On Impact, page 5
All I needed to do was figure out how to get my hands on Blue Lace. I didn’t have the same contacts here on Andaress-4 as I’d had on my home world, Brione-5, but if a bunch of idiot, twenty-year-old partyers could find it, I could, too.
I lifted the chair and pushed it under the table as CO Valdez knocked on the door again. “Are you ready, ma’am?”
“All set.”
But as they escorted me back the way we had come, I was careful to access each camera, recording device, and log that proved I had visited Doctor Kandall Lourde today and erased them.
Just in case.
Chapter 5
Mondays were always rough for me, but today I found it almost impossible to stay focused. Most of the other officers and agents had cleared out for lunch, leaving the office blissfully free of personal electronic devices and snooping eyes.
This was the easiest time of day to work without the added distractions of notifications popping up every thirty seconds. I had constant anxiety that my Intell was going to hack into someone’s private comms and show me a lot more about my coworker’s questionable courting techniques than I needed to know. Nobody wanted to see that holo of Officer Johnson wearing nothing but his holster belt, least of all me.
I replayed my conversation with Lourde over and over in my head. What if he was right, and this thing in my brain was a ticking time bomb? Getting reinstated as a DECA officer and joining Wright’s team felt like I’d been given a new lease on life. A fresh start. A purpose. I needed to figure out where to get my hands on some Blue Lace. That would buy me the time to plan what to do next.
If there was one advantage I would give the Intell, it was being able to work without prying eyes glimpsing my console or holoscreen. It required the barest amount of aerial scribing to navigate to the bookings files. I’d woken up at 0300 hours with the idea of looking through recent arrest records to find someone pinched for selling Blue Lace, and…
And what? Hit them up for a buy? Hope they didn’t drop my name the next time they got busted to get out of charges?
Stupid. I closed out the file.
I reopened my earlier project of chasing down an address for Ravi. He wanted to talk to the administrative assistant of Doctor Benedict Rennali. Doctor Rennali was the employee at the Interplanetary Board of Medical Devices whom Lourde—or more likely Aurelian Tazza—had bribed to get the Insight device fast-tracked to approval. The IBMD had terminated Doctor Rennali, but they hadn’t been eager to let us dig deeper into their organization.
“It’s being dealt with internally” was a phrase we heard often.
Doctor Rennali’s assistant, Kristyn Strann, had also been let go. Ravi thought she might feel more comfortable if he approached her outside of the auspicious offices of the IBMD.
I pulled up the file on Strann. My Intell displayed the image in my mind using my optic nerves. Female, twenty-five, never married, no kids, attractive but a little wallflowerish, judging by the few public holos of her I’d tracked down. The annoying thing was, Ravi probably could get her to talk. Charming was his middle name.
“Hey, Rel! Think fast!”
I closed the file, but not quick enough. Something small and malleable smacked into my chest and fell into my lap.
Ravi laughed. “Nice catch.”
“I was looking at something,” I said, swirling my finger in the area where most people would have a holoscreen projecting from their cuff. I must have looked like a space cadet staring off into nothing. No wonder people stared at me.
“A likely excuse,” he teased.
“What’s this?” I asked, peeking into the palm-sized bag. “Hellaberries?”
“A new food cart set up out front. Fruits, veggies, nuts. All healthy stuff.”
“No pastries?”
“Not a single one.”
I popped an indigo berry into my mouth and puckered my lips at the tart juice. “He’s missing the mark parking so close to the precinct. DECA officers run on simple carbs, sugar, and caffeine.”
“Do I smell roasted cashews?” DeAjamae’s head bobbed up from her cubicle in the next row. Thankfully, her desk sat just outside my Intell’s range, or I’d go crazy fending off all the electronic signals coming from it. She had gadgets and gizmos aplenty.
She’d worn her hair loose today, and the mass of curls bobbed as she zeroed in on Ravi’s armful of treats. He grinned, and it was breathtaking. That man could have been a politician. Or a grifter. Same difference.
