“Afterward, we’ll discuss this partner thing,” I added.
“I’m sure we will,” Sodervall said. “You’re to meet him at the USF security headquarters and proceed from there. Good luck, and try not to let anybody get killed this time.” The call cut out before I could respond, but I decided it was in my best interest to ignore his last remark regardless.
A renewed sense of purpose stole over me and fueled my tired muscles. Even more than I cared about getting paid, I had no desire to become the aging collector quietly assigned to the least hazardous missions in Sol until the directors decided it was time for me to retire. I’d seen a few men go down that road, and I planned on going out under my own terms. After what had happened on Undina, I needed to catch the bomber. I needed to prove that I was still as valuable as any hungry young collector.
I immediately set off for the security headquarters, trying to reassure myself that having a partner might not be the worst thing. Ever since Aria left, flying alone through space from one end of settled Sol to the other, from job to job, had left me with a habit of spending most of my time stuck inside my own head.
FIVE
The USF security headquarters was buzzing by the time I arrived. Drunk, incarcerated civilians packed every waiting room from end to end. It smelled like fresh vomit. Most had bloodied faces, and their lavish outfits were torn. It was difficult to make out any conversations with reporters on view-screens hanging from the ceilings chattering about the bombing… tireless talking heads debating what it meant for New London. I wondered the same.
A long line extended from the reception desk, which had an armed USF officer stationed on either side to keep the peace. Beyond the glass divider, which kept the rabble out of the headquarters’ bullpen, calls from all over the Euro-String were coming in at an alarming rate. From what little I could hear, there were a lot of folks worried about family members who hadn’t yet checked in. Every desk was staffed by an officer or secretary, and at least a hundred of them were arranged within the seemingly endless open room. I’d been in the headquarters plenty, but I’d never seen it so frantic. You knew it was bad when the room filled with drunks seemed to be the calmest.
“Would you stop staring at me with that thing?” one of the drunks slurred.
Guess I spoke too soon.
I edged toward the voice and saw the drunken civilian swing at a man in black. He missed spectacularly and was thrown backward. He would’ve bowled me over if I hadn’t been paying enough attention to slide out of the way.
“You damn offworlders!” he snarled. He charged forward, but this time, the man in black deftly spun him around and into an arm-bar.
“It takes approximately twelve pounds of pressure to break the elbow of a human of your mass,” the man in black stated calmly, his voice devoid of emotion.
“Let go of me!”
“I am currently applying eleven pounds,” the man in black continued. “Please desist, or I will be forced to proceed.”
Security officers shoved their way toward the scuffle to put an end to it, but they froze when they noticed who the man in black was. By that time, I’d gotten close enough to notice as well. Apparently, I’d stumbled upon who could only be my new partner.
He wore a formfitting black boiler suit with a nano-fiber inlay—something utilized more commonly beneath armor on offworld colonies. Whereas I kept mine concealed by my coat, a Pervenio badge was pinned proudly on his chest. His dark-brown hair was cut short, though his pale complexion contrasted so harshly, it looked black. He wasn’t as pasty as a Ringer, but he had the skin of someone who’d spent almost his entire life on the inside of an asteroid. What really caught my eye, however, was the advanced-looking apparatus attached to the right side of his head. It encapsulated a glowing yellow lens positioned over his right eye—a scanner of some sort. His other eye was bare, but it was entirely white and stagnant, a shallow scar running across it from his left temple to the bridge of his hooked nose.
“Just let go!” the drunken man squealed.
My partner did as requested, pushing the drunkard away, leaving him to shuffle off in shame while clutching his injured arm. I took a step closer, but as soon as I did, my partner spun around with soldierly precision. His eye-lens angled itself to observe me from head to toe, as if completely independent of his stationary head. When it was done, he stood at attention and saluted.
“Greetings, Malcolm Graves,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Put that down,” I replied and extended my hand to shake his. I tried my best not to stare at his blind eye. “They didn’t give me your name.”
“Zhaff,” my new partner responded. His eye-lens tilted to view my hand, but he didn’t grasp it. After a few awkward seconds, I pulled it back.
“That’s it? Zhaff?” He said nothing, his lips remaining in a straight line. I shrugged and said, “Whatever you say. C’mon, we’re going to look over the surveillance footage from earlier.”
Zhaff nodded and followed close behind as I moved deeper into the headquarters. His posture was perfect, making me a little self-conscious. Each of his steps had a level of rigor that seemed as unnatural to me as his eye-lens was. I flashed my badge to the receptionist, and she opened up the sealed entrance of the bullpen so we could enter. New London had an insanely intricate surveillance monitoring of the city. Supposed safest place in the whole system, remember? I planned to see what we could find out from the feed before we made our first move. There were likely other collectors waiting for just such an opportunity, but Pervenio paid good money to allow us first access.
While we walked, I studied Zhaff out of the corner of my eye, trying to get a better sense of him. What I observed sent a shiver up my spine. He was taller than me, and judging by his physique, probably stronger too, but he was too young to grow a proper beard. He looked like he was still in his late teens.
