Masterminds

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  Pearl had never smelled anything quite like that before.

  There were a lot of poor people in this building, and she knew for a fact that some of them had life-threatening illnesses. Not catchable by her or Mom, since they both had had all kinds of preventative medical enhancements back in the good old days.

  Which gave Pearl an obligation to check out anything bad—at least, that was what Mom would have said.

  Better us than anyone else, Mom would say, because we can’t get sick from it and so many others can.

  Like the two of them had a responsibility to the entire universe or something.

  Pearl put a hand over her mouth and nose, and ventured into the stairwell.

  “Hey!” she yelled. “Everyone okay up there?”

  She half expected to hear Mom’s voice floating back down toward her, saying she had it handled, but no one answered her.

  Pearl took another step inside, then froze. Mom’s too-tight black shoe sat like a sentry on the first stair. Mom only had one pair of shoes left, the pair that never had links in the first place. Mom hated the shoes, but couldn’t afford another pair, and she certainly wouldn’t take them off here.

  Pearl’s heart started pounding. The stench made her stomach turn.

  “Mom?” Pearl asked, her voice echoing in the stairwell.

  She took another step up, then stopped when she saw black fluid dripping down the stairs.

  And brown skin draped along a railing.

  And one naked foot with calluses along the outside of the big toe—from too-tight shoes.

  Pearl took one more step, saw the other foot, unattached to an ankle but with the shoe still on.

  “Mom?” Pearl said, voice trembling, not because she was calling her mom anymore. No.

  It was a realization, an understanding, a loss.

  Pearl turned away, swallowing hard to keep her own lunch down.

  She knew what she was seeing. She knew. Mom hadn’t hid any of it, not ever, even showing her holos of Disty Vengeance Killings. Allowed by Earth Alliance law.

  Allowed.

  Pearl had been prepared for the mess, but not the smell.

  And not Mom.

  Pearl had somehow managed never to associate those images with what could happen to Mom.

  What had happened to Mom.

  While Pearl had been in school, thinking she’d had a bad day.

  She had had no idea how bad it actually was.

  Until now.

  NOW

  FOUR

  MILES FLINT ATE some of the jasmine rice and chicken thing that Talia had reheated. He sat at the table in the kitchen of the United Domes of the Moon Security Office, marveling at the cleanliness of the room. Apparently, Talia had cleaned it after her appointment with the idiot at the Armstrong Comfort Center, a man who was so bigoted against clones that Flint actually feared for Talia’s safety when he realized what was going on.

  Talia got a lime drink out of the refrigerator, and poured it into a cup with ice. Something had changed since that morning’s meeting with the therapist. Even though the therapist had been alarmed at her responses to his questions on clones, he had apparently said something that snapped Talia back to her old self.

  Flint had no doubt that she would still have issues. He had always been amazed that she was so level-headed, considering all that had happened to her. She had lost her mother, discovered she had a father, and found out she was a clone, all in the same few days.

  Then she had come with him to the Moon, settled in, and lived through Anniversary Day and, almost two weeks ago, the Peyti Crisis. During the Peyti Crisis, she had actually watched people she knew die—including a boy that she had some kind of relationship with. Flint never understood what kind, or how they really felt about each other, and given what Talia had told him, he wasn’t sure she knew either.

  “Can I start helping with the investigation?” Talia asked as she sat down. “I’m better now.”

  He didn’t want to discourage her by saying that no one got better in the space of a morning. He didn’t want trivialize her breakthrough.

  As he contemplated what his response should be, she added, “I can’t go back to school. All the schools are closed. If I can’t go to your office, then I’m going to have to stay here during the day, and everyone’s running around trying to stop the next attack or figure out what happened or find the perpetrators, and I’m sitting alone in a room feeling sorry for myself. Noelle looks like someone hit her with a truck, and she’s still working. Rudra lost her boyfriend and she’s still working. I haven’t lost anyone, and everyone thinks I’m a mess.”

