Inescapable (10 page)

‘I’d appreciate
it,’ Eaves said when no one else answered immediately.

‘And it gives
me a full list of work items to deal with,’ Jarvis added.

‘You believe
NIX is involved?’ Jackson asked.

Fox gave a
small shrug. ‘It’s a supposition, but it’s likely. We have an
assault team of humans and cyberframes, all of them with high-end
camouflage systems. They know the best way into the bunker, which
is not common knowledge. They’ve the resources to determine that
the vulnerabilities in security have not been sealed up there. They
break in and they have the tech to plant a virus in the main
network administration console which is designed to infiltrate the
MarTech network. There’s no immediate gain, but it gives them
access to pretty much everything that moves over the company
network if it’s not discovered. It smells of intelligence agency
not industrial espionage.’

Jackson nodded.
‘They’re still after Yliaster.’ His brow furrowed briefly. ‘Teresa
mentioned something about Kit being of assistance?’

‘Yeah, she was
hoping Kit’s synchronisation routines might help with Yliaster’s
communications. Kit ran diagnostics for her and sent them
yesterday. Today Kit’s transmitting a complete copy of herself over
to Jenner to help out with it. Terri sent a message saying it was
looking very interesting.’

‘Let’s hope
she’s right. The sooner we get this all resolved and into
production, the sooner NIX will stop trying to steal a march on
everyone else.’

‘But won’t they
just use the technology anyway?’

‘Perhaps. With
the project in full production, we should have a mechanism for
disabling it, which will make me feel safer. We can eliminate
potential problems if we know they’re there. But I’m actually less
worried about them using it than I am of them using an unfinished
version of it. Yliaster’s technology may be dangerous, but a buggy,
uncontrolled version of it released onto the internet could be
disastrous
!’

Jenner Research
Station.

Kit blinked her large,
green eyes and looked around the laboratory she had materialised
in. Of course, she was not physically there, in the sense of having
her kitsune body in the room, but she was executing on a server
which had been set up in one corner, and she could see through the
room’s cameras and display herself through the implants of the
room’s occupants. She was there, back on the Moon, having been
transmitted as a data package over radio. It had taken a while
since they had had to transmit her executable
and
the
required memory data. At least going back would be easier.

‘Thank you for
providing me with such an excellent processor to execute on, Miss
Martins,’ she said to the grinning Terri.

‘Thank you for
making the trip,’ Terri replied. ‘We went over the diagnostics and
there were a couple of oddities. Shell and I want to go over your
binaries along with the diagnostics, and have you run analysis on
your memory structures while we’re doing it.’

‘Of course.
I’ll be happy to.’

‘We’ll get
started right away. How’s Fox?’

‘Busy and a
little tired. I believe she’s hoping to go out with Sam on Friday
night and drink a great deal.’ There was a little pause and Kit’s
brow furrowed. ‘She did not sleep exceptionally well in the bunker
in East Africa.’

Terri’s grin
faded a little. ‘No. I don’t sleep that well in those bunkers
either. She’ll be fine. She’s plenty tough and she’s got your other
copies to keep an eye on her.’

‘Yes, she does.
How should we proceed?’

New York Metro.

Sam emerged from his
apartment as Fox walked up the corridor from the elevator. He was
dressed in black slacks, a black silk shirt open at the collar, and
his feet were bare. The man was sex on legs at any hour of the
day.

‘Jackson is
happy with you looking into my little problem?’ Sam asked as he
fell into step beside her on the way to her door.

‘Jackson is
quite happy and says you get the employee discount.’

‘I’m not an
employee of–’

‘You’ve
contracted, during which time you helped save the life of his
daughter. Shut up and accept the discount.’

Sam was not
stupid enough to argue it further. ‘Okay, but something’s come up
which…’ Trailing off, he lifted a memory stick, waving it absently.
‘This came this morning by courier. Automated delivery, no
indication of the sender. I did all the routine checks and then
looked at the contents. It seems to be some video footage taken
from street cameras.’

Frowning, Fox
unlocked her door and waved him in. Then she held out her hand for
the stick. ‘Let’s see what we’ve got.’ Kit was already appearing
beside her server at the back of the room and looked interested as
Fox plugged the stick into a free port. ‘Kit, run the full scan on
that and then get us the data for display on the window.’

