“I can’t believe we’re back here again, El.”
“We’re not anywhere, Alex. Remember? You’re a freelance engineer and I’m a corpse.”
“You will be, if you keep abusing your liver like this.”
“My liver’s fine.”
“When this is all over, I want you to see a doctor.”
“Stop obsessing about my liver.”
Alex shakes his head. “Not that kind of doctor.”
Silence.
“You want me to see a shrink?” Shocked disbelief.
He doesn’t get a chance to answer that.
Red peeks her head around the doorway. “Is everything okay in here?”
Taut silence.
Silver won’t look at Alex. His aggressive, frustrated, hand-on-hip body language exudes judgment, and she doesn’t like to be judged. Not by him.
“I think now might be a good time to get better acquainted with the plan,” Red diffuses. “Do we have a plan?”
No answer.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Fusion Project
Hours pass.
Silver and Alex push their little spat aside and work together at the computer. After two decades of disagreements and personal friction, they’ve both become good at compartmentalizing their feelings to get the job done.
And they’re alone.
The rest of the group busy working elsewhere in the theater, Alice is conspicuously absent. Having grown tired of watching Silver and Alex fawn over one another, she’d complained of a headache and went upstairs to the apartment.
A suffocating silence pervades.
Silver taps her pen repetitively against a stack of papers. “All six murders occurred in the Sentinel District.”
“Thanks for the review.”
More pen tapping. “All six worked for Omega.”
Alex stays her hand. “Why the recap?”
Gently, he teases the pen out of her hand and weaves his fingers between hers.
She lets him.
“That’s about it for similarities.” She pulls her hand back. “The victims were all badly beaten, though some suffered more than others, but the actual cause of death was different in each case.”
Alex shakes his head. “I agree, it doesn’t fit the serial killer profile.” He glances down at a crime scene photograph. “But the signature does.”
Looking at the graphic image, Silver has to agree. In all six cases, the victims’ inner left wrists were sliced open—a detail not revealed to the press.
She can only think of one thing: “Rippers?”
Red appears in the doorway. “Sentinel District Rippers? You’ve been drinking too much ethanol. Blue and platinum tags can’t be ripped, you know that.”
Silver realizes the idea was stupid and conceals embarrassment. Six years in the Fringe District has made her accustomed to gushing wrists, and the deduction had seemed reasonable, if only for a millisecond.
Alex notices, and runs a hand across her back. “There must be another motivation for the cutting.”
Shuffling into the room beside Red, Dylan knows the answer. “When a platinum tag is violated, it sends a distress signal to Omega. He wants to make sure they’re found.”
“Since when did this killer become a ‘he’?” Alex frowns. “Do we have any actual evidence that the subject we’re looking for is male?”
Red nods. “One of the victims was killed by a single stab wound to the chest. One thrust, penetrating straight through the ribcage and into the heart.”
“That takes strength,” Silver concurs. “I’m strong, but even I struggle to …”
Noticing the way Alex’s expression just changed, Silver’s thought disintegrates. Her bounties hadn’t always gone according to plan, and she’d sometimes been forced to defend herself.
She changes the subject. “What about forensics? DNA? Fingerprints? Anything?”
Alex pulls up some information on the computer. “They ran the prints found at several of the crime scenes, but the results didn’t match any Amaranthian citizen in the Omega database.”
“An untagged Fringer?” Dylan postulates.
Silver shakes her head. “In the Sentinel District? How?” Still unsettled by the disparity in the differing causes of death, a thought strikes her. “The fingerprints were compared to the Omega database, but were they ever compared to each other?”
Alex cocks an eyebrow. “Multiple suspects?”
“You tell me.”
Alex selects fingerprint samples from each of the crime scenes and runs them against each other.
Six crime scenes.
Six prints.
No matches.
Silver feels a small sense of satisfaction. “Six suspects.”
“This doesn’t make any sense.” Alex sighs. “The murders are obviously connected.”
“It makes perfect sense. The motivation must be political.”
One of Red’s eyebrows peeks out from behind her dark glasses. “Terrorists?”
Silver shrugs. “Maybe.”
“The People’s Front?” Dylan assumes.
The room falls silent.
It’s a moment before Dylan realizes the connection. “Oh … well, hey, you’d know better than anyone if they’d really do something like this. Maybe that’s why you were recruited for this case.”
Giving Silver no opportunity to speak for herself, Alex locks eyes with Dylan. “You do know that she’s innocent, right?”
“She was found guilty of treason …”
Dylan’s words evaporate into the air as Alex stands up, looming over him. His stature and muscle put him about fifty pounds heavier than the five-eight weakling, and Dylan is easily intimidated.
Forcing Alex to back down, Silver steps in between them.
“Do you really think I need your help right now?”
Alex knows better than to try and justify himself.
“Sit,” she barks at him. “I need you to find out what Omega department all the victims worked for.”
“You think that’s what got ‘em killed?” Oz appears in the doorway, zipping up his pants. No use left for it, he tosses an old, wrinkled porno magazine onto the table.
