Liquid Crystal Nightingale

by EeLeen Lee

  Nadira went out of the chamber. “Preliminary results regarding the cube are in. The cube contains a human embryo. DNA matching Gia Aront.”

  Dumortier followed her. Suddenly he pounded a fist into the corridor wall.

  “There are easier ways to kill your children, damn it. This is too much, even for Tier Dwellers. They fuck each other over for assets and inheritances, but this plotting is on another level.”

  Nadira asked, “What do we do next?”

  Dumortier massaged his hand and blinked at Gia’s black dress spread out in its translucent evidence sac, as if it had suddenly snapped into view.

  Nadira caught on. “We call in the Aronts for an interview? Present it to them as voluntary.”

  “Only the father,” replied Dumortier. “We’ll get more out of him.”

  Nadira addressed the coloured lights: Send officers to Aront Tier.

  He went to view Devinez. After a minute he returned, calmer than before.

  “You offered to help me with Devinez’s case?”

  “Yes,” Nadira recalled.

  “Please help me now.”

  “How?”

  “Use your SeForTec clearance to haul in and grill Sisme Morin, the little shit in charge of Canal Police, now that Devinez’s body has turned up. You can do it while I’m with Patriarch Aront, since we don’t have the luxury of time. I’ve long suspected he had something to do with her disappearance, but I can’t grill him.”

  “Because Katyal took you off the Devinez case?”

  “No, because I don’t want to spill a dirty officer’s blood in the Sunlight Corridor.”

  Send detainment officer to pick up Sergeant Morin.

  AndNadira dismissed the coloured lights and walked out.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  SETONA AND THE display leopard clambered up the stairs behind Marsh. A single bulb flickered on the wall in time with the crowning-shield over the nano-apartment block. She had draped the big cat in one of the white sheets used for the shop’s display backdrop, but it couldn’t conceal its presence in the dimness. It snarled and the teenagers smoking on the landings had retreated into their respective apartments.

  A woman clad in a translucent blue raincoat over a bullet-grey sheath dress entered the block. She stepped forward to embrace Setona. He recognised the sintered limbs and fluid gait, and the hustle in her stride.

  Members of the old modrani network had arrived. They looked like they worked all over the Systems before joining the network.

  “Rhoni!”

  She bumped into Marsh, expecting him to step out of her way, then sized him up. “You’re definitely not one of us.”

  Setona told her, “He’s with me.”

  Rhoni backed off, but only slightly. “A pity your exploits are no longer the highlight of the highlights. What strange and dangerous company you’ve been keeping lately, Jean-Ling.”

  The crowning-shield for the entire block suddenly hissed and crackled.

  “It’s better we go inside.” He shouted over the noise and was glad to hear Setona vouch for him, although he pretended to ignore Rhoni’s suspicion.

  He checked the narrow corridor outside before shutting the apartment door. Reality intruded with the hubbub on the stairs, and restored itself after the strangers had gone in.

  “In practical terms,” Setona pointed at Marsh and spoke very deliberately, as if she did not want to repeat herself to Rhoni. “Can you turn him into modrani cargo?”

  “Permanently?”

  “No, despite all we’ve been through together I’m rather fond of him.”

  Rhoni looked disappointed and sat on the scoured tiled floor of the living area. “I can do a passable resemblance, but what’s the point? He won’t be classed as indispensable or expensive like you or the display leopard. Standard rules of carriage will apply to him.”

  “Paint job, knocked out cold, and shoved in a box?” Setona was a touch dismayed. “He won’t make it. Not with Khrysobe delays.”

  “I don’t run the only outfit in town.”

  “Then don’t think I’m giving this job to you exclusively.”

  Rhoni laughed. “But you are; what choice do you have?”

  “Freight entrance or the passenger front?”

  “Doesn’t make a difference,” said Rhoni. “If you can’t wait until after the Monument’s unveiling.”

  “So we wait,” interjected Marsh, “and then where will we end up?”

