by Jaxon Reed
“Oh. I think I see where you’re going with this. Our poisoner had something on his coat that is location specific. It stuck to Mrs. Humphries’s hand when she touched him.”
“Precisely.”
He pointed to the screen showing the spore, and it shrunk down as a map of Octavia grew in size around it.
The borough of Eastside flashed red at the same time as the image of the spore. The map zoomed in closer to that part of Octavia.
“We can narrow this one down to a few square kilometers. Our killer was in Eastside, probably earlier in the day before the dinner.”
“Tell me the hair is from him.”
“We think it is. As you are probably aware, everywhere we go our bodies leave something behind. Our scan of the crime scene picked up this strand by the water pitcher stand in the corner. That happens to be a place mostly bots go to, not humans. And it’s not a bot’s, we checked. It also does not match anything in our DNA databases.”
“So it doesn’t help.”
“Not directly. But if you find him again, we can pin him to the scene with a hair sample.”
“Good. Tell me about the nanobots.”
“Well, here’s the thing about the nanobots. They were laced with thallium and designed to hasten its effects on the body once ingested. But that’s not the interesting thing.”
He paused dramatically, staring at her with a mysterious smile.
Wilcox said, “I’m listening.”
“The interesting thing is that they’re League in origin.”
He made another motion in the air, and the view of the nanobot changed, turning to one side.
Wilcox could make out a corporate logo. In small text, on the back of the tiny bot it read, “Thespar Industries.”
“Thespar,” she said, almost in a whisper.
“Yup. The largest military industrial company in the League. This belongs to them.”
-+-
A black sports car settled down in the public garage near Embassy Square, a tony section of Octavia Park. In fact, it was just a few blocks from the Ashton Conference Center.
Embassy Square was so named because of the consulate buildings in the area. It was a popular tourist destination, as well. The rich and famous might be spotted out for a stroll here, celebrities and politicians alike, from a wide variety of planets.
Stormy climbed out of her vehicle, making sure it was parked near the edge of the garage so she could get away quickly.
She wore a black dress hemmed down to her knees, black high heels, and a black scarf that covered her head and hid her hair.
In keeping with the dark theme, she wore black sunglasses perched above painted red lips.
She reached back in the car and pulled out a large purse, also black. Then she walked toward the elevator, turning toward the stairs to go down to the street on foot.
She mixed in with the pedestrian traffic and turned into Embassy Square, coming to a halt on the sidewalk with benches and a fountain nearby.
Up on a light pole, she spotted a police sensor and camera array.
Facing it, she removed her scarf, revealing strawberry blonde hair. She pulled off her sunglasses and smiled at a couple holding hands and walking toward her.
The young woman pointed at her and said, “Look! It’s Chancellor Cole!”
Indeed, the framer around Stormy’s neck made her face look exactly like the leader of the Planetary Republic.
Still smiling, Stormy pulled out a blaster from her purse and shot the young woman point blank.
Thoop!
Stormy yelled, “Die, Progressive scum!”
Thoop! Thoop! Thoop!
Screams erupted as people ducked for cover.
Stormy kept shooting, spraying bolts everywhere.
Thoop! Thoop! Thoop! Thoop! Thoopah! Thoop!
A young father fell down, chest ripped open in front of his little girl.
An elderly couple out for a stroll went down.
A mother jumped on top of her little boy, her sides spewing blood as bolts slammed into her.
Stormy continued shooting for three minutes until the blaster’s powerpack came close to depletion.
Before the gun ran completely out of charge, she calmly placed it in her purse and headed back toward the parking garage.
In the distance, sirens wailed. She had plenty of time, she thought.
She reached the street and turned toward the parking garage.
A police officer ran down the sidewalk, finger under his ear listening to a dispatcher.
“I see her! Blonde woman, looks like the Chancellor. You! Halt!”
Somehow he had closed the distance to 20 meters. He held his gun straight at her.
Stormy shifted into victim mode.
“Officer, there’s been a shooting! They got my security detail! Back there in the square!”
For a moment, a split second, he was distracted. His eyes flickered past her, to the square and its screams and the dead bodies on the ground.
It was enough.
She pulled out her blaster and shot him in the head.
16
“How did this happen?”
Chancellor Cole stood in the private residence portion of Harrington House with Admiral Severs, Fonteneaux and Wilcox.
On the holo, the news showed someone who looked just like her shooting up Embassy Square.
“Assistant Director Wilcox has an idea, Madame Chancellor,” Fonteneaux said.
The leader locked eyes with Wilcox, who could sense the pain and grief in her face. This was an attack on the entire Republic, not just innocent bystanders in the street.
“I served in several undercover assignments during the war, at Admiral Severs’ direction,” Wilcox said.
The Admiral nodded when Cole glanced at him and Gina continued.
