"Who?"
Merry's mouth flattened into a perturbed line.
"The scientist I told you about," she said. "The one researching cryogenics? I think I was gushing about her for like a straight hour the other day."
Jayne squinted at nothing for a moment, trying to remember.
"... Was I looking at my phone the whole time?"
"Yes."
"Then I was completely tuning you out, sorry. Have you played the new Sugar & Slaughter game yet? Super addictive. I started binging levels when I couldn't sleep and now I'm hooked."
Merry sighed in frustration.
"Anyway," she said. "She's amazing, and she's on her way here to talk about our plan for Burrett. And it's kind of super important to me that we impress her, so if you could try to be slightly less of a human disaster than usual it would mean a lot to me."
"Yeah, whatever," Jayne said, looking down at her phone. "Hey come here and let me show you how many rock candy idols I have in my base."
"Jayne, seriously!"
"I arranged them in the shape of a penis."
"... Alright, that’s pretty funny. I think you’ve been spending too much time with me. Let me see it. But then you have to go shower and change."
"Deal."
The tablet inlaid in Jayne’s desk sounded off, alerting them a visitor was at the door.
Merry stood up from the couch and headed to the door with a bounce in her step. “That must be her! Weird she’s a little early. Didn’t strike me as the type.”
Merry hit the door switch. It slid open bringing her face-to-face with Franklin Reed.
“Good morning, Merry.” Reed walked right past her into the office.
It was too early in the morning for Jayne to bother with pleasantries. “What the hell are you doing here?” She took a drink of her iced coffee.
“Sorry for not making an appointment. But it’s a bit of an emergency, so I hope you accept walk-ins.”
“Sure.” Jayne shrugged and looked down at her coffee. “I would offer you an iced coffee, but I don’t like you.”
Merry laughed. She loved it when Jayne was in a mood.
Jayne sat on the edge of her desk. Reed took a seat in the chair in front of her.
“We know about Burrett, Jayne.”
Jayne kept her guard up. “Wow. We must read the same news sites.” Jayne felt like she was channeling her inner hard talking detective.
“We also know you’re responsible for letting him out.”
Jayne could’ve sworn it was getting hot in her office, but she laughed him off. “Yeah, I’m sure Burrett would like you to believe that.”
“Well, oftentimes a fake story has a way of becoming truth.”
Merry saw that Jayne needed help, so she interrupted. “Who’s this we anyway?”
Reed produced a business card from his breast pocket. “I do a lot of legwork for Merchant, Merchant & Keigel. A law firm. Very high-profile. Level 165. Have you heard of it?”
“No.” Jayne took the business card. It was crisp and clean, with the names flashing across the card in an elegant and confident manner. “Should I have?”
“We handled the Halbertson case a few years ago. Executive fell off the deep-end and took his kids hostage. Shot an officer. We got his sentence reduced from life to 10 years.”
Merry walked over and stood by Jayne. “Sounds like a shitty thing to do.”
“My point is, Jayne,” he ignored Merry entirely. “Depending on how this case goes, especially if Burrett’s reign of terror continues, if it gets worse, you may like to seek out some counsel. Considering your past, I think it’s only fair to assume this entire… goose chase you’re on might blow up in your face. Perhaps literally.”
“We’ve dealt with worse.”
“There’s not a lot of sympathy for a failed academy spy running a little make believe, dog and pony show detective agency.” At this point, Reed chuckled, “And on level 45 of all places.”
“Asshole!” Merry coughed into her hand. “Oh, sorry. There was something in my throat.”
“I’m going to ignore that, and maintain the offer. You have our information. And if you’d like, we can start now so we’re ready when it matters.”
He stood up to leave and headed towards the door. Jayne folded the business card into a paper airplane and tossed it. The little projectile glided across the room and poked Reed square in the back of the head. He turned around.
“We can handle ourselves,” Jayne told him, dryly. “And if we do need help, I’d rather reach out to Jerra. You know, us girls have to stick together.”
Jayne and Merry high-fived.
Reed rolled his eyes and left.
