Sketches

by Teyla Branton

  “That guy has no idea where the shuttle is. If he finds it, he can send it to Amarillo City. Meanwhile, Garrett just texted. He’s outside that clothing factory Nova told us about. He says it’s been dead all morning, but a black shuttle with no ID just arrived, and whoever was driving it is still inside the building. Hopefully, they plan to stay put until we get there.”

  Excitement zipped through Reese. “We won’t be able to identify the shuttle. Not positively.”

  “Maybe not. But they won’t know that.”

  “Could he see anything inside the shuttle?”

  “No, but he’s recording. We’ll look at the feed when we get there.” Jaxon gave her a smile before glancing over his shoulder at Eagle. “Can’t you walk any faster?”

  Eagle lengthened his stride. “I think we’re being followed.”

  “It’s just that idiot Montee,” Jaxon said. “He wants to be sure we get out of here before he contacts the fringers. I think he’s on the take.”

  It was eerie how much he thought like she did. “If we’re going home on the train, we’d better be careful,” she put in. “Even if we transfer to the express at the first city, it’s a good three and a half hours to home.”

  Home. When had she begun thinking of Amarillo City as home? Maybe it was only the proximity to Theena’s.

  They approached the scanner at the stairs to the sky train, and it beeped as it read their embedded CivIDs. A guard in a small booth stared at them with interest as they jogged up the stairs.

  “Uh, if something does happen,” Eagle said. “Cover me. I didn’t bring a gun.”

  Reese couldn’t imagine going anywhere without at least one pistol. “Aren’t you our weapons expert?”

  “That doesn’t mean I like to carry them.” He gave her a flat smile and swung his pack in front of him. “However, if we need to make a bomb, rappel down a cliff, or drug someone, I’ve got us covered.”

  “Of course you do.”

  Chapter 19

  THEY HADN’T EVEN left the Colony 6 station before Captain Vic Brogan called Jaxon’s Teev. Jaxon tried not to make a face as he hung up. “He wants to see all of us. As soon as we get in. I think our friend Captain Montee reported us.”

  “That’s not so bad,” Reese said. “It’ll give us the chance to grab some uniforms and equipment before we meet Garrett.”

  “You’re forgetting this is off the books, and we may not have access to our normal equipment. Only you, me, and Garrett know we’re staking out that factory. And Eagle, of course. I’d like to keep it that way. And after talking with Dani, I’m even more worried about who to trust.”

  He wasn’t quite telling the truth. He trusted her, which was ridiculous after all these years. He also trusted Eagle and the twins. His crew. Only Dani was a question mark, and even she seemed to care about fixing what was wrong. He didn’t approve of her allies, the fringers, who were known killers, or of inciting rebellion in the colonies. But after being at the Coop today, he understood her frustrations. So many promises had been broken to people the CORE had vowed to help.

  Jaxon settled back in his seat that was unusually stiff with disuse, a pit growing in his stomach at the idea of facing the captain, of the possibility that he might drag information from them that he wasn’t ready to share. Particularly the information about the slavery in the colonies, and Garrett’s stakeout at the factory. Nova’s lead might be his only chance to resolve his missing persons cases without tampering. Could there be a connection with the colony deaths? If so, he didn’t see it.

  The six missing scientists and programmers—seven with the body found at the Fountain—had no connection to anything dangerous or rebellious, or with each other. They didn’t work together, they didn’t socialize in the same circles, they had no relatives or hobbies in common, and their research and studies didn’t overlap. They didn’t even read the same materials or visit the same restaurants. But something or someone had targeted them just like they had his classmates from Colony 6.

  Maybe what he needed was to focus on the clean spots Hammer had found. It could be a fluke, limited to Henderson, but if it wasn’t, there had to be a way to determine if a clean spot was a common element between them before another person went missing.

  They’d thoroughly checked the Teevs of the missing and their close family members, but what about casual acquaintances? What about all the Teevs at the victim’s place of work? What about older Teevs stored in closets belonging to extended family or friends? Since everyone in the CORE had access to a Teev, and crimes involving them were next to impossible due to internal tracking, there were always surplus sets lying around.

