DeathWeb (Fox Meridian Book 3)

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘They’ve got a ground vehicle?’ Jackson asked, connecting through to the jet and the feeds from the airborne guardian frames.

  ‘Looks like it. I’ve tasked one of the units to give us a closer look, but we should get that crate back on the jet.’

  By the time they were pulling the door shut, the cyberframe was in visual range of the ugly-looking truck that appeared to be carrying maybe ten men in outfits which would have looked right for some sort of post-apocalyptic survival movie. The truck itself had no hood and then Jackson looked over the feed from the frame and said, ‘They’ve adapted a gasoline engine to run on alcohol. Clever for someone like that.’

  ‘They’re clever enough. Most of the gangs have at least basic internet via those high-altitude, wide-area drone relays. A lot of them are pretty busy on the anarchy meme sites.’

  ‘They’re going to break in and mess this up as soon as we’re gone, aren’t they?’ Terri said.

  ‘No,’ Fox replied. A second later, on the camera feed, the trails from four missiles could be seen lancing out in the direction of the truck. ‘That should discourage them.’

  ‘What’s left of them anyway,’ Jackson said.

  Part Two: The Future of Murder

  New York Metro, 20th June 2060.

  Fox sat in a room filled with monitors and sensor data. The screens showed the feeds from cameras all over the house; they floated, rearranging themselves in space as Fox decided to look somewhere else. She had multispectral views of every room in the house, the roof, and the outside walls. She had feeds from all the security monitor systems giving times for last entry and exit through both doors, along with environmental data and a schematic map showing the location of everyone in the building.

  Right now, that was her since she had waited until Marie had gone out running before checking out the virtual room the house’s security systems fed into. Using the security feeds was something Fox planned to do only when she really needed to, but checking it out when no one was around seemed like a good idea.

  ‘Everything meets your requirements?’ Belle appeared, all prim and proper, with her hands clasped before her and her heels together.

  Before Fox could answer, Kit appeared in her own more proper outfit and glasses, stood in precisely the same posture, and said, ‘Everything appears to be adequate.’

  Fox tried to keep the smirk off her virtual face. ‘It seems quite complete, Belle. Thank you. Have you two sorted out this calendar synchronisation thing?’

  ‘We have,’ Belle said. ‘Kit has been most accommodating. The fact that we are both MarTech AIs obviously helps. It has been less trivial to produce a reasonable policy for Miss Shaftsbury. She has a haphazard view of maintaining her social data.’

  ‘She’s young, and she’ll likely rearrange things when she starts working. Have you access to Sam’s schedule?’

  ‘Yes. I have constructed an aggregate calendar accessible by all of you, which shows when you can expect to be alone, or to be able to find one of the others. However, it currently says that Miss Shaftsbury should be in when, in fact, she has gone out.’

  ‘You’ll need to expect changes in plan. Doesn’t Marie use that LifeFit thing? I think if you monitored that, you’d be able to follow her plans for running and expected time to return.’

  Belle raised an eyebrow and then turned, raising a hand in an unnecessary gesture to open a new display window. This one showed a local street map and an indicator showing Marie’s current position. ‘Thank you, Fox, I can do that and follow her. And she will be re-entering the house approximately…’

  On one of the displays, there was movement and Fox more or less automatically pulled the screen forward to see Marie bouncing into her lounge in very short shorts and a cropped athletic top. Before Fox could think to push the display away, she got to see Marie peeling off her top as she headed for the bathroom. And then there was movement on the basement bathroom display which Fox studiously ignored.

  ‘And this is why I don’t want to start coming in here unless I need to,’ Fox said. ‘I could turn into a real voyeur.’

  ‘You have seen Marie naked before,’ Kit pointed out. ‘Quite close up, in fact.’

  ‘It’s not quite the same when I’m spying on her through the house sensors. It’s probably a human thing, don’t worry about it.’ Closing her eyes, Fox dropped out of the virtual world and into the real one. Belle and Kit were both standing over her when she looked up.

  ‘I’m receiving data on the delegates registering for the conference,’ Belle said. ‘Registration has now opened for those arriving early. I believe that you are already registered as part of the MarTech contingent.’

