“This is Administrator Katya Emilianenko,” the woman said tightly, “two minutes ago, a fleet of Union warships appeared at the Manticore System’s Phase Threshold. The flagship of this fleet, the Alexander, is broadcasting a newsfeed which originated on the Planet of Social Harmony some time ago. We will play this now for Far Point’s residents, and it will be made available in all public archives afterward.”
The screen showed a devastated city street, and it took Jericho a few seconds to realize it was the same street on which the theater where Blanco’s Adjustment had been carried out.
The bodies of civilians were scattered, as were a few police officers’ bodies—though none of the attack drones which Mr. Jackson had engaged appeared to be among the wreckage.
“This is Castor Coriopolis,” a reporter said in a grim voice, “two hours ago, corporate paramilitary forces attacked this planet’s capitol city in a brutal, ruthless attempt to assassinate President Han-Ramil Blanco, who was in attendance of a play at the building behind me.” The reporter came into focus, and he looked as ashen-faced as a man should while standing amid the carnage surrounding him. “The President was terribly wounded by a cowardly terrorist attack while he sat in his viewing box; reports are scarce, but local law enforcement suggested there had been a series of disturbances in the area prior to the corporate forces opening fire on the civilian population.”
Jericho felt his blood beginning to boil as the feed shifted to the image of a man’s body being rushed from the theater in the midst of weapons fire. Several Union soldiers fell to crossfire as the bloody stretcher was rushed to an awaiting drop ship, which immediately shot into the air after what was ostensibly President Blanco’s body had been brought aboard.
“The President was taken to the Union flagship, the Alexander, a few minutes later where the Sector’s best surgeons work furiously to save his life,” the reporter continued, his voice trembling audibly with anger. “The Union Fleet pursued several corporate warships, destroying at least three of them before they fled the scene of this cowardly, barbaric, inhuman atrocity. This…I’m sorry, Bridgette, I don’t have the words to convey the horror—”
The image of the ruined, bloody street disappeared and was replaced with Administrator Emilianenko’s face, which wore a look of muted shock. “I…we are receiving an incoming transmission from the Alexander,” she said disbelievingly.
When the image shifted to the new transmission, Jericho felt his lips peel back into a feral snarl at what he saw on the screen—and for the briefest of moments, Jericho actually doubted his own sanity.
“This is President Han-Ramil Blanco,” the man said hoarsely, sounding as though the act of speaking caused severe pain. Half of the skin on his head was pink, synth-skin which stood in stark contrast to his original, ebony skin, but aside from that he appeared to be a perfect copy of the deceased President. “The Union Fleet has come to the Manticore System to apprehend the corporate thugs who think they can intimidate the Sector’s citizens with the barbarisms enacted at Philippa, and now at the People’s System of Harmony.”
Jericho heard Russo whistle ominously behind him, but he knew that this trap was already sprung so he remained perfectly still. He needed to stay composed if he was going to get out alive, because the only thing worse than not carrying out an assigned Adjustment was falsely claiming that it had been carried out—a transgression which Adjusters were permitted to punish via the only method legally available to them.
“Let me be perfectly clear…” Blanco began, only to be seized by a fit of hacking coughs which produced several spoons’ worth of blood on the cuff of his long-sleeved shirt. Throughout it all, his pristine-looking hat never once moved from its place atop his head and eventually the man looked into the camera with fierce determination, “I asked the Sector’s Adjusters—who are charged with defending the most fundamental rights and securities of our citizenry—to temporarily suspend their activities in order to facilitate a recovery period following the Abacca Atrocity. This request was not only ignored; I was targeted for assassination by so-called ‘Adjusters’—who operate on behalf of what we can only conclude is, itself, as corrupt and tyrannical of an organization as those which the Timent Electorum was charged with removing from society.”
From the corner of his eye, Jericho saw the blue light flash on the wrist-link which Newman had disconnected from his own data link. His mind raced as he considered what was happening, and he nodded deliberately, causing a pair of rapid, green lights to flash on the wrist-link.