As soon as the door slid shut, Merry gave Jayne a knowing look. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“That Reed is representing some corporate interest in finding Burrett, for who knows why, and he wanted to gain access to what we already know?”
“Yep.” Merry went back to work.
“Just another reason to find Burrett as soon as possible.”
On his way out, Reed sulked past Doctor Elizabeth Ford, who had just arrived at Jayne’s office, and walked right through her doorway. Doctor Ford arrived precisely when she said she would. Precision seemed to describe her totally, from her perfectly pinned black hair and sharply pressed clothing to her straight-backed, flawless posture and clipped, terse way of speaking. She was pretty in a harsh way, Jayne thought, like a midwinter day. Merry stared at her with something close to awe.
"The program Doctor Reese and I are working on is at the forefront of our field," Dr. Ford said, sitting across from Jayne's desk. "No one else is anywhere near us. When we publish it will revolutionize multiple fields. Our only hurdle at the moment is funding and test subjects."
"Nobody wants to fund cryo," Merry explained. "It's still being treated like a fringe science even though the research shows it works!"
"It's simply not popular," Dr. Ford said in the same calm tone. Her facial expression didn't change much. "Cryogenics has a wide range of applications, but has historically only been associated with extending life. And currently gene therapies to regrow telomeres are what is in the news, and thus the public eye, and thus the pockets of investors interested in living forever. Cryo is unfashionable. Especially with anti-populationist activists, who view final death as a total necessity for our continued survival."
"But Dr. Ford's project is going to change that," Merry said, almost proud.
"It was Reese's idea, actually," Dr. Ford replied. "She was already working on translating human consciousness into a digital space when I met her. She posits that, though cryo is unpopular, everyone loves video games. So, integrate her work on digitized consciousness with my work on cryostasis, and sell it as the next stage in truly immersive VR experiences."
"So you want to put Burrett in a video game?" Jayne summarized.
"Reductive, but yes," Dr. Ford confirmed, hands folded in her lap. "There's no actual video game at this point of course, just a blank digital testing space. But we require human subjects to continue the next stage of our research."
"You've tried testing on animals, I assume?" Jayne asked.
"Rats, yes," Dr. Ford confirmed. "And a pig. We could not acquire the permits required for a chimp. And with the pig, their consciousness and awareness is so different from a human's that it is almost impossible to interpret, or to translate into data. And they can't tell us what they've experienced either. It's very frustrating."
"What I mean is, were the animals alright after?" Jayne pressed. "I don't want to give you Burrett if you're just going to kill him."
"The animals were unharmed," Dr. Ford replied, unblinking. “Most of them.”
"Most?" Jayne asked, waiting for elaboration.
"One of the rats," Dr. Ford admitted with clear reluctance, "which I would like to stress is completely physically unharmed, did suffer an unexpected side effect. It's a difficulty in the technology which we are a
ctively working to correct."
"Which is?"
"Currently, if a subject's consciousness remains in digital space for an extended period of time—more than a year by our observations—the subject may, in some cases, struggle or fail to fully reintegrate with their physical body."
Jayne's eyes widened. "That's a pretty big drawback."
Dr. Ford pressed her lips together and nodded.
"Extended use is currently the most significant bump in the technology," she said. "Both solving the reintegration issue, and keeping the body healthy and preserved for long periods of time. But I'm confident we are on track to conquering the problem. And in the short term the technology is completely safe and usable. Your support will help us carry it the rest of the way."
"Why do you keep saying support like you mean money?" Jayne said, turning to look at Merry, who was noticeably shedding confidence in Doctor Ford. "Merry did you promise this woman money?"
"What, like we're going to ask her to babysit a murderous criminal for free?" Merry replied, playing up her indignity to hide the flush of embarrassment on her face at being caught. "This tech isn't cheap, Jayne!"
"Developing more cost effective materials is a later stage in our development plan," Dr. Ford said.
"And you've already figured out how to budget this?" Jayne asked Merry pointedly, not wanting to say outright that she'd been under the impression they were approaching bankruptcy.
