Peacekeeper

by REEVE, LAURA E.

  CHAPTER 21

  Unresolved guilt can fester, immobilize, and cripple. It can hinder health, productive action, and positive relationships. If directed inward, it becomes shame, which destroys self-esteem and individuality, often leading to substance abuse or emotional numbing. The least likely outcome, unless another psychiatric disorder is involved, is transference or sociopathic behavior. . . .

  —Guilt, the Real Thing, Brett Inez, 2102.292.19.04 UT, indexed by Democritus 21 under Hypothetical Effect Imperative

  Ariane smoothly pushed to a standing position and saw Cipher’s hand jerk into the deep pocket of her white tunic. She was carrying a weapon.

  Conclusions crashed about in Ariane’s mind, rearranging details and reversing assumptions with amazing speed. The mind can swiftly rearrange the chain of causality, once a premise is changed. Ariane almost staggered from the weight of her conclusions. She’d read and reread the reports on the plane accident, but that had only reinforced her belief that Cipher was dead.

  But Cipher was very much alive. Owen had told Ariane to find a traitor, someone who knew the classified release process and the operational chain of command as it existed in the past. Someone clever, like Cipher, who’d been known to scavenge parts and cobble them together into inventive equipment. She’d even refurbished crypto equipment—before the inaccurate report of her untimely death, that is. Her genius with software systems and encryption explained the subtle equipment sabotage behind the murders. Ariane still balked at the biggest question: Why? Until she could answer that, she wasn’t sure she could accept her own wild conclusions.

  "What’s the matter, Ari?” Cipher’s eyes darted from Ariane to Brandon, keeping her hand in her pocket. She smirked. "Did you expect a lovers’ reunion?”

  Her question wrenched Ariane back in time, filling her with the same stomach-clenching guilt. How long would she have to pay for that? Getting physically involved with Brandon probably qualified as the worst decision of her lifetime. It had almost torn their crew apart. It’s been over for fifteen years, so let’s move on.

  Ariane shook her head, trying to ground herself in the present. There were more important things to consider now, such as murder.

  "You can only lose your past by accepting it. Introspection, meditation, and acceptance,” murmured Brandon.

  Cipher rolled her eyes. "Spare us your pearls of wisdom.”

  Ariane watched Brandon smile wryly. What the hell was wrong with him? Didn’t he know that people had been dying? Didn’t he care?

  "What have you been doing lately, Cara?” she asked softly.

  "There’s no Cara Paulos anymore.” Cipher’s voice was rough. "There’s no Karen Kambas anymore either—not after she revealed her true past to her husband. He couldn’t take it, so she lost her husband and children, and then her life. Now there’s only a faceless employee living off the fringe largess of Leukos Industries.”

  Cipher had children? Ariane’s eyebrows rose. "I’m sorry, Cipher.”

  "Don’t be. He saw me for what I was.” Her broad face twisted.

  "Maybe you shouldn’t have told him who you were.” Ariane tried to be delicate. How stupid; what was Cipher thinking?

  "You can’t share your life, you can’t wholly love each other, until you’re honest with each other.” Anguish crossed Cipher’s face.

  "You didn’t need to expose yourself to have a meaningful relationship.”

  "Says the woman who’s never had anything but one-night stands,” Cipher jeered. "You won’t share someone’s bed regularly, let alone start a relationship. Too much honesty for you, Ari?”

  Ariane paused. Cipher’s words stung because they were true, but she was more interested in their other insinuation—exactly how long had Cipher been tracking her? She might have been doing this for Brandon , said her positive side, the side that didn’t want to face the truth.

  "I admit to being cautious with my new identity,” Ariane said. "As for your husband—”

  "He was right to take our children and get restraining orders against me. That way they couldn’t be tainted.”

  "As we are?” Ariane asked, taking a step sideways. She stopped when Cipher jiggled her hand meaningfully.

  Meanwhile, Brandon slowly and carefully extended his legs. He continued his exercise by gracefully stretching his back and hamstrings. Ariane saw his loose trousers tighten on more clumps of monitors built into his thighs. He might be systemically sick, but at least his muscles were flexible.

