‘Poppa wanted to check a couple of things,’ Terri told her, ‘but he’ll be turning in soon.’
Fox gave a nod, grabbing up her clothes. ‘Get some rest and, Helen, you come out to Grant’s place when you wake up. Not before. I can handle this with Pythia. Remind me to buy everyone a drink when we’ve got this bastard in a cage. Damn good work.’
‘Damn hard work,’ Terri grumbled. ‘The code is bloody opaque. If it had been produced by someone at MarTech, I’d be skinning them over hot coals. I need to wind down. My head’s buzzing with it and it was Travis who actually found it. He’s fond of single malt whiskey, if you’d like to reward him specifically.’
Fox belted up her jeans and grabbed her jacket and pistol. ‘I’ll remember. Just don’t keep my second in command up for too long while you’re winding down, okay?’
‘Good idea,’ Terri replied with a grin, ‘but thirty minutes and I’ll be unconscious so it shouldn’t be too bad.’
Fox flashed a grin at the blushing Dillan, though she was not entirely sure whether it was the ‘second in command’ comment or the impending sex that was causing the blush, and rushed out.
‘Kit, make sure Pythia’s ready to leave and then contact Cant. I’d really like that warrant ready when we go in. Tell him I’m taking Pythia out to Grant’s house. There was no sign of a place he could have been hiding Chantal, so it’s hidden and we need to find it. When that’s done, call Leonard Dandridge and tell him we have a lead on his daughter. Don’t tell him what it is.’
‘Pythia is fully fuelled and warming her engines,’ Kit replied.
The elevator from Jackson and Terri’s apartments had Fox in the hangar in under a minute and the vertol was waiting under one of the rooftop launch doors, engines already wound up to idle. Fox climbed through into the pilot’s seat and got clearance for take-off immediately.
‘Pythia, I’m going to want a full deployment of all your forensic frames when we get in. Full scan, ladar, multispectral, and terahertz radar. We’re looking for hidden panels, subsurface access, anywhere Grant could be hiding a torture chamber.’
‘I am sending instructions to my subsidiaries now,’ Pythia responded.
Fox lifted the aircraft straight up, turning before she was even clear of the bay. As soon as ground control signalled clearance, she swept the aircraft into level flight and started through the night sky.
‘Inspector Cant has received his warrant,’ Kit said. ‘He has authorised you to begin the search as soon as you arrive under that warrant. I’ve received the details.’
‘Good.’
‘He indicated that he will be there as soon as possible with additional backup, including medical personnel.’
‘I may have misjudged that guy a little bit.’
‘Perhaps a little,’ Kit agreed. ‘Not, I think, entirely.’
‘Probably not. ETA is two minutes. Pythia, hold the frames ready until I’ve cleared the building.’
‘Understood,’ Pythia responded. ‘I have programmed the airborne frames to scan the grounds, in case the entrance we are looking for is outside the building.’
‘Good thinking. You can start those as soon as we land. I think it’s inside, though. I don’t think he’d want his victims that far away from him.’ Fox pushed the vertol downward. There was clearance for a landing outside the building and she was going to put it down right there. Grant was going to know she was coming, but he was going to know that when she smashed down his door anyway. ‘Get me a magazine loaded with electrostatic rounds and another with explosive. I’m not sure what that gynoid of his is capable of.’
‘Both will be ready in the rear compartment.’
Fox pulled the vertol to a hover over Grant’s front driveway and then dropped, applying thrust at low altitude to break the fall and bring them to a fairly soft landing. Cutting the engines back, she started for the rear. ‘Power down, Pythia, and wait for instructions.’ She did not wait for a reply before grabbing the two magazines being held out by the arachnoform cyberframe and then heading down the ramp.
The house was dark, silent, apparently unoccupied, but Grant might have been asleep. Hannah could have been recharging and offline. Maybe Grant was the kind of man who could sleep through a jet landing outside his house, but somehow Fox doubted it. With her pistol in hand, she marched up to the front door.
‘Tara Meridian. I have a warrant from NAPA to search these premises.’
