Masterminds

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  The woman—Popova—frowned. What kind of information?

  I’d prefer to discuss that with her.

  The woman’s image vanished. Gomez sighed. She had no idea if she had made any impact or not.

  Then the avatar returned. Extensive DNA sample required. Test will be measured against DNA already on file. Place your hand on the barrier before you.

  Gomez did. She felt some heat against her palm, then the system told her to put her hand down.

  She wondered how many people that request alone discouraged. She would wager quite a few simply walked away when they were told they needed to provide an extensive DNA sample, instead of the usual minor identity check.

  Then the barrier dissolved from the inside out, slowly revealing the actual lobby. It was smaller than the one she had thought she was in.

  Two human guards, one male and one female, waited for her.

  “Marshal Gomez,” the female guard said. “We’re to escort you upstairs.”

  “Thank you,” Gomez said.

  She was certain she would pass through other security areas with tests she couldn’t see. The guards flanked her. She could probably have gotten away from them, but it would have taken planning and work.

  The Security Office Building didn’t have the best security she had ever seen—she had run into some amazingly secure office buildings in the Frontier—but it had the best security she had seen since she arrived in Armstrong, and that included the port.

  She had been startled when she left the port without going through security to enter the city. And she didn’t have to go through any major security to get on the Armstrong Express, the city’s public transit system.

  Once she figured out who to report city matters to, she would report on the ways the city could tighten its security.

  The guards led her to an elevator, but there were no obvious floors to press, and if they told it what floor they needed, they did so by links. The elevator did not telegraph what floors it was passing, nor could she feel it move.

  For all she knew, once the doors closed, the elevator car remained stationary. Only the fact that the exterior looked different when the doors opened told her she had gone somewhere else.

  A woman waited before the elevator doors. It was the woman Gomez had seen on the barrier in the lobby. She was thinner than Gomez expected, and her hair was more of a curtain than a waterfall.

  Her gaze met those of the guards, obviously communicating with them on links, probably giving the guards instructions as to what to do next.

  A male security guard came down the corridor and stopped just behind the woman.

  Then the woman’s gaze met Gomez’s.

  “Marshal,” the woman said, “I’m Rudra Popova. Please forgive our mistrust. The Moon is not the place it was.”

  “I can only imagine what you’re going through,” Gomez said.

  Popova took a step back, and Gomez saw that as a signal that she could leave the elevator. She stepped out, and the original guards remained. But the new guard came to her side.

  “I have informed Chief DeRicci that you’re here. Before she sees you, she would like to know what this is concerning.”

  Gomez looked at the security guard. He was staring ahead, as if the conversation didn’t matter to him at all.

  Gomez was prepared for this.

  “Over fifteen years ago,” she said, “I discovered an enclave of PierLuigi Frémont clones in the Frontier. I had a rather extensive encounter with them, and reported my findings to the Alliance. Nothing was done.”

  Popova clasped her hands behind her back. “This seems like information that you could have sent to Chief DeRicci. Is there some reason you wanted to see her in person?”

  “Yes,” Gomez said. “I have more information, some that I do not want to send on links.”

  “Please forgive our mistrust, Marshal, but none of us know you. I am loathe to send you into the Chief’s office without much more vetting.”

  Gomez understood that. She nodded slightly.

  “Whatever you need,” she said in the most conciliatory tone she could manage.

  “We’ll need you to sit and wait right here.” Popova led her to a small grouping of chairs near a desk that appeared to be in the corridor. “Thanks for understanding.”

  Gomez smiled as warmly as she could. She sat on the edge of one of the chairs.

  She wondered what the point of this was. Because she knew they wouldn’t let her so deep into the Security Office if they weren’t sure she was who she said she was.

  But then, the Moon had just been attacked by lawyers that the entire legal community had worked with for years. Confirming that a person was who she said she was clearly wasn’t enough. Somehow they would have to divine if she meant the Security Office harm.

  She had no idea how they would determine that. She hoped they had a system.

  She clasped her hands together and made sure her gaze did not scan the desk or the other chairs. She had learned on the Frontier how to look almost harmless.

  She found it ironic that she would need the same skill here, in the heart of the Alliance.

  Where they had gotten lazy about protecting themselves—and were now paying the price.

  TWENTY

  TALIA SAT IN the waiting area of the Medical Unit at the Port of Armstrong. Until this afternoon, she hadn’t known there was a medical unit in the Port of Armstrong, let alone that the medical unit had a waiting area.

  It was hodgepodge of colors—gold walls, orange and green chairs, a pale blue couch that had seen better days, several scarred tables, and signs that popped up on the blank surfaces, warning her that she could be asked to leave if she violated this rule or that rule or some other behavior.

  Getting in here had been surprisingly easy, but then, her father had made certain she had access to Detective Zagrando. She had to refer to him as Isamu Vidal, because that was the name all of his official identification used.