His message’s receipt having been acknowledged, Jericho refocused on the situation at hand. He knew that he had Adjusted Blanco—the DNA had been a perfect match, as had the man’s voice print, brainwaves, and every other piece of identification which he had verified before and after the Adjustment. This isn’t about proof, he thought silently as the man on the screen coughed up another wad of bloody phlegm, this is about sowing discord.
He repeated that thought in his head several times before finally understanding what Newman’s agenda was—and, by extension, what Blanco’s people hoped to gain from this deception.
“Any Star System found to be harboring the perpetrators of the Abaca Atrocity—or the latest massacre at PSH,” Blanco’s double continued, “will be considered to have harbored known war criminals. Let me be perfectly clear,” he clasped his hands before himself on the desk as a wince of what looked like genuine pain flashed across his face, “the people who have carried out these terrorist attacks are undermining our Sector’s society, and are therefore enemies of the highest order. They have committed treason against our most fundamental principles with their heinous acts and must be punished accordingly. Anyone who stands in the way of lawfully-appointed justiciars will be considered an enemy of the state while anyone who assists in the arrest of these people will be rewarded with the highest honors—and will spare their countrymen the burden of sharing in these fugitives’ just punishment.”
The screen cut out, and Jericho saw Newman and Lady Jessica turn toward him. “A most remarkable development,” Newman said with mock surprise before his high-powered wrist-link chimed, prompting him to dramatically check the contents of the message he had received before raising his eyebrows theatrically, “It appears that the Alexander is broadcasting the copy of a holographic record…”
Jericho watched as the image of him standing before President Blanco shimmered into existence between the quartet of Adjusters.
“There’s no absolution for people like us, Mr. President,” Jericho’s recorded image said grimly, just as it had done in Jericho’s own record taken from the Mark of Adjustment.
“If not for absolution,” Blanco growled defiantly, “then what possible purpose could be served by—“
The pistol bucked in the hand of Jericho’s hologram, just as it had done in his own recording, but this time it moved in extreme slow motion as the bullet flew from the barrel of his .44 caliber, single-shot pistol.
Just before the bullet contacted Blanco’s face, Jericho thought he actually saw a slight bow shockwave—something he had never actually seen in a recording, no matter how high the quality had been—which sent a ripple of air out from the bullet just before it entered Blanco’s cheek.
The bullet deformed the Sector President’s face as it passed through his skull, but in this version of the recording it exited behind his jaw just below his ear before the majority of the skin on that side of Blanco’s face came off. It was a grizzly display that appeared more or less consistent with what would have happened if a regular bullet had struck its target at such a trajectory, which meant that whoever had doctored the footage had accurately determined the bullet’s composition and kinetic energy. The wound shown by this record would have likely been fatal under most circumstances, but Blanco’s status and importance to the agenda he championed would cause his allies to take any possible action in an effort to keep him alive. So it was far from ridiculous to think that a man might possibly survive the
wound shown on the false footage
After the grizzly mutilation had been done by the bullet—which lodged its fragments in a backboard behind the President’s chair—Newman froze the image and said, “It would appear that we have a problem, Mr. Bronson.”
“That’s not an authentic file,” Jericho said flatly, fighting the urge to jut his chin defiantly. “The file I provided was taken directly from the Mark of Adjustment; it bears authenticity ciphers and markers which even Lady Jessica independently confirmed as genuine and belonging to the very Mark which Obunda had carried for half a decade.”
“That does appear to be true,” Newman said thoughtfully as he pulled up Jericho’s version—the real version—of the Adjustment’s record, and placed the aforementioned ciphers and markers side-by-side. “I must say…I am impressed, Mr. Bronson. They appear to be identical.”
“That’s impossible,” Jericho said in unison with Russo behind him before shaking his head and continuing, “no one can crack the Marks’ programming; every attempt has invalidated the Mark—and cost the Adjuster who tampered with it his or her life.”
