Back | Next
Contents

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN



The SysPol variable-wing aircraft slowed to a hover on a gentle stream of gravitons. The Lunarian branch of LAST—a huge, white-walled building—sat on a lonely peninsula jutting into the Crisium Sea, its silhouette leaning out over the waters at a slight diagonal to form a tilted rhombus.

The V-wing settled onto a landing pad near the building’s midpoint. The prog-steel hull split open, steps formed down the side, and Isaac walked out of the tandem cockpit. He rounded the V-wing and joined Susan on the other side. She was staring out across the vast, crystal clear waters.

“You did want to go to the beach,” he said. The LENS floated out to join them.

“Not quite what I had in mind.”

“Come on.” He bobbed his head toward the entrance. “Let’s go see Reed.”

They crossed the landing pad to the building access, where two League security guards waited for them. The two men wore all black body armor with sidearms at their hips. One of them stepped into their path and held up a hand in front of Susan.

“You can come in, Detective,” the guard said, his eyes locked on Susan, “but the Peacekeeper isn’t allowed inside.”

“Agent Cantrell?” Isaac said. “Would you please show them your badge?”

“Sure.” She pinged everyone nearby with her credentials.

The security guard didn’t bother to look away from her.

“As you can see,” Isaac said, “we’re both SysPol detectives. Please stand aside.”

“Doesn’t matter what she is in SysPol. She’s still a Peacekeeper, and we’re not letting her inside.”

“It’s all right,” Susan said, switching to security chat.

“No, it isn’t all right, Susan.”

“I can wait in the V-wing. There’s no need to cause a scene.”

“I beg to differ.” He switched back to normal speech and faced the guard. “You. What’s your name?”

“Me?” The guard pointed to his chest. “Why would you need to know?”

“Is it unusual for me to ask a person I just met for his name? Don’t you think that’s rude not to introduce yourself? Or could there be more to it than that? Is there some reason you feel uncomfortable providing your name to a detective?”

“Uhh, no. No reason, I guess. It’s Lester Tolk.”

“Well, then, Mister Tolk. Allow me to explain how precarious your situation is. Agent Cantrell holds the rank of deputy detective in SysPol Themis Division, which means you’re impeding her in the execution of her duties. Have I made myself sufficiently clear?”

“We’re not letting her in.”

“Apparently not, then. Do you own this building?”

“What?”

“I asked if you own this building?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then are you a legal representative of the owner,” Isaac continued, “who, by the way, has agreed to be interviewed by us?”

“Uhh, no. Don’t think so.”

“Then by what authority are you impeding our progress?”

“Not your progress. Just hers.” He pointed at Susan. “She can’t go in. Doesn’t matter what fancy excuses you make.”

“Mister Tolk, let me be extra clear with you, because your thick head seems to require it. I’m a hair’s breadth away from charging you with obstructing an officer of the law. Now stand aside or I will have my LENS make you stand aside.”

“You wouldn’t do that!” Tolk challenged. “You’re bluffing!”

“As you wish.” Isaac gestured the LENS forward. “Cephalie! Restraint Mode!”

The LENS’s outer shell morphed into a teardrop. Its small graviton thruster powered up, and it sped forward as a streak of silver aimed at Tolk’s stomach. The man barely had time to raise his hands when the LENS’s shell blossomed into four pseudopods that connected with his wrists and ankles. The force of the impact pitched him back so hard his head almost cracked against the ground. The LENS morphed a fifth appendage behind him and used it like a spring to ease him down onto the floor.

“What the fuck!” Tolk yelled, now on his back and pinned to the floor.

“And you?” Isaac turned sharply toward the second guard. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Mister Not-Standing-In-Your-Way!” He scurried to the side and pressed himself against the wall.

“That’s what I thought.” Isaac glanced back over his shoulder. “Agent Cantrell, looks like we’re both free to enter.”

“So it would seem,” she said with a wry grin.

“Cephalie?”

“Yeah.” She materialized on Tolk’s chest.

“Would you be so kind as to call Dispatch and have them arrange for Tolk’s pickup?”

“Sure thing.” She pushed up her glasses. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Thank you.”

“Why the fuck did you do that?” Tolk spat.

“It always surprises me.” Isaac shook his head as he walked past the restrained guard. “I say I’m going to do a thing, and then people act shocked when I do it.”

