Duty and the Beast

by Chelsea Field

  I jumped to my feet, not wanting to give him reason to pause and realize with Adeline out of the way he was free to yell at me.

  Some people are bold and brave in the face of unjust punishment.

  I prefer to put it off as long as possible.

  Hunt unlocked the door, and we crowded into his office. He typed in a long password that, if he’d been the one to set it, was hopefully more complex than “passwordpassword” or “IloveEttaHamilton,” and a list of files and folders appeared on the screen. I peered over his shoulder.

  Most of the file names were gobbledygook to me. I didn’t even recognize half the file types. But there were a couple of folders that seemed more promising. One said Presentation and another said Drugs Research. Hunt must’ve been thinking along the same lines because he clicked on the Presentation folder.

  Inside was a video file. He clicked on that too, and a window popped up showing a basic simulation of a square gray building. The unseen “camera” began circling around it, and Hunt turned up the volume so we could listen to the voice-over.

  Armed criminals have invaded a commercial building and taken an unknown number of workers and customers hostage. Windows, entrances, and security cameras have been blocked off, eliminating visibility. The SWAT team arrives. Instead of going in blind and risking lives, they deploy a team of miniature robots, coordinated and initially transported by a larger, highly intelligent lead robot that is capable of carrying out the mission independently or liaising back and forth with the SWAT team.

  The video showed a robot a bit larger than a smartphone, carting about a dozen tiny robots on its back.

  The robots infiltrate the building through the air ducts, where the lead robot stays hidden and sends out specialized individual mini-robots. Several carry video cameras to set up a live visual feed of the area. Others carry microphones to relay intelligence to the SWAT team. Others carry chemical and biological sensors in case of a terror threat. And the smallest robots of all crawl down the walls and across the floors unnoticed toward the armed criminals.

  The camera zoomed in on a familiar-looking robot, and I had a good idea of where this was going. But what was in the syringes?

  Lightweight screens on their backs camouflage them on whatever surface they’re crawling over, and they are light enough that the targets remain unaware when one climbs onto their shoes. After each armed assailant has an unnoticed passenger in place, the lead robot gives a command, and in sync, the smallest robots inject Xyloxium into their ankles. The syringes have an anesthetized tip so the criminals feel nothing until they are overwhelmed by the tranquilizer and collapse harmlessly to the floor.

  Wow. I watched the simulated perpetrators fall within seconds of each other. Hostages huddled in the background. The way Isaac’s parents must have been.

  Xyloxium is instantaneous and nonlethal, and the dosage has been calculated for each assailant based on data the lead robot has gathered from the video cameras. The lead robot also calculates the risk of accidental fire to pick the optimum moment of attack. The SWAT team is alerted, and law enforcement is now able to safely apprehend the assailants and return the hostages to their loved ones.

  The video ended, and the breath left my lungs with it. Seeing the heart of Isaac’s project laid bare, hearing what must have been his voice explaining this almost miraculous invention—one that so clearly spoke of his own personal loss—packed an emotional punch. His final words return the hostages to their loved ones echoed in my brain and raised goosebumps on my arms.

  It took me a minute of being rendered still and mute to realize no one else was saying anything either. Without a word, Hunt clicked out of the folder, then into the Drugs Research one. There were two files inside, both drug fact sheets.

  The first was the sedative Xyloxium. No surprises there. I skimmed the information. Like Isaac had said in the voice-over, it was the incredible combination of instantaneous and nonlethal. Most tranquilizers took precious seconds or minutes to work and could kill at higher doses because they depressed a person’s respiratory and cardiovascular systems. This one didn’t. But the substance was strictly controlled and not available to anyone except certain government agencies and entities that met exacting criteria and clambered through an ocean of red tape.

  That answered my question about why Isaac hadn’t chosen the same sedative for his home security system.

  I wouldn’t put it past the rich and powerful to be able to get their hands on Xyloxium despite all that red tape. But since the sedative had to be injected rather than ingested, it wasn’t in my Shade repertoire.

