Back | Next
Contents

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN



Susan, still in her combat frame, tossed the broken synthoid into a chair in one of Defender-Prime’s storage rooms. The room had been cleared of spare-parts containers and the reinforced malmetal door allowed it to double as a brig when needed.

Fake-Sako’s broken limbs twitched, and she began to slide off the chair.

Susan grabbed her by the shoulders and readjusted her so she wouldn’t fall out of the seat. She sealed the door behind them, then faced the prisoner. The tiny malmetal plates across her armor had worked out all the dents, and her combat frame was once again visible in its base colors.

“Have anything to say for yourself, Felly?”

The synthoid raised an eyebrow. Her only eyebrow, since the cosmetics had been stripped from half her face.

“Felly?” she asked.

“Yeah. Fake-Elly. Felly. I figure I have to call you something. Unless you’d like to tell me your name.”

“I’m not inclined to do so.”

“It’d make this process easier. We’ll get the information out of you, one way or the other.”

“Oh, I know that. Better than you realize.” The prisoner smirked at her, lips only covering half her jaw. “Agent Cantrell.”

“Now this is a surprise.” Susan put her hands on her hips. “You know who I am.”

“It wasn’t hard. I recognize your voice,” the prisoner said. “On top of that, you’re one of the few people to use the new Type-99 combat frames.”

“You seem pretty knowledgeable about us Peacekeepers.”

“As anyone who opposes you should be.”

“I get the feeling we’ve met before.”

“We have.”

“Thought so. I’ve brought in a lot of terrorists over the years. Care to refresh my memory? Maybe give me a hint. I bet if you give me a small hint I can guess which one you are.”

“I’ll pass, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Oh, come on. It’s not like you have anything better to do. I already kicked your butt.”

“Maybe so,” the prisoner conceded, “but I’m going to guess we’re not in the True Present, and that means I’m not the current version of me.”

“Who knows? You might be.”

“No, I think not. How else could you have known when and where to pick me up? No, this has the DTI’s fingerprints all over it. Besides, you brought me back to a chronoport. How much more obvious could you get?”

“Sure. Fine.” Susan shrugged. “You’re a past version of you. Which means we might have already caught your True Present version.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“If you had caught the current version of me, then we wouldn’t be having this conversation. There’d be no point.”

“Why’s that?”

The prisoner smirked at her again.

“Come on.” Susan leaned against the wall and crossed her arms. “Talking is so much more pleasant than the alternatives. Why not give it a shot?”

“On one condition.”

“You’re not really in a position to make demands, but I’ll hear it.”

“How far back in the past are we? A few days? A few weeks? More than that?”

“Why do you care?”

“Because I’m a copy and I want to know. Does there have to be anything more to it than that?”

“All right. If I tell where we plucked you out from the timeline, what do I get in return?”

“My name,” the prisoner said. “My real name. I’m sure you’ve realized it’s not Elly Sako.”

“Yeah, that seems pretty obvious.”

“My name should make for a suitable bargaining chip, don’t you think?”

“You first.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” The prisoner shook her head. “I’m not about to give up what few bargaining chips I have for free.”

“Fine. Give me a sec.”

<Well?> she asked silently over a private channel.

<Go ahead,> Isaac sent back. <Let’s see where this leads.>

<You’ve got it.>

“We pulled you out at negative-one month,” Susan said aloud.

“A month, huh?” The prisoner nodded slowly. “That makes sense. Yes, that makes perfect sense. Thank you, Agent Cantrell. Seems there’s nothing to be gained by sticking around. I’ll see you soon. Or rather, another version of me will.”

The prisoner’s eyes rolled back into her head, and her jaw gaped wide. Her torso bulged as if she were taking in a quick exaggerated breath, and smoke poured out of her mouth.

Susan poked the synthoid in the chest, and it slumped lifelessly in the seat.

“Well, shit,” she sighed.

* * *

“What do you have for us?” Isaac asked, pacing around the partially disassembled synthoid on the table. He joined Susan, once again in her standard body, along with Nina and Cephalie.

“Quite a bit,” Nina began. “First, this isn’t an Admin synthoid. It’s SysGov, and heavily modified, too.”

“Yeah, I got that impression,” Susan said.

“No, I don’t mean the performance level.” Nina flopped the synthetic corpse onto its back. “Here, take a look at this. See the vertical slot in the spine? Look familiar to anyone?”

