The Nightfall Billionaire: Serial Installment #2 (Scarlet McRae)

by Vanessa Blackstone

  Scarlet considered this.

  If I’m going to solve this case, though, I’ve got to at least get an accurate view of my surroundings.

  In any battle, the most important piece of information is where you are on the battlefield, especially in relation to the enemy.

  And if I’m dead anyway, how much do I really have to lose?

  Looking at this looming threat in terms of strategy, this isn’t the time to play it safe. This is the time to put all your chips on the table, win or lose.

  Hopefully win.

  “I’ll take my chances, Worm. Tell me what you have.”

  “NO. Don’t make me do something that puts you in danger! Because I won’t do it. Besides, I don’t know everything about Red Bird, just a few things about it that I picked up here and there on the Dark Web. Don’t expect that it’ll be the information you need, either. Honestly,” he huffed, “you’re just wasting your time if that’s what you’re here for.” He crossed his arms over his chest, and his face hardened into a look of justified resistance.

  “Paul. Paul? Listen to me.”

  He turned his head away, in as much in annoyance as in disbelief, then swiveled his whole chair away from her in disgust.

  “No, don’t just turn away from me like that. I need this, Paul. It might kill me, but you know what? I’m dead anyway if I fail this case. We all are. If I’m going to go down anyway, I’m going down swinging for the fences. Don’t make me go down with a whimper, curled up in a ball, hiding away in some damned hole in a rusted-out tower, knowing in my heart that I was some fucking coward who couldn’t even be bothered to try. Goddamnit, if you really cared about me, Paul, you’d let me try. You’d let me make a stand for something. You’d let me die trying for something. For us. All of us.”

  Worm blinked, glanced at her, then looked away, back at nothing. He uncrossed his arms a little, taken aback by the abject sincerity in her eyes.

  Still avoiding her gaze, he sat in silence for a long moment, his head bowed, then asked with a voice almost lost in the hum of his computers, “What do you want to know?”

  Chapter Twelve

  Our operations should include the tactic of allowing our opponents to think that the setbacks they’re experiencing are unavoidable and yet small, and so may be accepted, however grudgingly, as an inevitable, minor setback, when, in fact, they are persistent nudges that lead slowly but ultimately to the enemy’s failure to achieve its main objectives.

  In short, the enemy’s defeat must be so gradual and so un-alarming to them along the majority of its trajectory that any attempt to correct the situation is, from their perspective, desirable but not absolutely necessary. In other words, we must master the ability to guide our enemies to lose by subtle but persistent degrees, rather than to lose dramatically or all at once.

  We may do this most effectively through becoming their allies. But, in becoming their allies, can we avoid becoming like them? And, so closely intertwined in their operations, can we avoid the fate we steer them to? These are my questions to all the graduates present.

  —from a commencement speech by NSB Section Chief Derek Spendrick, Feb 10, 2071, to a graduating class of NSB agents

  Inside the NSB, the man sat at his desk, his weary head in his hands. The events of the past 24 hours had been most troubling. He had done his part well enough, but The Zodiac’s operation was far from complete; many things remained to be done. If he did those well, he might get to keep the head he held. But even if he did, he might still be punished for some slip-up, whether it was his fault or not.

  Such was their way. Punishment came with the job. One could never be entirely certain, furthermore, that The Zodiac had ceased any punishment that it had once begun. It was not unheard of for one of their punishments to persist like a chronic fever for the rest of their target’s life.

  Opposite him sat another man, one who was known to him only as “Third Aries,” a man whose dead, greasy eyes, emitting no light whatsoever, were indistinguishable from a cadaver’s. His finely combed, caramel-colored hair sat matted on his scalp. His navy blue suit remained crisp. An invisible, faint cloud of his luxurious but offensive cologne diffused into the stale air of the office.

  Third Aries stared at the man, yet the Zodiac member’s eyes told no story of what was happening inside his head.

