by Sean Platt
“Micah wants me to work for him,” Nicolai blurted. It simply came out of him, without planning or warning.
“Of course he does,” said Rachel. She squinted at Nicolai like a bacterium under her microscope. “But more importantly, I think I might let him take you on.”
“Let him?”
“Micah does what he’s told,” she said.
“Same as Isaac?”
“Isaac does even what he isn’t told.”
Nicolai looked Rachel over from head to toe. She was like any old woman, albeit one who was far past her prime and apparently good with facial cosmetics. Isaac and Micah were in their eighties but appeared to be in their thirties, but Rachel looked her age. The revolution that Nicolai had unwittingly ushered might one day be able to make the younger Ryans immortal, but Rachel wasn’t long for the world. She knew it and seemed to have accepted it. For now, she held plenty of strings, but Nicolai wondered how many of them were fraying. He wondered what would happen once they broke and the puppets started pulling the strings themselves.
He leaned forward. “Can I ask you a question?”
“It’s so charming when people ask permission, knowing they’re about to blurt out regardless.”
“Why are you telling me all of this?”
“Because old people love it when young people want to talk to them,” she said, smiling to reveal a perfect, unblemished set of teeth. “Would you like some butterscotch candy?”
“I mean, how do you know you can trust me?”
Nicolai thought Rachel had laughed earlier, but that laughter was a thin chuckle compared to the roar that escaped her now. Her palms slapped the chair’s arms. Her head fell back, perilous to her brain though it may have been. She shook as if in a fit.
“I don’t care if you can be trusted,” she said, wiping away a tear. “Who are you going to tell, and what would any of it mean to them?” She smoothed her last fits of laughter. “Oh, Mr. Costa, we haven’t scratched the surface of what I consider to be precious secrets. No, you deserve to know your role in the development of your father’s technology. Honor among thieves, don’t you know. It was always going to be necessary, someday, to bring you in and let you decide if you wanted to help us or not.”
“You mean ‘help Micah.’”
“I said what I meant. I’m sitting in front of you, and you still think my sons have different ends in mind than what I want for the future. But let me ask you something: Right now, the Directorate controls the Senate. But what do you think will happen if Enterprise takes the majority at Shift?’
He shrugged. The question sounded rhetorical, but she waited, apparently meaning for Nicolai to answer.
“I assume they’ll ratify beem currency.”
Rachel shook her head. “Beem. Debates over dole increases. Directorate oversight for entrepreneurial ventures that impact the public sector. Allotments of police and fire departments. Oh, there are plenty of hotbeds in this Shift. More than enough to argue about. Such choice. So many things that matter so very much to all of those people out there.”
“If those issues don’t matter, then what does?” said Nicolai.
She waved a finger. “Ah, but now we’re getting close to the secrets I don’t want to share.”
“Why? You said that nobody would believe me.”
“I said that it wouldn’t mean anything. That’s different.”
“How?”
She affected a detective’s inflection. “I’ll ask the questions, sonny.”
Nicolai recrossed his legs, feeling restless. The impression of being a fly in front of a spider was larger than ever. He looked up at Rachel and suddenly wondered if she’d known everything all along: Who he was, why he’d come, what he knew, and what he’d done. The thought was paranoid, but it was hard to shake.
He felt a reckless idea seize him. Thinking back to his conversation with Micah in his apartment, he said, “What is the Beau Monde?”
A new look crossed the old woman’s face. There was just a flicker of surprise, but it was there long enough for Nicolai to see it for what it was.
“Now that’s an interesting question,” she said.
“I’ve seen the high-end immersion rigs in Isaac’s apartment,” he said. It was a calculated risk, but he was beginning to feel that he had little to lose.
“I don’t know all of the new toys Micah is having made,” she said. “But that’s not what you asked about, is it?”
“They’re sensory interfaces that are light years ahead of what’s publicly available or even known to the general…”
“There has to be a down in order for there to be an up,” said Rachel, interrupting his technical sidetrack with a dismissive wave. “My father used to say that. Everyone needs someone to aspire to, and someone to control them.”
