Exodus, page 56
Once they’d arrested him, Lućia gave him a deep scan, which detected various empty sacs in his limbs that probably used to hold personal defense weapons.
“They’re empty now,” she told Terence.
“Good. But just be careful, okay? Bopbe is not a lone wolf. There’s got to be an organization of some kind behind him.”
“I will overdose on careful,” she promised.
* * *
—
Terence didn’t relax until Lućia was back in Santa Rosa’s central police station. The escort team she’d taken with her had enclosed Bopbe in an exowarden—a secure exoskeleton that walked him along with them like a piece of excess human luggage.
The high-security level was thirty meters below ground. It had its own garage, with a direct access elevator shaft. Terence was waiting in the monitor office when they brought Bopbe in. He didn’t want Bopbe to see him. At this stage they had no idea who he was working for, nor how senior he was in the organization. He might know everything, or nothing. Terence didn’t want to tip his hand by appearing in person.
The elevator doors opened. Terence studied Bopbe’s face as the escort party walked out. It wasn’t easy, but he could just recognize the original features within the distended flesh. The exowarden had locked his heavy body in rigid bands of dark chrometal that were tight on his legs and arms, but allowed him to turn his head freely. There was anxiety there, Terence decided, which the man was trying to mask with an air of indifference. It was the kind of attitude Terence had experienced a thousand times during interrogations—the moment when tough-guy bravado runs smack into reality.
Terence opened a private lnc to Lućia. “Put him in number three.”
“Sure.”
The exoskeleton marched Bopbe into the interview cell and did a swift pivot in front of the table. Its knees bent, putting him into a sitting position. For the first time, a look of annoyance flickered over Bopbe’s face at being forced into the stance. Lućia left the room, and the door slid shut behind her, its lock engaging with a loud clunk.
Bopbe stared around the empty room, craning his neck. “Really?” he asked contemptuously. “You’re going to do the whole interview routine? On me? You’re a bunch of dickheads. You do know that, right?”
“Charming,” Lućia said as she came into the monitor room.
“How’s he been?”
“Sullen. Superior. Trying not to show how worried he is.”
“Surprised?”
“In what way?”
“That he was caught?”
She wrinkled her nose up. “Didn’t get that impression, but then I wasn’t looking for it.”
“Hey!” Bopbe’s voice came out of the speakers. “You win. I’m so dumb and intimidated I want to answer every question you fire at me. Pretty please.”
“Okay,” Terence said. “Let’s oblige our master spy. You ready for this?”
“I’m ready,” Lućia said. “But if he is what we think, he’s not going to give us shit.”
“I know. But that in itself will tell us plenty.”
“Love your optimism.”
Terence settled back and watched the feed.
Bopbe didn’t turn around when the interview room’s door slid open. Lućia came in and sat across the table from him.
“I’m sure this exowarden is a human rights violation,” Bopbe said.
Lućia shrugged. “I don’t care. This part isn’t being recorded. The station log says you’re busy resting from the journey. We’ll let the police interview you when you’re fully refreshed.”
The change in attitude was subtle, but there. “Ah,” Bopbe murmured. “Lućia, right? One of Terence Wilson-Fletcher’s subordinates?”
Terence sat up. “Asteria’s arse, it can’t be this easy. Be very careful what you say.”
“What makes you say that?” Lućia asked.
“Gondiar is Wynid’s fiefdom; the institutions belong to Makaio-Faraji. Everyone knows that.”
“And who is everyone?”
“What’s the deal?”
“Depends on what you’re offering.”
“I can expose plenty of Sahdiah’s networks if you give me enough incentive,” Bopbe said.
“Sahdiah? Is that who sent Varmor after you?”
Bopbe remained impressively aloof.
“Okay, let’s try this angle: What did you do to make Varmor come after you?”
Again, no reaction.
“It was a snatch operation, you know that? I looked inside the van they brought; the medical systems were going to hold you in suspension while they shipped you out. Back to Anoosha, presumably. That’s a lot of effort just to settle a bar bill.”
“What can I say. I have expensive tastes.”
“I can make an expensive offer.”
“No, you can’t.”
“I assure yo—”
“Hey, Terence,” Bopbe said in a loud voice. “You want to get your ass in here so us grown-ups can talk?”
“Educate him,” Terence said firmly.
Lućia cocked her head to one side. “Oh dear. I seem to be the only one interested in you. And that interest is fading fast. So: hard way or soft way?”
“Somehow I don’t think you can do hard.”
“It’s probably Sahdiah who’s after you, unless you’re trying to pull a double bluff. But it doesn’t matter. Now that you’ve been exposed, your own controller will dump you faster than radioactive shit. What you have to think about is: Will your own people come after you as well now? So maybe you want to consider who can actually offer you protection against what you’re about to face. Because one way or another, you will be giving us the details of your organization, and your controller will not like that.”
“One way or another? Is that a threat, Lućia?”
“Yes. The people I work with at the sharp end are very well equipped. They’ll melt through your skull like lava through cheese.”
“Interesting metaphor.”