Silver grimaces, and Red can smell human seminal fluid.
“Charming.” She folds her arms. “Why you’re still single is a complete mystery to me.”
Doing his best to ignore Oz’s lack of social grace, Alex manipulates the Omega database for information.
“What the …” Alex runs a hand through his hair, frustrated. “I’ve never seen Omega use firewalls like this for their personnel files.”
Dylan’s face wrinkles up in confusion. “Shouldn’t all the HR files be readily available on the Omega server?”
“You’d think. But there’s a whole mountain of files buried so deep inside the server that it would take me weeks to dig them all out. Some of them aren’t even on the main Omega server—they only exist in the Ark.”
“The underground compound?” Dylan frowns.
Alex nods. “The pre-Amaranthe, underground human storage locker.”
“I figured that place was destroyed when the city was reclaimed.”
“They can’t destroy it—they need it. Every piece of data in the whole city is backed up on the Ark’s server, just in case something above ground gets accidentally or irreparably fried.”
“Can you isolate anything useful?” Red urges.
“All of our victims worked for the same Omega department: ECCO.”
Oz readjusts himself in his pants. “What’s ECCO?”
Jax shows up, covered in engine oil, wiping grease off her hands with a dishcloth. “It’s the sound of your voice bouncing back to you when you shout into a large, gaping hole.” She perches herself on a chair. “Like when I yodel into your mama’s pussy.”
Oz hooks his foot around one of the legs on Jax’s chair and jerks it upward. The chair tips, and sends Jax tumbling to the floor.
Without waiting
for her to pick herself back up, Silver explains, “It’s the Emergency Conflict and Contingency Office.”
“Who?” Oz scratches his head.
“Remember when the Sentinel District flooded a few years back? Well, they’re the guys with all the sandbags.”
“Environmental disasters … biological hazards … if you can think of it, they have a plan for it. Their job is to spot potentially devastating events before they happen, so that they can implement the corresponding damage limitation measures.” Alex sounds like a textbook.
“Contingency analysts,” Silver reduces.
Alex feels that to be a gross over simplification, but he can’t argue with it. “Basically,” he relents.
“Okay, so why push them off their carts? Why now?” Jax settles herself into a new chair.
Fidgeting discontentedly with a frayed edge on her bandage, and picking at it with such an intense focus, she doesn’t notice Silver’s motherly, disapproving eyes on her.
Silver slaps her lightly on the wrist. “Don’t touch that.”
“It itches.”
Keeping them on track, Alex directs them to the computer screen. “I’m guessing it has something to do with this.”
Access into an encrypted file called ‘The Fusion Project’ is denied.
“They want to shut it down.” Silver frowns. “What is it?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. All I know is that it connects all the victims, and it’s so far underground they may as well have their head office in China … or that rather large piece of dirt where Old World China used to be.”
“Above Maydevine’s pay grade?”
“Definitely.”
Red’s interest is piqued. “You can hack into their project records?”
Alex shakes his head. “The encryption software they’re using is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. It could take a while.”
“I don’t think waiting is an option.”
“My thoughts exactly.” Silver smiles. “Let’s go ask.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Hello, My Name Is …
Jax brings the armored truck to a standstill in front of the Omega DDH in the Sentinel District.
There’s a parking space right out front, and a large black limousine is trying to maneuver into it, with the help of a valet. Impatient, Jax rolls her eyes and lays on the horn, forcing the limo to give up and pull away—much to the shock of the valet. He watches with wide-mouthed dismay as Jax proceeds to park the beat-up, dirty, old Hunter Division truck in the space with ease.
It sticks out like a sore thumb on the pristine street, sandwiched in between a convertible sports car with the top down, and an Omega decaled Police Division vehicle.
Keeping a safe distance between himself and the misfit quintet, the valet wraps his fingers around a can of pepper spray in his pocket. Red and Alex could easily belong here, he reckons. Red looks the part of a sophisticated Academy lecturer, while he remembers Alex as the harmless computer geek who once taught a night class in robotics for beginners.
It’s Oz, Jax and Silver who’re making him nervous. Jax looks like a hobo, plain and simple. Oz just looks like a thug, and Silver … well, he recognizes her face from the newspaper.
The headline: General’s Daughter Linked to People’s Front Assassination Plot.
Six months later: People’s Front Conspirator, Repatriation Denied.
On the first anniversary: Commissioner Reports Traitor Dead.
Oz swipes his wrist across the parking meter. An ethereal voice determines that their request to park is granted, and a smiley face pops up on the meter to wish them a good day.
The valet, speechless, can do nothing but watch in amazement as the unit of disbanded Hunters walks casually into the building. He gives the meter a quick tap, just to make sure that it’s not broken.
Sentinel District life grinds to a halt when they enter the lobby, each one of them striding confidently through the security gate without issue. Though it seems quite impossible, their wrists all scan ‘access granted’ and the security guards, despite their reservations, have no choice but to stand down.
At the reception area, a young intern scrutinizes them warily, her finger already poised over the panic button beneath her desk. “Can I help you?”