"I'm handling it," Merry said evasively. "And this is an investment that is going to pay off big time, I'm telling you. At least, until it opens the door to a post-scarcity utopia where money is meaningless."
"Right, any day now," Jayne said tiredly. She didn’t love the idea of cryostasis itself, but was ready to take extreme measures to guarantee an end to Burrett. "Okay, Dr. Ford. We're in."
She tuned out as Merry and Ford began discussing the details of setting up a cryostasis pod for Burrett, wondering if this was a good decision. She wanted him put away somewhere he'd never come back from. But she didn't want to be responsible for lobotomizing him, or whatever you would call trapping someone's consciousness in an unfinished digital void.
She refocused again as Dr. Ford was gathering herself to leave. She showed the doctor to the door, pausing on the threshold.
"Putting someone into cryo like this," she began. Dr. Ford stopped to look at her. "Is it, you know, ethical?"
Dr. Ford blinked. Jayne assumed she was considering it.
"Ethics are subjective," she said finally. "But historically speaking, the public has not shown a high degree of concern when criminals are used to advance science, generally speaking. In fact, when a criminal willingly opts to dedicate their body to science, public opinion of them improves.”
“To be frank, Doctor Ford, I do not give a shit what the public thinks of Burrett.”
“My main point is that Burrett is a criminal. So, in the eyes of society at least, this is acceptable."
"Hm." Jayne frowned, not particularly satisfied with that answer. It sounded like too much of a dodge.
"My philosophy," Dr. Ford continued after a moment, "is that there are no morally perfect actions. There are always reactions, good and bad, which we cannot anticipate. And even if we could, morality itself is fluid and differs from person to person. What seemed right and necessary to one person could be an unforgivable wrong to someone else. It's wiser then, I think, to ask not ‘is this action wholly good or wholly bad?’ But rather, what causes the least harm?"
Jayne nodded, turning the thought over in her mind. "Right."
"You're welcome," Dr. Ford replied, presumptuously. "My partner is a Buddhist. I'll ask her to send you some koans."
She swept out the door before Jayne could think of a way to politely beg her not to do that.
"Now that's settled," Merry said brightly from her desk. "All we have to do is catch the guy!"
"Yeah, no big deal," Jayne said with a small laugh. "Piece of cake."
She returned to her chair, sitting down heavily, trying not to think about how hopeless that seemed right now.
"Easier said than done, I know," Merry said, leaving her desk to come lean against the corner of Jayne's. "But I have an idea, if you're interested in listening."
Jayne leaned back in her chair and sighed.
"Well, I'm all out of ideas," she said. "So anything you can come up with is better than nothing. What have you got?"
"Well, I was thinking," Merry said, bracing herself. "Burrett knows you. You both had the same training, and he's as obsessed with you as you are with him. He's counting on you to keep doing things the way an academy trained agent would. The way he knows you will. So, if we want to get ahead of him, we have to stop doing what he expects."
"Good point," Jayne said, propping her elbow on the desk and leaning on her hand. "I'll just uninstall my academy training right away."
"I'm serious," Merry said. "We've tried doing it your way, coming at him head on. It didn't work. It's time to try something different."
Jayne rolled her shoulders, trying to shrug off the itch of irritation. She'd been hunting Burrett all this time, she'd trained for this, and Merry thought she could do it better? But Merry was right. They were never going to pull this off if they kept doing what he expected. She rubbed her eyes.
"Alright, what have you got?"
Merry grinned, clearly thrilled that Jayne was even willing to listen. She grabbed a tablet and her chair from her desk and dragged them over.
"Okay, so." She sat down across from Jayne, pulling something up on her tablet. "We've been concentrating on trying to hit him where he lives. I think we need to make him come to us."
Jayne frowned. "I understand that approach. But how do we do that? I keep thinking about what Gavin told me, that Burrett will let me find him when he’s ready."
Merry turned the tablet around to show Jayne a scan of one of Burrett's blueprints.
