Masterminds

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  She grabbed her jewelry from the small safe she had in the back of the closet. To anyone who investigated her, the jewelry—as miniscule as it was—would represent all of her wealth.

  The rest of the money she had made over the decades grew in several accounts in the Frontier.

  She put the jewelry next to the unnamed doll she’d had since she was a little girl and sealed the go-bag closed. She would get rid of almost everything in that bag on her second stop, where she would completely redo her look.

  She needed a makeover anyway. She was no longer a government employee. Now, she had officially become a mastermind.

  She smiled, slung the bag over her shoulder, and silently said good-bye to the small room. Then she walked through the living area and pulled the door open to the stairs—

  To find two dozen laser rifles pointed at her. Her heart rate rose.

  She hadn’t expected this despite Stott’s warning.

  But she recognized most of the people in the hallway, and standing on the stairs.

  She smiled at them. “Did I do something wrong?” she asked cheerfully.

  James Noya stepped forward, holding cuffs. She had trained Noya, hand-chosen him herself. She had had dinner with him and his wife just two days before.

  “Jhena Andre,” he said in a voice she had never heard before, “you are under arrest for treason, and mass murder.”

  Her eyebrows went up. Treason and mass murder? She hadn’t expected that at all. Maybe for a connection to criminals, conspiracy or something. But treason and mass murder?

  “James,” she said softly. “You know me. You know I would never—”

  “I suggest you come with us willingly, Jhena,” he said. “Because we can use lethal force if we need to.”

  She felt the blood leave her face. No one smiled back at her. They were all looking at her like they had never seen her before.

  She remembered how people had done that to her father, after they realized he hadn’t lost his wife, but that she had died in an Alliance-sanctioned legal murder.

  Lethal force. These people were going to kill her, if they could.

  And she could choose right now—live? Or die?

  She took a deep breath. She could defend herself. The Alliance was wrong about almost everything.

  She dropped her go-bag and extended her arms, wrists together.

  “You’re making a mistake, Jim,” she said quietly.

  He put the cuffs on her, the orange light burning her skin.

  “No,” he said. “I made my mistake years ago. The day I decided to trust you. I’m going to regret that day for the rest of my life.”

  Then he grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her forward. She stumbled toward the stairs. No one met her gaze, but the rifles followed her movements as if she were going to try to escape.

  She didn’t send any messages along her links. That would implicate others. She just moved forward.

  Maybe this would be better than a manifesto. A trial, with news coverage. Analysis of who she was and why she had done what she had done.

  Examination of the difficulties for anyone without money living inside the Alliance.

  But she had money.

  She could defend herself—and she would.

  And the entire universe would be watching.

  SEVENTY-FOUR

  IF SOMEONE HAD told Flint that the next two hours would pass quickly, he wouldn’t have believed them. But the hours did indeed fly by.

  He and Issassi developed the program to search for clones of all the common species found in the Moon’s cities. They found twins and triplets and a handful of clones (no more than four) of the same original, but they didn’t find another mass grouping of clones like they had found among the Peyti during the Peyti Crisis or among the humans of this last grouping who were doing their best to sabotage the Moon.

  From the reports flowing into the Security Office, almost everyone Flint had identified as a possible attacker had been isolated, if not arrested. Flint had heard stories of violence, but tuned them out as best he could, trying not think of any of the deaths—especially the ones tied to Crater de Gerlache.

  It was looking more and more like their initial impression was correct: No one had survived in the entire city.

  But no more bombs had gone off either, not anywhere on the Moon, not even outside the main domes in places like the Growing Pits. The explosives attached to Armstrong’s dome had been deactivated, although they hadn’t been removed yet—some said that was a delicate process too—and no one found anything on the street level or in buildings.

  Armstrong PD and every bot they could find were going through abandoned buildings now, scouring for any anomaly.

  Similar things were going on in every single domed community on the Moon, and maybe elsewhere. DeRicci had sent the images of the clones throughout the Alliance. If others, like Ostaka, worked off-Moon, they would be located and dealt with.

  Plus, Marshal Gomez had reported that Jhena Andre had been arrested, and officials were combing through her contacts now. Flint knew how these investigations went. Contacts would lead to more contacts, which would lead to more contacts, and eventually, someone would talk.

  The entire conspiracy would break down in a matter of days.

  He shook the tension from his shoulders. His stomach growled, and he remembered he hadn’t eaten anything since that morning. He looked at Issassi, who was still focused on the program. She was rerunning it, making sure they hadn’t missed anything.

  “Hey!” someone said from behind Flint. “It’s been seven hours.”

  He frowned, not sure what the person was talking about.

  But the chatter throughout the office stopped. Everyone either checked their internal clock or some clock nearby.

  Flint looked at the open screen to his left. He had set a timer to monitor the six hours they had from the moment that Ó Brádaigh said he had found the countdown.

  The timer had stopped, and Flint hadn’t even noticed.

