Molehunt (2 page)

‘No bonus for you, Luton,' Maximus said to his body. ‘To get a bonus for killing me, you actually have to kill me.'

Only then did he punch the key to fetch his cloaked ship. By the time it reached him his boots were starting to smoke.

Maximus kept a low profile for the next few months. Dead agents caused investigations, and even Sentinels had become involved in this one. A needle had been found in the smear of Luton's acid-ravaged flesh, and foul play was suspected. How stupid.
All
play was foul. The jockeying for power among the Great Players, the Clans, the Companies, and the secretive and bureaucratic RIM – everything was ruthless and brutal. Even when regulated by the
Septum Misora
, the ‘rules of engagement' that were mercilessly enforced by the mysterious Sentinels, galactic politics subverted the regulations at every opportunity. And where it could not subvert, it bent, twisted and eroded.

Subtle Machiavellian gamesmanship was admired and rewarded. Markets and mercantilism were equated with warfare, and trade was conducted with military precision and ruthlessness.

Six months to the day after he had fired milliseconds faster than Luton on Zetalon Six, Maximus was in the main mess hall of RIM headquarters on Lykis Integer. He was finishing dinner and was about to head off to his meeting with Dr Rodik when he paused at the great-view window. Beyond was the sprawling honeycomb metropolis that covered most of the planetoid. An orbital tube-ocean split the sky, pale blue in the sunlight. RIM was the centre of a vast web of power and information. Indeed, he felt like a dark spider at the centre of its web, sensing each tingle from a far off sector of the galaxy, weighing its implications in the great chess game in which he was just a pawn. A pawn that wanted to be king.

As his gaze moved up to the great splash of stars, the edge-on view of the spiral galaxy, he marvelled he had come so far so fast. He was the youngest recruit ever in RIM to have aced all the tests and training. The only blemish on his assessment record was his psych evaluation.

Doctor Rodik had called him that morning to tell him he couldn't recommend Maximus for advanced training just yet. Maximus had almost stopped breathing. He wasn't the most popular person in class, but he always finished dux. Now a dumpy little psychologist with a carefully developed tone of sincerity was telling him he might be held back.

No way. That wasn't going to happen. Horrible things happened to people who gave Maximus an excuse – any excuse – to defend himself.

He arrived for his meeting with the psychologist precisely one minute early. He stepped into the room looking and feeling relaxed, eyed himself in the wall-length mirror opposite, and took the seat Rodik offered him. Maximus looked innocent: slim, medium height, with dark close-cropped hair and a long sharp nose that gave him a faintly fox-like expression. His cool grey eyes were constantly moving, observant and full of curiosity. His eyes belied his youthfulness. They were old eyes, but Rodik had never learned to watch for people with old eyes. Rodik did not realise it could be a survival skill.

Maximus remained relaxed and listened politely as Rodik explained that he had a borderline sociopathic personality. While the doctor felt that Maximus would work in the best interests of RIM, he wanted to be sure. There was a possibility that something might nudge Maximus over the edge, and that would not be in the interest of RIM.

Psychobabble for ‘I want to hold you down because I don't like people with too much talent'
, Maximus thought.

Maximus played his part well. He smiled bravely, showing just a trace of disappointment. The doctor was attacking him, after all. And attack meant that Maximus was allowed to defend himself.

‘Sorry it has to be like this,' Dr Rodik said as they stood up at the end of the meeting.

‘Me, too,' said Maximus, shaking the doctor's hand.

The doctor collapsed. The
metsine
on Maximus's hand was a very fast-acting poison. Were it not for the artificial skin on his own hand, Maximus would have been dead before he walked into the room. The doctor's eyes were still open. They looked puzzled.

Maximus spared him a glance, then sat down at his computer.

‘Now what did you say about me, Doctor? Your jealousy disguised as concern? I get a lot of that sort of thing.'

Maximus found his record on the doctor's computer, located his evaluation and changed it to slightly above average. No need to be pretentious. He then searched for the raw data from which the doctor had compiled his evaluation. He discovered that his responses had been too careful, that he had overcompensated. Maximus guessed that he had sociopathic tendencies and had done a good job of disguising them, but the doctor's sophisticated profiling had sought out such responses.

It was not jealousy! The doctor was just an honest man, and very good at his work.

‘I owe you an apology, Doctor. Still, you are not the first man I have killed in error.'

Maximus went through the data from his tests and muted the results, drawing them in line with his new evaluation. He then altered the result modification dates so there was no link between his record and the doctor's unfortunate death. He checked that the doctor hadn't updated the main medical records held on the RIM's rod logic data storage super computer. He hadn't. Being a good and virtuous man he had waited to speak to the patient first and hear his side. Maximus had guessed as much, but for the wrong reasons. Now he updated the RIM database.

The moment his own evaluation was uploaded to the mainframe, Maximus knew he had to obliterate the doctor's own records. He connected to an obscure erotic net site he had infected with a virus just an hour earlier. He downloaded a RealLife wireframe image file, knowing the virus would insinuate itself into the download. Within minutes the virus would trash the doctor's hard drive and turn his medical records into data noise. ‘And a sex site?' Maximus chastised. ‘Tut-tut, Doctor. So much for your impeccable reputation. '

Maximus stood up. ‘Well, that's that, Doctor Rodik. I'm afraid it's time for you to explore whatever lies beyond death.'