  Flint looked at her. Her copper-colored skin darkened as she realized what she had said. She tugged at her curls, so like his, then bit her lower lip.

  “I’m better,” Talia said as if she heard what he thought rather than his silence. “I am, and I need to keep busy, because if I don’t, then maybe I will fall apart. Again.”

  Flint was having trouble thinking of what to say. After all, he had tried to get her involved just a few days ago, and she couldn’t hold a coherent thought. Right now, she had energy, but he wasn’t sure how long that would last.

  Still, she had a valid point. She needed something to exercise her mind.

  “All right,” he said. “There’s a lot of information that we need to filter through, and some of it is buried in places so encrypted and difficult to access that it takes time to break in even for someone like me.”

  “I could—”

  He held up a hand to silence her. “I’ll get the information out of those sites, but I could use help filtering it.”

  “I can do that,” she said.

  He nodded, then frowned, trying to think about which piece of information he needed to research that he could risk with Talia. After all, she might start on the research and then lose hours or days to the emotions that had overwhelmed her since the Peyti Crisis.

  “Give me a moment to figure out what’s best for us both,” Flint said, “and—”

  Miles Flint, this is Detective Iniko Zagrando. I need your help.

  The message came through a back-up link that Flint actually had forgotten he had. He blinked, thought about it, and remembered that he had given it to Detective Zagrando three and a half years ago, when the man had helped Flint get Talia out of Valhalla Basin.

  But something bothered Flint about the contact.

  “What’s going on?” Talia asked.

  “Message.” Flint stood, opened another link, and searched for information on where Zagrando was now.

  Zagrando, Iniko. Detective. Valhalla Basin Police Department. Killed in the line of duty.

  A three-year-old date followed, along with links to more information and actual footage of the man’s death. There was something about a court case within the VBPD because he’d had no back-up at the time of his murder, and something about jurisdiction, and several obituaries.

  Flint leaned against the kitchen counter. From there, he could see the hallway into the Security Office. No one walked past. Talia was looking up at him, her blue eyes narrowed in concern.

  This was weird. Only a handful of people knew that Flint had met Zagrando. Flint couldn’t think of any reason they would contact him. And he certainly couldn’t think of any reason they would pretend to be Iniko Zagrando.

  The rice in Flint’s stomach turned over. He hoped this had nothing to do with Talia.

  That thought alone made it imperative for him to answer the query.

  Flint didn’t respond directly to the message. Instead, he sent a completely new one, through the same old private link that he had established with the real Detective Zagrando three and a half years ago.

  My sources tell me Iniko Zagrando is dead.

  Flint wished Talia wasn’t in here. He felt uncomfortable having this conversation in front of her, even though she had no idea what was being said, or even who he might be talking to.

  Iniko Zagrando had saved her life in a number
of ways. He had found her right after her mother was kidnapped, kept her out of the hands of Aleyd Corporation which would have gotten custody of her because of her mother’s job in Valhalla Basin, and protected the information of Talia’s illegal status as an unregistered clone.

  Zagrando had been the person Talia had turned to in those early days after her mother had died, and he had come through. Talia had spoken of him very fondly, and Flint didn’t want to harm that memory in any way.

  Detective Iniko Zagrando is dead, this man calling himself Zagrando sent. But Iniko Zagrando isn’t. I was working undercover for Earth Alliance Intelligence. You can check that with Celestine Gonzalez, but do so fast, because…

  Flint stopped paying attention to the message and instead, contacted Celestine Gonzalez on a private link. He had met Celestine Gonzalez in Valhalla Basin about the same time he had met Zagrando. Gonzalez was an attorney who worked for the firm Oberholst, Martinez, and Mlsnavek, whom his ex-wife Rhonda had hired to take care of her interests on the Moon.