“So: verifiable information on your organization, and who sent Varmor. That way you don’t get your brain cells fried. And I’ll throw in a trip outsystem where you can start over.”
“I thought you were melting my brain, not frying it.”
“If you have another proposal, I’ll listen. But not for long.”
“I’ve just offered you Sahdiah’s networks. That makes me your greatest asset ever. Show some respect.”
“Once I know what you know, we can determine what will work for you afterward.”
Bopbe gave her a sad smile. “And if I tell you I don’t actually know one percent of what you think I know?”
“I’ll settle for that one percent.”
“It’s not appealing.”
“You’ve just admitted you’re out of options.”
“Look, you can never be sure about intel gained under brainsqueeze, no matter how clinical you think it is, so let’s be civilized, shal—” Bopbe shuddered, a movement heavily constrained by the exoskeleton bands.
Terence frowned, checking the medical telemetry coming in from the exoskeleton. Several amber alerts were flicking up.
“I wasn’t kidding about being able to get you out clean,” Lućia said.
But Bopbe wasn’t listening. His face had become a rigid mask, neck cords standing out. His arm muscles were bulging as if he was trying to snap the exoskeleton from the inside.
“What the hell?” Lućia gasped.
A single, terrible groan of pain and fear was wrenched out of Bopbe’s lips.
“Oh, holy crap,” Terence yelled. “No no nooo!”
Bopbe’s face started to discolor, the skin blistering.
“Get out!” Terence screamed. “Lućia, get out of there now! Right fucking now!”
Lućia was backing away in shock as Bopbe burst into flame.
* * *
—
For the second time in his life, Terence rode the orbital tower up to High Rosa. Once again, the Celestial section seemed deserted. He rode a transit cab to the docks. When he arrived, he was pretty sure the woman who waited outside the airlock chambers was the same one he’d encountered all those years ago on his flight to Wynid. She certainly had the same inability to smile.
“You’re cleared to depart,” she announced reluctantly after the security scan. “A shuttle will take you to the Alumata.”
The shuttle was basically a twenty-meter-long tube with hold-down straps for its passengers. One end was a transparent hemisphere, providing an amazing view of High Rosa with Gondiar shining behind it. Terence gripped a strap and spent the whole flight staring out.
Twenty minutes after they left the dock, he could see where they were heading. The Alumata was a bright point ahead of them, stationary relative to all the other ships swirling around this section of the georing. It had a metallic fuselage that reflected the Poseidon Nebula’s garish illumination in a rose-gold sheen—a shade amplified by the sharp red light emitted by its inset thermal panels. The shuttle slid in toward an airlock that was deploying out of the starship’s tapered cylindrical section, while the life support ring rotated slowly around it.
Terence was surprised. He’d always envisioned the archon owning a small, fast ship for his own personal use, not this sweet yacht. The other side of the airlock opened into an elevator like a one-person globecab. It took him down a spoke and into the life support ring.
The cabin he was delivered to was like a room from a palace, with marbled floors and an arching roof. One bulkhead was a curved window, allowing him to see the ship’s engineering section directly overhead, with the nebula’s rumbustious clouds rotating disorientingly around them.
Makaio-Faraji was sitting in a sunken circular couch. He rose as soon as Terence emerged from the elevator. The most noticeable difference was how the Celestial’s bloodstone scallops had grown over the intervening years since they met on Wynid. Thick ridges flecked with copper and gold had already replaced his ears with conch-like horns, while the edges were curling around his cheeks. A pair of smooth antlers rose out of his temple, only to curve back over his scalp to finish level with his shoulder blades, as if they were tails growing in the wrong place.
Terence gave the Imperial Celestial a slight bow, feeling very self-conscious. “Archon.”
“Terence.” Makaio-Faraji inclined his head politely. “I wish the circumstances were different, but I am pleased to see you nonetheless. Twenty-one years is too long. How is your family?”
“Okay, thanks.” Terence was quietly relieved to find Makaio-Faraji wasn’t using his “human” rider this time. “Aljan is taking his assessments for college this year. And Vanilda is…Well, Vanilda. They’re teenagers.” He shrugged.
“Ah, yes, human teenagers. The trouble years.”
“Pretty much every year is a trouble year if you’re a parent.”
“Of course. Well, I thank you for coming.”
“It’s not as far as Wynid, this time. I was—”
He was interrupted by a young Imperial Celestial running in. Young, but not small, the boy was already taller than him, although a lot thinner.
“You’re a human!” the boy exclaimed. “I’ve never seen a human before. You’re so short. Are you fully grown?”
“Jaeiff,” Makaio-Faraji chided. “Modify yourself. Appropriate behavior context.”
“Sorry, father.” He bowed deeply to Terence. “Mr. Wilson-Fletcher, I’m delighted to meet you. You’re one of father’s spies, aren’t you?”
“Your father and I work together, yes.”
“How exciting!”
“Silent attention,” Makaio-Faraji emphasized.
Jaeiff nodded enthusiastically and scurried over to stand beside his father.
