“True. Yet the DNA of Constantin women is highly sought in marriage.”
I wondered if resentment was one of the reasons Trent had attacked Edna. What value did he have? It was unlikely he would ever be anything more than a low-level Executive. “But why would the recording discredit Edna? It should discredit the rapists.”
Sheba had no answer, but my mother’s voice called from the other side of the virtual hall. “Face. Their intention was to make her lowly and disgusting.”
I wanted to argue. But she was right, it had nothing to do with how I interpreted the images. How would Executives see it?
Ryan Charmayne had been so confident when he bit my lip the first day I served his clan. He behaved like someone who did such things often enough to have a plan of attack. And I remembered the boys who had targeted Nuruddin, intending to carve up his face. How would they react to the recording?
“There is no evidence for it outside the Constantin clan,” said the ghost of my mother. “But I cannot dance to these concepts. Speak to her.”
Lady Sheba met my eyes with an expression that seemed more than merely attentive. I could have sworn she was interested in this inquiry. That required a self-awareness that she would not possess if she were simply a metaphor. “We cannot know that for which we have no evidence,” she said. “But we have seen that coercion is a common behavior among Executives. Recall what happened to Bunny Charmayne.”
“And children learn by example. So we must ask ourselves—who taught Trent and his kinsmen to form packs and assault younger members of their clan?”
She seemed to be implying that an adult had done so.
Images swirled and voices babbled as Lady Sheba’s ghost led me through a search of communications, but these were all directed at Trent Constantin. We sorted them, looking for tone and also for attachments, until all extraneous noise was eliminated. We were left with an attachment sent by a man named Donnie Constantin. We opened it and found our answer.
Once again, a ten-year-old suffered rape by a gang of young men. But one of those men was considerably older than the others. We identified him as Donnie Constantin, and the other rapists deferred to his authority.
This time, the ten-year-old victim was Trent Constantin. The young man who had brutalized Edna was a child himself, frightened, humiliated, and pleading with his abusers.
“No recordings exist that are dated prior to this one,” said Lady Sheba’s ghost. “I believe Donnie Constantin is the architect of this tradition of abuse.”
Or at least, Donnie Constantin was the one who began the tradition of recording the attacks, and then using those recordings to blackmail the victims. I assumed he had used it to bend Trent to his will. And Trent had learned from an expert how to do the same to others.
“Donnie Constantin,” said the ghost, “has sent, by far, the most blackmail threats to victims. Trent Constantin is the runner-up.”
That seemed like an awful lot of work for someone who was merely indulging in a forbidden vice. Was there purpose behind the abuse?
A communication tree sprouted and grew branches from Donnie’s main trunk. Immediately I noticed a prominent arm: Ryan Charmayne.
We sifted through several proposals. But we stopped once we saw the one from the Charmaynes.
The image of Marco Charmayne appeared—an awkward young man, but placed highly enough in the family to be a regular attendee at their parties. I had seen him several times; he was more self-assured in person, and my general impression of him was of a fellow who pursued ambitions cautiously, as if he thought that dotting all his i’s and crossing all his t’s would ensure success and spare him from any of the dirty work—and from an adventure on the wrong side of an air lock.
There was quite a lot to show. Communication flowed from Ryan to Donnie, and then from Ryan to Marco.
“None,” said Lady Sheba’s ghost. “Ryan is the sole contact within the Charmayne clan for Donnie Constantin.”
But soon, Edna might be that contact. And she was being blackmailed. She and several other young Constantin women who had married into prominent clans. Whatever schemes Medusa and I had placed in motion, Donnie Constantin might bring them crashing down around us, if he pulled every string at his disposal. He was amassing far too much influence.
Yet Trent was a wild card. He didn’t seem to like the idea that the girl he had victimized might become more powerful than he in the House of Clans.
Once I knew that, a path became clear to me. The hallways in my mind shifted into a flowchart. I could see exactly what I must do.
But there was room for variation. And even more room for error.
* * *
Second-Level Plumber/Electrician Rena Singh would do the trick. Her voice was humble but not obsequious.
I slipped into her persona and made my way to the Constantin enclave in the innermost realms of Olympia’s skin. I had used my secret pathways to trigger maintenance/inspection orders for both plumbing and electrical systems (jobs that would allow me access to living quarters), then placed Rena at the head of the call-up roster. When I buzzed Security at the perimeter, they scanned the ID chip embedded in my spine and nodded me through. I would fix the glitches that I had deliberately caused, spying in the heart of the Constantins’ lair while appearing to keep my eyes focused entirely on my work.
Their living quarters had a unique design. It branched from a main hall that coiled relentlessly toward one room in the center. Security staff stood at regular intervals along the hallway, which made me wonder if at least some of them were aware of the rape gangs.