“You’re saying it’s about control?”
“Everything is about control, Mr. Costa.”
“Who controls you?”
She shook her head of white hair. “You’re only seeing one small corner of the puzzle. It’s just enough to tell you there’s more hidden away. That’s why you came here, isn’t it? To peek at a little more of the picture. Maybe you thought I’d be soft enough to spill my guts. But I imagine all I’ve done is to make you wonder more.”
“What will happen if Enterprise gains majority at Shift?” asked Nicolai.
“A more pertinent question,” she said, “is, ‘What will happen when people like you reach my age, and yet are really no older than you are now?’”
“How is that the same?”
“What will happen as more and more people are born with The Beam, with half of their selves rooted in artificial senses, and half of their minds in a cloud?”
“I don’t see your point.”
“What will happen, Mr. Costa, when the old get older, the rich get richer, and the rest of the world has no way to keep up? What will happen when what happened with Noah West begins to happen with everyone at the top of both parties?”
Nicolai sat forward. “What happened with Noah West?”
“Oh,” she said, “but that’s the most delicious secret of all.”
He’d been beginning to feel vertigo, but all of a sudden it slammed to a stop, and he again found himself facing an old woman in a chair, her hands thin and bony, her skin like paper. They could be great grandson and great grandmother, having a visit for tea and conversation.
“I don’t understand any of what you’re saying,” he said.
“You’ll find out,” Rachel said with a smile. “It is your birthright, after all.”
Kate looked to each side as she followed Inspector Levy through the depot, watching the other inspectors and passengers waiting their way through inspection. Everyone looked so bland and uninteresting as they went about their boring routines. Their days wouldn’t involve a bust for trafficking (intergalactic drug trafficking, she supposed) or the threat of prison. No one even looked over at Kate as she followed the sloppy man in the cheap-looking federal uniform. They didn’t know that a free life was about to crash into incarceration.
Life behind bars, here I come. Again.
“I didn’t know there were concealed hatches on the shuttle,” Kate begged at Levy’s back. “It was prepped for me. I was out at the station on…”
“Save it,” said Levy.
She watched the man’s back. His shirt was white, with a simple dark band tie. His pants were black or very dark gray. His shoes made a clacking sound on the stone underfoot — similar to but deeper than Kate’s clicking heels. A handheld slumbergun hung in a holster on his hip. Kate’s wrists weren’t in cuffs. Levy’s restraints were opposite his holster, in a small pouch.
“Am I in trouble?”
“Oh, yes.”
She had to ask. “Then why didn’t you cuff me?”
“Do I need to cuff you?”
“No,” she said. Her thin wrists flinched involuntarily behind her. She could almost feel the cool metal (or was it Plasteel?) ag
ainst her skin. The notion unsettled her in a way that even Levy’s command to “Please follow me” hadn’t. This was big trouble, and she was in a heap of shit.
The depot was wide open, and looking across it, Kate wondered if she should try to run. He hadn’t cuffed her, probably to spare her some dignity. She was just a girl, and he already knew that she didn’t have reinforced bones for striking, Degraff muscle fiber replacements for generating extra force, or any other hidden weapons. Doc, when he’d still been Doc, had very much wanted the specialist to add all sorts of goodies under his new skin, but Kai and the specialist had said that it would be unwise. Crime was the only sector where Doc could slot back into Enterprise at a similar pay grade. Given his natural schmoozing ability, smuggling had seemed like a natural fit. But moon travelers were comprehensively scanned, so he’d have to go in raw, with minimal enhancement, and rely on his wits as he always had.
But his wits — now that they were her wits — had failed. She hadn’t known about the moon’s new security measures, and her employer either hadn’t known either or hadn’t bothered to tell her. All the schmoozing in the world wouldn’t get her out of this.
But then again, schmoozing and wits weren’t the same. Wits could be used to find new ways to navigate a tricky situation. To improvise. If possible, to escape.