“Roasted and spiced. I bought a bag of Saper almonds, too. The merchant said this heavy rain we’ve been getting made for a bumper crop this year.”
DeAjamae twisted her lips to the side. “Hmm…”
Ravi held out his hand. “Do you want both?”
Her answering smile lit up her entire face. “You’re the best.” She snatched them before he changed his mind and ducked back below the partition.
“You’re welcome!” he called after her.
She waved a hand over her head. Only a few seconds passed before we heard her muttering to herself as she worked. “Son of a bee sting. Why? Why is that necessary? Yes, it does. It fucking does. I created it myself. Now I have to put whatever the fuck those are wherever the fuck they go.”
Ravi grinned at the string of curses flowing from DeAjamae’s cubicle. He eased his way over to Wright’s desk, which was kitty-corner from mine, and cocked his hip onto the desk. He pulled a second bag of cashews from his pocket, tossing a handful into his mouth.
“You’re smarter than you look, Agent Singh,” I said, nodding at the nuts.
“Then I must be a certified genius.”
I wheeled my chair back a few centimeters. “Do you need me to scooch over to make room for that ego of yours?”
He laughed. “Jealousy’s not a good look on you, Reliance.”
I let out an exaggerated sigh. “Somebody has to be the beauty and brains of this operation. It might as well be you.”
“Nah.” His gaze shifted to DeAjamae’s cubicle. “That job’s already taken. I’ll have to be the muscle.” Ravi flexed his right arm to show off a toned but lean biceps beneath his black, Department-issued Henley.
“Eh-hem,” Wright said, coming up behind Ravi.
The poor guy jumped up so fast, you’d have thought the desk was electrified. “Hey, boss. Didn’t hear you come in. Cashews?”
I stifled a laugh by chewing on another tart hellaberry.
Wright waved off the proffered treat. “DeAjamae, group meeting.”
“What are you talking about? It’s right there. What are you doing? What the fuck are you doing? It’s right void-damn there. Don’t make this hard. See? It’s perfect. PERFECT. Ugh! This is giving me such a stars-all headache. Oh, there’s a fucking underscore in front of it? Asshole. Now, can you please accept it?”
“DeAjamae!”
The digital forensic analyst poked her head up over the partition. “Yeah?”
“Group meeting,” Wright said. “I have a briefing with the lieutenant in five minutes. She wants an update on the bionic weapons case.”
“Be right there. I have to—” Something hard banged against her desk. Then, in a lower voice, she muttered, “So, you’re going to … yep, you’re going to be a fucking asshole. Awesome. Just do the thing. Do the one fucking thing I told you to do.”
A second later she walked over to join us, tossing the empty bag of almonds into a reclamator on the way.
“Problems?” I asked.
She shrugged. “The usual. Have I mentioned that technology is getting worse?”
“Once or twice.”
DeAjamae hoisted her butt onto my desk. “Good. Because it is.”
Ravi pulled his chair from across the aisle, so we all sat together. Wright leaned against his desk and faced us.
“Where are we at?”
As the senior agent, Ravi went first. “I’ve been following up with the IBMD. Doctor Benedict Rennali has been terminated for taking bribes to greenlight Tazza Industries’ Insight neural implant chips without testing. The Board is cooperating with its local DECA office on charges of fraud, embezzlement, and endangerment of public safety. All production of the Insights is temporarily suspended while a second phase of trials gets underway. Patients who already received an Insight were notified and instructed to see their primary caregiver at Tazza Industries’ expense. The company has set aside funds for the victims to cover treatment and damages as claims are made.”
Wright nodded. “What are your next steps?”
“I’m hoping to speak with Doctor Rennali’s former assistant, Kristyn Strann to find out if she can tie the bribe to Tazza Industries or Aurelian Tazza himself. So far, the evidence only shows the money coming from Lourde’s private company, KaLo Research. Rel is tracking her down for me.”
My fingers made some minute gestures, aerial scribing to my communication program. “I found her new address right before you came in. You’re not going to like it.”
“No?”
