Eden Burning (Fox Meridian Book 7)

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘Basically. There are a bunch of apocalypse memes floating around.’

  ‘The comet?’

  Fox grinned. ‘See? You’re not just a pretty face and a great pair of legs.’

  ‘Huh. Tell that to the advertising agencies that’ve been trying to hire me. If I see another script which involves me walking around in stockings and a garter belt, I’ll scream. So, a bunch of people have been infected by some meme that says the world is going to end, and some of them have decided that they need to give it a hand?’

  ‘Pretty much. It’s worldwide, but most of the ones outside America have just involved suicide. There are some reports of one man blowing himself up in the entrance to a mine in Mongolia. Suicide, but he also trapped a lot of people below ground and probably killed several in the blast. The Chinese are claiming there were terrorist motivations, but I suspect it was the meme.’

  ‘This is crazy,’ Marie said, frowning. ‘I mean, how does a meme like that start?’

  ‘In this case,’ Kit said, ‘it was started deliberately. Apocalypse memes regarding Halley’s Comet, actually regarding many comets, have been around for centuries. Millennia, probably. But this one seems to have been started with purpose, using vectors guaranteed to increase its infection rate. Whether they expected this kind of reaction is another matter.’

  ‘It’s still sick, whether they did or not.’

  ‘Oh, they did,’ Fox said. ‘I’m pretty sure they knew what would happen. What I’m wondering now is: when is it going to end?’

  Saratoga–Ballston Resort, New England Administrative Region.

  The Saratoga–Ballston Resort was an area of almost two hundred square kilometres encompassing what had been Saratoga Springs, Ballston Spa, and Saratoga Lake. For an urbanised area, it was pretty green, but every last square metre of grass and trees was cultivated, the wildlife and plants were controlled to ensure a pleasing atmosphere for the residents and guests, and even the fish in the lake were monitored and regulated. The resort was not exactly a resort: it had a number of residents who paid to live in a relatively secluded, secure community with excellent entertainment facilities, but it also had guests holidaying there and staff who lived in an area north of the lake. It was very popular with the equestrian set, thanks to a history of horseracing in the region going back quite some time.

  That was the situation under normal circumstances, but tonight the place was in chaos. Fox and Helen had flown upcountry from New York Metro in separate Pythia vertols since the incident was spread across two major sites and a few minor ones. At sunset, seven men had begun walking through the residential regions and the more popular entertainment areas with assault carbines, shooting at anyone they saw. At about the same time, one of the grooms at the largest stables had begun shooting horses with an automatic shotgun. The groom seemed to have known what he was doing: none of the animals suffered. The same could not be said for the seven gunmen. While Helen took her aircraft to the staff residency zone to begin work on collecting evidence about the gunmen in the northern part of the resort, Fox overflew the area and it was obvious, even now, that there were paramedics all over the place dealing with injuries.

  Swinging her vertol around, Fox headed for the southern end of the resort, putting down in a car park outside the spa. One of the gunmen had staged his rampage inside the spa. Initial reports indicated sixteen dead and another twenty-nine injured.

  ‘That’s now seventeen dead,’ Kit said as Pythia’s wheels hit the tarmac. ‘The totals across the resort are quite alarming, but it could have been significantly worse. Security personnel located and stopped five of the men within six minutes.’

  ‘And the other two?’ Fox asked.

  ‘Were shot dead by residents who were armed at the time. That is the case here.’

  ‘This is a spa. What was a resident doing with a gun in a spa?’ Fox got up from her flight chair and started back through the aircraft as the rear ramp lowered. ‘Pythia, just stand ready. I’ll give instructions as and when I need you.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Meridian,’ the computer replied. ‘I have taken receipt of data files from local security cameras and I am processing them.’

  ‘Great, summary when you’re done.’

  ‘As for a customer of the spa being armed,’ Kit said, ‘it seems odd to me too, but it did stop the killings.’

  ‘I’m not entirely complaining,’ Fox replied. ‘It’s more a case of being curious.’

