CHAPTER 2
As I neared Buzzville, the snaking arms of the upper-class habitat rows seemed to grab my truck and pull me into the city along the high-speed highway, like a hungry octopus at a Martian buffet. I was soon enveloped by dark, glassy buildings so tall they left only a tiny speck of sky visible in the distance overhead.
I arrived at the Lunar Collective Government’s Criminal Justice Bureau offices under a bright mid-month sky. I parked underground and walked up to ground level, passing under the Great Seal of Luna on my way into the enormous structure. A familiar front desk security guard greeted me with his usual nod and waved me through to the elevators.
I took a car to the one hundred and thirty-third floor, where Dominicus Black maintained his office – the Department of System Investigations.
DSI had jurisdiction over all crimes that had anything to do with more than one spatial body – smuggling from Earth to the Moon, slave trade between Mars and Saturn, illegal weapons imports from Jupiter’s moons to the Asteroid Belt. If it ran afoul of System Laws and crossed the boundaries of planets or moons, DSI was on top of it.
Dominicus Black was a twenty-five year veteran of DSI. He’d come aboard at twenty-two years old, fresh off a four year stint in the Earth Force. He quickly worked his way up the chain of command, thanks to his razor sharp instincts and guts of steel. His ambitious nature didn’t hurt, either. By the time he was forty, he’d climbed all the way to the top of the DSI.
I’d known him since he was a mid-level operative working covert missions in the Outer Planets. We worked together on a few cases, and I’m probably part of the reason for his quick ascension to chief. Two big busts back in ’38 really propelled him to that corner office, and put me in the good graces of the department.
From that point on, they regularly sent work my way, and I sent greaseballs their way. It was a nice arrangement – and it helped me accumulate the nest egg I needed to buy my land – they were quite generous with taxpayer money, paying me far more than I could’ve earned doing private work.
I was greeted at the DSI main desk by Black’s latest chick-du-jour. Black seemed to have a new personal assistant every time I was here – and every one of them looked like she belonged on the cover of System Man magazine.
“I’m here to see Black,” I said.
The young blonde looked up at me and said, “Mr. Black isn’t seeing anyone today.”
“Tell him Rufus Quince is here.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Quince. I didn’t know you were, uh, Mr. Quince. Just a moment, please.”
She tapped her earbud twice and said, “He’s here.”
A moment later, a solid plentium door at the back of the reception area slid open to reveal Black standing in the doorway wearing an outfit befitting his name – black slacks and shoes, a black, collarless dress shirt with silver buttons, and an open, knee-length black jacket. “Come on, then, Quince,” he said, turning back toward his office and strolling in.
I nodded to the girl at the desk and made my way back into Black’s inner sanctum.
The office was about the size of my first apartment in Buzzville – big enough for a meeting of eight or ten division heads, small enough for a private conversation that would actually feel private.
The west and north walls were made entirely of reinforced transparent titanium, affording an incredible floor-to-ceiling view of the bustling Trade District and the distant edge of Dome One to the north. The windows were also strong enough to withstand a meteor (not that one could ever get inside the dome). Although always deeply tinted on the outside, these windows offered a perfectly clear, natural light view of the world outside through the one-way variable-level tint which was currently set to one hundred percent transparent.
Black’s desk, a slab of smoky quartz, hung from the ceiling by four thin alloy rods. It was only big enough for his holoscreen interface, a pair of elbows, and a glass of water. He sat down behind it in a soft padded chair and offered me a drink as he touched a button on the chair that raised his desk above our line of sight.
“No thanks,” I said, sitting in a similar chair facing Black. “I just want some answers.”
He stared back at me with his blue eyes and scratched at the top of his shaved head.
“What you think of Amber? Nice, huh?”
“What, your latest receptionist? Sure. Seemed like a real nice girl. Now, can we get the lab to take a look at this?” I pulled out the note.
“Sure, Quince, sure. I’m already on it. I’ve got someone from the lab on their way up here right now.
