by John Corwin
"Drop your investigation and walk away," said a deep voice, distorted by some electronic means so the owner wouldn't reveal himself. He sounded like one of the construction droids.
"Did you kill the lab coat?" Scarlett asked.
"Drop it," he said again.
She writhed against the grips of the other two. "I don't know who you think you are, assaulting an officer of the law, but you'd better let me go this instant!"
"Promise you'll drop this investigation and you're free to leave."
"Never!" Scarlett banged her helmet against his, and he backed away.
"Useless," said one of the others, their voice higher in pitch but just as distorted as the first. "Planck's death started this. Let's use her to push everyone over the edge."
"Should we get approval first?"
The first slashed an arm through the air. "Fuck that. He said any means necessary, and this is it."
"She won't drop it and you know it," said the fourth figure still standing away from the others and keeping a lookout. "Make it look like the lab coats did it. Spread the word they killed her too."
The one who'd first spoken regarded Scarlett for a moment. "I don't think people like her as much as Planck."
"Doesn't matter," said the fourth. "She was his deputy. The people will see it as another strike against the civvies."
"Why does everyone like that son of a bitch?" Scarlett shouted. "He was worthless!"
The fourth figure stomped over and pressed his forearm hard against her chest. "He did what he had to do. He saved lives and played a role nobody should have to, you miserable little idiot." He backed off. "Take her below to the shitworks. I know where we can stage her murder."
Suddenly they were on the move again, her bearers dragging her through a gray door and down a metal staircase.
Scarlett realized the last few minutes of her life were quickly ticking away toward an ignominious end in the shitworks. "Who are you people? What's going on?"
The time for talking was obviously over because they didn't answer.
She tossed out names to see if any stuck. "Daryl Smith, let me go!" One of the people ahead seemed to falter in his steps, but it didn't mean he was Smith.
Scarlett's mind worked furiously. Had these people simply happened upon her, or had they known she'd be down here? The only people who knew were Olga, Twig, and Burt. Daryl might have guessed she'd come down here too. Her assailants would have needed time to prepare—toughsuits, welding masks, and the taped helmets all indicated premeditation. While Scarlett hunted for parts of an electric cart, these people had hunted her and lain in wait.
Then again, maybe they didn't intend to kill her. Maybe this was their way of intimidating her so she'd beg for freedom and promise them what they wanted.
Scarlett didn't intend to beg them for anything—at least not yet, so she tried another tactic. "If you don't let me go so I can finish this investigation, Simmons will declare a civvie guilty and someone innocent will die."
They weren't impressed.
The third and fourth captors lumbered down the straight staircase ahead of the two gripping her. Walking the stairs was cumbersome in the suits even for these people who seemed familiar with the brassworks. The stairwell was cramped, offering her a bottleneck to escape pursuit if she could just struggle free.
Scarlett waited until they were halfway down before making a bid for freedom. Lashing out with a foot, she kicked the man on her left in the knee, sending the joint sideways with a loud crack. He screamed, the voice distorter giving it an animalistic quality, and the grip on her left arm vanished.
Before the other could react, Scarlett swung her knee hard up into his crotch. He doubled over with a loud grunt. She shoved him down the stairs into his companions. His body sent them tumbling. Scarlett ran up the stairs, pursued by distorted curses. Rubbery legs betrayed her. She stumbled to her knees, crawling on all fours before regaining solid footing.
Scarlett burst through the door at the top and ran due north, following the red arrows pointing back toward the main walkway. Sweat poured down her forehead, into her eyes and the toughsuit dragged on tired muscles until they felt like dead weight hanging from her bones. She looked back and saw two pursuers racing after her. Scarlett cursed the heavy suit and wondered if shucking it might be the only way to escape.
Just as she reached the main walkway, something rammed her and sent her tumbling to the ground. Scarlett shrieked in pain. A world of concrete, pipes, and wires spun around her, the bubble helmet clanking against the walkway. Scarlett pushed up on wobbling arms and weak knees, but she was too slow.
Someone grabbed her from behind.
Chapter 14
Scarlett rolled away and flailed with her feet.
"Leave me alone!" she shouted, as if it would do any good.
The other figure backed away and looked at her with an amused expression. Only then did Scarlett realize it was Investigator Simmons looking down at her, his electric vehicle parked nearby.
"Hard at work, I see," he said.
Scarlett scrambled to her feet but saw no signs of the men in welding masks. "We've got to get out of here."
Simmons looked back the way she'd come. "Explain."
She looked at the nearby machinery, wondering if her former captors were trying to sneak around behind them. "There were people chasing me." Scarlett jabbed a finger toward the tunnel to Science Division. "We've got to get out of here."
He looked around, but didn't argue with her. "Get on." Simmons slid into the front seat. With a twist of the control stick on the center console between the two front seats, the round electric cart rotated in place until it faced back toward the tunnel, about fifty yards away. Scarlett hopped in the other front seat.
Something big and red whizzed through the air. A huge wrench narrowly missed Simmons and bounced off a pipe. Simmons took out his blaster. "Drive the cart!"
