A Brother's Shadow: Murder, Friendship and Deception, page 26
‘Before you do get bored, I shall get straight to the point. Why were you recorded leaving the Purple Hotel but not recorded entering it?’ Archer asked.
‘It’s cute how you are trying to find answers to what happened, but I’m telling you, we are both equally uninformed. We do seem to both agree it was not Marco though.’
Archer made a variety of facial expressions as he tried to get his head around what Jerome had said. ‘You don’t think it was?’
‘No, I spoke to him before and I know a liar from a fool. It’s just I have no interest in helping clear his name.’
Archer’s confused look turned to anger. He rose to his feet, slamming his palms on the desk with a mighty thud. ‘You will!’ he commanded. ‘And you will start by telling me what you were doing in the Purple Hotel.’ Archer paused briefly and leaned slightly forward towards Jerome. ‘And stop your fucking tapping!’
Due to Archer’s outburst, the light above their heads was swaying, sending shadows into a gentle dance in varying directions. Jerome raised his hands from the table as if he had a gun to his head, but he still smiled broadly.
‘I’m just gonna go water my plants. They’re probably getting thirsty,’ Jerome said, looking Archer dead in the eyes. Specs of sweat had begun forming on Archer’s partially blond hairline. Jerome spoke again. ‘Only joking, Francis, my pal.’ He tilted his head. ‘The pilot who kept his head against certain death to save a fleet, pushed over the edge by some tapping. These are strange times. To answer your question, I was in the hotel to deliver a package for a client.’
‘Oh really…’ Archer replied, rolling his eyes. ‘So, what was in the package, and who was it for?’
‘Those are both confidential pieces of information. I hope you’ll understand, even if you arrested me, I would not give them up. Not that they’d help in your little investigation anyway.’
‘As you would say, we don’t need to pretend that’s not dodgy, and being the deputy port master, you have a higher security clearance than most which would make the camera hacking easier.’
Jerome burst into laughter before applauding. ‘I have been rumbled. Really, should have done more to cover my tracks. I used my access into the senior official’s canteen to hack the cameras across the station so I could sneak into a hotel I already had access to.’
‘You may laugh, but you also have one of the best positions on the station to smuggle in goods.’ Archer walked round to Jerome’s side of the desk and leaned in close to the side of his head. ‘Such as a large rifle.’
‘Phew, you really did have me scared there. Thought you were gonna give me a peck on the cheek.’ Jerome wagged his finger. ‘No thank you, sir. I’ll take that spot in jail please.’
The conversation continued with little progress being made. Archer had been in the room with Jerome for a long time and there was a small part of him which wanted Jerome to declare boredom and depart. If Jerome did leave, Archer thought he would at least know he had got all the information his best attempt would allow.
‘Have you run out of questions, detective?’ Jerome asked gleefully as Archer stood facing the mirror of the one-way screen. He could see that Jerome was leaning to the side behind him to enable himself to continue staring at Archer’s face.
‘Not yet,’ Archer said, returning his own grin into the mirror. ‘I received some information earlier that a person with a scar on their neck influenced someone’s decisions which led to Marco being where he was when he was.’ Archer turned to face Jerome directly. ‘Does that description sound familiar to you?’
‘Steady on, Francis. You’re gonna have to give me a minute to decipher whatever you just spewed.’
‘I have witnesses stating a man by your description was very much involved in proceedings.’
Jerome spoke with a bemused look. ‘The source of this is? And what was said was?’
‘That’s confidential,’ Archer replied, doing his best to contain a smile that jumped around inside his mouth.
‘You are correct. I have a scar on my neck but I’ve made the acute observation that so do so many others, including war veterans which are, for some unfathomable reason, high in supply on this station.’
‘Why should I believe you? You pretend to be co-operative, but you have not answered a single one of my questions. We both know you have a dislike for me and Marco, which cannot be said about the war veterans on this station.’
