Rath's Trial (The Janus Group Book 4)

by Piers Platt

  “My what …?” Dasi asked. “What company did you say you were with?”

  “CloudBase Storage,” the avatar repeated.

  “I’ve never heard of you,” Dasi said. “I’m sorry, I think you must have the wrong person.”

  “Let me verify that,” the avatar said. “Dasi Apter, Apartment 119B, Portside Bay 4, Anchorpoint?”

  That’s my old address, Dasi realized, frowning. “Yes, that’s me. But how did you reach me here?”

  “Your contact information was recently updated. Let me just take a minute to walk you through our storage tiers. You’re currently using a little over six hundred terabytes of data, so that would place you in our Enterprise Silver Tier, which is five hundred dollars per month. That comes with unlimited read and write access—”

  “How much am I storing?” Dasi asked, confused.

  “Six hundred terabytes,” the avatar repeated.

  “I think someone may have stolen my identity,” Dasi said, rubbing her forehead. “I honestly have no recollection of ever using your service. I don’t know what all of that data could be.”

  “Did you lose your login credentials, ma’am?” the avatar asked. “I can send those to the email address we have on file: dasi-dot-apter-at-memail-dot-com?”

  “That’s my email,” Dasi said. “But I still don’t—”

  “I’ve sent a temporary password to that address, along with a link to your files. May I take the liberty of sending along a few digital brochures, as well? Then you can review our storage plans in more detail at your leisure, and decide which you’d like to purchase in the future.”

  “Okay,” Dasi said.

  “Great! You can contact me by clicking on the link in those emails, at any time, day or night. Do you have any other questions at this time?”

  So many questions, Dasi thought. She checked her watch. Gotta get back to the range. “Ah … no. No more questions.”

  “Well then, thank you for choosing CloudBase for your storage needs. We appreciate your business.”

  “Sure, thanks,” Dasi said, hanging up.

  What the hell was that?

  * * *

  Dasi let the hot water pummel her back, closing her eyes and savoring the feeling as some of the soreness left her aching body. Beside her, one of her fellow cadets laughed, sharing a joke with another of the women in their platoon.

  “Lights out in fifteen,” a voice called.

  I used to look forward to my shower every day. Now it’s just another chore that takes away from time I could be sleeping.

  Dasi flipped the water off and grabbed her towel, drying off as she made her way through the bathroom. She slipped into her pajamas in the changing area, and then hurried to the upper floor of their barracks, padding quietly down the center of the bay in her flip-flops, until she reached her bunk. She stowed her towel in her wall locker, hanging it over a clothes hanger in the vain hope that it would dry overnight. Then she pulled out the battered datascroll the Academy had issued her, and lied down on her bunk, propping her pillow up behind her.

  She opened the study guide labeled Arrest Procedures, but after nearly ten minutes of reading, she realized she was nodding off, reading the same passage over and over in her exhaustion. She sighed, and moved to turn off the device, then paused. On impulse, she opened the web browser, and accessed her email account. A new message from Marga at CloudBase was waiting for her.

  Dasi copied the temporary password, and then opened the link, logging into the account. She frowned at the screen, scrolling for several seconds across what looked like hundreds of files. She stopped scrolling, and peered more closely at the screen, reading several of the file names. Interplanetary Census from Year 2400. Galactic Weather Aggregation Bureau – Historical Models. Federacy Budget Breakdown – Fiscal Year 2410.

  Dasi shook her head. What is this stuff? It just looks like random datasets. Definitely not my files.

  Dasi scrolled back to the top of the folder, and then sorted the files by date, but they all appeared to have been uploaded on the same date.

  A couple months ago. Back when I was still in Anchorpoint.

  She sorted by size next, and found a single file that took up several hundred terabytes of space. The file was labeled 5Sv11.3b. Dasi clicked on the file.

  A text reader program opened, showing a file full of unfamiliar words interspersed with brackets and special symbols.

  I think that’s programming language – code. It’s some sort of program? She sighed. I wish Khyron were here. He would know. She felt a knot of grief rising in her throat, and took a deep breath. Keep it together, Dasi. Remember why you’re here.