  There were two men waiting for Fox as she walked off the vertol. The one in the Palladium uniform was Alan Cross, a fit, thirty-something, ex-military type with sharply cut blonde hair and the expression of a man who was pleased to see Fox and annoyed by his companion. Kit supplied the name of the companion along with a few notes: this was George Frost, in charge of managing the running of the resort. He looked to be in his thirties too, but was almost certainly considerably older. He had the look of a man who spent all his time behind a desk, and then paid to make sure he looked like a man who spent all his time in the gym. His hair was designer-cut and his suit probably cost more than an average car. He had a Charlie Chaplin-style moustache under his nose and, combined with his annoyed expression, it made him look like a petty dictator.

  ‘We pay you people to stop this kind of thing happening here,’ Cross snapped, getting in before anyone else could speak.

  ‘No, sir,’ Fox replied. ‘You pay Palladium Security Solutions to stop criminals and to limit the effects of people going off the reservation on mad killing sprees. If you want to stop things like this happening, you need to conduct constant monitoring of the psychological states of everyone here.’

  Cross expected obsequious apologies, it seemed. Fox had never met the man before, because otherwise he would likely have known better. ‘It wasn’t even one of your people who stopped the man here. One of our residents–’

  ‘So I’ve heard. Unfortunately, that means the suspect’s death has to be investigated to be sure that lethal force was warranted. My second in command will be going over the details of the other death. One of the reasons we try not to kill suspects is that it causes a lot of paperwork, Mister Frost.’

  ‘Captain,’ Frost said.

  ‘He was in the Army twenty-five years ago,’ Kit supplied. ‘His rank on leaving was captain.’

  ‘Well then, let’s see what we have inside, Captain Frost,’ Fox said. ‘Cross, take me through it. Captain, I’ll contact you when we have further information to provide.’

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ Frost said.

  ‘No, sir, you’re not. I am required to see to it that this investigation is carried out according to national policing regulations. You are, in this situation, a civilian and you need to step away and let me do my job.’

  Frost was not happy, but he did not follow when Fox led Cross toward the building. She waited until they were inside before speaking again. ‘Okay, Cross, give me the basics.’

  Cross sighed. ‘It has not been a good evening. Eight sixteen, right on official sunset, they started firing. Seems like four of them were inside the buildings they were going to hit already, five if you include the guy who shot the horses. The other three were in ground vehicles, got out and started firing at people on the street. This place still has a fairly traditional high street shopping area and they posted themselves at three points along it.’

  ‘They’ve been planning this for a while. This is organised mayhem.’

  ‘Looks like it. Anyway, acoustic sensors picked up the gunshots and two RRUs were out to the shopping zone in a minute or so. The gunmen were down in under three minutes. Bindwire. We took out two more with electrolasers when we got the reports in, but they had longer to work. You can’t get an RRU into an indoor mall and a gym complex, but we had people stationed not far from either. We have a pair of officers here at the spa all the time, but the guy here was shot before our people got to him.’

  ‘And the last?’

  ‘In an office building resort management uses. Apparentl
y, the receptionist has a shotgun under her desk and knows how to use it. When this has blown over a little, I intend to find out why that is. Uh, the groom killed ten horses in the stable where he works, and then used the last round in the magazine to blow his own head off.’ Cross frowned. ‘I’m not a detective, but I’m not sure he was anything to do with the others. He started later, attacked animals, and took his own life. Someone saw him at one point, screamed, but he didn’t pause to take out the witness, just went on methodically killing horses.’

  They had made it into the corridors of the spa and there was plenty of evidence around that someone had been busy. Holes decorated sections of wall, a couple of lights had been shot out, probably by accident, and then there were the bodies. People in what appeared to be spa uniform had been hit in the corridors and were still lying where they had fallen. The ones who had not died of their wounds were gone, taken out to the resort’s hospital facility which was, mercifully, next door. A few of the victims were in rooms off the corridors. One woman had been shot in the back and side while lying on a massage table, but the only indication that there had been a masseur with her was a blood pool on the tiled floor; maybe the masseur was on the survivor list.