Jerome pulled a long face and stuck out his bottom lip. ‘How could you say that? I was thinking we were getting on really well.’
‘You may be laughing now, but if it was you, there’s one thing you can be sure of – I will find out.’ Archer headed to the door. ‘And while I’m at it, I suppose I’d better get some colleagues to investigate smuggling through the port. I’ve been hearing rumours that a man with a scar has been seen with mysterious packages.’ With that, there was a click as the door closed, leaving Jerome sitting with his arms crossed, an armpit crushing his twitching fingers.
32.
When Marco had scouted the Vytech Embassy, he noted how it was surrounded by two layers of imperious fencing. The fences had a variety of anti-climbing measures such as spikes which gleamed while eagerly waiting the chance to dig into a space suit. Even a highly skilled climber who had lost their mind would not dare challenge them. Guards also patrolled the exterior with drones hovering above. The single entrance consisted of two large gates made of metal, the Vytech insignia plastered proudly in their centre. Their ivory-coloured surface was frequently cleaned to maintain their grand look.
Marco had only seen the gates open once and that was when a rover left and headed to the neighbourhood that Marco had been living in. However, there was a second entrance through a pipe that stemmed from a tower connected to the city network. The tower was small in comparison to the goliath skyscrapers which stood proud in the city centre, but it made up for this inadequacy with elegance. Metal frills which had no structural purpose twisted around its curved shape like a whirlwind. As if it was doing a lengthy blink, a vast sheath extended from the top, cleaning the surface as it went. When it retracted, a gleaming surface remained, free of the harsh Martian dust. To enter the tower required official Vytech documentation which Marco would not admit to having even if he did.
Marco repeatedly returned home, devoid of ideas about how to get in. He came to the conclusion that Jill’s suggestion was his only hope.
Marco was stood in an ancient tunnel, constructed in the 2030s, that Jill said was one of many used before the city’s network of pipes was installed. The only light he could see by was that from his hand torch. Its yellow glow revealed how even though the tunnel was protected from the unforgiving storms of the surface, it looked like it had been through hundreds of them. The tunnel was one and a half times Marco’s height and slightly wider. A carpet of dirt covered the floor, becoming a thick pile at each side. Rusty pipes dangled from the ceiling, their decaying surfaces occasionally bearing holes which revealed an oily black interior. Wires running along the walls were relatively intact, but their original bright colours had been nullified by a murky layer of all-consuming dust. A musty stench gave Marco a further reminder that he was metres below the surface with the only protection being crumbling walls which had not been gazed upon for a generation.
Marco’s unease heightened when he came across a wall of rock blocking his path. It was sloped towards him and had a crooked pipe angled out like a cigar. Marco clawed aimlessly at the surface layer; the route Jill had told him about required him to get to the other side. After an unreasonable period spent scratching, he turned to the metal pipe and tossed a stone at it that he had prised from the blockage. A considerable clang echoed down the tunnel, making dust fall like rain from the ceiling. Marco cursed as his face was doused in the powder. In a foul mood, he retraced his footprints until he came to a door which led off to the side of the tunnel. The door was stiff and as Marco finally managed to shift it, it let out a ghastly shriek.
Through the door was a small shaft which soon came to a crossroad. Marco went left, parallel to the original tunnel. The walls in this tunnel seemed to be closing in on him as he walked. His shoulders often scraped off their flaky surface. He passed many side routes but their signs were smothered by dust, obscuring the words behind. Swiping sideways, Marco cleared the signs, leaving a mound of powder on his hand. Using his torch to illuminate them, he saw that he was not on the path he needed. The whole process was becoming very tedious when, finally, he came across a sign which seemed a lighter colour than the rest. It was still rusty and covered in dust, but it stood out from the numerous others. As Marco went to brush at the dust, he felt something give and the whole sign fell. It crashed down on his toes, causing a surge of pain that made him yelp. Luckily, it was not too heavy, so it tumbled off onto the floor with a clang. With each move confirming the fragility of the tunnels, Marco began to question his choice of leaving his spacesuit where he had initially entered. In this commotion, Marco had dropped his torch but, in the darkness, he was still aware of the cloud of dust around him as the small particles burned his throat.