“She’s living on Remus-3 with her parents. Sending it to you now.”
Ravi groaned. Remus-3 was a newly terraformed planet on the edge of civilization. “What is that, a five-day trip?”
“Try seven, each way.”
Wright frowned. “I can’t spare you for two weeks. See if she’ll agree to meet in a holosuite. Remus-3 is a resort planet. There should be several available for rent. Tell her to charge it to the Department.” He turned to DeAjamae. “Where are we on the document review of the files from Lourde’s lab?”
DeAjamae winced. “Not as far as I’d like. We retrieved a massive amount of data, both from the lab and from the backup server Lourde took with him when he fled. Tazza Industries claims it’s proprietary information, and we didn’t have a warrant for it, so they should get it back. The attorneys are hashing it out, but meanwhile it’s here and I’m working to get whatever I can off of them. There’s a lot of stuff in there not related to the implants or bionic weapons. It looks like Lourde and Adler stored side projects there. Plus, the indexing system is garbage and everything’s encrypted.”
“Do we have anything on the bionic weapons?” Wright asked.
“Maybe. That’s what I was working on right before the meeting. Thingamajig, launch holoscreen and bring up the inventory list. Maximum display.”
“Displaying now,” the robotic voice of her cuff said. The holoscreen was large enough for all of us to see it.
“Our best lead so far is an inventory list for—what I believe are—five completed, prototype bionic weapons with Insights. It’s dated seven months ago. I haven’t been able to trace what happened to them.”
Wright looked at me. “Any ideas?”
“None,” I said. “There were several in the lab the night I broke in, but Lourde removed them after one of the guards found me poking around in his workroom. I assumed they were put in another part of the building.”
He frowned. “I don’t like the idea of five prototypes being unaccounted for.”
“They’re probably sitting in some janitor closet,” DeAjamae said. “We tore that lab apart. On the plus side, with Lourde in prison, we know that will be the last of them.”
“I could talk to Sagi Barros. Ask if he knows anything about them,” Ravi said, referring to the security guard at Tazza Industries. Barros had testified against his boss and Doctor Lourde in exchange for a lighter sentence for his role in my friend’s homicide.
“Barros had access to the entire building when I was there,” I said. I knew that because I’d cloned his access code to break into the facility. In retrospect, not my smartest idea. “It’s possible he would know where they moved the weapons.”
Wright thought about it for a moment. “Do it, but get in touch with the warden first. See if he’ll offer a few perks to encourage Barros to talk. Extra rehabilitation classes, easier chore shifts, stuff like that.”
“More comm time with his mother,” I suggested. “They’re close, and she’s sick. He’ll go for that.”
Ravi aerial scribed a note into his holoscreen and closed it. “I have a few comms to return relating to the IBMD side of things, but I’ll go to the prison tomorrow morning and talk to Barros.”
“Sounds good,” Wright said. “DeAjamae, keep going through the documents. Prioritize finding out what happened to those five prototype weapons. Reliance, keep on the IBMD about those financial records.”
We broke apart. Ravi and DeAjamae chatted. Wright strode off to his meeting with the lieutenant. He still walked with the straight back and purposeful stride ingrained from his early career in the Ritru-6 military, but I noted the increased tension he held in his neck, jaw, and shoulders. This wasn’t the kind of progress he’d been hoping for. It wouldn’t be a pleasant briefing for him.
“We’re going to go grab lunch. You in?” Ravi asked.
I shook my head. “No, thanks. I have to catch up on some work.”
“Let me grab my bag,” DeAjamae said, ducking into her cubicle. “Want us to bring you something back?”
“No, I’ll grab something from the cafeteria.”
Ravi followed DeAjamae to her cubicle. I wondered if Dee had picked up on his interest yet, and if she had, what she intended to do about it. It was none of my business, but romantic relationships could mess with team dynamics. We spent a lot of time together, both at work and on our off days. I didn’t want that to change.
If they paired up, they’d start spending time alone together. That would leave Wright and me on our own, which would be terrible. Awful really. I definitely didn’t want that. Nope, nope, nope.