  “More alive than dead, darling,” replied Setona. “It’s our best chance.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  ORCHID GLASS DOORS slid shut. Noises evaporated as Dumortier and Nadira entered the far end of the Sunlight Coridor via separate doors.

  It was a picturesque yet unlikely setting for parallel interrogations; few investigators had used the interrogation rooms at the far end of the Sunlight Corridor. The windows showcased the skyline: Lonely Heron Bridge, Leroi Major and Minor Canals, the ’Cinth and the Temple. Below them flowed normalcy: Chatoyants going to work, some retuning from it and joining their families. People who never killed, never stole, and never deceived each other.

  The lack of haze from this height turned the views into a tableau. All these damned structures—they held now, and would hold in the future.

  The Temple was in the centre at eye level; its deliberate placement exhorted the interrogatee to confront divinity and burn away traces of guilt.

  In his room Dumortier made note of the steel interrogation table—it was too wide to reach across and too heavy to flip. He approached the man sitting on the other side of the table like a concerned surgeon, as though he was the latest of the symptoms exhibited by an ailing Chatoyance.

  “Haven’t you got enough out of me and my wife?” Patriarch Aront demanded.

  “We never said we were finished with you,” replied Dumortier. “So, let’s begin again.”

  He touched his ear stud to start recording. A reciprocal ascending chime, pre-agreed with Nadira, acknowledged the start of his session and signaled the start of hers in another room, three doors away.

  Dumortier placed two items on the table: a rumpled black coat and a cube of synthamber. Aront looked at both objects in front of him and then at Dumortier with disbelief at how out of control things had spun.

  “You recognise them, obviously.”

  Aront sighed to confirm it.

  “Shell games, Patriarch? It’s all child’s play for you—literally. Two children: one dead long before the other.”

  “I didn’t come here for this—”

  “I know; you came to get it all off your chest. But you should have gone to the Temple; it’s the nuns’ job to hear confessions. But it’s our job to ask the questions. You of all people should understand that.” Dumortier wore the wan smile of an investigator with a duty he was all too glad to discharge.

  He crossed over to a wall display and pulled up the reply from Chatoyance Register Office. “No records of Gia’s brother.”

  “Of course there isn’t, he was never born,” Aront’s reply was so inaudible Dumortier thought his ear stud was faulty. “And neither was Gia.”

  By way of encouragement, Dumortier killed the wall display.

  “Not to say we didn’t try our hardest to have children the natural way. I wanted them, but she wanted—no, insisted on—continuity. Our assets hold us captive: homes and businesses are all anchored in the Archer’s Ring. It’s not easy to move assets around.”

  “Still better to be rich and scrutinised here than poor and anonymous in Steris?” asked Dumortier.

  Aront leaned forward and put his face in his hands. Now done with stalling, Dumortier went on the attack:

  “It’s one of the oldest schemes: funnel some of that excess wealth to an apparently unrelated child residing off-world. Except the child is actually an embryo. Then a few years later when the child is grown, claim they are sickly and undergoing special medical treatment to explain their continued absence. Then when time is right, c
laim the child is dead. And ensure the child is dead. In your case it was two children. One turned out not to be viable. The other grew into Gia, your daughter.”

  “I should have stopped her.” Patriarch Aront’s admission about his wife was meant as much for himself as it was for Dumortier and Nadira. Was a glint of buried humanity peeking through?

  Dumortier waited for him to elaborate but it was not forthcoming.

  “Do you remember what I said to you on my Tier?”

  Dumortier shrugged.

  “‘A slow and steady rise is the best.’”

  It’s such second nature to him, noted Dumortier with vague disappointment, to try to derail the momentum of questioning. He did it so unconsciously that it was almost innocent. Aront ought to know better than to try it. Dumortier recalled his assessment after his probationary period: Can be relied upon to summon the required callousness. Highly recommended for Tier Dweller remit.

  “Filter down, ten percent,” Dumortier said. “Don’t you find it a little dim in here?”