After the pain in his foot subsided, Marco picked up the sign to see it was the route to the Vytech Embassy. After following the route, he eventually came back out into the main tunnel he had previously been in. Pointing his torch back along it, he was unable to see the blockage but knew it lurked there somewhere.
With his spirits slightly lifted, he continued to the embassy. Eventually, he came to a doorway with a grand arch around it made of stone blocks, just as Jill had described. In front of the door was a series of metal bars. Marco took off his backpack and pulled out a heat saw. When turned off, it looked like a dagger with a large guard protecting the hand; when on, the blade transformed to a glowing orb that emitted a gentle hum, along with an unruly quantity of heat. Using the saw, Marco made short work of the bars and soon pulled enough of them away to fit through them. Then he cut out an “n” shape from the door, large enough to crawl through. Pulling back, he put on a white mask with an expressionless face and slipped on latex gloves of the same colour.
After ascending a short series of steps, Marco expected to come into a storage basement where routes to various parts of the embassy could be taken discretely. Jill had told him how she and her friends used to come here to steal alcohol and, occasionally, if they felt particularly bold, they would go further into the embassy to see what else they could get their hands on. It was soon apparent that this part of Jill’s intel was outdated. Instead of unguarded crates of alcohol, Marco came out into a well-maintained corridor. Turning off his torch, he crept back to the stairway and listened. As he did so, he licked his dry lips and gagged as he was hit by the grimy taste of dirt.
Within a minute, Marco could hear a conversation and it was not much longer before light was flickered about at the top of the steps. Creeping down to the base of the stairs, he tried to sink into the dark void as the guards passed, torches in hand. They did not pause for a moment. Taking every precaution, Marco stepped back through the holes he had created with the saw, replacing the door piece once out. Marco’s Vytech implant no longer worked. However, Jill had given him a small device called a portable personal computing unit or PPCU to go on his wrist that could perform a limited selection of the same functions. Opening its menu, he quickly selected the timer and waited until he could hear the guards again. It was almost exactly ten minutes. He reset the timer and once more it was ten minutes until the guards passed. Confident, he got back to his task.
In the corridor, pristine signs glimmered as Marco briefly turned on his torch. They indicated holding cells, the Indigo Room was to the left and the security room was to the right. Indigo Room was a name commonly used across Vytech operational buildings for the room where high-value people would meet. It was usually located in the most secure part of buildings which made Marco chuckle, as with less equipment than any standard citizen owned, he was only metres from it. However, he did not believe it would serve him well, so instead he headed towards the security room.
Marco turned a corner and was instantly aware of a red eye staring directly at him. He was already tense, but this caused true fear to course through his veins. The eye was a singular red bead attached to a camera. A metre below the camera, he could also see a slight blue glow coming from an eye scanner. Knowing that if he attempted to get to the security room he would be detected, he went back around the corner. On this corridor was a line of offices that Marco decided were his only option.
The first two offices were identical, containing cupboards, a desk, from which a computing system would appear as a hologram, and a rigid chair behind it. Marco was unable to find the password to get onto the system in either room. He checked his timer on which he had started a countdown for ten minutes from when the guards last passed. It read one minute before they passed again. He opened the door to the corridor and was startled by the light from the guard’s torch hitting the wall where it turned the corner. He cursed himself for not checking more carefully and jumped back into the office, carefully closing the door. Standing motionless, he realised they were closer because he had walked along their route from where he had timed. As light filled the frosted glass on the door, Marco grabbed a vase from a shelf and squatted by the entrance.