Hannah’s voice responded from the door panel. ‘Mister Grant is unavailable at this time. Please make–’
‘Kit, transmit the warrant data.’
‘Done,’ Kit responded.
‘Mister Grant is unavailable at this time,’ the voice said again. ‘Access is denied.’
‘Kit, send it again.’ Behind her, Pythia’s two airborne robots were beginning their sweep of the grounds.
‘Access is denied. Please leave these grounds–’
Fox aimed her pistol at the door’s access panel and fired three rounds into it. The voice died in a sputter of electronic noise. ‘Denied my ass,’ Fox informed it. She kicked the door, but it remained resolutely closed, so she backed up a few metres, swapping the magazine as she went. ‘Fuck you, Grant.’ And she fired again, the lock and part of the wall and door vanishing in the resulting explosion.
‘Remind me never to annoy you,’ Kit said into her head.
Fox swapped magazines again, this time to the electroshock rounds. ‘You wouldn’t: you’re my gorgeous assistant.’ She edged into the building, checking the angles as she moved. The house felt empty. It was too quiet. All the blinds were open, but there was little light, no moonlight to make shadows. She swept her pistol in arcs around the rooms as she worked, using its infrared scope to look for any signs of occupancy. It took five valuable minutes, but she went through every room she could find.
‘Nothing. He’s not here and neither is his walking Barbie doll. Pythia, get the robots in here.’ Fox turned and started back to the front door. ‘Where the Hell is he?’
~~~
Leonard Dandridge walked down the pier at the marina where he kept his yacht, one hand in his pocket, fingers wrapped around his pistol. The marina was fairly traditional and, at this time of the morning, he was alone. There was a human guard stationed at the entrance and two airborne cyberframes which patrolled on a cycle, but that was it. If he ran into trouble here, there was some chance that he might be seen, but it was not a big chance.
Then again, he could see no sign of anyone waiting for him. Had this all been some sick ploy to get him out of the house? Someone had left a pile of crates on the pier near the yacht, which was against regulations for the marina, but they were there and there could be someone behind them.
Dandridge slipped his pistol from his pocket, holding it against his leg as he walked quickly down the wooden platform. There were the crates, no sound aside from the noise of the city in the distance, no movement. Dandridge swung around the crates, his pulse hammering in his ears, his gun rising… And there was no one there. Frowning, he peered around the pier, stepped back from the boxes to look back the way he had come, and checked the time. He was there when he had been told to arrive, so where was the bastard? He took a step back the way he had come, his hand and the pistol dropping to his side.
And that was when the stack of crates came alive and jabbed a shock rod into his side.
~~~
‘I have not been able to locate any form of hidden doorway,’ Pythia reported and Fox’s heart sank. Where had he hidden her? ‘There is an area in the core of the house which has been heavily shielded with metal plates. The radar is unable to penetrate.’
‘Where?’ Fox snapped. ‘Show me.’ A model of the house appeared in her vision field, a section in the central, concrete-walled core highlighted in red. ‘Superimpose the map onto the building for me.’
Blown up to cover the whole house, the image was far easier to follow and Fox followed it down a corridor behind the entrance lobby. The wall the
re was smooth, perfectly even, and undecorated aside from a coat of paint. Hiding something there was unlikely.
‘You onto something?’ Cant appeared beside her as she headed along the corridor to what they were assuming was the master bedroom.
‘He’s got a heavy, metal shield structure under the concrete. Might be just a central structural support, but it seems like a huge waste of space if it is.’
‘Let’s hope he doesn’t waste space.’
‘Amen.’ Fox walked into the bedroom, turned an immediate left, and saw the oversized mirror in an elaborate frame set against the wall. To her, it looked rather too tightly fixed to the wall. ‘Mirror. You take the far side. Look for a release catch.’
Cant found it. There was a click and the mirror peeled away from the wall on the left side enough to allow it to be hinged aside. Behind it was a very serious-looking vault door with a keypad mounted over a wheel. Trying the wheel shifted it about a quarter of an inch.
‘That’s going to need cutting gear,’ Cant growled.
