Extremes: A Retrieval Artist Novel

by Rusch, Kristine Kathryn

  Flint followed it to find a vid of Andrea Gumiela giving a prolonged news conference about the death. He frowned when he saw her standing at the podium, her red hair easing out of its bun. She looked frazzled, even though he wasn’t certain she had been.

  Gumiela had given him a lot of trouble when she had been his boss: her orders had been contradictory, and her ambition had always been at the expense of others. But she had known how to manipulate the media. That had been one of her greatest strengths.

  Gumiela made a careful statement. She said that a woman named Jane Zweig, head of Extreme Enterprises, had been killed at the Moon Marathon, and implied that Zweig’s death was her own fault.

  But Flint had listened to Gumiela for years. He knew she would never have given a press conference if the situation weren’t a difficult one. She would never have used the word killed if she weren’t worried that the media would catch her later for saying simply that Jane Zweig had died.

  Fortunately for Gumiela, the press wasn’t on its toes. Flint suspected the best reporters were elsewhere, perhaps even at the marathon site, covering the event Outside.

  Because if the reporters had known what they were doing, they would have asked Gumiela why she was giving a press conference when the police department hadn’t done so for past marathon deaths. They would also have asked her about the cause of death—killed wasn’t quite murdered, but it was still a loaded word. And finally, they would have asked why the head of the First Detective Unit, the place that usually handled homicides, had taken over what should have been a routine investigation.

  Gumiela had gotten off easily, and at the end of the vid, it was obvious she knew it. She walked away from the podium, her shoulders actually sagging with relief.

  Flint wondered why Rabinowitz had been in touch with Zweig, what a place like Extreme Enterprises had to do with Frieda Tey. Had Rabinowitz thought that Tey used the organization to leave the Moon?

  Flint left the screen up, but set it on clear so that the edges and the material weren’t visible. He could see the door through it. Nothing registered on the screen at the moment, but it would launch into life if the police held another press conference or if the words Moon Marathon or Jane Zweig were mentioned in any netcast.

  He grabbed the handheld and went through Rabinowitz’s files. There was no easy way to search them—Rabinowitz hadn’t indexed them—and there were a lot of odd links.

  Rabinowitz had found some kind of connection between Frieda Tey and Jane Zweig, otherwise he wouldn’t have tried to interview Zweig. Due to the sketchy nature of his notes, of course, he didn’t make that connection clear.

  Usually a Retrieval Artist didn’t interview anyone about the Disappeared. Instead, the Retrieval Artist went to various candidates who might be the Disappeared.

  Zweig was an unusual choice. She seemed to be in the public eye. Most Disappeared tried to avoid that. But most Disappeared also didn’t change their fundamental natures, and Frieda Tey had had a phenomenal ego. She might have thought she could be visible on the Moon, and no one here would have been bright enough to catch her.

  Which had been the case, until Rabinowitz showed up.

  If that analysis was correct, it explained why he got the virus. Zweig/Tey infected him with the slow-acting version, probably something she had planned long ago in case she got caught, and sent him on his way, so that the disease couldn’t be traced to her.

  But that didn’t explain Zweig/Tey’s death. Had she infected herself too? Had the death been accidental? Was that why Gumiela used the word killed?

  Was she trying to cover up the possibility that a lethal virus was loose in the dome? The only reason she would do that was if the city thought they could contain it.

  Flint frowned at the handheld, looking for clues. First, he went to the research articles on the virus itself. They had been written by a variety of people. Some of the articles talked about the Tey virus’s scientific implications, and others discussed the social aspects of the experiment that had gone awry.

  Rabinowitz had grouped the articles together into a single file, and had made a note at the top: The same voice.

  Flint squinted at it, frowned, and then realized what Rabinowitz was saying.

  He thought the articles had been written by the same person. Tey herself trying to resurrect her reputation? Possible, Flint supposed.

  He scanned down the file, his eye catching words and phrases:

  We have become complacent. Just because our medical technology can handle the diseases we are familiar with, we believe it able to handle the ones we have not yet encountered….

  …a reading of human history shows that whenever an isolated group encounters a new virus, the virus decimates the population. Only a select few have immune systems strong enough to survive the onslaught of a brand-new disease. What the Tey virus shows is that we are not immune from the same problems that killed our forefathers in much more hospitable environments….

  Flint stopped reading. He scrolled to the bottom of the articles, saw one more note from Rabinowitz—a reminder to check with the various journals and specialized publications to see how they screened their authors—and then Flint closed the file.

  He went to the datebook and saw several appointments, all with women throughout the city.

  It took Flint a while to find Jane Zweig on the list. Her appointment was marked ExEnt. He had to click on the appointment file itself to find Zweig’s name.

  His notes, sketchy and incomplete, showed that he had spoken with a lower-level employee, and then with Zweig, who had been dismissive once she found out who he was and what kind of work he had done.

  Rabinowitz had managed to get some kind of sample, though whether it was fingerprint, retinal, or DNA, Flint couldn’t tell. Since Rabinowitz didn’t say, Flint figured it was DNA which would have been illegal without Zweig’s permission.

