Digital Divide (Rachel Peng) (12 page)

“I have a team?”

“And a pay raise. Congratulations, you’re Administration. Find Agents with law enforcement backgrounds and skills which complement police procedure to balance out the MPD side of the task force. And…”
he hesitated, then said:
“...try to get Agents who haven’t been placed anywhere yet. Mare will tear my head off if I mess up her schedules.”

Rachel agreed across the link. Mare Murphy was a frail Irish waif who barely came up to Mulcahy’s chest. She had anxiety disorder and a glorious spill of red hair down past her waist, and was absolutely terrifying. They had all learned early on to never anger an organizational specialist, especially one augmented by a quantum organic computer.

Sturtevant ended the conference before the reporters had finished asking questions, so everyone behind the podium marched out of the coffee shop as a group, the MPD pounding the lead. Rachel was hurrying to catch up to Santino when she saw Edwards reach out from behind to grab her by the arm.

She stopped and turned to face him. “Yes?”

“Agent... I…” the judge paused, caught off-guard. Rachel didn’t know why since he had seen her pull that same stunt at least twice the previous night. “I’ve had some time to think. I just wanted you to know that you have my full support. I’ll be perfectly frank: I feel as though I’m being set up, too.”

Rachel snorted. She couldn’t help it. Edwards’ self-important posturing rubbed her the wrong way. That, and she couldn’t hear the phrase “perfectly frank” without thinking of really awesome hot dogs. “Thanks.”

His edges went red. “I mean it. If last night had ended badly, my future would have gone with it.”

Rachel said nothing, allowing Edwards enough time to realize that if last night had ended badly, she wouldn’t have had a future either, but he wouldn’t have been the one stuck inside an overpriced wooden box.

Edwards flushed red on multiple frequencies. “I didn’t…” he started.

“Yes, you did,” she said. Several reporters were following their exchange. “Thank you for your concern.”

His campaign manager was all but tugging his sleeve to get his attention but Edwards brushed her off. “Don’t quote me out of context,” he snapped at the reporters. He pulled Rachel away from the cameras and lowered his voice. “Peng, what happened here last night was actually good luck. If you hadn’t shown up, the tampered videos? Those would look like something I did to help my image.”

She nodded. “Yes, we already thought of that,” she replied, and then added a pinch of sarcasm: “Thank you again.”

“Listen,” he said, standing over her in a laughable attempt at menace. “A woman is dead, and I won’t be railroaded.” 

“I wanted to confirm our meeting next week,” Mulcahy said softly. Quiet as a wolf, he had circled back around Edwards and his campaign manager. Rachel had put a hand up to cover her smile as Mulcahy came in close to the judge’s ear and spoke. The nameless woman jumped and squeaked. To anyone else’s eyes but hers, Edwards maintained his composure, but his colors scattered like marbles from a broken bag. 

“What meeting is this?” the judge asked.

“The one you discussed with Agent Glassman. He let me know you were very concerned about how the public would react to the videos, and he proposed a meeting between our offices.”

“Ah… I decided it wasn’t necessary,” Edwards said. Beside him, his campaign manager was shaking her head frantically. A token gesture of support was one thing, but open collusion with the enemy was hard to downplay on the evening news.

“Really? I thought it was still on the table,” Mulcahy replied. “There must be a miscommunication somewhere. Should I call him and make sure?”

Mulcahy was bluffing. Rachel had felt for Josh in the link and knew he was nearby, but neither he nor the pretty barista were to be found. Everyone in OACET had learned to leave Josh be when he disappeared; Rachel had also learned to never scan the storage closets. 

“My turn,”
Mulcahy told her. He put a gentle hand on Edwards’ shoulder and steered him aside, waving away the reporters with the other. Mulcahy had made it clear to the press that they would get everything they wanted from him as long as they kept out of his way. The ones who hadn’t listened had already crashed and burned, their careers left to rot on that grand battlefield of the fourth estate as an example to their peers.

She shook her head slightly, gladly, and turned to catch up with her partner. 

“What was that about?” Santino asked.

“Oh, Edwards is playing the martyr card,” she said. “Did you check that chat log I sent you?”

“Yes,” he answered. “What did Charley mean? Be careful of what?”

She puffed out her cheeks in a loud sigh. “Honestly?” I think he’s trying to warn me about Edwards. He works with the judge, maybe he saw some papers lying around or something.”

“Seems strange,” Santino said, scrolling through the log again.  “That’s not much of a warning.”

“He’s a gossip. He can’t help it. They’re like locusts when it comes to tasty, tasty information. They don’t care about quality or coherency, they just gobble it up and poop it out.”

Santino was stunned by her imagery and told her so, and she gave him a small curtsey. 

“So, task force?” she prompted.

“Yeah. Who’s in charge of that fiasco?” he asked her.

“Oh dear lord, please tell me you know more than I do,” she groaned.

“I know we’ve started to canvas for the man from the gas station,” he said. “First MPD took the case from Sixth last night, and they’re trying to track him down. They’ve also gone with your suggestion to talk to the cameraman who filmed Hill during the original self-defense demonstration at First.

“Other than that…” he grinned at her, a tapestry of happiness and smug pink vindication. “All I know is I’m going to hug the snot out of you once we’re alone.”

Zockinski and Hill were waiting for them outside. Rachel couldn’t even begin to make sense of the eclectic prism of their moods so she flat-out gave up and adjusted the implant to exclude the emotional spectrum. 

“So,” she said, looking up at them, “why you?”

“How many other cops do you get along with?” Zockinski asked.

“Other?” she retorted.

“Folks?” Santino said. “Big picture time. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to have a career when all of this is over, and I’m pretty sure Hill doesn’t want to end up in jail.”

