A hard hearted crook would have come down hard on Billy by way of solving the problem. If Guy couldn’t do that taking it out on Katie made the next most sense.
Which was all great in that it made sense.
Only what could she do about it?
Not much through formal channels. A direct public accusation wouldn’t get far either. Her reputation was in tatters. It would have been a stretch for a fifteen year girl to successfully accuse one of Ceres' main leaders anyways.
Could be Sam was right and she should accept the reputation hit and the loss of the immediate chance to attend the Academy. Have faith time would tell and all would come out. Come out for the better in the end.
Sam hadn’t pointed it out, but if Katie truly believed the Space Force was going to be more needed and bigger in the future they were going need more officers than were currently being graduated from the Academy.
That meant that a second invitation mightn’t be as unlikely as Katie feared. It also meant routes into the officer corps through other channels might open up. Maybe she could go enlisted or join a planetary service and transfer into the Space Force officer corps indirectly.
It was a strategy of waiting and hoping.
Hope was not a plan.
Katie intended to be somebody who made things happen. Not somebody who waited for them.
So far she’d been constrained by her hopes of getting into the Academy to trying to appear respectable and trying to stay out of trouble. Well, those hopes had been dashed. She wasn’t so constrained anymore was she?
Katie needed proof to show people that Guy was a smuggler and at least an attempted murderer. If he’d managed suborn the Sand Piper’s entire crew, she had to think he was an extortionist, too. From what Calvin told her he was a spreader of vile malicious slanders too.
But she needed proof. Proof more convincing than her word and a wild conspiracy theory.
Where to find it?
That wood the Sand Piper had dropped off, it must have come from Earth. Odds were the Star Rat tech was going back that way. Hard to distribute that sort of thing invisibly on a community as small as Ceres. Besides, Earth was where all the big money was.
Not too likely the schedules of the patrols of Space Force ships and those of transports back to Earth lined up precisely. There’d be transshipment somehow anyways. That meant there had to be some place where the illegal product was kept at least for a while between ships. Someplace controlled by Guy where he could prevent nosy outsiders from seeing what he was doing.
The warehouse district was the obvious answer. The warehouse district Billy and boys had just been hired to work in. Likely for the exact purpose of keeping nosy unofficial investigators out. With the additional benefit of keeping Billy busy and out of trouble of course.
The warehouse district’s security was rather lax, but it wasn’t open to the public either. Katie was going to have to finagle access somehow and find out where they were storing their contraband. Then she was going to have to make sure Chief Dingle, and the Commander got to see it before it could be moved this time.
It wasn’t going to be safe.
Katie was going to have to do things that weren’t technically legal to achieve it. Even if it all succeeded the manner of her success probably wouldn’t impress either the Commander or the Academy’s admissions board. She’d be risking everything.
Katie had arrived now within sight of the lifts to the main admin ring. She eyed the ring of brighter light around them from the shadows.
She had to be cautious here.
But she also had to move forward.
13: Katie All In
Katie was in the Warehouse Workers’ Labor Exchange Office. The working day was about done and she’d been a busy girl.
Spent the better part of the morning, and all of what should have been lunch, ransacking the records office for information. There’d been only limited information publicly available regards the warehouse district.
Katie had got her big break when a clerk she’d run ragged forgot her ID pass beside Katie when going to eat. It was definitely neither fair nor legal for Katie to have used that pass.
Despite what others thought, Katie believed herself to be honest and not given to random impulses. You couldn’t have told it by what she’d done. Katie had taken the pass and used it to get the warehouse district layouts she’d been looking for. That done, she’d noticed she had write permissions to all of Ceres' routine records. She couldn’t alter existing records without raising alarms, and she had no doubt anything she did would eventually be detected.
All the same, she could create any routine record she wanted and it would pass for a time.
Right on the spot, she formulated her plan to infiltrate the warehouses. Katie quickly created a new, fictitious person similar to herself, but with a blond bob, an earlier birth date, and newly arrived from Earth. Katie had gotten away with that. At least so far, and now she was committed.
Katie either managed to at least partly justify what she’d done or she was in even deeper trouble.
“Bob, close the doors,” a bored clerk called out. To the supplicants crowding the office, he made an announcement. “No more applicants. We’ll process everyone already here. It’ll take about forty minutes. Please be patient.”
So within forty minutes Katie would find out if her final most dangerous and most important gamble of the day was going to pan out.
Katie’s second earlier gamble hadn’t been risky, but might have the worse consequences in the end. Katie had full access permissions for conducting ship’s business on the behalf of Dawn Threader incorporated. Katie had full access to the ship’s account. Her parents trusted her not to abuse that trust. Katie had done just that, renting a small storage room in the warehouse district in the ship’s name.
That done, she’d gone to a nearby beauty salon and talked herself into being taken immediately without an appointment. Claimed a big date. She’d had all her long red braids cut off and was now sporting a blond bob. A bit of make up covered up the few stubborn freckles that remained from when she’d been younger.
