Expelled

by Ell Leigh Clarke

  "Is that a bad thing?" Fred said with small, uncertain laugh.

  "It's not ideal," Jayne replied. "He's still an incredible source of classified information and a strategic genius. That's why all these groups want him. They weren't exactly having success getting anything out of him before, despite all the 'enhanced interrogation techniques' in the world. But it’s a risk. Not every group wants Burrett to punish him. Some see him as a tool, as an asset. It wouldn't sit right with me to let them take him."

  “Not to mention the criminal syndicates eager to get their hands on him.”

  "Then what's the plan?" Fred asked.

  "I've actually got an idea for that," Merry said. "That's why I brought it up. I was thinking cryo."

  Jayne turned to look at her, eyebrow raised.

  "You want to freeze him?"

  "Yeah," Merry said. "Cryogenics are the next frontier of science, and they're making some really fascinating advancements. It's safe, humane, and pretty much permanent since they still haven't figured out how to reverse it reliably. I know some people who would love the chance to test out some protocols on him."

  "Since when have you been into cryo?" Fred asked.

  "Since two weeks ago when I started lurking on a forum about cryogenics," Merry replied, as if it were obvious. "It's a vital stepping stone towards technological singularity."

  "The what now?" Fred stared at Merry, uncomprehending.

  "The moment when humans and technology become indistinguishable?" Merry said, like this was obvious. "Transhumanism? One day, probably in our lifetimes, tech will reach a point where we can leave our bodies behind and exist in a purely digital space. No more hunger, no more disease, no more resource scarcity. It's the utopian future that all of human history has been building towards."

  "Uhh, sounds kind of terrifying," Fred replied, eyes wide. "I kind of like my body?"

  "Well, someone has to," Merry said sarcastically. "Anyway, the people I know, their lab is working on infinitely sustaining cryo tech and, more excitingly, on enabling people in cryo to live within a digital space. It's still super limited, but it's a huge leap forward for those of us eager to shed our flesh prisons and embrace the purity of a digital nirvana."

  "Yeah, that's not creepy at all, Merry," Jayne said, shaking her head. "But it does sound like it could be a good solution for Burrett. Talk to your people about it. In the meantime, I'm going to keep looking at this."

  She turned back to the pile on the floor. Fred, curious, crouched at the edge and picked up one of the schematics.

  "So what exactly is he building?" he asked.

  "I'm not sure yet," Jayne admitted. "I'm starting to think you weren't far off with the mousetrap idea though. I just don't know why he would be building death traps."

  "Isn't it obvious?" Fred replied. "Giant mice."

  Jayne snorted. "Anyway. I think this is probably the most likely way to catch him. These parts, they're pretty specialized, right?"

  Jayne held a schematic out to him, pointing out a piece. He nodded as she went on. "And he's not getting them from the hardware store. Or having them delivered. He's got to be getting them on the black market. Do any of your contacts sell this kind of thing?"

  Fred frowned at the schematic. "Yeah, absolutely. I'll send a message to a couple of guys I know, ask if they've sold anything like this and tell them to keep an eye out."

  "He probably won't be buying everything from the same person," Jayne added. "He'll spread it out as much as possible."

  "Just makes it more likely he's talked to one of my guys," Fred laughed. "There's not that many people in the city selling this kind of thing."

  "Good," Jayne said, smiling at him. "Then let's get to work. The sooner we get this guy, the sooner I can get a decent night's sleep."

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  Basement, Tesla University Physics Department, Theron Techcropolis, Amaros

  Vlad exhaled and pungent smoke spiraled up towards the unfinished ceiling of the university basement, twining among exposed pipes and beams. The handsome older man cleared his throat, held the diagram closer to his face, and squinted.

  "What am I looking at here?"

  "Part of Burrett's newest project."

  Vlad realized he was holding the diagram upside down. He corrected it. “Ah, I see now. Here,” he passed the blunt to Jayne. “It’ll help me if you get on my level right now.”

