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CHAPTER NINETEEN



Isaac nursed his third cup of coffee as he stared out the window. Or was it his fourth? He couldn’t quite remember at this point. Either way, it had been a long night, and it wasn’t over yet. Stars twinkled overhead in a clear sky, partially obstructed by the overhanging mass of Petal Three.

The Wellspring Hospital drooped from the underside of Petal Three like a complex, upside-down castle. Its exterior matched the rest of the Crimson Flower in its loud brilliance, but the interior was a pleasant pastel green. The silhouettes of tree branches rustled along the walls amidst animated gusts of wind.

He turned from the window at the sound of footsteps.

“How are you holding up?” Susan asked, the LENS following her with its restored outer shell.

“Tired,” Isaac confessed. “But it’s nothing caffeine can’t solve. You?”

“Fully charged. My connectome will need some downtime eventually, but I’m still good to go for a while.”

“I wish I felt the same.” He took another sip of the black, scalding elixir.

“This can wait until tomorrow, you know.”

“It can, but at the same time it won’t. This is the first indication we’ve had the threats against the players are credible, and we need to know how these protesters fit into this mess.”

“You think they’re connected?”

“I’d be shocked if they’re not.” Isaac took another sip. “We don’t have any evidence linking them. Yet. However, the League cut through Crimson Flower security like management left the door open. That’s an interesting parallel to some of what we’ve already seen.”

“Our mystery hacker?”

“Exactly.” Isaac drained his cup, then walked over to a reclamation chute stylized as a hollow tree trunk and tossed it in. “Either way, we need to know how they pulled it off.”

The two walked down the curving hallway, full-length windows on one side and a series of doors on the other, until they came to a door guarded by a state trooper. An abstract medical chart glowed next to the entrance with the green header glowing at the top.

It read: ROBERT SOUTHWORTH (STABLE / DATA ISOLATED)

“Is he awake?” Isaac asked.

“Last I checked,” the state trooper replied. “Said he couldn’t sleep.”

“And he’s been informed of his rights?”

“Yes, sir. Took care of it myself.” The trooper shook his head disapprovingly. “I don’t think he realizes how much trouble he’s in.”

“Good.”

“Why this one?” Susan asked. “The state troopers have over two hundred protesters in custody, either here or back at the station.”

“True, but most of them—the ones directly involved in the hangar ruckus at least—are keeping quiet. They know they’re in deep trouble. Mister Southworth, however, is a different story. Not only did he throw a smart-paint grenade at Agent Arlot, which escalated the confrontation, but the agent’s purged armor knocked him out. He has no idea what happened between that moment and when he woke up at Wellspring.”

“I’m not sure I follow, but okay. How do you want to handle this?”

“Actually, about that. I know this isn’t typical for us, but would you mind waiting outside for this one? At least until I’ve warmed up the witness?”

“Sure, but why?”

“I have a hunch as to how this’ll play out, and I’d like you to barge in at the right moment.” He tapped his temple. “I’ll leave a link open for you to watch.”

“Okay, but how will I know when to come in?” She shrugged her arms. “Shouldn’t we decide on a signal or code phrase or something like that?”

“Oh, you’ll know,” he said with a crooked smile. “I have faith in you.” He indicated the door. “Trooper, if you would be so kind?”

“Yes, sir.” The trooper sent the door the unlock code, and Isaac stepped in with the LENS following close behind.

Robert Southworth was a large, stout man with small, beady eyes and a wide mouth over a lantern jaw. He wore a pastel green medical gown, and his bloody bandana had been replaced with a medibot wrap, which trickled a steady stream of the microscopic machines into his injury site. He lay in a bed curved into a gentle sine wave, elevating his head.

Under normal circumstances, he might have been watching a show or playing games to pass the time using the room’s infostructure, but LSP had imposed a selective data isolation that denied his access to information not related to his recovery.

“Finally!” Southworth shifted higher in the bed. “I wondered when someone from SysPol would show up. I’ve been so excited to share my story, I haven’t been able to sleep!”

“Mister Southworth, I’m Detective Cho from SysPol Themis. I’d like to ask you a few questions, if you’re feeling up to it.”

“Oh, of course, Detective! Of course! It’s no trouble at all!”

“Thank you.” A chair formed out of the floor near the side of the bed. Isaac sat down and opened his notes.