  Usually anyone could log into a home Teev as a guest, and even many personal feeds used simple passwords like Teev, a birthdate, or the name of the user. That meant any of the victims could have used a Teev that Jaxon and his team might have missed.

  A brief sensation of nausea was all the warning he had of the coming premonition. He sees a Teev in a hallway closet, next to an ancient picture of a bullfighter facing a deranged bull. Reese pulls it out . . .

  The premonition hadn’t made sense two days ago at the Fountain when Henderson’s body had been found, but it did now. He needed to find that Teev.

  “What’s wrong, man?” Eagle said from his seat next to Jaxon. “You look like you’re on a juke rush. Not that I would know anything personally about that, of course.”

  Across from Jaxon on the facing seat, Reese leaned forward. “You see something?”

  Jaxon knew she meant a premonition, but that wasn’t what he wanted her to focus on, so he ignored the question. “Look guys, I need to run something past you. This is something that can’t go beyond us three.” He’d need their help to pursue his idea, but for now he’d keep Hammer’s name out of it.

  “Okay, so apparently, Henderson’s Teev had a clean spot.” He outlined Hammer’s information as they stared at him in disbelief.

  “And you’ve known this how long?” Reese asked, sitting back stiffly and folding her arms.

  “Look, there’s no proof, and I didn’t think of how we might be able to get proof until just this minute. But if we could find additional Teevs Henderson or the others might have used, we may be able to find a connection between them and discover who is behind the disappearances. Maybe prevent the next one.” He hesitated before adding, “I did have a premonition about finding a Teev, and it might be related.”

  “Even if it’s not, it’s a solid idea,” Reese said, the irritation smoothing from her posture. “Can you think of any possibilities?”

  Jaxon considered the question. “Off the top of my head, I can already think of a dozen places to check and people to ask. I can also get a list of which Teevs we already investigated from our reports, and we can ignore those.”

  He switched his gaze to Eagle. “You think you could create a device like the one I’m talking about? One that could effectively prevent any outside commands from deleting the spot so we can mirror it? Maybe get some clue into why Henderson felt the need to hide what he was doing?”

  “The problem wouldn’t be cutting off the outside connection but in only cutting off the incoming signals so we can still see what the mirroring tells us,” Eagle said.

  “How does this mirroring work?” Reese asked.

  “Basically, it would mostly work by telling us where the feed is not going,” Eagle said. “Then it copies the general location without including the clean spot, allowing us to pinpoint where it is. At least that’s the way I’d do it.”

  “What would it take to make sure no commands get through?” Jaxon asked.

  Eagle stared out the window past Jaxon at the rapidly moving landscape, his head tilted in an unnatural manner. Jaxon exchanged a puzzled glance with Reese, only to be surprised when Eagle’s head jerked back to the other side. Then his hands came up, his fingers pointing and swiping as if interacting with a Teev holo feed, though the feed on his glasses hadn’t been activated.

  “I th
ink he’s okay,” Reese murmured. “That’s probably the way he uses his . . . uh, gift.”

  Jaxon snorted. “Please tell me I don’t look that funny.”

  “I can hear you,” Eagle said. “Now would you please shut up so I can concentrate? I might almost have it.”

  Eagle’s promise of “almost” turned into half an hour, but at last he sat back and turned his blank stare on them. “It’s really not all that difficult,” he said. “But getting the parts might be a problem, even for us. Some of them are quite illegal.”

  “If you could get the parts, how long?” Reese asked.

  Eagle pulled his glasses forward slightly and rubbed his temples. “A couple days.”

  “That long?” Jaxon said, not hiding his disappointment.

  “What if you had a 3D printer to make the materials?” Reese asked.

  Jaxon shook his head. “We have plenty of those at work, but a request for illegal hardware would be flagged. And even if we could find one somewhere else, they’re all linked to the feed and would be reported.”

  “What if it wasn’t linked?” Reese sounded determined.