Katie had often been told she resembled the iconic Anne of Green Gables. Not any more.
“Karen Jackson,” a clerk called. That was what Katie was calling herself. Katie got up and carefully slouched towards the counter. She didn’t want to show any hint of the ebullient energy she was famous for.
“That’s me,” she said, arriving there.
“ID,” the clerk asked.
Katie handed over the papers she’d printed off in the records office.
The clerk frowned. “These are temporary and there’s been no confirmation of your identity from your home town of Chicago on Earth,” he said.
Katie gave a heavy sigh. “Admin clerks back in Chicago aren’t as efficient as they are here. All political appointments,” she said. “One reason I left.”
The clerk smiled slightly. “Welcome to the final frontier,” he said. “You want a temporary permit to register for on call work down in the warehouse district, right?”
“Yep,” Katie said. “I understand from a guy I was talking to in the transients quarters that you can grant them at the cost of a slightly bigger fee.” She’d actually gained the information from court documents in the records office. It was a bribe and a scam, but apparently one tolerated between periodic crack downs.
The clerk hesitated briefly and then relented. “That’s right. Cash, since you’ve no local payment means.”
Katie handed over the requested fee, which amounted to a fair portion of her limited savings.
The clerk gave her a twisted smile. “You realize your information will be checked within the week? That if it is false you’re subject to heavy fines?”
“Figures,” Katie said.
“And if you can’t pay them confinement and then deportation will result?”
“Here’s hoping those twits back on mother mudball don’t lose my records,” Katie grumbled.
“In the meantime, I need to pay for food and shelter. You guys even charge for the air.”
“Better be here early then,” the clerk said. “First come, first served, and the work is irregular if you’re not the boss’s son.”
“Okie-Dokie,” Katie said.
“Okay, stand on that spot, and I’ll take your ID picture.”
A couple of minutes and Katie had papers and a new, albeit temporary, pass to the entire warehouse district.
It’d been necessary. The pass she had for Dawn Threader’s storage didn’t give access to the full area.
Katie walked away and let herself out of the office. The concourse outside was crowded with staff returning home.
Katie had taken the first steps in her plan.
All she needed to do now was actually get into the warehouse district and find the smuggled goods she was sure were there.
It shouldn’t be too risky, but she’d leave information drops with what she had so far on deadman switches. If something did happen to her, it’d give her accusations much increased credibility. Not that it’d do her much good at that point. Still, Katie believed in fail safes and she wasn’t doing this just for herself.
Also there was the tiny issue of being on not just one clock but two. Neither of them of an exactly determined duration. There was no saying how long the goods the Sand Piper had been smuggling would remain in place before being moved again.
Also her various transgressions with both the Dawn Threader’s funds and the fake Karen Jackson identity were bound to be discovered within a few weeks, maybe even days. She needed to find the contraband and justify them before then.
No pressure.
* * *
Katie had almost not gone back to her room out of concern who might be waiting for her on the way. In the event, the slap dash way she’d put her plans together meant she needed to.
Katie had done so carefully. Taken a round about route and peered around corners before turning them. She’d felt like an utter idiot. Conspiracy theory or no, she was spooked. Katie had gone so far as to wait outside her door and listen for possible lurkers inside.
If Billy or his dad had nefarious plans for her, they weren’t apparently acting on them tonight.
Katie had carefully packaged up all the information she had and her speculations as to what Guy Boucher was up to. Some packages she set up for timed release unless she intervened with a pass phrase to prevent it.
As an extra layer of paranoia in case they decided it was worth hacking the school computers and trashing the local storage in her room, she decided to leave packages with Sam and Calvin.
Katie would use fear of hacking as her excuse. If either of them thought she was risking her life in the slightest they’d been on her door step within the hour. All the things she’d risked doing would be for nothing.
“Calvin,” she said to start the first call when he answered. “Would you mind doing me a favor?”
Katie could see he wanted to ask what before agreeing. Finally, he broke down. “Sure,” he said. “Why are you wearing a black wool cap?”
“Worried Billy still has it in for me,” she said. “Red hair stands out, you know. I just want you to keep a package of information for me. Encrypted back up in case someone tries to hack me. School system is not secure, you know.”
Calvin looked skeptical, but uncertain as what to object to first. “Okay,” he said.
“Great,” Katie exclaimed, before stabbing the send button for the queued archive.
“Thanks, later,” she said, logging off as soon she saw the indicator that the package had been transmitted successfully, and before Calvin could mount a response.
Now Sam. Sam might not be so easy to buffalo.
Perhaps it’d be better to pre-record her message to him. Wrap the messages several deep. Something innocuous this evening, a fuller explanation for tomorrow morning and, of course, the timed message for a couple of days after that. By then, this should have all worked out or ended in some sort of disaster.
“Spent most of the day in the records office,” Katie said. “At first, I was just hiding like you suggested. Then I figured I’d look around. I think the Bouchers being smugglers theory is a good one, and it kind of spooks me. Just in case I’m overreacting and I think better of it in the morning I’m putting a time lock on this data which documents what I found and what I think it means.”
