by Piers Platt
Nicholai shook his head. “No, I don’t.” He wore a sad smile.
Rath’s eyes narrowed. “Then allow me to jog your memory. You tortured and murdered my brother, Vonn, when you found out he was an informant. I was there when Despino came for him.”
“Are you going to kill this man Despino, too?”
Rath nodded. “Already did.”
“Did it bring you peace?” Nicholai asked.
“No,” Rath admitted. “And I don’t believe your death will either. I’m just here to get some justice for my brother. I don’t think anything will bring me peace.”
Nicholai studied Rath’s face for a minute. “Except perhaps your own death?”
Rath frowned.
“It is plain on your face,” Nicholai explained. “You don’t have an appetite for life anymore. I know, I see it many times in the eyes of the people that come to the mobile kitchen. I think you and I are more alike than you know.” Nicholai knelt on the rooftop, steadying himself with a hand on the wooden railing around the vegetable garden. “Do what you feel you must. I don’t know what you deserve, my friend, but I deserve your justice.”
Rath drew his fighting knife and stepped over to Nicholai, blade pressed to his throat. Over the years, Rath had learned what fear smelled like – beyond the sweat, body odor, and occasional loosening of the bowels, his enhanced sense of smell had picked up a common thread from his victims in their final moments, a universal human terror pheromone. But Nicholai’s breathing was slow and even as he waited.
He smells … calm.
“What happened to you, Nicholai?” Rath asked.
Nicholai cocked his head to the side and looked up at Rath. “I was born again.”
“You found religion?”
Nicholai laughed. “No. If there is a God, He never answered any of my prayers. I found a way to rid myself of my demons and start a new life, I should have said.”
“You turned yourself in? Became an informant?”
“No. I had my memory erased.”
Rath moved the knife back from Nicholai’s throat. “What do you mean, ‘erased’?”
“Exactly what I say,” Nicholai said. “I don’t remember you or your brother because all of my memories of that time are now gone. I had them removed. One day I woke up in a strange room, not even remembering my own name. A doctor handed me a datascroll, and when I opened it, it was a video message from myself. It told me that I was once a gang leader, a drug addict, and a murderer. It told me that I had killed my own infant son in a drug-induced rage, and many other things besides. It told me that I couldn’t sleep, or eat, or stay sober anymore – I literally could not live with myself. But now I had a fresh start. So I have tried to make the most of that, and I have tried to do some penance for the things I did. It is not easy, but I’m happy now. Happier than I was before, I imagine. But,” he nodded at Rath’s knife, “I deserve to die for the things I did before. I’m just surprised it’s taken my old life so long to catch up to me.”
Rath squatted across from Nicholai. “Can you choose what memories to remove?”
“No. All of them, or nothing. And once it is done, they are gone forever.”
“Where did you get it done?” Rath asked.
“It is not a sanctioned health procedure, but finding a doctor willing to do it is not difficult, not on a world like Tarkis.” He paused, watching Rath’s face. “But the price ….”
“How much?”
“The datascroll told me that I had to liquidate everything to pay for it. Over ten million dollars.”
Rath looked down at the knife’s blade, running his fingertip down its length.
“You don’t have ten million dollars,” Nicholai said.
“No,” Rath agreed, after a time. “But I will.”
He sheathed the knife and left Nicholai kneeling next to the tomato plants on the roof, as the first heavy drops of rain began to fall.
22
Juntland Savings and Loan was nearly empty when Ashish walked in, with just one other customer talking to a teller avatar about making an offworld transfer. Ashish walked up to an empty teller window and a generic-looking avatar hologram appeared in front of him, smiling.
“Good evening, Mr. Mehta. Welcome to Juntland Savings and Loan, where your financial goals are our priority. What can I help you with today?”
Ashish set the manila envelope down on the counter. “I’d like to open a safe-deposit box for a couple days,” he told the avatar.
“Of course, sir. Normally we charge one hundred dollars per month for that service, but given your loyalty, we’re going to waive that fee.”
“Great, thanks,” he said.
The avatar gestured to a row of private booths to Ashish’s left. “Please proceed to the first booth. There you’ll find a safe-deposit box waiting for you – we recommend writing down or memorizing the box number, for your records. Place your items in the box, close the box, activate the lock with a keycode of your choosing and your fingerprint, and then place the box back in the receptacle. And then you’re all set!” the avatar told him.
Ashish walked over to the first booth, and pulled aside the curtains. Inside was a small desk with a recessed tray, holding the safe-deposit box. Number 8210 – easy enough to remember – eight plus two is ten. He dropped the manila envelope in the safe-deposit box, closed it, keyed in a PIN code, and then placed his finger on the box’s scanner. It clicked and the touchpad turned red. He jiggled the handle, but the box stayed closed. Finally, he slid the deposit box back into the receptacle, which closed automatically.
Ashish walked back outside, pushing through the revolving door. He stopped for a minute, taking a deep breath of the cool night air.
That’s taken care of that. For now.
