CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Isaac approached the receptionist’s desk in the Avalanche lobby. She wore a white business suit with a white scarf twinkling with hints of digital data. The company’s logo animated overhead as an avalanche of ones and zeros thundering down a mountainside to sweep through an unsuspecting town in the valley.
“Can I help you, sir?” the receptionist asked.
“Detective Cho, SysPol Themis.” He transmitted his badge. “We’re looking for Ian Zou.”
“Mister Zou?” Her eyes widened in surprise.
“Yes. Is that a problem?”
“Uh, no. Of course not,” she recovered, “but why would you need to see him, sir? Can I get someone else for you to speak with?”
“I’m afraid our business is with Mister Zou specifically.”
“And what business might that be?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
“I see, sir.” The receptionist frowned.
“Is he here? We tried calling ahead, but he didn’t answer.”
“Umm, let me look over the check-in log.” She pulled up a new interface and scrolled through it. “Yes, sir. He’s here. Checked in this morning, right on time. Should be at his desk. Would you like me to call him over? If you need to speak privately, we have a meeting room off the lobby you can use.”
A door split open along the side of the lobby, revealing a rectangular table surrounded by chairs. Rotating abstractions of Avalanche infosystem products covered the walls.
“That’ll work for us. We’ll wait there for him.”
Isaac and Susan walked in and picked their seats, the LENS floating in after them.
“She became nervous when you asked for Zou,” Susan noted once the door was closed, speaking in security chat.
“Mmhmm,” Isaac agreed. “Wonder why.”
The door split open again twelve minutes later, and a gaunt man with wispy white hair shuffled in. His face was somber and unfriendly with prominent bags under his eyes. He wore all black accented with a dynamic scarf roiling with dark thunderheads and held a Halley Water brand bottle in one hand.
“Yes?” he wheezed.
Isaac could almost picture dust puffing from his mouth. Or perhaps a moth flying free. The words “desiccated” and “embalmed” came to mind when gazing upon the man.
“Ian Zou, I presume?”
“That’s me.” He took hold of a chair with a skeletal hand, pulled it out, then dropped into it with a pained sigh. He took a swig from his water bottle and set it on the table. “Need something?”
“We’d like to ask you a few questions concerning your involvement with the Weltall Tournament.”
“Our last ActionStream job?” He nodded, then hacked up a few phlegm-rattling coughs into his fist. “What do you want to know?”
“Mister Zou, are you all right?” Isaac asked, genuinely concerned for the man’s health.
“I’ll transition when I’m damned well ready to!” he snapped with surprising energy. “You hear me? When I’m good and ready, and not a moment sooner!”
“I didn’t say anything about you transitioning.”
“But you were thinking it,” he accused, “weren’t you?”
“The thought may have crossed my—”
“You people are all the same! Did Jennifer put you up to this? I bet she did. Well, whatever she told you, it’s nothing but a pack of lies! There ain’t a thing wrong with my health! Why, I’ve never felt more alive. It’s like I’m entering my second prime!”
Zou thumped his chest proudly, but then doubled over and started coughing again.
If this is your prime, Isaac thought, I’d hate to see what a slump looks like.
“Mister Zou, we have no interest in when—or if—you choose to transition into a synthetic body. We’re here to discuss your involvement with the Weltall Tournament. Nothing else.”
Zou let out one more weak cough.
“Is that so?”
“It is.”
“Fine,” he wheezed, eyes drooping as the previous burst of energy oozed out of him. “What do you want to know?”
“Perhaps you could start with the technical specifications of the install.”
“Six Polar Bear abstraction pods, modified with extra soundproofing, and a supporting infostructure. That would be six Iceberg-XL meganodes, per ActionStream’s specifications.”
Isaac raised an eyebrow. “You knew that off the top of your head?”
“What of it?”
“I’m just a little surprised.”
“It’s the last big job I worked on. Finished it yesterday, about an hour before Kohlberg said he was going to load the game files. Why wouldn’t I have it fresh in my head?”