‘Of course,
Fox,’ Kit replied. By the time the kitsune had walked across the
floor to the windows, the glass had gone dark and a number of video
feeds had begun displaying. ‘There are no code elements on the
stick. None of the video files contain any suspicious data. We seem
to be looking at the feeds from four cameras at two different time
intervals. March first between seventeen hundred and eighteen
hundred, and March twenty-seventh between eighteen forty-five and
nineteen thirty.’

‘It’s the area
around Felix’s house,’ Sam said. ‘He was killed on March
first.’

‘And the house
was broken into on the twenty-seventh,’ Fox added, looking across
the various feeds. She chewed on her lip for a second. ‘Kit, scan
every figure you can see in the scenes and match all of them to see
what you get in the way of repeats. If you can find faces, see if
you can get names.’ The videos vanished from the window and the
glass cleared as Kit set to work.

‘She can just
do that?’ Sam asked.

‘Faster than we
can. She’s got this quantum processor she can run bulk data
analysis jobs on. I’ve had it explained to me, but “quantum” was
mentioned and my brain decided it was best to just consider it
magic.’

Sam nodded.
‘Seems fair. You’re expecting to see the same person there during
both time intervals?’

‘Someone sends
you camera feeds for two specific time intervals. The first thing
I’ll look for is people who are in both. After that… well, we’ll
see.’

‘Okay, so the
next question is who sent the stick and why?’

‘Huh. Kit, the
metadata?’

‘Thought and
memory,’ Kit replied.

‘Uh-huh. We
don’t know who this guy is, for sure, but he likes helping. He sent
the data that let us find Terri. Always tags the files the same
way. Thought and memory.’

‘And he just
decided to send me data which might help figure out what happened
to Felix?’

‘Looks like
it.’ Fox looked up as the window darkened again and a trio of
images appeared. ‘Kind of cute. Do you know her?’

‘That’s Marie,
the maid. I don’t think she’s responsible.’

‘Probably not,
but I’ll check her out anyway.’ More images began to appear, these
ones of men, but their faces were never clearly seen. ‘You’re
matching those from body form?’

‘Yes,’ Kit
replied. ‘The algorithm is outputting ninety per cent matches. I am
quite sure that these are people appearing in both time
periods.’

Fox peered at
the images for a few seconds. Both of the men were wearing hats in
every still, but their faces were still far less visible than might
be expected. ‘They’re wearing masks. Subtle ones. Designed to
obscure the face but make it
look
like it’s just shadow.
You’d need to analyse the footage pretty carefully to see that
unless you were specifically looking for it.’

‘The
implication is that the person responsible for Felix’s death broke
into the house,’ Sam said, his voice flat.

‘I’d say that
was… reasonably likely.’

‘Then I’d like
to hire you to see if you can find Felix’s killer.’

‘That’s going
to step on some toes…’

‘I know, but it
looks like the cases are linked. It gives you a reason to look at
both and I wasn’t exactly happy with the investigation into Felix’s
murder. Will you do it?’

Fox sniffed,
thinking about how annoyed Brownlow and, probably, Canard would be.
‘Kit, send a request through Palladium to NAPA to get the case file
for Felix Kenan’s homicide sent through. They’ll delay it, but if
the case has been closed down, they shouldn’t have a problem with
Palladium picking up the investigation given that we’re contracted
to secure your house, Sam. Kit, tell them we need the information
for analysis of the method used to gain entry. That should confuse
them.’

‘Thanks, Fox,’
Sam said.

‘You can buy me
a drink tomorrow. You can buy me
several
drinks
tomorrow.’

‘That I can
do.’

2
^nd
April.

‘Brownlow was bitching
about it for three days,’ Helen Dillan stated, grinning brightly.
‘You coming out of nowhere and messing up his “righteous
arrest.”’

Fox rolled her
eyes. ‘He was fucking about because he thought Sam was gay.’ The
trio were standing amid the neon and glitz of 27Lex, propping up
the end of the main bar.

‘He’s pond
scum.’ The blonde detective flashed her grin at Sam. ‘Actually,
that comparison is insulting to pond scum.’

