Places in the Darkness

by Chris Brookmyre

  “And someone else in the picture,” Jaganathan says. “We need to find out who.”

  Boutsikari glances into the bedroom, looking at Hussein rather than Selby. The victim isn’t his primary concern: that will be Jaganathan’s problem. Boutsikari has multiple wider battles to fight, and is currently weighing up which front to shore up first.

  “Okay, it’s public, the genie’s not going back in the bottle, so we have to make that work for us. We need to get messages out on all feeds that Freeman is wanted and extremely dangerous. Offer a reward for information but warn people not to approach her. The last thing we can afford is Freeman offing some have-a-go-Joe civilian when the eyes of the world are about to be trained our way. We need to bring her in asap, it’s the only way to put a lid on this, but even then we’re in damage limitation mode.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jaganathan responds, then heads out the door, already relaying orders.

  Boutsikari turns to Alice and lets out a baleful sigh.

  “I really thought we were going to get away with it,” he tells her.

  Get away with what? she wonders, then remembers that success for Boutsikari was defined by preventing news of a murder on CdC reaching Earth. It was always a long shot as far as she was concerned, but the clock had not run out until this second murder changed the game.

  “We caught a major break on the Omega killing while you were gone,” he explains.

  “What?”

  “Our analysts discovered Korlakian recorded a grab before he died. Because we don’t know the time of death, it could have been ten hours before the killing or ten minutes, but it’s the only thing he recorded in weeks, so we’re guessing it was important.”

  “Yes, but you can’t access it,” she points out. “Or are you telling me you can hack his personal cache?”

  Grabacións are private, protected by unbreakable DNA-based encryption unless you choose to unlock them. In certain circumstances the law can compel an individual to do so, but once they die, anything they chose not to disclose is effectively locked away for ever.

  “No, but Korlakian approved a share. That’s why we reckon it was a Hail Mary, or more like a bequest.”

  “If he was recording his assailant, why didn’t he broadcast it at the time?”

  “Don’t know. We’re guessing the signal was blocked. But the break for us is that the file was tagged for his legacy archive, and he had a nominated recipient.”

  “Who?”

  “A sister, back down below. If we can contact her, we’re confident we can persuade her to share the file so we can give him justice. We’re assuming that’s why he tagged the file for legacy: knowing that if the worst happened, someone he trusted would see it.”

  “So why are you saying ‘if’? Are you having difficulty persuading her?”

  “We’re having difficulty finding her. Korlakian was from LA but his family hails from Armenia. Turns out the sister went back there years ago, after she got divorced. Left no forwarding address. We’ve got people on it, though. Reckoned another couple of days and we might have had all we need. If the grab showed Yoram, or even better, Nikki Freeman, we could have wrapped up Seedee’s only ever murder case with a ribbon and a bow before anybody down below even heard about it.”

  “But then …” Alice says, casting a glance towards the bedroom.

  He looks imploringly towards her.

  “Unless that’s something you can help us with?”

  Alice has an instinctive desire to assist, driven in part by her concerns regarding how her superiors back on Earth are likely to react when they find out about this. For the first time, she feels a commonality with these people who are effectively her new colleagues, rather than with her old ones at FNG: a solidarity in protecting themselves against the forces below who can exercise power over CdC but have no first-hand understanding of the realities up here.

  Us against them. Secrecy, conspiracy, mendacity. This is how it begins, she realises: going native.

  “I helped you contain the Omega murder, and this is where it led us. How FNG responds is out of my hands now. In fact, if I don’t report in full on this, I’m going to be on an elevator home before I’ve even officially taken up my post.”

  Boutsikari’s expression remains neutral. He might be disappointed, but he must know she’s right. This was taken out of her hands the moment that neighbour came downstairs and saw the body.

  “When was the last time you got any sleep?” he asks her.

  It suddenly hits her that she’s been on her feet for around thirty hours, minus an indeterminate period spent drugged unconscious, which is not the same as rest.

