by Gavin Magson
“I’m so sorry, I just didn’t look where I was going. I can make it up to you, sir, if you just tell me where you purchased those from.”
“We aren’t far from the shop, I’ll take you there myself.”
Before Douglas could protest a strong hand gripped him by the elbow and steered him away from his intended route. He was so flustered by the events that he failed to notice the woman who held the door for him follow several paces behind.
The stranger walked him across the busy road, not hesitating whilst three lanes of hovers hurtled towards them. Douglas felt his entire body tense up in fear but held his nerves enough to not yelp as they crossed swiftly.
He expected them to follow the street for a quarter mile, as that would bring them to the start of a small shopping district known for passing off low quality items from the lower sectors as premium products. Douglas had barely had a second to take in the damaged sunglasses, yet he already knew the man had been the victim of a common scam.
When he was more dragged than steered down a side street at speed Douglas had a horrid feeling in his gut that he was mistaken who the real victim was here.
A door to Douglas’s right opened and, faster than he could make a grab for the tablet in his pocket, Douglas was shoved through the darkened doorway and a strong hand clamped itself around his mouth. The door closed and with it the last hints of light.
Douglas blinked furiously as the candle was ignited in front of him, its orange flame leaving his eyes watering instantly. His hands were firmly tied together by thick cord, his feet following suit, and he understood that attempting to stand up from the wooden stool would likely be met with violence.
“Just take what credits I have, they aren’t much; I’m not worth killing for so little money.” he whined.
A harsh laugh, devoid of humour, startled him, as Douglas could see little with the candles flame so close to his eyes.
“We don’t plan on killing you, Douglas, nor robbing you, so long as you are compliant.” Douglas heard the rasp of a knife being unsheathed and tensed for the pain he expected to follow. “Do you have any idea what this is?” asked the voice.
When Douglas opened his eyes, he was greeted with a knife’s point hovering an inch from his right eye, a blur of exotic colours seeming to surround it. When he moved his head back enough to focus on what had been speared by the large hunting knife his stomach dropped; he could not fail to recognise the leaf of an Oukaru plant before him.
“I... I know what that is, sir, and where you got it from. You risk a lot to prove a point.”
“Douglas, what I need of you is far worse than carrying illegal plant life in my pocket. I need you to return to work, retrieve a copy of both the calls and message logs from a specific tablet, and handover that data to me by the end of the day, else I’ll ensure that there is no place on the planet you could hide from the authorities. Now, do you think that you could honour my request without alerting any of your colleagues?”
Douglas gathered himself, taking increasingly deeper breaths to try and quell his anxiety. His entire body shook with fear, and it was a long time before he could call upon his training to try and suppress that fear. Only when the knife disappeared from sight did some semblance of calm return.
“I’d face a harsh punishment if caught accessing those records without authorisation, and whichever official you’re trying to blackmail would have taken steps to ensure unauthorised access alerted the centres security system immediately; there’s no way that I wouldn’t be caught. It would be in my best interest to come clean about my plant and face punishment than do what you ask of me.”
Douglas couldn’t make out the whispered voices in the room, but he soon became aware of a third that was much softer than the gruff men whom had dealt with him so far. Out of the gloom stepped a slender figure, draped in dark clothes that obscured any distinct features to identify her with.
“We aren’t asking you for information on some high-ranking government official; this tablet belonged to a friend who died recently, and all we want is closure as to what happened in his final moments. He was not important, not in the sense of your systems, but he was important to us. Do this for me and I’ll see to it that the brooch you’ve commissioned is paid for, in full.”
“You’re saying that there is nothing special about this man, in terms of the tablet he was assigned, the access rights on his account, or any special conditions in place to prevent the leak of that information?” asked Douglas.
“None whatsoever. The tablet was assigned to a false name, but apart from that there is nothing different from his account than any walk-in from the street looking for their first tablet.”
Douglas let out a sigh of relief, his body slumping against the chairs back as he relaxed. A nobody would prove almost effortless to copy off their data, which meant he could quell his fears over facing a prison sentence. Saving himself a thousand credits was icing on the cake.
“Deal. Just give me the tablets unique identifier and I can have a holodisk in your hands by the end of my shift.”
Douglas did not have time to react as his bound arms were gripped by a figure behind him. The hiss of a knife scything through the air left a cold dread in him, but the blade tore through the rope around his wrists, rather than the skin of his back.
“Talk of this to no one, if you value your freedom and their lives. If we suspect that you have alerted a colleague, or the police, Meredith won’t survive to see that brooch. Someone will intercept you when you leave work, make sure you do not alert anyone when you’re approached.”
The door opened, letting in a gust of wind that extinguished the candle sitting on a table beside him, and the three figures stepped out into the afternoon sunlight. Douglas began to call after them when a swift movement of a figures arm left him reeling in fright. When he looked down he was greeted with a knife buried in the ropes that bound his ankles, with a scrap of paper wrapped around the hilt.