  And it didn’t sound, even from these sketchy notes, like Zweig would have given permission.

  A DNA sample could be something simple—a strand of hair, a skin cell, a bit of blood or saliva. Blood or saliva would also have passed along a virus.

  Flint would have to contact the police. He wondered if Gumiela would talk to him. She hadn’t said a word about his resignation, nor had she acknowledged him the one time they had crossed paths on the street.

  She had a low opinion of Retrieval Artists, believing them to be as guilty as the Disappeared they often helped to conceal. If she ever found out what Flint did shortly after he resigned his detective post—how many Disappeareds he had saved—she would consider him a traitor to all she believed in.

  If she believed in anything.

  He sighed. He couldn’t contact Gumiela. She would stall him at best, dismiss him at worst.

  He could go through the information office like everyone else, but that wouldn’t help him. He was better off going to old friends.

  Not many of them would be in the position to know what happened to Zweig, and few of them would try to find out.

  But his old partner, Noelle DeRicci, would. They had stayed in touch as best as they could, and more than once she had mentioned how she envied his convictions.

  She shared them, but felt that she was too old or too burned-out to try something new. She would never become a Retrieval Artist, although once he had mentioned the idea to her. She had laughed. I’m not the courageous type, Miles, she had said.

  It had been a lie: she had more courage than he ever would. But she seemed to believe that she had no courage at all. And he wasn’t going to argue with someone else’s delusions.

  He contacted DeRicci on her private link. She didn’t answer. Not answering was unusual for most people, but not DeRicci. She thought links were intrusive. If she was driving or interviewing a suspect or sleeping, she would leave her links off.

  Most people couldn’t stand to be disconnected for more than a minute. Sometimes Flint thought DeRicci couldn’t stand the connection for that long.

  He
left a message for her, asking her to contact him as soon as her link came back on-line.

  Then he contacted the Detective Division. He got Craig Booth, one of the desk sergeants. Flint put the link on holographic visual. Booth’s face looked ghostly floating above Flint’s desk next to the silent keyboard.

  “If it ain’t Miles Flint,” Booth said.

  Flint smiled. “Craig. How’ve you been?”

  “Not so good as you, you dog.” Booth’s eyes twinkled. “I hear you got more money than God.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Who needs to tell anybody anything around here? We find it out sideways, you know that.”

  In other words, he wasn’t going to give up his source. Flint had a hunch he knew. DeRicci had probably let it slip, not realizing that Flint didn’t like to talk about his finances. He’d only told a few people that his financial situation had improved, mostly so that they wouldn’t worry about him now that he had left the force.

  “Listen,” Flint said, “I’ve been trying to reach Noelle. Is she on a case?”

  “Is she on a case? Oh, man, is she on a case.” Booth shook his head. The movement made Flint slightly seasick. Next time, he’d set up the holo parameters to include a person’s neck. “She’s got the marathon nightmare. I swear they’re going to find a way to get that girl outta here one way or another.”

  Flint frowned. Marathon cases usually went to junior staff, and they certainly wouldn’t assign DeRicci to something politically delicate. “Did they give this to her before they knew how the runner died?”

  “You ain’t forgotten the way it works around here,” Booth said. “Noelle rehabs herself, then says something that pisses off someone, and back she goes on the crap list, you know?”

  Flint did know. He’d been on part of that ride with her in his last few months as a detective.

  “She figured out it was murder, then.”

  “Well, who else?” Booth answered. Then his grin faded. “You ain’t got a media job now, do you?”

  If Flint had a media job, then Booth had just violated one of the major rules of his own employment. He’d given out information without approval from upstairs.

  “No,” Flint said. “I’m a Retrieval Artist now. I’m working on a case that might be related to the marathon case. I need to talk to Noelle.”

  “You still got a connection to her personal links?”

  “Yes,” Flint said, “and as usual, they’re off.”

  Booth grinned. “That’s our Noelle. I’ll let her know you need to talk.”

  “Listen, Craig,” Flint said, “maybe you can answer something for me. Did this Zweig woman die of a virus?”

  “While she was running? What’re you on, Miles?”

  Flint deliberately misunderstood the question. “I’m tracking down some information for a friend. One of his colleagues died of a suspicious virus, and I guess the guy knew Zweig. They’d been together just before she died. So I’m checking up on it.”

  “A virus?” Booth frowned. “I think we’da heard. The body’s back here, but I know for a fact no one in the Medical Examiner’s office’ll talk to an outsider, even if he use to be an insider, you know.”

  “I know,” Flint said.

  “So I’ll see if I can flag DeRicci for you. It might be a few days. I think this case is gonna take every moment she’s got.”

  “If I’m right about this virus,” Flint said, “we don’t have a few days. Can you send her a message down the emergency links?”

  “That’s only for in-house.”

  “I know.” Flint made sure his voice was calm, although he was losing patience. Of course he knew that the emergency links were only for police messages. He used to have those links himself. “I’m not kidding on this one, Craig. If this virus is actually in Armstrong, we’re in serious trouble.”

  “Thought you said some guy died of it.”