  Jaxon heaved a sigh. “Then it would be an illegal device. It’s not like we can march down to the nearest store and buy it.”

  “Maybe Nova can get us one.”

  “Nova?”

  “She has connections to the black market, and El Cerebro probably sells to the highest bidder, right?”

  It sounded like a bad idea, which was exactly why it might work. “What if he wants favors instead?”

  Reese averted her gaze. “I don’t know.”

  “Even if I had the printer, we’d need the raw materials, and it wouldn’t be like I could just plug myself in and print it all at once. I’d need to manually recreate the schematics on the Teev.”

  Seconds ticked by as no one spoke, and then Reese said with a bit of awe in her voice, “If you could connect with a Teev, you’d only be limited by the speed of the printer.” She was staring at Eagle now, her eyes wide and her mouth slightly ajar.

  The realization came to Jaxon at the same time. “It’s got to be possible.”

  Eagle’s smile was a little bitter. “Don’t you think I’ve considered it? Not going to happen, though, is it? Maybe pre-Breakdown they had the tech, but now . . .”

  “Now what we do have is controlled by the CORE,” Reese finished. “And you can’t tell them about your ability because that would add to the target on your back. Looks like we’re going to do this the slow way.” The words had scarcely left her mouth when she started looking around at the empty seats around them, her expression changing to one of concern.

  Goose bumps crawled over Jaxon’s skin. Their iTeevs were off, but what if someone was still listening?

  SHORTLY AFTER THREE, the sky train rolled into the station near Amarillo Enforcer, where a shuttle awaited them. Five minutes later they were in Brogan’s office, his walls turned white and claustrophobic, though the room was triple the size of an average enforcer’s.

  Brogan didn’t invite them to sit. “You lost an enforcer shuttle?” The captain’s angry voice was incredulous. “I get called into work on my day off because you lose a shuttle? Do you know how much those cost?”

  “It’s just a car, right? A bit enhanced?” Jaxon offered. Downplaying the loss seemed judicious, given the circumstances.

  Eagle snickered. “Yeah, if you forget those enhancements cost a hundred thousand credits.”

  Brogan ignored him and continued, his eyes locked on Jaxon’s. “In all the years I’ve been captain here, I’ve never lost a shuttle before. And in case you forgot, I still report to Chief Kirkpatrick—and he has to report to the Controller in Estlantic. The way we handle the funds we’re given determines our future benefits. Who gave you permission to go to Colony 6 anyway?”

  Jaxon glanced at Reese, who was staring somewhere beyond Brogan’s ear. Good, maybe she’d let him do the talking, so he could disclose as little as possible. “I didn’t know I needed permission to visit my birthplace on a day off,” Jaxon spoke tightly, trying to suppress the growl that kept wanting to take over.

  Brogan glowered at him. “You do when you lose one of my shuttles. I didn’t give you access to an enforcer shuttle for you to get mixed up with fringers.”

  Reese’s face jerked toward the captain. “Who said anything about fringers?”

  Right. They hadn’t mentioned Dani or her fringer buddies. Jaxon studied the captain more closely. How had he known?

  “Who else is going to steal our tech?” Brogan spoke with impatience. “And I’ve known for some time that the captain there is doctoring his reports.”

  “It was my idea,” Reese said. Her arms were folded tightly against her abdomen and her face had lost its color. “You know I’m from Colony 6 too. At least we talked about it in my interview over the Teev. Jaxon’s the first I’ve seen of my old friends since I left there.”

  So much for Reese letting Jaxon direct the conversation. He held his breath, wondering if she’d mention Eagle and the twins. Brogan wasn’t in charge of interviewing non-enforcers, or inactive enforcers like Eagle. Those interviews and placements were typically left up to Chief Kirtpatrick’s staff, though Brogan could request to transfer any employee if they didn’t work out. So Brogan might not know about the twins’ or Eagle’s backgrounds unless he had reason to access their full files.

  If he did get wind that they were all from the Coop, would he be suspicious at the coincidence and realize there was more to the story? He wished he knew if the captain could be trusted.