  ‘Okay, I’m seeing large wounds,’ Fox said. ‘I’m guessing at ten-mil caseless. No sign of any brass on the floor. A lot of wild impacts, so he was snap firing on full auto. He missed a lot, but a high-velocity ten-millimetre round is likely to kill even if he only gets one in the target.’

  ‘See, this is why I’m not the detective. I had to look at the rifle to figure that out. Uh, you’re not going to like it when you see it. I didn’t like it when I saw it, but I know who the gunman is, so it wasn’t a really big shock.’

  Fox raised an eyebrow. ‘What haven’t you told me, Cross?’

  They had come to a lounge area, which seemed to be where the gunman had discovered that not everyone in the spa was going to run screaming from a madman with a rifle. The madman in question was lying in a rather spread position on the floor of the lounge, not far from the door, dressed in combat fatigues, but no body armour. There was a tactical harness, however, which still had four magazines in it. He had been shot twice in the chest and once in the head.

  Fox scanned over the scene and nodded. ‘Double-tapped him in the chest and then decided to put a round in his skull to be sure. Fifteen-mil pistol?’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ Cross said. ‘This guy and the one who shot him, they both belong to a local gun club. We have the acoustic monitors set to exclude their range because we get way too many false hits from up there.’

  ‘Yeah, well…’ Fox spotted the carbine lying a few feet from the body. ‘That’s a military assault carbine. What was this guy doing with a military–’

  ‘Wasn’t just him. All of them had them. And I’ve had identities through on five of the seven, and they all belonged to that gun club I mentioned. That’s another reason for thinking the groom is off-pattern. Pretty unlikely that a groom at one of the stables was involved with a members-only, rich-guy gun club.’

  ‘Right.’ Inside her head, or what she thought of as inside her head, Fox said, ‘Kit, get onto judicial liaison. I want a warrant for the membership lists and accounts of that club, and another one to go in to look for illegal firearms.’

  ‘Of course, Fox,’ Kit replied. ‘My estimation is that Captain Frost will not like that.’

  ‘Don’t doubt it, but Mister Frost can kiss my ass.’

