Matheson felt the weight of Dillal’s sigh even through the distance of the mobile. “Starna is a gifted med/legal technician, but he’s also a Wire addict, among his other problems. I had hoped he would try to overcome it.”
That explained Starna’s appearance and behavior—or might. Matheson hadn’t seen many Wireheads, that he knew of, and fewer who seemed to be at the stage where their mental function was so fragmented and difficult to manage. “He said he can’t. Or I assume that’s what he meant. He said something about a sample that wasn’t viable and so he couldn’t run a match. And something about tissue, and something about a goat, and having one more thing to try. He wasn’t making a lot of sense.”
“Hell.” Matheson had never heard the inspector swear and the mild expletive startled him. “I had hopes. Matheson, do you know where Detive Orris is?”
“I know where he was.”
“Even better.”
“I’ve been trying to avoid him, to be honest. I’m working in S-Office while the patch pounders are on riot duty because I figured I don’t have time to be questioned about Santos if I’m going to find Banzet and Tchintaka.”
“Indeed you don’t. But I still need a sole impression.”
“What . . . still?” Matheson was annoyed with his own annoyance over the petty detail.
“Yes. Still. I thought I’d captured one, but apparently not. It’s become more important than I can say at the moment, though your two men are, also.”
Matheson thought about it, but couldn’t see how that was true. But if the inspector said so . . .
Dillal huffed. “Once again we shift our focus. But only for a moment. Banzet and Tchintaka must still be in the Dreihleat or the tunnels. They’ll be unable to move to safer territory while the riot lockdown is in force. If you know where Orris’s footprints can be found, get them and leave them with Starna before you return to the Dreihleat.”
“Starna said he won’t be here.”
“Then send them to me and I’ll find Starna or run them myself. I’m recovering video I salvaged in the Ohbata last night and that can’t wait.” There was a loud noise in the background and Dillal cut the connection abruptly.
Matheson wasn’t sure why the sole impression was so important to him, but the inspector obviously knew something he wasn’t willing to discuss yet, and it just increased Matheson’s own confusion. It was a ridiculous errand, but Matheson knew right where to find Orris’s prints, conveniently near ForTech.
Dillal finished his conversation as he dressed.
Andreus squinted at him. “You no longer need a microphone to talk via the datalink . . . How do you do that?” she demanded. “I didn’t design that.”
“I retasked the frequency sensors. While the socket was damaged I was forced to improvise.”
“Huh,” she muttered, shaking her head as if amazed. She turned to her console and started the rebuilt video, still looking thoughtful. Her expression died to chilly remoteness as the video rolled.
The camera never moved as the scene unfolded except to pan side-to-side and shudder at the beginning and end. Riot troops swarmed out from the transport beneath the camera and, finally, returned, as muddy, bloody, wet, and disoriented as their prisoners. The crop stubble in the field beyond had disappeared under water and mud. In the foreground, scattered bodies lay strewn across the cobbled administration plaza in swaths of water tinged violet by blue dust and red blood.
They watched it twice—it was only forty-eight minutes long. Dillal stared hard at the display. He ran segments of the stream again and again, growing more visibly agitated with each viewing. He replayed the opening shot—a general pan over the assembly of Dreihleen and Ohba men and women who’d been standing in the plaza as the transports arrived. He stopped and restarted that short segment three times.
Dr. Andreus also stared at the display, frowning. “Why this? That’s . . . Camp Donetti.”
“He wanted me to see it,” Dillal replied, sharply, as the troops walked back toward the camera. “He said it would change my mind.”
Shields were down, helmets pushed back, weapons slung, and the boys—the nearest group were all very young men—were either buzzing with adrenaline or staggering with exhaustion. Some halted where they stood, stripping their equipment as if they could shed the experience with it. Others seemed to revel in the mess and horror. One, left of center, fell to his knees, holding his empty arms in front of him as if he retained the shield and shock stick he’d dropped somewhere. Then he pitched forward, into the purple mud. His companions trudged on. He wasn’t the only one to go down—just the one close enough to see.