The Constantin matriarch, Lady Gloria, lived in lavish rooms in the spot where the Minotaur would have lurked, had he chosen to reside in that trap. Lady Gloria held an odd place in the hierarchy of Olympia’s Executives. She was never invited to parties.
Yet Lady Gloria communicated with every top-level Executive on Olympia, and though they answered her promptly, she often kept them waiting. I had never laid eyes on her in person, and I intended to get a good look.
When I started my work at the mouth of the maze, I confirmed a suspicion concerning the dwellers there. The Executive who lived in the first room was the youngest member of the rape squad, Brett Constantin. He sat at a desk and scribbled on an electronic pad with a stylus when I was ushered in. He looked annoyed with my intrusion. But his irritation quickly turned to alarm when he realized I needed to get into the maintenance crawl space.
“Get your work done fast and get out of there!” A film of sweat glistened on his upper lip.
“Shouldn’t take me more than five minutes,” I assured him, and slipped into the crawl space before he could say another word. The space was a bit narrow, but large enough for me to do the repair that didn’t really need to be done anyway. I went through the proper motions and switched out the part, but most of my attention was on the three-dimensional blueprint in my head of the Constantin compound. I viewed the virtual model with a surveillance overlay that Medusa and I had created once we realized that standard Security surveillance wasn’t giving us accurate information. I could see where everyone was in real time.
Three things became immediately apparent. First, Brett was peering into the access, trying to see what I was doing.
Second, a wall in that crawl space appeared to be solidly connected with the walls of the tunnel—but it was only propped in place. If you pushed it out of the way, yo
u should be able to get to the quarters next door without using the hallway and attracting the attention of the Security staff. Once you were done with your secret trip, you could prop it back into place, and no one would spot the incongruity with a casual glance. It was a major violation of safety regulations.
And third, there was another access panel in that crawl space that didn’t appear in the blueprints, and therefore also wasn’t in the standard Security surveillance logs—and its access was outside the Constantin compound. They could use it to move at will through the corridors we worms used to get to and from lifts and movers. So they must also have business outside the family that they didn’t want their Security team to document.
Ah, you young rascals, I thought, and revised my suspicions about whether or not the Security staff were enabling Donnie and his merry band of monsters. That seemed justified when I viewed the scene with a standard Security overlay, and Brett suddenly appeared back at his desk. Like me, he could edit the information from his locator, at will.
The work space was large enough to let me turn around and crawl headfirst if I wanted, but I backed out so Brett could get back to his desk and pretend he had been there the whole time.
“The work is done, young sir,” I said, and exited at a normal pace.
He didn’t respond, since I was too far beneath him socially to merit that courtesy. Once I had closed the door behind me, my Security overlay informed me that he went straight to the access tunnel to take another look at it, presumably to make sure I hadn’t discovered his secret.
He was the only Constantin who was worried enough to take that second look, but most of the others looked at least a little nervous when they realized I would be entering that crawl space. Those systems had not been serviced for over five years, so the young Constantins weren’t accustomed to regular inspections. The only one who seemed blasé about the process was Donnie Constantin, whose quarters were right next to Gloria’s on the hub. He didn’t glance up from his work when I went in, and he said, “All right,” when I told him why I was there.
His length of the crawl space terminated the line, as far as the false walls were concerned. I did my work quickly, and when I departed, he said, “Thank you,” in a reasonable tone.
His social skills were vastly more polished than his young kinsmen’s, and I wondered why he wasted them on a worm.
At last, I entered the quarters of Lady Gloria. She was short and stocky—not a glamorous woman, but elaborately made up—almost garishly so. Her desk was far larger than those of her young kinsmen. Like the other Constantins, she was writing with a stylus, and I realized that this must be how they composed all their communications. That wasn’t unheard of, especially among Executives, who liked to revise messages to each other before translating them into voices and sending them. I took note of it only because I never communicate that way. I compose everything in my head. Original versions of messages written with a stylus and pad can be retrieved from trash files, if you have deep access.
She glanced up when I came in. Her gaze was piercing, and she motioned toward the access panel with her stylus, then returned to her work. The message was clear: Get to it.
So I did.
A Lady that observant could not be unaware of what her kinsmen were doing. But she could choose not to see it, and therefore not to think about it—unless it interfered with her important business. Thus far it had not. But that was about to change.
I did my work and got out again. “The work is done, Lady—”
“Out,” she said before I could finish.
I walked back up the hallway with my escort. All the rooms I had serviced were occupied by young men—except two, which stood empty but which were being prepped for new occupants.
I wondered if those occupants would be ten-year-old girls.
I had almost reached the mouth of the maze when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked around and found Donnie Constantin one step behind me.