I’d heard of the Cogent Initiative, but it was a fairly recent and clandestine program, so I’d never seen any of the recruits. I had no idea they were started so early—years younger even than I'd been when I set out on the path to becoming a collector. From what I knew, Pervenio Corp was taking people with certain traits and talents, and training them to be as deadly and decisive as the androids from fiction. Rumor had it they were even psychic, but people with some knowledge of the program claimed they were merely exceptionally attuned to reading people’s faces and body language.
“Most people I know come with two names. But you’re not just anybody, are you? Where’d the corporation drag you out of?” I asked as we traversed the headquarters. It bustled with activity. Countless officers fielded calls, running back and forth to deal with situations resulting from either the blast or what had followed it.
“That is classified,” Zhaff replied.
“Look,” I said, struggling to keep my cool. “I’ve worked alone most of my life. They saddled me with you, and I have a hard time trusting a man with my life if he won’t even tell me where he’s from.”
“My orders are to work under your direction for the remainder of this assignment. If that is not an adequate arrangement, I can speak with the directors and request that they find another collector to replace you with.”
“To replace me with?” I stopped in front of the surveillance center, grabbed Zhaff by the collar, and drew him close. “You know how long I’ve been working for Pervenio, kid?”
“Exactly thirty years, two hundred and eleven days,” he said, not appearing fazed by my aggression in the slightest. “I have been fully briefed on your experience.”
I released him and backed away slowly. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but everything about Zhaff made me uneasy. That response didn’t help. It had me wondering who was really in control. I knew the Cogent Initiative was valuable to Pervenio Corp, but I was beginning to grasp that I might’ve underestimated its importance. With so much at risk, I resolved to continue playing the good soldier for the time being.
“Just tr
y to keep out of my way,” I bristled.
Zhaff fixed his collar. “I look forward to learning from your experience.”
“Great,” I grunted as I stepped into the surveillance center. “Have me running a damn daycare for their freaks,” I mumbled under my breath.
Inside, a curved array of view-screens displayed camera feeds from every corner of New London. Streets, inside buildings, outside buildings—everywhere. Those, plus all the scanners posted throughout the city, made it hard to believe someone had managed to sneak a handcrafted bomb into the heart of occupied Sol. It was a bold move, but it was only a matter of time. Every time some new precautionary measure was rolled out, someone somewhere found a way around it. That was simply the way of things.
Three members of USF security sat in front of the surveillance array. The one in the center wheeled around in his chair as Zhaff and I approached. He was as hungover-looking as I would’ve been if my day hadn’t been interrupted. Struggling not to stare at the peculiar-looking Cogent seemed to sober him up a bit, however.
“We’re not seeing anything, Collector,” the security officer said jadedly. “Looked over the recordings a hundred times already. There are just too many people.”
“You try heat-mapping yet?” I asked.
“Twice now. Too active. I can’t pinpoint when anything out of the ordinary might’ve been set down.”
Zhaff stepped forward. His eye-lens panned across the screens. “Numerous explosive devices wouldn’t show up on a thermal scan, Malcolm Graves,” he said. “Would you care for me to list them all?” Every word left his lips with immaculate enunciation, but his voice was completely flat. It was as if his speech were being dictated to him by someone at a computer far away before being fed out through his mouth.
I turned to him, expecting him to be kidding. Zhaff’s face remained staid. “For all our sakes, please don’t,” I said. “With enough time at the site, forensics will ID the type of bomb used. I was there, and it looked like the work of something homemade. I don’t give a damn about that, though. All I care about is who did it.”
“Again, there are too many people,” the security officer exhaled.
“Due to the explosion’s proximity to the maglev rail station, I would estimate that between ten and fifteen thousand individuals passed nearby the general location throughout the day,” Zhaff posited. “It would take me roughly sixty-eight hours to track each of their paths, excluding time required for sleep.”
I thought about questioning whether a freak like him even needed sleep, but I took a measured breath instead before responding. “And what if the bomb was placed there days ago? I don’t have that long.”
I moved over to a view-screen that showed an aerial view of the area before the blast. Once there, I swiped my hand across the display and set it to play. Even at half-speed, it would’ve taken forever to trace anyone through the undulating tapestry of people and their colorful M-Day attire. Zhaff might’ve been able to do it without going insane, but there were thousands of citizens coming and going, and I didn’t feel like leaving anything in the hands of my peculiar new partner. I fast-forwarded the recording until the moment the blinding explosion went off.
“Who would do something like this on today of all days?” the security officer asked.
“Many religious factions oppose humanity’s expansion into the solar system,” Zhaff answered matter-of-factly.
“They can be fanatical all right, but they aren’t crazy enough to do something so brazen on the surface of Earth,” I countered. “It goes against half of what they preach.”
“There are numerous other dissident factions in Sol. Or it is possible a corporation in direct competition with Pervenio could be attempting to spoil their Departure.”
I’d already considered all of what he said on my way over to the security headquarters. I couldn’t place why, but none of it seemed right. “Doubt it,” I said. “We’re all the people of Earth today.”
