by Watts Martin
“That’s great. Thanks. That’s great.” She wraps her arms around her head, bending her left ear painfully. That’s okay. It makes her more awake. “God. I need to—” Need to what? How does she feel safe now, no matter what she does? Go back to New Coyoacán somehow, despite what she said to Sky, despite knowing how it’d look to the PFS? How it would look to Keces?
She strides back to the couch and rifles through her jacket for her viewcard, activating a link to the PFS station, again barely waiting for the prompt. “Officer Wolfe.”
Ansel gives her that raised-brow oh, really? look. Before she can decide how deep to make her scowl, a cheerful female voice comes on the line. “Panorica Federation Security, front desk. Officer Wolfe isn’t on duty currently. How can we help you, Ms. Simmons?”
“Then get me Agent Thomas. The Interpol liaison.”
“He’s not going to be in for at least two hours, Ms. Simmons. What can I help you with?”
“Maybe you could find out for me why the thief you were holding yesterday for extradition back to Earth is out now.”
The woman’s voice stays polite but gets much less cheerful. “I’ll see what information I’m cleared to give you.”
“Why don’t I give you some information? Like how he was trying to break into where I’m staying right now about five minutes ago.”
She can just about hear the woman’s mouth opening and closing. “Are you—may I pull up a feed from the closest exterior cameras?”
Gail swipes on her card to bring up output controls, and switches the audio out of her ear and into the desk speakers. “Ansel, can you send her a shot of Corbett at the door?”
The fox nods. “Sure.” He brings up the video window again, swipes his finger in the air along the image’s base until it’s showing Randall approaching. Tap, swipe forward a few seconds, tap. Then he types something. “Sent.”
“It should be on its way.”
Officer Frontdesk sounds mumbly-flustered. “Thank you. I’ll send this to Officer Wolfe. And to Agent Thomas. Can you stay on the line?”
“It’s not like I’m not going outside any time soon.”
She clears her throat. “Someone will be with you in just a moment.” Music starts playing.
Ansel makes a face and lowers the volume. “Are you sure looping them in this was a good idea? These are the people who let Corbett go and who think Quanta’s the victim instead of the perpetrator. They’re not on your side.”
“I don’t know if anyone’s on my side. But they’re the only ones who know why that lunatic is out there,” she stabs a finger at the door, “instead of with them.”
The music keeps playing. Gail grunts. “I’m gonna get some coffee, if that’s all right.”
“What do I say if they come back on the line?”
“Say I’m getting coffee.” She heads to the kitchen, ignoring Ansel’s pointed sigh, and rummages through cabinets until she finds a mug to shove at the beverage dispenser. He insists coffee tastes better in ceramic, so his machine doesn’t deign to print containers. It’s a wonder it’s as automatic as it is.
Its display comes on, but nothing happens. She leans over, squinting at it. Voice command. “Coffee. Uh, black.”
The machine responds in a chatty-cheerful male voice. “Central American, African or Mountain style?”
Seriously? From her time back at Brio she knows those refer to geographic regions on Earth, even if “Mountain” seems suspiciously generic. But if this coffee isn’t synthetic, it’s from the Ceres Ring. None of the arcologies grow it and importing it from Earth would be insane. “What’s the difference?”
The machine doesn’t answer. Kismet would be able to, and you’d think the expert system in a coffee machine would know more about coffee than the one in a spaceship. “Central American.” She’s thinks that’s the darkest roast.
Satisfied, the machine chimes an acknowledgement. The display lights up with the words INFUSING: 90 SEC LEFT. It didn’t take that long at Brio. God, even Ansel’s coffee machine is a prissy perfectionist.
She pokes her head back out of the kitchen. Ansel’s reading a display. The hold music’s still playing. The coffee has another eighty-two seconds.
After the drink pours out into her mug, she stomps back toward the desk. “You have the slowest coffee machine I’ve ever seen.”
“There’s only so fast you can make coffee.”