An officer in a pristine uniform walked out from a transport and picked up the fallen man, raising his face out of the mud, removing the helmet to reveal sweat-soaked hair the color of coal, and wiping the worst of the muck out of the boy’s mouth and nose so he wouldn’t choke or suffocate on it. Then he dragged the young man toward the transport and they vanished together below the camera’s view.
The video halted.
Dillal continued looking at the still display, blinking.
“That’s the riot Gattis Corporation claims never happened,” Andreus said.
“How are you sure?” Dillal asked, reaching for the display controls.
Andreus brushed his hand aside. “You weren’t my only subject in the past couple of years, you’re just the one that survived. One of mine worked the medical clean up on this . . . fiasco. You must know about this thing.”
The inspector nodded. “Not at the time, of course, since I was already working with you. As you say—officially, it never happened and I heard about it only after the fact. Reverse the video stream one frame at a time. Please.”
“Why? It’s an agricamp riot. Bloodier than most, but no different than Cafala or Agria-Sud.”
“It is different—one-hundred twenty people died and everything about it was hidden. Fahn didn’t release this footage to the net, which would have caused panic at Corporation House, but he wants me to see it, now.”
“The illegal troops here are pretty damaging,” Andreus said, clicking backward through the frames. “I’m surprised he held on to this so long.”
“He may not have had it all this time,” Dillal replied as he studied each still frame. He seemed to be barely holding himself still. “Wait. What is that insignia?”
“Which one?”
“On the shoulder of the man going to retrieve the fallen boy.”
None of the ground troops had any visible insignia at all but there was a small, subtle marking, light gray, at the shoulder of the unsullied officer’s charcoal gray sleeve. Enlarged, it looked like two jagged saw sections on each side of a dome under the barely visible letters FSA.
“It looks like a lens cross-section,” said Andreus.
“Show me the young man,” Dillal demanded.
Andreus backed the video to the appropriate time hash and clicked through one frame at a time, until she found a clear shot of the kneeling man and zoomed in on his features.
The blood drained from Dillal’s face and he scrambled out of the exam room at a full run.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Day 5: Afternoon Continues
Matheson didn’t need Dillal’s disturbing facility with the GISA building controls to check the ID logs and discover that Orris had swiped out almost an hour earlier. Probably hoping to avoid the return of the SOs from riot control. Matheson would have to do that, too. Men coming down from that kind of duty tended to be in one of two states: too amped to be reasonable; or too exhausted to care. Either way, he didn’t want to be found anywhere near S-Office in the next twenty minutes.
He headed back toward ForTech at just short of a run in spite of the protests of his still-tender muscles. Dillal’s office door was closed and locked. Matheson noted dim blue stains of sand sticky with spray seal solvent at the edge of the threshold where he’d seen Orris standing earlier. He dropped a marker and took an image of the footprints at the
door.
Matheson kept clear of the prints and waved his ID over the scanner next to the office door. Without the inspector inside, he wasn’t sure it would unlock for him—or how Orris might have gotten in, if he had. The lock thumped and he pushed the door open, staying just outside without bringing up the lights. There was still plenty of sunlight bouncing at second-hand angles into the room and he wanted the shadows in any case. The shabby old carpet was stained and threadbare in patches, but still thick enough to take an impression where someone had stood still a while—especially someone of Orris’s weight. The hard part was finding it and making the impression visible as the carpet rubbed the last of the sand and solvent off the shoes. He could think of two places Orris would have stopped for a significant time—in front of the door and in front of the desk. He’d already found the prints outside the door. Matheson couldn’t see any use in the impression at this point, but he’d do as asked and get back to the Dreihleat as quickly as he could.