‘Unless we’re lucky,’ Fox said, pulling her pistol and popping the magazine. ‘I suggest standing well back and covering your ears.’ She slapped another magazine in as she backed across the room as far as it would allow and Cant moved off into a corner. Lifting her weapon, she fired. The bullet punched into the key panel, ripping through it before exploding. The shockwave reverberated through the room and tossed fragments of electronics out onto the plush, red carpet. Fox rushed forward and tried the wheel. It shifted more, but it was stiff. ‘Could use a lever,’ she said as she continued trying to force it.
‘You want me to–’
‘Military-grade muscles, Cant. I may look less bulky than you, but I can lift you off the ground without breaking a sweat. There should be a crowbar in the vertol.’
He was back in a little over a minute, by which time Fox had ground the wheel through a quarter turn. ‘That AI of yours is very helpful,’ he said as he slotted the bar into the wheel.
‘Pythia’s a gem all right.’
With the bar in place, they could both lean on it and the wheel gave with a scream of protest. The door levered back into the recess on hinges that could have held up a bank vault door, and the scream of metal was replaced by another kind of screaming. Fox and Cant glanced at each other, and then he signalled that she should lead. She pulled her pistol and started down steep, bare concrete steps. There was light below, starkly white. Fox reached the bottom and swept the room quickly as she stepped to the right. Cant came down on her heels, his own pistol rising to scan, and then he stopped.
‘Oh… fuck,’ the inspector said, his tone oddly flat.
Fox lowered her pistol and took in what she had walked into, and realised that what she had walked into was Hell. There were metal benches, padded benches, various devices out of a BDSM dungeon, and one or two things that belonged in something out of a medieval torture chamber, most of which Fox considered herself fortunate she could not name. At the back, standing under a pair of bright spotlights as though it was the feature in a fashion show, was a large, black, metal disc with a red, padded X shape mounted on it. The limbs of the X could, it seemed, be widened or narrowed on grooves cut into the metal, and Chantal was mounted on it, her legs spread as far as the device would allow. Her skin looked pale in the harsh light, except where marks from a cane or a whip marred it, and she was screaming in what looked a lot like agony. Needles had been driven through her nipples and labia, into her thighs, and wires led from the needles to a large box set beside the wheel. Lights flashed, apparently at random, on the box, and Fox had a fair idea what it was doing. She rushed forward, yanking the box’s plug from the wall. The screaming continued for a few seconds and then Chantal’s head lolled forward on her neck and the screams were replaced by sobs.
‘Get the medics down here,’ Fox said. Cant seemed all too happy to run back the way he had come and be out of the room under Grant’s house. Fox stepped closer to Chantal. ‘Chantal? Can you hear me? You’re safe now. We’ll have you down in a minute.’
All she got in response was more sobbing.
~~~
Dillan stood at the bottom of the steps and looked around the room, her face pale. Inside the room, Pythia’s forensic swarms were busy going over every square inch of the place and that was a very good excuse not to venture further, but Dillan had no desire to do so anyway.
‘You didn’t get to see the girl fixed up there like some sort of expressionist living art exhibit,’ Fox commented from behind her.
‘I think I can live with that,’ Dillan replied, turning around. ‘What do you need from me?’
‘I’ve started Pythia on the room. She’s been going an hour or so, but it’ll take longer. I want every bit of forensic evidence we can get. You need to supervise. Pythia’s an excellent technician, but she’ll be the first to tell you that she has no real imagination. She learns, but she doesn’t create. You watch what she’s getting and you direct her if you think something needs more attention.’
‘Okay, I can do that.’
‘Right. When you’re finished down here… I doubt the rest of the house has anything, but you could run the bedroom. Check for prints on the mirror frame. I’m guessing you’ll find two sets, plus mine and Cant’s, and that’ll help nail Grant down.’
‘Two sets?’
‘Grant and his gynoid. I’m betting he gets her to clean up the mess once he’s done.’
‘No sign of either of them?’
‘No, they’re in the wind. I’m going back to the tower to see if we can come up with a way of finding him. I’ll take the Q-bug, and Pythia can fly you back when you’re done.’
