by Aer-ki Jyr
It was small, with a bed built into a wall niche and storage compartments above, with a closet on the right and more storage on the left. David pulled open each drawer and cabinet, looking through without rifling. He took his magic wand out and pressed a button on the side, then proceeded to sweep a blue laser guideline through the man’s clothes and other possessions, looking for hidden electronics and other items that would give a response ping from the sensor.
He moved through three large drawers of clothes finding nothing till he opened the fourth to three stacks of folded shirts smooshed together in a compartment only wide enough to hold two and a half. David spotted the upturned corner of one of the stacks immediately, but got no ping from the wand as he ran it over the drawer.
He put the device back in his pants pocket and gently lifted up the shirts in the corner in a manner that he could pivot them back down in approximately the same position, then he reached a hand down into the nook and discovered an object beneath. David pulled out the small, flat box and laid the shirts back down, realizing that it was the same approximate shape as the bulge in the man’s chest pocket from the surveillance footage.
David popped open the hinged top, revealing four slots. Three were empty, but the last one contained a tiny vile of dark liquid that looked like blood. In the top of the case there were another four slots, but these were shaped differently and likewise contained only one item…an injector assembly small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.
David pulled it out and undid the strap, which he quickly discovered slipped onto his index and middle finger as a pair. A small mechanical box was attached to the strap with a recessed needle tip, along with a receptacle that matched the end of the liquid tube.
It’s an injector…so why would he have blood?
David’s eyes widened and stared at the vile, glancing back and forth between it and the injector.
“Son of a bitch,” he whispered, realizing that the blood wasn’t the point. It was merely the transport vector. Inject one of the outgoing colonists and they’d carry whatever was in the vial with them through Star Force’s transportation network where it could be recovered at the other end by another operative. Question was…what was in the blood?
David’s mind flashed back to the drops on the floor in the other room…then dismissed it as coincidence. The machine had been broken and taped over, and he knew Seamus hadn’t had any visitors in his quarters…ever. So unless he was injecting himself and was really clumsy with it, the blood didn’t come from the vials.
The other three were missing, and with three more slots for more injectors he assumed they were meant to be disposable…so probably a trash can. Best bet would be the restrooms, meet up with the target inside, inject him, dispose of the device, and be back out without delay. David had monitored his restroom visits between classes, trying to see if he was meeting up with someone inside but he hadn’t established a pattern. If this was a one-off drop, and the individual he was injecting would leave the planet shortly thereafter, then there would be no pattern to pick up…and since everyone had to use the restroom regularly there was no suspicious activity to flag.
This was all speculation, he knew, but his instincts told him he’d found the smoking gun…plus, he had no legitimate idea for why someone would be injecting themselves with such a small amount of blood. He flirted with the idea of trying to tag and follow whoever he injected next, but with only one vial left he quickly dismissed that idea. This one was going to the medtechs for analysis.
David took the injector off his fingers and placed it back in its slot, then closed and pocketed the case before leaving the tiny bedroom. He opened and then relocked the door to the hallway, then used the comm unit included in the wand to contact security.
“I want these quarters locked down until I can get a sweeper team here. Post a guard 24/7. No one in or out.”
“What about Kilmeade?” the security officer asked.
“I’ll handle him. Is he still in class?”
“They just went on break. He should be back in the classroom within the next 10 minutes. I don’t think he’ll come all the way back to his quarters. He’s in the restroom at the moment.”
“Get a cell ready and have a medical team standing by with scanning equipment. I want him sedated until we can arrange for transport.”
“Scanning for what?”
“Mechanical implants.”
There was a slight pause before an acknowledgement came back. “I’ll pass the word along. Do you want backup?”
“No, just get the quarters locked down and the cell ready. No alerts or anything else to tip him off.”
“Copy that. We’ll be waiting.”
David clicked off the wand and placed it back in his side pocket, then walked through the sparse hallways of the residential block and into one of the larger traffic flows heading through the gigantic building. He headed towards the instruction chambers that served the tens of thousands of would be colonists, all of which were located in the southern lower quadrant of the structure. On his way there he took a short detour to one of the security checkpoints handling incoming traffic from the trains and walked up towards a pair of security guards overseeing the calm transition of passengers as they passed through a scanning machine.
Both men stood a bit straighter when they saw him and his Archon uniform approach.
“Sir?” one of them asked.
David pointed a finger at him, then down at his belt. “I need to borrow that.”
“My weapon?” the guard asked, a bit confused.
“Yes. Belt too. I’m in a hurry.”
The man undid the buckle and handed him the stinger pistol still in the holster.
“Do you need assistance?” the other guard asked.
“Nope. This will do. Thanks,” David said, turning and walking away quickly as he adjusted the belt to match his waist size.
“That…was strange,” the guard said after he was gone.
“You think something is up?”