  “You know who—what—this thing is,” Third Aries said, his French accent heavy. “We suspected it from the beginning of your investigation, yes.”

  The concerned NSB man peered back, skeptical, searching, thinking.

  “I did everything you asked.”

  “So far,” said Third Aries, “but you don’t get to say when your job is finished, no.”

  “I’ve got this. It’s simple. We get the girl, deliver her to you, and none of this ever happened.”

  “Oh?” Third Aries said in mock incredulity. “Just as easy as that?”

  “I said it’s simple. I didn’t say it would be easy.”

  “But we know—oh, yes, we know—that your superiors intend to keep the girl and study her, and their study isn’t for any good reason. No, it’s for the sake of your spiritually dead, pathetic public, who are the true zombies here or anywhere. How do you intend to stop the NSB? How do you intend to explain to the interested parties within the NSB and the AFE that their wonderful prize has suddenly vanished? Hmmm? Forgive me for being blunt, Monsieur, but that does not sound so simple.”

  The NSB man leaned back in his chair, shut his eyes tight, and kneaded his forehead.

  “I’m not a rookie, goddamnit—”

  “Watch your mouth with me!”

  “Records can be lost or forged,” the man continued, speaking louder to try to prevent Third Aries from interrupting. “The girl can suddenly escape our custody without our knowledge. And—big fucking surprise—it turns out we can’t find her again. God knows she’s going to be hard enough to find the first time around. Red herrings can be fabricated and then dropped piecemeal to the agents like little dog treats to keep them chasing their tails. Eventually, the case goes cold, and people stop looking. The press is never notified, much less the people. It was a tough case, and too bad we didn’t get to solve it in the end. You get the girl, and I get to live. Now, does that sound like a deal?”

  Third Aries’ fingers were steepled up in front of his chest as he listened, but whether he had done this in mockery of the NSB man or not was unclear. “Yes,” he said, “except perhaps for that last part.”

  “What’s wrong with that last part, my dear Zodiac friend, honored compatriot, beloved brother?” The sarcasm in the NSB man’s voice fell without effect on Third Aries’ ears.

  “That you assume too much. We like to make sure all loose ends are tied up very tidily. Very. Tidily. Don’t assume you get to make it out alive at the end this operation. You don’t ever get to assume that, no. You are still somewhat new to the Brotherhood, though, no? So you might not know…”

  “Know what, dear brother?”

  Third Aries smiled, revealing a mouth full of jagged, crooked teeth. “That there are some things which are worse than death. We have had many centuries to become aware of all such creative fates, and we deal them out without any remorse whatsoever, to whomsoever we choose, whenever we choose, in a way which we choose, and for as long as we choose. We are the Masters. What we own, we own. It is our property to do with as we please. Mon frère, we act in the spirit of our liberty, not yours. Never yours.”

  “And what do you presume to own—friend?”

  Third Aries shrugged. “You, of course, and many others whom we will not name. We’ve owned you since your involvement in Oiseau Rouge. Red Bird, you call it. We sincerely hope you enjoy the money. You will make a good pet in the coming world order: so obedient and compliant. But, cross us, my friend, and we expose you for the dirty little criminal which you are. Now, be a good boy and give us the girl when you find her. She is ours. You understand.”

  There was a pistol in the NSB man�
�s desk, but not by any indication of word, glance, or gesture did he suggest it was there. To shoot Third Aries would only make matters more difficult, and his punishment would be most severe. Besides, there were many other ambitious members of The Zodiac who would only be too eager to take Third Aries’ place; killing the person did not kill the office.

  Nor the organization’s central motives.

  The NSB man’s troubled thoughts coalesced in his mind. He interlaced the fingers of his hands and held them deliberately on top of his desk.

  If the girl lives, she’ll probably expose me to the public, one way or another. She is powerful enough to, and she has the motive to. But if she dies in an accidental way, I thwart the Zodiac, keep my job, and save myself.

  Accidents, unfortunately, do happen.

  It was at this moment that he decided to kill her.

