Now he was in the building, this was feeling very real. Until this moment, he’d been able to partially distract himself with packing away Keeley’s things. Her parents had come over yesterday evening and taken away several boxes of her belongings. They didn’t check the contents, but smiled politely, and her mother even gave Jack a perfunctory hug and a kiss on the cheek. they were all grieving and for a few minutes, he relaxed, struck again by how similar in looks her mother was to her. Keeley’s father had reacted to Jack the same way he always had: with polite indifference. He didn’t want to talk about his daughter, and Jack in return didn’t want to give that bastard the time of day.
Burnfield led him to the third floor, through a double set of doors, and into a wide dimly-lit space, dominated by a floor-to-ceiling view screen and a gleaming white perspective table.
“This is the operations room. You’re in the centre of the Telepath Crime Unit for this district.” There was a note of pride in his voice as he led him inside. The view screen was raised on its own staging area. Across from them, on the other side of room, a room with glass walls through which Jack could see the unmistakable grid work of a simulacrum lattice.
There was a row of offices on Jack’s right, and in the nearest, three people were deep in conversation. As the woman in the group turned, Jack recognised her as Burnfield’s sergeant. Last time they'd met, she'd been openly hostile towards him. Of the men in the room, the tallest had tight dark curls in his hair and wore a shirt and tie, already ruffled. The second man lounged in a chair in a black t-shirt and jeans.
“Come on, let’s get this over with,” said Burnfield.
The three left the office and gathered around the perspective table in the middle of the room.
“Everyone, I'd like you to meet Jack Winston,” said Burnfield.
“Morning,” the female sergeant said, “I’m Chloe.”
“Nice to see you again,” Jack said.
The taller man with the curly hair offered his hand and shook Jack’s with an eager grip that caught Jack off guard. “Steve.”
Jack turned to the man in the T-Shirt, who with his hands in his pocket, said: “Phil.”
Jack saw a flash of disappointment cross Burnfield’s face.
“The boss says you’re on secondment for a while. Help us investigate the Maguire murder,” said Chloe.
“Yeah, well. I don’t know what help I’ll be.”
It was impossible to ignore the glance that flashed between Phil and Steve. He wondered whether they’d treated Moira like this when she first arrived.
“From this district?”
“Yes, never found a reason to leave.”
Again with the thin smile.
Jack resisted the urge to do something about that.
Burnfield addressed the group, breaking the awkward moment. “I’m glad to have you on the team. I’m sure you’ll fit right in.” He turned and headed back to his office. “Phil, show him around the place. Set him up in an office.”
“There’s only Moira’s,” Steve protested.
“It’s his now.”
Before Steve could raise further protests, Burnfield left the operations floor and headed back out through the double-doors. For a moment, the team looked embarrassed at each other. Jack didn’t know what to say except that he felt he had to say something before the silence killed him.
“Look, it’s fine. Give me a chair and I’ll work at your main desk there.”
Steve looked like he would agree, but Chloe interjected. “Don’t be stupid. If the boss says you’re to have Moira’s office, then it’s yours.”
Chloe led Steve back to her office. There were angry hushed voices from both of them as they drifted out of earshot. Jack didn’t need his telepathy to know that Steve was being put in his place.
“It’s just you and me then,” Phil said, then noticing that Jack was looking at the departing couple added: “Don’t mind him, he’s like that with everyone.”
“Yeah, sure.” Jack tried to smile. “So, is it always this warm and friendly?”
Phil laughed. “You’re catching everyone on a bad day and to be honest, we’re wondering why we’ve been given you.”
“You needed a teep.”
He nodded and raised an eyebrow. “Plenty of teeps. We’ve got OsMiTech right on our doorstep. Overrun with them. So, why you?”
“No idea.”
“Have you ever worked with the police?”
“Is that required?”
Phil gestured that they should head to an office along the wall, the one farthest from Chloe’s. “Not at all. Like I say, I’m curious. You were with the boss at Fuse Media. For a while you were a suspect in your own wife’s murder.” The man spoke matter-of-factly about this, like he’d forgotten whom he was talking to. Jack found the bluntness refreshing. Sooner that over smirks and fake politeness.
“To be honest, it’s a mystery to me as well.”
“I’ve never met a remnant keeper before. It’s the most audacious application of tech I’ve ever come across. You know, everything we take for granted, the network, HALOs, drone farms, but to take that next step and harness the power of the mind in such a way—I dunno. I think Milford Jones was taking too much of something to even come up with the idea.”
Jack frowned. “You’re big into this stuff then?”
“I manage all the tech. But, it doesn’t run itself—well, some of it does. Probably. But, don’t mention that to the boss or I’ll be out of a job.” He drew his finger across his throat, then realising what he’d done, he lowered his hands to his lap and looked away.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Jesus, I’m sorry.”
“Honestly, it’s fine. I’m just happy there’s someone here who doesn’t think I’m a freak.”