He walked around the building to the parking lot – this late in the evening, his car was the only one in the lot. Something made the hair on the back of his neck stand up, and he stopped for a second, glancing up and down the lot. Seeing nothing, he shook his head.
Now you’re jumping at shadows.
He opened the driver’s door and sat down. The car’s hoverjets hummed to life, and the dashboard controls lit up.
“Let’s go home,” he told the car.
“Yes, let’s,” a voice said from the backseat. Ashish felt something cover his nose and mouth, but he blacked out before he could react.
* * *
Something tasted awful. Ashish frowned, and tried to reach up to wipe his mouth. But his arm was heavy, and he could barely lift it. His eyelids were heavy, too, but he managed to open his eyes after several tries.
Where …? In my car. In the garage? What’s that taste?
He licked his lips.
Liquor? And vomit. Why was I drinking?
It was hard to keep his eyes open, and he was tired.
So tired.
He shut his eyes again.
Just sleep it off.
He could hear a dripping sound, though, and it was persistent enough that it annoyed him into opening his eyes again.
Where is that coming from?
He tried to look around the car, but his head just lolled to one side. He looked down before he closed his eyes again. It took several seconds for the image to register in his brain.
Why is there blood dripping into my cup holder?
His eyes were open faster this time. Blood dripped steadily from his middle finger down into the cup holder. Ashish felt the panic rising as he looked up from the blood-filled cup holder to his finger, resting on the console arm-rest, and then up to his wrist, which had a deep gash along the vein. With a rush, the events in the bank parking lot came back to him.
The Guild. They’re trying to kill me. Oh god, they’re at my house. My family!
As he watched, blood pulsed out of the vein, and he realized with sudden clarity that his panic was causing his weak heart rate to speed up, forcing the blood out even faster. He took a deep, ragged breath, willing himself to be calm.
> Focus. Get help.
“Call the police,” he tried to say, but he could not form the words properly, his tongue was swollen and useless. The car’s voice recognition system lit up, but merely beeped at him, waiting for an intelligible command. He tried again, and again, and tears rolled down his cheek as the car sat silent. His vision was fading.
He realized with a start that he had fallen unconscious again, though he didn’t know for how long.
I’m dying. How much longer do I have? Minutes, maybe.
Then his arm moved, seemingly of its own accord. He looked down at it, and willed it to move again, dragging it slowly off the arm-rest. Slowly, agonizingly, he lifted it and guided it to the center console, brushing his fingers on the car’s touch-screen. But he merely smeared blood on the screen, and the liquid prevented the screen from registering his touches. He took a deep breath, and then another. Then, using the blood still dripping from his fingers as ink, he began painting a crude message on the dashboard. It took nearly two minutes and all of his concentration, but at last it was done. He let his arm drop again, and sighed.
“Anh,” he said. The car beeped at him encouragingly. “Anh, I’m sorry.”
* * *
“Enter,” the voice said. The supervisor pushed open the door and walked over to the director’s desk. He cleared his throat tentatively.
“Yes?” the director asked, still reading from her computer screen.
“The journalist contract has been completed, ma’am.”
“Good. Have we reviewed the data from his computer yet?” she asked.
“Just started. So far we’re not finding anything, but we had the contractor wipe his computer to be safe.”
The director typed for several seconds, and then looked up. “Something else, Altaras?”
“Yes, ma’am. Contractor 700 completed the assignment for us. But I think he may be a liability risk. He has a track record of killing beyond his mission parameters, and I’m worried it may expose the Group.”
The director studied him. “Define ‘track record,’ ” she said.
“Thirty-four kills that I would classify as incidental to mission accomplishment. I first flagged him for review after the carnival ride incident – he killed a number of additional riders for no discernible purpose. Now the latest is a small child, a boy of five. The journalist’s son, in fact.”
“Did the boy interrupt him?”
“No, ma’am, he was sleeping. 700 staged the kill as a murder-suicide. The wife was a target, but the son was not – he’s too young to know anything.”
The director didn’t blink. “You assume,” she said.
“I’m sorry?”
“You’re making an assumption that he’s too young, Altaras. And assumptions are dangerous. What if he overheard his parents discussing what they knew? He might not understand it, but he could still repeat it.”
“I suppose …,” the supervisor allowed.
“Regardless of this particular case, I agree with your assessment of 700. Downgrade him from First Rank to Second Rank, and issue him a warning. He can kill on his own time, if that’s what he so chooses. On missions, I want him focused.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
23
His datascroll buzzed insistently the instant the spaceliner exited faster-than-light travel. Rath was still brushing his teeth, so he rinsed his mouth out, and then walked over to the cabin’s desk, where he flipped on the scroll.
Rath read the message again, hoping to make some sense out of it. He had never been assigned a new mission in the midst of traveling to a target location, and he had always flown commercial spaceliners when traveling – Executive Terminals were only for private spacecraft. He felt a knot form in his stomach. As much as he wanted to read the new mission brief, he had only a few minutes until the ship docked, so he packed his gear hurriedly, shouldered his bags, and headed for the dock.