  “You’ll have your girl. I promise. Just give us time.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The vistas of transcendent reality are my sunrise and my sunset. They have been seen by neither man nor woman.

  —Atlantica

  Worm had used his 3D printers to download and produce new duty-boots for Scarlet.

  These she sprinted in, down the streets, toward home, with the faintest glows of rose-colored sunrise beginning to seep into the foggy, morning sky. The ever-present sewer-steam, biting and foul, rose languidly from the storm drains.

  So much info to relay.

  If I can.

  Fatigue threatened to overtake her body and mind; she had had no sleep in the past 24 hours, and those hours had been filled with more than her fair share of challenges.

  She shook her head to defy her need to sleep and continued to run.

  I will continue for as long as I need to.

  As she ran, spun, and wove her way through the streets, she used her inner-phone to contact Rodrigo.

  It was not long before the image of his face appeared in her inner awareness. He looked concerned.

  As well he may. He’s not even supposed to be talking to me, given that I’ve already been kicked off the case.

  “Scarlet. What the hell, girl?”

  “I know about Red Bird now. Not everything, but the gist.”

  “You’re joking, chica.”

  “Negative. I bagged some intel from a reliable source. I know who the girl is.” Still running, she spun to avoid colliding with a group of pedestrians.

  “Jesus Christ. Jesus L. Christ on a popsicle stick,” Rodrigo hissed.

  “Not exactly.”

  “You know what I mean, chica.”

  She slipped around some slow-moving people and flicked her eyes to the street signs to keep her feet on course to the nearest subway station.

  “Above UMBRA-7, if there is such a thing,” she continued. “This project doesn’t even have a security-clearance classification. I need to talk to you in person. This is too hot to relay over company comms.”

  “Are you being followed?”

  Ever the careful one, Rodrigo, and anticipating my ask. I like that.

  She disappeared into the concrete stairwell to the subway station, down onto the landing, weaving herself so nimbly between the slower-moving people around her that they were scarcely aware of her presence. Like a ghost, she may as well have been invisible to them.

  “Not that I know of. But I did have a couple of punks try to follow me after I left HQ.”

  “Bad for them.” He shook his head and managed a smile.

  “Tell me about it. One of them is going to be a non-coffee-drinker for the rest of his life, is my guess.”

  “Do I even want to know what happened?”

  “Probably not. Meet me at our old rendezvous point in an hour. Point Delta Bravo. We’ve got to talk. In person.”

  She bolted into a subway car and stood in place, gripping a greasy, fingerprint-smeared metal pole, trying to keep herself steady on the fast-moving train. It zipped into a dark tunnel and disappeared from sight, creaking and trembling mightily as it raced and ached along its rails.

  “No-can-do, amiga,” Rodrigo said. “Not right now. God Himself knows I want to, but Eastman is sending us to investigate a break-in at some fancy-shmancy, high-tech robotics lab in Boston. We’re leaving in just minutes. By jet. But I do have something I need to tell you, too.”

  Aboard the train, a muscular man approached her. Ball cap pulled low over his face, hands in the pockets of his windbreaker. He walked closer and took a place right beside her. Standing uncomfortably close, he pinged the radar of her instinctual threat-awareness.

  She took a step away from him to distance herself from any attack he might launch at her.

  It’s like I never learn. God, I should have taken a taxi.

  But that wouldn’t necessarily have saved me, either.

  “That being?” she prompted.

  “Lab results are in. On the hair and cameras. Thought you should know.”

  Scarlet’s heart skipped a beat.

  “What can you tell me?”

  “Everything that’d lose me my job if the Bureau ever finds out I spilled the beans. I’d risk it for an old friend like you, though. I ain’t too fond of baldy, anyway.”

  God bless this old veteran.

  “Go,” Scarlet prompted.

  “Let’s start with the hair.”

  “Let me guess: No DNA.”

  Rodrigo looked at her like she had suddenly grown three heads. “Y-yeah. How did you know?”