  Jayne took the blunt he offered. She took a hit while Vlad looked over the notes she'd brought him. She was careful not to hold it in too long. His shit was always strong – heirloom indicas that left her feeling completely boneless. And right now nerves were pretty much all that was keeping her going anyway.

  "Looks like something the puppet from those shitty horror movies would come up with," Vlad said, scratching his beard thoughtfully. "Assuming the puppet had access to some incredibly high level materials. A lot of this shit is... not easy to get your hands on. Some of it would need to be custom made. So you're trying to track Burrett down through this?"

  "That's the plan," Jayne confirmed. "But we've hit a wall. Fred's talked to every black market source that might have those kinds of parts. They either haven't sold to Burrett or they aren't talking. That's why I came to you."

  "And interrupted my vacation," Vlad finished as he fished his glasses out of his pocket.

  "Sorry about that. I know you wanted some time to relax after our last little adventure."

  "Don't worry about it," Vlad said, waving his glasses at her dismissively, already having forgotten he had gotten them out to put them on. "After about a month of relaxing I started going stir crazy. You know I can't handle being bored. To be completely honest, I hate going on vacation. I was hoping you would call."

  "Well, you're welcome then," Jayne said with a small laugh.

  "I assume you've checked the legal sources?" Vlad asked, looking at her over the notes. "Machine shops, industry suppliers?"

  Jayne nodded, rubbing her eyes.

  "Cameron turned up a string of robberies and Merry got security footage that placed Burrett in the right area. But the stuff he was stealing was small potatoes, nothing like what’s in those designs."

  "Yeah, you couldn't buy half this shit in places like that anyway," Vlad said with a shrug.

  "It was just more pointless taunting," Jayne said, shaking her head. "He's even started leaving me fucking notes at the break-ins."

  "What did he say?" Vlad asked, setting the papers aside.

  "'Keep up,'" Jayne answered, lip curling. She sat back in her chair with a scowl. "'Close, but no cigar.' Like he wants me to be some kind of rival and I'm not doing a good enough job to satisfy him. Like this is a game. I don't know why I even expected anything to come from this. He left me those schematics knowing I'd follow them. They're probably complete bullshit."

  "I wouldn't be so sure," Vlad said, tapping the ash from his blunt into an empty takeout container. "What did he steal from those shops?"

  Jayne handed him a list and he leaned back, putting his feet up on the table between them.

  "It's nothing exciting. Steel scrap, blank circuit boards, general off-the-shelf stuff. Like he was just filling his pockets for the sake of it."

  Vlad hummed thoughtfully, then picked up the schematics again, looking between them and the list. He took a long, ponderous drag on the blunt. "He's double-bluffing you," Vlad said. You could practically see the light bulb going off over his head. "Look at this."

  He leaned closer so that she could look at the list with him. The items were separated into groups based on each of the several locations Burrett had robbed.

  "So this is mostly junk, right?" Vlad pointed out. "And then one or two flashy, expensive items. If you're going to look at anything, you're going to look at those."

  "I have," Jayne replied, frustrated. "But they don't make sense. Half of them are specialist tools he wouldn't have any use for. He just took them because they were big and expensive and the stores had them out in display c
ases. He was just trying to make it look more like an opportunistic break in."

  Vlad shook his head, grinning.

  "Nah, he stole the expensive shit to keep you from looking too closely at the cheap shit."

  "What?" Jayne pulled the list closer to frown at it in confusion.

  "All that junk he was just filling his pockets with?" Vlad explained. "They're machining supplies. He's not stealing or buying those complex parts because he's manufacturing them himself."

  "Holy shit..." Jayne said quietly, taking the list back. "But the set up he would need for something like that is… there's no way he could keep us from noticing. He'd practically need a factory!"

