by F X Holden
“No,” Maria said. “Oh my God, AJ, no.”
“Maria,” he said. “Look, don’t panic. He was OK when I saw him, he didn’t sound like he was about to go and kill himself.”
“No, OK.”
“He was… he was talking about the future. He said he was thinking of maybe going back to college, to do a business course,” AJ said. He felt sick saying it though.
“A business course? I’m going to call the police,” Maria said. “It doesn’t matter how he seemed to you, he’s not well.”
“Yeah, look, I’ll ask around at work,” AJ said. “Maybe he spoke with the boss.”
“Thank you AJ, if he calls you…”
“I’ll let you know. Straight away.”
“Yes. I’ll call the police now.”
AJ logged off the call, sat there looking Cassie as a million thoughts zinged around his head.
“Leon is missing?” Cassie said. “That’s not good.”
“We shouldn’t panic,” AJ was saying, doing his best not to sound like he was. “He said he needed to get out of the house. Maybe it’s just something with him and Maria.”
“Yeah, but he’s usually a smart guy, right?” Cassie said. “Smart enough he’d know even if they had a fight, he needs to come up with some sort of excuse so his wife doesn’t report him missing. Smart enough to know he should at least call home?”
“I guess. Can you ping Leon’s biodata?”
“That would be suspicious. But I’m checking police records for everyone they picked up yesterday, dead or alive…”
“Damn, Cassie…”
She held up a finger, then blinked, “No-one that matches Leon.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah, no, it isn’t. Winter told McMaster he wanted things ‘resolved’. Now Warnecke is dead, Leon has gone missing. That’s two citizens taken off the grid. You’re a mere cyber. You should definitely panic AJ.”
Cassie went around her apartment, pulling underwear and t-shirts out of drawers and throwing them into a small backpack. AJ watched her numbly, then realized what she was doing.
“You going somewhere?” he asked.
Cassie looked at him like he was the dumbest cyber alive, which right now, was how he felt.
“We, AJ,” she said. “We are going somewhere. Get that big old brain of yours in gear will you!”
But he couldn’t. Warnecke. Now Leon? It was like there was a breaker inside him somewhere and the fuse had just been tripped. He just sat watching Cassie.
Cassie stopped up, and walked over and put a hand on his shoulder, “AJ, the good Citizen Warnecke is dead. Leon goes to see you for a quiet beer, and he never comes home. I’m willing to bet he’s dead too. Everyone who had anything to do with Warnecke’s manuscript is getting themselves dead, which just leaves you.”
“Awesome.”
“Not awesome. And it would be a bit of a downer for me personally if you got shot, chopped into small bits and thrown into the Shifting Sea as shark bait.” Cassie shoved a couple last things in her backpack. “Now get your ass out of that bed.”
“Why? We can’t take a drone now,” AJ said. “You’ve blocked my drift signal, but Winter has probably put us on a watch list. Where can we run?”
“Victims run,” Cassie said. “We’re executing our Plan B.”
“It’s a six-hour flight, does your magic credit line extend to hiring a private drone?”
“Yes, but if I tried to do that, it would pop up an alert somewhere, that’s for sure,” she said. “But I have a very low profile idea.”
“Great. Say we do make it to Whitehorse,” he said. “What’s to say we’ll be safe there?”"
“Territory Mounties are hardcore. They aren’t going to get scared off by Winter being a Congressman. The Inland government has self-rule, got its own parliament. They’re a different breed up there; probably love a chance to stick it to the Capitol.” Cassie finished packing and looked at AJ. “I don’t want to go past your apartment if we don’t need to. We can buy clothes for you on the way.” She pointed to her bathroom, “But get a toothbrush. I have a spare one in the cabinet. We might be fugitives but we’re going to have fresh minty breath.”
Before they left her apartment, Cassie pulled his earbud out of his ear. She took both of their earbuds, left them powered up, and put them under her sofa cushions. “They can track these. We’ll have to get disposables. And I’ve cloned our data spheres. Whether it’s McMaster or Warnecke’s daughter, they’re going to show whoever is watching, that you and I are having a doing exactly what we usually do, exactly where we usually do it, this time on a Tuesday.”