  The landscape lights brightened and shone about the edge of the patio. Behind her was the low wall indicating the edge of the escarpment. She faced Cipher, Brandon, and the long wing off a central core pavilion. No lights shone from the rooms.

  No one to hear cries for help. No ComNet nodes to detect an emergency call. I’d be an idiot to let Cipher know what I suspect. And yet she ached to know why. Why did you kill all those people, Cipher? Why did you try to kill me?

  "All of us are tainted,” Cipher said. "That’s why you’re here, Ari. But you know that, don’t you?”

  The LEF had physical evidence tying Mr. Customs, as Matt still privately called Hektor Valdes, to Nestor’s apartment. ComNet placed Mr. Customs at Nestor’s apartment at the right time. The problem was that the LEF couldn’t find a murder weapon and they couldn’t establish a motive. Mr. Customs maintained his innocence and he had talented legal representation.

  Mr. Customs had a mild-mannered exterior that could probably fool a judge or jury into thinking he couldn’t commit murder, but he had a stout, strong body—Nestor would have been no match for him. Mr. Customs also hid a violent temper; he’d been previously charged with assault, but never convicted. The LEF staff psychiatrist decided that Mr. Customs was highly motivated by money, as are many, but Mr. Customs and his financial records didn’t fit the muscle-for-money profile. He had received, however, a recent payment that was suspicious because of the size and timing. The LEF had run into a dead end trying to trace it. That was all of their evidence regarding payment, unfortunately.

  Matt opened the "Customs” package. Nestor had established a pattern of message-payment pairings that went back approximately seven years. Payments were made to everyone, at some point, inside the Athens Point Customs department. Matt’s Mr. Customs, currently charged with Nestor’s murder, appeared at the end because he’d been recently assigned to Athens Point.

  Nestor hadn’t completed the analysis. He’d back-traced the messages sent by the inspectors, and while determining they all had the same destination, he hadn’t identified the location or recipient. What were the messages, and why the payments? The disappointment was that Nestor had only started to correlate the message-payment pairings to external events; his last hypothesis had been that they were related to the arrival and departure of ships. Sure, the last couple of years had the Aether’s Touch listed, but other ships were identified also. They had vaguely familiar names to Matt, but he didn’t immediately see the relationship.

  Back-tracing messages and identifying termination points, however, was Matt’s specialty. He had a wonderful little algorithm sitting on Aether’s Touch—Matt felt the car slowing. Knowing that he was asking a lot from the burgeoning AI, he sent a command to Nestor’s Muse 3 to find the common connection between the docking of the ships and to use his algorithm to back-trace the messages. If the AI was capable of performing those commands and correlating the data, he’d have to wait for results.

  "Time for dinner,” Joyce said. The car parked. Edones seemed intent upon torturing Matt. They entered a gourmet restaurant that specialized in "organic Hellas Prime foods.” Their menu proudly trumpeted that all their vegetables were grown planet-side (in dirt) and that their meats, fish, and poultry were raised under "free range” conditions (meaning the animals ate whatever they could scrounge). Imagine that being a selling point! Matt nearly gagged at the thought of the foreign microbes that crawled over all the food, not to mention the inherent allergens, albeit in "immeasurable amounts guaranteed
to have only subclinical effects.”

  After long consultation with the wait staff, while Joyce and Edones rolled their eyes, Matt was able to order a side dish of hydroponic noodles. However, that was the only concession this restaurant made for those with "delicate sensibilities.” For his entree they suggested the bluefish, which they compared to space carp grown on generational ships. The dark blue flesh lightened to a faint bluish white when heated, but Matt had to send it back for additional cooking. It was still stronger tasting than the fish to which he was accustomed.

  Matt’s ear bug chimed during dinner, announcing results from Nestor’s Muse 3.

  "Excuse me for a moment,” he said to Edones and Joyce. Relieved that he could stop picking at his food, if one could call it that, he pulled out his slate to take the analysis privately.