Kate looked from the inspection stations to the depot’s far end, and the idea of running immediately fled her mind. Where could she escape to? She was on the moon, and there was no air outside. Her breathers were in the shuttle, and it wouldn’t exactly be easy to lose a hover out on the surface anyway. Not to mention the negative 273 degrees Celsius of cold to be had outdoors here once night fell.
No, the lunar elevator was her only way off of the rock, and to use it, Kate’s shuttle would have to be docked to the climber. Even if she somehow managed to dock and descend while fleeing the authorities (which was so impossible as to be laughable), NAU police would be waiting for her on the other side. Running was a dead end. She’d have to follow Levy’s lead, and see where it led her.
“Right in here, please,” Levy said.
He pushed open a door to what looked like an office. As Kate got closer and peered inside, she saw it was closer to a mix between an interrogation room and an inspection station. The walls were off-white, somewhat scuffed and dirty. The room had a large gray table in the center. The table seemed to be mounted to the floor, with a pair of molded chairs on either side, also mounted. Fastened to each chair’s seats — as well as lining a bench along the far wall — were loops of Plasteel, probably for fastening handcuffs.
“I need to make a call,” said Kate.
“Right now, you need to come into this room,” said Levy. His earlier shyness was gone. She could argue and bluster with him, but what good would it do? The other inspectors would side with Levy, and all anyone had to do to justify Kate’s containment was to look at her shuttle with its hatch full of moondust and lined with red-glowing nanos.
She’d have to let him arrest her then return to Earth in restraints. Hopefully, those with better connections could work some magic from there. Maybe Omar. Little had been said about Omar during her refurb, but it seemed ironic that she now worked only one degree away from him. He was her boss now — the man she didn’t trust, with his odd connections to Micah Ryan his and dreams of conspiracy, all of it salted with a breezy breed of betrayal. Fortunately, Omar didn’t know whom Jimmy had truly hired to run his dust. He didn’t know who she’d once been and still was inside. In Omar’s duplicitous hands, that information would be very dangerous.
Kate averted her eyes and entered the room. Levy followed then closed the door behind them. The lock clicked, and Kate assumed that they were now magnetically sealed inside. The room would be soundproof and designed to outwit lowlife geniuses. It was a federal room, designed by federal minds. There would be no escape.
“Am I under arrest?”
“Are you carrying any more dust on your person?”
“No.”
He swiped a sequence of movements on a wall marked INSPECTOR ACCESS. A small invisible panel slid open, and Levy removed something that looked like a gun.
“What’s that for?”
“Just stand still.”
He pulled the trigger, and a puff of mist wafted from the barrel. The mist surrounded Kate then seemed to vanish. A moment later, it seemed to reform and reentered the muzzle like a vidstream in reverse.
“Nanobots?” she said.
Levy ignored her, looking down at a readout on the device. A small screen on its top had turned green, but he shook his head and set it back inside the compartment. He looked at Kate. “Not good for you,” he announced.
Kate shook her head. “I’m not holding anything on me. I don’t even know what this is all about. When I went out to Digger, some techs took my shuttle while I was in my meeting and…”
“I’m going to need to do a manual search.”
Kate blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Strip down.”
Kate made a face that was very Doc Stahl. “The fuck I’m gonna.”
“I have to verify that you’re not holding.”
“The screen on that thing was green, slick. Green means clean.”
“It fed me a few uncertain readings,” he said. Then he tapped his head, implying he had an implant that talked to the nanobot gun.
“Oh sure. Where are those spots?”
“Strip down. Now.”
“Convenient for you,” said Kate, her hands on her hips.
A small strap held the inspector’s slumbergun in his holster. He popped it open and rested the heel of his hand on the butt.
“You’re in a lot of fucking trouble,” Levy said. “Do you know that?”
“Ooh.” She made a fake pout. “You’ve got a dirty mouth.”
“Ten years minimum, probably on the Flat 4 island. I saw how much dust you’re carrying on the nano readout, and that’s just the one compartment. I’m betting you have others. If you go to prison, you’re facing some seriously bad times. Do you know much about the Flat system?”