“It’s been four hours, I don’t think he is going to show.” muttered Jerry, his eyes never wavering from the entrance to the reception area whilst he talked.
Jerry and Aiko had barely moved in the time since they’d left Douglas to untie himself, sitting in a parked hover and staring through the privacy glass whilst willing the podgy figure to reappear. Miles, despite their protests, was sat inside the reception, waiting to be called up to purchase a tablet for Rose.
“He’ll come through for us, there’s no need to worry about that. You saw how scared he was, the man barely made it through that without soiling himself; we just need to be patient.”
Jerry was about to reply when he noticed a handful of people leaving the building that he recognised from the previous days’ stakeout. He grabbed his own tablet and typed out a short message to Miles, alerting him that Douglas would not be far behind.
“How long will it take you to decrypt the information that Douglas hands over?” asked Jerry.
“I’m hoping not long, but I haven’t needed to do this before; all tablets in Rine’s organisation are synced on at least a weekly basis, to prevent his employees hiding any information from him. Ajax was never an employee, so I’d need to perform a full decrypt that I’d estimate to be at least a couple hours’ worth of work.”
“Does Rine suffer from less than loyal employee’s?” asked Jerry.
“In the past we’ve had employees sell secrets to competitors, and some that have attempted to work with some of the few honourable police in this city to try and bring Rine to trial; none were particularly successful, or long lived. Now you can’t so much as cough without Rine hearing about it, and there has been a significant decrease in disappearances because of it.”
Jerry chuckled at the thought of Rine monitoring every move of his closest employees, peering over his glasses at the slightest hint of dissent, a constant stern expression on his face.
Aiko turned back to the window and watched as Douglas emerged from the data centre, his right fist clenc
hed tightly around what she hoped would be the holodisk. Several seconds later Miles emerged, the sight of him in his interpretation of plain clothes was still too alien an image for Aiko to comprehend. She couldn’t help but smirk at the flat cap and outdated sunglasses Miles had insisted would keep him from standing out.
Miles quickly closed the distance to Douglas, who had come to a stop whilst he looked around for sign of someone to collect the disk. Aiko watched on as Miles leant in to the podgy man, who’s entire body froze at whatever words were uttered by Miles. Douglas’s right hand unclenched and, faster than Aiko could follow, Miles grabbed whatever the man carried and stowed it away in his trouser pocket.
Douglas turned around to face the buildings entrance as Miles walked past him, and did not move a muscle, even when Miles reached the hover. Jerry opened the hover’s door and moved over to allow Miles to sit down.
“I hope this is what you’re after, Aiko, and that it gives you the answers you are after.”
Miles passed over the colourless cube, which Aiko handled carefully so as to not scratch the protective coating.
“Only way to find out is to run it through my system. Miles, are you wanting to come back to the warehouse with me to go through this data? I told Jerry that it would likely take me a couple hours to decrypt and index the messages and calls, but once that is done it will be simple to find his last exchanges.”
“We’ve come this far together, I’m sure Jerry and I can come back to see what caused him to act so erratically before… well, before the end.”
Aiko nodded at the pair and held down the intercom button beside her.
“Rika, take us back to the Sector Four warehouse. Don’t stop unless its unavoidable.”
Jerry tried, and failed, to stifle the yawn whilst sat on the cold stone floor. Aiko did not show signs of noticing how tired he was, nor how the yawn set Miles off doing the same. Instead, Aiko was fixated on the flowing coils of raw data flashing every colour imaginable, twisting into shapes the human mind had only recently began to comprehend.
The men could do little but listen to Aiko’s mumblings as her fingers danced through the projection, pulling apart several coils and splicing them with the decryption subroutines that neutralised the most vivid colours, calming the swift flow of the information. Both Jerry and Miles had spent what felt like an age studying her movements, all the while trying to decipher what her actions were truly achieving.
One moment the coils were intertwined, fluid, and bright, the next they went limp and monochrome.
“It’s done. The data is ready to read, if you are still awake to join me.” said Aiko, her voice gentle, emotionless.
Miles and Jerry struggled to their feet, their legs leaden and numb from being sat on the cold floor for too long. They flanked Aiko’s chair and stared at the display, still oblivious to what it all represented.
“The information is indexing at the moment, but it will only take a few minutes to sort into date order.” spoke Aiko.
They waited in silence, watching a lower screen cycle through months’ worth of messages too quickly to read any more than a word or two at a time. Jerry and Miles were thankful that the indexing was so swift; neither man wanted to see his most private messages in full.
Finally, the text stopped flickering through the numerous messages and call logs, displaying the time and date of the last call Aiko had managed to place to his tablet. Aiko’s fingers tapped at the keys beneath her fingers and the text was replaced with a message.
Are you still in the sector? I need to see you now; meet me at the mansion – Ilya [Map location enclosed]
“I thought that you said Ilya was off world and on her honeymoon that day?” asked Miles.
“She was supposed to be.” Aiko tapped away, a secondary screen changing its display which she focused on for a brief time. “The identifier is her own, and no commercial tablet could have sent that message from off world. I need to get in contact with her and find out what she wanted with him.”