“Fuck you!” Tolk raged. “Fuck both of you!”

Isaac let out a weary sigh. He sent a destination request to the grav tube and stepped in. The chute whisked him upward and dropped him off outside the penthouse. He waited for Susan to join him, and they both entered Reed’s office together.

The penthouse was mostly empty space lined with one-way windows gazing out across the glittering blue waves. Chairs, sofas, and plants dotted the penthouse office, most arranged to afford a view through the windows, though one corner appeared to be dedicated to an automated kitchen and bar.

Brian Reed sat behind an expansive desk with his back turned to them, his whole body hidden behind a high chairback except for one hand hanging limply over the armrest. Virtual screens concealed half the windows along one wall, displaying live feeds from news organizations based on Earth, Luna, L4, and L5. A trio of windows contained what appeared to be civilian streams from the protest outside the Crimson Flower, another showed a countdown to when the Weltall Tournament would resume. Finally, one curious window showed a fuzzy, zoomed-in shot of what appeared to be a hangar door on the surface of Argus Station.

“Allow me to apologize for the greeting you received, Detectives.” Reed spun his chair around to face them. He was a tall man with a shaved head and narrow eyes. He wore a business suit decorated with a stepping pattern of dark grays and blacks along with a static black neck scarf. The dark cloudlike avatar of his IC floated over one shoulder. “Mister Tolk’s actions do not represent LAST as a whole. If I had known he’d react so negatively, I would have seen to it that other personnel greeted you.”

Somehow I doubt that, Isaac thought. One look at this office tells me you lord over this entire branch. If you’d wanted us to come in without a hassle, that’s what would have happened. And if you wanted us to be hazed on the way here, well…

“The matter at the door is resolved and behind us,” Isaac said. “Frankly, Tolk’s behavior isn’t my problem. We’re here to discuss a far more serious matter with you.”

“I can imagine.” Reed stood up and paced across the virtual screens. “Before we begin, would you mind if I show the two of you something?”

“If you wish.”

“Here. Take a look at this one.” Reed expanded the camera view from Argus Station. “This is an external shot of the DTI hangar on Argus Station. Our people keep an eye on the Admin’s comings and goings, and we’re aware of a series of high-level meetings between the Gordian Division and the DTI. We’re confident both Commissioner Schröder and Director-General Shigeki are involved, and the latter isn’t here for a brief visit. Instead, the heads of each organization seem to be integral to whatever is being discussed. A troubling sign, indeed?”

“Our leaders meeting to talk isn’t such a bad thing,” Susan defended. “It wasn’t long ago both sides were worried our differences might lead to war. Now look at us.”

“You do have a point, Agent Cantrell. The current situation is far from the worst it could be. But how far, I wonder? The last time the Gordian Division and the DTI collaborated on a large scale, it ended in the destruction of an entire universe. The so-called ‘Dynasty Crisis.’ The people in these meetings have enough authority and firepower to rend whole realities! And yet these meetings aren’t even on an official schedule. Why the secrecy? What are they hiding from the public?

“Our members have asked around, but all we’ve learned is a single word. ‘Providence.’ God’s protection. Now what could that mean, I wonder. Do these people consider themselves gods? Who are they to decide the fates of whole universes? No one elected Schröder!”

“But he,” Isaac countered, “along with all the other division commissioners, work under the chief of police, who reports directly to the president.”

“A small comfort. Between the Dynasty ‘Crisis’ and the Gordian Knot, we’ve dodged two nearly fatal bullets, and what’s been the response? More travel. More cooperation.” He gestured to Susan. “No offense, Agent Cantrell. I’m sure you’re a decent enough person, but I don’t like your presence here one bit. Nor what it represents for the future.”

“Mister Reed,” Isaac said firmly, intent on getting the conversation back on track. “We’re here to discuss the death threats leveled against citizens of the Admin.”

“Yes, of course.” Reed paced back to his desk and rested a hand atop the chairback. “I wondered how long it would take someone from SysPol or LSP to show an interest in our activities. Ask your questions, Detective. I won’t flinch away from any of them.”

“Do you know who sent the death threats to Elly Sako and Shingo Masuda?”

“No. If I did, I would have immediately reported this information to the police.”

