Chapter Ten
“A word of warning before we go inside,” Isaac said, placing a cautionary hand on Susan’s shoulder.
“Yes? What is it?”
“It’s about the Trinh Syndicate. Or rather, Saturnite syndicates in general.” Isaac glanced meaningfully at the modest red building they’d parked next to. The Trinh Syndicate guest center was barely a third the size of the Negation Industries surface building. Virtual gold coins dangled on red strings above the door, tied through the square hole in their centers. They tinkled in a nonexistent wind beneath golden letters spelling TRINH with a long, golden dragon looped around the logo.
“What about them?”
“First understand that the syndicates are, at least on the surface, law-abiding companies.”
“But that’s not the whole story?” Susan ventured.
“Not even close. You’ve already seen signs of the gang problems here on Janus, and the syndicates are a big part of that because they use the gangs as disposable muscle for various purposes. Discreetly, of course, and it doesn’t help that these companies are internally structured to make criminal prosecution of their leadership all but impossible. Too compartmentalized. In fact, most syndicate members forgo integrated companions for that very reason; easier to keep secrets known to one instead of a few. Lower-level employees almost always take the fall when SysPol tries to move in.”
“And what do the gangs get out of it?”
“Syndicates are known for paying their debts. Generously. Gang members are almost always the ones who wind up in jail when a job goes south, but once they’ve ‘paid their debt to society’ and are released, the syndicates hire them. Or, at least, the best of them. In that sense, the gangs act as recruiting grounds for future syndicate members, which motivates the gangs to perform well for their future employers. You could say the two parts form a barely concealed criminal ecology.”
“Doesn’t anyone try to stop this?”
“Stop it?” Isaac chuckled sadly. “They’ll just tell you the system is working as intended. Criminals go to jail, then find gainful employment once they’ve been ‘reformed.’ See? Everything’s on the up-and-up.” He grimaced at the guest center. “Perhaps it’s true in some cases, but that doesn’t mean the syndicates don’t bend the prison system to their advantage.”
“But then”—she glanced over at the red building—“why would Gordian work with such a company?”
“Because they don’t know any better,” Isaac grumbled. “Like I said, the syndicates are, on the surface, legitimate businesses, so why not deal with them? Typical Earth-centric mistake if you ask me, made by someone ignorant of the inner workings here in the Saturn State.”
“I see.” Susan nodded thoughtfully. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Isaac led the way inside and stopped in front of two security synthoids standing guard in front of a counter-grav tube. More virtual coins dangled on red cords from the ceiling, and abstract portraits of the company’s upper management adorned the walls. The synthoid pair wore shiny black prog-steel armor emblazoned with golden dragons and carried heavy rifles with nonlethal underslung attachments.
“Detective Isaac Cho and company.” He transmitted their credentials. “We’re here to speak with Melody Quang.”
“One moment while I check with her.” One of the synthoids opened a comm window obscured by a privacy filter and spoke silently with the other side.
Isaac couldn’t see his face behind the reflective visor. He waited for the conversation to finish.
“Junior Manager Quang will see you now.” The synthoid snapped the comm window shut and shifted to the side. “Please step into the tube; it’ll take you to her.”
“Thank you.” Isaac walked in, and the tube zipped him down into the bowels of the facility. Unlike Negation Industries, the tube walls were opaque, and no infostructure tickled his senses.
The shaft deposited them in a simple conference room with a long, red-lacquer table and more pictures of Trinh management on the walls. A young woman rose from the head of the table, clothed in a form-fitting red dress with gold dragons dancing across her thin scarf. She wore her black hair in a short bob, and her dark eyes shared the same warmth as her smile.
“Detective Cho, I’m Melody Quang.” She shook his hand. “I’m sorry we had to meet under these circumstances. You have my condolences on behalf of the Trinh Syndicate.”
“It’s not really my place to accept that, since I didn’t know the victims, but I appreciate the sentiment.”
“Please, have a seat. I imagine you have a lot of questions for me.”
“That I do.” Isaac settled into a chair at the corner next to Quang. Susan took the next seat, and the LENS hovered behind them. “I’d like to go over your business dealings first. I understand the Trinh Syndicate is handling one of the impeller orders.”
“That’s right. We’re on contract to deliver one of the Gordian Division’s new impellers, which we’re all very excited about. We’re about eighty percent done with it.”
“The Negation Industries impellers were due to be tested during this visit. Weren’t yours as well?”
“Yes, per the original schedule, but we experienced some delays in the production. Nothing major, and nothing that would invoke a penalty clause, but the impeller won’t be test-ready for another four to five weeks.”
“Does the Trinh Syndicate have a lot of experience producing time drive components?”
“No, this is our first order, so some delays are to be expected as we work the kinks out of our production process. We’ve printed a lot of exotic matter products out of this facility, but the impeller has been the most exacting venture for us to date. We actually hired a few ex–Negation Industries engineers, lured them over to our side with lucrative Esteem contracts and signing bonuses. Some people don’t appreciate the constant crunch next door, and we welcomed the added expertise. That team’s been helping us gain ground on our original schedule, though we still have a long way to go.”