“That resembles the slot you have in your back, Susan,” Isaac said.

“Yeah, it does,” she agreed.

“A SysGov synthoid modified to accept an Admin connectome case?” Isaac asked. “Is that what we’re dealing with?”

“That’s exactly what we’re dealing with. And not just any synthoid, as Susan found out. This is a high-performance security model. Not as good as what SysPol issues, but pretty darn close. It’s right on the edge of what a civilian could buy with the right permits.”

“Do we have any clue whose connectome was loaded?” Isaac asked.

“We have this.” Nina held up a charred cartridge about the size of her palm.

“An Admin connectome case,” Susan noted.

“Right you are. And one with all the surface identifiers removed. It’s clean of prints or DNA. The suicide charge fried the memory, too. I can’t see anything inside. I might be able to perform a partial recovery once we get back home and I can use my drones, but that’s still a dicey option.”

“Why’s that?” Susan asked.

“Identifying connectome fragments is tricky on the best of days,” Cephalie explained. “Normally, we’d need an inert copy of a person’s mental save-state from their mindbank as a point of reference, and even then, it’s just a reference point. Connectomes change over time, sometimes drastically. It’s not like our minds are static programs, after all. Even artificial ones like mine.”

“Right. This thing”—Nina waved the cartridge in the air—“is in bad shape. I’ll only be able to pull out a fraction of the connectome, even with a deep analysis. Let’s call it ten to fifteen percent, just as a guestimate. That’s hardly enough to find a match if I had a full save-state as a reference point.

“On top of that, what am I supposed to compare it to? Does the Admin keep connectome save-states of its prisoners?”

“No,” Susan answered. “Copying connectomes is strictly outlawed.”

“Then the only thing I could build a match off of is the original connectome.” Nina threw up her hands. “Which kind of defeats the purpose of the deep dive, don’t you think?”

“Right,” Isaac conceded with a grimace. “What does this synthoid tell us?”

“The fact that it has an Admin-style connectome case tells us a little,” Susan said. “There are only two kinds of people in the Admin who have these. STANDs and former prisoners who were abstracted.”

“Then this fake could be a terrorist you brought in,” Isaac speculated. “She—or he—recognized you and was familiar with how the DTI operates. A Free Luna operative could fit that description.”

“Could be,” Susan agreed. “Also, this synthoid all but confirms the presence of a conspiracy between at least two people. One from the Admin and one from SysGov.”

“And who do we know came over here with a synthoid sex harem?” Cephalie asked with a crooked smile.

“Kohlberg,” Susan said. “You think he’s our man?”

“This body just catapulted him to Suspect Number One,” Isaac declared.

“We can’t prove he corrupted the Weltall program,” Nina said.

“We couldn’t disprove it either,” Isaac pointed out. “He received the program from Ergon, and he loaded it into the pods. We may not know how the program was changed, but we know Kohlberg had more and better opportunities than anyone else.”

“We might be able to prove his guilt with this body,” Susan said. “Remember how one of the synthoids looked like Sako?”

“But with a darker skin tone and a few other differences.” Isaac nodded. “Yeah, I remember.”

“What if at one point that synthoid matched her perfectly?”

“And then was altered to hide the evidence?” Isaac nodded. “Good catch. We’ll need to check into that when we return.”

“That’s the SysGov side of the conspiracy,” Nina said. “But what about the Admin side? Do you still think Sako’s involved?”

“Hard to say, but I’m leaning away from it.” Isaac crossed his arms. “We don’t have any solid connections between her and the crimes, and neither Kohlberg nor Sako could have been in this synthoid, given they’re both still organic. If she is involved, then we’re dealing with at least three people.”

“Which still leaves us with an Admin coconspirator to find,” Susan said.

“Yes, that’s a problem.” Isaac rubbed his chin and stared down at the husk.

“Susan?” Nina asked. “Any ideas there? You’re the one the synthoid recognized.”

“No. Not a clue.”

“It might help for you to look over your old mission records with the DTI,” Isaac suggested. “Maybe something in those files will help jog your memory. Perhaps even shine a light on a connection we’ve missed.”

“Good idea. I’ll get in touch with DTI HQ and request the file copies.”

“Anything else to add?” Isaac asked Nina.

She gestured to Cephalie with an open hand.