“Do you suspect anyone in LAST could be involved?”

“No.”

“The threat the players received is very similar to the rhetoric of the protesters.”

“Similar, but not the same. We’re telling the Admin to leave, not leave or die.”

“Are you aware of any illegal activity occurring or being plotted within LAST?”

“To the best of my knowledge, no.”

“Please clarify that answer.”

“LAST is a large organization, Detective. You know that as well as I do. And while I’m the head of the Lunar branch, there’s no way I could possibly track everything every member does or intends to do. On top of that, there are plenty of people who claim to be members of LAST because they share our beliefs but who are not dues-paying members of our organization. They have no official ties to LAST, but their actions can still color public perception of us.

“Obviously, we’re heavily involved in the protest outside the Crimson Flower, which includes a mix of official members and people who joined the protest organically. This is a legitimate and important demonstration, and we intend to make our point as strongly and loudly as possible. Within the confines of the law, of course.

“But, as I pointed out, not everyone in that crowd is a member, and even for the ones who are, how much control do you realistically think I have? League membership is priced to be accessible, and penalties for members who make fools of themselves are almost nonexistent. What punishments do I have to dole out, other than revoking their member status?”

“Still,” Isaac said, “your word surely has some measure of influence.” He nodded to the live feed of the protest. “You’ve seen the escalating tension just as I have. That crowd is edging toward unstable. One strong push in the wrong direction, and it could turn violent.”

“You raise a valid point, Detective,” Reed conceded. “How about this? I’ll send out a message to all League members on Luna urging them to keep the Weltall protest safe and professional. I’ll even copy you on the message so that you can evaluate for yourself whether I’m stoking the fires or trying to quench them. How does that sound?”

“We’d appreciate that.”

“Then I’ll start drafting the message immediately.” He tapped his desk with a finger. “Is there anything else you need from me, Detective? Or is our business here concluded?”

Isaac paused to consider that very question. Reed had a point about any large organization and how unwieldy it could be to exert control from the top, and that went double for something as loosely organized as a political movement.

I knew the LAST angle was a long shot when I suggested it, he thought. I suppose it’s something that Reed agrees the crowd is getting too rowdy. And he might be able to calm them down. We’re not leaving empty-handed…but it still feels that way.

He glanced to Susan, who gave him a subtle shake of her head, then turned his gaze to Reed.

“We’re done here, Mister Reed,” he said at last.

* * *

“Was that a waste of our time?” Susan asked, dropping into her seat in the V-wing.

“Probably,” Isaac said. Cephalie secured the LENS behind their tandem seats, and the canopy sealed shut.

“Where to next?”

“Back to the Crimson Flower. After that…not sure.”

“We could head for the stadium,” she suggested. “The tournament’s about to start.”

“Susan, we’re still on the case.”

“I know that. What I mean is if something’s going to happen, it’ll be near the players, right?” She shrugged. “Wouldn’t hurt to be close by, just in case. Plus, it’ll give us time to think. Or you time to think. You’re better at this than I am.”

“Thanks.” He gave her a lopsided grin.

“So? Back to the stadium?”

“Sure.”

“All right, then.” Susan inputted their destination. The V-wing lifted off the landing pad, spun to a new heading, and powered away from the League building.

* * *

The tournament was well underway when they took their former seats near the stage. Only four isolation pods were in view, with Elly’s lonely capsule across from the pods for the three SysGov players.

The game abstraction hovered over their heads with each player’s forces and territory marked as color-coded clouds sprinkled with icons. Wong Fei had consolidated control over Masuda’s conquered system and fortified his position around its sun, while Gomako Grim and Yoo Ji-hoon dispatched surgical strikes at each other, though neither player seemed ready to commit to a major offensive. Both Grim and Yoo now controlled two systems each and were maneuvering to take a third, but they’d set their sights on the same system, and that was drawing them into tenser conflict while Wong Fei reignited his stellar engines to drive his star toward them.

Meanwhile, Elly didn’t control any systems, her meager forces thin and scattered in the void between stars. Yoo’s scouts had caught her scent, and he’d dispatched a sizable fleet to hunt her avatar core down.

“Still think Elly’s going to win this?” Isaac asked.

“I don’t know,” Susan said. “Let’s just say I’m having doubts.”