“Kismet makes coffee in ten seconds!”
“She makes bad coffee in ten seconds.”
“C’mon, this isn’t that much better.” She takes a sip and her brows go up. Annoyingly, it is that much better. It’s better than the non-espresso coffee they served at Brio. Ansel doesn’t say anything, but his expression is pure smug vindication.
Another two sips of coffee and the music abruptly stops. “Ms. Simmons.” Officer Wolfe. “What’s happening?”
“Other than you guys letting Corbett go so he can stalk me? Not much.”
“He was still in custody when I went off-duty yesterday.” There’s some frantic tapping noises. “We were told Corbett wasn’t a person of interest in the case Interpol was investigating, but we were holding him in our investigation. He was released on bail around midnight last night.”
“Someone paid bail for him? Who?”
“Even if I had that information I couldn’t tell you. But keeping his distance from you was an explicit condition of bail.”
“The guy who framed me for theft and murder isn’t following the law? Who could have seen that coming.”
Ansel stifles a snicker.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Simmons. I’m going to put watches on public feeds for Corbett. That recording of him trying to break into the apartment you’re staying in is enough to hold him under our jurisdiction and deny any further bail.”
“Do you have eyes on him anywhere now?”
“No, but when he’s in custody we’ll let you know.”
“Share the watch with me.”
“I might have to clear that with Agent—”
“You’re pulling from public feeds and everything you guys do is required to be public too, so tell Agent Thomas to get used to working in a transparent goddamn society.”
“We’re having some—conflicts over jurisdiction and procedure.” The leopard clears his throat. “I’m sending our endpoint to you.”
Ansel looks up at Gail after a second and nods. He’s got it.
“Okay. Call me if anything changes, unless I call you first.” Part of her hopes he’s not going to get pissed off that she’s speaking to him like she’s his superior officer, but given the monthly assessment fee she pays to maintain her citizenship, he does work for her. Sort of. Right?
He doesn’t challenge her, though. “I will, Ms. Simmons. And Agent Thomas may want to speak to you again.”
“Terrific.”
Beedle boop
Gail closes her eyes, counting to five silently, then leans over Ansel’s shoulder. “Can you tell if Corbett’s still nearby?”
“The check’s running now.” He examines a window full of incomprehensible text. “A good match for our hooded figure was last seen a block away from here and moving downtown. That was four minutes ago. He hasn’t passed another public feed since, so he’s likely keeping to residential neighborhoods.”
“Naturally.” Most—although not all—businesses set cameras watching areas like streets and walkways to be public, but you need explicit permission to access ones around private housing. Stifling a sigh, she takes a seat. After a few seconds, she says, without looking over at him, “This is really good coffee.”
“Thank you. I suppose that means you don’t want to try to get back to sleep.”
“With Randall out there? How?”
“I don’t think he’ll be coming back, and we’ll have a lot of warning now if he tries. And if he shows his face—which he might, because with any luck he thinks he just bought a bad door hack and wasn’t actually caught—he’ll be in PFS custody by
noon.”
“Assuming the PFS is really on our side.”
“Now you’re sounding like me.” He laughs. “I wanted to take you to Porter’s for breakfast, and they won’t be open for another two hours.”
“As long as we both feel safe enough to leave.”
He smiles lopsidedly.
Chapter 9
“I told you the pancakes were terrific.”
“I didn’t doubt you.” That’s a lie. As a kid she liked Panorica-style pancakes a lot more than she does now, coming to diners with her mom when they were here for RTEA meetings. (Never with dad, but she was too young to recognize that as a marriage heading for trouble.) Instead of a stack of three or four centimeter-thin cakes, they make one airy, spongy one, four or five centimeters thick and stuffed with something sweeter than civilized people should face before noon. But Porter’s has a slightly sweet batter matched with a lemon ricotta filling that merges seamlessly into the cake. It’s almost like a breakfast pastry, but with a pancake’s texture, and with the golden pomegranate syrup it’s amazing.