“And the two Gordian agents were okay with the delay?”
“More or less,” Quang said with an indifferent wave. “Like any customer, they prefer to have everything perfect and delivered yesterday, but they listened and were understanding of the difficulties we’ve faced. In the current climate, their options are limited, so both sides had strong motives to work through the difficulties in order to deliver a finished product we could all be happy with.”
“I understand the Trinh Syndicate purchased a Negation Industries impeller rejected by the Gordian Division. Were you involved?”
“Yes, every step of the way.” Quang smiled proudly. “I’m the one who convinced our upper management to move in, and I handled the bidding for our side.”
“And why did you decided to purchase the defective unit?”
“Unlike Negation, we regularly handle less demanding contracts. When we considered the cost of modifying the impeller’s remains versus producing over a thousand negative tons from scratch, the benefits became clear. I presented the cost analysis to our management, they approved my proposal, and here we are.”
“Is the rejected unit held at this facility?”
“No, and calling it a ‘unit’ is a stretch. Negation broke the impeller down into over fifty chunks before handing the material to us; they were legally required to render it chronometrically inert. Afterward, we transported those chunks to a new production facility we’re setting up on Titan, along the southern coast of the Kraken Mare.”
“And what does this new facility do?”
“It’s our newest site for exotic printers. Beyond that, I can’t say.”
Isaac looked up from his notes.
“That isn’t my project.” She flashed a coy smile. “Management keeps me focused on our New Frontier presence, but the rumors coming from Titan are quite exciting. We know we’re
small-timers when it comes to the exotic industry, but this new facility could help elevate us into the big leagues.”
“Big enough to challenge the Mitchell Group or Negation Industries?”
“Maybe not that big.” She chuckled. “Not yet, at least. But large enough to wrestle with mid-tier competitors like CounterGravCorp, certainly. Hydrogen serves as the preferred basis for exotic conversion, and methane is four parts hydrogen to one part carbon. The methane lakes on Titan need to be dealt with eventually for the moon to be made habitable, and by establishing a factory on Titan, Trinh will produce exotic matter in a shallower gravity well than Saturn while also receiving a terraforming contribution subsidy.”
“Interesting.” Isaac jotted down a few notes. “What was your working relationship with the two agents?”
“Andover-Chen was a bit of an oddity. Sharp as they come, but hard to get to know. I’d characterize my relationship with him as strictly business.”
“And Delacroix?”
“Joachim was…sad.” She frowned and lowered her head. “He hid his pain well, but I could see it. His wife’s death hit him hard. Tore away one of the focal points of his life, and so he sought refuge by clinging to another focus.”
“What do you mean?”
“His work. He spent long hours at our facility. At Negation Industries, too, I imagine. I mentioned it to him a few times. Suggested he rest or spend some leisure time on Shelf Six. He politely declined. There always seemed to be another analysis to review, another report to write. Maybe it helped him cope.” She glanced at the wall and sighed. “It makes me sad, thinking about him.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because, unlike the doctor, he won’t be coming back. And because he was making progress. At least, I think he was. He’d fought through the grief of loss, and he seemed ready to begin piecing his life back together.”
“Did you have any problems with the two men?”
“Oh, no. Both were great to work with. Demanding, but fair.”
“I’d like to see their work area after we’re done here.”
“Of course.” She pointed behind him. “It’s right next door. I’ll take you there whenever you’re ready.”
“But before that, I have another topic I’d like to cover with you.” Isaac looked her square in the eyes. “Concerning some of your past actions.”
“Oh boy.” She grinned at him. “Here it comes.”
“I’m sure you expected this.”
“Yeah, I did. What do you want to know? Besides the fact that I was a typical idiot teenager?”
“I’d like you to tell me about your juvie criminal record.”
“You have my file.” She smirked at him. “You probably know more about the ins and outs of those crimes than I do.”
“True, but I’d like to hear it in your own words.”
“Honestly, I haven’t given those years much thought in a while, so my recollection might be fuzzy.” She raised an eyebrow. “You’re not trying to get me to lie to a police officer, are you?”
“I’m sure we can chalk up any minor errors to poor recollection.”
“Fair enough.” She drummed her fingers on the table. “Let’s see. I joined the Skulls at the age of fifteen. Participated in a bunch of petty crimes for about five years. Vandalism, surveillance sabotage, pattern copying and trafficking, etcetera. Eventually, I ended up in the juvie panopticosm. I served my time, straightened out my ways, and landed an entry-level position at Trinh. I then worked my way up the ranks from there.”
“And the incident that landed you in jail until you were twenty-six?”
“You mean that time I firebombed a police copter?”
“That would be the one.”
“That was hardly a crime.” She laughed it off. “The auto-suppressors put out the fire almost instantly.”
“That may be so, but your criminal act served as a distraction for a bank heist.”