Katie reviewed the recorded message. It might fool him. Katie wouldn’t bet on it. It occurred to her she needed to move her schedule up. Meant some late night shopping in the last few hours before the shops closed. Then she needed to hole up somewhere else. She could use ship’s funds to rent a transient sleeping tube down by the warehouses and docks. Put her on site to get started early tomorrow.
A good plan. Katie packed light, but carefully, and got on with it.
Sneaking out of her room was almost as nerve racking as sneaking into it had been. At this rate, she’d drive herself genuinely crazy without the Bouchers having to lift a finger.
Some more ship’s funds later, and some fast shopping in a disreputable shop, and she had a whole duffle bag full of little hard to see surveillance cameras.
Katie ended up having to rent a storage locker down by the docks as well as a sleeping tube for the night.
It was physically similar to the one she’d had on the Sand Piper. Didn’t smell anywhere as nice.
Katie was on the clock, though. Tomorrow was going to be busy again and more fraught even.
She cleared her mind and fell asleep.
She didn’t dream.
She didn’t even have nightmares.
* * *
Katie had had absolutely no problem getting into the warehouse district. As the agent of a ship renting storage there, she was waved past the guards and through the checkpoints restricting access to it.
Katie’s second pass as Kate Jackson, temporary warehouse worker, got her out of the area she was technically confined to and into that where she knew Guy Boucher had rented several large storage spaces in his own name. Seemed careless, but doubtless he had some excuse in the unlikely event anyone asked about it. The records office had been a font of information that few had any access to.
Katie had seen her share of crime vids set on Earth in past centuries. Warehouses were a popular venue for action scenes. The warehouses on Earth were large open sheds in effect. There were some larger spaces in the warehouse district of Ceres, but for the most part it was a warren of large corridors lined with accesses to a variety of rooms hollowed out from the asteroid’s interior. Unlike the transit tunnels, the warehouse district was finished in a rough way. The storage rooms were essentially airtight steel boxes. Along with heavy duty doors that locked, this kept thieves out. Also smaller vermin, and allowed simple climate control, and preserved air pressure in case of a decompression event. Given the proximity of the warehouses to the docks, this last was a small, but distinct, possibility.
In any event, Katie had spent the balance of the morning slinking around those warrens distributing small cameras as she went. The cameras self organized into a distributed network as they were deployed. It neatly overcame the lack of regular communications in the warrens. Generally, a mixture of rock and steel walls isn’t great for RF propagation.
But as long as Katie was careful to place the cameras at regular intervals, either very close or with a line of sight to each other, she could access all of them.
Katie had just hit pay dirt.
The line of cameras she’d placed first thing that morning in the corridor leading to the spaces the Bouchers rented showed Billy and his buddies opening one of those rooms. They conveniently left the door behind them open. The cameras didn’t have sound, but she could see them laughing at something as they did so.
Through the open door she could see containers. Star Rat containers with their signature fat corners. Like the ones she’d seen on the Sand Piper. Might be the exact same containers for that matter.
Katie couldn’t believe her luck when Billy opened one of them, clearly showing the alien tech within. Looked like he was playing with the merchandise.
She made sure that was recorded and started on the long trek back out of the district. Wait until the Chief and Commander saw this. They’d have to believe her then.
Katie had made it half way back, moving slowly and cautiously when she turned a corner to find Billy, Marvin, and another couple of Billy’s buddies waiting for her.
“So what do we have here?” Billy asked.
“Looks like a trespasser to me,” Marvin said. Did they have a script for this show?
“So we’re allowed to like do a citizen’s arrest and detain her, right?,” Billy said.
“That’s right, it’s our civic duty,” Marvin said with a snicker.
Katie had seen enough she turned to run and found herself facing another three of Billy’s buddies.
They were all carrying packing blankets like large thick dirty quilts in their outstretched hands. She was blocked off from escape and she could hear Billy approaching from behind. Billy was clumsy and Marvin useless in a fight, they’d hamper the other two young men she was more likely to break through that way. She turned back and found herself facing Billy, who was holding a blocky black pistol like thing in one outstretched hand.
“You didn’t really think you could sneak in here unexpected, did you?” he asked. “We were ready for you.” He didn’t waste anymore time monologuing before zapping her with the taser.
As she lay twitching on the deck, they grabbed her and rolled her up into one of the smelly packing blankets. Marvin hovering at a safe distance whined. “Careful. Careful. Remember what Mr. Boucher said, we can’t bruise her.”
It took three of them and the packing blanket, but by the time she’d stopped twitching she was securely swaddled and unable to move on her own. They moved her a short distance and being strangely careful manhandled her through a door. When they unceremoniously unrolled her, she found she was in a small room. Billy stood, the taser pointed at her as his buddies backed out around him. “Don’t move or you get it again,” he said.
Katie Kincaid Candidate: Katie Kincaid One Page 19