Scarlett gripped the control stick and pressed it forward to max speed—barely faster than she could run. Simmons fired a shot. A brilliant red blaster bolt exploded against another hurled wrench, cutting it in half and sending the pieces clanging off machinery to either side of them. Something hummed, winding up to a rumbling roar as if a generator had just turned on.
Risking a look back, Scarlett saw one of the figures in an orange toughsuit lean out from behind a gray transformer and aim a long black rod at them. Simmons fired several shots, but the bolts ricocheted off the transformer. There was a loud whistling noise and something slammed into the rear seat, leaving a smoking hole. A red-hot iron rivet bounced off the carbon-fiber backing of the front seat, fell to the flooring, and rolled away.
"They're using a modified magnetic riveter." Simmons shouted. He ducked as more projectiles whizzed past, then poked the barrel of the snub-nose blaster over the seat and returned fire. "Hit the blue button." One of his shots grazed the figure with the rivet gun on the arm. The man staggered out of view, but another quickly took his place.
Scarlett scanned the console. "I don't see a blue button!"
The investigator ducked. More rivets burst through the rear seats and the carbon-fiber housing around the wheels sounding as if someone were attacking the cart with a hammer. The front seat buckled as it lost the protection of the damaged rear seat. Simmons flipped up a black cover to reveal a blue button and pounded it with a fist. The cart lurched forward.
Simmons fired his blaster until the battery ran dry. His last few shots speared into an attacker's chest and the orange-suited figure went down, smoke rising from the blast holes. A vicious smile peeled his lips back from his teeth as he ducked behind the front seats. "Another insurgency. How delightful."
"What do you mean another?" Scarlett asked, keeping as low as possible.
Simmons's smile grew broader. "Perhaps you shouldn't have heard that, Deputy."
A cold chill worked down Scarlett's sweaty skin. Despite the mortal peril from earlier, she felt even more threatened by the investigator's state
ment. She wanted to play it off, but another volley of rivets slammed into the back of the cart and zinged off the pipes and concrete around them. The cart reached the tunnel and the firing ceased.
Simmons sat up on his knees and looked back. "We should be safe for now."
But am I safe? "Apparently, my investigation is not very popular," Scarlett said, hoping to defuse the tension from the investigator's earlier statement by diverting him from it.
"It seems we have some difficult decisions ahead," he said and took control of the cart. "I grow so weary of being right."
Scarlett knew better than to ask for more information. Simmons's little slip of the tongue might be enough to condemn her, but she couldn't stop thinking about it. How could there have been another insurgency before and yet no one knew about it? Stories were often passed down from generation to generation. There was little the government could do to prevent oral history—or was there?
What if the scientists could erase memory? That might explain why there was no collective memory of what had happened prior to a hundred or so years ago. Then again, Scarlett had never dared ask about the history of the dome, especially since questioning the official history was grounds for a feeding.
The past is gone. The future remains.
For Scarlett, the latter seemed dubious.
Her investigation had unwittingly revealed a possible insurgency that wanted to martyr her, and now Simmons had revealed information just as deadly. The worst part was she had no control over any of it.
When they reached the steel door guarding the rest of the tunnel, Simmons stopped the cart and pressed a thumb to the red eye. With a buzz and a click, the door slid up into the ceiling and he drove beneath it. Scarlett reckoned the steel was at least twelve inches thick. No way anyone from mechworks busted open this door—not without serious help.
She wondered if perhaps none of these events were tied together. From what the insurgents had said, it sounded as though they formed because of Max's execution and wanted to start a full-blown revolution. Was Daryl Smith one of the men who'd captured her, or was his argument with the scientist something else entirely?
Scarlett felt like she'd scrambled three different jigsaw puzzles and was trying to piece them into one picture. The only thing she saw clearly was her own mortal peril.
It might be time to abandon this investigation and figure out a way to stay alive.
"You look rather troubled, Deputy Flynn." Simmons wore his amused smile. "Might I be of service?"
Scarlett decided to be blunt. "I need to know if what you told me earlier about another insurgency is grounds for my execution."
He chuckled. "I haven't decided yet. You're clever and stubborn, but you know when to keep your mouth shut."
His backhanded compliment rocked her back in the seat. "I also know better than to investigate anything that ends with me feeding. Something doesn't sit right with this murder and insurgency, but I can't put my finger on it."
Simmons took a sloping ramp up into a wide garage where electric carts, bikes, and unicycles were parked. A security marshal patrolling the garage saluted Simmons as the cart passed him. The investigator didn't even acknowledge the man.
A motor hummed and chains clinked as a metal door slid shut to their right. Scarlett caught sight of several vehicles with large blaster barrels mounted on the top. She quickly looked down at her hands, and pretended not to have noticed. It was obvious, even at a glance, that the insurgents didn't stand a chance against the weapons Science Division possessed.
"You were supposed to see them," Simmons said as he parked the cart.
Scarlett tried to play dumb. "See what?"
"Our armored vehicles, of course." A greasy smiled slid across his face. "It would be helpful if the insurgents understood the odds."
"I'm willing to help spread those rumors if they won't kill me," she replied tartly. "Do me a favor, Investigator, and tell me what you want. Subtlety isn't your strong point."