  “It’s been a while.”

  “Sounds like one hell of a shift you’ve had. You should go get your head down. Maybe by the time you wake up, this will all be sorted,” he adds with grim humour.

  IN PLAIN SIGHT

  Nikki is back inside NutriGen within a few minutes, walking straight in the front door much as she did earlier. Security is generally not a huge priority for most workplaces on Seedee, for the simple reason that at any given time, most people are too busy inside their own workplaces to be up to no good inside someone else’s.

  Some of the scientific and engineering research facilities understandably take precautions against industrial espionage, because they are often in direct competition to develop technology and new products. That doesn’t apply to a facility primarily in the business of turning fish into protein.

  Nikki’s greatest concern is therefore not gaining ingress, but being identified. The menial nature of much of the work here increases the possibility of employees scanning the news feeds for distraction, but certain environmental factors are working in Nikki’s favour by giving her a reason to slap on a face mask. Half the people in here are wearing them, so even though the fish tanks are not inside the noxious area, anyone passing her might plausibly assume she is on her way to or from there.

  She retraces her earlier route and walks slowly among the tanks. The slot that was empty has been filled since she was last here, a new tank locked into the brackets. Another has been drained, one of its side walls completely removed; possibly for damage repair or maybe routine maintenance. The bottom remains covered in gravel, a smell of brine wafting from the interior. It isn’t pleasant, but it nonetheless sparks a warming memory, of walks on Venice Beach down to Marina Del Rey.

  Why are the fish all avoiding that one corner? Alice had asked.

  Nikki looks into one of the tanks, where she sees no evidence of this. She looks in another, a third, a fourth, then into the new one. Nothing there either, she thinks. Then suddenly it’s noticeable. A dozen fish, swimming in a group, dart one way then another, reacting as one to who knows what. They zip back and forth, but there’s an area they are consistently avoiding.

  You asking me to be a fish psychologist now? How the hell would I know? Don’t look like anything to me.

  Nikki goes to the drained tank, reaches in and picks up a handful of gravel. She walks back to the new tank, reaches above the walls and scatters it on the surface. She watches the tiny stones slowly sink, but most of them don’t reach the bottom. They appear to be suspended half a metre up, forming a flat surface. Something is there and yet not there: an area with a volume that has to be at least fifty litres.

  She remembers as a kid, her science teacher making a Pyrex jar disappear inside a larger jar of cooking oil. The oil’s index of refraction matched that of the Pyrex, meaning you couldn’t see one inside the other. There has to be a vessel inside the tank made of some transparent nano-carbon material that matches the index of refraction of far less viscous liquids, such as water. And quite possibly alcohol.

  Son of a bitch. This is how Julio is bringing in his tequila.

  Nikki takes a moment to breathe. A few days ago, this would have been a game-changer, a discovery that put the balance of power in the palm of her hand. Now that she understands how small the power game between Yoram and Julio truly is, all she�
��s holding is a tuft of grass on the edge of a cliff.

  It’s more than she had half an hour ago, however.

  Nikki slips out of NutriGen and finds a quiet spot just off Hadfield. She checks the time to reassure herself that she’s still a few hours from the next shift change, then composes an anonymous message to send to Julio.

  I am with FNG oversight. I just took up a position with FLAT and my beat includes Hadfield. I have discovered some significant irregularities at NutriGen concerning the transferable tanks used in the replenishment of fish stocks. It would be in your interest to discuss mutually reassuring arrangements.

  She lays down a time and a carefully chosen venue, a place called Habitek that is among the very few premises on CdC that Nikki can guarantee will be empty. She signs off by adding:

  Come alone and don’t be late. Anything happens that I don’t like, my associate has instructions to toss some limes into the tank and let the fish make margaritas.