But the pancakes aren’t the best thing about being at Porter’s, or the coffee, or anything else the cute partial transform cat waitress has brought over. She and Ansel sit outside in cool “fall” morning air—she still can’t think of any of the arcologies doing “fall” without the air quotes, even though the seasons aren’t any less artificial on the Ring—enjoying the street bustle as the overhead glow brightens. At this moment, her life feels normal again. That’s the best thing.
“Did your algorithm pare down the possible ships?”
He nods, swallowing a mouthful of his own pancake. “Down to four, but I haven’t looked at those to see if we can zero in on just one.” He waves his fork. “But I’m wondering if this is really following the right course.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your goal isn’t to find this ship, it’s to get the databox back to Keces.”
The chair’s not friendly to her whiplike tail; she can’t imagine how uncomfortable it is for Ansel’s fox brush. Sky used to whine—literally—at chairs with solid backs. “And we’re following this lead to prove that Quanta’s behind the wreck and the theft.”
“I know. But why isn’t Interpol interested in Corbett?”
She shrugs. “Quanta doesn’t care about him now. He failed. They just want the databox.”
“They could have just left him in PFS custody, though. But they didn’t. I think either he has some other part to play, or they’re worried that he’ll end up talking to the wrong person and they’ll find themselves in a real investigation, not a sham one.”
She hadn’t threaded the logic out quite this far, but it makes sense. But how does it help? “And?”
“That means you should find the wrong person. Whoever they don’t want Corbett to talk to is exactly who you want to talk to.” He finishes off his pancake.
She slumps in her seat, thinking. “Wolfe thinks Thomas really cares about his job.”
“That doesn’t mean he isn’t conscientiously crooked. There’s reasonable suspicion the databox belongs to Keces, not Quanta, but it looks like Interpol started out on Quanta’s side here. The PFS isn’t under legal obligation to do them any favors.”
“No, but they’re not going to screw them if they want cooperation the next time they’ve got a problem that goes back to the inner system. And Wolfe’s not the one who’s gonna be making that call. It’s got to be coming from higher up than Wolfe is.”
“Then go higher up.”
“Oh, that should be easy. I’ll just get the chief on the line when we’re finished here.”
“Look, dear, you’re the one who promised the impossible, so you’d better be prepared to do the unlikely.”
After the waitress clears the plates away she pulls out her viewcard. The call starts as a nearly word-for-word repeat of the one from a few hours ago: ask for Officer Wolfe, get Officer Frontdesk, express urgency, get the brushoff. “Can you at least give me a status report on Corbett?”
“I don’t have any information on that.”
“Lucky for you, I do. I’ll tell you what. I’ll just head to the station office and wait for Wolfe. I have some things to talk about that might be better in person anyway.”
Frontdesk remains polite but sounds more strained. “He’s in the field and it might be some time.”
“That’s fine. I mean, since you don’t know if the person stalking me is still out here, there’s probably no safer place to be than in your lobby, right?”
“I may have to clear that with—”
“Thanks. See you in about fifteen minutes.” She disconnects.
Ansel’s lowered-brow look makes her parry with an exasperated one. “What?”
“I’m sure there’s some age-old warning about walking into the lion’s den.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s a prerequisite to parlaying with them. Besides, I dated a lion once. They’re okay.”
He gets up, putting his cap back on. “Do you want me to go with you?”
The oh please don’t say yes in his tone is so close to the surface she’s not sure it still qualifies as a subtext. “It sounds like it’s going to be a lot of waiting. I wouldn’t mind a walk to the station just in case, but you’re off the hook after that.”
“Deal. I’m not sure what case you’re thinking I can be helpful with, but I’ll try.”
She grins. “Just an extra pair of eyes.”