  He kept his eyes on the data that scrolled over his slate, avoiding the sight of Edones and Joyce eating dripping red-brown slabs of meat and violent green, orange, and red plants. They said they’d ordered different dishes, but their plates had looked equally nauseating to Matt.

  Soon the results from Nestor’s Muse 3 grabbed his attention. This AI was a fortuitous gem gleaming through the soot and glut of information. The initiating event, according to Muse 3, for every message-payment pair, was the docking or disconnecting of a ship. The connection between all the ships was Ari. The inspectors were paid to report the comings and goings of ships that listed Ariane Kedros as crew. Muse 3 then thanked Matt (huh?) for the useful algorithm that had helped narrow down the destination of the inspectors’ reports and how they were paid. Then Muse 3 had taken upon itself to make one more connection. Gaia, he loved this AI!

  Matt slammed the slate down on the table to get the attention of Edones and Joyce.

  "Leukos Industries can be connected to both the Karthage explosion and Nestor’s murder,” Matt said when the others looked at him.

  Joyce looked skeptical and went back to eating his dinner, cutting another piece of meat enthusiastically. Edones raised his eyebrows and waited.

  "Leukos Industries holds maintenance contracts for Karthage. Under that contract, they lease telebots that perform external maintenance on the habitat. Captain Rayiz said the explosives were planted externally—”

  "More than thirty contractors have telebots floating about Karthage. You need something more incriminating than maintenance work.” Edones speared a chunk of orange flesh, twirled it, and popped it into his mouth. He chewed slowly and obviously, savoring the taste and texture.

  "I agree that the Karthage link is tenuous.” Matt looked away from the food. "But the most incriminating point is the connection between Leukos Industries and Nestor’s murderer.”

  "Athens Point LEF already has that fellow in custody—what’s his name, Joyce?”

  "Hektor Valdes, sir. They’ve got physical evidence against him and his alibi was busted by ComNet, but he hasn’t fingered anyone and they can’t trace the money.”

  "I can trace the money,” Matt said. "My search agent just sent me results.”

  Edones’s eyes narrowed, but he waited. Joyce began eating faster.

  "Mr. Valdes was paid, as were all the other inspectors, to report on Ari. I can prove this later with a statistical report. All these payments were small, but they’re much easier to trace than the large one that they suspect was payment for Nestor’s death. The small payments came through Aegis Airlines, a large corporation where it’s hard to pin down where every drachma goes. These payments used a previously unknown and, according to the Aegis accountants, unassigned account number. However, these transactions trace back to a line item in Syracuse Financial, another huge corporation, that proxies for Leukos Industries on the board of Aegis Airlines. The line item breaks up and one link leads to a private Leukos account used for maintenance and payroll on the Demeter Santuary.”

  "That’s a pretty fantastic chain, where every link has to be proven,” Edones said.

  "Hell, that’s a pretty fantastic agent,” said Joyce, after he swallowed. "How much privacy law did you break?”

  Matt ignored Joyce and pushed his slate in front of Edones. "Read it for yourself.”

  "You haven’t traced the important payment, the one that might have paid for Mr. Expedition’s murder,” Edones said after a few moments of review. Then, as Matt’s fists were starting to ball up in frustration, Edones added, "But I’ll agree this warrants investigation.”

  As before, when Edones made his decision, he moved quickly. He paid the bill displayed on the tabletop and stood up. "Sergeant, start looking over the other cases for connections to Leukos Industries while I get us an aircraft. In particular, I want the crypto equipment from operative one-three-three put through an entire overhaul and inspection.”

  What other cases? What crypto equipment?

  Edones made a call through his implant as he wound his way between tables of diners. Matt heard something like "stealth hovercraft” and "top of the Pagkrati building” and "AFCAW authority,” followed by some numbers. Matt looked to Joyce for answers, but the burly sergeant stuffed as much dinner as possible into two more bites, pushed his chair back, stood, and whipped out a slate.

  "Better start moving, Mr. Journey,” Joyce said. "We’re still on the hook for your safety and I don’t see the colonel taking the time to get you an escort.”