“They don’t think you’re a freak. They’re afraid of you. They tiptoed around Moira, scared to death she would dig around inside their heads and discover their dirty little secrets. Hell, you don’t need to be a telepath to know that Steve watches too much porn and Alice is massively in debt. I’ve got access to the network logs. It’s far simpler than poking around in their brains, and a lot more hygienic."
Phil stared at Jack’s smart eye, the one that OsMiTech had arranged after his own was lost. “What’s that for?”
“Saves me having a gaping eye socket.” Jack grinned. “But, it’s just another way to access networks.”
“What do you see?”
“Messages, data feeds. Whatever I send to it from the HALO.” He swiped his ring and the inbuilt display in his eye changed. It was alerting him to the availability of the police network.
“What's the remnant adaptions like? Having that tech in your head?” Phil leaned in, peering at the remnant socket.
“You get used to it.”
“But you have to take your eye out to put a victim’s in its place?”
“You get used to it.” The lie came easy. The technology made the process as painless as possible, but it was impossible to forget what he was about to do at the start of every recall. From the moment he had to take the eye extraction tool in his hand and watch the dancing filaments searching like anemones in the sea looking for something to latch on to, his heart would race. Deep breathing, they'd say, was the answer to keeping calm. Don't let the technology rule you, you control the experience. But it was never enough. When those filaments touched your skin and the eye socket opened, and a hundred tiny fibres crawled behind your eye...
It was suddenly warm in the office.
“I think I need a drink,” he said and stood up abruptly.
Phil sat up, afraid that he'd said the wrong thing. “There's a machine outside in the hall. Are you OK?”
“Yeah, fine. I'm good. Just a little—”
Jack left and headed for the exit. In the operations room another woman was working at the perspective table, moving light objects around the desk, projected from the surface. Pictures of people, video clips, room schematics. Sh
e smiled and looked like she might stand to greet him, but he hurried past and out into the corridor. As soon as the doors closed behind him, he leant back against the wall and shut his eyes. There was a dull throbbing from the centre of his head. His mouth was dry, his palms sweaty. Why was he even here?
Burnfield approached from the far end of the corridor. Jack wished he'd been faster in heading for the exit. Burnfield's smile dropped as he got near. “What's up? You OK?”
“A little hot.”
“You don't look well.”
“I'm fine. Just hot.”
The detective sighed. “Let's get some air.”
Outside, the traffic had built up to a steady stream along the main road, but Burnfield led him around the corner of the building to a small seating area surrounded by grass and bushes.
“You're thinking of backing out aren't you?” said Burnfield.
“I'm not sure I'm the right man for you. Not now.”
“I'm not sure either of us have a choice in this. How’s the team being with you?”
“Fine.”
“They’ll get better. They need a bit of time.”
“I’m not sure it’s time that Chloe needs.”
Burnfield smiled. “I'm curious, why aren’t you back at OsMiTech? I’d have thought remnant keepers would be in high demand. They could have given us any class two, and we’d have been happy.”
Jack considered how much the detective needed to know. From the way he was talking, it suggested he knew more about the assignment than he was letting on.
“I told my handler I want out,” Jack said simply. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
“Seriously?”
“I’ve had enough of shoving dead people’s eyes in my head. The Wei’s was the last.”
“If it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t have caught up with Leech and—”
“—got him killed.”
“That’s not what I was going to say.”
Jack shook his head. It wasn’t all about Leech. “I've asked to have these remnant adaptions removed. If they'll do the surgery, I'll become a normal everyday telepath.”
“And they agreed?”
“I’m working on it.”
Burnfield stood and straightened his shirt. “Come on, that’s enough fresh air. You're here now, and I could use you. There’s still a killer out there.”
*
Phil had been busy working with some equipment at the perspective table, cables pulled out from under the unit, a diagnostic machine in hand, when Jack and Burnfield re-entered. He’d stopped what he was doing and taken Jack back into his office where he was preparing to show Jack around the system he’d have to work with.
“Tell me about Moira.”
Phil shrugged. “Not a huge lot to say really. She was a nice lady, got herself knocked down by a bus. Of all the stupid things to have happen to you working here, she takes a ride under the wheels of public transport.”
“Was she a good telepath?”
“Yeah. I guess. Only been here for six months. Struggled a bit in the beginning. I don’t know what they make you teeps do inside that OsMiTech building but it looked like she was experiencing the real world for the first time.”
“Doesn’t sound like she wanted to kill herself.”
“No. That was an accident. No way was she capable of that.”
Still, Jack thought, suicides amongst teeps was much higher than in the general population. Usually happened within weeks of a diagnosis though or shortly after their registration. Jack had read up on Moira after Edward had left his house yesterday, and although most of her file was sealed, he could see she’d been an active licensed telepath for three years.
“Have you got the files on her death?” Jack said, feeling there was an itch he needed to scratch.
Phil touched his ear. “Sure. But, I’ll have to clear it with Chloe. You’re meant to be looking at the Maguire murder first.”