  The sunlight level in the room increased. If it increased any more, orchid glass of a special opacity and secret manufacture would materialise—neither rising nor descending, but coalescing, like a perfect living curtain of black ice, seemingly out of thin air—over the table and between him and Aront. The glass would block Gachala’s blinding light only on Dumortier’s side of the room.

  He noted the position of Gachala in the sky outside. In five minutes, the sun will set and the temple roof would send up its famous flash.

  What’re you doing? Nadira’s voice said in his earstud. Her tone told him she knew exactly what he was going to do. In the screen above Patriarch Aront’s head, Dumortier saw her place one hand on the window in her room and glance up in direction of the camera. No outward indication of having just spoken and her expression gave nothing away. Her stud was set to audio output, then relayed to his earstud; he lacked such SeForTech capabilities so he could only receive but not reply subvocally via the same channel.

  Get him to narrate as much as possible, even if it means going into any personal history with him. Reinforce rapport, no matter how unbalanced.

  After several seconds, Dumortier replied yes in Morse code, tapped out on his ear stud.

  If he’s lying, he’s only adding to the cognitive load on his brain. It’ll break eventually. Stay calm.

  Dumortier glanced at the screen and saw Morin, sitting in the next room with Nadira. He pitied him. She was calm but precise, like slow-acting venom. He wouldn’t know he was being skinned alive until it was too late.

  So Dumortier tried a different tack. “One of your Dogtooths was killed by Tyro Pleo Tanza in Canal Mouth, in that same hard currency block in which Gia kept a room.”

  “Swibi and I knew about Gia’s room.” Aront emitted a mirthless laugh. “We weren’t pleased in the beginning, but I commended Gia for her creativity.”

  “One of your Dogtooths…?” repeated Dumortier.

  “Unlucky but replaceable.” Aront paused before he got to the point. “But not you, Dumortier, you had much potential but you left us too soon. You could’ve risen through the Dogtooth ranks.”

  Nadira’s advice about personal history didn’t make it easier for Dumortier. “And for what great reward and legacy? One of your canals named after me? I preferred to rise through Khrysobe Spaceport.”

  “A shame,” insisted Aront.

  “No greater than Gia.”

  A spontaneous remark, but it was enough to effect a change in the room like a drop in temperature, combined with Gia’s black coat. Dumortier saw remorse seep through his bravura. He began talking as though Gia was eavesdropping on her father’s interrogation.

  “Gia would have carried on with her life after receiving the tooth flower, as if it was an elaborate joke between mother and daughter. But she was sure of her mother’s intentions and tried running away.”

  “Did you protect her from your wife?” asked Dumortier.

  “Of course. But how could I have known? Matriarch Aront had to risk originality. The death had to be accidental yet elaborate, the sort that could happen to someone like Gia.”

  “And to what end? Taking back and dissolving the various shell companies under her name?”

  Aront shook his head. “If her plan followed its ultimate course, she would be presiding over the board of directors of ArontCorp without me and without Gia succeeding me.”

  Dumortier notified Nadira via earstud Morse code: Got him.

  Congratulations. Give me a little more time with Morin.

  “I’m talking to an empty room,” said Dumortier.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Because a dead man is on the other side of this table.”

  “Which side?” Aront challenged but still flinched in his chair.

  Gachala rose to its height. Streaks of brilliant light shone in gaps in the main window filter.

  “The temple nuns understand something we don’t: light doesn’t burn so much as consumes you, becomes part of you.” Dumortier called out, “Filter up, one hundred percent.” He met Aront’s eye. “Or would you rather be a sheltered man instead? You have no choice now.”

  The perfect curtain of black orchid glass rematerialised over the main window, shielding Aront and Dumortier from Gachala’s full blast of judgement.