“I suppose that’s a fair explanation.”
“You think I’m going senile, don’t you?”
“I implied no such thing, Mister Zou.”
“Well, I’m not. You hear me? I’m not!” He began coughing again.
“Perhaps we could get you a medibot injection for that cough? My LENS has a small supply for emergency use.”
“Hell, no!” he growled, his eyes lighting up. “I’m not putting that crap in my body! You know what medibots do after they’re finished?”
“What might that be?”
“Nothing! You inject yourself with all sorts of unnatural metal filth, and afterward you’ve got millions of little, broken machines floating around your innards. Now you tell me, does that sound healthy?”
“I’m not sure your explanation is entirely accurate, Mister Zou.”
“My body is a temple!” He thumped his chest again. “And I pamper it. I’ll have you know I take a daily regimen of all-natural herbs and supplements. Very healthy! Very natural! Much better than any medibot pattern on the market. All I need is another carbon pill, and I’ll be good as new!”
“A…carbon pill?”
“They contain activated charcoal. Carbon is a wonderful purifying agent. Cleans me right out!”
“Soot?” Isaac filled in. “You medicate yourself with soot?”
“Activated charcoal!” Zou corrected. “But not alone. I have a whole regimen a certified LunaCare wellness expert put together for me. I take mint and aloe supplements twice a day, plus the CT pill in the morning. All very natural and healthy. No medibots or any other artificial crap.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask, but what’s in the CT pill?”
“Concentrated topsoil.”
“Seriously?”
“All-natural topsoil. Processed, filtrated, and concentrated into pill form. They’re expensive, too. I have to import them from Earth.”
“Dirt,” Isaac said dully. “You eat dirt.”
“Concentrated—”
“Yes, concentrated topsoil. I heard you the first time.”
“It’s an all-natural way to filter out the body’s toxins. Works great in tandem with the carbon. This combination has been proven to be effective by no less than two studies, conducted by former members of the Southern Nectaris Medical Institute.”
“Only two?” Isaac asked, despite his better judgment.
“Former members?” Susan added.
“They quit to found LunaCare. They’re the ones who got me started on Halley Water.” He took a swig from his water bottle. “This stuff is amazing! I drink at least three liters every day.”
“And what,” Isaac began, “if I may ask, is so special about the water?”
I know I should get this interview back on track, he thought, but I can’t seem to stop gawking at this man-sized shipwreck.
“Halley Water is the purest water in existence,” Zou explained.
“Because it’s been filtered through carbon and dirt?” Susan ventured.
“No, don’t be silly! This is comet water!”
“Oh, good grief.” Isaac put his head in his hands.
“Don’t you realize the water you drink used to be someone’s piss? Or worse, was squeezed out of their poop? Do you like the idea of drinking someone’s poop water?”
“Not when you put it like that,” Susan replied with a grimace.
“Exactly! That’s why I drink nothing but certified comet water. Each delicious, refreshing sip has been plucked from the dawn of the solar system, having never passed through a person’s bowels before mine.” He picked up the bottle. “See, it says so right here on the label.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” Isaac cleared his throat. “Mister Zou, perhaps we could return to the matter at hand?”
“Sure, sure.” He set the bottle down and crossed his scrawny arms. “The Weltall job, right.”
“Did anything unusual or unexpected happen on the job?” Isaac asked. “Receive any unusual requests from the customer? Anything of that nature?”
“Yeah, there was one. Kohlberg made it clear I couldn’t bring my companion with me. Said the installation couldn’t be performed with the help of any ACs. I argued with him, but he said the requirement came from the Admin itself, so there you have it. The customer is always right. Made the job such a hassle. Had to guide all the drones myself. Normally, Ebullience takes care of that.”
“Ebullience?” Isaac repeated. “Your companion’s name means cheerful and full of life?”
“Yeah? So? Why does everyone act like it’s such a strange thing?”
“I can’t think of a single reason, Mister Zou.”