  ‘She is,’ Kit said. ‘I have the registration pack. I am also monitoring the registrations going through. I do not expect to see anyone we know since those registering on site are primarily the out-of-town political delegates. However, you never know.’

  ‘True,’ Fox said. ‘Keep an eye out for UNTPP people.’

  ‘Captain Deveraux is pre-registered,’ Kit said.

  ‘Fair enough, but keep an eye out for others.’ She frowned as she saw Kit’s eyes widen. ‘Something wrong, Kit?’

  ‘Two names just came up in the feed,’ Kit replied.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Belle said, smiling, ‘Jonathan M. and Andrea Meridian. From their ages, I would assume they are your parents, Fox.’

  ‘Whom she hasn’t spoken to in over ten years.’

  ‘Oh…’

  Fox’s frown deepened. ‘Could you confirm that, Kit? I mean, my parents in New York for a conference on law and order is… unlikely.’

  Kit nodded and there was a barely perceptible pause before she said, ‘Confirmed.’ Just to be sure, she pulled up the identity stills which were being used for their conference badges and displayed them for Fox.

  ‘Yeah… Yeah, that’s them.’ Fox stared at the pictures. Neither of the people in them was particularly old: Andrea Meridian had been just twenty-two when she had given birth to their only child. They were now fifty-four and fifty. Neither had had cosmetic work done, or anything major anyway, and his carefully trimmed, short hair was greying from mid-brown. Andrea was a redhead, with long, copper-coloured, cornrow braids and no sign of grey. Jonathan remained a handsome man, well-built, strong, used to outdoor work and suited to it. People said Fox’s eyes came from him, but his were bluer. Andrea remained a good-looking woman with a face not unlike her daughter’s: sharp, finely chiselled with a narrow chin. Andrea’s eyebrows arched a little more and her nose was a little longer, and her eyes were green. When Fox had left home, Andrea had started working in the fields with her husband, and it was telling: she looked fit. ‘They look like they’re doing okay.’

  ‘Should I contact them?’ Kit asked.

  ‘No. Not yet anyway. Let’s see if they even know I’m here before we go organising family reunions.’

  ‘I think they know. Your name is sprinkled liberally through the conference documents. If they don’t know you are part of Palladium by now, they soon will.’

  Fox grimaced. ‘Oh… This should be fun.’

  ~~~

  ‘Fox, are you seeing–’ Kit stopped as she realised that Fox’s attention was on a news feed report on IB-62.

  ‘I see it, Kit,’ Fox said, her attention still on the report.

  ‘…search the eastern side of the Manhattan Conservation District this afternoon. Lauren Coolidge, wife of Clinton Coolidge, failed to return home from a daily run yesterday. A spokesman for precinct eighteen indicated that they had data from her LifeFit track and were searching the route she had taken after leaving the family home on Second Avenue.’

  ‘Kit, put Mrs Coolidge in the murder room and start running a background analysis, please.’

  Kit nodded. ‘She is not, yet, dead and may be unrelated. The last suspected death is in Berlin.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Mark her as unconfirmed or something, but start compiling the data. Start with the LifeFit stuff and get the police search
pattern from the media reports. My gut says that he’s moved back to New York, but we can hope I’m just nervous about the conference.’

  Kit tilted her head a little as the news feed began recounting the political history of Clinton George Coolidge while largely ignoring his wife. ‘I do not have guts, but I am having difficulty believing that there will be a happy ending for Mrs Coolidge.’

  ~~~

  Alice Vaughn had been to Sam’s house before, but she had not seen the updated version except virtually, and she looked around with interest as she sat down on one of the sofas in the lounge beside her boss, Garth Eaves.

  ‘It’s turned out well,’ Vaughn said.

  ‘We didn’t change the decoration much on this floor,’ Fox replied. ‘Felix liked wood and it does work quite well, so this is mostly down to his preferences. It’s the kitchen that got the big revamp.’

  ‘And what an improvement!’ Marie said as she entered from the hall with a tray of drinks. ‘The old kitchen was… Well, it was getting old.’

