Erebus (16 page)

Frampton gestured at the screen again and a video image played. The man could be seen going to the security checkpoint. He placed his belongings into a little tray that went through a scanner and walked through the archway. At the moment he entered it, Frampton paused the clip and a data set of numbers appeared on the screen.

“Now this is the raw information from the security scanner. It shows fairly standard implants—HUD, a cortical stack, medical regulation, link—all the usual stuff. Now look at the weight.”

“Shit, he must really have been eating some pies,” I said. His weight came in at ninety-eight kilos.

“Quite,” Vance said. “That is Xander Frain. Two weeks ago he went for a medical checkup and his weight was seventy-seven kilos.”

I gave a low whistle. “That’s quite a gain.”

“Yes, it most certainly is. How much does Cheng weigh, do you think?”

I looked at Cheng, who responded with a bemused look. “Seventy or so?”

“A good guess. That’s what I would say, too, if I didn’t know what I know. And how much do you weigh?”

“Ninety,” Cheng said with a wry grin. Light had dawned for him.

“And why is that?” Vance asked.

“Because I have enhanced combat augmentations, subdermal armor plating, servo-assisted muscles and joints. I also have a set of electronic warfare packages and some weapon systems I’m not going to discuss,” Cheng said.

I contemplated that thought. I go to the gym a fair bit, and hoisting a twenty-kilo dumbbell was quite a chunk of weight. Cheng and Frain had the equivalent of one of them integrated into their bodies.

“So our friend here, Xander Frain,” I said, gesturing at the image of the dark-haired man on the screen, “is combat enhanced?”

“
Frain
isn’t, but whoever that is, is,” Frampton called from his desk.

“You’ve lost me.”

“Frain is a contract AI consultant living in New York,” Vance said, taking over from Frampton. “He had bagged himself a six-month posting here at Arcas City working for Aerodyne. His story checks out. Based on this information, I requested our NYPD contacts search his apartment with a nano-level authorization.”

“Don’t keep us in suspense here,” I said.

“His bathtub was full of organic residue,” Vance said.

“So is mine,” I said. Not that I had any particularly gross habits, I just assumed my DNA filled the damn thing.

“Yes, but not that shows someone put you in the bath, filled it with water, and introduced nano-disassemblers that, once they’d done their job, shut themselves down. Someone quite literally pulled the plug on Frain,” Vance said.

I gave a slight look of distaste. That sounded pretty gruesome. They had liquidated the poor guy.

“That technology, as highly illegal as it is, is not completely unknown in wet work to dispose of bodies,” Vance finished.

“Nice.” I’d heard rumors of such technology but never heard of it actually being used. It suggested an advanced capability. “Besides his weight, didn’t the elevator security checks pick up anything?”

“They wouldn’t necessarily with me,” Cheng said. “As it happens, I declared my enhancements—or most of them, anyway—to customs. I can operate in stealth mode, though. It would defeat most standard scans. If he had a similar capability, he could breeze past. Quite literally, the only thing that would give him away would be his weight. That’s impossible to mask.”

“That seems pretty damn lax to me. Surely an AI could be programmed to make a guestimate of weight from someone’s size and then flag up any discrepancies if it falls out of acceptable boundaries?”

“Oh, they do, but they’re not great. Modern covert augmentations are designed to fall just inside the standard customs weight tolerances. After all, different people could weigh different amounts based on their size. An exceptionally muscular person who is nevertheless slight of build could weigh more than a chubby person who is fat.”

“Okay, makes sense,” I said before moving on. “Is there any apartment CCTV or holo at Frain’s place?”

Vance called back to Frampton over her shoulder. “Dexter?”

Frampton made a few gestures, and a CCTV clip from the apartment lobby appeared on the large wall screen. “Watch.”

A palatial lobby appeared. It was a long rectangular room full of plants and modern art but no people. I saw the outer doors slide open. No one came through. Moments later, one of the elevator doors opened up and then closed.

“Sensor ghosting is a fairly mature technology,” Cheng said. “If he has a decent e-warfare package, he could literally overwrite the recording as he moved. He wouldn’t even have to think about it; he could just let his package do the work.”

“Spooky.” The effect was like a poltergeist walking through the lobby. Doors opening without anyone actually opening them

“That it is,” Vance said with a smile.