Oh, yes. She knew it intimately. Toss the criminals together in a closed space without guards or rules. Let the bad guys and gals do what they wanted to each other, so long as they stayed inside.
Kate nodded.
“Do you know how it’s tiered?”
“What the fuck you want, hoss?” said Kate.
“Smugglers come in all types, from small peddlers to violent kingpins. An inspector’s word goes a long way in determining how the courts see you — and which tier of a Flat you’re placed into. So which kind of smuggler do you want me to say you are? A compliant small-timer, or a really bad one who deserves the highest tier?”
“Noah Fucking West,” she said. “I knew titties were trouble.”
With an eye roll at Levy, she peeled off her shirt. She wasn’t wearing a bra. She didn’t need one despite her size and had never liked dealing with them when she’d been a man. They were always in the way back then, and they itched now.
She stood with her chest bare, hands back on her hips. “Happy?”
Levy slowly circled Kate in a farce of inspection. He touched each breast, lifting it. His fingers brushed her nipples. In spite of the situation, the tweaks made her shiver. Kate had undergone a thorough refurb, and everything was hooked up just as it was supposed to be. If I’ve gotta be a girl, Doc had told the specialist, I want to be able to do all that fun shit girls are able to do, like that multiple orgasm trick.
“Now the rest,” said Levy.
Kate rolled her eyes again, unbuttoned her pants, and slid them down. There was no point in delaying the inevitable, so she took her panties down in the same motion. She stepped from her heels and the puddle of clothes, then stood stark naked in the room’s center. The floor was very cold.
“Because clearly, I’d stuff my cooch with moon rocks,” she said. “No danger to my health there if the bag leaked.”
“Shh
,” said Levy, now putting his hands everywhere.
Everywhere.
“Well, this seems professional and aboveboard.”
“You know,” said Levy, eyes widening with lust as his hands moved to his belt. “Maybe you didn’t actually trip the inspection sensors.”
“I didn’t, huh?”
“You didn’t if you play ball.”
“Play ball…or play with balls?”
“What do you think?”
He’d unbuttoned his pants and was about to unzip. A million thoughts tore through Kate’s mind in an odd mishmash. Levy had her dead to rights; she’d been caught holding enough Lunis to send her to a high-tier Flat even without him badmouthing her. Maybe cooperating actually would get her out of here unscathed. But shit…she didn’t exactly want any man parts in her. The thought was repugnant. But then again, maybe ten minutes of unpleasantness would save her a decade, maybe more.
If Levy would keep up his end of the bargain. He might welch even if she did what he wanted. And what about his terminal and her shuttle, out there in the depot, still lit up?
“You already got me,” she said. “The Beam knows I’m caught.”
“We get false positives all the time. Part of working with a new system.”
“You’re gonna erase my blip?” she said, skeptical. “Just make it all go away?”
Levy had moved around behind her. There was an unzipping noise.
“I’m a lesbian,” she said.
“A girl like you wouldn’t want me even if you were straight,” he said. “I won’t pretend you’re into it.” There was a shuffle of fabric. “Bend over the table.”
“I haven’t decided yet,” she said.
“I said bend over.”
“Motherfucker, just take it easy. This isn’t exactly something I’m used to d — ”
Kate felt something touch her bare ass.
Doc Stahl had lived his life on the thin line between right and wrong and had run across many people who didn’t like him and wanted him dead. He’d carried an emergency change of clothes in his hover in case he had to flee a lover in the face of a rampaging spouse. He’d had his apartment recently invaded. Over and over again, Doc had been grabbed from behind by an attacker intent on doing him harm. His body had changed, but his instincts hadn’t, and so Kate’s reaction to the man at her ass was automatic, involuntary, and happened completely without her permission. Her elbow came up hard and fast, connecting with Inspector Levy’s face just above the lip. He’d tilted his head back, probably to get a good look at what was about to go where, and had exposed his nose. Kate’s blow turned into an effortless chop, breaking his septum up into his brain. Then Levy slumped to the floor in the sealed, soundproofed room, dead with his eyes still blinking.