  Six hours. Ó Brádaigh believed, they all believed, that the reset done by Ó Brádaigh’s boss indicated the timing of attack.

  Flint’s gaze met DeRicci’s. Her eyes were lined with tears, but he knew her: They were happy tears. Popova clapped her hands together and put them in front of her mouth. Nyquist, back from wherever he had taken Ostaka, almost smiled.

  And then, toward the back of the room, a rumble started. It took Flint a moment to realize it was an actual cheer—a sound of joy. It had been a long time since he’d heard anything like that on the Moon.

  People started clapping and yelling and jumping up and down, and a few burst into tears. Nyquist walked to DeRicci’s side and enfolded her in his arms. Issassi wrapped her arms around Flint and kissed him, startling him. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had kissed him like that.

  She pulled back, surprised, and he laughed.

  He laughed.

  The relief was so heady he wasn’t sure what to do with it, how to deal with it, where to put it.

  They had survived. They had stopped the final attack. They had saved the Moon—the Alliance—their entire universe.

  The masterminds were being rounded up, and the threat was over.

  It was over.

  He wasn’t sure he actually believed that. He knew they had a lot of work ahead of them, but he also knew it was work they could do.

  Work he could do.

  His laughter melded into the general din. He doubted he had ever felt this good in his life.

  He needed to contact Talia. He wished she were here. She had probably never seen him like this.

  But she would.

  Oh, dear God, she would.

  And that—not this—would be the best moment of his life.

  Although this moment was damn close.

  TWO DAYS LATER

  SEVENTY-FIVE

  DERICCI SET HER tablet on the seat in the first class compartment on the bullet train. She rubbed a fist against t
he window, noted that there was Moon dust on the outside, and frowned. She turned to the porter—she still wasn’t used to first class porters—and asked him to activate the window’s self-cleaning protocol.

  She had decided to take the train to Sverdrup Crater, and the remains of Crater de Gerlache. She wanted to see her Moon. Each city along the route, each dome, and every single rock and grain of Moon dust. She wanted to see what she had saved.

  She didn’t tell the porter that, but Nyquist knew. He was leaning against the compartment door, arms crossed.

  “I think you should wait a few weeks before doing this,” he said for the umpteenth time.

  He had fed her the last two days, and let her sleep in, even though she had a mountain of work to do. But she hadn’t yelled at him. She knew she needed the rest.

  The real food he had given her on a regular basis had settled her stomach, or maybe it was the nerves, finally settling.

  She was devastated at the death toll, truly devastated, which was why she was going to Crater de Gerlache. She wanted to see it for herself. She wished they had saved the city.

  But she also needed to see the ruins so she could know, deep down, what her entire Moon had faced. And she had chosen to travel slowly, because she knew that seeing her Moon would heal her in ways that no amount of sleep and excellent meals ever could.

  She knew she had lost part of the Moon, but she had saved most of it.

  And she was smart enough to know what a victory that was.

  She still didn’t have a full concept of the odds they had faced. Reports kept coming in of arrests throughout the Alliance. As of that morning, more than ten thousand people—all human—in various parts of the Alliance had been arrested as part of the conspiracy to bring down the Alliance. The Peyti government had started investigations of some of its citizens as well, and just an hour ago, the first Peyti had been arrested.

  His name was Uzven. Gomez, who had told DeRicci about the arrest, said she had worked with him unsuccessfully fifteen years ago when she had first come across the Frémont clones. Gomez had no idea if Uzven had been working for Andre’s group back then, but his mistranslations and screw-ups had caused Gomez problems, and had probably cost some of the clones their lives.

  Nyquist was still looking at DeRicci, his expression dark.

  She smiled at him. Smiling was easier these days.

  “You could come with me,” she replied for the umpteenth time.

  He sighed. “Tell Gumiela that. I’ve got to finish the case against Romey, plus we’re dealing with a new set of S3 lawyers, including one of the firm’s partners. Those bastards were in the middle of the last crisis—they even had one of those clones in their law office—and they’re still crying clones’ rights.”

  DeRicci shrugged. She wasn’t going to listen to any tales of woe about lawyers or clones’ rights or murder. She was going to sit in this train compartment, have a nice meal, and watch her Moon go by. If Nyquist didn’t want to do that, then fine. He could finish his investigations and deal with all the lawyers he wanted to.

  DeRicci had more than enough to deal with herself.

  “They’ll be waiting for you when you get back,” she said.

  He shook his head. “I’m also helping Gumiela figure out how to process the overzealous.”

  That was his term for the citizens who were “overzealous” in their detention of the clones throughout the city. There were no cases of outright killing, which actually surprised DeRicci, but some of those clones had been badly beaten.

  DeRicci had no leg to stand on in that matter. She still wanted to pound Ostaka’s face into the ground every single time she thought of him.

  “You just don’t want to come,” she said.

  Nyquist’s smile faded. “I don’t want to see Crater de Gerlache.”