  “Take Aront into custody,” Dumortier said to Detainment through his ear stud. “Full protection applies.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  SERGEANT MORIN WORE the look of an officer who never expected to find himself on the other side of the extruded interrogation table. The reek of musty uniform and sweat caught Nadira in the nostrils and throat; the climate control could do nothing for the suspect’s discomfort. She noted with satisfaction how he couldn’t disconnect from his surroundings.

  She stood before him and let her silence build for effect. As predicted, his recognition of her had the required effect. Blood slowly drained from Morin’s face.

  No refined art of interrogation for dirty officers—they didn’t deserve any forbearance, elaboration or nuance. It was not Constabulary SOP, but it had been practised enough over the years Nadira was active.

  Now she was not so much outraged as disappointed.

  “Does Katyal and Sakamoto know what you’re doing?”

  “Ammonia,” muttered Nadira.

  Morin asked, “Is there a gas leak up here?”

  “No,” she said, before reminding him, “but if you pass out I’m going to need it to revive you.”

  He’s not going to pass out, the little shit doesn’t need oxygen to survive, Dumortier suddenly told her via rapid Morse code. Nadira remembered he was still in the Sunlight Corridor, although Aront had just been taken into custody. Just pump him. If he denies or obfuscates, pump harder.

  “What’s standard behaviour for a dirty officer?” Nadira sounded pedagogic.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Exactly. There’s no such thing as standard; dirty officers behave the way they see the world, be it gullible, selfish, venal. Dirty SeForTecs get expunged from records and sealed in their vats alive.”

  “I don’t envy your colleagues.”

  “You betrayed your entire force. No need to ask questions; they’ll be pure formality in this case. Quicker to throw you off the roof.”

  “You won’t dare.”

  “We’re most certainly cleared to.”

  Nadira’s statement took the remaining colour and animation out of his face. Morin slumped back like an abandoned doll.

  “Your kind,” said Nadira, “I’ve seen quite a few. Not exactly dangerous, but a conduit—via action or inaction—for dubious and corrupt action. Canal police all do what you say. Except for one.”

  “The rookie.”

  “How did she end up like that?”

  Morin turned to face the view of Chatoyance. “Nothing to do with me.”

  “Reroute your officers to Blue Taro and Boxthorn to pick up one suspect. Wh
y?”

  “I’m telling you we were understaffed.”

  “I’ve checked Desk Sargeant’s log for that day. You’re aware of understaffing, yet volunteer your own personnel.”

  “What’s wrong with showing some initiative?”

  “Nothing, but you were overstepping your boundary.”

  “Desk Sarge requested them.”

  Nadira shook her head. “Desk Sarge only informs and requests. They don’t make decisions. Even a cadet during their first week at academy knows that.”

  Morin drummed the section of table in front of him. “The two instructors from Polyteknical, they told me they needed bodies for their experiments.”

  “What experiments?”

  “I don’t know, but something fucked up. Preferably recent, but they had to be whole.”

  “Nive and Mangolin, the two Polyteknical instructors, were paying you and some of your officers hush money to look the other way when they collected the dead from the canals. Devinez tried to speak up against this, and you revealed yourself trying to behave not as you’ve done before.”

  “So, I took that money,” replied Morin. “But about Devinez ending up dead, I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You apparently ‘showed initiative.’” Nadria narrowed her eyes at him. “But no, you wanted Devinez there at Blue Taro and Boxthorn. You wanted Nive and Mangolin to catch a glimpse of her, their next victim.”

  Morin rose from the table. “You’ve been too long on the Tier Dweller remit with Dumortier. It’s contagious: makes you see plots everywhere. I didn’t mean for her to end up that way.”

  Nadira let his last statement ring out in the room. “Thank you, sergeant.”

  She performed a saccade, and a colured light tapped out Got him in Morse code to the man waiting and watching in the other room.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  DUMORTIER AND DEPUTY Hitei broke free from the throng of mendicants as the Monument To The Thousand Falcons loomed over their heads. Blurring his vision, a shimmering golden mist of nanoscale machines coalesced to track all movements. Mias was operating at full capacity today.