Terence tried to find a resemblance in their features and failed. He did—and didn’t—want to ask what kind of rituals Jaeiff would have to perform so Makaio-Faraji could determine if he was worthy enough to continue his mindline.
“Please.” Makaio-Faraji gestured at the couch.
When Terence sat next to the archon, his feet didn’t reach the floor; he felt like a child sitting in a grown-up’s chair. An android arrived with a tray of tea. It was the same type he’d encountered on Wynid, as thin as paper and lacking a head; its arms twisted along their length rather than bent at joints as it proffered the tray. Whatever it was about the machine that had discomforted him the first time, it hadn’t diminished in the years since.
“Black breakfast tea, and honey not sugar, right?” Makaio-Faraji said. He sounded pleased with himself.
“Yes. Thank you.” Terence waited until the android stirred in the honey and then accepted the cup. “I didn’t know you were in the Kelowan system.”
“A coincidence,” Makaio-Faraji said. “Happy or otherwise is yet to be determined, though I prefer to think of it as fate. I was passing between Gates when you sent your report. Please tell me, how is Lućia?”
“The same as I was when it happened to me: minor burns and major shock. She’s tough. She only took a week off, and that’s because I made her. She came back to work three days ago.”
“You chose well.”
“I’m going to accept that compliment. She’s good.”
“Very well, so…another non-spontaneous combustion.”
“Yeah. I ran a scan on what was left of him. It was the same nano-biotech. Bopbe was assassinated by a Celestial agent.”
“The same as last time.”
“Too much so. Colvin was about to turn informer when he ignited, and Bopbe was on the verge of giving up his handler. Whoever is running the network, they had real-time access to both interviews. And this time I had Bopbe in a room that was supposedly isolated. The CI was blocking all lncs and nodes.”
“I’ll give you an upgrade. It’s too late, of course, but hopefully you’ll be able to rely on it more in the future.”
“Thanks. So, since the interview we’ve been working through every bit of intel we have on Bopbe and Varmor. It isn’t much; our Anoosha networks are nothing like as extensive as the ones we’ve built on Gondiar. We do know that both of them are freelancers, out for whatever dark security contracts they can grab. Both have worked for gangs before, and Bopbe has definitely been outsystem a couple of times. His biological age was thirty-three, but his dilated age is about eighty.”
“You think he was recruited when he was away from Kelowan?”
“It’s certainly possible, yes. The fact that he was a target for a snatch, the knowledge he claimed to possess, and the weapons he’d been issued, makes me think he was reasonably high up in whatever organization he was working with. What we have no idea about is which archon controls it. There’s a strong possibility it’s not Sahdiah.”
“Because?”
“Part of the deal was going to be him exposing Sahdiah’s networks to us. Of course, that could have been a bluff. But he knew about myself and Lućia, and he knew that we work for you. He said everyone knows you regard Gondiar as your fiefdom.”
“I wouldn’t have put it quite like that, but Wynid certainly has an extensive interest in the planet. So you suspect he was working for another archon, not Sahdiah?”
“Given someone, most likely Sahdiah, sent Varmor to snatch him, there have to be at least three intelligence operations active here. You, Sahdiah, and one other. If Bopbe was working for the third one, they know an uncomfortable amount about us and Sahdiah, while we know nothing about them.”
“I told you at the start, this is a long game. When we started, all we knew was that someone on Gondiar was using Celestial technology. We didn’t know who, and if it was a network or a one-off clash. We now know they exist. In itself, that’s an accomplishment.”
“A bloody small one for all these years of work.”
“Patience, Terence. Consider how you confirmed there are two networks.”
“Sheer dumb luck?”
Makaio-Faraji gave him a mournful smile. “Certainly not. The only reason you were watching Bopbe and Varmor was because your network passed on the very information it was built for: unusual occurrences in the criminal fraternity.”
“If you say. But we don’t know who they are.”
“Whether Bopbe was bluffing or not, he knew about Sahdiah. For me, confirming Sahdiah has a network here has value. And the fact that Bopbe was subject to a snatch mission is a strong indicator that there is also another archon operation active on Gondiar.”
“But we don’t know who.”
“The conclusion I am reluctantly coming to is the Mara Yama.”
“Shit! Really?”
“They always play the longest game of all. Take what we know: that Colvin was being interviewed by you when he was killed. Whoever triggered the nano-biotech heard you trying to turn him, so that revealed you were part of some operation. Later you are summoned to Wynid, then return to have an excellent career in the police. Obviously you are now working directly for me.”
“They’ve been watching me,” Terence said in dismay. The thought chilled him. Everything, they’ll know everything. About me, the kids…Goddess, they’ll be watching the kids.
“Yes,” Makaio-Faraji said. “But we now know something about them. They are not merely a passive observer. Bopbe did something. He was protected for a while, but when you captured him, he became expendable. Exactly the same applied to Colvin. We have no idea what Bopbe did, but we do know Colvin was killed before he could say anything about Dagon.”
“We’ve never even heard the name Dagon since.”
“No, but Dagon wanted to make contact with the Enfoes. An archon will tend to use Travelers as couriers.”