“What about credit?” AJ held up his wrist, pointed to the little bump where his ID chip was implanted, “If I use this it will ping my location, whether I use it for a door, a car, or pay for anything. Same for Cassie’s magic credit line I assume?”
Cassie smiled and went out to her kitchen, dug around in her freezer and came back with a small bag that jingled. She threw it to AJ and she opened it, seeing small dull silver cubes inside.
“My contingency stash,” she explained when AJ looked at her, puzzled. “PRC platinum cubes, each one at least a hundred thousand untraceable creds from any loan shark in the Commonwealth.” She shrugged, “Better than a credit line that can be back-traced. We can go totally off-Core.”
AJ grabbed his stuff and they went downstairs to Cassie’s garage. She pointed to her planer and handed him a helmet, “Get on.”
“This is your idea of low profile? A bright red, self-drive road planer?”
“No drone port, and just one border crossing. You already said yes to a road trip with me,” she pointed out.
“To a resort,” he moaned. “For a romantic weekend.”
"So, hold that thought,” Cassie said and climbed on, thumbing the starter, which just gave a reluctant whine as she pulled her own helmet on.
“Will it even get us to the border?” he asked, pulling on his helmet reluctantly.
“Of course. Plus,” she said, as the engine clattered to life and settled into a low throaty hum. “I had it tuned since you rode it last. Got another forty clicks an hour out of it.”
“Awesome,” he said. “You’ll hear me cheering as I get flung off going around a bend.”
“Oh don’t worry fraidy cat,” she said. “I’m not going above the speed limit between here and Ketchikan.”
He threw his leg over the pillion seat and hunched in behind her, “One stop before we hit the highway,” AJ said, pulling on the spare helmet. “Head to the end of the street and take a right.”
“You have to go? Pee upstairs.”
“No, my workshop at Sol Vista. I want to grab Warnecke’s photos, the originals.”
“Forget it. We have scans,” Cassie complained. “We need to get out of this place, now, AJ.”
“I know,” AJ said. “But trust me, this Ferguson guy will have an easier time believing us if we show him Warnecke’s originals, rather than some scans I just pull out of my head.”
She looked like she wanted to argue, but then she kicked up the planer stand and started slowly rolling, “Emotions. Honestly, I think running every aspect of habitat management for two moon colonies is easier than understanding humans sometimes.”
They rode slowly into the car park at Sol Vista, checking the data sphere around them, looking for strange vehicles with black tinted windows or drones staking out AJ’s workplace, but it seemed to be quiet. It was still only about eight a.m., the only parked cars belonging to wealthy family visitors who were overnighting. It was as good a time now as ever. He told Cassie this, handing her his helmet.
“I don’t like it,” Cassie muttered. “Just saying.”
“It’s a socialization thing,” AJ said. “You don’t have to understand it. It’ll be fine.”
Cassie slapped her helmet, “Of course it will, because they would never look for you here. Where you work.”
“Five minutes,” he said. “Y
ou just get over there beside that wall and keep the planer running. Five minutes,” he said.
“Put me on passive audio,” she said. “In case you…”
He loved her, but he didn’t like the idea of Cassie being inside his head any more than he did McMaster. “No. You can follow my location, that’s enough. If I need help you’ll hear me yelling. I promise.”
Cassie looked like she wanted to argue some more but AJ shrugged, turned and jogged off. There was a gate next to the admin building he could use to get onto the grounds, so he wouldn’t have to go through reception, see whoever was there. But if Cyan was here, and she should be, she would be doing her run exactly now. ‘Spontaneity’ wasn’t in her lexicon. You could almost set your watch by her. A circuit took her about five minutes, six if she was warming up or easing down. Her run always took her past the office, so someone could flag her down if there was a call and she needed to interrupt her run. AJ decided the best idea was to wait and see if she came past, then run for his workshop in the middle of the Orchard and get out before she came around again.
