Molehunt (20 page)

Well, well, well. More players. The game is getting crowded
. The watchers in the van had to be Lotang's goons. Fraddo's intel had placed the mole at Lotang's base three days earlier. Name, Nathaniel Brown.

That in itself was interesting.

Quesada had to be at the heart of the
Majoris Corporata
and the mole was meeting their top man, Lob Lotang, CEO and Chairman of the cartel.

Curiouser and curiouser.

You dig into a molehill and you uncover a galactic conspiracy. Great. Just what every girl needs.

A short time later the mole stood up and left. If Fraddo's intel was correct, the mole was staying at the Cascade Hotel, a six-star place over on Hyministra.

Next question. Were any of these parties aware of her? Was this an elaborate set up? Had she been lured to this particular bar?

It was possible. There were ways to do it; recoil subsonics could be set up at intersections, keyed to the neural signature of the target, and hey presto! The target unknowingly turns left where you want them to turn left, right here, another left there. And then a reverse subsonic, an
invitor
field, and the target walks into the bar of your choice and sits down. It could be done, yet it was hellishly difficult to get such a perfectly detailed neural profile.

So, it was unlikely.

Anneke finished her meal, watched the couple leave, then she and Deema left.

That evening as Deema slept Anneke set to work on a subsonic neutraliser, wiring the nano-circuitry with a tiny set of micro-miniature waldoes she had brought in her kit. Perhaps she was being paranoid, but she wanted to make sure any decisions she made were her own.

Presently she looked up from the desk where she was working and watched the sleeping girl. Deema had cried out and raised a hand, as if warding off something.

Anneke shook her head, wondering whether she knew what she was doing.

The day before she had sent an anonymous enquiry to RIM Registrations with a copy of the girl's fingerprints, retinal scans and DNA profile. She had not expected to get a hit. The galaxy was a big place and a lot of worlds never bothered to register their populations. Some refused to, on principle. If Deema had been born in the Cygnus Sector, as seemed likely, there was little chance of learning her true identity or whether her parents were alive.

But Anneke had to try.

Until then, the girl was her responsibility. It was a scary thought, like suddenly having a little sister …

Anneke frowned and glanced over at Deema once more.
Maybe that was not so bad
, she thought. Maybe having a sister was like having a family.

Family.

She shook the word from her head. Some words were dangerous. They made her feel unbearably alone and tiny. She went back to her wiring. An hour later, after checking on Deema, she went to bed.

When she awoke the girl was gone. In her place was a note.

Go to Gizmo's
.

The Herqurl Sector of Reema's End was a notorious domain of black marketeers, thieves and other galactic dregs. All this on an asteroid-sized station that was itself the symbol of darkness and deviousness in the galaxy.

Anneke found Gizmo's without much trouble. Every street kid and beggar knew of it, though they spoke of it nervously.

It had to be the mole. After finding the note, Anneke had raged uselessly, swearing vengeance. Still, hate would not serve her now. She knew that going to Gizmo's might be a trap, intended to kill her, but that made no sense. Deema's kidnapper could have done that in her room. Unless …

Unless whoever had taken Deema, had set off a delayed command in her neocortex. The hotel room had not been forced, nor had it been entered. Anneke's sensors had also picked up the faintest trace of a neural stimulator.

It seemed that Deema had woken up and let herself out. Perhaps the child had been a plant all along. Did the mole have a past that included slavery? Should she add that to her growing profile? She would look into it when she got back.

If she got back.

On the surface Gizmo's was a run-down emporium that sold semi-legitimate trade goods. The sign above the door described it as an import/export business. Cute. In agent lingo, ‘export' stood for murder. Deema might already be dead, but Anneke had no choice but to look for her. She felt responsible. As she walked through the door she reflected grimly that someone knew which buttons to push for her as well as Deema.

The thought made her feel naked.
Well, I'm most dangerous when I'm naked
.

On the inside, Gizmo's was as run down and shabby as the outside. Gizmo himself was an adenoidal young man who trembled and jerked incessantly, his whole body one giant nervous twitch. He had a lopsided grin, mismatched eyes and a wispy moustache. The pupils of his eyes were pinpoints. He gave Anneke a lingering look, and then hooked a finger towards the rear door.

‘You go in there,' he said, his high-pitched laughter ending in a series of hiccups.

Anneke went through. She had surrendered all notions of safety by coming here in the first place.

In the back room a man was seated at a table laden with hi-tech devices. He was wearing a hood, his face in deep shadow. Body weight and height suggested he could be the mole; then again he might be just another cog.

He motioned her to sit down.