  “And right now, it’s being seen as an isolated case. It’s pretty easy to overlook in its early stages.” He had no idea if that was true, but it sounded good. “If we overlook it too much, then it’ll get away from us.”

  Booth took in a breath so sharp that the air whistled through his teeth. “You’re not saying what I think you’re saying?”

  Flint nodded. The police had been trained on the possibilities of epidemics in the dome every year. An epidemic was one of the city’s greatest fears.

  “Crap. I’ll see what I can dig up for you. They ain’t gonna tell me much, but I know they talk to Noelle. She know how to get to you?”

  “My links are the same,” Flint said, just in case Booth managed to find out the information on his own.

  “You got it,” Booth said. “You’ll hear from someone in no more than an hour or two. That work?”

  “It’ll have to,” Flint said.

  Booth nodded, then his head vanished from Flint’s desk. Flint felt disconcerted, and it wasn’t just from the loss of Booth’s ghostly presence.

  DeRicci was still getting assigned to the worst cases, and doing one of the best jobs on the force.

  Flint hoped Wagner was wrong about the virus. Because if he wasn’t, DeRicci had probably been exposed to it.

  DeRicci and everyone in the medical examiner’s office. People Flint knew. People he cared about.

  People who might not know what they were up against, until it was too late.

  TWENTY-SIX

  EVE MAYOUX might have been the secret to DeRicci’s entire investigation, as Broduer had said, but at the moment, the poor dead woman had thrown the entire investigation off-track. All the interviews that DeRicci and her colleagues had done would have to be redone. And all of the work that the forensics team had put together—including the work that van der Ketting had done at DeRicci’s direction—would have to be reexamined with the new victim in mind.

  After DeRicci ended her conversation with Broduer, she sat alone for several minutes in the bungalow, sipping her now-cold coffee. Her hands were shaking, but she doubted that was from the caffeine.

  It was from stress.

  She wiped a hand over her face. The room felt close. She had never completely cooled down after she had taken off her environmental suit, and her skin felt too warm now.

  Maybe someday she would get enough sleep and she would know what it felt like to be healthy. She probably hadn’t been in years.

  DeRicci grabbed another pastry and stood up. Then she sent a message across the links, instructing everyone who was conducting an interview to take a break. She sent the message only, and then she shut down her system. Better to do that than to get the questioning responses, wondering what in the hell she was actually doing.

  She wasn’t sure what to do. All she knew was that she’d take flak if she didn’t shut down the interviews immediately. But she couldn’t let the new information out either, not until she knew what it meant.

  She knew part of what it meant. It meant that she was dealing with first-degree murder, with a motive that somehow involved the marathon. It meant that the killer had access to the course, and an association with Jane Zweig.

  DeRicci hadn’t dealt with something like this in years—at least not something human-caused. The alien-caused murders she’d worked on with Miles Flint had been gruesome, but DeRicci had been able to dismiss the horrible nature of the crimes because they had not been committed by people.

  For some reason, she felt that people should have the same values as she did, and the main value would be that of preserving human life.

  After a moment, she stood and went to the door. She pulled it open, to find several detectives inside, talking with the unis.

  “Noelle,” one of the detectives said. “You can’t shut down the investigation. We haven’t even gotten close to finishing the interviews. You know what Gumiela said—”

  “I know,” DeRicci said. “But some new information has come to light that we need to examine before we can go on.”

  She turned to the uni.

 
; “Get van der Ketting for me,” she said.

  “Why don’t you send for him? I’m pretty sure he’s linked up.” The uni looked tired and overwhelmed, not at all like the man who had been working with her all day.

  “I’m sure he is,” DeRicci said. “So you send for him. Tell him to bring all the data he’s collected. He and I need to review it.”

  “What about the rest of us?” the other detective asked. “Shouldn’t we be in on this?”

  DeRicci shook her head. If she was going to get in trouble anyway, she might as well get in trouble for doing things her own way. “We’ll have a meeting in an hour or so, maybe less if van der Ketting and I finish this quickly. Then you’ll be briefed on everything.”

  Without waiting for an answer, she pulled the door closed and leaned on it.

  Eve Mayoux, a woman who led a quiet little life, so quiet that no one had noticed she was missing until she had failed to show up for work, had managed to disrupt not only Armstrong’s biggest tourist event, but a good percentage of Armstrong’s police force.

  DeRicci walked back to the table. The last pastry she had taken sat, half-eaten, on the table’s plastic surface. Her coffee cup had finger stains along the side, as well as drip stains running from the side of the lip over the handle. She was such a slob, especially when she had other things to think about.

  And Broduer’s report gave her too much to think about.

  Somehow someone had killed Mayoux by taking away her oxygen. If they killed her Outside, they had switched her environmental suits without depressurizing the body. How had that happened?

  DeRicci frowned. She had no idea if that had happened or not.

  She linked back up with Broduer, going through the public links once again. When the assistant saw her this time, he didn’t even greet her. He just fetched Broduer.

  Broduer came back, holding his hands up as if they were contaminated. They were covered with blood and bits of tissue, which dripped down the gloves that covered his arms all the way to the elbow.