I set the feed to replay and leaned in close. A short time before the explosion, a shadow quickly passed across the lower half of the screen. The surveillance camera was positioned somewhere above the rail line, so there was no doubt the shadow belonged to a passing train.
“Are the trains usually running during the Departure?” I questioned the security officer. “All these years and I’ve never noticed.”
He took a break from nervously tapping his index finger against his desk to reply: “That Euro-String line mostly hauls freight, so it never stops running, even on M-Day. The parting time you’re seeing is one fifty-three p.m.”
“The explosion went off precisely ten minutes and fourteen seconds later,” Zhaff said.
“Lucky them for leaving on time,” I said. “Are there passenger cars attached to it?”
“A few at the front…” The security officer sighed. He was clearly tired of answering questions he thought were pointless. “Look, sir. I’ve already checked on the few passengers who were registered as boarding that train. Their IDs and retinal scans checked out—all Earthborn citizens probably hurrying to beat the crowd after getting a glimpse of the Departure. Lucky bastards just made it out of there.”
He was lucky I was distracted by Zhaff; otherwise, I would’ve reminded him who he was talking to. “I’m sure you have, but I’d like to see them,” I said evenly. “Do you have a camera on that platform?”
The security officer withheld another groan as he typed something into his console and sent the feed to the view-screen in front of me. I rotated the image to get the best possible view of both the retinal and body scanners located in front of the entrance to the passenger cars. Then I rewound to the moment before the doors were opened and set it to play.
A handful of pedestrians made their way through the security checkpoint toward the departing train. No one seemed out of the ordinary. All the guards posted in the area stared at view-screens around the station while the Assembly gave their M-Day address.
“Malcolm Graves, there doesn’t appear to be anything suspicious,” Zhaff said as he stepped up beside me. His eye-lens was fixed on the screen, following every bit of motion.
I ignored him and continued to watch. It went on that way for a few boring minutes, but as I was beginning to grow frustrated, one of the passengers finally stood out. It was a man, hunched over and walking with a cane. The angle was too high to see his face, but a scarf covered his neck and mouth. The small part of his downturned face that was visible, however, had skin as white as paper.
I recognized the outfit minus the scarf, which must’ve been covering a sanitary mask. It belonged to the Ringer I’d sat next to earlier at the Molten Crater. Apparently, he hadn’t been killed by the hover-car that crashed into it. He pretended to be an elderly Earther to hide his height as well as the fact that Earth-g added a funny lurch to his strides, as if a heavy weight were hanging from his neck.
“You said every passenger was a citizen of Earth, correct?” I questioned.
“According to the scanners,” the security officer said.
“That man is not from Earth,” Zhaff affirmed, without a shred of uncertainty in his voice. The Cogent didn’t even need to recognize the Ringer’s outfit to tell what he was, poor angle and all.
“No, and he’s not an old man either,” I continued. “At least, no older than I am. He’s a Ringer. Anyone with eyes would have seen he wasn’t from around here. Security at that station should be fired.”
“There was a lot going on.”
I drew a calming breath before I shouted at him. The USF was always too busy concentrating on expansion and developing a defensive missile matrix around Earth that could dispel another giant meteorite to train officers to handle a real situation. Until they got their heads out of their asses and started worrying about the right things—like angry offworlders—there was no point dwelling on it.
To Zhaff, I said, “I saw the Ringer at a bar before the M-Day address. When I left, he had his eyes glued on the newscast like he
was waiting for something. I’m guessing he didn’t stay there long after. Didn’t get a glimpse of anything suspicious on him, but using a false identification right before a bomb goes off seems like a little more than a coincidence to me.” I turned to the security officer. “Don’t you think, Officer?”
The security officer’s cheeks went red with embarrassment. He leaned over and squinted at the video feed. “But the retinal and ID scans come up clean,” he protested. “Jack Fletcher, a retired factory worker from the outskirts of New London.”
I glanced back at the recording. The Ringer’s non-cane hand was closed into a fist, holding something as he approached the rail station’s retinal scanners. Security was too busy watching the sky to pay much attention. Guy was smart. When the Ringer bent over to put his eye up to the machine, he used the closed hand to help lift his head, as if he were too old and weak to raise it without aid. Sick as he was, I hadn’t found him to be that crippled in the Molten Crater. When the scan was complete, he simply limped into the maglev train’s passenger car without any trouble and disappeared.
I shot a glance over to Zhaff. He nodded, confirming my unsettling assumption.
“Send a note to USF security to keep a lookout for Mr. Fletcher,” I ordered. “And while you’re at it, have a patrol sent to his residence. I have a feeling he won’t be there, but wherever they find him, he’ll be missing at least one eye.”
The color drained from the security officer’s cheeks. He swallowed hard and then started to draft a message.
I interrupted him. “Before you do that, where was the train headed? Can we have it stopped before it reaches its destination?”
Before the security officer could move, Zhaff rifled through some information on his console. Within a few seconds, he had an answer. “Express to Glazov station, Old Russia,” he said. “It arrived there ten minutes ago.”
Titanborn: (Children of Titan Book 1) Page 5