“He took some time off. I think he found the requirement offensive, so I’m here all alone right now.” Zou shook his head. “Such a damn hassle. Should have told Kohlberg to shove it.”
“Where is Ebullience now?”
“Earth somewhere, I think.” Zou shrugged. “He’ll come back when he’s good and ready.”
“I’d like a copy of his connection string.”
“What for?”
“To verify his whereabouts.”
“If you say so.” Zou transmitted a copy of the string. “There you go.”
“Thank you. Moving on, did you have any other disagreements with Mister Kohlberg?”
“No. Just the stupid requirement from the Admin.”
“And what is your opinion of the Admin?”
“Oh, I see.” Zou paused to regard the two detectives more carefully. “You think I’m like those bigoted morons protesting outside, don’t you?”
“Are you, Mister Zou?”
“Can I be honest with you?”
“That would be preferable.”
“I’ve been a member of LAST for a while.” Zou leaned forward. “Long before joining was the ‘in’ thing to do. I joined back when it was still the League Against Stupid Time Travel, when all we protested against were those idiots in the Antiquities Rescue Trust and how their idea of archeology was to go back in time to the Great Library of Alexandria, ransack all the books, and shoot anyone who tried to stop them!”
Isaac wasn’t sure being a member of LAST was currently—or had ever been—an “in” thing, but he supposed it was a matter of perspective.
“Nowadays,” Zou continued, “I hardly recognize the organization. Yeah, I’m still a dues-paying member, but that’s because all this multiverse nonsense makes me jittery. Just look at the Gordian Knot or—good grief—the Dynasty Crisis! How many times do we have to almost destroy all of reality before someone fires the braking thrusters? There’s nothing stupid about wanting to keep our universe from going poof one day.
“I guess you could say I agree with their concerns, but I’m not so sure about their methods. What would kicking out everyone from the Admin accomplish? Maybe it’ll make League members feel good because they’re doing something tangible? Hell if I know, but the Admin’s not some physical manifestation of evil. Like you.” He gestured to Susan. “Are you here to herald the destruction of all realities?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” she said evenly.
“Right! And no one else from the Admin is either. You know why? Because it’s stupid! The Admin wants to keep existing, same as we do.”
“Thank you for the detailed answer,” Isaac said. “Moving on, are you aware of any way the infostructure you installed could have been used to modify the game files?”
“You mean in order to send a player a death threat?” Zou asked.
“That’s right.”
“The answer’s no. At least not initially. Not at the time I handed them over. Those units were blank slates when I finished. Any software put on them came later.”
“Could someone have loaded them with malicious code before they were installed at the stage?”
“Sure, I suppose that’s possible, but it wouldn’t have mattered.”
“Why not?”
“Because of our install process. You see, my drones loaded those units straight from our factory, and I performed a wipe once they were installed. If someone had snuck malicious code onto them beforehand, it was gone by the time Kohlberg arrived.”
“Why would a wipe be necessary on new units?”
“To clear out the diagnostics we install after printing the units. A wipe is standard procedure. It clears up a little extra memory, and it manages our liability. No software means no software problems can be blamed on us.”
“What about LAST? Do you have any reason to believe they might be involved?”
“Like I said, I’m not active in the group anymore.” Zou sighed, then hacked up a wet cough. “I suppose there are some people in the group crazy enough to try, but I have no idea how they’d pull it off. Other than to have access to the units after I installed them.”
“I see.” Isaac saw an incoming message blink in his periphery. It was from Agent Noxon. He expanded and skimmed through it.
Wonderful, Isaac thought sarcastically. The Admin’s top man on site would like to have a word with us back in the hangar. And I don’t have a lick of progress to report.
He closed the interface.
“That’ll be all, Mister Zou. We appreciate your time.”