“Nothing is impossible,” Newman riposted. “In fact, I have reason to believe that you have—or, more precisely, one of your associates has—defeated the built-in security measures which are part of every Mark attached to each Adjustment to have ever been carried out in the Sector’s history. After breaking the encryption and security measures built into every Mark, you falsified this record,” he gestured to the right column of encryption information.
“You give me and my people too much credit,” Jericho said, knowing it was 100% true. Benton had tried—and spectacularly failed, resulting in a torching of his entire data processing subnet in a matter of seconds—to crack one of the defunct Marks several years earlier when the Adjustee had been found innocent. After sifting through the wreckage of his system, Benton had declared that the data processing gear required to do the job was simply beyond anything except a multi-billion credit project carried out by the best and brightest of a corporation like Hadden.
If Benton couldn’t do it, Jericho knew that no one in the Sector could.
“Besides,” Jericho said, folding his arms across his chest as a series of spasms gripped his ruined limb, “I did kill Blanco, and wouldn’t have left the theater otherwise.”
“For that, I fear we have nothing but your word,” Newman said gravely. “By any measure you wish to use, your path to the level of Tyrannis Adjuster has been…unprecedented, Mr. Bronson. So unprecedented, in fact, that its legitimacy strains belief—especially in light of this latest revelation regarding President Blanco’s present condition.”
“That’s not Blanco,” Jericho growled. “I Adjusted him back on PSH; that’s an imposter.”
“Again,” Newman shrugged, “I am afraid that, given the conflicting nature of the evidence presented here, we have merely your word to bolster that claim. And in this case I fear I must concur with my esteemed colleague, Mr. Barragan: if reasonable certainty can be satisfied then the tribunal is better served by eliminating the possibility of your duplicity—especially in light of current events. Would you not agree, Mr. Barragan?”
Russo was silent for several seconds before finally saying, “I would.”
Newman nodded satisfactorily as he turned to Lady Jessica, and Jericho felt his heartbeat slow as he prepared himself for what was to come. “Lady Jessica; is reasonable certainty established in the matter of Mr. Bronson’s failure to earn the status of Tyrannis Adjuster?”
Jessica narrowed her eyes and fixed Jericho with an icy look for several long, taut seconds before shaking her head slowly, “There is deception at work here unlike anything I have encountered…and while I am as yet uncertain of the truth, Mr. Newman is correct: President Blanco’s appearance here, and the evidence he has presented, satisfy the reasonable certainty threshold regarding Mr. Bronson’s lack of fitness to execute Tyrannis Adjustments. Any one of these issues could be overlooked, but the preponderance of evidence is…” her visage hardened, “damning.”
Newman nodded, the gloating look of a few minutes earlier replaced by the cold look which Jericho had seen in the eyes of every killer he had ever seen—including his own reflection—in the moment before he, or she, did what a killer does best.
“I’ve got to hand it to you, Newman,” Jericho said with a sigh. “You knew the players involved, you knew how to appeal to their individual values systems, and somehow you even knew how to falsify the evidence against me. I make a point of giving credit where credit’s due; I’ve rarely seen such adept political maneuvering. You are, without a doubt, a master politician.”
“Your next words will be your last, Mr. Bronson,” Newman said as he reached for his wrist-link, “I shall record them for posterity if you wish a message to be transmitted to someone in particular. It is, after all, the least I could do for a fellow Adjuster.”
“I don’t have a farewell note,” Jericho said with a shake of his head, “just a confession.”
“A confession?” Newman asked bemusedly. “Very well; what is it?”
Jericho gave the wrist-link a look, saw it flash green three times, and smirked, “I’ve never cared for politicians.”
The silk-tongued Adjuster’s hand moved toward his wrist-link, but an instant before his fingers reached the digital interface there was a bright flash from the countertop—where Newman had put Jericho’s blinking wrist-link after downloading the data from it—and the world plunged into darkness.