  Matt blanched. The second thing worse to getting into a rock, by his definition, was getting into a planet-side aircraft. At least, this time, Edones wouldn’t be piloting.

  After Cipher’s comment about taint, Ariane watched Brandon for reaction, but saw none. He carefully arranged his legs back into a lotus position and closed his eyes.

  "I’ve tried to teach you how to empty yourself, how to be at peace.” His words were clearly for Cipher, although he didn’t turn toward her.

  Cipher shrugged. "So I can get to the point where I don’t care about anything? That’s not my definition of peace.”

  Brandon only inclined his head a fraction, keeping his eyes closed. It seemed a well-worn discussion between them.

  "How have you been watching me, Cipher?” Ariane asked.

  "Leukos Industries has many resources.” She smirked.

  "I asked her to look for you, Ari. Particularly after—after the military said we were in even more danger,” Brandon said quickly. If he’d talked to Owen, then he wasn’t going to admit it. And I’m still in the dark regarding Brandon’s involvement. There was nothing to do but force the issue. Ariane squared her shoulders and stepped forward.

  "Don’t move, Ari.” Cipher’s right hand came out of the pocket and she aimed what looked like a miniature stunner at Ariane. The ministunner probably couldn’t be lethal, but at this point, there wasn’t any reason to pretend. Ariane’s shoulders sagged.

  "Why’d you try to kill me, Cipher?” She watched both their faces for reactions.

  "I didn’t.” Cipher smiled thinly. "It wasn’t your time. Only the command post controller had to die. I expected you’d figure out where Brandon was and come here eventually, but I didn’t know it’d be by such a circuitous route.”

  Brandon’s face had crumpled in disappointment as soon as the ministunner appeared. Hadn’t he had any suspicions? There was shock in his eyes, but very little surprise at Cipher’s words. Deep down in his heart, Brandon might have suspected, but couldn’t face the truth.

  "I still don’t know why.” Ariane’s voice broke. "All those innocent people? Why, Cipher?”

  "They weren’t innocent! They had to pay for billions of lives lost.” Cipher’s voice became shrill.

  "What about the passengers in the airliner crash you arranged? They were innocent,” Ariane said.

  Brandon stared dully at the ground in front of his low platform. Why didn’t he say something?

  "That wasn’t me.” Cipher’s eyes darted to look down at Brandon. Maybe she still cared about his opinion, maybe she still valued his respect. "That crash was a piece of good fortune that jumpstarted my plan. With a l
ittle altering of the manifest before it went into crystal, I was able to get Edones off my back.”

  "And our prior commanders?” Ariane opened her hands outward in question. This gesture also allowed her to edge closer to Cipher, who was standing behind and to the side of Brandon. There was no flicker in her eyes, no tremble of the hand holding the stunner: Either Cipher hadn’t noticed her movement or she wasn’t intending to use the stunner.

  "They deserved to die—for the 4,000,650,271 souls in Ura-Guinn.” Cipher’s voice started climbing again and the hand holding the stunner trembled. Her eyes looked wild.

  Even Nathaniel Wolf Kim had generalized the casualties. Four billion people gone. Cipher had learned the numbers, obsessed over them. Was that a sign she was going deeper into the bottomless gulf of Kaos?

  Brandon raised his head and his gaze met Ariane’s. There was no hope in his eyes, only a dull sort of acceptance. Cipher will kill us all, and Brandon won’t make a move to stop her.

  "Why?” Ariane asked, looking at Brandon. "They were only following their orders. Just like we did our duty—what we’d been trained to do.”

  "Good old Ari, falling back on military indoctrination. Why’d you stay in? Do you like being Edones’s gofer and his pet prodigy?” Cipher laughed, her voice breaking as if she were on the edge of tears. "Don’t look to Brandon for help, Ari. He’s retired from life, letting others like me run his businesses and handle his money. That’s his answer, but not mine. Don’t we deserve to die for what we did?”

  "But I’m asking: Why now? When there’s hope.” Ariane continued to hold Brandon’s gaze. "The treaties signed under Pax Minoica are working. We’re drawing down and destroying the TD weapons.”