Kit appeared behind Fox, concern on her face. ‘Fox, there is something else.’
Fox looked around at her assistant. ‘What?’
‘I have been trying to contact Mister Dandridge to tell him that his daughter has been located, as you requested. I have been diverted to messaging every time. His implant appears to be offline.’
‘Contact Corrine and have her wake him up.’
‘I did. She informs me that he is not at home or anywhere in the LifeWeb building. He left no indication of where he was going.’
Fox closed her eyes. ‘Shit. So that’s where Grant is.’ Opening her eyes again, she started up the stairs, avoiding Kit even though she was just an image. ‘Contact Jackson, tell him the situation. Give him an ETA and tell him he’s got that long to come up with ideas. Grant seems to be good at avoiding cameras, but maybe we can find him if we track Dandridge.’
‘On it,’ Kit replied, vanishing again.
‘Good luck,’ Dillan called after Fox.
‘Thanks,’ Fox replied, ‘I think we may need it.’
~~~
‘Security cameras at the LifeWeb Tower show him leaving the building,’ Jackson said. ‘Miss Hoffman, Dandridge’s assistant, was quite keen to help in any way she could. Unfortunately, while we know he left at three thirteen, we don’t know where he went. He did not use the maglev and Inspector Cant ran the autocabs servicing that area and none picked up Leonard Dandridge.’
‘He can’t have walked…’ Fox began and trailed off. ‘Grant hacked his implant, changed the ID.’
‘That was my assumption. The inspector has granted us access to public camera feeds. The best, only, idea I can come up with is to scan them for Grant and Dandridge, but it could take days to work through all the recorded footage for, say, an hour after he left the building. He could have gone anywhere in the city.’
‘Well, we have to start–’
Kit appeared, her eyes wide, excited. ‘What about the Cube?’
Jackson peered at her. ‘Please explain, Kit.’
‘We wouldn’t need anything complex. A whole bunch of class 2 AIs. We run hundreds, thousands of them doing exactly one thing: watching video for the two men. If we instruct them to be a little generous with the parameters and send possible matches to me, that should filter it enough for me to locate the
definite matches.’
Jackson blinked. ‘My dear girl, you’re a genius. Why didn’t I think of that?’
‘I’m betting you would have if you’d got eight hours straight instead of five,’ Fox replied. ‘How long to set it up?’
‘Half an hour,’ Terri said. ‘I’ve been wanting to put an AI on that box since he built it. This isn’t quite what I had in mind, but it’s a start. By the time we can feed the vids into storage, I can have the AIs online.’
‘It was a good idea?’ Kit asked.
‘It’s a bloody good idea,’ Terri replied, grinning. ‘We’ll have to think of a reward of some kind. Difficult for an AI, but we’ll think of something.’
‘Already thought of something,’ Fox replied, ‘but it’s going to have to wait until Grant’s in a cage. So that’s an incentive to find him fast, right, Kit?’
‘He is,’ Kit replied, ‘already found. Metaphorically speaking, of course.’
~~~
Fox stood at the observation window of the room Chantal Dandridge had been taken to. The girl, a pretty blonde, looked better sleeping than she had sobbing on the wheel, but occasionally her face would twist as some image worked through her nightmares. There would be nightmares. Fox knew all too well that there would be nightmares.
‘How is she?’ Fox asked.
Corrine, standing beside her, answered in a flat voice. ‘Sedated. The wounds were not extensive. Mostly. She’ll never… have children. The doctors were a little worried about infection. Her anal canal and bowels were damaged. They think they have that under control.’
‘She’ll need help, counselling.’
‘It’s being arranged. I’m handling Mister Dandridge’s affairs while he’s… he’s missing. You think Mister Grant did this? That he took Mister Dandridge?’
‘I know he did this. I’m pretty sure he killed Penny Dandridge and twelve other people. We know he created a backdoor command system in the LifeWeb core software. He would hack into it and control LifeFit, replaying an old run from the user’s stored ones and tracking them on the route they were taking.’
DeathWeb (Fox Meridian Book 3) Page 29