Isaac altered the shared abstractions around them, dimming the game map overhead and muting the sound.

“Have you heard back from Nina?” Susan asked, speaking in security chat.

“No. She would have called already if she’d found anything with the hardware. I assume she’s back at CFPD looking over Kohlberg’s pendant.”

“Unless she hits upon a surprise break, that’s it for the file transfer angle.”

Someone altered the program.”

“I know, but we don’t have any evidence pointing to a guilty party.”

“Yeah.” Isaac crossed his arms and dug his back into the seat. “Maybe we need to approach this problem from a different angle.”

“Any thoughts?”

“Not sure yet. Let me start with a question. Who benefits the most from these two crimes?”

“Someone who hates the Admin,” Susan said without hesitation.

“That’s the obvious takeaway, but I’m not so sure anymore. What if the Admin-hate is a ruse? What if the criminal’s objective is something else?”

“Such as?”

“Let’s look at what the two crimes have accomplished. Lacan is in jail, and Masuda’s locked himself in the chronoport. That’s two players down in a competition with a lot of prestige at stake.”

“You mean the perp might be another player?”

“The thought had crossed my mind.”

“I don’t know.” Susan gazed over the isolation pods. “Would that make all four of them suspects?”

“Perhaps not. Let’s consider the printer in Sako’s room again, and let’s assume we’re correct that someone had to be in the room to corrupt it.”

“That could be a dangerous assumption,” Susan noted. “Given what we’ve seen so far, we could be up against a very skilled hacker. Someone talented enough to circumvent normal requirements and issue orders to the printer from outside the room.”

“I agree, but let’s see where this trail takes us. If we limit ourselves to players, who does that leave us with?”

“Wong Fei and Elly Sako.”

“Exactly.”

“You think one of them is behind this?” Susan asked incredulously.

“All I’m saying is it’s possible. Any player stands to gain from having less competition, and both of them were in the room prior to the printer spitting out a severed head.”

“But it was Elly’s head,” Susan stressed.

“Which she could have sent to herself. Plus, either player could have planted the evidence on Lacan’s wearable, though it would have been easier for Sako to pull that off, given their earlier intimacy.”

“I know, but…”

“I’m not accusing anyone right now.” Isaac smiled humorlessly. “We both know there’s not enough evidence for us to do anything. I only think it’s a possibility we should consider.”

“But what about the threat to Masuda?” Susan asked. “None of the players could have done that, right?”

“Perhaps the criminal has a coconspirator,” Isaac suggested. “The skilled hacker you theorized.”

“That seems like a stretch.”

“But is it, really?” Isaac leaned over. “Remember, Nina said the Lacan evidence got planted through an Admin-type access. But modifying the Weltall UAM required SysGov expertise. Therefore, it makes sense for us to be dealing with at least two people, one knowledgeable in Admin infostructure, and one for the SysGov side of things.”

“Hmm. I hadn’t thought of that.” Susan stared off in thought, then began to nod her head. “Makes sense, though. And these sorts of threats do fit in with Wong Fei’s old run-ins with the law.”

“Yes, but I consider him the less likely of the two.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because he was already the favorite going into this tournament. And he’s doing quite well, while Sako is struggling to gain a foothold.”

“The message sent to Masuda came at a convenient time,” Susan noted. “Arriving right before his and Wong Fei’s fleets clashed.”

“Yes, but Wong Fei was about to overrun him anyway,” Isaac dismissed.

“Yeah, you’re right about that,” Susan agreed. “Though, given Masuda’s reaction, if Wong Fei hadn’t taken him out, he would have quit the tournament on his own.”

“Agreed.”

“But do you really think it’s Sako?”

“It could be,” he stressed. “The way I see it, we have two possibilities. One, Sako is indeed a victim in all this, and I’ve missed the mark entirely. Or two, she threatened herself while framing her ex-lover. If so, a second person threatened Masuda with the goal of thinning out her competition.”

“If you’re right, then she’s already established herself as the top Admin player,” Susan observed. “Even if she doesn’t win it all, she’s already hit it big.”

“Yeah,” Isaac sighed, not satisfied with his own line of thinking.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing”—he shrugged—“beyond the fact that my theory is filled with guesswork patched on top of guesswork, with no real evidence to back it up.”

“Not much else we can do without a lucky break.”