  ‘Eww! Rather yours than mine.’

  ~~~

  Callum Inman had a large, ranch-style house set in gated gardens not far from the spa. Or he had had until someone had shot him three times. Now, Fox figured as she walked up to the gate with Cross, his wife owned the place outright. There was also a fourteen-year-old daughter; Fox hated giving families bad news, though there was every probability that mother and daughter already knew: the local news service had been streaming coverage of the incidents around the resort for the last ninety minutes. Names had not leaked out yet, but…

  ‘Cross, Palladium Security Solutions,’ Cross said to the security panel at the gate. ‘We need to see Mrs Inman.’

  ‘Mrs Inman is currently unavailable,’ a voice replied. It was smooth, but Fox could detect the slightly flat quality of average vocal synthesis. ‘This building is in security lockdown.’

  ‘Security override. I am transmitting my credentials.’

  ‘Lockdown rescinded. Mrs Inman remains unavailable.’ The gates began to swing open.

  ‘What about Maya Inman?’ Fox asked.

  ‘Miss Inman is currently unavailable.’

  ‘Kit,’ Fox said silently, ‘get paramedics out here.’ Aloud she said. ‘Come on, Cross. I don’t like this even a little bit.’ To emphasise the point, she unholstered her pistol as she started through the gates.

  The gardens were neat, manicured, with a somewhat over-precise look to them suggesting the extensive use of gardening robotics. There was a drive with a garage at the end. The garage doors were open and a vehicle was visible there, a small SUV probably belonging to the wife, with space for another.

  ‘Mister Inman’s vehicle is missing,’ Kit said. ‘The car in the garage is registered to Mrs Tawana Inman. The house AI is not very advanced, a class two. I’ve asked it for Mrs Inman’s whereabouts, but it simply keeps repeating that she is unavailable.’

  ‘Try the husband,’ Fox suggested.

  There was a barely perceptible pause and then, ‘Mister Inman is unavailable, apparently. I believe that someone has deactivated the house’s monitoring of family members. It has no information on where they are but expresses that as unavailability rather than saying it does not know.’

  Fox nodded, her eyes scanning the building. There were lights on all over the place, but all the drapes had been closed. Infrared was giving her nothing: the building seemed to be insulated well enough to stop body heat getting through. There could be anyone waiting inside…

  ‘We’ll go in together,’ Fox said to Cross. ‘You back me up. Let me lead into the rooms.’

  Cross gave her a pensive look. ‘Uh, shouldn’t I be leading into–’

  ‘You are wearing an undersuit which should be able to stop bullets and, assuming you stuck to protocol, you’ve added trauma plates to your uniform jacket.’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘Well, my body has two layers of armour, and if someone happens to have a railgun in there and rips my leg off, they just bolt on a new one. You stay behind me and let me take the majority of the risks.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Token argument made and masculinity preserved.’

  Fox flashed him a grin and then straightened her face. ‘I don’t think there is any risk, to be honest. I have a horrible feeling there’s no one here to talk to.’ She put her hand on the door handle and pushed it down. The door eased open without complaint.

  ‘Yeah… Yeah, I got that feeling too.’

  They moved in, taking it fairly swiftly but carefully. Cross did as ordered and let Fox lead into the rooms, but there was nothing much to be found. In the lounge, a large wall screen, a real one, was displaying a documentary of some sort with the sound off. Fox paused briefly to look: there were crowds on a street, a riot of some sort with old-style police in riot gear trying to hold back a mob armed with Molotov cocktails. Shrugging, Fox went on and eventually found her way to the master bedroom.

  Maya Inman was lying on the bed, wrapped in her mother’s arms. Both women seemed comfortable, at peace. An observer might have thought they were sleeping if it were not for the gaping holes someone had blown in their heads.

  ‘Shit,’ Cross said. ‘He did that before he left for the spa?’

  ‘Good question,’ Fox replied. ‘Kit, can we get an approximate time of death from the temperatures?’

  Kit appeared, electing to wear her more formal skirt for the crime scene. ‘Very approximately, two to three hours. I have managed to determine that the house AI was almost entirely deactivated two hours and forty-eight min
utes ago. Life monitoring and communications were deactivated, as were internal security functions. I would suggest that Tawana and Maya Inman were killed not long after that event.’

  ‘But he didn’t execute them,’ Cross said. ‘Right? He didn’t go nuts, kill his family, and then set out to kill a load of other people. Look at them. It’s like…’

  ‘Like they were part of it,’ Fox said. ‘He wasn’t murdering them; he was saving them. An act of mercy which they agreed with. This way they would go out together.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Unless we find drugs in their blood work… but I’m going to bet we won’t. Kit, tell the paramedics not to hurry and get Pythia to send a swarm unit over here. Primary focus is blood chemistry. Oh, and that video that’s playing out in the lounge. Find out where it’s coming from and have it sent to the memetics department for analysis.’

  ‘Of course, Fox. You believe that the video is related to the Eschaton one nine six meme?’

  ‘I would not be at all surprised.’

  ~~~

  ‘His name,’ Helen said, ‘was Emmerson Morales. Twenty-two, no wife, no family, and no girlfriend as far as anyone knows. The love of his life was horses. He’s been working at the stables for four years. No complaints, no reprimands, no trouble.’

  ‘Until he shot his beloved ponies,’ Fox began. They were having a catch-up meeting in the back of Fox’s vertol, even if various forensics systems were still at work.

  ‘That’s precisely correct. He killed his ten favourite horses before he topped himself.’

  ‘This seems to be a pattern,’ Kit said. ‘Mister Inman killed his wife and daughter prior to going out to kill others and, effectively, commit suicide.’

  ‘But he wouldn’t have,’ Helen countered. ‘He had to know our people carry non-lethal weapons. He was likely to survive.’

  ‘Unless he shot himself,’ Fox agreed. ‘Pythia, do we have toxicology on the Inman women yet?’

  ‘I prioritised that, Miss Meridian,’ Pythia replied. ‘I detected no signs of intoxication or narcotics. Maya Inman took a pain blocker approximately six hours prior to her death.’