  She thought back to the hotel room on Wayhaven, where she had watched as the media descended on Guild Headquarters. I sent those reporters to Headquarters – and I knew they’d come looking for me as soon as they could. Beauceron promised me I wouldn’t be arrested for my involvement in that whole thing, but … I killed a man! And I didn’t want to be thrust into the limelight like Beauceron was.

  Sitting there on the floor of the hotel room, as a janitor worked to disassemble the desk Rath had handcuffed her to, she had recalled her conversation with Rath, back on the Hurasu. Find a job where you can help people, he had said. That’s what you got you into politics in the first place. On the TV feed, Dasi had seen the police arrive on the scene at Headquarters, Beauceron among them, and she had had a sudden epiphany. What better way to help people than becoming an Interstellar Police officer? And six months of training at the Academy is not a bad way to disappear for a while.

  In her barracks bunk, Dasi snorted at her own naiveté. Brilliant idea, Dasi. You’re worried about being arrested, so … go join the police? And Academy life had been quite different from what she expected – she had thought it would be like college again, but it turned out to be a strange mix of exhausting, frustrating, and demeaning. And hard. Much harder than I thought. Admit it, Dasi: this was a mistake.

  “Lights out!” an instructor called, and a second later, the lights were off. Dasi rolled up the datascroll, tucking it away on a shelf in her wall locker, and then slid under the covers, staring up through the gloom at the metal springs of the bunk above her. Down the bay, one of her classmates was already snoring loudly. Dasi was bone tired, but now that the lights were out, sleep eluded her. Tomorrow their training schedule included more range time, and Dasi felt her heart rate accelerate with anxiety.

  I’m going to quit, she thought. ‘Cause if I don’t quit, I’m going to fail out anyway.

  6

  Jaymy’s shift in the Emergency Room ended in the early evening. Rath was reading a book on his datascroll at a bench across the street, but he caught sight of her exiting the hospital’s main entrance with several other nurses. The women stopped and talked briefly, laughing, before heading their separate ways. Rath rolled up the datascroll and slid it into his pocket. He followed Jaymy as she walked, staying on the opposite side of the street to avoid detection, per his training.

  She looks tired. Working in the E.R. is probably a tougher gig than working up at Suspensys.

  She walked for several blocks, and then entered a bistro. Rath waited for a few minutes, but when she did not emerge, he crossed the street and pretended to study the restaurant’s menu near the front door. Through the window, he saw Jaymy seated alone at a small table, ordering her dinner. Just to be safe, he slid an EMP grenade out of a pouch on the outside of his Forge, and tucked it into his jacket pocket. Rath took a final look at himself in the reflection of the bistro’s window, checking that his facial features matched the ones of the cover identity he had used when he had first met Jaymy.

  When you first seduced her, he corrected himself. And tried to recruit her to be an accomplice to murder.

  Inside, the babble of voices threatened to overwhelm Rath’s enhanced hearing – the bistro was nearly full from the dinner rush, and most of the tables were full of diners eating and talking. Rath dialed back his auditory implants, noti
ng security cameras in two corners of the room. The maître d’ asked for his name, and Rath pointed over at Jaymy’s table.

  “I’m joining someone,” he said.

  “Very well, sir.”

  He took a deep breath, and walked over to her table.

  “Hi, Jaymy,” he said.

  She looked up, and shock and surprise registered on her face. “Rob …?”

  “Can we talk?” Rath asked. He pulled the empty chair out, and raised an eyebrow.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “Jaymy, it’s taken me months to work up the courage to come back here. To talk to you.” Rath’s mouth was dry. “I know you probably don’t want anything to do with me, but I just want a chance to tell you the truth.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and she bit her lip. “How would I know you’re telling the truth?” she asked.

  “You’ll know,” Rath assured her. He sat, and let his Forge rest on the floor.

  “You still carry that backpack everywhere, I see,” she pointed out.

  “Yeah,” Rath said. He set a battered jewelry box on the table. “I carry this, too. I tried to give it to you.”

  “I remember,” she said.

  “It’s a necklace that I bought for you,” Rath continued. “From the time we visited the Rainbow Desert together.”

  “If you think some jewelry—” she started, but Rath held up his hand.