“I prefer to make my own luck,” Isaac growled, sitting up in his seat. “Is there a way we can access Sako’s records from the Admin? Would the Admin have performed a background check before allowing someone to enter the tournament?”

“Of course. And Sako would have received extra scrutiny because she’s a Lunarian.”

“Would Pérez have access to that report?”

“I doubt it. He wouldn’t need access to a background check to run the security detail. Any documentation like that would be saved back at DTI headquarters, under the control of Kloss’ group in DTI Espionage.”

“Is there a way for us to get copies of her background check?”

“Sure. As an investigator, you can request access to them. Plus, we happen to have two chronoports sitting in the hangar. We can ask Noxon to dispatch one back to the Admin and collect the files for us. Transit time is one hour one way, so the whole process should take less than three hours, even allowing for some bureaucratic delays.”

“Can’t the chronoport message the DTI from here?” Isaac asked. “I thought those ships came with multiverse transceivers or something.”

“Chronometric telegraphs,” Susan corrected. “They don’t have the range to reach the Admin from SysGov, and besides, the bandwidth is terrible.”

“How terrible?”

“Better hope the report doesn’t have pictures, and if there’s video, then just forget it.”

“I see.”

“It’s easier and faster to head back in person.”

“Got it. Mind giving Noxon a call?”

“No problem,” Susan said. “Let me take care of that right now.”

She opened a comm window as Isaac leaned back in his seat and stared up at the game. Elly Sako’s dispersed forces drew his eye, and he wondered if he was on the right trail or not.

* * *

Gomako Grim ran her eyes across the status charts and build queues hovering around her and considered her position stable, for the moment. She’d been nervous going into this tournament. Of course, she always struggled with her nerves before any tournament, but this one had been worse.

This one was against the Admin.

She faced her fellow SysGov players, too, but they were known quantities. She’d battled both countless times before in other tournaments, had racked up her share of wins and losses, and knew—more or less—what to expect from them. Wong Fei was as predictable as he was terrifying, executing his plans with almost mechanical precision. Yoo Ji-hoon was more of a wildcard, prone to unpredictable and dangerous shifts in strategy from match to match.

So far, both were sticking to the familiar. Wong Fei was turtled up in a single system utilizing the defensive stance he often favored, while Yoo played a more standard game of territorial and economic expansion, similar to her own approach. She knew she could beat both. She’d done so before, though in different games.

This one was no different.

No, the difference was the Admin. She’d been there during the Admin’s universal qualifier, but one event was hardly enough time to gauge an opponent’s preferences. The three foreign players represented a terrifying unknown to her in the highest profile event of her life.

She’d thrown up in her room last night.

It seemed silly to her now that she’d calmed down and the tournament was underway. The Admin players had blundered their way forward, both inside and outside the game. Lacan had landed himself in jail, and Masuda barely put up a fight before Wong Fei annihilated him. He was sulking back in the Admin hangar, while Sako was doing…something on the edge of the map. Hiding, maybe? Perhaps to let the other players wear each other down before swooping in at the end?

Whatever Sako’s plan was, it didn’t appear to be an effective one.

She must be starving for resources by now, Gomako thought. Oh, well.

Sure, two of their players had received death threats, but so what? She’d received a few over the years herself; it came with stepping into the public sphere. She’d reported them to the police and moved on with her life. None of those incidents had ever amounted to anything, anyway.

Though, Gomako supposed, a guest player being threatened while in a foreign universe was a bit different than an angry fan blowing up at her over an avoidable loss. Still, it seemed like such a small thing to get worked up over. No one had been hurt, after all.

So one hotel printer and the game file got hacked, she thought. So what? Big deal.

Gomako noticed a shift in Yoo’s fleet movements. He was pulling back from the system she’d tagged as Expansion Three, the one he’d seemed intent on contesting up until a few moments ago.

Perhaps he’s finally tracked down Sako and smells blood in the water, she wondered. Whatever the reason, it was an opening, and she intended to capitalize on it. She mobilized the bulk of her home fleet and sent it toward Expansion Three. Wong Fei’s mobile star was still closing in, but she had time before he arrived.

She didn’t think she could hold Expansion Three, but she didn’t need to in the long run. Instead, she intended to fortify the system with military installations backed up by minimal industry. She would then use it as a buffer to wear down Wong Fei’s concentrated might before he reached her two core systems.