Simmons chuckled. "I find little use in subtlety when direct force works so much better." He stepped inside a room with dozens of blue toughsuits hanging on rods and removed his. "Please do the same, Deputy."
Scarlett unzipped the orange toughsuit and stripped down to her deputy uniform, then hung the suit next to Simmons's.
Once done, she followed the man into a lift. He pressed his thumb to the glowing red eye at the top.
The lift shot upward. Scarlett felt her mouth drop open as the world spread out beneath her while the crystalline dome above grew closer and closer. "Where are we?"
"In the elevator to Overlook." Simmons watched for a reaction, but Scarlett swallowed her fear and flattened her emotions.
"You're just giving me the grand tour today, Investigator." She folded her arms across her chest. "I'd like to know why." It seemed he planned to use her against the insurgency by displaying the insurmountable odds the rebels would face. What he didn't seem to account for was how the very same insurgents didn't much like her and wanted her dead.
"You're in a position of some small influence, Deputy." Simmons stared out at the green squares of farmland with the dim gray heart of concrete in the distance. "I suspect some people will listen to your warnings. Those who don't will be found quickly enough."
"You know that big fish with the sharp teeth on display in that huge water tank in front of the zoo?" Scarlett said.
Simmons raised an eyebrow and turned to her. "You mean the shark?"
She nodded. "When I was a kid, I watched a scientist toss a goat inside that tank." Scarlett shivered. "You couldn't see the shark for all the blood and guts." She glared at the investigator. "I feel like that goat right about now."
"As you should." Simmons grinned. "Social experiments are fascinating."
Scarlett wished she could throw him through the glass elevator and watch him scream all the way down to the ground. Instead, she shook her head and enjoyed the view as the elevator slowed. From this height, the trees bordering the dome wall looked like broccoli stalks and the farm and ranchlands a quilt of greens and browns. Luxville sat like a diamond in a ring of coal to the south of gray Central, its black wall protecting huge houses and the vivid hues of private gardens.
It was little wonder the administration thought so little of the civvies. From here, the few people she saw below were little more than ants. Overlook may have been designed for some scientific purpose, but Scarlett suspected it primarily fed the egos of those who worked on high.
The door behind them slid open and Simmons motioned her out. The room beyond had no walls, offering an unobstructed view of the dome and all its lands. Scarlett stared at the panorama stretching below her, then turned and saw a bridge connecting the building to the top of the wall.
"This is the top!" Scarlett pressed a hand over her mouth to keep more questions from spilling out. She stared at the other side of the long, narrow bridge where the dome kissed the wall, but the transparent material blurred into obscurity whatever lay on the other side.
The elevator returned a moment later and Terrence Alderman and Gavin Kearns stepped out. Alderman nodded at Simmons then gave Scarlett an appraising look while Kearns studied epad.
"I hear there's been trouble in the brassworks," Alderman said.
Simmons nodded. "Deputy Flynn can explain."
Scarlett swallowed a lump of apprehension as the weight of their stares fell on her. Simply asking about Overlook was an invitation for an execution, but Simmons had brought her to the top. It didn't take much imagination to see why he'd brought her here and shown her the vehicles in the underground garage. By law, he could have her executed even if he'd made her commit the crime, since the administration wasn't beholden to the rules of entrapment.
She felt her toes dipping into the shark tank and knew all Simmons had to do was cut the line. That left her little to do but tell Alderman and Simmons precisely what had happened and convince them she was too valuable to kill.
"Well, Governor, I was inves
tigating the death of a scientist in the brassworks."
Alderman nodded. "We identified the deceased as Joseph Britain."
Scarlett wondered what role Britain served in Science Division, but knew better than to ask. "Mr. Britain was murdered, if the coroner hasn't already told you."
"Dr. Everett gave me the details," the governor said.
When it became apparent he wasn't going to elaborate, Scarlett continued with her story. "I worked off the assumption that he came from the science campus of his own free will. After looking at the thick metal door in the tunnel, I doubt anyone from mechworks could break through it if they wanted."
"We're not interested in your murder theories," Simmons said. "Tell us about your most recent adventure."
I should have known. Once again, Scarlett was reminded that this had nothing to do with solving the case, but working backward from the result Simmons and the others thought was most advantageous to them. In this case, it seemed they might be partly right.
"In my search for clues about the death, I was assaulted by four people in orange toughsuits." She repressed a shudder as the cold fingers of death trailed up her spine. "They said Max Planck's execution started this rebellion and they planned to kill me and make it look like your people did it."
Alderman put a hand to his chin and grunted. "Well, it's worked in the past."
Scarlett felt her eyes flash wide too late to control her surprise. Simmons smirked at her.
I already got one foot out the airlock or in the grinder and the governor is pushing me forward with both hands. It only took her a moment to decide which death she'd choose. A walk on the planet sounded a lot better than being ground up and spread on the soil.
Alderman glanced at Kearns. "Is it still early enough to nip this in the bud? Starting over is a last resort."
The scientist looked up from his epad. "If we factor everything correctly, yes."
"You always say that," Simmons said. "But this time, I agree."