Silver leans over the tall desk, entirely made from one-way glass. On Silver’s side, edged with white LED lights, it reflects their own images back to them. On the intern’s side, she can see straight through it.
“We’re here to see the ECCO department director.” Silver’s voice is stern, and not in the least bit people-friendly.
The intern’s eyes roam over the motley crew. “Do you have an appointment?”
“Not exactly.”
The intern glances through the desk and down at Silver’s gun, Silver’s hand already primed over the holster. She also gets a good shot of Oz messing with his crotch.
Sensing that Silver’s people skills may have disintegrated somewhat since her banishment to the Fringe, Alex comes to her aid.
“Appointments are for matters less pressing.” He flashes the intern his pearly whites.
Instinctively, she smiles back, her pupils dilating ever so slightly.
Alex seems to have more confidence than Silver remembers, and she steps aside to let him work some Luka-esque magic on the young girl. Luka was always the flirtatious Casanova, while Alex was more like the Clark Kent of Hunters. Outside of the Division, he was gentle and mild-mannered. In the uniform, he was the absolute antithesis of his uber geek alter ego.
Silver had fallen in love with both sides of Alex from the very beginning. As Superman, he made her swoon. As Clark Kent, he made her feel like she was the most amazing creature that had ever walked the earth.
Impatiently, Silver checks her invisible watch and inadvertently draws the intern’s attention back to her.
“How did you get in here?”
“Where’s Ethan Raine?” Silver presses, tired of waiting for Alex to get to the point.
“He’s in a meeting.” Her finger closes in over the panic button. “What is this?”
“People’s lives are in danger.”
The button finger hesitates.
“You’re not Omega.” Suspicious, the intern’s eyes become transfixed on Silver. “I know you … you’re that Hunter. Everyone talks about you.”
“And?”
“You’re supposed to be dead.”
“Much like the crimes I’ve been charged with, the reports of my death are about as truthful as the Governor’s re-election campaign agenda.”
“That’s what my mother says.”
“Good. So you know your mother would want you to help me, right?”
Maybe.
Maybe not.
In any case, just minutes later, Silver’s holding the intern as a voluntary hostage—at gun point. Flanked by the rest of her team, Silver barges into a large board room where a private meeting of ECCO executive staff is in progress.
Panic sets in.
Silver’s icy glare has the executives frozen in their chairs.
“Who wants to tell me where we can find Ethan Raine?”
Lacking loyalty in the face of terror, a wave of heads turn to the man at the top of the table. He’s already backing away slowly, but finding himself the sudden focus of their attention, he stops dead.
Silver pushes the intern to one side and aims her gun at him instead, giving the intern a brief wink. “Tell your mother I said ‘hi’.”
Giddy with a rush of adrenalin from the excitement of being a part of what may either be a terrorist attack or a legitimate crusade of righteousness, the intern stifles a giggle.
Turning her attention back to Ethan Raine, Silver drops her tone from cheeky to serious. “We need to talk.”
Ethan Raine hesitates before taking a small step toward Silver, his hands in the air. Visibly shaky, he values his life and doesn’t try to fight her control of the situation. “Let’s go to my off
ice.”
“Lead the way.”
Silver allows him to show them into his office, holding her gun to his head every step of the way. Once inside, Silver pushes him down in his chair and stands over him, her gun still in hand.
Oz and Jax guard the door while Alex begins to search through books on the shelves, looking for anything that might be of interest.
Ethan gets the wrong idea. “My god, are you people from the library? I swear, the book is lost—I told you that already.”
Red leans up against the desk. “I can assure you that we’re not librarians, Mr. Raine.”
Ethan takes a handkerchief from his pocket and wipes a bead of sweat away from his brow.
“Do I look like a fucking book worm to you?” Jax snarls at him.
Ethan shrugs. “It takes all sorts. I got a parking ticket one time, and three goons from the parking authority showed up at my home with a vehicle repossession notice.”
Rising to his feet and leaning over his desk, he waves a hand in front of Red’s face, trying to figure out if she can see him or not. She pretends to be oblivious, for a while, then smacks his hand away and pushes him back down in his chair, freaking him right out.
“We need to ask you a few really important questions, Mr. Raine.” She pauses for emphasis. “Questions about the Fusion Project.”
Silver shakes her gun in front of his face to get his attention. “Let’s start with: what is it?”
Ethan rocks his head vigorously from left to right. “I can’t …”
Though her face is still shoot-you-in-a-second serious, Silver wonders if she might get better results if she were to appear less threatening. She keeps her gun in her hand, but drops to a crouching position in front of him.
“Listen, people who work for your company are dying. A crazy man with a bunch of homicidal friends and a really big grudge is making sure that no-one working on the Fusion Project makes it to retirement, and we need your help to stop them.”
Ethan’s eyes dart between Silver and the rest of her unit. “The Fusion Project is a vigilance committee, that’s all.”
Snap!
Ethan almost leaps right out of his skin at the sound of a closing book, and Alex tosses it down on his desk with a thud.
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