He pressed himself out of sight against the wall of the admin building, feeling like some fool in a VR action show. But soon enough, he heard the rhythm of Cyan’s feet coming toward him. Not slow, so Cyan must have been in the middle of her run. Like he’d said to Cassie, he would only have five minutes, max. He pulled tighter against the wall as the running feet went past, then stuck his head out to see Cyan running away from him, up a path and around a bend. He took his chance. Jogging, trying not to look too panicked to any of the residents who might see him along the way, he zigzagged down a couple paths, around the racquetball courts to his workshop.
There was a simple DNA lock on the steel door, and he started wiping his thumb over it.
The door bounced lightly back against his thumb. It shouldn’t do that.
It was unlocked.
He put his ear to the metal, and heard a sound inside. Leon?
“Go on in, AJ,” said a voice behind him, and he turned around to see McMaster standing there. The guy was just standing with his hands behind his back. Not holding a gun or anything, but he didn’t need to. Just the look of him was threatening enough. “Please,” he said.
AJ hesitated, then opened the door and stepped inside, McMaster behind him. “We have a guest,” McMaster said, and AJ saw the person going through Leon’s workstation inside the shed was the guy who he’d seen in the diner in the Capitol and again in the brew pub with Cyan.
“Well, the gang’s all here,” AJ said.
Cassie, get that planer ready to move, he chirped on TH.
What’s happening?! she replied. There’s no damn camera inside that workshop, I can see you’re in there but that’s all.
Just stay ready, he said.
“Sit,” McMaster said.
He didn’t. “What are you doing here?” AJ asked, not that he couldn’t guess.
“Tidying up,” McMaster said. He indicated to the other guy to keep doing what he was doing, so he kept pulling stuff out of drawers and looking in tool boxes.
“Where is Leon?” AJ asked.
McMaster frowned, “Should I know?”
“His wife said he didn’t come home last night,” AJ said.
McMaster held out his hands as though he had no cards to hide, “Your colleague Leon and I had a fine conversation, but unfortunately we could not come to a mutually agreeable arrangement, so he went away in a state of high dudgeon.”
AJ looked at him disbelievingly. He could see what had happened though. Goddamn Leon. He’d taken the copy of the page AJ had given him, then called McMaster and threatened to go public with it. A shakedown, just like McMaster and Winter had always suspected.
“You look surprised. I warned you about Leon,” McMaster said. “He’s not as amenable to negotiation as you are. Which brings us here again.”
Between AJ and the door was six feet of military muscle. He had another goon behind him, rifling through his and Leon’s stuff. If he called in Cassie, what would that do except get her in trouble too?
AJ narrowed his eyes, “So what do you want?”
“Loose ends,” McMaster said absently. “I hate them. And the manuscript we obtained from Citizen Warnecke’s apartment appears to be missing a significant chapter. Perhaps you know where we might find it?”
“This one is locked,” the other guy said, pointing at the metal tool cabinet in AJ’s corner. “I’d need some heavy duty kit to open it.”
“Well isn’t that annoying,” McMaster said. “I’m pretty sure AJ here could open it though, right?”
AJ was thinking at quantum speed, but there was no brilliant idea coming to him. He held up his hand. “If I say no, you just chop off my thumb anyway?”
“Suits me,” the guy said, reaching for a laser saw.
“Let AJ open it,” McMaster said, motioning to him to put the saw down. “Unlike Leon, it’s in his nature to be helpful.”
AJ walked to the cabinet, put his thumb on the lock and wiped it. As he did, he hit himself with an adrenaline spike.
Right then, the door to the workshop was pulled open and Cyan stood there. McMaster and his goon turned to look at her. She took a half second to see there were strangers in there with AJ, and one of them was the guy who had hit on her in a bar. “Hey,” she said, frowning, “What are you…” As she spoke, AJ pulled open the top drawer of the filing cabinet, pulled Warnecke’s gun out and pointed it at McMaster.
“Great timing Cyan!” AJ said. “These guys are burglars. Call the police.”