  A lot of port security guards and several rookie space traffic cops guarded the medical unit. Two higher-ranked space traffic cops stood near the surgical part of the wing, clearly guarding Detective Zagrando—or Vidal, as she needed to remind herself to call him. Vidal without the Detective in front of it.

  She felt safe, despite the fact that her father went over and over the escape plan with her should anything go wrong.

  She didn’t think anything would go wrong—not with this many police here—but she didn’t know for certain. She didn’t entirely understand what was going on. She figured her father would explain it to her. Or Detective Zagrando would do so when the time was right.

  She hadn’t been able to see him yet. They were still working on him.

  The good news, according to the woman Talia had spoken to, was that he hadn’t died yet. The bad news was that he needed extensive surgery and reconstruction. Every time they put nanobots into his system, they rebuilt a bit of him, but not enough to compensate for all the damage.

  He’s a very strong man, the woman had said. Most people would never have survived those injuries.

  But no one could tell Talia when he would get out or become conscious.

  So she sat and waited. She had a tablet from the Security Office, and the tablet’s systems were encrypted, but her father had warned her that the standard encryption wasn’t enough. If Talia did any research, she had to do it for items that everyone knew or no one would find suspicious.

  Her father had made her uncomfortable enough that she wasn’t going to disobey him, not on this one.

  Besides, her mind wasn’t exactly on it all.

  She used the tablet to review Detective Zagrando’s arrival. The port records were open, at least to family, which somehow her father had gotten her registered as. So she saw the weird little ship that Detective Zagrando had arrived in, and saw it struggle to land. Plus she saw the security vid of the medical staff getting him off the ship.

  His wounds weren’t obvious from the security vid, but t
he fact that people had to carry him off the ship showed just how badly he was injured. She had a sense—and maybe she was just putting herself in his place—that he was the kind of man who rarely wanted anyone to see how weak he actually was.

  She couldn’t get a lot of information from the footage—at least on Detective Zagrando’s condition. So she turned her attention to the ship itself.

  It hadn’t been made inside the Alliance, at least according to the public sources that she used to trace it. In fact, there were limitations on its use within the Alliance. And it certainly couldn’t be sold here, because it had some features that would need to be retrofitted before it followed Alliance regulations.

  She had stopped researching after looking at the ship.

  She was tired too, and still somewhat sad. She was glad that her father had trusted her to do this task, but she still felt out of her depth.

  And beneath it all, she was angry.

  Over the years, she had always assumed that Detective Zagrando, the kind man who might have saved her life, was doing great and compassionate things in Valhalla Basin. She had imagined that he saved a few other kids, and maybe got married and had some kids of his own.

  Sometimes she thought he would have been promoted for all his good works, and every once in a while, she thought of contacting him to let him know she was okay.

  When she first arrived in Armstrong, she thought about him a lot. She wondered if he wanted to adopt a girl whose mother had killed herself because of her crimes and if he needed help investigating stuff. She had been so mad at her father in those days; she blamed him for a lot of what happened, even though he hadn’t even known she existed until he showed up in Valhalla Basin.

  Eventually, she got that worked out in her head. Plus she knew deep down that Detective Zagrando had no place for her in his life. He had actually told her before her dad arrived that the VBPD job didn’t leave any room for having someone special.

  She couldn’t exactly remember what Detective Zagrando had said or if he had actually said the words that he couldn’t adopt her. But she had gotten the message all the same. And it had frightened her, because she had known already that she was alone, and in a lot of trouble, and she might not have had a future at all.

  Then her dad had shown up. Detective Zagrando was the one whose behavior had let her know that her dad would take care of her. Detective Zagrando had trusted her father—maybe more than either of them realized, given the fact that Detective Zagrando was here now.

  Alone. In a lot of trouble. And maybe with no future at all.

  “Ms. Flint-Shindo?”

  The voice startled her out of her reverie. She hadn’t even heard the door to the waiting area open. Then she looked at it, and saw a very slender woman standing there. The woman had an angular face and dark, intelligent eyes. Her black hair was so short that it almost looked shorn.

  “Yes?” Talia silently cursed herself. That response had sounded panicked.

  “You’re here for Mr. Vidal?”

  “Yes,” Talia said, unable to take the suspense. “Is he okay?”

  “He came through the surgery. We had to do some old-fashioned rehabilitation work. We used some nanobots to rebuild his legs, but we had to add some material. It should be fine. He might want some actual reconstruction, though. He’s a candidate for enhanced limbs with all kinds of special features. In fact, I would recommend it. But those aren’t things we can do here.”

  “Um.” Talia felt out of her depth. “Okay.”

  The woman smiled. She must have realized that Talia wasn’t prepared to have these discussions.

  “I’ll talk to him about that in a day or so,” the woman said. “When we can move him?”

  “Move him?” Talia asked. She felt that fear grow. Were they taking him to prison or something? Had he done something wrong?

  “He needs to be in one of the hospitals. I would recommend Deep Craters if he can afford it, because they do the best reconstruction on the Moon.”

