arrest everyone at Gramming and seize their assets,” DeRicci said. “I don’t need you at all. But I appreciate the heads-up.”
“Noelle—”
“Tell me one thing, Miles. How come you’re just letting me know about this now?”
“Because I just found it,” he said.
“I wish I could believe that,” DeRicci said, and signed off. Flint was planning something. He wanted access, and he wanted her to give it to him.
So she had to act quickly.
Sixty-one
Flint felt rather than saw DeRicci sever the connection. One moment they were talking, the next he felt like he was on his own.
He put a hand to his forehead and closed his eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Talia asked.
He didn’t have a lot of time. If he’d gone with DeRicci he could have taken some of the records on his own. But he couldn’t do that now.
“Dad?” Talia asked.
Flint opened his eyes. Both Van Alen and Talia were watching him from the table.
“Maxine, contact Nyquist. Let him know that Gramming is connected to Ki Bowles’s death. Tell him that DeRicci is going to run a raid on that organization and he needs a court order to get some of the records.”
“All right,” Van Alen said. “But what about this discussion of revealing to children that they’re clones, maybe destroying families?”
“I’m going to have to wipe the records,” Flint said. He didn’t want to, but he would have to. It was the only way to protect the children.
“Then there’ll be no case,” Van Alen said. “At least not for the murder, and maybe not even for the United Domes. They’ll be accused of harassment.”
“Gramming did use power glitches to steal information.”
“Or maybe its system malfunctioned and sent out some virus that did that. Without motive, a case could fall apart. You can’t touch those records.”
“He can’t just leave them,” Talia said, her voice rising. “The news stories alone will break up families. And maybe parents will get arrested for buying children.”
“Probably not,” Van Alen said. “I’m sorry to say that clones are viewed differently.”
“And that’s the problem,” Talia said. “Dad, you can’t let those records get out.”
Flint stared at Talia for a moment, then at Van Alen. They both had valid points, and while he contemplated them, he was losing time.
Families were fragile, but families broke up naturally when the child grew up. The child left home and the family re-formed into something different.
Gramming had been doing this for twenty years. Which meant that the older children had reached eighteen, which was the age of majority in the Earth Alliance.
He could use the files from eighteen to twenty years ago. Those clones would legall
y be adults.
And he could use the pending files as well, the children that weren’t yet sold. That would be more than enough to convict anyone of baby selling—or whatever DeRicci wanted to do. It would give her motive if nothing else.
If he deleted the information properly, it would look like Gramming itself was trying to cover its own tracks.
He didn’t have a lot of time. And he couldn’t follow the back trace all by himself, not and complete this before DeRicci arrived. All of the material had to be gone before she seized the computer systems.
“Talia,” Flint said. “Get a networked notebook in here, and sit down beside me. I’m going to need your help.”
Sixty-two
Nyquist was having a very strange day. First he arrested one of the most powerful attorneys in the Earth Alliance on charges that just might stick, and then he got a message from another attorney, not quite as powerful, that told him the people who killed Ki Bowles had been hired by Gramming Corporation.
Oh, and that he was not to contact the second attorney with questions. She wouldn’t answer them. But she recommended that he petition a court for a warrant to look at the material Noelle DeRicci was about to seize from Gramming in a raid she was conducting now.
He sat at his desk, feeling a bit stunned. Gramming had been in Bowles’s report. He remembered the name. He also remembered that she had mentioned it in passing.
Which meant that Gramming was tied to WSX, and Flint had implied—in that one strange communiqué before he got kidnapped—that WSX’s files were tied to Bowles.
So there was a link; Nyquist just didn’t know what it was.
And he probably wouldn’t know, not without files that DeRicci was somehow going to get.
He shook his head. After DeRicci’s coldness to his request to shut off the Hunting Club’s security system earlier, he wasn’t going to contact her about this.
Instead, he was going to take Maxine Van Alen’s advice and request a warrant for the information. It wouldn’t be hard to get: he had an ongoing investigation and a tip from an informant. Plus a mention of the company by the victim.
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