  "Not necessarily," Vlad said with a shrug. "Depends on the scale he's working to. These days it's possible to do a lot on your own in a relatively small space, if you know what you're doing and you only need to make a few parts. Now, if he was trying to mass produce this shit, he'd need a huge floor space and a crew of workers. But if he just needs to make one of these traps or whatever they are, it's doable."

  Jayne frowned at the list, unsettled.

  "What is he planning to do with these things?" Vlad asked. "I'm assuming you don't know."

  Jayne shook her head. "Half of me thinks he's just doing it for his own entertainment, or specifically to freak me out maybe. I can't figure it out, otherwise. If he wants someone dead or tortured he knows a million easier ways. Ways that don't require nearly this much effort and risk. But a bunch of over the top traps...?"

  Vlad considered for a moment, leaning back in his chair, which creaked with the movement. The heater started up beside them, rumbling low and rattling the pipes above.

  "They're theatrical," Vlad said, looking up at the pipes. "Dramatic. Like something out of a movie. He wants to put on a show."

  "But why?" Jayne asked, not sure she believed Vlad. He shrugged.

  "He was a spy, right? Grew up in the academy. Spent his whole life with no real identity. Then he gets disappeared by the government, vanished into a five by five hole in the ground, and it's like the world never knew he existed at all. After a lifetime of pulling strings from the shadows, maybe he's tired of working behind the scenes."

  "It just doesn't seem like his style," Jayne said, uneasy, leaning her elbows on her knees and steepling her fingers. Vlad's weed had started to weigh on her. It made her feel heavy and tired. She wanted a nap.

  "And you know his style?" Vlad said, in a tone of mild disbelief.

  "I've been studying his tactics and strategies for months," Jayne replied, her eyes hard. "Everything the academy had on him. The details of every mission I could get my hands on."

  "But what do you really know about him?" Vlad asked, hands open in a gesture of curious expectation. "What does anyone know about who he really is? Not his tactics, but what he believes, what he fears and aspires to. Politics, religion, what kind of movies he watched. You don't know what motivates him because you don't know who he is. The single personal detail you have on the man is that he's got a yen for donuts."

  Jayne swallowed the harsh response she wanted to say, looking away. Was he right? What else did she know?

  "I think part of the problem," Vlad continued quietly, "is that when you look at him, you're seeing yourself."

  Jayne turned her head quickly to give him an incredulous, almost angry look.

  "Someone who was raised by the academy and then betrayed by it," Vlad insisted. "Highly skilled and intelligent, but unable to fit into the boxes society wanted him in. I think you're afraid that he's your future."

  "And I think you've smoked a little too much," Jayne replied.

  “Not possible,” Vlad winked. "But I don't need to be sober to tell you that you're not going to figure out what he wants until you figure out who he is."

  "Thanks for the tip," Jayne said, standing up and grabbing her coat. "The manufacturing thing could be a real help."

  "Hang on," Vlad said, flipping over the list of things Burrett had stolen and taking a pen from his pocket. He scribbled down a short list and handed it back to her. "These are parts he'd need for manufacturing. Have Fred ask around again, see if anybody remembers selling those recently."

  "Will do," Jayne agreed, tucking the note into her pocket.

  "Give me a call if there's any developments," Vlad added. "If I don't get out of this basement more I'm going to go crazy."

  "You could always go teach your classes," Jayne suggested, half sarcastically.

  "Nah, the university frowns on me smoking with my students," Vlad said earnestly.

  Jayne rolled her eyes and climbed the stairs out of the basement. She tried to put the thought away, but Vlad's question remained crouched in her brain to keep her awake the rest of the night. What did she really know about Burrett? What did anyone really know? And had she killed the only man who might have been able to answer that?

