Vigilantes

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  Her jobs reflected that.

  She was promoted higher and higher in prison administration, working her way from the ritzy prison to the assistant in charge of the Human Division of the Earth Alliance Prison System. Eventually, she took over the Human Division, and was offered a position in the Joint Division, where she could work her way farther up the food chain.

  That was the only job she turned down.

  No explanation was given.

  But Goudkins knew that operating a Joint Division, where humans and aliens had to work together, was one of the hardest jobs in the Earth Alliance. Some humans weren’t suited for it, and usually found out when they were fired.

  Andre probably knew she wasn’t the kind of employee who could handle that stress.

  Or maybe she had a different career path in mind.

  She remained head of the Human Division of the Earth Alliance Prison System for almost a decade when she was promoted to a position in Earth Alliance Security.

  And that was where her jobs started to become classified.

  She had apparently taken classes in security and undercover work. She became one of those employees who investigated other employees, making certain whether complaints against them were justified or not.

  She spent five years in that division.

  Goudkins couldn’t see what Andre had worked on without the proper clearance, and Goudkins saw no reason to get that clearance.

  The more she dug, the more confused she got.

  Why would a woman who investigated other Earth Alliance employees try to destroy the Alliance?

  If, indeed, she did want to destroy the Alliance.

  Right now, Goudkins was operating on speculation.

  Eventually, Andre rose to the head of the division that investigated other members of the Security Team. She focused on humans-only, and generally operated in Investigations and Prisons. Occasionally, she would cross into the Business side of the Security Division, but not that often. And once she’d been asked to help out in the Political Section, and again, she turned the job down, claiming she wasn’t qualified.

  In the past three years, she had risen to a deputy of an important deputy of another deputy inside the main office of Earth Alliance Security Division—the entire division that went over all of the various security departments.

  She was handling thousands of human employees and not batting an eye. The Division handled hundreds of thousands of employees of all Earth Alliance species, and Goudkins had no idea how anyone kept everything straight.

  Just thinking about it made her head hurt.

  But it did answer one question: How one woman could manage to shut down an entire investigation into the clones of PierLuigi Frémont. She had the ability to do so—at least in the human division.

  Goudkins wondered if the non-human investigators could look into the clones. She wasn’t even certain how she would get an answer to that question. If Andre’s office was monitoring all traffic concerning the Frémont clones, then even posing that question to Huỳnh would be nearly impossible. She couldn’t think how to do it.

  If it weren’t for the coincidences—Andre present when Frémont died, Andre having access (possibly) to Frémont’s DNA, DeRicci’s source saying that Andre had some of the DNA, and Andre limiting the Frémont investigation—then Goudkins wouldn’t have believed this woman would have been involved in something so big that it could harm the entire Alliance.

  But Goudkins’ investigator’s gut told her that Andre was in the middle of all of it, and that there was something here, even in her sparse work history, that explained why—or at least how.

  Goudkins would have to think about that.

  She would also have to report what she had learned to DeRicci.

  But Goudkins wasn’t going to communicate with anyone inside the Alliance about this, particularly over links.

  Too risky—and too dangerous.

  At least at this stage.

  She was just starting, after all. And if she got into a hurry, she would screw up.

  So she made herself take time.

  She made herself turn her attention back to Mavis Zorn. That seemed safer. At least for the moment.

  At least until Goudkins could bounce what she had learned off someone else, and invite them to worry about it as much as she did.

  FORTY

  NYQUIST LEFT THE area with hours and hours of footage from Sevryn’s. He would have to comb through all of it, but he had enough information to talk to Romey, Gaetjens, and Nettles. As he drove back to the precinct, he tried to decide how he wanted to handle this.

  Did he go to Gumiela right away with the three names? Or did he match up everything?

  He also needed to find out from her if she wanted to handle the arrests herself.

  Not that he was ready to arrest anyone yet.

  Which told him how he wanted to handle this.

  He needed to make sure everything was in place before he did anything. He needed as much evidence as possible, and everything ready to go.

  He needed to evaluate the trace collected from the scene, figure out who had blocked all of the emergency calls, and satisfy for himself whether the three had planned to kill Zhu or simply give him a lesson that had gotten out of hand.

  Nyquist had his suspicions, but with something this big, he couldn’t act on a suspicion. He needed firm facts.

  But first, he needed to talk to Gumiela.

  He let the car drive itself to the precinct. He set up the interior so that everything coming in or out was encrypted. He didn’t pay any attention to the streets around him.

  He sent a message to Gumiela: I have one very important question.

  She appeared on his dashboard, tiny, tired, and well dressed. “What?”

  Are you alone? he sent.

  “For the moment.” She looked annoyed.

  He said, aloud, because he needed to say this out loud, not send it through his links.

  “I know who killed Zhu.”

  “That didn’t take long,” she said.

  “They didn’t try to cover their tracks,” he said.

  She sighed. He had a hunch she knew that already. But he couldn’t be certain.