  “No, I know. Just let me talk for a minute.” He rubbed at a stain on the table with his thumbnail. “Okay, here goes. My name’s not Rob.”

  Jaymy crossed her arms. “You lied about your name, too? Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.”

  He cocked an eyebrow at her, and dropped his voice. “My real name is Rath Kaldirim … but you’ve probably heard my other name on the news: Contractor 621.”

  Jaymy studied him for a second, and then sighed, shaking her head sadly. “Thank you.”

  “What do you mean?” Rath asked.

  “I spent a while trying to get over you, Rob … or Rath, or whatever you want to be called. When you walked back in here, it brought all those emotions flooding back, and I thought, ‘Well, Jaymy, you’re clearly still not over him.’ But now that you’ve reminded me what a colossal liar you are, I think I’m finally done with all that. So thank you for giving me that closure.”

  “I’m telling the truth,” Rath protested.

  “Really?” she asked. “With all the lies you’ve told, now you expect me to believe that you’re the famous guildsman that was all over the news?” She snorted. “Prove it.”

  Rath’s mind raced. Shit. I kind of figured she would just believe me. He glanced around the restaurant to ensure that no one else was watching, and then slid the grey counter bracelet past the end of his sleeve and triggered it, watching as the golden ‘50’ appeared in the air above it, rotating.

  “I don’t know what that is,” Jaymy said.

  Rath shut it off as a waiter approached them carrying a plate of food. He set it in front of Jaymy.

  “Can I get you anything?” he asked Rath.

  “No,” Rath shook his head. “Thanks.” The waiter headed back to the kitchen. “That was my counter bracelet. The Guild gave them to us to help us track our kills. Jaymy, I am a guildsman. Or I was. That’s why I approached you – I needed to recruit you to kill Delacourt for me. Why do you think you got fired from Suspensys?”

  “I didn’t get fired, they had a round of layoffs after the break-in, and I volunteered to go. I wasn’t all that happy there to begin with.”

  “Oh,” Rath said. “Are you happy now?”

  “I’m pretty happy, yeah. I’m doing what I was trained to do – helping the sick and injured. Not just watching over a bunch of sleeping billionaires.”

  “Did they interview you about the break-in?” Rath asked. “About me?”

  “Yes,” she admitted. “The cops interviewed all employees, and asked if anyone had approached us before the attack. I told them about you. They asked me to let them know if I saw you again. Which I’m seriously considering doing,” she noted.

  Rath ignored her remark. “Why do you think they asked you to do that?”

  She shrugged. “They thought you might have been involved. But that doesn’t prove that you were involved, or that you’re the rogue guildsman on the news.”

  “Okay, how about this,” Rath said. “About a month before we met, did Suspensys suddenly roll out mandatory cyber-security training? Did they ban the use of all plug-in data drives on the station?”

  Jaymy frowned. “Yes.”

  “And they fired a janitor, too. That’s because I hired him and tried to hack into the Suspensys computers.”

  “If you say so,” Jaymy said, still unconvinced. “That still doesn’t prove anything.”

  “It proves I know an awful lot about what happened at Suspensys during that time.” Rath gave her a half-smile. “Try this: the security personnel on the station got in a gunfight with the attacker, when he broke in. They shot him twice: in the right leg, and the left shoulder.”

  “Okay, but that was on the news. Everyone knows that.”

  Rath pulled his shirt to the side, exposing a faint scar on his left shoulder. “You want to see the one on my leg, too?”

  Jaymy’s frown deepened.

  “You still don’t believe me,” Rath stated.

  “What would you think, if you were in my shoes? What’s more plausible: that I dated a famous secret assassin, or that I dated a pathological liar?”

  Rath glanced around the bistro at the other diners, and the security cameras on the walls. “I could shift my appearance, but … not here. Not in public.”

  Jaymy squirmed in her seat. Her plate of food sat cooling in front of her, untouched. “Let’s suppose, for a second, that you are who you say you are. And just to be clear, I still don’t think you’re telling the truth. But hypothetically, if you were being honest: what did you think I would say?”