“Has to be…otherwise why would he need a weapon?”
“Think I should head back and grab another?”
“Not until we get a replacement. If something is going down we don’t want to leave this station undermanned.”
“Easy for you to say, you’re still got your stinger.”
“Recuerde, el adjetivo viene antes del sustantivo. Por tanto el botón rojo se dice ‘red button,” Kilmeade said in Spanish to a class of some 50 students in a tiny amphitheater as David walked in the side door, drawing the attention of some of the students but Seamus didn’t notice him until he started to mount the short staircase that led to the speaking podium, probably having assumed he was another student coming into class late.
When he did see him he stuttered, then held David’s gaze admirably with only a bit of quiver that quickly disappeared.
“Yes?” he asked casually, noticing as the students did his white Archon uniform.
“Instructor Kilmeade, can I have the word?” he said, deliberately mispronouncing the phrase.
A flash of recognition crossed the man’s eyes and David knew he’d guessed correctly. Before the man could respond the Archon took a half step to the left and brought his right arm up in a side-fisted cross and popped the operative in the side of the head, sending him spinning to the floor.
A collective sound of exasperation came from the students, but before any of them could so much as mouth a word David drew the pistol with his left hand and shot Kilmeade in the chest three times, insuring that he was quite unconscious.
The Archon reholstered his pistol and casually looked out over the wide-eyed students.
“Class dismissed,” he said with a smirk, thumbing towards the door.
The lot took the hint and hurried out nervously, sensing that they weren’t in danger but too agitated to stay around and ask about what had just happened. There were any number of rumors floating around about the Archons, but the one constant amongst them all
was that they weren’t to be trifled with.
Once they were gone David laid Kilmeade out on his back and searched his body, finding nothing of interest in his pockets and no marks on his neck other than a bit of paint splatter. Out of curiosity he unzipped the Star Force-made civilian shirt across the shoulder and down the left side until it came undone, then he flipped the man over on his face and pulled the back off. As he’d guessed the man had a fairly recent cut across his left deltoid that had sealed over, but it wasn’t patched. He probably hadn’t wanted to see a medic because questions might have been asked, so he’d just stopped the bleeding himself and was letting it heal unaugmented.
David pulled the back of the shirt in place and zipped it up again, then flipped him over right side up and examined his face. It took a few moments, but he eventually ran a finger across his left jaw and came up with a bit of makeup on his finger. He proceeded to rub it off the man’s face enough to see another thin gash, made all the more evident by the tiny droplets of blood oozing out now that he’d broken the scab.
That took care of that little mystery, given that the cut was on the same side of his body.
David picked the man up by the waist as if he were nothing more than a toy and tossed him over his shoulder, despite the fact that the man was two inches taller and weighed a good 15 pounds more than he did. It looked a bit comical, and he cringed a bit as he realized he was smearing paint all over his white uniform, but David nonchalantly carried the unconscious man across the platform, down the stairs, and out the door into the hallway, drawing stares from passerbys and a few of the students that had been brave enough to stick around and see what happened next.
“Relax guys,” David said casually as he passed them by. “No homework for today.”
8
July 16, 2406
Solar System
Earth
“Scans are clean, Archon,” a female medtech said, having been brought in with a specialized team on an overnight flight from Atlantis. “No Dargomir is present in the subject’s body, so far as we can tell. It’s possible there are isolated pockets, but to date all the data I’ve received indicates thorough distribution throughout the body, and we’re detected none here.”
“Good,” David said, arms crossed over his chest as he looked into the cell where the unconscious operative lay with a pair of medtechs hovering over him. “Anything else I should know?”
“He has a mild concussion, along with previous lacerations on his shoulder and face that haven’t completely healed. No signs of surgical augmentation of any fashion.”
David nodded. “Wake him and leave. I’ll take it from here.”
The woman nodded and gestured to the other medtech, who injected Kilmeade with a destunning serum before walking out of the cell. As he worked his way back to consciousness David activated the energy shield and stood waiting for him to wake up as the medtechs left the room.
“What…happened?” Kilmeade asked as he sat up, holding his hand against the throbbing in his head…then he noticed the Archon standing behind the glowing barrier. “Why did you hit me and why am I here?”
“You’ve been found out,” David said simply. “We confiscated your last blood injection, along with your data files. I believe your next appointment was a Tankana Walkowski?”
The man’s eyes went wide, but he kept his mouth shut.
“When we hired you, it was for instructional purposes only. I’m pretty sure somewhere in the contract we mentioned you weren’t allowed to work for the opposition.”
“I’m not employed by anyone else. What are you talking about?”
“I didn’t say ‘employed,’ I said ‘working for,’” David clarifying using quote fingers. “Just so you know, Star Force and The Word have already been formally introduced. Been playing a bit of a chess game and, guess what, you’re one of the pawns we just took.”
“And what are you, a knight?”