  “Do you want their names?” he asked. “Or do you want a case we can present in court? Because those are two different things.”

  “Can you make a court case?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  She cursed.

  He hadn’t expected that. She had clearly hoped he wouldn’t find enough evidence.

  “Witnesses?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Civilians?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  She nodded, then tilted her head back, as she often did when she was thinking about something.

  “And,” he said, “you need to know that everyone at S3 will make a big stink about this.”

  “I’m not sure I care about S3,” she said.

  “You might want to. All the lawyers working there right now are from off-Moon.” He wasn’t arguing for a court case. A court case kept him away from Uzvaan and finding out what happened during the Peyti Crisis. A court case kept him from helping DeRicci.

  A court case was just a distraction.

  And yet, if he really thought about it, a court case was the only thing that would keep law and order on the Moon.

  “Why are there no easy choices?” Gumiela asked.

  Nyquist let out a bitter laugh. “You’re asking the wrong guy.”

  She brought her head down. Even tiny, she looked more powerful than all the people had in the footage from Sevryn’s deli.

  “Make a court case,” she said softly. “And make it stick.”

  FORTY-ONE

  FLINT PARKED SEVERAL blocks away from the Security Office. He needed to calm down before he saw Talia, and he figured a walk would help.

  It didn’t help as much as he wanted it to. Sure, it stretched his legs, but all the empty buildings and the qui
et streets made him realize just how different Armstrong had become since the Peyti Crisis began.

  How different they all were.

  He wasn’t sure how to approach his daughter; he needed to make certain she was all right after the interaction with the therapist, but he also couldn’t alarm her unduly.

  The fact that he was alarmed wasn’t helping.

  So, by the time he had reached the top floor of the security building, he was as disturbed as he had been when he left the Armstrong Comfort Center. (If ever a place was misnamed, that place was.)

  He got off the elevator. The first person he saw was Popova.

  She was standing near her desk, holding some kind of drink in her hand. She was smiling—which surprised the heck out of him.

  “If you need to see the chief,” Popova said, “she might be free for a moment.”

  “Thanks,” Flint said, hoping his confusion didn’t show. He had been afraid that, by leaving Talia here, the entire office had been taking care of her.

  Clearly, that wasn’t the case.

  “Actually,” he said. “I’m looking for my daughter. Do you know where she’s at?”

  “She’s in the kitchen,” Popova said. “And before you go, I have to tell you that whatever the Comfort Center is doing, it helped. She cleaned the kitchen today, and she hasn’t cried at all. She seems a lot better.”

  His confusion got worse. She cleaned the kitchen? She had been neat before all this started, but she hadn’t been since the Peyti Crisis. Her bed was unmade, her clothes strewn everywhere. It seemed like all she could do to shower and occasionally put food in her mouth.

  The fact that she actually cleaned something sounded like his Talia had returned.

  He wasn’t sure how to reconcile that with the disturbing meeting he’d had with Llewynn.

  Especially if it meant Flint had to send Talia back there. He wasn’t sure it was safe for her. In fact, he was convinced that it wasn’t safe.

  But if it was helping…

  He gave Popova a perfunctory smile, then walked back to the kitchen. Talia was sitting at the table in the middle of a room that looked nothing like it had the day before. No dishes were stacked on the counter, no food cartons littered the table. The recycler was chewing through a pile of material, but that was its job, and it was doing so somewhat silently.

  Talia had her head down, her face turned sideways, eyes closed. She was asleep, and she looked peaceful.

  He didn’t want to disturb her.

  A nearly empty food carton sat beside her, a fork still in it. It smelled faintly of chicken and jasmine rice.

  Popova was right. Talia seemed to be a lot better.

  He glanced at the refrigerator and tried to decide if he should open it and see if there was some fruit inside, like there usually was.

  Then he decided even that might be too noisy. He didn’t want to wake his daughter.

  He had taken one step backward when Talia yawned.

  “Dad?”

  She lifted her head. Her right cheek had a red impression from her shirt, slashing across her skin.

  She rubbed her eyes, then blinked at him. “Everything okay?”

  “That’s what I came to see,” he said. He decided he wasn’t going to say anything more until she told him what happened at the Comfort Center.

  “I’ve been a big baby,” she said.

  “No,” he said. “What you’ve gone through—”

  “Dad, listen,” she said. “I’m sorry. I—”

  “Talia, you’ve been through hell, and—”

  “Dad.” She spoke with such force that he stopped talking altogether. “I can’t go back to that place.”

  He let out a relieved sigh. They had been talking at cross purposes, probably because of the way she had started the conversation.

  “The Comfort Center?” he said, just to be clear, because he had already misunderstood her once.

  She nodded, then glanced at the door. When she seemed reassured that no one was outside, she beckoned him forward and kicked one of the chairs out for him to sit in.

  He sat down and leaned toward her. They could probably have done this on their links, but he was going to let her dictate the conversation.

  “Don’t tell Rudra that I can’t go back,” Talia said softly. “I hated it there, Dad. That guy who does the entry interviews, he—”

  and at that moment she switched to their private link.