“Thespar Industries was involved in some very high tech developments during the war, as you know. Some of these remain classified, and have not been widely distributed. One of them was a product called a Facial Features Reorganizational Manipulator. Most people call it a ‘framer’ for short.
“It can do exactly what it sounds like. It reorganizes the wearer’s face on the molecular level. Someone can look like a different person. Or in this case, I suspect, just like another living person.
“The technology was stolen at least once and used by the Resistance to great effect. I’m told they managed to get a paramour close to Tetrarch Thrall himself and disrupt League efforts considerably, toward the end. And to do it, they used this device.”
“It’s true,” Severs said. “This technology and the people using it helped us win the war. The woman the Resistance sent in to disrupt Thrall was one of their best. Evidently she was a college student during the war, and SSI came in and arrested a lot of her friends for entertaining the idea of a Resistance chapter on campus. Many were never seen or heard from again. She decided to make a difference. And she did.”
He cleared his throat and thought about revealing something else. In light of the situation, he decided to go ahead and say it.
“The greatest asset we had in the war, the Resistance agent known as ‘Angel,’ also used a framer, I’m told.”
“And you think that’s what we’re looking at?” Cole said, her attention returning to the holo and the endless loop of her doppelgänger shooting at innocent people. “Somebody is wearing a device that gives them my face?”
Fonteneaux said, “Ma’am, our forensics team discovered the poison used to take out the Humphries were administered by nanobots manufactured by Thespar Industries. So, we have definitive proof that League technology was used in at least one of these serious incidents. It’s not too far a stretch to suppose that their gadgets are also being used in other ones.”
Cole’s eyes squinted as she considered this statement.
“Do you think the League . . . do you think Thrall is behind this? Is he trying to shape the outcome of the election or something? Is he trying to hurt me personally?�
��
Fonteneaux said, “We don’t know, ma’am. But we do know that whoever is behind this is using League technology to do it.”
-+-
That evening, laser lights flashed through the cloudy darkness inside Isaac Newton’s, a happening nightclub on the outskirts of Plairmont.
Techno music carried a heavy beat in time with the lights. Dancers strutted their stuff in a large anti-grav arena in the middle of the club, floating up past five levels of balconies where others could watch or dance along with them in regular gravity while they drifted by in the air.
Edge dropped a 20 credit token in the bouncer’s hand. The man pulled back a velvet rope, letting him in.
“Watch out for the crew of the Andrew Johnson,” the bouncer said. “They just got shore leave.”
Edge nodded and made his way through the press of young clubbers and off duty military personnel.
He wore a black tailored suit with black patent leather shoes, and sunglasses.
This last accessory gained him some additional looks, but it was a nightclub after all. People wore all kinds of strange and flashy outfits here.
He stopped and looked around. In a far corner on the ground level, a rowdy group of sailors still in uniform cheered as one of their own floated upward in the anti-grav well, awkwardly moving his arms and legs in time with the music.
Edge headed toward them, removing the sunglasses. As he came near, one of the more sober sailors looked over at him.
She said, “Look! It’s Admiral Severs!”
One of the drunks shouted, “A toast! To Admiral Severs, the man who won the war!”
Someone else said, “Our next Chancellor!”
“Hear! Hear!”
Everybody knocked back their drinks.
Edge smiled at them and reached inside his jacket, pulling out a blaster.
Thoop! Thoop! Thoopah!
“Hit the deck!”
Everyone dove for the floor as bolts scattered around the nightclub.
Screams and shouts broke out. People rushed under tables and behind chairs. Several ran out the door, knocking down the bouncer manning the velvet rope.
Thoop! Thoop!
Edge turned around and aimed up into the anti-grav well where dancers screamed, desperately trying to swim through the air to safety.
Thoop! Thoop! Thoop! Thoop!
Blood sprayed out, red liquid globs floating beside those hit.
Petty Officer Jerome Park peeked over a leather bench and tried to gauge the distance between himself and the gunman, who now had his back to their table.
Of Korean descent by way of America, Park was an athletic 22 year old who had won several track competitions before the war.
He maintained his physical fitness above and beyond Navy standards while in space, thanks in part to the Andrew Johnson’s excellent onboard gym.
Park spent about two seconds calculating distances and planning his move. Then he sprang into action.
He covered the ten meters separating himself from the gunman in record time and jumped, arms outstretched.
He landed on Edge, making a strong impact and knocking them both down to the floor.
Park slugged him in the face.
Admiral or not, this guy is going down, he thought.
Edge jabbed his elbow in Park’s throat, then struggled with the gun.
Thoop!
A hole burst through the petty officer’s middle. Park looked surprised, staring at the Admiral’s face while his heart stopped.
Edge pushed him off and shot a few more times back at the table with all the sailors, making them duck.
Then he ran for the exit.