“An Archon.”
“I know what you are, I meant metaphorically,” Kilmeade said with an instructor’s tone.
“There’s no equivalent piece on the board for us. Chess is a limited game. Star Force likes to fashion its own pieces.”
“So what is it that I’m actually being accused of doing? What law have I broken?”
“Uh…working for the wrong side.”
“You can’t put me in jail for that,” Kilmeade argued, finally standing up and walking towards the blue force field.
“Dude, we caught you. There’s no trial by jury with Star Force or lawyers you can use to worm your way out of this. You got caught. End of story.”
Kilmeade rubbed his head again. “So what, you’re going to lock me up and throw away the key?”
“Haven’t decided yet. But Star Force does operate its own prisons. They don’t get very full because we really don’t care what you do so long as you don’t cause trouble. That said, we do have a regular flow of smugglers cycling through. So maybe you’ll have some company after all.”
“Oh, wait,” David said before the man could respond. “That’s right. Star Force prisons function on isolation protocols. You won’t see anyone once you go in. No inmates, no guards…not a single living person. You’ll have plenty of things to do to keep you busy, or you can just sit and rot if you like, but you’ll be completely cut off from society until you get out, so if you feel like talking this will probably be one of your last chances.”
Kilmeade shook his head firmly. “You can’t just throw civilians away like that. You have to have some judicial procedures in place.”
David smiled. “Nope.”
“Come now,” Kilmeade said, disbelievingly as he sat back down on the single bench inside the cell. “Star Force has all manner of rules. You want me to believe they don’t also have a justice code?”
“We’re not interested in playing games, only ferreting out the truth. Once we have it, we decide what to do with you. You should be grateful, actually, since we don’t execute prisoners.”
“You still haven’t stated what rule I’ve broken.”
David frowned. “Let me make it more plain then. You’re one of the bad guys.”
“Depending on your point of view.”
“I’m willing to hear yours.”
“Are you the one that decides what happens to me?”
“Pretty much.”
“So Archons can do anything and everything they want?”
“We’re in charge,” David answered simply, not sure which way this guy was leaning.
“Of the military. I thought the civilian side of Star Force was out of your jurisdiction?”
“You heard wrong.”
“Did I? I’m starting to get the idea that you’re just trying to squeeze information out of me before the actual authorities arrive.”
“Ha!” David said, walking around in a small circle with a bemused look on his face. “For an intelligence organization that has supposedly infiltrated our ranks, The Word is really clueless on a lot of simple stuff. The Director and the Archons run Star Force. There’s no jurisdiction involved, no politics, no internal wrangling. We all get along and share responsibilities. Ferreting you out was one of mine, so I get to decide what happens to you.”
“There’s always politics,” Kilmeade said dismissively.
“The young ones always say that.”
The man frowned. “Just how old are you?”
David sighed and pointed to the silver stripe running down the side of his white sleeve. “You see this. Good luck earning one of these before you hit 100.”
“You want me to believe you’re more than a century old? Best guess is you’re 20, maybe 25.”
David looked at him oddly. “Are you even part of The Word or just a stooge? Do you really know that little...wait, check that, most of the populace knows how old Archons are, and a lot of them know what our uniform colors mean. How can you be so dense, especially when you’re getting paid by us?”
“I’m a linguist. I help
people learn to communicate with each other. I have few interests aside from that, so my knowledge of the rest of society may be deemed as lacking. I don’t see that as a fault, merely specialization.”
David pointed a finger at him, but refrained from touching the energy field in between. “That’s the most reasonable thing you’ve said thus far. So, your pathetic workouts. A hobby?”
Kilmeade glared. “What do you mean, pathetic?”
“Dude,” David said emphatically, thumbing at his own chest. “Archon.”
“Meaning what?”
“Did I really smack you that hard, or are you just playing dumb?”
“What’s wrong with my workouts?”
“Why didn’t you use the proper equipment that we supplied you with, rather than buying that cheap ass stuff in your quarters?”
“So you searched through my stuff too?”
David hesitated for a moment, unsure whether or not all of this was really a bluff. This guy was acting like he wasn’t that sharp, and David was starting to believe part of it.
“Where did you think we found the blood vial?”
“Star Force says it respects people’s privacy within their quarters. So now you just search them at random?”
“You’re working for our enemy. You have no grounds to complain, Seamus.”
“What’s it matter what the equipment costs, so long as it gets the job done?”
“Your cuts, for one. It broke while you were doing dips, didn’t it?”
Kilmeade frowned. “You have a camera in there, don’t you?”
“Didn’t need one. The placement of your cuts and the piece of the machine that you tapped over don’t leave very many options. Also, I noticed your arms are larger than average. Not hard to deduce what happened.”
“I prefer to train alone, and I couldn’t afford the larger models. Until it snapped I didn’t have any complaints.”