‘Lotang has the girl.' The voice was flat, missing the usual subsonics and indicators. It was a highly trained voice, concealing anything that might be of use to her. Maybe it was the mole after all. She glanced at his hands. They were covered by oddly thick gloves.

‘What does he want with her?'

‘Nothing. He wants you.'

‘You want me to go to Lotang's.'

‘Perceptive, as ever.'

It was the mole. She had to visibly restrain herself.

‘I'm impressed,' the mole said. ‘You must want to kill me badly.'

‘Not at all. If I can make you suffer first I'll take the opportunity.'

‘Talk is cheap. Regardless, pay attention.'

He gave her instructions. It did not take much for her to figure out the whole scenario.

‘You want Lotang dead? He's too well guarded. Even I know that.'

‘He has a symbiotic poison in his system. The one I have here will trigger it.'

‘Neat.'

‘Thank you.'

‘How close?'

‘Close.'

‘And naturally you don't mind if I get exported in the process?'

‘Cost of doing business.'

‘If I die, I want the girl redeemed.'

The mole sighed. ‘Agreed.'

‘You will honour this?'

A peculiar note entered the man's voice. He did not try to hide it. ‘In this case, yes. For my own reasons, you understand?'

‘So I'm to kill Lob Lotang for you?'

‘Oh, you're to do much more than that for me, Ms Longshadow …'

M
AXIMUS flexed his new prosthetic fingers. They were still clumsy. The renovator had assured him they would eventually synchronise with his nerve impulses. Till then, he had to wear special gloves. It would not do to let people know his distinctive identifying mark. He was now back to his usual darkly handsome self.

Pity about the renovator; the man had been good at his job. But one could not leave loose ends lying about.

Maximus eyed his watch, figuring he had only a few hours left. That was how long it would take Lotang's hunkies to triangulate his position and snatch him.

He was sure Lotang would want him alive, if only to gloat then consign him to a flash of obscene pain. Maximus would have done precisely the same if he were in Lotang's position.

Maximus had rented a disused laboratory in the vacuum zone near Reema's north pole. It had once been used to manufacture bio-weapons in the Telugan War a century earlier, hence the vacuum buffer zone. Even exotic Level 5 viruses needed an atmosphere to migrate to hosts. The vacuum sector, in turn, acted as a pressure differential, so that leaks were always inwards, not outwards.

Simple but effective. Not that Maximus cared, except that his future plans included the further use of Reema's End and its heterogeneous population. Other than that, they were entirely dispensable, just not yet.

He had three of Reema's End's most dispensable examples in the hermetically sealed cells in front of him. A long slit window, reinforced and mirrored on the other side, ran the length of the observation chamber, stretching for five metres and giving him full visual access to the three cells.

The occupant of each cell was an example of what Maximus called Dregsville or Down Town, way down any ladder you cared to name, including the evolutionary one.

Two were men, thin, malnourished and dyspeptic. The woman was a pale-faced prostitute in need of a Vitamin C shot.

Losers, all three, lowlifes fated to service the food chain
.

In fact he would not have minded if they had been strapping, well-fed individuals, model citizens, and useful contributors to the social organism. Scientifically speaking, however, his experiment would yield more interesting results if its effects could be gauged on the material he had before him right now.

If one could produce a work of art from coarse clay, then imagine what could be made from premium material!

One of the men returned to his bunk and slumped against the wall, too short on calories for any more ranting and railing. The other man was still beating on the window, aware that someone was watching. The woman seemed dazed and confused.
Drug habit
. All three had narcotics in their blood. The woman's level was the highest, as if she had taken something shortly before being snatched. No matter. He was about to put them through a unique rehabilitation.

One might say it would rehabilitate everything about them.
Everything
.

Maximus smirked at his own joke and checked his watch again. He had administered the viral agent exactly one hour ago to his specimens. His calculations showed that a reaction should start to show soon.

Uh-oh
.

One of the men went into a spasm. He slid to the floor, legs and arms jerking, froth spewing from between his lips. Eyes wide with fear, he tried to scream, but failed. Lockjaw. Now that was interesting. Nothing in the molecular profile had indicated that. No matter. Maximus made a note of it.

By the time he checked them the other two had also spasmed.

Damn, he had missed them, but that was what the cameras were for. He could review the inception moment later at his leisure.

The timing between the events was remarkably uniform. Another two hours passed. He watched the changes, making notes. At the end of that time, pale-faced and queasy, he checked that the recorders were working, that the viral injectors were ticking over, and that the inmates had sufficient food and water to last for several days – just in case he was detained when he stepped out.