Blood Orbit_A Gattis File Novel

by K. R. Richardson

  “You’re think I could be so cold, Cousin?” Tchintaka asked, looking saddened and hurt.

  Dillal brought the weight of his unnatural stare to bear on Tchintaka’s face. “I know you are. The shot that killed Leran was too good. You’ve never been one for direct action—you influence others to do your violence as you did at Camp Donetti a year ago and at home on Sunday. But when you shot Leran and the rest, that wasn’t the work of a man unfamiliar with a gun and shivering with adrenaline. That was coldly done, calculated, and without passion.”

  Tchintaka’s expression flickered and his lip curled slightly before he regained control and made a face of injured surprise.

  Dillal went on in a voice as bland as angelstone. “You wanted it to happen—it gave you an excuse to take everything and leave no one behind to threaten you. You’ve always had a knack for turning the dispossessed and miserable to your own purpose—you charm them, tell them what they want to hear, instill your own desires in their desperate minds—”

  “I?” Tchintaka gave a harsh laugh. “Is you who’s care nothing for people. Nothing for Dreihleen, nor your red-tar family. You’re betray your birth, embrace the corporation, worship the system that’s devour us. I’m reject it, cry for justice—”

  Dillal snorted. “You cry for supremacy and destruction. Nothing in your philosophy speaks of peace, law, or a future any different than the present but for the color of the overlord’s skin. You have no plan beyond waste and retribution. You led Leran and Banzet to their deaths—or would have if Banzet hadn’t run—because you knew they were weak, that you could manipulate them to your will and pretend what happened at Paz was an accident.”

  “’Twas!”

  “Never. You planned every minute of it. You knew Leran would hurt Robesh, maybe kill her—you hoped for it so you could kill him yourself, justify the murder of your accomplices, justify the pillaging of your own community for your self-serving ‘revolution’ without the troublesome weight of guilt or responsibility, or the testimony of anyone who might reveal you for what you are. You saw the Dreihleen at Paz as cannibals who eat the flesh of the innocent and cleave to the corporation—just as you see me.”

  Tchintaka shook his head, his mask of pity imperfect with underlying rage. “You’re an abomination. Lapdog of the corporation, who’s believe the lie—”

  “I believe in the rule of law and I pursue you because you don’t!” Dillal shouted, his voice running faster as he went on. “You believe in nothing but your own hate, your greed for power! You pose as a man of the people—a compassionate humanist above bigotry and avarice—while you take what you want and leave death in your wake. What sort of humanist uses slurs like ‘red-tar’ and labels his victims vultures and cannibals, sends innocent boys into the hands of the same sort of men who once beat him for their own amusement? You’re a liar, a thief, and a murderer! Even your voice is a lie—made agreeable for whichever audience is watching. You’re a con man no better than Denny Leran, and a killer no less than the corporation that works prisoners to death in camps that you—”

  Tchintaka snatched at Dillal’s throat and rammed the inspector’s head against the glass, his expression twisting into a snarl of fury. “Stop your mouth, Cousin,” he hissed, his voice chill venom. “Stop your mouth, or I’m kill you as I did Denny—is true I did,” he added, nodding and glaring into Dillal’s eyes as if searching for a spark of fear that never lit. “Should do you like he’s killed Venn—with the torch so I’m hear you scream, let your sanctimony pour out your head like steam. See what’s run you now your brain’s corporation machinery.”

  He closed his hands tighter around Dillal’s neck and slammed him against the glass until the surface began to crack.

  The sun had torn a small hole in the cloud cover and the air was thick with humidity as the light brightened overhead and the temperature rose. The woman from Central Media met Matheson at the foot of the jetty, cut off from most of the cove’s breeze, but also hidden from the White Hotel. The crowd was slightly thinner since Casino Archon blocked the view from the ground, and the operations base had been set up at the Emporia building—which was closer to the hotel.