“Of course. But, I’m curious. Professional interest.”
Phil nodded as if that made all the sense in the world. “OK, I’ll speak to her.” He looked like he was about to leave but then changed his mind.
“I might as well set you up in here whilst we’re waiting for them to finish.”
He stood and indicated that Jack should move from his seat to give Phil access to the desk and terminal behind him. Jack obliged and took a peek back out into the operations room. The view screen was scrolling through the day’s stories. A new headline appeared about a shooting in District 32. Several Volunteers had taken police matters into their own hands and started clearing up one of the worst habitat blocks in their city. Stupid of them to think they could make any difference. The story continued, explaining that two members of the volunteer group had been killed by unknown assailants from inside the habitat block.
“Have you seen the District 32 news?” he asked Phil.
“Yeah, bastards. It’s the drug problem again. They’re going to have to watch themselves or they’ll have a full scale riot on their hands.” Phil was hunched over the access point for the built-in terminal on Jack’s new desk and working his way through several screens of information. “Half the rogues this department has ever caught have been working for a drug lord. Easy money for them, great protection and they get to use the full extent of their powers with seemingly no repercussion.”
Living outside OsMiTech as an unregistered telepath was not quite the lifestyle Jack envisaged. Living as a telepath beyond the system, constantly on edge in case you were discovered... Jack shook his head. Keeley had once joked, shortly after his registration, that living off the radar would be a better choice than living as a slave to the system. He’d laughed when she’d mentioned it, and she laughed along with him, but he was astute enough to notice the slight delay, and the flash of disappointment across her face.
“Moira ever get involved with catching rogues?”
“That was one of the main benefits of having a teep in the team. We could use her on stakeouts like a telepathic canary—sorry that sounded better in my head. You know what I mean right? Using this sonar thing? The lords will use teeps to guard perimeters; an invisible security fence. They were hiring class ones. The best they could afford. And they were on the lookout for any sign of ill intent to the lords. A class two like Moira would help implant blocking patterns in us, make it easier for us to get past.”
“Why not just arrest them?”
“Well, yeah, we will if we get the chance, but it’s better to slip through the fence than alert the lord that his fence has been disabled. Stealth is our best weapon.” He finished tapping away at the terminal and stepped back from the desk. “There, you’re set up. I’ve sorted you with the access levels you’ll need. Let the system take care of you. She’ll show you around, get you used to what’s available. I’ve dumped the files you wanted about Moira in your main folder so you can view them whenever. Oh, and there’s this.” Phil pulled out a slim package from his trouser pocket and spilt the contents onto the palm of his hand. A shiny obsidian black HALO rested there, and he picked it between his fingers and held it before him for Jack to take.
Jack reached out and slipped the HALO on the middle finger of his right hand.
“You’ll want to take your old one off. They don’t play nicely.”
Jack did as he was told, passing his personal HALO to Phil.
“What’s so special about this one?”
“Gives you access to the parts of the system you need. Let’s you get around the building.”
It buzzed gently on his finger. A curious sensation.
Phil slid his hand across the access point and light displays appeared, cubes of information floated above his desk. Phil interacted with them, moving a selection to one side, before flicking them off the table where they disappeared as soon as leaving the light field. “It’s these you want.” A couple of cubes remained. “These have got what you need to see about the Maguire death, and this smaller one has the informatio
n from Moira’s. I’d suggest getting through the Maguire one quickly. The boss has arranged to visit his wife. You’re expected to go along.”
“Right,” Jack replied. “Let’s get to it then.”
11:24 AM
As they approached the front of the house, Jack was surprised by how nice the area was. The streets were lined with trees in full growth, the pavements well-maintained, and the cars parked on the street and in the neighbours’ driveways were no more than five or six year’s old: all with the latest airstream technology. Nothing about this area struck Jack as hard up. Maybe not quite affluent, but compared with how much of the country was living, these people looked like they had it easy.
Burnfield had kept the conversation to a minimum during the drive over from the police station, his tone warm and steady like he was talking to a nervous dog. After their talk earlier, Jack was finding it harder to find a reason to dislike the detective. Burnfield parked the car outside the house, under the shade of an oak tree and checked the address he’d been given on his HALO. “Right place,” he said, looking up the driveway at the imposing white house. “She’s doing OK for herself isn’t she?”
Jack wondered what she must be going through, finding out that her husband was dead. “I’m still not sure why you’ve brought me instead of Chloe.”
“You’re to observe. I want your opinion on the setup here.”
“Chloe would be—”
“Chloe has enough to do. This is one of the reasons I need a teep.”
“I can’t scan them.”
Burnfield sighed and didn’t even try to hide it. “You know, sometimes I think you think I don’t pay attention. You don’t need to scan them to tap into that empathy thing you’ve got going on. Can you at least tell me whether someone’s being honest? That doesn’t break the teep code does it?”
The Remnant Vault (Tombs Rising Book 2) Page 9