  HONEYTRAP

  Nikki watches Julio arrive, tracing his progress from the outer perimeter and through the labyrinth of corridors that comprises Habitek HQ. It took her only twenty minutes to get here from NutriGen, but she knew it would take Julio at least twice that, giving her time to scope the terrain.

  Habitek designs and manufactures environment modules for spacecraft and for use on prospective exo-planets. There’s seldom such a thing as a vacant lot on Seedee, but she knows Habitek’s staff have all decanted to the Axle and the dry dock, where they have spent the last couple of months fitting out their environmental systems aboard Test Vehicle 14.27.

  Julio is headed for the octagonal central chamber, where Nikki is waiting for him, though he doesn’t know who he is coming here to meet. The octagon is where Habitek assemble and demonstrate their test modules, but it is currently empty, the central area of the floor as clean as any surface on Seedee. This is because this section is in fact an elevator platform that descends all the way to the outer rim, allowing the modules to be tested in space conditions. It also allows them to be picked up by shuttles for transportation.

  The interior is a maze, which means there are multiple exits should Julio try to pull anything, with the caveat that Nikki does not have a simple or direct escape route. What she does have is the Seguridad emergency-access code to Habitek’s internal monitoring network, which means she can stream all of the camera feeds direct to her lens. She is toggling through them to track Julio’s progress and to ensure that he has come alone as ordered.

  So far she hasn’t seen any of his crew within the perimeter. She doesn’t doubt they’ll be close by, but the important thing is that they won’t be getting within fifty metres of the central chamber without Nikki knowing about it.

  She watches Julio stride through the corridors with that light and lazy gait of his, the slightest limp on his left-hand side if you know to look for it. He’s looking good, but then he always does. He’s in his late thirties but still boyishly attractive, and his dress sense is to be envied. Nobody has much of a wardrobe up here, but whatever Julio does wear looks stylish by virtue of simply being on him.

  Nikki isn’t too proud to admit to herself that she’d like a tumble with the guy, if he wasn’t such an asshole.

  Everyone assumes he was some kind of gangster back on Earth, a rumour he has diligently cultivated in order to bolster his reputation. The Quadriga has a controversial open-door policy on hiring ex-cons: a criminal record does not disqualify you from working here, as long as you are given a clean bill of mental health by their psychologists. It is part of the philosophy of the entire project—the idea that we should all believe in the possibility of a new beginning. Consequently, there are a lot of people here quietly serving out a personal penance. The Quadriga always knew that Seedee would benefit from individuals like that: folks who understand they’ll never be family men and women, and whose lives are only given purpose by a commitment to their work.

  That isn’t Julio’s story, though. Nikki knows otherwise.

  He grew up in a rough neighbourhood, with no father, a drunk mother and two older brothers who were running rackets in their early teens when they weren’t serving juvenile detention. Julio had a route out of there, though. He was this genius soccer player. The gods reached down and touched his left foot. He got signed up by one of the big clubs in Spain and was tipped for a career that would take him to a different world from his fuck-up family. Problem was he never escaped their orbit and they dragged him back down.

  Julio got his left knee shattered. Not on the field: two psychos with baseball bats took him to a lock-up and went to work on his leg. It was nothing to do with him: just a means of getting at one of his brothers, who had crossed the wrong guy.

  Took him six months to walk again, and as for soccer, forget it.

  He trained as a chef, made a new start, but he was still living in a world where soccer was everywhere and he couldn’t deal with the constant reminders of what he had lost. Word is he just couldn’t forgive his brothers either: never spoke to them again. Eventually he applied to come work in Seedee, start over in a place with few reminders of his past.

  A lot of people got a plan like that, but it only works if you can wipe the slate clean inside your own head. Julio showed up on Seedee with a sackful of bitterness and rage. He was short-tempered, violent and resentful: always angry about not getting his due, and no matter how much he did get, it was never enough. Then ironically, for a guy so determined to escape his fuck-up brothers, he found that his real mojo lay in the family business.