  ‘Just put those down, Marie,’ Fox said, ‘and take a seat. You’re not the maid today. You’re the head product demonstrator.’

  The redhead grimaced. ‘Don’t say that. I’ll get nervous.’

  Ryan Jarvis gave her a smile. ‘Don’t be. Terri and Jackson have built this thing to let my lowest-grade security people pretend to be detectives. You should do fine. Are those two turning up?’

  ‘They’re here,’ Fox replied. ‘They went straight down to the fabricator to check out the latest build.’

  ‘And they return triumphant,’ Jackson said as he walked in carrying a harness-like structure which looked a little like it had been cobbled together from the spare parts of a dozen cyberframes and an old rucksack. ‘We have here what we hope will be our demo model. We thought we would do a fitting, just to be sure our young model can get it on.’

  ‘And interface to the on-board,’ Terri added. ‘I’ve got Belle loading the operating software so we can check the basic connectivity.’

  ‘You’re not going to production with that though?’ Eaves asked. He was looking a little sceptical.

  ‘It needs tidying up,’ Jackson agreed. ‘All the wires will get sealed up under a lightly armoured skin. We want it light. It’s not a riot harness. The primary aim is to have the sensor heads in good positions. Considering that we are presenting “the future of police technology,” I think having something which looks experimental may well work for us.’

  Eaves gave a nod. ‘Could be. As long as Ryan’s grunts won’t get something with that many loose wires.’

  ‘None are loose. They’re just… not tidy. Marie, let’s see if this fits.’

  Marie, dressed in the blouse and skirt she generally wore when doing her housemaid thing, got to her feet and stepped closer, and then stood there while Jackson and Terri wrapped her in electronics, locked straps in place, and then adjusted them to improve the fit, and generally fussed over her.

  ‘The straps and fixings will need to be rationalised,’ Jackson said, though his tone had an absent quality which suggested that this was more a note to self than something for external consumption. ‘I wasn’t sure how much freedom was needed.’

  ‘I think the arrangement’s good,’ Terri said. ‘It’ll allow people to decide on a best way to set it up for easy fitting.’

  ‘A point… That’s not too uncomfortable over the chest, Marie?’

  There was, in fact, little covering her chest. A sensor head was mounted fairly high up on her chest, extending out far enough that she would have needed quite abnormal breasts before anything was obscured. Below that there was just a thick belt which looked like it had battery packs attached to it.

  ‘It’s fine,’ Marie said. ‘Actually, it feels quite comfortable.’ The back was fairly rigid and hooked over her shoulders where it was padded to spread the weight. The waist belt was firm enough to settle more of the weight over her hips, which also helped.

  ‘All right,’ Jackson said, smiling. ‘I think we can worry about the ladar and terahertz scanning head another time. That’s in the back on an extensible arm. For now, we just need to see whether you can interface to the basic systems.’

  ‘Belle’s given me the control package and I’m running it now… Oh!’

  ‘Everything okay?’

  ‘Fine, I think. I have all this data and two screens showing views in front and behind me.’

  ‘What kind of data?’ Jarvis asked.

  ‘Uh… I’ve got a task flowchart telling me what I could do from here, some basic analysis stuff about everyone in the room, estimates on the room size, air pressure and temperature, humidity…’

  ‘We may tweak the interface to cut out some of the data unless it’s asked for,’ Terri said. ‘Maybe a little overwhelming.’

  Marie grimaced. ‘And no one should ever look at the place they live in under alternate spectrums. I’m going to have to clean in here all over again.’

  Jackson chuckled and started taking the harness off Marie. ‘Enough for now. Clearly we have a working prototype. When’s the demonstration?’

  Vaughn put down her glass and sat up. ‘Tuesday, two pm, right after lunch. We have rehearsal time booked tomorrow at seven in the evening. Marie, it would be useful if you could be there, but it’s not an absolute requirement. Your part is more adlibbed than anything.’

  Marie, now disentangled from the harness, settled herself back beside Jarvis. ‘I’ll turn up. I’ll get to see the set and how my part should fit in with the others.’