  Even without the ID tag on her sleeve, the observer rig she wore—with the tiny retina-projected monitor pointed inward and the camera outward over her eyes—picked the woman out as media. The ultra-thin support, data, and transmission wires fully encircled her head and ran in curling loops down around her ears. As she removed the headpiece, Matheson could see her features were so even and symmetrical that they had to have been sculpted that way. The warm brown tones of her skin and hair seemed engineered for unchallenging beauty. She reminded him a little of Dillal in that she was ambitious enough to remake herself for the job she wanted, but unlike the inspector, she was not quite enough of something to have gotten any further up the ladder than this. Matheson was tempted to laugh at his thoughts, except his sense of humor had gone to cower in a corner of his mind behind cynicism and anger and he feared that what might come out of his mouth would be too caustic for safety.

  The woman smiled with perfectly white teeth and offered her hand. “Petr Kettenberg. You must be Eric Matheson. It is a pleasure to meet you.” Even her voice was Central and prettily bland. She did not flirt.

  Matheson kept the handshake as perfunctory as possible. “I’m Security Ofiçe Matheson, yes. You have some equipment for me?”

  Kettenberg blinked. “Uh . . . I do.” She waved at a box on the ground by her feet. “It’s about as simple as they come and pretty lightweight, though I don’t suppose you’ll have any trouble carrying it,” she added, reaching up to pat Matheson’s shoulder.

  I don’t need solicitous media-heads trying to befriend me. Matheson flicked the woman’s hand away and reached for the handle on the box. “Instructions?”

  Kettenberg frowned a little, ruining the smoothness of her brow. “In the case. The frequency of the broadcast booster is already set.”

  “This doesn’t feed straight to the broadcast stream?” Matheson asked.

  “No. Units that small don’t have the power to stream very far for very long, so it’s preprogrammed to a specific signal booster back at the temporary base that feeds direct to the broadcast stream. The head rigs work the same way,” she added, holding up the observer headpiece she’d had on. “The case unit just has a bit more power in the antenna, battery, and capacitor, and it’s easier for a user who needs to be in the shot.”

  The mobile in Matheson’s pocket muttered “ . . . don’t know what to make of you at all.”

  Matheson mentally cursed the need to keep the stream open and lowered the volume as Kettenberg looked curious. “What’s that?” the observer asked.

  “Communications monitoring.”

  “Between whom?”

  Matheson gave her a blank stare. Kettenberg pursed her lips, then shrugged as if she couldn’t care less—though of course she did care quite a bit.

  Matheson looked back to the case. “Tell me how it works.”

  “You set the A/V unit on the stand and push the power button,” Kettenberg said. “Once it’s green, you can flip the broadcast switch any time and the rest is automatic for up to twenty minutes. The rig needs a power source if it’s going to send longer, and it has no recording capability—that’s managed at the base.”

  “Can this signal be interrupted?”

  “Oh sure—any signal can be blocked if you know what you’re doing. And the booster can be shut down or switched to a different feed or incoming stream, but that’s all done at the base. The White Hotel has secure nodes in every room, so that unit should have no problems reaching the base unit at Emporia without being disrupted by the usual privacy shielding, as long as the node’s operating.”

  “How can I tell if the node’s operating?”

  Matheson’s mobile whispered, “As if my opinion of you matters.”

  Kettenberg raised curious eyebrows before she replied, “You can ping it if you know the node’s ID
, or you could just call any phone in the room. If it connects, the node’s up. And if it’s already streaming, well. . . .” She flicked a significant glance at his pocket.

  Matheson nodded. “Thank you.” He started to turn away with the case in his hand.

  Kettenberg caught his free arm. “Hey. I’d really like to talk to you some more.”

  “. . . May shoot you,” came from the mobile.

  Matheson shook her hand off and gave the media observer a poisonous glare. “I’d really not.”

  Tchintaka’s nearly muted voice said, “You’re care if I die.”

  Kettenberg smiled. “I’ll be on the casino roof when you change your mind, Ofiçe.”

  “Casino? Not Emporia?”

  “View’s better. I’m all about the view.”