“Also, please call me Robby. All my friends do.”

“Mister Southworth,” Isaac continued without missing a beat, “I gather you have some information you’re keen to share with me?”

“Oh, I do, Detective! I do!” he rubbed his meaty hands together. “You see, we finally got them!”

“‘Them’?”

“Why, the Admin, of course! We’re going to reveal to the worlds how barbaric these brutes are. I mean, just look what they did to me!” He touched the medibot wrap on his head.

“Would you describe the event for me, please?”

“All I remember was a loud bang and then…pressure. Something exploded off one of those Admin thugs. I’m not sure what, though. Could have been a hidden weapon. Took me right out!” He waved around the room. “Next thing I know, I’m here.”

“Ah yes.” Isaac opened the man’s medical chart. “According to the doctors, you suffered a rather nasty concussion. However, the medibots seem to have stabilized the brain injury. How do you feel?”

“Got a bit of a headache.”

“I mean in terms of your mental acuity.”

“Oh, that? I feel great! My memory of the event is crystal clear!”

“Excellent. However, I can’t fail to notice your description appears to be incomplete.”

“Uhh, no, that was it. An explosion, pow to the head, then sleepy time.”

“Yes, but before that.”

“Before?” Southworth seemed confused. “What do you mean?”

“I’m talking about what led you to be in the hangar in the first place.”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant. I didn’t reach those thugs until we were all in the hangar, so I can’t bear witness to whatever crimes they committed elsewhere. I can only speak to events in the hangar.”

“Which you were trespassing in.”

“Oh, pfft!” He waved a dismissive hand. “Yes, fine. I was trespassing. I confess. But don’t you see? That was a small price to pay for us to catch those thugs red-handed.”

“You confess?” Isaac raised an eyebrow. “To being in the hangar without the permission of the Admin?”

“Yes, yes.” Southworth gave the issue another wave. “I committed a teeny, tiny pipsqueak of a crime in the service of the greater good, and I’m more than happy to pay whatever fines come up. I won’t even contest them!”

“I see.” Isaac took his time jotting down this particular note.

“Umm, Detective?”

“Yes?”

“What are you doing there?”

“Annotating your confession.”

“Umm. Why?”

“Because I’ll need to turn it over to my counterpart in the Admin for processing.”

“Your…counterpart?” Southworth blinked in bewilderment. “Why would you need to do that?”

“Unfortunately, the matter of how to process your crime is much more complex than you realize.”

My crime?” He shifted awkwardly in the bed. “I hardly see how trespassing is any concern to a SysPol detective.” He swallowed. “Don’t you people normally deal with murder and stuff like that? I’ve already told you how those thugs brutalized me.”

“Then perhaps you misunderstand the purpose of my visit.” Isaac looked up from his notes. “I’m not here to discuss what the agents did to you.”

“You’re not?”

“No. I’m here because of what you did to them.”

“But I didn’t do anything!” he protested.

“I beg to differ.” Isaac opened a virtual slide and removed his privacy filter. “Do you recognize this?”

“Of course, I do. It’s a smart-paint grenade. We use them in demonstrations all the time.”

“This is your paint grenade, to be precise. The one you lobbed at Agent Stanford Arlot of the DTI.”

“So, I threw paint at him. So what?”

“But that’s not all. You or one of your accomplices loaded a very specific pattern into the grenade. One you had reason to suspect would provoke a strong response.”

“Well…”

“A pattern the grenade began to replicate as soon as its microbots splashed against Agent Arlot’s armor. A pattern recognizable to many in the Admin. A black, swirling pattern mimicking a real weapon called ‘ravenous pitch.’ That’s why Agent Noxon registered it as a self-replicating threat and why he ordered Agent Arlot to purge his armor. He was trying to save Arlot’s life.”

“Hey, they threw grenades at us, too!” Southworth defended. “I remember seeing one go off in the plaza!”

“Which was a harmless smoke grenade. One of the softest responses to an out-of-control mob in existence.”

“So is a paint grenade!”

“Not one designed to fake a deadly weapon.”

“I—” Southworth threw up his hands. “Fine. We suckered the Admin into baring their fangs. So what? It didn’t hurt them! I’m the victim here!”

“In more ways than you realize, I’m afraid.” Isaac leaned back. “And that brings us to the crux of your problem.”