He crouched on the threshold, wincing with the lingering pains of bruises and abused muscles, and took the Sun Spot off his belt—relieved at the loss of the small weight from his bruised hip. He turned the light on and adjusted the spectrum and temperature, then laid it on the floor so the beam spread parallel to the surface. Every uneven rise in the pile cast a dark blue shadow in the shaft of light. He got back to his feet, grunting at the discomfort that stabbed him as he rose to observe the carpet from a greater height, looking for a pattern in the light. It wasn’t there—at least not in the section he’d illuminated.
It took several uncomfortable tries before he found one pair near the desk that was still slightly stained with blue dust and large enough that they had to be Orris’s and not the smaller, lighter inspector’s. Matheson laid a sheet of contour flimsy over the area with care and used the Sun Spot to heat the page.
The sheet crumpled a bit at first, curling on the edges and then sinking against the carpet like water trying to drain away. It clung and formed to the shallow indentations without pressing them flat, leaving a paper covering on the dents. Another adjustment to the Sun Spot illuminated the paper so the most stressed areas showed up dark red while the parts which had hardly changed were a pale pink. He dropped a marker, just as if the office were a crime scene, and took an image with his mobile. Then he knelt down and pulled the edges of the sheet up with firm pressure until it ripped free of the carpet, and he popped up with a grunt as the muscles in his back, arms, and abs complained at the sudden release from strain almost as much as they’d complained when he’d started tugging.
He sent the image to Dillal and started to go looking for Starna, but he caught movement in the corner of his eye and whirled, dropping the sheet onto the inspector’s desk.
Neme was leaning in the doorframe with her arms crossed over her chest. He cursed himself for leaving the door open as she said, “Well, well. My unhelpful blackbird. What have you been up to, rook? Investigating the inspector? He is a slippery bastard.”
“No.” She wouldn’t believe any explanation he could offer—not that he owed her one.
“I still don’t get you. You have no reason to be here—and I don’t mean standing in your whip’s office like you got caught foxing reports.”
“Just a rookie trying to climb.” I don’t have time for this.
She rolled her eyes. “You don’t need to work. You don’t need to climb—academy man with your connections won’t be allowed to sink into the dark blue depths of Gattis’s corporate shame.”
“Maybe we’re two of a kind, sir.”
She snorted. “You and me? Poor little rich kids playing cops? Except I live here, and I’m known to be easily bored. You . . . you’re a Matheson—all capital letters with the hypno-glitter effects scrolling at the bottom of the display. Even out here in the back end of the jumpways, we know our power celebs—hell, probably know them better here than anywhere because families like yours are meat and eggs for us. You should be swanning some Central System paradise in a uniform that’s never going to know a speck of dust, not grubbing dirty murders in yesterday’s clothes and sporting more pressure kisses than a terraformer with a faulty suit. Mummy and Daddy aren’t going to be happy if you turn up floating in the Cove.”
Matheson kept his tone casual. “My parents aren’t particularly concerned with what happens in my life, and there’s no reason to think I’m on anyone’s hit list—unless it’s yours.”
“Me? You think I’m threatening you?”
“I’m not sure what you’re doing. Sir.”
“I’m trying to figure the angles. Dillal I get—he’s an ambitious, motley sideswipe willing to take any risk in order to rise in our professional cesspit. Until the inevitable failure. I can wait for it. You, though . . . you could be dangerous.”
She peered at him from the corners of her eyes with a speculative expression and went on, “Corporation House is looking down the barrel of Central System’s big guns when the planetary charter comes up for review. We’ve had over two hundred years of laissez-faire what-the-fuckery and no one important here wants that to change, but it’s going to, because once Central is here, they’ll stay. The question is ‘in what person or form?’ I’m trying to decide if you’re the family scout, the sapper, or the stick.”
“I’m not following you.”
Neme gave a disgusted snort. “You lie better when you keep your mouth shut. That’s one for free. And here’s another piece of advice—whether you’re here to gather intelligence, sabotage the system, or put down roots and take over, you’re not going to help yourself by fucking the boss’s sister.”
The ground seemed to drop out from under him and his ears rang as if all the air had been sucked from the room.