  Matheson turned away.

  “No. I don’t care if you die—you will one way or another . . .”

  The trip back into the hotel and up to the tower twisted Matheson’s stomach into knots. He could hear the conversation between Tchintaka and Dillal growing more tense as he went up in the lift.

  “You’re an abomination. Lapdog of the corporation who’s believe the lie—”

  “I believe in the rule of law and I pursue you because you don’t!”

  He lost the stream in the staircase and hoped the recording was still running properly as he raced up the steps to the unfinished tower. At the top he forced his way past the lock, then snatched up the case again, and pushed through the door. He switched the stream from the speaker to the earpiece and hoped it was still live.

  “ . . . you like he’s killed Venn—with the torch so I’m hear you scream, let your sanctimony pour out your head like steam. See what’s run you now your brain’s corporation machinery.”

  Someone choked and struggled for breath, then came a crashing sound on top of another directly ahead of him.

  The stream died.

  Matheson snatched the mobile into his free hand and forced a voice call through to Dillal’s mobile. Panic burned his lungs and jabbed needles into his heart.

  The incoming voice notification echoed in the rough hollow of the unfinished space.

  The crashing ended.

  Matheson stopped, holding his breath.

  “Who’s this?” Tchintaka asked in his ear.

  “It’s Matheson. I’m here. I have the broadcast equipment you wanted.” He was breathless and hoped Tchintaka put it down to his having run up the stairs. “I’m in the hall outside the room,” he added. “May I come in?”

  “You’re leave everything but what I’m need. Your jacket, mobile, shoes—all but you and the broadcast.”

  “Everything?”

  Tchintaka laughed and it sounded like a hungry ghost roamed the place. “You’re keep your clothes—I’m not want to see it. But the rest’s stay there.”

  Matheson stripped off his sweat-damp jacket and dropped his equipment, belt, shoes . . . emptied his pockets and put the mobile carefully on top of the pile. Then he picked up the case and crossed the distance to the suite door barefooted, grateful the surface wasn’t too rough or covered in building materials.

  The floor felt cold and he was sweating as he stood there.

  Then the door opened and Tchintaka looked him over with an amused smile. “Good man.” Not a right man, no, definitely not.

  Matheson walked through the doorway, casting his gaze around without turning his head. His gut clenched when he spotted Dillal leaning in the corner against the window. A bloody circle marked the spiderwebbed glass behind him, but the inspector was breathing and he opened his eyes to gaze at Matheson. Matheson tried not to let his relief show and turned his exhale into a sigh of annoyance.

  He looked back to Tchintaka. “Where do you want this?”

  Tchintaka pointed to the center of the room and Matheson put the case down there.

  “How’st work?”

  Gotta sell it. Matheson explained most of what Kettenberg had told him. “Total run time is twenty minutes—I assume that will be enough.”

  “Goes planet-wide?”

  “Yes, direct to everything. There are media observers out there from Central and other places, so your audience is . . . very large. Everyone will see you.”

  “Is good.”

  Matheson started toward Dillal, but Tchintaka stopped him. “You’re leave him.”

  “You have what you want. Let me take him.”

  “He’s stay.”

  “For pity’s sake, man—he’s injured.”

  “Is no matter. He’s stay.”

  The cold in Matheson’s belly turned to ice. “Then . . . then let me take someone else. A show of good faith. I gave you what you asked. Give me something in return.”

  Tchintaka seemed to think about it, but Matheson was sure it was merely a show. “Take who you’re like from downstairs. Eight minutes, then he’s lock the doors on everyone.”

  That was barely enough time to get back down to the lobby. Matheson glanced at Dillal, but the inspector didn’t seem to be focused on him now.

  “Best run,” said Tchintaka.

  Matheson bolted for the door.

  He scooped up his gear and clattered down the stairs to the lift, jerking on his shoes and equipment as the lift descended. It couldn’t move fast enough to ease the pounding in his chest and head or the churning in his guts.

  As he hit the lobby, he started yelling, “Out! Everyone out the doors as fast as you can! Out!”