  She started to tell him that he didn’t have to, but before she could get a word out, he added,

  “And I know I can stay in the train or in a hotel in Sverdrup Crater or wherever you’re staying. I just—would rather bury myself in work.”

  She had tried to tell him just once that while she viewed the deaths in Crater de Gerlache as a failure, the bombing had also provided the solution. Those deaths had saved the lives of everyone else on the Moon.

  And he had shaken his head.

  “I think we would have figured it out in time,” he had said.

  But DeRicci didn’t. She knew that the explosives had been the missing piece. Everything had come together quickly after that.

  He didn’t have to agree with her. He probably never would.

  But he was standing here, disagreeing with her, because of the way the tragedy had unfolded.

  She leaned over and kissed him. “If you don’t get off the train now,” she said, “you will come with me whether you want to or not.”

  He stroked her cheek with his right hand. “Let’s do something special when you get back.”

  She smiled, and leaned her forehead against his. She wasn’t going to make any promises. A normal night at home would be special, at least to her.

  She hadn’t had one in over six months.

  But she wasn’t going to spoil his mood.

  “I’ll see you in a week,” she said.

  He kissed her again and, as was his way, left the compartment without saying good-bye.

  She sank into the comfortable chair, and looked at the window again. The Moon dust was gone. She could see every detail through that window.

  She smiled to herself. A week ago, she would never have thought she would be able to take a small tour of the Moon.

  A week ago, she thought she might be stuck in that hell of searching for the third attack forever.

  A week ago, she thought she would never succeed.

  But she had. The Moon was here. The Alliance was intact.

  She was taking a victory lap.

  And she deserved it.

  SEVENTY-SIX

  PIPPA LANDAU SAT at a large table in the crew’s mess on the Green Dragon. She had just finished talking with her son. He had sent her panicked messages all during the crisis two days ago, some of which she never received because she was in the Security Office when it had been blacked out, and some of which she hadn’t answered because she was too fascinated by the competent people working hard to save lives.

  When she finally reached Takumi, he was frantic. He called her inconsiderate and self-centered and stuck in the past. Maybe only the last was true.

  She still hadn’t told him she was a Disappeared. She might have to, if she decided to stay on the Moon to help with the investigation. Right now, Marshal Gomez and her crew had no idea where to put Pippa, but they knew they needed her.

  The marshal told Pippa that she held the key to the operation conducted by the masterminds on the Frontier.

  Pippa wasn’t sure if she held a modern key or an ancient one. She knew that there was a lot of information trapped in her brain that she hadn’t thought about in years.

  In the short conversation she had had with the marshal before everything went wrong two days ago, Pippa had given up details she had never spoken about, and the marshal thought they were significant.

  Since then, two other people had debriefed Pippa, but none had asked questions as insightful as the marshal’s.

  Pippa knew she would help dissolve this cabal that had tried to destroy the Alliance. She had a personal reason, of course. Apparently, someone in the Frontier was still searching for her. But she could return to her old life and never be found.

  Instead, she wanted to stay. She had lost a lot of friends on Starbase Human, something else she had never admitted, and she had lost herself there.

  She couldn’t reclaim Takara Hamasaki—she had changed too much for that—but she could revive and acknowledge her. And maybe even tell her children about Takara one day.

  Once Pippa had put it all into perspective.

  She got up and made herself some coffee. She still had to wait—everyone on the
ship was dealing with details she wasn’t privy to—and she didn’t mind. She felt useful in a completely different way than she had when she taught or when she raised her children.

  Now, she felt like she was contributing to the Alliance, not just to her small Iowa town.

  Pippa had no idea if she would go back to that world. She suspected she would.

  But she was going to have an adventure first, and she was going to stop hiding. She had been ashamed of her past.

  She was no longer.

  She only wished that Raymond was still alive so she could tell him all about this. She had no idea what he would think about it, which might have been why she wanted to talk to him.

  She missed him.

  She missed her children and her grandchildren.

  But she was sitting on a spaceship after explosions and a major crisis. Her life had come full circle.

  She loved that.

  And she was looking forward to the future—for the first time in years.

  SEVENTY-SEVEN

  GOMEZ HADN’T EXPECTED the job offer. Odgerel contacted her that morning; the security division—the entire Earth Alliance Security Division (not just the human division of the Investigative Department)—wanted Gomez to lead the task force that would bring the Anniversary Day criminals from arrest through trial to convictions.

  It would take a decade at least. They wanted Gomez to steer an entire department, because they believed the criminal side of this was so vast that it would take an entire department to handle all of the details.

  Ten thousand arrests and more on the way. Not counting what Gomez—or someone—would find on the Frontier. The things Pippa Landau had told Gomez about the way business used to be conducted on the original Starbase Human made Gomez think that there was an entire wing of this treasonous enterprise that never touched Alliance space at all.

  The idea of handling this massive investigation with all of its moving parts intrigued her. The idea of running a bureaucracy did not.