My problem?”

“You assaulted a Peacekeeper with a look-alike weapon.”

“Then I’ll pay that fine, too!”

“But that’s just it, Mister Southworth. We’re not talking fines anymore.”

“For throwing some paint?”

“Not because of what you did, but where you did it. Tell me, do you know where you were when you threw that grenade?”

“In the hangar, of course.”

“That’s right. The Admin hangar.”

“So? I don’t see why that matters.”

“It matters because of the legal framework established between SysGov and the Admin.” Isaac opened a copy of the relevant law and presented it to Southworth. “It’s not widely known—I had to read up on the law myself—but the short version is SysGov recognizes the interior of a chronoport to be sovereign Admin territory.”

“We weren’t inside the chronoport.”

“No, but the law extends to the chronoport’s immediate surroundings when it’s not in flight. In this case, that encapsulates all the space between the hangar walls.”

Isaac watched a terrible realization dawn on Southworth’s face. The man’s lower lip quivered as the full weight of his error bore down on him.

“And that means,” he summarized, “you were standing in Admin territory when you assaulted one of their agents.”

He’d made a few other discoveries while reviewing the new law, such as how he’d broken it himself by taking counter-grav equipment—namely the thruster in his LENS—into the chronoport. The law enumerated a short list of technology that could not be brought into the Admin, and now he had to include his own infraction in the case file.

He wasn’t looking forward to explaining his error to Raviv.

“Umm.” Southworth gulped after a lengthy delay. “Is that bad?”

“Very.”

“How bad?”

“Bad enough that the Admin may request your extradition.”

“What for?”

“To stand trial in their courts.”

“Oh, shit!” Southworth twisted the bedsheets with white-knuckled hands, and the blood drained from his face. “What’s going to happen to me?” he squeaked.

“I don’t know.”

“You won’t let them take me, will you?”

“It’s not for me to decide. It’s out of my hands.”

“Then whose hands is it in?” he demanded. “Who do I need to talk to? I don’t want the Admin to take me! They’ll suck my thoughts right out of my brain! Please don’t let them take me! I’ll do anything!”

“Actually, there is someone you can talk to.”

“There is!” Hope blossomed on his face.

“Yes. In fact, I believe she might already be—”

The door split open, and Susan walked in with the coldest, meanest expression he’d ever seen on her face. She stopped at the foot of the bed, hands clasped in the small of her back as she scowled down at Southworth.

“—on her way,” Isaac finished.

“Oh, fuck,” Southworth trembled, staring up at her, his face contorted by fresh fear.

“Is this him?” Susan asked in one of the best bad cop voices he’d ever heard.

“It is.”

“And has he been cooperative?”

“Not especially.” Isaac sighed, rising from his seat. “Though I did make some progress. He confessed to trespassing in your hangar, and he knew the paint would provoke your agents.”

“Excellent.” Susan flashed a sinister grin. “That should be more than enough.”

“No, wait!” Southworth quivered. “You don’t want me! I’m a pathetic nobody! I swear!”

“Maybe.” She leaned forward and placed her fingertips on the footboard. “But if it’s a choice between nothing and you, I’ll take you.”

“But that’s just it! I can help you there! I can help you find who you’re really looking for!”

“Then you’d better start talking.”

“How’d you break into the Crimson Flower?” Isaac prompted.

“Someone sent us the keycodes. I don’t know who.”

“Is this your idea of help?” Susan glared down at him. “Because I’m not impressed.”

“I’m being straight with you! Here, I’ll show you the message.”

Southworth held out his open palm, but nothing appeared over it.

“Uhh.”

“Cephalie,” Isaac said. “Open a hole in the firewall for Southworth to access his private mail.”

“Pathway opened,” Cephalie said.

A menu materialized over Southworth’s hand, and he expanded one of the top threads.

“See?” He shifted the virtual screen forward. “A lot of us received the same message. It came with the keycode that let us into the Crimson Flower.”

The correspondence was a thread dozens of messages long, mostly from one League member to another. Two messages were sent from an unidentified source, and the timestamps for those two messages came immediately before and immediately after the most recent Weltall match. The keycode was attached to the second anonymous message.

“Cephalie, would you grab a copy, please?” Isaac said.

“Got it.”