I grabbed at my shoulder and rubbed it, rotating my head and trying to snap a crick out of my neck.
“You really should’ve answered my calls,” said Black. “Maybe could’ve saved you that backache.”
“Oh?”
“I got intel that someone had an interest in your land, was trying to warn you.”
I sat up a little. “Why would anyone want my land?”
“We’ve got our suspicions. It’s a nice location, but not terribly valuable. Plenty of good tracts in Dome Two and Dome Three for people looking for a piece of the pie.”
“Like you’re always telling me.”
“Hey, I can’t help it if I’ve got some land to sell. I invested a lot in those domes. Just trying to earn back what I put in.”
“So you heard somebody wants my land, but you don’t know who and you don’t know why?”
“Your little note there might help us get a handle on the who.”
“Well, once we have the who, the why won’t be far behind. I’ll make sure of that.”
A tall technician entered through the sliding door. She wore a white overcoat, like lab assistants have done for centuries. Her black hair was up in a bun. “Sir, you have a specimen?”
I handed her the vellym. “I want to know the source of the vellym, everywhere it’s been since it was made, and anything you can tell me about the handwriting.”
She took the sheet, looked up at Black as if seeking permission, and when he nodded at her, she turned and walked out with the note.
“So, do you actually hire anyone who isn’t a former MoonGirl model?” I asked, watching her rear as she left.
“I try not to,” Black smirked.
The sliding door slid shut and I stood up, strolled to the window and stared out toward my land, which was somewhere beyond the curving western horizon. I turned and asked, “How long”?
Black’s eyebrows twitched upward and he shrugged. “Tessa’s usually pretty quick with this stuff. She’ll have something for you in the next twenty-four hours.”
“Thanks.” I turned back to the window. “So, tell me about your tip – what prompted you to call me today?”
“You remember a slug named Franklin?”
“Sal Franklin?”
“Yeah. You helped put him away, what, three times?”
“Four.”
“Well, the Franklin family has good lawyers. Anyway, we’ve been looking into a deal of his – movement of quadricetum off-moon, destined for the Outers.”
“Quadricetum? Why would anyone in the Outer Planets want that? There’s no hi-tech industry out there.”
“That may just be an initial destination, with final buyers based somewhere closer. We don’t know yet. But we do know that the people who want to move it lost their shipment.”
“Lost it? Where?”
“It’s sitting in our evidence lockers, fifteen stories underground in this very building. And now the sellers, who have no merchandise, are getting desperate.”
“What quantity are we talking?” I asked, sitting back down opposite Black and leaning my elbows on my knees.
“We confiscated just over a thousand kilos. Whether that was the whole deal, we don’t know. But Franklin’s people will be looking to replace at least that much – and we know they have a deadline. Their buyers are not the kind to tolerate delays.”
I scratched at the stubble on my neck. “So you’ve got someone in
side on the buying end?”
“Yeah. I can’t tell you who right now. But we’re looking at a window of about ten days before the sellers are going to need to launch the payload.”
“So you think this is connected to me – how?”
“You know that kamacite is used to produce quadricetum?”
“Of course, it’s the primary ingredient.”
“Well, we ran some scans of the terrain around Dome One. There’s a vein of kamacite that runs almost congruent with the dome’s boundary, all the way around. Most of it has been extracted and used, but there are three large untapped deposits remaining. One is found under land occupied by the LCG Primary Detainment Facility. No crook in his right mind is going to go digging around under a Secure Level One prison, unless he wants to wind up there permanently. Another is under our DSI training complex north of here outside Shepherd City. Once again, a non-starter for criminals.”
“Let me guess, the other deposit lies beneath my property.”
“Mostly, yes. Your land borders the dome, and some of that kamacite is on the outside, a few hundred meters down. That deposit is on a slant, and most of the mineral is found just below the surface, somewhere in your back forty.”
“Nice. Looks like I got a good deal on that tract after all, huh?”
“Yeah, well – trouble is, I think someone else may want a better deal – free.”
“Over my dead body.”
“That may be the plan, Rufus.”