I felt heat color my cheeks, so I spun my chair around and scooted in closer to my desk. Best to focus on work.
Bionic weapons. Who had them, and where were they?
The ones I saw in the lab appeared to be paired with the less-powerful Insight neural implants, but it was possible Lourde had planned to use Fax and me as test subjects for these, as well. A chill slid down my spine at the thought of being hacked apart and reassembled like some kind of Captain Stardust doll. I’d seen the lab rats and guinea pigs. They’d had healthy limbs removed and replaced with mechanical parts. There was no doubt in my mind that Lourde thought little more of me than a larger specimen for him to play with.
Bionic limbs and organs had been available for several hundred years, with significant advances made in the last twenty years by Lourde himself as the foremost expert in the field. However, bionic weapons were constructed of a synthetic material that shielded the metal parts beneath it. With a quality grade synthetic skin covering the devices, they would be undetectable on scanners. They could be smuggled between planets, on public transports, or into secure facilities and law enforcement would be none the wiser until it was too late.
Wright stormed back into the bullpen. He stopped at my desk. “Leahy, Singh. Get over here.”
I spun around to find an inscrutable look on his face. Something big must have happened in the meeting. DeAjamae and Ravi hurried back from where they’d been waiting for a lift.
“Change of plans. Pack your bags, we’re going to Ritru-6. I think we may have found one of the missing prototypes.”
DeAjamae’s eyebrows shot up. “Yeah?”
“Ritruvian Representative Damaris Delligatti was assassinated five hours ago inside the heavily secured Ritru-6 House of Representatives. The local DECA office apprehended the suspect and have him in custody. They removed what they believe to be a bionic weapon from his person. While he will be charged on Ritru-6, they agreed to let us question him and take the bionic weapon into our custody. Be ready to take off in two hours.”
“Yes, sir.”
The other two went to their desks to grab anything work-related they might need. I caught up to Wright and jogged alongside him as he headed toward the lifts.
“Do you mind if we take the Soteria? It’s roomier than a cruiser, and Felix has been giving me an obscene number of alerts about being parked planetside for six months. Something about salt dust and needing to run the engine.”
“I don’t have a problem with that. We’ll rendezvous at your ship at 1400.”
Chapter 6
“What took you so long?” Felix demanded. “He’s been here for fifteen minutes. On my bridge.”
“Calm down,” I said and finished securing my hoverbike to its rack in the cargo hold of the Soteria. My helmet snapped onto its magnetized hook where it wouldn’t bounce around during the flight. “I’m not that late.”
Felix swished his tail back and forth, the miniature scales making a rasping sound against the metal floor. “He’s in my chair.”
I chuckled and patted the oversized cat on the head before pressing the button to raise the cargo hold ramp. “He has to sit someplace,” I said, “and there are only two chairs on the bridge.”
The hydraulics groaned, then the end of the ramp lifted toward the ceiling. Beneath me, the floor swayed as the ship’s center of gravity shifted to accommodate the new distribution of weight.
“Why can’t he stand?”
“For two days?”
The cat’s tail vibrated at the tip like a rattlesnake. “Yes. The preflight medical scan I ran showed Agent Wright to be in perfect health. Let him stand.”
“Felix,” I admonished and squatted down so that we were eye level. “You need to make room for the team. Like it or not, they’re a part of the crew for the next few days.”
“I choose not. It’s bad enough you brought a rodent onboard. Should I even bother with security protocols anymore?”
The urge to roll my eyes was strong. I reached down to stroke the side of his shoulder plate, which he usually responded to positively. Felix dipped his back low as he stood up, staying just beyond my fingertips.
“Start the preflight check. Make sure you have enough sinnafuel and power reserves to make the trip and send a cleaning bot through the copilot bunkroom. I don’t remember the last time we used it.”
Felix made a huffing sound. “The last occupant was Agent Wright, and I assure you, I ran the bots in there after he vacated the ship. What do you think I do all day while you’re at work?”