  The second drug contained in the folder was harder to make sense of. Suadere, a substance that made people more agreeable, pliable, or easily persuaded. I recognized this one because it had been included in my training, but I had no idea why Isaac had taken an interest in it.

  Hunt was skimming the Suadere fact sheet when an error message popped up.

  File not found.

  He closed it only to have another appear, and another, and another. “What the blazes is going on with this stupid machine?”

  Connor stabbed a finger at the top left corner of the monitor where an Explorer window showed files disappearing one by one. “Something’s wrong. Shut it down.”

  Hunt tried, but the mouse wouldn’t respond.

  Connor leaned over and pressed a few keys, cursed, then shut it down manually by holding down the power button. “I suspect we’ve just been hacked. Again.”

  “Impossible,” Hunt growled. “My tech guys disconnected this computer from the shared networks and internet. It should be secure.” He punched some numbers into his phone. “Mendez, get to my office on the second floor now, please.”

  My phone chose that moment to ring. “Harper, sorry but now isn’t a good time.”

  “That’s okay, I won’t talk long. I just wanted to tell you I went out to dinner with Levi last night and it was ah-mazing! He was smart, funny, caring, a great listener. I mean, I couldn’t bring myself to let him pick me up or drive me home in that van of his, but other than that…”

  Mendez entered the already cramped room, and Hunt outlined what happened.

  “Impossible,” Mendez said, unconsciously echoing Hunt. “Unless—”

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless they managed to get some kind of hacking device inside this room. Hang on, I think there’s a scanner in here somewhere.” She rummaged through the desk drawers.

  I interrupted Harper’s ongoing monologue. “That’s wonderful”—Hunt turned to glare at me—“but I really do need to go.”

  Mendez turned the scanner on and pointed it around the room. Despite this activity, Hunt didn’t shift his gaze.

  Not good.

  Harper huffed in my ear. “Okay, okay, what’s the hurry? Is something exciting going on?”

  Mendez pointed the scanner at me, and the beeping sped up.

  “Goodbye, Harper!” I said a little shrilly, hoping the advancing scanner was going to reach me and then continue on past.

  Instead, Mendez followed the increasingly frantic beeps to my bag.

  Crap.

  19

  I tried not to blush as the contents of my bag were laid out for all to see. Taser. Wallet. Mascara. Keys. Lip gloss. A couple of pens. Concealer. Pepper spray. Tissues. A few over-the-counter painkillers. Oh gosh, my spare pair of underwear. And now my feminine hygiene products. Even as a fellow woman, Mendez looked a bit awkward handling those. A collection of crumpled receipts and a copy of the letter I’d written to Connor. I sure hoped they wouldn’t pry into that further. A few squashed muesli bars I kept in case of emergency. Never mind that technically you’d die of thirst first. There was also a single chopstick (like that would ever come in handy), an unused dog poop bag, a toy mouse I’d bought for Meow ages ago, and a tiny complimentary bottle of hot sauce I’d been given at a restaurant.

  I really ought to clean out my bag more often.

  The final item was a black
rectangular thing about the size of my phone, and one I didn’t recognize.

  “This would do it,” Mendez said.

  Hunt chose that moment to get real close. “Care to explain, Avery?”

  “I’ve never seen it before, and I have no idea how it got there. Or what it is, actually.”

  “You could at least come up with an original excuse.”

  Connor intervened on my behalf. “C’mon, Hunt. What could she possibly want with it?”

  Hunt didn’t budge, his mustache still inches from my face. “Mendez, see if you can get any clues off that device, will you? Digital or physical.” When she’d left, Hunt sneered at me but answered Connor. “Oh, I doubt Avery had any use for it. But the bloody Taste Society is a whole other matter!”

  Connor snorted. “Really? You’re accusing us of stealing now? You’re letting your personal feelings go too far this time, Commander.”

  Hunt turned on him, freeing me to breathe again. “The proof was right there on that desk!”