Neme laughed. “What? You didn’t know? Well, there’s a pretty slice. You should be asking yourself what she’s after—’cause it’s not just your firm, young body, slick. She’s certainly had as good, or better in her time.”
Matheson could barely force a word past his fury. “What?” was all he managed.
Neme suddenly looked wary and took a step back, into the hallway. But nothing blunted her tongue. “You’re a fucking naif. She’s my age and has no living family but your whip. How do you imagine a single Dreihle woman could have afforded to start a business on her own if she didn’t spend a lot of time on her back, first?”
Matheson’s nails bit into his palms as he clenched his fists and the sharp jolt of pain up his forearms was the only thing that gave him pause enough to stop him smashing Neme’s face in. She wasn’t the one he was mad at—not really—but he bulled toward her anyhow.
Neme jumped back and barely kept her feet, stumbling, startled, into the hallway. Good.
He lunged at her one more time, too aware that the halls were monitored, but unable to rein his temper in any further. He didn’t quite touch her, but it was a close thing.
Neme caught herself against the opposite wall, but stood firm. Then she glowered back, ready and more than able to take him down if he came toward her again. She didn’t say anything, just set her feet and waited for him to move in.
Matheson stood shaking in front of the doorway. He wanted to hit her, or scream at her . . . anything but holding still in the burning struggle of his confusion and rage. He managed to reach back and pull the door closed until the lock engaged, without giving in to his urge to damage the senior detive. He turned, unable to keep looking at her without breaking, and stalked away, stiff with unshed fury.
“Where is SO Matheson?” The inspector’s voice was sharp and the SO at the information desk jumped at the sound.
He turned to regard the CIFO with a nervous stare. “I don’t know, sir.”
“Is he still in the building?”
The desk ofiçe clattered away at his data console. “I don’t see any sign that he’s swiped out, but—”
Dillal cut him off. “Has riot control returned from the Dreihleat?”
“They’re coming back in now. Third shift
is taking over with augmented patrols and . . .”
The inspector didn’t stay to listen.
He ran down to S-Office, rushing into the staff room. There was no sign of Matheson. He bolted for the locker room. It was packed with SOs in varying states of undress—mostly stripping out of sweat-soaked uniforms and heading for showers or returning from them.
Jora came toward him wearing nothing but a sneer and reached for the inspector, saying, “Not officer country down here, turd biscuit.”
Dillal snatched and twisted Jora’s hand so quickly that the SO staggered and cringed. “Still yourself or I’ll break you. Where is Eric Matheson?”
The men and women in the room stopped and stared at Dillal and Jora.
Jora gasped at the pressure on his wrist and fingers. “Haven’t seen him. Thought he was under you, now,” he added, making the term sound dirty.
Dillal spoke with chilly precision. “Consider your answer carefully: When did you see him last?”
“Fuck you, I said I haven’t—” Jora’s response broke off in a squeal as Dillal put more pressure on his hand.
“When and where did you see him last?”
“I haven’t scoped on the bastard in two days!”
Dillal leaned close to Jora’s ear, but he didn’t lower his voice. “Two days? Not three?”
“Yes!”
“Where?”
“Here! Right, fucking here!”
Dillal dropped Jora’s hand and the sudden release made the SO lurch down and sideways, into the sudden clap of the inspector’s hand over his left ear. Jora’s eyes rolled back and he tumbled to the floor in a dead faint.
Dillal looked up at the staring crowd of SOs. “Any of the rest of you seen my IAD today? Or ‘seen to him’ two days ago?” His tone was venomous. Hard red sparks reflected off his eyepiece as his gaze shifted over them all.
Even the silence held its breath until a third-shifter raised her head.
“I . . .” she started, her voice shivering. “I saw him a while ago in ForTech corridor.”
Jora stirred a little on the floor and Dillal took a step away. His expression implied he’d just noticed something filthy near his shoe. He glanced at the nervous third-shifter. “You’re Kyasdottir?”
Blood Orbit_A Gattis File Novel Page 27