Fear appeared in the doctor's eyes. Fear and something else. Disgust? Maximus understood.

‘Really, Doctor Rodik, you think you did your job, profiling me as a sociopath, but you were wrong. Without people like me, RIM could not function. Perhaps this is an unofficial test. Fooling Your Psychologist 101. I failed, but Killing Your Psychologist 201 makes up for that.'

The doctor's death had to look innocent. He was already dead, in the sense that the poison was irreversible, so Maximus no longer felt guilt. He felt relief that he had managed to kill the doctor through an innocent mistake.

He pulled out an eyedropper and squeezed one drop into each of the doctor's glazed eyes.

‘In about three minutes,' he explained, ‘you're going to have a massive cardiac arrest. The chemical in your eyes will spread through your body and break down the other poison into harmless amino acids. My conscience tells me that I should save you, but there is no known antidote for
metsine
poisoning. My mistake, my apologies.'

He looked around. He had been in this office several times in the past week, taking tests, having chats. The room no doubt contained his fingerprints as well as genetic traces of his hair and skin. But that would be expected. It would also contain traces of half the agents at HQ.

Maximus moved to the door and turned. The doctor's body was paralysed – odd how his eyes were still ‘alive'. Maximus expected to see pleading there, but it was clear that the doctor despised him. In a way the doctor had won the encounter, but Maximus had dodged the bullet.

He activated the automatic locking mechanism, stepped out into the corridor, and gently shut the door behind him, hearing the digitalised lock click into place. Whistling jauntily, he headed down the corridor. He was always most cheerful when he triumphed by accident. Well, as much as premeditated murder could be classified as ‘accidental'.

Back in his office Maximus had barely sat down when he received a priority signal from the field.

He noted that the signal had been routed to him. He was logged in at that moment and it was his task to support ‘active' agents. But priority signals were not common.

Maximus activated the holoscreen. It remained blank. He shrugged. That was normal field agent behaviour. Agents were paranoid by nature and did not want their features transmitted digitally. Even to Home Office.

Following standard HQ protocol he identified himself by code only when he answered. The AI computer had already sent back a password, identifying itself so the agent could communicate in confidence.

Once Maximus was cleared, he said, ‘Start message.'

He had expected a voice message from the field agent but instead he received a pre-recorded transmission on his holoscreen, in large pulsing letters. He stared at the letters for a long time, feeling a cold chill course down his spine.

‘PRIORITY. REASON TO BELIEVE RIM HQ PENETRATED BY MOLE. IDENTITY OF MOLE SO FAR UNKNOWN. NEW EVIDENCE EXPECTED SHORTLY. SUGGEST HIGHEST SECURITY RESTRICTIONS BE PUT IN PLACE. CODE/-2435-12'.

The transmission ended.

Maximus entered his password and was transferred to the deciphering site. Within moments he had the agent's name, then he sat pondering. Somewhere out there in the galaxy a field agent called Anneke Longshadow suspected a mole had infiltrated the organisation. Him, or another?

He had disposed of Luton, and obliterated any evidence of his Quesadan activities. The least he could do! Maximus did so much without RIM's authority that he was hard put to think what she might have on him. He had vaguely heard of her. Genetic citizen of Normansk, heavy G world, from extended human stock. Exemplary RIM rating.

Even now she was trying to gather evidence that would identify him, that would destroy him. Again, there was a vague possibility there was someone else in HQ guiltier than himself, but how many moles with his level of expertise could there be in RIM? Maximus was sure there was only one. Now.

Maximus. Dedicated Special Agent. Dedicated to the other side. His side. If RIM was not on his side, there was going to be trouble.

It had to be Luton. It made sense. If one is at risk of being outed, why not leave a few revenge-bombs in the system? Maximus had had dealings with several dubious companies. Luton undoubtedly mentioned his suspicions to Anneke Longshadow – who like any good nosy agent, went looking for proof. He, Maximus, had been set up by Luton, but the set-up would not be as spectacularly successful as Maximus's.

Well, damn her to hell. Where she could join Luton. She was a legitimate threat to Maximus, and therefore she was a valid target. There always had to be a reason. Maximus was an otherwise perfect psychopath. That was his single flaw.

Maximus took a deep breath and sat back in his chair, clearing his mind. He needed to think this through carefully. Every move he made at this point was critical. Timing was especially critical.

Several moments passed before he leaned forward and ran an ID diagnostic on the transmission. A message of this importance could turn RIM HQ into a hotbed of paranoia and accusations. It had to be handled carefully. Whatever he did, it needed to look normal. He must do things expected of an agent of his youth when faced with this kind of message.

So far so good. He allowed for what would later be seen as a moment of shock. Very good. He might be reprimanded for it, but even that would appear normal. A slap on the wrist. No more.

Maximus smiled. He wasn't a cold, calculating sociopath for nothing.

While one part of his brain processed the implications of this new turn of events, he called up the relevant high security protocol on his optic implant. The latter was linked by a limited
n-space
transceiver to an external computer, augmented by a flake of artificial neurons hidden deep in his neocortex.

There it was: a checklist of things to do, people and machines to contact.