* * *
Susan led the way through Pathfinder-Prime’s cramped, twisting corridors. Unlike a SysGov craft, the chronoport possessed no artificial gravity, and therefore was designed to operate under three different modes: free fall, local gravity from underneath the vessel, and acceleration in the direction of travel. The interior reflected this need with frequent handholds, ladders traversing the walls sideways, and walls that doubled as floors under different flight conditions.
Susan guided Isaac and the LENS through an open door to the craft’s bridge, where bulky acceleration-compensation seats sat in rows of three. Noxon and Pérez stood at the front of the bridge with what might have been patrol timetables and routes hovering nearby.
Both synthoids had changed as well. Or rather, their gear had. They’d clad themselves in full-body armor with deployable helmets retracted into their collars and assault rifles slung from their shoulders. The armor and weapons were coated in variskin, currently set to display Peacekeeper blue.
“Cantrell, Cho.” Noxon nodded to each of them as they walked over. “Good. Thank you for coming.”
“You wished to speak with us?” Isaac said.
“Yes. I thought it important we keep up with each other’s progress. You with your investigation and us with securing the players’ safety.”
“Good idea. Where’d you like to start?”
“Pérez?” Noxon prompted.
“Sirs, the additional agents and drones brought here on Pathfinder-Prime have allowed us to effectively double our existing coverage. The hangar, hotel floor, and the path between them are as secure as we can make them. We’ve employed a mix of stationary and roaming patrols to guard all active ingress points. There are also some locations”—he pointed at a map of Petal Four—“such as here on both sides of the hangar, and here along the perimeter of the hotel floor, that can act as auxiliary entrance points. We’ve sealed all of them and inspect them regularly.
“Shingo Masuda is currently housed in Defender-Prime, and Elly Sako is in her hotel room. We’ve dedicated a two-agent team to protecting Sako at all times, and we’ve designated a second team to escort Masuda, should he choose to leave the hangar. Additionally, we’ve outfitted several of our Wolverines with hazard detection modules and have them searching for weapons, bombs, biohazards, hostile self-replicators, and other potential threats. One Wolverine will accompany each player when on the move, sweeping ahead for any potential dangers.
“We’ve also coordinated with Crimson Flower management, and they’ve permitted us to expand our search area temporarily and equip our agents with heavier gear as an additional deterrent. Six agents and two Wolverines are currently working their way through Pistil Stadium. They’re staying in contact with Specialist Cho, which should keep us from interfering with her work. At the same time, we have another team checking the full route from Petal Four to Pistil Stadium.”
“Sounds thorough,” Isaac remarked. “Find anything yet?”
“No, but we’ll keep at it.”
“It’s possible the death threats are pure bluster,” Noxon commented, “but we’ll proceed on the assumption they’re not. For now, that’s all we can do, though there is one development we want to bring to your attention.”
“And that is?”
“Are you aware of the recent incident with the League?” Pérez asked.
“No, I haven’t been following the protests.”
“Here,” Pérez said. “Take a look.”
An abstraction unfolded between them, detailing the base of the Crimson Flower and the gathered protesters. The crowd was over three times the size Isaac recalled from when he and Susan had slipped in.
“This was taken less than an hour ago,” Pérez said softly.
At first, Isaac wasn’t sure what to look for. A trio of LAST leaders atop counter-grav platforms led the protesters in song and chant. The crowd struck him as more agitated and energetic than before, more likely to test the bounds of what authorities would tolerate, but not dangerously so. Not yet, at least.
He was about to ask what he should be looking for when he saw them.
Several balloons, each about the size of a car, inflated along the front of the crowd. They took the forms of various Admin-theme objects, all with compressed, cartoonish proportions: overly serious synthoids, drones that looked a little too doglike, and comical representations of the three players.
Once fully inflated, attendants released the balloons to bob over the crowd, who batted them into the air at first, then began to attack them more aggressively. A Wolverine was the first to deflate, followed by two synthoids. Someone slashed the butt of the Masuda-balloon, causing it to careen over the crowd on a fart-propelled trajectory until it slammed headfirst into the Elly-balloon’s exaggerated breasts.