  He got out with ten others before the doors wrenched closed and the locks slammed back into place. Those trapped inside pounded on the doors, but it made no difference.

  The escaped hostages ran behind him to the edge of the cordon, where they were absorbed into the breathless crowd or escorted toward the operations base by SOs and ground troops holding the perimeter. The sound of the locks snapping closed had reassured Matheson that Dillal was still alive, but he didn’t know how much longer that would be the case.

  He ran for the casino, fumbling for his mobile to send another voice ping.

  “You’re have your hostages,” Tchintaka answered.

  “Let me talk to Dillal.”

  “I’m not inclined to it.”

  “Now that the doors are locked, I have no assurance you’ll leave him alive. Let me talk to him, or I’ll tell the director to block your transmission and to merry hell with you. Dead hostages are worth nothing.”

  Tchintaka laughed at him, but Matheson heard him moving away and in a moment Dillal’s voice sounded low in his ear. “I’m well, Matheson.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Well enough. If you have the files, do as you’ve been told. The rest is nothing.”

  The call broke off into silence and Matheson kept running.

  “Do you expect to survive this?” Dillal asked, still leaning in the corner near the bloodstained glass.

  “I’ve my way out,” Tchintaka replied as he set the A/V unit on the unfolded stand.

  Dillal nodded. “Of course. But it’s best you stay away from the window, just in case.”

  “Thought you’re have no concern for my life, Cousin—so you’re say.”

  “I don’t. But I suspect that seeing your brains spattered across the view will ruin it for me in future. If you move closer to me, the men on the Emporia roof will have no shot.”

  “But there’s you, Cousin . . .”

  “I’ll move to the other corner if you think I’m so dangerous with my hands locked behind my back.”

  Tchintaka turned around and studied the room and the view beyond it. “What’s chance for the casino roof?”

  “It’s a half a kilometer away and the only people up there are media observers.”

  Tchintaka gave him a curious look. “How you’re know?”

  “How do you imagine?” Dillal asked, turning his head away from the view so the light sparked a moment off his gold-rimmed eye. “My vision’s not calibrated for the distance, but I can tell a soldier in body armor fro
m a civilian in street clothes. And they’re all standing. Snipers don’t stand.”

  “How do you know your inspector’s still alive?” Kettenberg asked. “I only see one man up there.”

  The observer and her assistant had moved next to Matheson and a bit away from the other media members and the handful of SOs and troops who’d been assigned to protect—or muzzle—them. The soldiers were all lethally armed, which Matheson found less intimidating than the media-heads did.

  “He was alive when I left the building and Dillal’s darker and shorter than Tchintaka.” Matheson crouched to look through the observer’s monitor on the signal booster. “He’s the man leaning against the window in the corner.”

  “That’s a man?” Kettenberg adjusted something on her head rig and stared at the window of the unfinished tower. “Huh. He’s so still I didn’t realize that was a person.”

  “You didn’t see what happened earlier, when I went in with the equipment?”

  “Not all of it. We had to get back up here from the street and these bas—uh . . . security-conscious members of the Anti-Incursion Support Group caused us some delay. Did I miss something I’ll get reamed for?”

  “Depends on how much your whip values getting the complete story.”

  “That depends on who it favors. Shit . . . is that blood? On the window by your guy’s head?”

  “Yes. He’s injured and that may be why he’s not moving much.”

  “Well, he is now.”

  Matheson started to crouch again, but Kettenberg’s assistant raised the monitor for him instead. He watched the image captured by Kettenberg’s head rig: Dillal got slowly to his feet and crossed the window to the other side. Sparks of gold and red reflected in the window as the sun shone on the inspector’s prosthesis. He stood straight, but lurched a little as he went, his hands still behind his back and his head brushing the glass, leaving a broken, bloody line across it. Then he sank into the new corner and leaned into it, turning his head away as if he were watching Tchintaka. Matheson looked at the line on the window. Then he turned to Kettenberg.