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  132nd Street, L13, Theron Techcropolis, Amaros

  A man sat, huddled in his ragged coat, against the rusted guardrail of a walkway on level thirteen. The walkway had been cobbled together from scrap metal and plywood, which had been roughly nailed together and laid across the gap between two buildings. It rocked like a ship at sea in the warm, humid updraft that rose from below, the smog rising with it. The man's breath came in short, struggling rattles, frequently interrupted by bouts of coughing, which produced black, tar-like mucus. He shifted his worn out, damaged filter mask to avoid filling it with the poison that filled him. When the coughing fit passed, he returned to forcing one breath after another into his straining lungs, every inhalation a battle in a war he had already lost.

  People passed, the walkway shaking with their hurried footsteps, and tried not to look in his direction. The smog most usually killed with blood poisoning or with cancer. Only a few were unlucky enough to escape the first two, just to die the slow black-lung death, drowning in the solid pollutants that coated their insides. It was not something anyone wanted to see. Eyes glazed behind the cracked lenses of his almost useless filter mask, the man waited to die.

  Someone touched his shoulder and the man flinched before he looked up. The stranger's weathered face was bare, despite the smog. He held out a simple white facemask and a pair of clear smog glasses. Cheap, but new and clean.

  "Trade you," the stranger said, indicating the man's broken filter mask.

  Baffled, but too grateful to question it, the man removed his broken mask and handed it to the stranger, taking the new mask with shaking hands. It wouldn't save him from the black lung, but his last breaths might be of clean air. He might look up at the buildings above him and see a slice of sky without the smog stinging and blinding his eyes.

  The stranger pulled on the broken mask and started to turn away.

  "Can you spare some money?" the man blurted out, his voice a wet, choking sound. "Just enough to get me up a few levels to the shelter? I don't want to die out here in the street."

  The stranger paused and turned to look back. The man could only just see the glint of his eye through the broken lens of the mask, which covered his face entirely.

  "You should die in the street," the stranger said.

  The man stared at him in mute shock, uncomprehending.

  "Where they can't ignore you," the stranger continued. "No matter how they turn their heads. Don't hide your death for the comfort of the people that caused it. For all that your life was worthless and wasted, your death could still be meaningful and full of rage."

  He took a step back towards the man, his hand in his coat, and the man drew back, afraid. But the stranger only pulled his wallet out and laid a credit card at the man's feet.

  "Make them see you," the stranger said, quiet as the smog, intense as scripture. "Die where they can see you."

  The man was afraid to say anything more. But he took the card, and the stranger turned away again.

  The stranger, breathing smog in his broken mask, which stank of death, made his way down the ramshac
kle walkways to a darker corner where three figures stood talking; two men and a woman. All three wore filter masks. The woman wore dark glasses with hers, but the stranger recognized her anyway.

  "Are you sure this was the part you sold him?" asked the woman, handling a softball-sized mechanical motor.

  "Yeah, and three other parts on your list," said the stout older man standing across from her.

  "Did you see his face?" asked the third person, a short, dark haired young man.

  "About as well as I can see yours," the older man said sarcastically, tapping his own mask. Even with his face covered, the younger man's embarrassment was palpable. "But I know it was the guy you're looking for."

  "How?" the woman asked, suspicious.

  "'Cause he told me someone like you might come looking for him," the man replied. "Most of the folks I sell to come to me because I know how to keep my mouth shut. This guy paid extra for me to pass on a message if someone like you came asking about him."

  "And what message is that?" the woman asked, her hand moving cautiously towards her hip.

  The man held his empty hands up to ward her off.

  "He just wanted me to tell you that you're on the right track. Finally asking the right questions, I think were the exact words. And that you should hurry up."

  The stranger watched a little longer as the woman, clearly frustrated, interrogated the older man. He had nothing else of use to tell her, and soon they turned to leave.

  The stranger hunched his shoulders, put a shuffle in his step. His coat, though in good condition, was filthy enough to pass for the rags of a poorer man in this light. He staggered past the woman as she and her companion headed back up the street.

  "Arrogant son of a bitch," the woman muttered, her eyes not even glancing in his direction.

  "What are we going to do?" the younger man asked. "We can't just let him keep leading us around by the nose like this."