He was one of the first passengers off, and stopped by the gate agent desk to inquire about directions to the Executive Terminal. His new right leg still pained him from time to time, but he ignored it and jogged across the orbital hub to the Executive Terminal area. At the entrance, a security guard stopped him with a raised hand, and demanded to see his pass.
“My pass …?” Rath said, confused.
“All Executive passengers have an access pass,” the man explained, not even bothering to look up from his display screen. “If you don’t have one, I can’t let you in.”
Rath sighed, setting his gear down on the floor, and pulling out the datascroll.
They didn’t say anything about a goddamn pass …
“Are you looking for Flight 621?”
Rath’s head snapped up – a uniformed pilot walked quickly toward the security checkpoint, pointing at him.
“Yeah,” Rath said.
“I’m your pilot.” He turned to the security guard. “He’s with me, Charlie – that’s the guy I’m waiting on.” The security guard waved them through. Rath grabbed his bags and followed the pilot.
“Your employer sure has their panties in a twist about getting you to Lakeworld in a hurry,” the pilot said, visibly annoyed. “They’ve been messaging me non-stop since they hired my ship. Do you know they wanted me to meet your spaceliner and do a ship-to-ship dock, to try to get you off faster? Fucking unbelievable. What’s the deal?”
Rath wasn’t sure how much the pilot knew about him or the Group. “I don’t know what the rush is for myself,” he said. “They don’t tell me much, either.”
The pilot’s scowl deepened. “Most of my passengers have names,” he continued, rounding a corner in the terminal and heading for a boarding gate marked C7. “Not numbers.”
Rath smiled. “I’m Rob.”
“Hmph. I’m Captain Han; my first officer is aboard already doing final checks. We oughta be undocked in ten minutes, and at Lakeworld in just under two hours. We didn’t have time to pick up our flight attendant, so you’re on your own for drinks and such.”
“That’s fine,” Rath said.
The private spaceliner was small, but plush. Rath noted six small sleeping compartments aft of the main cabin, but he dropped his gear in the forward lounge and selected a seat on a leather couch next to a reading lamp. Han disappeared forward, grumbling, and made only a brusque announcement over the intercom when the hatch sealed and the ship was ready to depart. Rath paid him little attention: he was already scanning the new mission brief on his datascroll.
* * *
The murmur of conversation died as soon as the supervisor entered the control room. She fiddled with the display controls at the podium for a minute, until the viewscreen came on. One of the techs in the back row coughed.
“Okay, I know you’re all wondering why we called you in outside of your normal shift schedule,” she began. She gestured to the screen, where security footage from the front-facing camera on a police air car appeared. “This is why.”
On-screen, the video started. The techs and supervisors in the room watched as a policeman moved into the camera’s field of vision, walking toward a battered air car pulled over by the side of a forested road.
“This is Lakeworld, approximately eighteen hours ago. Routine traffic stop. The subject here gives him her ID card, and he decides to do a facial scan, too. We’re not sure why, but something doesn’t compute, and he asks her to step out of the vehicle. Pause it there, as she’s stepping out of the car. The quality is poor, so height and weight estimations don’t give us much more than a possible match. But you can’t hide talent.” She let the video run for another four seconds. There was a gasp from one of the techs in the audience.
“Yeah,” the supervisor agreed. “That cop’s going to be on convalescent leave for a few months. Note the speed and decisiveness
.” She played the video back again. “Disables him, disarms him, and puts four rounds into the vehicle – two in the engine block, two in the communications suite, and we lose the live feed from the camera when comms are knocked out. Everyone recognize her now?”
“339,” one of the techs said.
“Probably, yes. We think we found her. Now, Contractor 621 is exiting FTL drive in approximately two hours. His personnel packet is on your datascrolls, but I’ll give you the short version, those of you who haven’t observed him before. He’s a fourth rank contractor with thirty-two kills, which means he’s been lucky to live this long. If you review his last psych assessment, you’ll see he’s not the man we want on this mission. But he was the closest asset we had, so he’s the one we get.”
One of the techs raised a hand. “Yes – you,” the supervisor pointed.
“Sir, 339 was First Rank. What kind of guidance have we issued 621? I’m just not sure that a double shift in the control room is going to make much difference when he goes toe-to-toe with her.”
“Agreed. That’s why we’ve got three other contractors en route, all with higher proficiency ratings, but the next soonest ETA is ….” She checked the datascroll on the podium, “Seventy-two hours. Best case scenario here: 621 acquires the target, tracks her, and stays alive long enough to flush her out for the other contractors. Only if he’s compromised or in danger of losing contact with her should he engage her.”
The room was silent for a minute.
“621 is fucked,” one of the techs muttered under their breath.
The supervisor ignored it. “I don’t have to remind all of you what kind of threat 339 represents to the Group. This is possibly our only chance to eliminate that threat. Let’s get it done.”
* * *
If Rath had been surprised by the initial message he had received, he was at a complete loss after reading the mission brief.