They walk along in silence for about five minutes, heading toward Port Panorica. She scans the crowd occasionally, but doesn’t see Corbett anywhere. It’s nearly ten in the morning and she’d wager if he’s not in custody yet, he’s not going to be. Getting someone past the PFS and off Panorica isn’t easy, but there are ways. She’s done it once.
Who she does see, though, is Agent Squarejaw, walking down the other side of the street. He doesn’t look like he’s seen her yet. She has her vision ramped up two-x, and he probably doesn’t. Her whiskers twitch. “Crap.”
“What?”
“Up ahead. Thomas.”
His ears fold back. “Is he looking for you?”
“Probably.”
“In here.” He ducks into a storefront, and she follows. It’s not until they’re inside that she sees it’s a lingerie store. All at once Ansel looks self-conscious in a way she doesn’t think she’s seen him do before; she can’t help but grin.
“They must have told him I was on the way to the station.” She subtly motions for him to follow as she pretends to examine a rack, lowering her voice. “Which means he wants to find me before I get there.”
“That’s ominous.”
“Maybe.” Mostly, though, it’s curious. If he wanted to have her arrested, it’d be easier to do it at the station. Same if he wanted to do her harm—he could take her to some back room and arrange an “accident” of some kind. Or he could just wait until she went back to Ansel’s place; they know that’s where she’s staying now. So why come out after her here?
Because he wants to stop her from talking to the PFS.
Maybe that’s ominous, but maybe she doesn’t have the right read on him. From what Wolfe said he’s not the one who decided Corbett wasn’t going to go back to Earth, and he’s not the one who decided to let him go, either. Maybe he wants to say something where it’s not going to be monitored. Searching through publicly accessible feeds might show that he talked with her, but with no audio, they’d have to take his word on what they’d talked about.
But why wouldn’t he trust the PFS? Ansel would tell her it’s because they’ll object to Interpol’s plan to send the databox back to Earth. But they already know that plan, and they haven’t objected yet. What she’s planning to tell them might change that. If he wants to talk to her off the record, though, something’s already changed.
She touches Ansel’s shoulder. “Maybe not, though.” She moves toward the exit.
“Gail!” Ansel hisses.
Opening the door,
she motions for him to follow her, but doesn’t wait to see if he does. She steps out onto the sidewalk and waves toward Thomas, but she doesn’t need to. He’s crossing the street. He’s already seen her.
“Ms. Simmons.” Squarejaw’s dressed much the same as he was yesterday, but the suit under the overcoat looks more rumpled. “You’re on the way to the PFS substation?”
“Yeah.”
He glances at Ansel, who hasn’t completely stepped out of the lingerie store. “Mr. Santara.” He looks back at Gail. “I’d like you to take a longcut with me.” He gestures back the way he’d been walking—the way Gail and Ansel came from, away from the station.
Ansel steps out of the shop fully. “Is that an order?”
“No.”
Gail tilts her head. “He wants a conversation that’s not being monitored by the local police.”
Thomas raises his brows, then gives a confirming nod.
She starts walking, motioning for him to follow. He walks beside her, a slow ambling gait rather than the purposeful stride he’d been walking with earlier. Ansel follows a step behind, looking worried. “You know I’ll be recording it,” the fox says.
“That’s fine. You’re not contractually bound to share your recordings with the PFS or Interpol.”
She thrusts her hands in her pockets, keeping her tone nonchalant as she powers up her biomods. There’s a small but non-zero chance she’s about to get into a serious fight. “You think your agency’s working for Quanta Biotechnics, don’t you?”
He looks down at her, and this time his brow furrows rather than lifts. “Do you?”
“I’m pretty sure the databox belongs to Keces and Quanta hired Corbett to steal it. I screwed that up for them by almost catching him, but they had a backup plan. They don’t need Corbett anymore—they got him released because they don’t want him sticking around in PFS custody. Now they just have to wait for the databox to be sent back by your agency. That’s a lot better than a sketchy civilian guy, right? Are they going to have you bring it back yourself?”