  —hates clones.

  —I know, Flint sent back. He asked me to talk with him today, worried that your attitude about clones was harmful.

  Harmful how?

  Flint shrugged. No way was he going to tell his daughter what the man had actually said.

  Rudra thinks he helped me, Talia sent. I don’t want to lie to her, but—

  “—you know.” She had switched back to a verbal conversation.

  “I do know,” he said. “And it looks like you had some kind of breakthrough today.”

  “He did say something,” Talia said. “I thought about it. I’m still thinking about it, and it actually helped.”

  “Should we find you someone else, then?” Flint asked quietly. “Maybe someone not on the Moon?”

  She blinked up at him, as if she hadn’t considered that. “We’d leave here?”

  He hadn’t planned for that. He’d actually been thinking only of her. He didn’t want to leave. He wanted to resolve this.

  But maybe leaving would be the best thing for her.

  “Maybe it’s something we should consider,” he said.

  She was already shaking her head. “If we leave and something happens and you could have stopped it—”

  “I’m not all-powerful, Talia,” he said.

  “But you’re important,” she said. “And what kind of people would we be if we left, just because we can afford to, and everyone else has to solve this on their own? I’ll tell you. We’ll be exactly what that stupid bigot thought I was. Something not worth anyone’s time.”

  Flint put his hand on one of hers. It was warm, which was also a first for the past week.

  “Sometimes,” he said quietly, “people have to take care of themselves before they can help others.”

  “Yeah, I get that,” Talia said. “But I don’t believe in running away. That’s what Mom did.”

  The words hung between them. Flint knew what she meant. Rhonda hadn’t run away from Valhalla Basin. She’d been kidnapped. But rather than face what she had done and what was coming, she killed herself.

  He and Talia could argue as to whether that had been a good choice for Rhonda, but clearly, his daughter thought less of her because of it.

  “Sometimes,” he said carefully, “leaving is the best option.”

  “Do you want to get out of here?” she snapped.

  “If it’s the best thing for you,” he said, “I’ll do it at a moment’s notice.”

  She stared at him. Then she teared up. His breath caught. He didn’t want to send her on another crying jag.

  She blinked once, the tears fading. And she smiled at him.

  “That stupid bigot asked me if I thought you loved me,” she said. “He was such an asshole.”

  “I do love you, Talia,” Flint said. He probably didn’t say it enough, either.

  “I know,” she said. Then her smile turned into a grin. “Imagine his surprise if he found out what I really am.”

  Flint put his other hand on her wrist, wishing he could pull her into a hug.

  “You’re not a ‘what,’ Talia,” he said. “You’re as human as he is. More so. Let’s forget him. Because you’re right. He’s an idiot. And so is everyone else who shares his opinion.”

  That’s a lot of people, Talia sent. More every day, it seems.

  I know, Flint sent back. We’ll have to figure out how to handle that. But not today. Today, we take care of you.

  She shook her head. “I’m better, Dad. It’s like arguing with him pulled me out of some deep sleep and gave me a focu
s. I’m not one hundred percent, but I can deal better.”

  Flint couldn’t restrain himself any longer. He pulled her against him and held her tight.

  You tell me if you need us to do something different, he sent.

  I will, she promised. Believe me, I will.

  She was warm against him, her hair smelling faintly of her shampoo. He felt more relieved than he had expected.

  Talia was back. He had missed her.

  He wasn’t going to stop worrying about her, but he had her beside him now.

  Together, they could fight this thing.

  Even if she did nothing, he felt free to work on the future.

  For both of them—

  And for everyone else they knew.

  The thrilling adventure continues with the seventh book in the Anniversary Day Saga, Starbase Human.

  Can the fate of a forgotten starbase hold the key to the Moon’s survival?

  Long before the Anniversary Day bombings brought the Moon to its knees, a far-flung starbase became the testing ground for a diabolical plan: the annihilation of every human inhabitant by an army of clones.

  Every lead to the masterminds behind the bombings uncovered by criminal kingpin Luc Deshin dead ended in an Earth Alliance connection.

  Undercover operative Iniko Zagrando refused to play patsy for the Earth Alliance Military Division Intelligence Service, and now he’s fleeing for his life from his old bosses.

  And Frontier Marshall Judita Gomez puts her own life and the lives of her team on the line when her search for the origins of the Anniversary Day assassins leads to an Earth Alliance cloning factory.

  From the quiet courage of a Disappeared who struggles to decide whether to come out of hiding to the potent fury of a master criminal who puts a plan in motion to strike back at an overwhelming enemy, Starbase Human brings readers one step closer to the exciting conclusion of the Anniversary Day saga.

  Turn the page for the first chapter of Starbase Human.

  OVER THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AGO

  ONE

  TAKARA HAMASAKI CROUCHED behind the half-open door, her heart pounding. She stared into the corridor, saw more boots go by. Good God, they made such a horrible thudding noise.