  “I was curious,” Reese added. “I wanted to look up a few friends.”

  Brogan arched one brow. “And did you find them?”

  “Everything’s different,” she said, without appearing to be evasive. “I guess it’s true that you can never go home.”

  The captain studied her for a moment, his eyes lingering on her face long enough to make Jaxon want to punch him, never mind his intentions. At least she hadn’t mentioned the others, and Eagle hadn’t volunteered why he’d gone along with them.

  As if finding what he wanted in Reese’s eyes, Brogan stalked to his door. “Here’s how it plays out. I’ll give you another shuttle until we find out who’s behind the attack, but no more colony visits, you hear? Nothing off the books. You report everything to me. And I mean everything. You don’t run a test or track down a lead without informing me first.”

  Jaxon waited for Reese or Eagle to tell him about the warehouse, but neither spoke. Good.

  The captain swept one more scathing look across them and opened the door, gesturing for them to leave. “Have a nice weekend. Try not to get into trouble before Monday.”

  Jaxon walked out a little more happily than he’d gone in. They had another shuttle, and if he pulled a few strings, he might be able to arrange surveillance equipment. He was about to tell Reese and Eagle he’d meet them in the shuttle bay when Reese stopped and leaned in close.

  “He knows something’s up,” she said.

  “The captain?”

  She nodded. “You don’t get to be captain without good instincts. Some of the Estlantic divisions have three or four captains, but here Brogan runs it all, second only to the chief. Brogan didn’t even ask Eagle why he was with us—it’s a question any of us would ask. He has to know.”

  “She’s right,” Eagle said. “Too bad he didn’t ask. I had a great story all ready for him. About how my cousin ran away to a colony.”

  “You don’t have a cousin,” Reese and Jaxon said together.

  “So? If they can delete people from the database, I can make up a cousin.”

  Jaxon blew out a frustrated breath. “If he knows, why didn’t he bring it up?” He had the feeling Brogan was toying with them. “He has to know we’d wonder why he didn’t ask.”

  “Maybe that’s the point,” Eagle said. “To keep us on our toes.”

  Jaxon shook his head to clear it. “We can’t worry about this now. We have to
meet Garrett. At least Reese and I have to.”

  “Hey, I’m in too.” Eagle said. “I may not be an active enforcer, but I did go through the training all the same, or they wouldn’t have hired me as a weapons expert.”

  “Okay,” Jaxon said, “but this time bring a gun.”

  “Yes, boss,” Eagle said without breaking a smile. “I’ll take care of that now.”

  “Good. I’m going to see if I can get us some surveillance equipment, so we’ll all meet down in the shuttle bay in twenty minutes.”

  “That’ll give me time to download all the data from our missing persons cases,” Reese said. “I want to reread the official reports.”

  New eyes couldn’t hurt, especially now that they had something else to look for. “Good idea. We may have time to review some of them as we watch the factory.”

  Leaving the others, Jaxon visited Drew Falon, the supply master, and requested a spy drone, sleeping gas, and the compact gas masks called breathers, all of which the man turned over without requiring Jaxon to obtain a signature from the captain. Apparently, Brogan hadn’t sent out any warning limiting his access.

  “You getting any closer to finding those missing people?” Drew asked.

  “I got a few leads,” Jaxon said.

  “Good, because I read an article on the Teev that says people are beginning to panic.”

  “Reporter’s spin.” Jaxon took the equipment as the man pushed it toward him over the desk. “What news site was that on anyway?” He hadn’t heard anything negative, and he’d scanned dozens of articles on his iTeev during their trip home today.

  “I-I . . . uh . . . I can’t remember.” Drew avoided his eyes and folded his arms over his plump stomach. “Can I get you anything else?”

  Jaxon suspected the man had stumbled onto an illegal site—and he’d apparently known it was illegal from the way he was acting. The sites were taken down as soon as they were discovered, but some always got through long enough to attract a few readers.

  “Nothing more today,” Jaxon said. “Thanks. Oh, and how’s Brindley? Haven’t seen her come in lately.”