‘I gathered he
was not the most tolerant of men,’ Sam said, smiling. ‘I won’t say
“you get used to it,” because you don’t, but you learn to live with
it. When they have some sliver of power on top of their prejudice,
it’s usually best not to argue. Those with little power are most
prone to the abuse of it.’

‘Well,’ Fox
said, ‘I could have let him take you in, and then you’d have
probably been the final straw. He’d be out and the world would be a
slightly better place, but I didn’t feel like sacrificing several
hours of your life to that fuckwit.’

‘And it might
not have worked,’ Dillan said, her expression shifting to a scowl.
‘Brownlow’s been sucking up to Canard
a lot
recently. It’s
not like he’s just a prick around gays, but he’s got a nice, solid
Madonna-whore thing going too.’

‘I’m fairly
sure he kicks puppies and drowns kittens,’ Fox said. ‘Canard can’t
protect him for long. He
won’t
protect him unless he thinks
he can bury the problem entirely.’

Sam nodded.
‘That kind of attitude is, thankfully, not common and viewed as
“incorrect,” in the metro regions at least.’

‘You sound like
you don’t think it’s wrong,’ Dillan said.

He shrugged.
‘I’m bisexual, more so than the majority, and I’m pleased that the
majority currently feels it should not persecute me for that
behaviour. I think it’s hypocritical to persecute others for
holding the opinion that what I do is wrong. If they act on that
opinion, then that’s a different matter. Detective Brownlow can
think what he likes so long as he doesn’t let it affect his
work.’

Dillan giggled.
‘That’s very big of you, and this got very serious.’

‘Sam’s a very
big man,’ Fox stated, which made Dillan giggle louder.

‘I think the
subliminals are getting to me. I’ve got this image of a naked Sam
in my head that won’t shift.’

‘That’s not the
subliminals; that’s just Sam.’

‘I can believe
that.’

Fox leaned over
and placed a hand lightly on Dillan’s arm, feigning a
conspiratorial need for secrecy. ‘Believe me, whatever you’re
imagining, it’s not as good as the real thing.’

Sam turned and
signalled to the barman. It was not common to see his cheeks
colouring, but there was a hint of red in them now. ‘I think we
need more drinks and I did offer to buy.’

Maybe because
she was looking a little flushed too, Dillan accepted the change of
subject. ‘What’s the occasion? Just Fox’s return to a civilisation
with atmosphere?’

‘She’s doing a
little work for me. Or Palladium is, technically, but Fox
is
their investigative division as it stands.’

‘You’re a PI?’
Dillan asked, looking at Fox.

‘When the job
calls for it. And long may it continue to need it. They gave me
this C-suite title, but so long as I don’t have anyone to manage, I
don’t have to spend my life behind a desk.’

‘The way things
are trending, you might have made the right move.’

‘
You’ve
heard rumours about this private policing vote?’

‘Canard’s been
pressing for more vote delegations. He says change is coming, NAPA
might be heavily downsized in favour of commercial policing
agencies, and of course he’s saying that he knows how things are
looking and he can make sure those who delegate to him move into
the new regime.’

Fox rolled her
eyes. ‘Politics.’

‘Politics, or
some subdivision of the subject, has been a governing force in
human relations since people gathered around campfires and
considered the division of food,’ Sam stated as he handed out
drinks. ‘The nature of politics has shifted over the millennia.
It’s become less personal in meaning, but it
is
still
important. Ignore it at your peril, CIO Tara Meridian.’

He got a glower
for that. ‘I get a briefing document from the MarTech analysts
every week, update bulletins where required. Wayden is pushing for
the privatisation bill to go through, and Canard was trying his
best to get in bed with them. Several administrative figureheads
are leaning in the same direction.’

‘Okay,’ Dillan
said, ‘so what’s MarTech’s position on it? I mean, they have
Palladium now so they could compete against Wayden.’

‘Currently,
MarTech believes that a public security force is better for the
public than moving to a private solution. The analysts think that,
even if the vote goes the other way, which looks likely at the
moment, a stance indicating that it’s a bad idea is likely to make
Palladium look more public-spirited than Wayden. And this shit is
why I don’t do politics.’