“Okay, if that isn’t Frain,” I asked the obvious question, pointing back at the image of the man from the elevator on screen, “who the hell is he?”

“That’s the million-dollar question. Shall we go ask him?” Vance said.

“I think we should,” I nodded. “While we’re at it, maybe he can shed some light on the Eston Mons facility. It’s likely the target of this attack.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Vance agreed. “He’s on Concorde right now on Drayton’s list, awaiting interview.”

“Now that is a coincidence,” Cheng said, the faintest hint of menace escaping through his normally cheery facade. “I think we need to stop those two getting together. They may have a bit of a falling out.”

“Hey, Giselle. I hope things are going well with the Sahelia job. We’re picking our way through a few dozen leads at the moment. Maybe at some point in the next hundred years or so, we will see some light at the end of the tunnel.” I finished recording and fired off the message to Earth. It was an amateurish tactic, but maybe Drayton, or whoever was monitoring our coms, would think we had nothing and not be too worried.

Sihota smoothly brought the Icarus into the landing dock of Concorde, and we disembarked. Cheng had Smith in a viselike grip, which I suspected was firmer than a pair of handcuffs. We had taken him back to the brightly lit campus and put him in a holding cell. Now we stood in the middle of the quad and looked at each other.

“We need to decide how we’re going to play this,” I said, squinting from the bright lights of the false sun strip above us. “Both at once or one then the other?”

“I would suggest Frain first. We know where Drayton is. Frain is out of our control at the moment,” Vance replied.

I watched as a flock of birds took off in a dark, chirping cloud from the top of one of the buildings. They were so at home here. They didn’t care they were flying around in a big spinning metal doughnut.

“He could be a handful. I certainly would be,” Cheng said as a statement of fact more than a boast.

I looked at the slightly built man. It hadn’t really occurred to me just how dangerous he was. He could probably take on an entire squad and barely break a sweat. “We better get some help then,” I said.

***

The temporary buildings that had been set up for the contingent of people offloaded from
Magellan
were basic but comfortable. The low structures were divided into small rooms, each with their own en suite. They were a far cry from some of the horrendous temporary accommodations I’d stayed in over the years, that was for sure.

“To be clear, we are going for shock and awe here. Alpha Team under me will be the arrest team. Bravo will be support. They will pursue and engage if he gets through us,” Cheng said, briefing the team of twenty heavily armed JAS officers. They wore near-military-grade, dark-blue armor, all hard shell, and they had twin-mode carbines capable of putting an elephant down. All of us had a map of the building block where Frain was projected in our HUDs, marked with our positions. “Frain will be called for his turn to be questioned, and at the moment he leaves the billet, we surround him and arrest him on suspicion of multiple murders. Ladies and gentlemen, I can’t emphasize enough how dangerous this subject is. If he chooses to fight, then don’t think twice about opening up—no demands, no callouts, just put him down. Incaps first. If they don’t work, go to kill shots. I want everyone back and safe, am I clear?”

The JAS agents looked at each other uncomfortably. Beyond training, they probably had never had cause to even look at the kit they were wearing, and now they were being called on to use it against someone who was probably a one-man army.

Cheng was going to take tactical lead with me sticking to his hip. I had donned my scout armor. I hadn’t even had time to sort out the bullet mark on the chest plate from Sahelia, or that’s what I’d told myself. Part of me felt that the scar on the breast plate was like a medal of honor in memory of Dev.

I couldn’t see Frain getting around us all, but then, I’d never had cause to take on someone who was as enhanced as we suspected Frain was. We had dug through his past as much as we could and got nothing. The only thing we had to go on was to assume that he had similar capabilities to Cheng, which, he assured us modestly, would make him one tough customer.

My attention snapped back as Cheng finished his briefing. “Any questions?” he asked. The JAS officers shook their heads. Some shifted nervously. “Very well. Load up.”

We spent the afternoon driving unmarked civilian cars full of JAS officers, one at a time, onto the parking lot next to the billet. Hopefully, it wouldn’t spook Frain if he saw an electric vehicle arrive every hour or so, but that made an uncomfortably long wait for the first unit, which had to sit for four hours behind tinted windows.