  It didn’t surprise Flint to hear Gonzalez’s name. In fact, it reassured him that this man might actually be who he claimed. Flint had had many contacts with Gonzalez over the years, but no one knew how they met except Talia, Zagrando, and Gonzalez herself.

  Sorry to bother you, Celestine, Flint sent. I need a piece of information immediately. It’s urgent.

  He flagged the message as important, which he felt only vaguely guilty about doing. Gonzalez was one of the few lawyers still on the job in Armstrong. Most had taken time off because the Peyti Crisis had hit the legal community hardest.

  Gonzalez seemed to be the kind of person who worked after a crisis instead of taking time off.

  I’m heading into court, she sent back almost immediately. Can you wait an hour?

  No, he sent. Do you remember Valhalla Basin PD Detective Iniko Zagrando?

  Yes, she sent.

  Was he working for anyone besides the Valhalla Basin PD?

  Why do you ask? she sent.

  Perfect legal evasion, and probably enough for confirmation. Still, he sent one more message. Because, I have an urgent communication from someone identifying himself as Zagrando, but he no longer works for VBPD. Did he tell you he was undercover for Earth Alliance Intelligence?

  I don’t know if he was undercover, per se, she sent. But when I checked Detective Zagrando’s badge, I got a notification that he had Earth Alliance Intelligence clearance, Earth Alliance high grade military clearance, and Earth Alliance security clearance. Does that help?

  It helps, Flint sent. Thank you.

  “What’s going on?” Talia asked.

  Flint held up his hands. “Just give me a minute,” he said. “I’m having three conversations at once.”

  He lowered his head, and again used the old links to contact the man who called himself Zagrando.

  What do you need? Flint sent to Zagrando.

  No one responded. Flint frowned at Talia. She frowned back. Maybe this was a hoax to get him to check with Gonzalez. But how and why? He had used an encrypted link with her. That, plus his location in the United Domes of the Moon Security Office, made tracking or listening to his communications difficult if not impossible.

  Then the response came, and it seemed breathless: Please get me clearance with Space Traffic Control. I have information you need.

  Flint pushed away from the counter. On a good day, he would talk to DeRicci, but there hadn’t been a good day in over six months.

  That won’t be easy, Flint sent back. We’ve had some serious—

  I’m coming in hot, Zagrando sent. There are factions in the Earth Alliance who don’t want me to talk to you people. Please, do what you can. Please.

  Flint let out a small breath. That last detail—factions within the Earth Alliance—made him more likely to trust this so-called Zagrando. Only a handful of people here on the Moon knew that some of the clues to the attacks led back to the Alliance itself.

  If Zagrando were part of the Earth Alliance Intelligence Service, he would have been in a position to get information on the Alliance’s involvement. If he had information, it was possible that someone was trying to shut him up.

  But that was speculation.

  Still, Flint could intercede. He could get the ship into the port. He didn’t have to let this so-called Zagrando into Armstrong. And, if the ship looked at all suspicious, Space Traffic Control could deal with it.

  It would have to land in Terminal 5, where suspicious ships usually landed.

  Send me the relevant information about your ship, Flint sent. I’ll see what I can do.

  Thank you, Zagrando sent back immediately. Thank you so very much.

  Information about a high-end space yacht followed. Some of it was incoherent, something about a split-off section, a second cockpit, and an incomplete registration.

  Flint would go through it, but he didn’t have the ability to do so in this kitchen.

  “What’s going on?” Talia asked.

  “Something very strange,” he said. “Something very strange indeed.”

  FIVE

  DONAL Ó BRÁDAIGH took the last flight of stairs to the underbelly of the City of Armstrong’s dome complex. Most dome engineers took the elevators for ease and convenience. Walking deep underground exhausted most of the engineers he worked with. He couldn’t even contemplate what they would do if they ever had to walk up.