“Do you need our help with that? I wouldn’t mind finding out what she knows about Ajax’s last moments.” said Miles.
“Rine allowed me to loan the two of you for this, but he was explicit in his terms that I couldn’t hold you from your assignment. Thank you for all your help so far, and I’ll make sure to update you if I can find out any more. It’s getting late, go talk to Arnold on the mezzanine above and he’ll sort you out with rooms in Four tonight. Tomorrow you should head back to Six; just make sure I don’t hear of any of your deaths, okay?”
“You’ve got my word on that, Aiko; none of us are in a rush to be injured again. We shall see you soon.” said Jerry. He and Miles turned from the seated woman and left the room. The door closed behind them before the sobbing began.
Chapter 18
“There’s a slight chance that years of the mercenary life have left Rex without certain life skill.” said Miles, whilst he and Jerry admired the repair work conducted on the guesthouse’s front door.
An attempt had been made to rebuild the shattered door into, what they both hoped, would only be a temporary fix before a permanent replacement was sourced. The fact that Rex had used nails longer than a finger, and nearly as thick, to haphazardly secure varying lengths and thicknesses of wood to the frame gave it a rustic appearance. Probably.
Miles was cautious about choosing which part of the door to knock on, since the entire thing looked ready to fall apart, and all the nails had been hammered through from the inside with the tips left jutting through to, presumably, spear any would be attackers. He found a safe place and rapped his knuckles against the door.
A little over a minute later Miles heard the distinct sound of footsteps on wooden steps, quickly replaced by the soft thumps as someone strode across the guesthouses front room and stopped to open the door. It was Katherine, looking healthier and happier than she did two days ago.
“I was wondering when you two would darken my door again.” Katherine glanced across at the unorganised chaos of a door that she held carefully in her hand and chuckled. “Just be careful this thing doesn’t gut you. Rex is out at the moment, I can finally start to cook the evenings meal once he returns. Make sure not to scare our other guests.”
Miles and Jerry stepped into the front room, which had since been cleaned of the filth and blood that the squatters had left behind. The curtains were open, letting in plenty of natural light to transform what had been dreary and squalid only days ago.
“I’m glad to see that the guesthouse is looking more like it’s old self. I hope that you made sure Rex pulled his weight around here in tidying up.” said Miles. “These other guests you mentioned, by any chance are they Rose and her son?”
“They are indeed, they arrived earlier today with probably their life’s possessions. Rex was out at the time, I haven’t seen Rose or the boy since, so I can only assume they are resting up in their room. Second floor, room Two-B, if you’re looking to speak with her before food is ready.”
“Aye, I’d best go see if she is still willing to help us out. I’m in need of a shower first, if you don’t mind me taking over my old room?”
“Go ahead, just open the windows and shake out any dust on the bedding; I’ve not got that far in my cleaning yet.”
The water was refreshingly cool on his skin, not so much as to be uncomfortable, but just cool enough. The train ride had been cramped, the press of hot bodies crammed into any available seat on the narrow carriage had filled the air with stale sweat and caused Miles to perspire freely. His clothes were left damp, his thinning hair greasy, and he had longed for this shower since the second he stepped off the train.
Once suitably cleaned Miles towelled himself dry and put on the spare trousers and thin jumper he had left untouched since before winter had arrived. He was surprised just how loose both seemed, which only highlighted what several months laid up in a hospital bed had done to his body.
It had been difficult for Miles to leave his pistol
behind when travelling to Three, since it had become more an extension of his own body over years of use, rather than just the tool of death it was. He was surprised by just how comfortable he felt with it holstered at his side.
Years of mercenary work had left Miles’ conversational skills rusty when having to deal with civilians, and, despite having met Rose and Ward in a warzone, he was all too aware that his sweating palms were down to this unease. He stepped outside the room and made his way to their room, several lines of opening conversation running through his mind.
The door was ajar when he reached it, and the sound of laughter could be heard from outside. Miles knocked lightly, so that the door didn’t swing open from his actions.
Rose appeared moments later, struggling to speak as the laughter overcame her. Miles found himself smiling at the sight, unable to not be cheered up by the rare sight of innocent fun. He could see Ward rolling on the floor in the background, the boy giggling incessantly; Miles was clueless as to what had caused it all.
“I’m sorry to have intruded, it looks like the two of you are busy here. Should I come back later?” he asked.
Rose wiped away the tears that streaked down her face, finally letting out some identifiable words.
“No, it’s okay; I think any more tickling and the boy would wet himself. Come in, I’ll find a seat for you.”
Miles stepped into the room, skirting around the cluttered floor so as to not step onto any of the tools strewn across it. He now understood what Katherine had meant by Rose and Ward arriving with their life’s possessions; everywhere he looked was littered with materials, tools, clothes, and, weirdly, potted plants.
Rose passed Ward a multitool and a half sphere filled with circuitry, all which came from the stool that she offered Miles. He sat down before anything else took its place.