“AJ?!” Cyan said, eyes wide.
“Run Cyan!” AJ barked, “Police!”
He didn’t have yell twice. Cyan disappeared from the doorway and he heard her running away, fast.
“Bad idea,” McMaster said.
AJ grabbed the box containing Warnecke’s photos, then stepped closer to the door, keeping the gun on McMaster.
“What do you think the police are going to say when we tell them we are here investigating a threat to blackmail Congressman Winter, AJ? When we tell them a cyber pulled a gun on us?” McMaster smiled grimly, leaning up against the metal wall. He didn’t look at all scared by the gun in AJ’s hand. His sidekick stood looking from his boss to AJ and back again, like he was waiting for a signal.
“As you aren’t cops or Presidential Guards or anyone else with a right to investigate anything, I think they’ll probably want to know who the hell you are and what the hell you were doing breaking into an old folks’ home,” AJ said, backing to the door. “And after I talk to them, they might also want to ask you what you know about the disappearance of Leon Guerra.”
McMaster glowered at AJ as he stepped out the door and the other man rushed him as AJ slammed it shut. The lock clicked, but AJ knew that wouldn’t hold them long. They’d managed to hack the DNA lock to get in, so he figured they could hack the lock to get out again. Or find some other way – they were in a shed full of heavy tools.
Coming, now! he chirped.
What the hell is going on?
Get ready to move! was all he said.
AJ stuck the gun into his belt and jogged for the gate. He assumed Cyan had run for the administration building where she could barricade herself inside, call the police and send out a message for residents to stay indoors - the standard protocol in an emergency. AJ had no intention of waiting around for the police though. He ran up the side of the administration block just as the green flashing ‘silent alarm’ outside Reception started blinking. With the box containing Warnecke’s photos in his hand, he ran over to Cassie.
“You got them?” Cassie asked, then noticed the blinking green light. “Wait, you set off an alarm?”
“Had to,” he said, climbing onto the planer and pulling on his helmet. “It’s complicated. Just get going, nice and easy.”
“Not cool, AJ!” Cassie said, gunning the throttle. “I’m picking up a police tasking to this address. I’m going to have to run some heavy duty interfer
ence to get us out of here.”
“So go,” AJ said. “North.”
17. THE RED SERGE
Cassie got them out of the area without breaking any speed limits, remotely disabling traffic cameras as they went. They hit a loan shark at the Sea Gate for black market credits, then rode for an hour and a half north before pulling in at a strip mall in Long Beach to buy cheap throwaway voice-only earbuds whose only extra feature was a voice scrambling module. While Cassie was paying, AJ went into the café next door and used one of them to call the Sea Gate district police.
“Hi, I have some information about a burglary at Sol Vista TGA Community earlier this morning,” he said.
“Please hold,” the operator said. “Transferring you to Residential Crime.”
He had to listen to some terrible tune repeating over and over before a bored voice came on the line, “Detective Helms.”
“Hi, I have information about a burglary at Sol Vista today,” AJ said.
“Name?”
“Anonymous,” AJ said.
“Uh huh,” the guy said. AJ could tell he was barely listening.
“The two guys you arrested are private security contractors working for Congressman Kevin Winter. It was a political break-in.”
“Uh huh,” the detective said. “And I’m guessing you’re the cyber with the gun your boss told us about…” AJ heard him call up a database. “Here we are…AJ.80966, the maintenance cyber? Friends call you AJ. How’s that for a guess?”
“You should also have a missing persons report for a Leon Guerra,” AJ said, ignoring his question. “They are connected. They met with him last night after five p.m., probably the last people to see him alive. Ask them about it.”
“Uh huh,” the detective said. “Look, I’m going to assume this is AJ. I tell you what AJ, I’ll ask them about it, just as soon as we find them.”
“What?”
“Your two ‘burglars’ hammered out a side panel in that shed you locked them in and were long gone by the time our officers responded. So right now all we got is some minor property damage, and a cyber running around with a gun,” he said. “That’s you by the way. You do know what that means, I guess?”