Hill, his arms crossed, nodded in agreement. Rachel had no idea why he had been appointed to the task force when he was one of the victims, but that was the MPD’s business, not hers. She imagined one of those scenes straight out of a movie, Hill banging his fists on his superior’s desk and shouting:
“Damn it, Lieutenant!”
until the rules shattered around him, but he had probably just called in a favor.

“I guess the first thing to do is to go out to OACET headquarters and pick the other two members of the team,” she said to Santino. The detectives’ eyes widened and she was glad she had turned off the emotional spectrum; she wasn’t sure what colors they were showing but she knew those wouldn’t have made her feel any better about the situation.  The analog for “lion’s den” probably dripped. 

“We’ll take care of that,” Santino said, seeing their expressions, and Rachel let Mulcahy know she was bringing her partner back to their home. 

“All right,” Zockinski replied. “We’ll talk to the cameraman, and then follow up with the guy who got assaulted here last week.” 

“Shame,” Hill said, looking back towards the coffee shop. The reporters had vanished with the elites, and all who were left in the store were the baristas returning the chairs to their usual locations. “You would think this was a safe place.”

“Yeah. There’s a pattern if you think about it,” Santino said. “Gas station, coffee shop, bank… What comes after bank? Hospital? School?”

“Nothing,” Zockinski replied. “Nothing comes after bank.”

He had a point. They had to stop this now. Not only had the scenes changed but the attacks had escalated. The gas station had been a dry run, followed by an actual assault, followed by a murder. Anything that happened after that would likely be in the realm of multiple homicides.

“Oh, hey,” Rachel said, pointing back at the coffee shop. “I never got the chance to examine the security system here.”

“We’ve got a copy of the tape,” Hill said. “And the system is recent, good quality.”

“You didn’t think to look at it last night?” Santino asked her.

She sighed. “Stuff came up.”

“Next time, check before you run into a burning building.”

“Hey, I’m a little out of practice with people who want to kill me because I’m me.”

“Really?” Zockinski didn’t realize the quip was out of his mouth before he heard himself say it. He grabbed Hill by the arm and stormed off.

She smirked. “Hey Zockie,” she called after him. “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship!” She watched the detective’s shoulders jerk back as he bit down on another quick response, and he kept on walking.

“Show the guy some mercy,” Santino said. 

“Aw, he’s old-school,” she said as she grinned at her partner. “You’ve got to chip away at his shell before you can get to his soft chewy center. Where are we parked?”

“Around back. You’re driving.”

Five minutes later, Rachel reclined in her passenger’s seat and let the rhythm of Santino’s complaining soothe her. She took her OACET badge from her purse and ran her thumb over its polished surface. The Agents had designed their seal in the vivid chartreuse of their digital projections, and the green eagle with wings displayed over a field of gold binary text was so garish it could be seen at a hundred paces. This was the first time she had looked at it since that day she had reported to the Metropolitan Police Department for duty, then shoved it to the bottom of the bag. It hadn’t gotten any less ugly with time.

She stuck it on her belt and hoped it would ride more comfortably once she had changed out of the skinny suit.

SEVEN

The drive to OACET headquarters was too pleasant. Santino’s compact hybrid wound its way under the trees crowning Canal Road, its driver perfecting his skills in the distinguished art of annoyance.

“You don’t often see mummies in the Palisades. Real honest-to-God Egyptian mummies,” he said, the Potomac River rolling past them on their left. “Look, that one’s all shambling around, with rags dragging in the dirt and everything.”

“Darned undead,” Rachel muttered, trying to nap. She had turned the implant off and was enjoying the dappled patchwork of hot summer sun after it had filtered down through leaves and windows and air conditioning.

“Did I ever tell you about the time I learned I was a cat with two heads? Best part? Eighteen lives.”

“I’m up, I’m up. For pity’s sake, don’t tell me their backstories.” She turned the implant on and gave herself a few seconds to orient with the highway and local landmarks, then stretched to pop her back.

“I have so much time to come up with them. While driving. Seriously, just once I’d like to be the one who gets in a nap.”

“Okay, fine, fun’s over,” Rachel said as she wagged a finger at him. “I can’t drive. So there.”

“What do you… oh. Oh.” He went yellow and then burnt orange as he put the pieces together; she had reactivated her full spectrum of senses. “Is it the color thing?”

It wasn’t the color thing, it was the blind thing, but the difference was close enough for her to ignore. “Yeah. It’s safer if I’m not the one behind the wheel. My vision isn’t normal.”

Santino glared blearily at the road. “You should have told me months ago. This has been bugging me.”

“And stifle your creativity? I’m your muse. Your lazy, chauffeured muse,” she said, yawning and settling back in the seat.

He imposed payback and forced her to suffer through two stories (a cat in the Industrial Revolution who had an undignified but well-paying job as portable toilet paper, and one who toured the world with Billie Jean King after some major modifications to his intestines) before they turned up the driveway to OACET’s temporary headquarters.  Rachel cracked the digital lock on the massive iron gate and waved out of her window to the sniper camped out on the roof.

“Hot enough for you, Kit?”

“Bite me,”
the former Special Forces operative snapped, and sent the sensation of August heat thundering at her through the link. Rachel was instantly drenched in sweat.

“Jeez,”
she said to Kit, reaching for the climate controls.
“Someone’s in a pissy mood.”

“Someone’s hot, bored, and tired of the same stupid question. Put your name in the rotation and come up here to do security once in a while, okay?” 

Rachel leaned over the vents and tried to pass the feeling of cool circulated air back across the link, but Kit clamped down on her end.

“Don’t. It screws with my physiology. Makes being up here twice as bad when my body realizes it’s been tricked.” 

“Okay then,”
Rachel replied testily, and broke their connection.