“Which I had no knowledge of. All I was told was the gang needed me to make some noise at a particular place and time, so I did.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Young idiot that I was. I paid the price for my stupidity and moved on. Anything else?”
“Just one final question. Are you aware of any motive someone might have for killing either the doctor or the chief engineer?”
“No, sorry.”
Isaac raised an eyebrow. “That was quick.”
“I figured you’d ask that one, too.” She sighed. “I thought back to the conversations I’ve had with them, but nothing stands out. They’ve accommodated our schedule delays without any penalties, and as the project manager, you cherish clients like that. So, no. Can’t think of any reason they might have been killed.”
“Very well. That’ll be all for now, I believe.”
“Then let me show you to their desks.”
* * *
The syndicate’s Gordian Division office overlooked a single exotic printer, smaller than the ones at Negation Industries and more baroque due to a number of modifications jutting out of the main body. The machinery hummed with activity, building up layers of exotic matter around the spiked mechanism within.
“She didn’t seem so bad,” Susan said, again using security chat while they were undoubtedly being listened to.
“No,” he breathed, almost whispered as he gazed down at the machinery below through the outward-slanted window.
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“Just wary of syndicates in general, that’s all.” He sighed and turned his back to the window. “Anything?”
“I found more of this stuff.” She held up a clump of prog-foam picked off Delacroix’s chair.
“At least he’s consistent.” He gave her a half smile. “Cephalie, how about you?”
“More of the same. Both these gents stayed very busy with their work. No signs of infosystem tampering either, just in case you were wondering.”
“Thanks. I was.”
“Doesn’t mean the syndicate didn’t. Just that they’d need some skilled people to pull the wool over my eyes.”
“And they have access to that sort of talent,” Isaac noted, “if they were so inclined.”
He walked over to Delacroix’s desk and gazed at the pictures of his wife aligned against the partition separating his desk from Andover-Chen’s. He drew one to his hand and took in the frozen moment of a happy couple drinking the same strawberry milkshake through two straws.
“What a sad way to go,” Susan said, looking at the pictures over his shoulder. “Guy loses his wife, starts pulling it together, then is killed.”
“Yeah.” He let go of the picture, and it flew back into place. He took one last look around the place and planted his hands on his hips. “Either of you see any reason we should stick around here?”
“Not at the moment,” Susan said.
“Me neither,” Cephalie said.
“All right. Let’s head up.”
He called Melody Quang back into the room, thanked her for her cooperation, and took the nearest counter-grav tube back to the surface. One of the security synthoids even gave him a friendly wave on the way out. They’d almost reached their car when Cephalie bolted upright atop the LENS.
“Oh!”
“Don’t tell me we forgot something,” Isaac growled with one leg in the car.
“No. Nothing like that. Check your mail.”
He sat down and opened his inbox.
“Ah!” He beamed at the new message header.
“Good news?” Susan asked, sitting down opposite him.
“We’ll see. It’s the preliminary forensic report from the LifeBeam tower.” He copied the file over to her and opened his original.
Susan tapped the door’s interface, and the cabin door contracted shut.
“Vehicle, take us to the New Frontier Police Precinct,” Isaac ordered, not looking up from the report.
“Destination set. Departing.” The car pulled out of the syndicate parking lot and headed for the nearest up-ramp.
“Looks like the forensics team found unexplained code fragments in the transceiver’s fault state,” Isaac summarized. “The mystery fragments were flagged for deletion but not yet deleted.”
“Could be a virus cleaning up after itself but not yet finished when the system faulted,” Cephalie suggested. “That’s my read on it, anyway. On their own, these fragments don’t tell much of a story.”
“But the forensics team concludes they’re not from a LifeBeam program,” Isaac said. “Or, at least, not one written to their exacting standards. Says here they ran a comparison between the fragments and LifeBeam’s internal coding standards, which the company provided to them for reference.”
“That lack of correlation strongly implies these fragments were from a virus,” Cephalie noted.
“It does indeed.” Isaac looked up at the other two. “I think we can now confidently say this was a homicide and not an accident, and that an attack virus was the murder weapon.”
“The question remains who released the virus and why,” Susan said. “We haven’t stumbled across anything resembling a motive, and the forensics team doesn’t know where the virus came from.”
“Not yet,” Isaac corrected. “This report is just an update. They make it clear they plan to widen their search to the tower’s main infostructure in an attempt to identify the infection vector.”
“I’m a little doubtful they’ll be able to locate the vector, though,” Cephalie cautioned. “From what they’ve found, this was a very sophisticated virus. Look at what it did in the transceivers; it almost cleaned itself out when the fault state was recorded. I think we got lucky the forensics team found anything at all.”
“Then we may never find out how the virus infected the tower?” Susan asked.
“We’ll just have to wait and see,” Isaac replied. “Maybe their final report will flag a vector. Maybe it won’t.”
“And in the meantime?” Susan asked.
“In the meantime”—he smiled at her—“I think we’re due for our little chat with Skylark.”