by Jenn Lyons
get him killed. You could make him forget all about me. I’d consider it a personal favor.”
Vanessa looked at me oddly, and then smiled. “My dear Mallory, do you mean to tell me that after I went through all the trouble to set you up on a date with that simply gorgeous man the other night, you went and found someone on your own?” She waved her hand. “Besides the scruffy waiter, I mean.”
I tried not to look stricken. I hadn’t explained about Ian. “It’s not like that,” I finally protested. “Campbell’s nothing more than an MOJ thug with an overdeveloped desire to meddle. I’ve pawned him off on Merlin while I go do the dangerous stuff.”
“While we go do the dangerous stuff, you mean.”
I stared at my empty glass, then at the viewing hologram of our surroundings. There was a storm coming, dark clouds gathering in a cold gray-green anvil on the horizon. The air was humid, but the sweat on the back of my neck and the cold shivers brushing against my skin had nothing to do with the moisture or the temperature of the air.
“It’s Kaimer, Vanessa.” I said after a long silence. “Kaimer’s come back to bite me in the ass.”
“Wasn’t that school was destroyed? Gone? Giant comet from outer space?”
“Evidently the ghosts have decided to linger. Some of the students at Kaimer may have been turned into sleeper agents. I don’t know how deep or how bad it is, but I sort of suspect very deep, very bad. Someone is activating these sleepers and using them to assassinate high-ranked Sarcodinay targets. The targets aren’t random. Someone most definitely has an agenda.”
“And this is why Paul died?”
“There’s a chance—” I sighed and started over. “Paul may have been one of these sleepers. If so, then he was killed because someone didn’t want to take the chance that he might be activated.”
“And you? Are you one of these sleepers too?”
I hesitated. “I hope not. Unfortunately, that’s all the reassurance I have right now. The man who ordered Paul’s death thought not, and theoretically, he was in a position to know. So I’m going with that until someone tells me otherwise.” I folded my hands in my lap nervously. “Each time one of these Sarcodinay is killed, it seems to trigger a memory, almost as if someone has left a vid recording in my head that’s only set to replay when a specific button is pressed. I don’t know if all the students of Kaimer have this same trigger, or it’s just me. I don’t have nearly enough information to guess just yet.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“You think I have a plan? I’m flattered.”
“Of course you have a plan. You always have a plan. You came out of your mother’s womb with a plan.”
I couldn’t help grinning. “Maybe a little plan.”
“So?”
“Each memory triggered has seemed to point a finger towards the next victim. If that’s the case, the next on the list is Maia-Leia Shana.”
“Oh Keepers.”
“Right. The incomparable, the great, the one and only Maia-Leia Shana. I mentioned her when I was having dinner with Paul, and his reaction to her name was strong and negative. I thought it strange at the time, but I had other things on my mind. Looking back, Paul may have known he was in danger and may have known why. He was terrified of Lorvan, and Lorvan would have known the activation triggers, but—Paul didn’t always used to feel that about our old Headmaster.”
“So he found out recently.” She paused. “Alexander—”
I startled. “You knew about that?”
“It was a lovely ceremony...”
I blinked at her. “There was a ceremony? I thought they eloped.”
“They did. It was very spontaneous...uh...”
I waved a hand. “Never mind. The point is that not long afterward, someone started blackmailing Alexander about Paul—who evidently had a secret so dark that not only was he unwilling to directly explain the problem to me, but felt that the League would have him executed if they discovered what it was.”
She tapped her upper lip with a leaf-green lacquered nail. “A secret such as finding out that one of your top secret agents is actually a double agent who can’t control when he’ll betray you or who he’ll kill once he does?”
“Right. That sort of secret. So my theory is that he found out about this while visiting the Maia’s personal hospital on Keepers’ Island. And if I can backtrack what Paul discovered, maybe I can piece together exactly what’s going on. Maybe I can even save the Maia’s life while I’m at it. She did cure most of humanity at one point. That’s got to buy her some good karma or something.”
“But you’re a Kaimer graduate! Will the Maia let you anywhere near her?”
“Well...I technically never graduated. Besides, I have official business on Keeper’s Island with Paul’s widower, don’t I?”
“Oh, I’m sure they’ll accept that excuse.”
“How about if I ask really nicely?”
“Why not ask for a free cosmetic nanite treatment while you’re at it? I know how much you’ve been longing to be a brunette.”
“Maia-Leia’s not going to try to arrest me, Vanessa.” I scowled, not liking where this conversation was going, thinking about how much I didn’t want to explain when I didn’t have all the facts yet.
“Why. Not?” Vanessa asked with deliberate, mocking slowness as she leaned forward. “I want a reason, something beyond a vague hunch that somehow you won’t trigger this woman’s paranoia even though there’s every logical reason you should.”
“Someone told Shaniran that Maia-Leia made me.” I took a drag from the cigarette and shut my eyes. “That she considered me her finest creation.”
“Made you? You mean—?”
“Genetically engineered me. Created me.”
“But that’s illegal! The Tridates—!”
“Only forbid genetic tampering with the Sarcodinay gene set. There’s nothing in the rules about us pesky humans.” I sighed and drummed my fingers on the table. “She may have done it anyway. Tampered with the Tridates, I mean. She may have used Sarcodinay DNA when she created me.”
“Can we stress ‘may’ a little harder?” Medusa suggested. “Our only evidence at this stage is purely anecdotal. I am not at all convinced that someone wasn’t playing a mind-game with Mallory and deliberately leaked misinformation to Shaniran in the hopes of throwing Mallory off-balance. We do not have enough information to be draw such conclusions.”
I waved my cigarette in the air. “That’s what I love about Medusa. She keeps me honest.”
“Sounds like we definitely have one or two things to find out on Keeper’s Island,” Vanessa said cheerfully.
“One other chore first. There’s a vid file we need to examine.” I turned back to Vanessa. “Medusa has vid hookups that captured the High Guard who was killed on North Point Station. I haven’t had a chance to look yet because, well, you know, distractions. So let’s fix that before we reach the Island.”
“Mallory,” Medusa said. “I ran a check on everyone who showed up on the video. Everyone matched cleared personnel in the database, but I did find an anomalous entry. Two of the men who worked at the docking bay have the same background file.”
“The same file?”
Vanessa said, “Wouldn’t that have been spotted immediately?”
“Enough of the names have been changed to keep the duplication from being spotted by a cursory scan, but the main backgrounds are identical. North Point Station is not monitored by an AI, so it might have been some time before anyone noticed this. Someone accessed the computer system, copied a background file, and changed enough names to make it look reasonably different.”
“Instant new identity,” I commented. “Wouldn’t stand up to a security check, but maybe he didn’t need it for very long. I take it one of these men showed up in front of the camera?”
“Indeed he did, although I’m sorry to say I was not able to film the actual death of the High Guard.”
“That all right. Show us.”
“Oh, he’s lovely. I’ll take that one,” Vanessa commented.
“The man who bent over Mallory is also the one with the falsified record.” Medusa backed up the video to a close-up shot of the man.
“Of course he is.” I walked over to one of the cabinets and pulled down the bottle of cachaça I’d used for the batidas. I poured myself a shot and drank it straight.
“Mallory?” Vanessa looked concerned as she saw me set down the glass with a shaking hand. “What’s wrong?”
“That’s our assassin,” I said with a dull, flat voice. “He’s the one who killed Seris-Karat, and he’s the one who’s