Yoo’s forces continued to pull back along their entire contested border, and she felt a twinge of nervousness at this development. Shifting his forces away from Expansion Three was one thing, but he was abandoning huge swaths of territory between their stars without so much as a skirmish.

Why? What was going on?

Yoo wasn’t known for his passivity. He preferred to go for the throat when he saw an opening, and she wondered once again what Sako was doing on the far side of Yoo’s star systems.

Her fleet arrived in Expansion Three and swept through it, searching for ambushes or hidden forces.

Nothing. Yoo had completely abandoned the system.

Odd, she thought to herself. Very odd.

She set her fleet to work on the construction of an interstellar mass driver and several weapon platforms to support her mobile force, then launched another wave of scouts to find out what the hell was going on in Yoo’s territory.

She watched Wong Fei’s approach with trepidation for several minutes, concentrating on it, girding the defenses of Expansion Three for the inevitable battle, when an alert arrived from her scouts.

Yoo’s systems were empty.

Not abandoned.

Empty.

No ships. No factories. Not even the planets remained.

Everything was gone.

Or rather, had been consumed.

She knew this to be true when the first hostile blip appeared near her scouts.

The machine wasn’t very large in the overall scheme of Weltall. It measured about two kilometers long and vaguely resembled an old, terrestrial trilobite, far smaller than the fifty-kilometer bulk of her scout craft, which destroyed the attacker in a single shot.

But it wasn’t alone. More appeared from the edges of space, swarming toward her scouts. Not hundreds or thousands or even millions, but billions of them! There were more enemies than her scout fleet had ordnance! The fleet followed her last orders and began to retreat in the face of overwhelming opposition, but the swarm overtook them, destroyed them—

—and then ate them to produce more.

Because that’s what the All-Predator did. Gorge on everything to make more of itself in a vicious cycle of death by creation.

Sako! she thought urgently as she abandoned Expansion Three and pulled all her forces back to her two core systems. She must have released an All-Predator! But how? That exists at the end of a lengthy tech tree! Did she pour all her resources into blitzing into late-game tech just to unlock the All-Predator?!

It suddenly made perfect, brutal sense. The All-Predator was the ultimate endgame equalizer, incapable of distinguishing between friend and foe. Individually they were weak, but together they formed a nigh unstoppable hegemonizing swarm. They couldn’t eat stars—thank goodness—but they’d eat just about everything else!

That’s it! Gomako thought. She’s using her nomadic fleet to seed the All-Predator in as many systems as she can. And while she remains relatively safe in dark space, the All-Predators are going to eat the rest of us alive! If that happens, she wins!

She must have already finished Yoo off. Which means there aren’t any other players between me and that swarm!

Gomako focused all her energy on preparing for the onslaught. The entire industries of two star systems churned out weapons and ships at a prodigious rate, and her forces consolidated in mighty swarms of their own, from humble scout corvettes all the way up to dreadstars nearly as large as Earth’s moon.

The All-Predators arrived in her second system as a blizzard of metal snowflakes that turned her scopes red from edge to edge. Her fleet hardly needed to aim as it fired lasers and dumped waves of missiles into the onrushing horde. Millions of All-Predators died, but millions more swarmed in, oblivious to the losses, only knowing their insatiable hunger.

She commanded her fleet through a fighting withdrawal, abandoning the system while inflicting as much damage as she could, all while micromanaging her industry in a desperate attempt to fortify her final bastion. Some of the All-Predators descended upon the planets and moons of her second system and began to feast, while even more raced after her fleet, now on final approach to her home system—

—and her avatar core.

She assembled her defenses and waited.

The All-Predators arrived, and mines obliterated scores of them, but more poured into her home system. Always more in a never-ending tide. She scoured their ranks with lasers and kinetics, then sortied her fleet forward for one final stand.

But it wasn’t enough. The All-Predators advanced across the system with ravenous, implacable abandon, eating her ships, her megastructures, her planets.

And finally her avatar core.

The interface switched over to spectator mode and zoomed out, revealing the terrifying extent of the All-Predator swarm.

She never stood a chance.

“Good game,” she said with a shake of her head. “Well played, Elly. Well played.”


Back | Next
Framed