Jericho dragged himself up from the floor and looked around through eyes that seemed to have been switched off. He shook his head fiercely and managed to gain a narrow patch of vision in his right eye.
Looking around numbly, he saw that Lady Jessica lay collapsed on the floor beside Newman. Jericho reached for Newman’s wrist-link, and almost put his fingers around it before a boot buried itself, toes-first, into his rib.
“I was wrong about you, cabron,” Russo growled, and Jericho was shocked the other man had managed to regain his feet so quickly. “But I always correct my mistakes.”
The stun field—which included a short-lived augment-suppressing effect—was supposed to have rendered everyone else unconscious for at least sixty seconds while allowing Jericho to regain consciousness in half that time due to a cocktail of drugs he had secretly ingested a few minutes before they had docked at the station.
Jericho realized that Russo must have used an extra heavy dose of stimulants during his interception of the Union fighters. Those stimulants—despite Jericho’s best information—must have allowed him to recover even faster than Jericho had done.
“I donnnn’t want to fight,” Jericho slurred as his tongue became temporarily stuck inside his mouth. “Hear me out—“
Russo buried his heavy boot into Jericho’s side again, “No can do, picado. I don’t like it but the rules are the rules.”
“He won’t…wake up!” Jericho gasped. “Stop…and listen…”
“I’ll listen,” Russo said, and the unmistakable sound of a knife slipping from its sheath became the focus of Jericho’s attention. He tried to prop himself up, but his mangled arm was unresponsive and his other arm wasn’t much better for some reason. “But you die first.”
“She’ll wake up first,” Jericho growled, knowing that he was completely at the man’s mercy. “This is the proof you need—just wait for him to wake up.”
Jericho felt a hand grab his chin and yank his head back as the flash of a knife’s blade came into view on the right side of his slowly expanding field of vision.
“He’s not human!” Jericho shouted, unable to effectively resist—but unwilling to do so even if he could have—as the knife pressed against his throat and a warmth spread down his neck that could have only been caused by his own blood.
“Looks pretty human to me—and to my security scanners,” Russo retorted, but Jericho did not feel the blade draw any further across his neck.
“Jessica will wake up af
ter sixty seconds,” Jericho explained, “if I’m right, Newman will be out for another thirty beyond that. The neural stun field generator was of a standard Hadden design; its effects only lasted sixty seconds on standard human nervous systems but Newman’s brain isn’t fully human—and it isn’t augmented like Jessica’s.”
“Why won’t he wake up?” Russo asked as Jessica began to stir—which, for someone as heavily augmented as she was, meant that she was back on her feet in less than three seconds. Newman, meanwhile, remained motionless.
“If I’m right,” Jericho said, and Jessica looked down with sharp, calculating eyes on the lone member of the group to remain on the floor, “then as soon as he wakes back up, he’ll send a command to a remote device somewhere in this room—maybe even security measures you installed yourself—and they’ll put all of us down. You can’t let him access his wrist-link until you’re sure I’m wrong.”
Even without seeing the man’s face, Jericho felt Russo hesitate. “What do you think, Señorita?”
Jericho was silently counting down the seconds remaining until Newman regained consciousness, and for ten full seconds Lady Jessica stood as motionless as a marble statue with only her eyes moving back and forth between Jericho and Newman.
“Kill me if you have to,” Jericho said levelly, shaking his head when the wrist-link which had created the stun field flashed several times in rapid succession—a request by his backup to engage on his behalf, which he had just refused, “but take his fucking wrist-link before he wakes up or I won’t be the only one who dies here.”
Time continued to pass as Jericho counted down to five seconds remaining, and saw a finger twitch on Newman’s right hand at that precise moment.
“Four…three…two…one—“ he counted down and, at the last possible moment—moving almost too fast for the human eye to see—Lady Jessica reached down, removed Newman’s wrist-link, and hurled it into the kitchen through the order window.
Sic Semper Tyrannis: The Chimera Adjustment, Book Two (Imperium Cicernus 5) Page 50