Susan opened the attached keycode over her left hand. It materialized as a red flower with silvery lines of cursive script underneath it.

“This isn’t a general access keycode,” she noted. “This is a copy of the Admin’s keycode. The one Crimson Flower management set up for us. The one we use to lock down the hangar and hotel floor.”

“Which also grants free access to most of the Flower,” Isaac added. “That would explain how the protesters busted in so easily. They used a valid keycode to open the doors in their way, even ones the Admin sealed.”

“What about the player?” Susan asked. “Shingo Masuda. How’d you people find him so easily?”

“We were watching the live stream when we were sent the keycode. We figured the players would be on their way back to the hotel, so that’s where we headed. Whoever sent us the keycode let us know it was coming right before the tournament started. We weren’t sure what to make of it, but enough of us thought it was legit to put a plan together. Sure enough, we received the keycode shortly after the tournament ended. One of us tested it on a side door, it worked, and the next thing I knew we were storming the place.”

“What would have happened if you’d caught Masuda?”

“We were going to douse the players with paint.”

Susan crossed her arms and scowled at him.

“Look, that’s it, I swear! Just scare them with paint made to look like an Admin weapon. You see? Harmless.”

“Except for all the broken bones and traumatized organs,” Isaac countered gruffly.

“Is there a reason you went after Masuda and not Sako?” Susan asked.

“We didn’t go after one or the other. We found that Masuda guy first, is all.”

“Then you don’t know where Sako was after the tournament?”

“No. Like I said, we figured they’d both head back to the hotel.”

“Do you know who sent you the keycode?” Isaac asked.

“No, sorry. I’d tell you if I did.”

“Suspect anyone?”

“Not a clue. Figured we had a sympathizer on the inside.”

“What about the death threats leveled against the two players?” Susan asked. “Know anything about those?”

“Uh-uh.” Southworth shook his head.

“If you’re lying…”

“I’m not, I swear! I don’t know anything about the death threats! The League has nothing to do with those!”

“Then I guess that covers it.” Isaac rose.

“Are we done here?” Susan asked.

“I believe we are.” He palmed the door open.

“Hold it!” Southworth cried out. “What about me? You’re not going to send me to the Admin, are you? I helped you out just like you asked! Please don’t send me away!”

“We’ll let you know when a decision is made,” Isaac said.

He and Susan left without another word. The state trooper locked the door behind them.

* * *

“You’re not actually going to extradite that punk,” Susan asked, “are you?”

“Nah. Like Southworth said, he’s a nobody. And no one from your government’s made the request, anyway. All in all, not worth our time.” Isaac paused in thought. “Wait a second. Do I actually have that sort of authority?”

“You can certainly request it.”

He shook his head in disbelief as they headed back to the transfer station.

“The keycode is an interesting find,” Susan said.

“Yeah, no kidding. Cephalie?”

“Here.” The LENS accelerated beside him and Cephalie appeared atop it.

“Forward the exchange Southworth provided to Nina. See if she can figure out where it came from.”

“I will, but I doubt she’ll have much luck. Most likely all the routing codes are fake.”

“The chance of her finding something isn’t zero.”

“Fair enough. I’ll take care of it.” She vanished.

“Who would have had access to a copy?” Isaac asked Susan.

“All the DTI agents and the Admin players. Probably ActionStream reps, too, since they’re the event coordinators. I can check with Pérez for the full list.”

“The players…” Isaac murmured.

“You wondering about Sako again?”

“I am. She’s the one who asked Masuda to be at the tournament, and she had an excuse that kept her clear of the protesters.

“Those could be coincidences.”

“Perhaps,” Isaac said noncommittally. “But you’re right. The Sako theory is a house of cards. I don’t have anything solid in the foundation.”

“Here’s another thing. Why would Sako encourage Masuda to attend the tournament when he’d already lost? That goes against your notion this is about one player thinning out the competition.”

“You’re right.” He shook his head. “Unless I’m wrong about the motive. Let’s consider for the moment all three incidents are related. The severed head, the message in blood, and leaking the keycode to the League. What’s been accomplished? And, more importantly, who benefits from that?”

“I don’t see any common threads,” Susan admitted. “Except they’re all acts against the Admin.”

“Same here,” Isaac agreed, nodding. “Maybe that’s it, then. Maybe it really is that simple and we’ve been trying to overthink it this whole time.”