The Masuda-balloon pooted out the last of its thrust while the Elly-balloon pirouetted over the crowd, bleeding air from an unknown attack. It caved in to drape flaccidly over the crowd, which scurried out from under it.
After that, someone had the bright idea to set the balloons on fire.
Because of course that’s what the crowd would do next.
One by one, the protesters ignited the cartoonish effigies. Black smoke billowed into the air, and flaming abstract swirls formed in above the crowd, morphing into the phrase LEAVE NOW. The message burned overhead, and the crowd cheered.
Isaac groaned.
Why do the bad protests always end with something on fire? he wondered.
“It seems to me,” Noxon started, “that suspending the tournament has emboldened LAST.”
“You could be right,” Isaac sighed.
“I’d like your permission to change that.”
“Well, I can’t arrest them, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Of course not,” Noxon replied. “And that’s not what I’m after. I want your permission to restart the tournament.”
“Are you sure that’s wise?”
“Perhaps not, but look at it this way. We Peacekeepers are no strangers to hostile reactions, and though it’s unfortunate to see them here in SysGov, we’re accustomed to these sorts of…impotent displays. But if people here think a little bonfire will scare us, then it’s time we showed them the truth.” He pointed to the crowd’s recording. “We do not back down to trash like this.”
“There’s no guarantee you can keep Sako safe.”
“I’m well aware of that,” Noxon said. “But our two peoples have a tournament to hold, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let fear of criminal scum stop us. Besides”—he flashed a smile—“I want to see who wins.”
“I understand your position, and I sympathize with it, but let me check something first before I give an answer.” He opened a comm window and called Nina.
“Fishing for an update?” she answered.
“You know it.”
“Well, as far as I can tell, Avalanche did a first-class job. I haven’t found anything weird here, and I’ve been looking awfully deep into their hardware.”
“How far along are you?”
“Past the halfway mark. I’ll wrap up here soonish.”
“Can you give me something a little more concrete than ‘soonish’?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Call it an hour. Maybe two tops if I hit a snag.”
“Two hours then. Got it.”
“You getting pressure to restart the tournament?”
“Something like that. Any concerns on your end?”
“Nope. I’ll be out of everyone’s way soon enough.”
“Call if you need more time.”
“Will do.”
Isaac closed out of the window.
“All right,” he said to Noxon. “I’ll give Kohlberg a call after we’re done here and tell him he can restart the tournament in two hours.”
“Thank you, Detective. Leave protecting our citizens in our capable hands. As for hunting down the criminal trash threatening our citizens…?”
“Unfortunately, the hunt isn’t going well. We’re not sure how the program was altered or who might have done it, and we still don’t know if Lacan was involved or not.”
“I see.” Noxon nodded gravely. “Is there anything we can do to assist?”
“Not at present. If something comes up, I’ll let you know.”
“What about LAST?” Noxon asked. “Is there any indication they’re involved?”
“Not at present, but…” Isaac eyed the paused model of the crowd outside.
“Thoughts?” Susan prompted.
“Just pondering where we go next.” Isaac opened an interface and ran a quick search. “Looks like LAST’s Lunarian chapter is led by a man named Brian Reed. His office isn’t too far from here, actually. Perhaps we should pay him a visit.”
“Sounds like a long shot,” Susan said.
“True,” Isaac admitted. “But I see two angles that might benefit us. First, it’ll be a clear sign that SysPol is keeping a stern eye on his organization. And the protests here. It could prompt him to send word down the chain to lower the volume a few notches. Second, we can see if Reed knows of any troublemakers in his organization.”
“You think he’d actually rat out his own people like that?”
“Maybe. He might if he’s interested in staying on the right side of the law and suspects someone is about to break it.” Isaac shrugged. “It’s not ideal, but I think it’s worth a shot, especially given how agitated that crowd is becoming.”
“Then I won’t take any more of your time, Detective,” Noxon said. “Good luck. To both of you.”