  “I don’t know,” Rath admitted. “I was hoping it would help you understand why I did what I did. I didn’t have a choice. The rules are: you have to complete your mission, or they kill you. I’m not saying it was right, but … I seduced you because I had to. And I wish I could change that. I wanted you to know that I did love you – I still do.”

  “I loved you, too,” Jaymy said, her voice softening. “But … now you’re either the galaxy’s biggest liar, or a serial killer. And I don’t know which is worse.”

  “Being a killer is worse,” Rath said, grimacing. “Trust me.”

  “Yeah, probably.” Jaymy studied him for a minute. “I get the sense that you wanted this to be a big moment, like you could swoop in and confess, and suddenly everything would be different.”

  “I was hoping …,” Rath admitted, with a faint smile.

  “Yeah, that’s how men always think, isn’t it? You sit there day-dreaming about the girl being kidnapped by the villain, so you can ride in and rescue her, or make some grand heroic gesture that proves how much you’ve changed. That’s not real life, Rath. This is real life: I’m tired from a long shift, and tired of trying to sort through the lies. And I think you should go.”

  The door to the bistro chimed as it opened, and Rath glanced over on instinct. Four burly men had entered the restaurant, brushing the maître d’ aside with annoyance. The leading man’s eyes were focused on Rath, and his right hand was hidden in his jacket pocket.

  “Jaymy,” Rath said, keeping his voice even. “Get up now and walk quickly to the kitchen. There’s an exit through the back of the restaurant into an alley.”

  “What?” she said. She glanced over at the entrance, and saw the men approaching. Rath stood and took her hand, roughly pulling her to her feet.

  “Ow!” she exclaimed. Several diners turned to look at them.

  “Go now, and don’t look back,” Rath hissed. He gave Jaymy a firm shove, and she cried out again, stumbling toward the back of the bistro.

  The men arrived a second later
, and arranged themselves in a loose circle around Rath. Jaymy took several more steps backwards and then stopped, confusion writ plain on her face.

  “Hey, buddy,” the leader told Rath, grinning. “We’ve got the van outside, we’ve been waiting for you! Come on, we’re going to be late.”

  An awkward silence settled over the restaurant, as the other customers turned to see the source of the commotion. “Gentlemen,” Rath said. “I don’t know how much you’re being paid, but I guarantee you I can pay a lot more.”

  The leader shook his head, an exaggerated smile still plastered on his sweat-streaked face. “What are you talking about? Come on, the show starts soon – we gotta go.” Around his neck, the man wore a gold chain, from which dangled a small symbol that Rath did not recognize: a circle with three lines running horizontally across it. The lines were curved, with peaks and troughs, like ocean waves.

  “You want me to get the girl?” a man behind Rath asked. The leader frowned, and cast a glance at Jaymy.

  “I’ll go with you,” Rath cut in. “Leave her out of this.”

  “Get her, too,” the leader decided.

  “You guys really fucked up,” Rath warned him. “Last chance: leave her, take me, and everyone can all just go back to eating.” He glanced at the restaurant’s cameras again, slipping his hand inside his jacket pocket and triggering the EMP grenade.

  “I don’t think so, asshole,” the leader replied. He nodded at his companion, and the man started toward Jaymy.

  Rath sighed. Fuck.

  “Interstellar Police, everybody freeze!” A diner across the restaurant stood up suddenly, brandishing a badge and an auto-pistol.

  An off-duty cop? Are you serious?! Rath thought, but the leader was already drawing his own pistol from inside his jacket. Rath grabbed the nearest man by the collar and dropped to the floor, twisting and using his own downward momentum to pull the man with him, and smash him head-first into the table as he fell. A series of shots rang out, and his enhanced hearing estimated the shooter’s location on his heads-up display – the cop had opened fire. Let’s hope he got at least one of them. Rath jumped up to a crouch and struck out with one leg, sweeping the legs out from under another of the attackers, and following it with a swift punch to the man’s throat as he hit the floor. Then he grabbed a dinner knife off the table, and turned to see the final attacker lunging at him with a viciously-serrated knife. Rath had just enough time to block the thrust, turning it away with a forearm, and then he stabbed the man in the gut. He finished the would-be kidnapper with a brutal elbow to the face, knocking him to the ground.