"So this just looks like another one of his weird traps, but he noted several parts and materials here that don't apply to this design. They're for something else he's working on, something he didn't leave diagrams for. And one of the things he was after is a large quantity of caesium-137."
"Yeah, I saw that," Jayne said, digging some headache medication out of her desk and once again contemplating going back to bed. "Radioactive isotope. He just wrote it down there for the same reason he left those plans of the Takahashi building's foundations. It's a red herring. That's why it's not in any of the other designs."
"I'm not so sure about that," Merry said. "We know he's stolen or bought other parts on this list that aren't in any of the diagrams."
"Bombs aren't his style," Jayne said, shaking her head.
"Then maybe it isn't for a bomb," Merry argued. "But I do think he's going to try and get his hands on it regardless. So my plan is this. Caesium-137 isn't easy to get, and it’s impossible for him to synthesize on his own unless he's hiding a nuclear reactor somewhere. There's only a handful of people in the city that have it, let alone sell it. We work with Cameron to put anyone selling it illegally out of commission. Then we lean on the labs and companies that have it legally to beef up their security. We make every source of cesium in the city impossible or at least incredibly costly to get to."
Jayne frowned thoughtfully.
"And then what?" she asked. "He'll still go after one of them. You have a plan to predict which one? Or do you think you can just leave one unguarded and he'll walk right into an ambush? He would see that coming a mile away."
Merry shook her head.
"That's the trick. We don't leave any of them unguarded. You remember that job at the hotel where we made their security system look like a joke?"
Jayne smiled. "Yeah, good times."
"Well, the company that provided the hotel's security, Stoneguard, took a big hit because of that," Merry explained. "We made them look completely incompetent. The hotel demanded a refund and switched to a competitor. They need to prove themselves again, f
ast. So when we lean on these companies to beef up their security, we suggest our buddies at Stoneguard. For the sake of repairing their reputation, they'll provide the top notch equipment and manpower to guard all three locations."
"You've already reached out to them?" Jayne assumed, raising an eyebrow. "And they're fine with it? That's going to cost them a ton."
"They've agreed, with one caveat," Merry said, inclining her head in acknowledgement. "You have to test one of their systems again. They didn't say you had to go easy on them this time, but I would recommend it. And what they're going to spend on this is way less than what they'll make if they get to be the security company who took down Burrett."
"Alright," Jayne said. "I can do that. But I'm not going to go easy on them. If they want a better report they have to actually challenge me this time."
"Fair," Merry said with a shrug. "So Stoneguard provides the security for all the legal locations where Burrett could steal caesium-137. And we have access to all Stoneguard's surveillance networks. When he makes his move, he'll walk right into an ambush.
Jayne nodded, considering it. Could this actually work? She chewed her lip, thinking over the ways it could go wrong.
"It's worth trying," she said at last.
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Merry replied sarcastically.
Jayne smiled at her, apologetic. "Sorry. It's smart, Merry. Really. And you're right. We can't keep doing this my way."
"I'm glad you're finally taking notice of my genius," Merry said with a grin. "You call Cameron about cleaning up the illegal sources of caesium. I'm going to start talking to legal sources."
Jayne nodded and reached for her phone. Sleep was going to have to wait a while longer.
+++
Berty's Beer Bar, L45, Theron Techcropolis, Armaros
Once the plan was set into motion, Fred insisted on celebrating. Jayne struggled to keep her eyes open, chin resting on one hand, her pint of tek going flat in the other, while the cheerful noise of the bar echoed around her as though from a great distance. Fred and Cameron had some kind of ridiculous bet going on who could eat the most of those triple fudge donuts Burrett liked and they were scarfing them down as fast as the delivery drones could bring them. Jayne didn’t want to say anything, but Fred was looking a little thick in the middle. Merry was egging them on and ordering more from her phone while also trying to mollify the bar's shift manager, who was not appreciating the drone traffic or the fact that they were bringing in outside food. Some of the other patrons had decided this was great entertainment and they were chanting Fred's name as he inhaled another donut like a snake swallowing a rat. Jayne was fairly certain he wasn't even chewing. Cameron looked like he was going to be sick.
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