  “Izzy is saying she didn’t know it was in her bag. I believe her. You should too when your temper cools. The real question is who had motive and opportunity to plant it there?”

  My growing relief nosedived. “Everyone,” I squeezed out. “I’ve been there talking to every suspect we have with that bag on my shoulder. It wouldn’t have been all that hard for one of them to slip it in there at some point.”

  The revelation fired Hunt up further. “This is exactly why we should never let civilians on a case! No professional would be lugging around a giant bag full of shit they don’t need, unaware of its contents. It’s the perfect place to plant a bug—or in this case a whole bloody microcomputer! What the hell even is that?” He stabbed a finger at the pink toy mouse.

  The worst thing was—of all the occasions he’d accused or belittled me or questioned my competence—this time he was right.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t think—”

  “Damn straight you didn’t.”

  Connor interjected again. “You’re hardly one to talk. You allowed Adeline on this case without protest. Why? Because your girlfriend requested it? At least Izzy has a valid reason for being involved, and she’s proven her worth more than once. This would be a very different conversation if Adeline’s was the bag responsible. In fact, for all we know, hers has been tampered with too.”

  I doubted it. Adeline only carried around a stylish clutch and had changed it on both days to match her outfit. But I appreciated Connor’s argument nevertheless.

  Unfortunately, it didn’t change the fact that someone had just stolen the incredible breakthrough that Isaac Anand had most likely died for. But that led me to another realization. One worth interrupting Connor and Hunt’s continued bickering over. “Whoever did this probably wasn’t the murderer.”

  “What?” they both said.

  “The murderer had that hacking microcomputer connected to Isaac’s computer for days, weeks, or even months. They could’ve stolen these files then. Which means a second party is most likely behind this.”

  Hunt cursed.

  But at least it wasn’t directed at me so much this time.

  Hunt was too disgusted to discuss the case with me any further. The silver lining was that he was so mad about the hacking device planted in my bag that he seemed to have forgotten about the Stanley Cox thing.

  But I was angry at myself about that hacking device as well. What if my ineptitude meant Isaac’s amazing plans for his tech never came to fruition? Worse, what if whoever had stolen those plans used them for evil instead of good? I knew Connor would say it wasn’t my fault. That it could’ve happened to anyone. But it wasn’t true. It would never have happened to Connor or Hunt.

  Connor and I went out for an early lunch to give Hunt a chance to cool off. Neither of us were particularly hungry—my appetite had been dulled by guilt, and Connor’s hadn’t developed yet—so we prioritized coffee over food and went to the Conservatory for Coffee, Tea & Cocoa. It was a quaint little place in Culver City that roasted their own coffee and baked their own pastries and did a darn fine job of both.

  We ordered, grabbed a table outside, and ran over everything we knew about the case once more. The problem was, not only was whoever just stole the tech not likely to be the murderer, but it also begged the question that if Isaac had been killed for this tech the way we’d been leaning toward, why did the murderer leave the files on Anand’s computer for someone else to find? Especially since the tech lost a lot of its effectiveness if it wasn’t kept secret. Sure, the files had been heavily encrypted, but why not go the extra step and delete them altogether?

  Which meant that with Stanley’s second confession pretty much ruling out Patty Wilkinson and now the logic of killing Isaac for his technology breakthrough not adding up, none of our suspects seemed to fit.

  I licked pastry flakes off my fingers and took the final sip of my short black. Then I dug a pen out of my bag—the bag that had gotten me into so much trouble—and found a clean section of my napkin on which to organize my thoughts.

  None of our suspects were looking probable, so I pushed them all out of my head and focused on what was left at the most basic level.

  Halfway down the left-hand side of the napkin, I wrote Isaac’s name, and opposite that on the right, I wrote Richard’s. At the top of the napkin in between their two names, I scribbled hostage-rescue robots, and after a minute, I added the persuasive drug Suadere down the bottom.