  “Okay,” Talia said, trying not to sound as confused as she felt.

  “But it’s better not to move him right now, and we have the beds. So we can keep him here for the next twenty-four to thirty-six hours.”

  “Okay.” Talia knew she was repeating herself, but she’d never been in this circumstance before. And the woman—who had to be one of the doctors—was talking to her like she was an adult.

  The woman smiled at her. “I think it would be good to have family with him.”

  “Me too,” Talia said, then her breath caught. She’d almost added, Wish I knew who they were.

  She knew that the woman wouldn’t think anything wrong with what Talia had just said if she went to Detective Zagrando’s side. She stood and smoothed the front of her pants, as if they were stained or something.

  She was nervous. She hadn’t seen him in a long time, and he had been really important to her, and now he was hurt. Her heart was actually pounding hard.

  “Come with me.” The woman held open the door.

  Talia glanced at the chair she’d been sitting on to see if she’d forgotten anything. And there was the tablet, sitting on the armrest. She had nearly forgotten that. Both her dad and Chief DeRicci would have been mad if Talia had screwed up like that.

  She picked up the tablet, then walked through the door, feeling a little lightheaded. She waited in the hallway for the woman to join her. The woman led her down the corridor through some more doors.

  Signs appeared at eye level, warning Talia that this was the patient wing and required quiet at all times. The signs also stated that she was being scanned and if she was deemed a carrier of a whole slew of diseases or if she was actually ill, she would be asked to leave.

  She wondered if they would tell her what was wrong—if something was actually wrong.

  But no one said anything before the woman stopped in front of another door. It was clear, and there were windows on either side of it. The room beyond seemed small, but she couldn’t see much more than the edge of the bed.

  “He’s here,” the woman said. “If he wakes up, we’ll know. He’s being monitored all the time. But if something is bothering you, just say so out loud, and someone will come to the room.”

  What a strange way to let her know that she would be monitored at all times. But it was effective.

  She thanked the woman, then went inside the room.

  It smelled of almonds and something metallic. She swallowed hard, then forced herself to look at the bed.

  The man on it seemed familiar—kinda, sorta—but he looked too small and too weak to be Detective Zagrando. His face was lined, his eyes were sunken into his sallow skin, and his hair was matted against his scalp.

  His hands rested on top of the blanket and they, at least, looked familiar. Strong hands, square, with some scars. She remembered watching them move as he had talked to her, thinking he looked strong enough to take on the men who had kidnapped her mother.

  Talia sank into the chair beside the bed, gripping the tablet hard. The woman closed the door, then nodded at her through the window and proceeded down the hall.

  Talia looked at the length of Detective Zagrando. His legs were covered with some kind of healing cloth that was different from the blanket over his torso. There was a clear tent over him from the hips down. She knew it was monitoring everything, including the way the nanobots reconstructed the damage to his legs.

  She made herself take a silent breath. She wanted to say, Detective Zagrando, it’s Talia. But she couldn’t. She didn’t know how to address him, if he would find the name he’d been using familiar or not.

  Then she looked around the room, saw panels that monitored stuff, saw all kinds of graphs and charts and images, none of which she understood. Medical things didn’t interest her, so she never bothered to learn about them. She couldn’t tell what was really going on with Detective Zagrando, except what the doctor told her.

  I think it would be good to have family with him, she had sai
d.

  And family would be familiar with him. They’d take his hand or brush his hair back or talk softly to him.

  She couldn’t talk to him, not with him unconscious. She might say something wrong. And she didn’t want to touch his face.

  She looked at his hands, his familiar hands, and thought of holding them. She’d hugged him once, and he’d seemed surprised. That had been years ago, and she hadn’t seen him in all that time.

  Surely not every family member held the hand of someone who was ill. Maybe family members sat quietly while the person was really sick.

  Especially if they were estranged.

  And she hadn’t been off the Moon in years. She’d say that if someone questioned her.

  Because she couldn’t touch him. It just didn’t feel right.

  She set the tablet on her thighs and leaned back in the chair.

  She would just wait until he woke up. She would be a familiar face. Besides, she could tell her dad what was going on then, maybe send for him, make sure that they did everything they could do to take care of Detective Zagrando.

  Mentally, she apologized to him for not talking to him. He would understand later. When he knew that the entire room was being monitored.

  For all she knew, the links were too. She would have to be careful.

  They would all have to be careful.

  She’d tell Detective Zagrando that when he woke up.

  She’d tell him a lot of things.

  She settled in her chair, clutching the tablet, and she waited, hoping that he would wake up so she could talk to him, and hoping he would stay asleep until her dad could come.

  Because for the first time in months, she was completely out of her depth.

  TWENTY-ONE

  THEY PILED OUT of S3’s space yacht using every available exit. Rafael Salehi felt like he was unleashing an army of lawyers on the Moon, some of whom just happened to be Peyti.

  Who was he kidding? A good third of them were Peyti, and they were all expecting trouble.