17
A proximity alarm sounded. The assassin made a motion in the air to turn on his outside security holo.
In his own domicile he showed his true face, without any makeup or disguises. A strong trace of Vietnamese heritage showed through, although like most people spread out through the Milky Way he had a mixture of many ethnicities.
The holo revealed a woman in the small alley outside his door, staring at the camera.
She waved in the air, and for a moment a triskelion appeared near her face, an ancient three-pronged symbol.
Unlike some showing an image of bent human legs, this triskelion looked sharp and angular, similar to a swastika only ending in three lightning points instead of four.
He sighed and made another motion, unlocking the outer door. The woman stepped inside. He stood from his chair to go meet her.
Ginger Storm glanced around at the interior of his home. Nestled on the bottom floor of an abandoned building, it looked well disguised from the outside. He only used a portion of the inner space, leaving the outer rooms empty for anybody gazing through the windows. Simple scans or a peek inside would reveal nothing.
She smiled at him when he neared and said, “You know, you’ve done a really good job without the use of camo tech.”
He said nothing to this conversational gambit. He stared at her without expression.
She continued smiling and said, “I’m Ginger Storm. And you are . . .?”
He watched her a moment longer and said, “How did you know I was here?”
“Well, you could say that you’re in my domain.”
He said nothing, but continued staring.
Stormy said, “Okay. Here’s how I knew. We run in the same circles. When I obtained my implants, the man I bought them from let drop he had another customer nearby. That’s the short version of how I found you.”
Again, he said nothing.
Stormy said, “I think we play on the same team. You recognized the triskelion. That’s why you let me.”
Briefly, she made the holo flash in the air again.
Reluctantly, he nodded.
He said, “I am known as Phantom. That is my codename.”
“That’s okay,” she said brightly. “None of use our real names either.”
She paused to look around the place some more, blithely ignoring his stare.
In fact, his real name was Timothy Phan, but he would never tell her that.
He would never tell anyone in Republican territory, he thought, even someone claiming to be an ally.
He dreamed up the pseudonym when he was young, and in his mind he thought of himself as Phantom, or at least Phan-Tim, long before embarking on the role of an assassin.
Serving as an assassin, first under the auspices of SSI where he was trained, now as a government asset for the League in deep cover since before the war started, he used Phantom as his code name.
He liked it, and he felt it was appropriate. But it seemed a bit disconcerting to have this woman walk into his home and hideout, which he had previously thought to be completely off the radar.
If she knew, did others know as well? That was a troubling thought.
Phan stood watching the woman, considering if he should kill her. But the symbol she displayed was legit. Nobody knew about it except for a select few. Or, so he had been told.
If she was the only one who knew about this place, eliminating her would solve several problems.
On the other hand, showing the triskelion indicated she almost certainly was a League asset, also operating under deep cover. In that case, killing her would not be wise, and her knowledge of his hideout should be rather benign.
Finally, her visual scan of the room complete, Stormy turned back to face him.
She said, “We should link up. We need to at least make sure we don’t tread on each other’s toes. It seems like we were both activated at the same time.”
He shook his head and said, “I work alone.”
“Are you sure? You know, we’ve got some decent assets you can make use of.”
“Working in teams will get you killed in my line of work.”
She sighed, but then smiled. She had a very attractive face.
“Suit yourself. If you change your mind, you can contact me in the game Honor Guard. Put in an IM for the character
‘Stormy,’ and I’ll be right there.”
He stared at her wordlessly while she continued smiling at him.
Finally she shrugged and said, “See you around, Phantom.”
Stormy turned and headed for the door.
Phan took some quick steps and caught up with her. He touched her on the shoulder.
“Wait. Thanks. I’ll contact you if I have any questions. In the game.”
She smiled at him again, then walked out the door.
He shut it behind her. He went back to his security holo and watched the lithe young woman walk down the alley.
Would she continue walking? He idly wondered what she meant about being in her territory.
As she stepped out of the camera’s range, he flipped over to a satellite view showing the warehouse district from above.
The image remained the same. But the microscopic tracer he put on her shoulder held, its tiny claws sinking into the fabric of her blouse.
He watched a tiny blip showing her location as she walked out of the alley and into the street, even though nothing showed on the satellite view.
“How about that?” he said out loud. “A reflection field. That must be what she meant about her territory.”
What the satellite showed was not what was truly going on down below, he thought. Otherwise, the satellite view would show her walking right now.
He continued watching in silence, following the blip five more blocks before it turned to go inside a building.
The building had something that blocked the little transmitter’s signal, and the blip disappeared.
He stared at it for a long minute on the holo, thinking.
Finally he said, “She’s right, we’re neighbors.”
He sat down and scratched his head, thinking.
He said, “How many more members of Triskelion were activated?”
18
Wilcox walked out of Isaac Newton’s feeling depressed and angry.