  So we had this jerkface fraudster. We had a sweet do-gooder. Plus a groundbreaking microrobotics system that could be worth millions or even billions, but Isaac had been trying to use altruistically. And we had this drug that makes people easier to influence. How did all these fit together?

  With the abundant media coverage, Isaac had to have known about Richard’s fraud activity. In fact, I’d forgotten about the prosecution’s list of alleged victims the LAPD had found on his computer that first day but that proved beyond a doubt he knew who Richard was. So why would Isaac have had anything to do with the scumbag?

  He hadn’t had any trouble kicking Tony out when he’d made him an offer he wasn’t interested in. Yet by the phone and surveillance records, it appeared that Isaac had invited Rick into his house on at least two separate occasions. Why?

  For that matter, since he wasn’t helping Richard clear his name, why would Isaac have been interested in the lawsuits at all? Curiosity because of his beloved friend Burt? Something to do with his membership with Vigilance? But then wouldn’t Damon have known about it?

  I bit back a sigh. If Damon had known about a Vigilance project concerning Knightley, he wouldn’t have seen fit to tell us about it. He was convinced Tony was behind the murder and equally convinced of everyone else’s stupidity, so he would avoid giving us any other trails to follow. Besides, Knightley might be too small-time to bother with for the likes of Vigilance.

  I stared at the napkin some more. The Suadere was another oddity I couldn’t figure out. It would be useless in a hostage situation because it only made someone more malleable, not erased their will altogether. The hostage-takers might be persuaded to agree to less favorable terms, but they wouldn’t just put their guns down and walk out with their hands held high. Injecting them with a sedative and rendering them harmless made a lot more sense and was what Isaac had designed the miniature robots to do. So why was he researching Suadere?

  I was tempted to cross my eyes and stare at the napkin like one of those 3-D Magic Eye pictures. Maybe it would help me spot the true story hidden in the jumble… or maybe it wouldn’t.

  Only Connor’s presence stopped me from trying.

  Think, Izzy, think.

  If we were right in believing Isaac had been the one to initiate contact with Richard, given that was what their phone records indicated, I needed to put myself in his shoes. What could he possibly want from someone like Richard Knightley?

  That’s when it struck me.

  As a member of Vigilance and
a close friend of somebody who’d been scammed by a similar setup, he’d want what anyone in that situation would. Justice for the victims.

  I imagined Isaac spending long hours on his hostage-rescue project and seeing the news coverage about Knightley every time he turned on the TV. From what I’d gathered about Mrs. Anand’s grandson, he would’ve wished he could rescue those victims as well.

  What if his mind had combined those two subjects?

  Not to use his robots to take out Richard. That wouldn’t do the victims any good. But as Connor, Hunt, and I had quickly ascertained, you could put anything in that syringe.

  I tapped the word Suadere. “Is it possible that Isaac was planning on using his new tech invention to convince Richard to give back his ill-gotten money to the victims somehow?”

  There’d been plenty of public speculation that the lawsuits would fail and even if they didn’t, that the victims wouldn’t get their money anyway. So what if Isaac planned to circumvent the whole thing and get the money for them? That put his having the prosecution’s list—which included the names of the victims and the amounts they’d lost—in an entirely different light. But how would he do it?

  Connor shook his head. “The drug provides a significant nudge toward being agreeable, but it doesn’t override someone’s will altogether. And from what you’ve told me, Richard would never be persuaded to return the money. Plus the effects don’t last longer than an hour, so unless he could get ahold of the money in that time—unlikely since he’d buried it as deep as he could for the lawsuit—it wouldn’t be that simple.”

  Everything Connor said was true. There was a drug commonly known as Devil’s Breath that turned people into biddable zombies with no will of their own, but Suadere was more subtle and a lot less dangerous. Devil’s Breath could convince a person to do anything, including hand over every cent to their name, but they’d know they’d been drugged. Suadere could nudge someone into doing something without them ever realizing their brain had been tampered with.