A ticking in the office counted the moments to the confrontation. The light and noise of the guards passed, and Marco breathed once more. Waiting an extra half minute as insurance, he then made his way to the third office. This time, the modern and minimalist look was not apparent. Bookshelves, a very rare sight, lined one of the walls. An armchair sat beside a small cabinet which contained a sizable bottle of whisky. On the desk was a traditional-style monitor which reminded Marco of his grandma. She would allow him to sneak up to the attic at night where she had had a similar model for him to mess around on. The monitor in the office sat upon an ornate wooden desk which was accompanied by a large, homely chair that hugged Marco as he rested himself upon it. As the computer buzzed to life, the same picture that appeared in the other offices appeared, only it seemed more two-dimensional on the monitor. As with the others, it demanded a password before allowing Marco to continue. Taking a deep breath, he removed the stifling mask.
The glow from the screen provided enough visibility for Marco to check his immediate surroundings. On the desk was a small globe of Mars and an opulent fountain pen. He opened one of the drawers and the first thing revealed was a book with a smart green cover and golden writing. The text read: The Great Colonization: the glory days of the 2100s and where it all went wrong. Marco placed the book on the desk and continued to rummage. As he was shifting the drawer’s contents around, a small piece of white caught his eye. Pinching with his thumb and a grotty, gloved finger, he pulled out the torn bit of paper. He pulled it close to his eyes and angled it to make the text visible. On the front was what seemed like a rota which determined who was going on a rover expedition each Monday. Lower down the page it began to describe what their objective was, but it had been torn away. Marco turned the paper over to see, scribbled in blue ink: DeadPlanet1, which Marco quickly typed into the computer. He placed down the paper which had inherited a brown, printless, finger-shaped smudge and waited as nothing seemed to happen. He squirmed in his chair as if urine was about to burst from him. He knew each second was critical.
Eventually, the screen changed to a picture of an antique sports car with various applications dotted over the image. Marco selected the Vytech database which soon loaded with the warning that it was confidential and only for those with appropriate security clearance. At this point, Marco again had to sign in, but the username was saved, and Marco was relieved to find the password was the same as before. Once in the system, he searched for the official file on his case. After he found it, he grabbed a small pebble-sized device from his bag and placed it on a pad by the monitor. At the press of a button, the download initiated onto the device.
The download was not going to take long but being in the system gave Marco a unique opportunity he did not want to waste. His first instinct was to find his mother’s file. Seeing her face on the screen brought countless memories crashing back to him. Being given her grandfather’s necklace before the Testing felt like lifetimes ago. Marco put his hand on the base of his neck. He felt so guilty that he no longer had possession of the tooth. There was a chime which brought him out of his daze, signalling the completion of the download. Before leaving, there was one last thing he decided he had to find.
Before typing a single letter into the search, Marco’s heart was already racing. As he moved his finger down to type, he noticed how it was shaking. Eventually, he managed to bring up the files for the Vardova Testing 2253. He sat still for a few minutes, noticing his heavy breathing. Finally, he mustered the courage to click on the folder containing the names of those who had got into the Navy. He was typing his name into a search bar when there was a crack behind him.
Without turning to look, Marco tossed his chair backwards and spun sideways to his feet. The chair was instantly met by an object which had been moving with force towards him. It was a guard who had enough momentum to send the chair crashing back into the desk, causing the monitor to topple backwards onto the floor. The globe fought to keep its balance and, after circling on its base, the miniature Mars remained upright. The guard was leaning over the desk with his arms extended after his taser which had been inadvertently flung away. It had disappeared into the darkness with a knock as it hit another hidden object. The guard ended up gazing down at the computer screen, now on the floor. What Marco had been looking at had closed, leaving the picture of his mother on show. Marco swung a kick towards the guard but the man’s reactions were quick and he pulled away. The two men stared each other down. The sole light source was still the fallen screen, meaning it was difficult to determine facial features, but there was enough light to see the guard was ready for the next round of combat.