“What? Someone just wants the Admin to leave?” Susan asked. “Like the League members?”

“Yes, but I’m more inclined to believe the League are pawns in all this.”

“What makes you say that?”

“If they had someone on the inside who could orchestrate the two death threats, why would they need to receive that keycode from an anonymous source?”

“Ah, I see your point. They’d already have stolen it by now.”

“Exactly. Which implies that while their goals might overlap with whoever the guilty party is, they’re not…in league with each other.”

Susan chuckled. “Was that a joke?”

“Not an intentional one.” He gave her a halfhearted smile. “Anyway, all three events place stress on SysGov-Admin relations. Is that the goal in and of itself? Maybe it is. There are plenty of people who’d like to sour that relationship. We just finished talking to one, after all.”

“Same could be said about radicals from Admin Luna,” Susan suggested.

“True, but Sako’s heritage as a Lunarian is hardly proof of anything, which is why I’m more interested than ever to see the results of her background check.”

“Oh, almost forgot. Captain Elifritz called while you were chatting up the prisoner. Defender-Prime returned with Sako’s files. He doesn’t want to transmit files this sensitive to us, so we’ll need to stop by the hangar to pick them up in person.”

“Okay. We’ll head there next.”

“Not back to the hotel?”

“Not yet. I’m curious to see if those files hold the answers we’re looking for. Besides, I’ve got too much caffeine in my system right now.” He let out a long, weary sigh. “And if Sako is involved, it’s still an open question who her coconspirator is. She couldn’t have done all this—”

Isaac stopped midsentence, even though he and Susan were conversing in security chat, because Elly Sako and Wong Fei rounded the bend with a pair of DTI agents behind them.

“Oh!” Sako remarked, eyes widening. “Detectives!”

“Miss Sako,” Isaac said smoothly, switching back to normal speech. “And Wong Fei. What brings you to the hospital?”

“A goodwill visit,” Wong Fei said.

“We’re handing out health sigils to the injured protesters,” Sako said.

“I’m not sure you being in close proximity to League members is a bright idea,” Isaac observed.

“We understand that,” Wong Fei agreed. “Which is why I’m here as well.”

“We’re trying to demonstrate a unified front of goodwill,” Sako added. “You know, to show these people we’re not so bad after all.”

Isaac found his eye drawn to the agents behind the pair.

“Oh, they wait outside,” Sako reassured him. “And we make sure the state troopers are okay with us going into each room beforehand. They turned us away from a few of the more…troublesome guests.”

“That’s probably for the best,” Isaac said. “What is it you’re handing out exactly?”

“Here. See for yourself.” She held both her hands out, and an abstraction appeared in the space above them. It was like someone had taken a snake, chopped off its head and tail, and then sewn the two new ends together to form a circle.

“That’s…” Isaac frowned at it. “That’s a flesh wheel. Covered in snakeskin.”

“Mmhmm!” Sako nodded brightly.

“And you’re giving copies of this to the protesters?”

“Of course!”

“The wheel carries a great deal of hopeful symbolism in Admin culture,” Wong Fei explained, tracing the flesh wheel with a finger. “Fortune follows misfortune. Happiness follows grief. That sort of thing.”

Susan gave Isaac a brief but emphatic nod as if to tell him, yes, this was a thing in the Admin.

“Life has its share of ups and downs?” Isaac ventured.

“That’s right,” Wong Fei said.

“But why a snake?”

“It’s the caduceus snake,” Sako explained. “A symbol of medical wisdom.”

Right, Isaac thought to himself. With its head chopped off and the throat sewn to its own behind.

“Don’t fret, Detective,” Wong Fei reassured. “We’ve had to explain this to everyone.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“We’re on our way to see a man named”—Sako summoned a virtual list—“Robert Southworth. Do you think the state trooper will let us in to see him?”

“I do.” Isaac glanced back down the hall. “And I suspect he’ll be in a…receptive mood.”

“Oh, good.” Sako smiled at the news. “Well, we’ll be heading his way then. Didn’t mean to take too much of your time.”

“No trouble at all. Good night.” He checked his abstract clock. “Or morning, as it were.”

The two players and their escorts disappeared down the curved hallway.

“How’s this fit into your theory?” Susan asked at last.

“I’ll tell you when I figure that out.”


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