  The train stopped, and more people entered and exited the subway car. She glanced at the suspicious man and took another step away from him, almost bumping into a woman in a grey coat behind her. The sense of an impending attack prickled in the background of her awareness, begging for her attention.

  “It fits with what I found out about this girl,” Scarlet said. “Her name is Hannah, from what I gather.” She carefully watched the man on the train. “Anyway, you were saying?”

  “Yeah, so—‘Hannah’? Chica, how did you find out her name, of all the loco things? Gambetti’s team started calling her Christie, but most of us have just been calling her ‘the girl.’”

  “Later. I’m not keeping you in the dark because I want to. But later. Tell me more about the hair, Rodrigo, please. We’ve got to move fast on this one, and I might have a brand new friend on the subway to deal with.”

  “Sure, sure. So, this hair was like nothing our lab guys had ever seen. It wasn’t natural, and it wasn’t artificial. At least, not like any known natural or artificial hair. A natural, human hair has three main layers, you see. The lab guys explained it to us. There’s the cortex, the cuticle, and the medulla. Well, all three of those structures appeared in the hair we found. So far, completely normal, completely natural.”

  “The unnatural part?”

  “The medulla in a human hair has mitochondrial DNA in it. That’s what we were really after. Get the DNA and track her that way, right? Well, this hair’s medulla? It didn’t have no DNA at all. Nada. Zero. Nothing. We had to consider the possibility that she wasn’t a biological organism. At least not in the way we understand ‘biological.’ No DNA, so no need to replicate cells, so not biological, right? This sounds crazy, chica, and I can’t quite believe it myself, but she appears to have been… made by someone or something.”

  “Or synthesized.”

  The train made a stop, and masses of people got on. The man with the ball cap didn’t move.

  “No, you don’t understand, McRae. She couldn’t have been synthesized. The nano-technology to do that at this level of anatomical detail just doesn’t—”

  And suddenly the idea hit him.

  “Right,” he continued. “Madre de Díos. Well done. Really, well done, mi amiga. But that begs the question: Why did Smerch wave us off Red Bird? Do you think he knew? Or was he just following orders?”

  “Damned good question. But talking about Red Bird this way is no good. We’ll meet in person. Somehow. We need to compare notes. But quickly, tell me about t
he cameras. Whatever you can give me.”

  She consciously relaxed her entire body now, readying it to respond most effectively to an attack from the man with the cap.

  Or to run, if she could.

  “The cameras were hit with concentrated microwave radiation consistent with what was being put out by that damned tower at the Air Force base,” Rodrigo explained. “We still don’t understand how that could have happened. There’s no other plausible source of power that could have done what we saw done. Maybe this ‘Hannah’ girl found a way to concentrate the ambient microwave energy from that tower to burn out electrical systems at will with it. Something like psychokinesis, no?”

  “Maybe. Maybe, Rodrigo. I have to go soon. One more request, though: Dig up some info on Mac Stone for me. The billionaire. And keep it under your hat, my friend, please. Tell no one.” She shot a look at the man in the cap. “I have to go now. I’m sorry. McRae—out.”

  She took a deep, relaxing breath.

  The Bureau would not be likely to find better info on Mac than Worm could have given her, but she didn’t want to leave any clues on the table. At least, not out of arrogance or carelessness.

  Even pins are useful in a time of war, she reminded herself.

  Rodrigo’s concerned face nodded understandingly within her inner awareness. “Mac Stone. The billionaire. Got it. Be careful out there, chica. Perez—out.”

  As the call ended, he faded off the stage of her mind, and more of her mental focus shifted outward, to her environment. Her senses soaked in the sense-data of the environment more fully now: the rattling of the subway; the artificially happy robot-female voice announcing upcoming stops and arrival times; the smell of body odor and urine mingled with the clinical, cherry-scented cleaning agent the transit authorities used; the familiar feel of the train’s rumbling beneath the soles of her aching feet; and the dark, dilapidated tunnel that sped by just outside the windows.