“I did find one more interesting tidbit.” Cephalie patted the synthoid husk. “Managed to pull it out of the infosystem. The memory was fried by the suicide charge, but I was still able to extract a few files. Most are things like shuttle tickets and Slater’s connection string.” She waved her hand indifferently. “Information we already knew. But one of them is new and kind of weird. Here.”

She summoned the wireframe outline of an oversized teardrop. A half-sphere base about the size of her palm extended upward into a cone that ended in a rounded point.

“What is it?” Isaac asked.

“A very simple schematic. See the dimensions on the side? I’m showing it in one-to-one scale. Whatever this represents, it’s meant to fill a very specific shape.”

“This could be related to the bomb,” Susan theorized. “If the fake meant to pass this schematic on to Massi, then the shape might tell us the space the bomb needed to fit in.”

“Which we can use to find it before it goes off!” Nina finished.

“Yes, but what is it?” Isaac took hold of the teardrop, spun it onto its side with both his hands, then inverted it. He tilted his head. “I feel like I’ve seen this before. Anyone else find the shape vaguely familiar?”

Susan shook her head.

“Hmm,” Isaac sighed, staring at the suspended shape. “Regardless, we have enough evidence to bring Kohlberg in, especially if this synthoid turns out to match one of his, and we have an important clue that may lead us to the bomb.”

“If we head back now,” Susan said, “we can send word ahead to Pérez in half an hour.”

“Which would place us on-site in one hour.” Isaac glanced over each of their faces. “Anyone see a reason for us to stay?”

Nina and Cephalie shook their heads.

“We’ll need to secure the body for transit first,” Susan said.

“Yay,” Nina groaned. “More time in zero gee.”

“I’ll get in touch with DTI HQ and grab copies of my old mission files.” Susan stepped out into the central corridor and headed for the bridge.

* * *

Susan sat next to Isaac on the bridge, both of them strapped in as the chronoport flew through the transverse on its way back to SysGov. Her old mission files floated in front of her. She scanned over the latest entry, found the list of captured or killed terrorists, and skimmed through their bios.

She’d captured a lot of terrorists over her ten years of service. Blown up a lot of them, too, but none of the names struck her as likely matches.

What traits am I looking for? she thought as a means to focus her mind. Skilled close-quarters combatant. Experienced fighting STAND combat frames. Knowledgeable in DTI tactics and operational procedures. Knows me personally. Was once abstracted for time in a prison domain.

Who could that be?

She swiped to the next entry and began reading, but then stopped and leaned back in her seat with a frustrated grunt.

“No luck so far?” Isaac asked her.

“No. How about you two?”

“Still not sure where the bomb might be?” Isaac said, the teardrop shape hovering in his hands. “With a bit of luck, Pérez’s team may have already found the bomb.”

“We’ll know soon enough.” Susan checked the time. “Eight minutes until we can contact him.” She blew out a weary breath. “Eight more minutes of this.”

“Keep at it. Kohlberg may tell us who he’s working with, but then again he may not.”

“I will.” She shifted in her seat and began reading again.

She swiped through one report.

Then another.

And another.

The minutes ticked by, and none of the terrorists she read about were even close to a match. Never mind that most of them were dead or still in prison!

Maybe I’m going about this the wrong way, she thought to herself. The person needs to be dangerous enough to have ended up in prison but been there long enough to have been paroled.

The thought made her furrow her brow.

Wait a second. I’ve only been at the DTI for ten years. Anyone I brought in that dangerous should still be in prison. They wouldn’t be eligible for parole until twenty-five years into their sentence. Which means…

Wait a second.

Wait one damn second.

She ran a search through each of the case files. Every prisoner she’d brought in who’d been abstracted was still in prison. Every last one.

Which meant the person inside Fake-Sako wasn’t one of these terrorists.

But if he/she wasn’t a name from the past, then who?

Skilled combatant. Knows combat frames. Knows the DTI. Knows me. Not organic anymore.

She pondered those attributes, rolled them around in her mind until finally a dark realization struck her. She sat up in her seat, and her eyes snapped wide.

Oh no!

“Captain,” said the bridge telegraph operator. “We’re now close enough to communicate with Pathfinder-Prime.”

“Excellent. Spool the investigator’s message and—”

“Stop!” Susan shouted. “Don’t send that telegraph!”


Back | Next
Framed