“Good work,” he said, and shook my hand.
“Thank you, sir,” I said automatically.
He had slipped something into my hand. I accepted it without having any idea what it was and dropped it into a utility pocket, then made my way back through checkpoints. From there I went exactly where I would be expected to go after working in an Executive compound, to a supervisor who would want assurance that everything was done properly. When I gave my report, she nodded and added notations to her service journal, and I went into the locker room to inspect what was hiding in my pocket.
It was a chocolate bar. I recognized it, because I had served chocolate bars at Executive parties. Donnie Constantin had greased my palm.
This added a layer to his personality. Abusers are masters at tweaking people with cruelty—but also with kindness. If I wanted more rewards, I would have to do him favors. And I might not like to do the sorts of favors he wanted.
Not that I expected him to abuse me sexually. I was too old for his tastes, and probably the wrong gender. But he intended to take no chances that I might talk about discrepancies in that access tunnel. Accepting the chocolate from him meant he had power over me. I wasn’t supposed to have chocolate, so if I were discovered with it, I would be in serious trouble, possibly of the life-ending sort, since I could have the forbidden food only if I had stolen it.
I had to get rid of the evidence.
It should have gone into a disposal chute. But I had never tasted chocolate. I had smelled it plenty of times, and had found it intriguing. I took a bite.
It exploded into my senses. I knew that chocolate was a high-calorie food, and wondered how Executives could have free access to it without becoming fat. I would have eaten another bar right after the first one if I could have. And possibly another after that. Donnie had chosen the perfect substance with which to snare me.
Rena Singh needed to transfer away from Donnie Constantin’s influence by the end of the shift.
But that was no problem. The next time I visited the Constantin compound, it wouldn’t be as a Maintenance worker.
* * *
Nuruddin and his husband, Jon, were co-parents with a female couple, and the four of them shared custody of two children. I watched as Jon ushered their children out of their quarters and to their mothers’. From there he reported for his shift as a senior technician. Nuruddin would be alone for another eight hours. I wouldn’t need more than a few seconds to break his neck, then another half hour to dispose of his body.
Locks are not allowed on quarters inhabited by worms. So we walked right in. We found him in the social area, the largest space in their quarters.
“Strange new world, indeed,” he said. (To date, it is my favorite of all the reactions I have received when confronting people with a Medusa unit.)
I didn’t leave him guessing; I lifted Medusa’s mask so he could see my face. His expression relaxed, and he gave me a little smile.
“Do you know what I assumed when you disappeared?” he said. “I thought they killed you because you touched their plants at that garden party.”
“They’re not that whimsical,” I said. “And neither am I.”
“Are you here to kill me?”
“Yes.”
His gaze remained steady. “Oichi, you know I have a son and a daughter.”
It wouldn’t stop me. But what he said next surprised me.
“I have been very careful not to entangle my family in my covert activities.” His ruined voice was so quiet, I might not have heard him if my senses had not been Medusa-enhanced.
“You’ve done a fine job of hiding them from me as well,” I said.
He nodded curtly. “No one else should suffer if I’m caught.”
“And just what is it you’ve been doing that could cause suffering?”
“I’ve been recovering the movies from trash files.”
“The movies.” I wasn’t familiar with th
e term.
But Medusa was.
“Oichi,” said Nuruddin, “The movies tell stories. Those stories are subversive, because they don’t support the narrative of the Executives.”
Despite my better instincts, I was becoming curious. “What are they about?”
“Everything. They’re a glimpse of what we once were, and of what we could become.”
“Oh my. That does sound subversive.”
“I would like to propose a trade. I will give you a copy of my database of movies. I would like to have a copy of your father’s music database.”
“So you know about that. Yet you don’t already have a copy.”
“Titania was destroyed before that phase of my education could be completed.” From his tone, I guessed that he had lost close family, too.
He was suggesting that we become coconspirators. I admired his pluck, but Nuruddin had always been admirable. Was that any reason to risk everything?
What if it was?
“There were five subversives on Titania whose names you should know,” I said. “I found your name linked with theirs in a secret database. They gave you brain enhancements you were not supposed to have.”
“Is that why I must die?” he asked. “Are you acting for the Executives?”
“No, quite the opposite. But I’m sure you understand my fear of exposure. Someone like yourself, with a husband and two children to care for, might protect his own before he thought of my welfare.”
His smile returned, though there was very little humor in it. “Then you must implicate me in your plot. After all, I’m halfway there already. I was just a child when I left Titania, but I knew your father.” And he named the four other dissidents who had generated so much work for Schnebly. “I thought all was lost when they died,” he said. “I thought the Medusa units had been destroyed along with them.”
Medusa Uploaded Page 8