  He liked to think he took the stairs for the exercise, but ever since his wife Laraba died in the Armstrong bombing four years ago, he took the stairs for self-preservation. He wanted to stay in shape so that he could run if he had to, escape a substructure like this one quickly if necessary, climb parts of the dome if he needed to.

  Some days, he saw disaster everywhere, and that had been before the Anniversary Day bombings. Now, his stomach was tight all the time, and he hated being apart from his daughter Fiona for the entire work day.

  He worried that he wouldn’t be able to reach her if he needed to.

  He was also starting to worry about Berhane Magalhães.

  Some days he saw that as a good sign. He was healing enough to have a new relationship. Sometimes he worried. Berhane was the daughter of one of the richest men on the Moon. Every now and then, Ó Brádaigh wondered if she was slumming when she was with him, biding time until she had a new relationship.

  Ó Brádaigh shuddered. Some days, he felt like he was just obsessing about everyone and anyone, planning for the crisis that was yet to come.

  Ever since Laraba died, he knew—so clearly that it woke him up at night—that he would never be able to control the world around him.

  But he tried.

  Oh, boy, did he try.

  That was the other reason he used the stairs—trying to control the world around him. When he went down all those flights, he could see parts of the substructure beneath Armstrong, and look for faults or cracks or Moon dust leakage.

  Moon dust was particularly sneaky because it took advantage of the most hairline of hairline cracks, and got into the environmental system. The environmental system near the oldest part of the dome, the part that covered Armstrong’s historic district, was the most vulnerable. The locals all believed the dust filtered in through the dome somehow, not realizing that if it had, it would cause a leakage of atmosphere as well.

  Instead, the dust came in below, in the substructure built to hold the dome’s weight and control its sections, as well as the entire environmental system. There was no need to worry about the atmosphere leaking out here—the substructure was deep underground, surrounded by rock. Most of those meters were just support beams, but in the upper levels, there was an entire housing for various dome operations, and that was where the Moon dust snuck in.

  Ó Brádaigh always found the problem first on the stairs.

  Since no one used them, the dusting was almost impossible to see—gray dust on gray stairs. But his feet would slide. He always checked his shoes to see if he had brought the dust with h
im, and as he lifted his foot, he would see very fine prints on the top of the stairs.

  Also, as he descended, he checked the environmental readings. The oxygen mix had to be as good here as it was above. So many problems started below and worked their way up to the surface. He wanted to catch the problems before human residents started having asthma attacks or tiny, elderly Ritories started turning blue. Ritories were even more sensitive than humans to the wrong kind of oxygen mix.

  If his supervisors ever asked him what he would change about the way dome engineers worked, Ó Brádaigh would recommend that every single one of them take the stairs, both up and down. He would also recommend that dome engineers not use muscular enhancements, instead relying on their own strength to pull themselves along the dome’s structure. Too many cheap enhancements failed, leading to accidents that cost the city money—and more importantly, at least to Ó Brádaigh—cost the engineers time.

  The thing they never had was enough time to check, repair, and build everything. And now that nineteen out of the twenty largest domes were damaged in one way or another, engineers from all the domes were stretched beyond their limits.

  Ó Brádaigh had even spent two weeks consulting on Tycho Crater’s dome. The residents in Tycho Crater had no idea how lucky they were. The very center of the dome had exploded outward, but the dome sections had come down immediately.

  And Tycho Crater’s dome wasn’t so much a dome as a covering over the crater itself, like a lid on a jar. If Tycho Crater’s dome had been an actual dome, it might have fallen in on itself, depending on whether or not the sections fell in a timely manner.

  Most domes were vulnerable in their very center, and fortunately for the Moon and its inhabitants, the Anniversary Day bombers apparently didn’t know that. They picked targets on the edges of the domes, or famous targets, like Tycho Crater’s Top of the Dome resort. They didn’t target the center of the dome—the weakest point in the dome’s structure.

  The fact that he believed things could have been orders of magnitude worse had the Anniversary Day bombers actually been educated was something he kept to himself.