  Nikki is standing on the opposite side of the octagon, about fifteen metres from where Julio enters. It’s as close as she intends to let him get.

  He gives an odd little laugh as he realises who he is looking at, like he’s surprised and yet shouldn’t have been.

  “Nikki fucking Fixx.”

  “I need you to know that I didn’t kill Omega,” she says.

  She doesn’t have to tell him to keep his distance. He leans against the doorway, folding his arms, reflecting upon what she has said and most probably the very fact of her presence.

  “Your buddies in Seguridad sure seem to think you did. That’s why your face is on every lens and you’re hiding out in here, instead of strutting around being cock of the walk up on Mullane like you love to do.”

  Interesting, she thinks. That isn’t why she’s on the lam, so either he doesn’t know the real reason or else he is pretending not to know. She’s betting on the former. Julio’s not sharp enough for that kind of compartmentalisation. On the spur of the moment, he wouldn’t be able to calculate what information he can and can’t reveal.

  “What they think doesn’t matter. The truth is it wasn’t me.”

  “You drew me out here just to tell me that? Like I care which one of Yoram’s people did it. If you’re hoping to spare yourself from the coming storm, I hope you got something more to offer me than pleading that you didn’t butcher my friend.”

  “The reason I brought you here is to tell you that I don’t think Yoram did it either. Come on, Julio. God knows there’s no love lost between us all, but nobody on Seedee ever resorted to murder over illicit liquor. Why would Yoram cross that line, never mind so spectacularly, knowing it would have the authorities back on Earth demanding a crackdown up here? Who does that help?”

  “Maybe he had nothing left to lose. He’s an old man, getting desperate. He knows we’re taking over all his business, so maybe he figures if he can’t run it, nobody’s running it.”

  He sounds confident, like he actually believes this.

  “I don’t know what you’ve got up your sleeve, Julio, but I think you’ve got a tiger by the tail. I mean, don’t you have any questions, any suspicions over who these guys were at Dock Twelve?”

  She gets it wrong deliberately. She wants to see if he corrects her.

  He doesn’t. His expression is blank; but vacant blank rather than poker blank.

  “Do you even know what I’m talking abou
t?”

  He smiles.

  “I know far more than you, that’s for sure. And that can’t be comfortable for you, Nikki, huh? Being so out of the loop that you’re reduced to hassling Sol while the guy is trying to enjoy a quiet workout?”

  At the mention of Sol, Nikki toggles through the cameras on her lens. There is still no sign of movement on the outer perimeter, nobody approaching the premises.

  “Oh, sure, you’re the man in the loop. Tell me again: why are the Seguridad chasing me, Julio?”

  She takes in the discomfort in his expression, adequate confirmation that he doesn’t understand the relevance of the question.

  “I’m trying to warn you there’s a bigger game being played here, way above your head and mine. Somebody is trying to make out there’s a turf war going on, and they’re using it as cover for something else.”

  “There is a turf war going on,” he replies. “You’re just pissed that you’re losing it.” Julio lets out a chuckle. “Yeah, used to be so sweet for you, the glory days when you ran me and my boys out of Mullane. Acting like the sheriff when you were the biggest outlaw on the wheel. Thinking yourself some kind of patron saint to all those hookers because they’re paying you for protection instead of working for someone like me or Sergei Rascasse.”

  He’s babbling away, savouring his moment with that smug look on his cute-but-stupid face. Then she realises she’s the stupid one. He isn’t savouring the moment: he’s playing for time.

  She checks the cameras again and watches three of Julio’s men drop down through the ceiling in different corridors. They’re right outside the octagon, approaching from all sides, and those are just the ones she can see.

  They knew there were cameras inside and scanning the perimeter. They must have ziplined across from an adjacent building.

  Nikki looks back at Julio, who is moving towards her as Dade and two others she doesn’t recognise enter the octagon. She doesn’t see Freitas, but he’s bound to be on his way too.