  ‘That sounded solidly professional. So, you’ll be there with Jackson, Terri, and Fox for those two events. Otherwise you’ll be on the stand. After the presentation, you’ll be wearing the harness.’ Marie gave Vaughn a nod and the manager nodded back, adding a smile. ‘Fox, you’ll be needed for the debate on Thursday afternoon. David is flying in for that. There’s no script there, just an agenda.’

  Fox grimaced. ‘Yeah, the agenda being “privatise policing across the country.”’

  ‘Certainly the discussion thereof. I’ll be primarily on our stand with Ryan to handle enquiries. Obviously we’ll be hoping to get off there to look around once in a while so we would appreciate some relief now and then. Everyone has tickets for the Thursday night conference banquet. Marie, you are not obliged to come, and you certainly don’t have to wear the harness, but we got you a ticket.’

  ‘Oh! Thank you,’ Marie said, smiling. ‘I’ll have to find something suitable to wear.’

  ‘For a conference on law and order that has a “banquet” on the last night,’ Eaves said, ‘I’d recommend armoured underwear and the sexiest battlesuit you can find. Not that my wife will be taking that advice.’

  ‘Inappropriate behaviour is likely to be up on a standard conference,’ Terri agreed.

  ‘I’ll stick with Fox,’ Marie said.

  Fox shrugged. ‘Fine by me. I’ll be armed.’

  21st June.

  There was, of course, chaos on the Monday morning. The event was due to kick off at eleven with opening speeches in the main auditorium, followed by an early lunch with a meet-and-greet. The serious lectures would be opening up after lunch, the exhibition hall as soon as the opening ceremony was done, and Fox was avoiding as much as possible of the noise and horror of late registration by helping to make sure the Palladium stand was up and ready. She suspected that she was just getting in Alice Vaughn’s way.

  They had put the whole thing together rapidly, but had still catered to as many potential visitors as possible. Implants and wearables were ubiquitous, but not universal, so there were v-tagged displays all over the place, but also a large screen showing a video. There was a world map showing Palladium’s coverage capabilities, and that was interactive if you had the equipment, but it was there and visible if not. And, of course, there was Marie and three other assistants. It gave them an even mix of genders, and enough coverage for peaks with slack to allow people breaks when the pressure eased off. Everyone, including th
e ‘VIP’ attendants, as Vaughn called Fox and Jarvis and the rest, had access to a central server which provided all the displays and information on Palladium’s products, services, and policies. Everyone was using the same playbook because they were all, literally, reading from the same script.

  Fox was watching the video on the big screen for the seventh time when Vaughn appeared beside her and said, ‘You’re in the way. Go and watch the opening ceremony. Socialise. Come back when you’re not an annoyance.’

  ‘That’s me told,’ Fox replied, ‘but you never said anything about having to listen to boring speeches. Couldn’t I stand in front of a ganger on Titan armed only with a toothpick instead?’

  ‘No. Go, watch, consider. People are putting down markers here for the politics over the rest of the week.’

  ‘I know. That is exactly why I shouldn’t go. All that’ll happen is I’ll have until Thursday afternoon to brood on what they’ve said and how much I want to shoot them. I do have a gun on me, you know?’

  ‘No shooting the delegates. I don’t want to have to visit you in Rikers.’

  Grumbling, possibly because she was not allowed to shoot anyone, Fox headed for the largest of the auditoriums the building boasted. The room was huge and quite full, and the speeches had started so Fox snuck in at the back and joined the collection of other late-arriving souls who were left to stand. She was thankful she had elected to wear sensible, flat shoes with the pinstriped pantsuit and black blouse combo she had decided would work well for the conference. At least most of the conference: she was going to be forced into a dress for the banquet, but that was days away.

  Donald Hovering was up at the podium giving one of his rousing law and order speeches. He had been made director of NAPA in 2052 and he had made many such speeches since then. Fox had heard a few of them and concluded that Hovering knew nothing about police work. Not a damn thing. He had to have been a cop at some point, but that had been so long ago that there was nothing left, and he did not really care too much about the vote they were there to discuss because he would still be the director of NAPA, even if NAPA was reduced to a standards body.