Finally, everyone was ready, and we all listened in as Vance linked to the billet. “Hello, Mr. Frain? It’s your turn next. If you would go to the parking lot, someone will pick you up and bring you over to the investigation building.”

The deep voice on the other end agreed. I looked at the three other JAS officers in the car with me. They all looked nervous. Latana McDonagh, who I was seated next to, turned out to be a ten-year veteran of the force. The only problem being that the most she’d had to deal with in her career were a few low-level assaults.

“You good, McDonagh?” I asked.

She swallowed and gave a nod. It was sometimes easy to forget that ninety percent of people in the solar system hadn’t even seen a fight, let alone had to face a cybernetically enhanced killing machine. “The door is opening,” she croaked.

For the first time, I saw Xander Frain in the flesh. He didn’t exactly cut an intimidating figure, dressed in a simple black tee shirt and blue denim jeans. Not for the first time when dealing with suspects who had done some bad things, I surprised myself with the utter lack of emotion I felt toward him. It was like I couldn’t associate them with the crime they had committed. Should I feel rage at Frain for the death of Dev and hundreds of innocent people? Fear of what his enhancements were capable of? Joy at him being apprehended? I felt none of these emotions other than a sense of weariness and the hope that we didn’t screw up.

He crossed the lot toward Cheng’s car. Cheng stood outside of it, waving casually. Once Frain reached the middle of all the JAS vehicles, Cheng’s voice came over the link. “Go.”

I could feel the adrenaline surging through my system. My HUD sensed I was going into fight-or-flight mode, and tactical options sprang up unobtrusively onto the display. If I wasn’t so focused, I would have been bemused by the big blinking
Call Emergency Services?
icon appearing in my vision. I should’ve switched the distress mode off.

Twenty officers and I rushed out of the cars, all pointing carbines at Frain. I closed on Frain’s position, my weapon aiming straight for his center of mass. I saw Cheng walk into the center of the circle created by the officers and me. There was a pregnant pause as Frain did a full three-sixty. He looked utterly calm, calculating, even. I could see him weighing the odds. He turned back to Cheng, staring at him for one tense moment. A facsimile of a disarming smile spread slowly across his face. He held his hands out in front of him, palms together. Apparently, he knew the drill.

In one smooth move, Cheng slid a pair of handcuffs onto his wrists.

“Subject secure,” I said over the link.

“Confirmed, secure,” Vance responded.

Together, Cheng with a firm grip on Frain, we walked back to the waiting car.

***

The cell we put Frain in was as secure a one as we could find, helped by a couple of officers covering him with weapons at all times. We walked back into the office, giving each other a verbal pat on the back, and found Vance, Drayton, and Frampton seated in there.

Drayton looked over at us and smiled. “Well done. I was expecting more of a fight from him.”

We all looked at each other. It was Vance who finally said, “So, Sonia, when were you going to tell us about the Eston Mons base?”

“What?” she said, the smile frozen on her face. Without changing in the slightest, it had gone from genuine to forced. “What base?”

“Red Star had a secret facility on Io,” Vance said, enunciating every syllable. “When were you going to tell us?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The smile was finally slipping from her face as she looked from one of us to the other.

I crossed the cluttered room full of interfaces. I stopped in front of Drayton and looked at her closely, trying to divine whether she was telling the truth or not. “We have a survivor from the Eston Mons facility. He’s cooperating, and so will you,” I said.

To her credit, Drayton knew how it worked. She wasn’t going to beg. She nodded at me. “To the cells?”

“To the cells.”

They were getting pretty full now.

“We’ve found her,” Frampton called out as he entered the office, a wide grin on his face. “Two light-days out. That puts her well beyond the heliopause.”

“You found who and what?” I asked. I was a touch distracted, watching Cheng and Vance question Drayton.

“
Magellan
. I asked a friend to do a full trawl on the deep space arrays’ sensor data.” He was practically dribbling with excitement. “Four days after the Io incident, an anomalous emission of exotic particles was picked up. That’s the signature of an A-drive bubble collapsing. It just got uploaded to the array systems cache for later review. They probably thought it was a malfunctioning gateship. My buddy at Cheyenne dug it out.
Magellan
is out there and intact!”