“Charming neighborhood. Looks pretty empty.”
“Normal people are at work at three in the afternoon,” Lara replied as they turned down another street of gray, concrete bungalows. A group of kids were throwing a football around in a small, enclosed grass lawn at the end of the street. When Lara parked her HUVR in front of the address the Ventura manager had given her, the kids stopped to watch.
Gresham got out of the car and waved at the assembled children. “Let’s make this quick, Lara, this place gives me the creeps.”
The eyes of the children were penetrating. Lara blinked and smiled. “You can handle the Zone at night, but you can’t do Juniper Gardens in broad daylight? You’re a strange, strange man, Major.”
They approached the house and rang the doorbell. Gresham pressed his ear against the door and pressed the buzzer again. There was no sound inside the building.
“You sure this is the right address?”
“Positive. Why?”
“There’s no AI response from ringing the buzzer. Who keeps their AI turned off?”
Lara pressed the buzzer as well. She wrinkled her eyebrows. “Maybe he turned it off.”
“Maybe is a dangerous word, Lara.”
“We’ll check around the back, okay?”
She circled the house and picked up a loose chip of concrete from the ground. As they approached the gate to the backyard, she lightly tossed it against the chain-link fence. It clattered harmlessly off of the metal and fell to the ground.
“The electricity is off too. The power must be cut out to this house.”
“That would explain why the AI doesn’t work.”
“Not necessarily. Most homes have the AI running on a backup generator with a battery life of one hundred and eighty hours or more. If there’s a power outage, your house still works.” She pushed open the gate, which was unlocked. “These houses aren’t particularly outdated. Unless his generator got shut off somehow as well.”
A concrete wall circled the backyard of Price’s bungalow. A small concrete patio was bordered by a shallow dirt garden filled with weeds. No plants had been grown here for a long time. A lone, miniature palm tree grew from a pot on the far side of the enclosure. A pair of polished steel lawn chairs had been folded neatly against the wall nearest the gate and a wooden table was pushed up against the home itself. A glass sliding door connected the house to the backyard. It was sealed shut, but its electronic lock was shut off, not displaying the red dot that typically suggested a locked door.
“Power is definitely out,” Gresham said with exasperation. He peered through the glass. “Looks messy inside.”
Lara looked in as well. “That’s more than a mess. This place looks ransacked.”
She pulled her gun out and Gresham, instinctively, did likewise. Lara smiled before saying, “So how tight with President Paine are you?”
“Well, he invited me to his inauguration… Look, I said we’d discuss it later, why do you…”
Lara fired twice into the glass before grabbing the wood table and hurling it through the weakened door. Tiny pellets of glass rained down in every direction as the door shattered.
“Christ! You want to tell the whole neighborhood we’re breaking and entering, or should I?”
“If the AI is off, it won’t alert the LAPD to the break-in,” Lara said with a smile. “Besides, you know President Paine.”
“He could help with a search and seizure warrant, not bail.”
“Every SIS agent who applies for a search and seizure has to have it signed off by Cray or one of his yes-men. We don’t have time to jump through those hoops.”
Lara entered the bungalow, gun high and squinting, searching for any sign of trouble. The lights were off and all the blinds securely closed, keeping the place dim. Dust hung in the air. Nobody had been here for days.
As Lara had suggested, it was also thoroughly ransacked – furniture had been overturned, all the cupboards were open and rummaged through, and debris covered the floor. Some parts of the drywall had been torn straight off. Price’s screen had been shattered, and the electronic circuits behind it were a tangled, cold mess.
“It’s deserted,” Gresham observed.
Lara glanced over the kitchen quickly before moving slowly down the hallway. She nudged a bathroom door open with her gun. It had remained somewhat untouched, although the tile in the shower had been forcibly ripped away. She nudged open the door to what appeared to be an office. It had gotten the worst treatment, with papers and discs strewn about the cluttered room. Price’s computer was gone.
The final door at the end of the hallway was closed. Lara tested the door handle. It was locked.
“That’s odd,” she said before raising a foot and kicking hard at the handle. The door buckled slightly. She kicked again, more firmly, and the locking mechanism snapped and the door slammed open into the near wall.
A man lay face-first down on an unmade bed. The mattress was seeped in blood and the body had been dead for quite some time. Two green barbs protruded from the back of his neck.
Lara held up a hand for Gresham to stay by the door. “You didn’t touch anything in here, did you?”
“No, can’t say I did.”
“Okay. Good.”
She inched closer to the body and put her gun gently down on a bedside table. Lara pulled a pair of thin, latex gloves from her back pocket and put them on before trying to roll the body over.
“Oh my God…” she whispered as she glanced at the underside of the body. “Why in the world…”
Gresham approached to see what she was looking at. Frank Price – at least, the body that had once belonged to anything identifiable as Frank Price – had an empty hole for a mouth where his teeth and tongue ought to have been, sockets where his eyes ought to have been, and scars where his ears and nose had once been located. There were a number of small puncture wounds on his torso, one above his collarbone and the rest across his chest and stomach.
The blare of a siren sounded outside and Gresham could make out the exhaust of an LAPD cruiser as it touched down to the street outside. I guess it’s a good thing those kids saw us, he thought grimly as Lara raised both hands to her mouth to hold back vomit.
#
The Special Intelligence Service was housed in a mammoth glass building about halfway between Shoregrove Hall and the Department of Defense on Crest Ave. It anchored a plaza that was also home to a series of smaller auxiliary offices for the SIS’s minor sister departments and towered fifty stories tall above the sidewalk below. It encircled almost a third of the plaza like a crescent, giving the illusion that it was more imposing than it actually was.
What unnerved Gresham most about the structure, however, was the way the glass acted like a one-way mirror – staring into the reflective surface, he felt like somebody on the other side was watching him.
“Come on, Major, let’s go,” Lara said and nudged him. She swiped her security pass at the front door and the glass doors slid open. Gresham followed her closely in.
The main lobby at the SIS headquarters was a lofty seven-story atrium that spanned the entire front of the building. Crystal chandeliers hung every fifty yards or so from the ceiling, each a multi-colored affair glittering in the sunlight that seeped in through the large, floor-to-ceiling windows.
Something had been off about Lara the entire drive over to SIS headquarters. Was she more bothered by the encounter with Price’s body than she was letting on?
“You alright, Lara?” Gresham asked for what felt like the hundredth time.
“Yeah, I’m good. Thanks,” Lara replied and checked in with an AI display at the front desk. “Put your hand on the pad and state your name, Major. You need to check in as a visitor.”
Gresham complied and a small green badge popped out of a slot next to the AI display. Lara pinned it to Gresham’s shirt. “There. I’ve given you access to all Clearance Three personnel floors.”
“Thanks.”
After
the LAPD had determined that Gresham and Lara were not the murderers, they had contacted SIS, specifically Dan Vosen, the lovely man Gresham had encountered a few nights previous in the Zone. After getting a thorough grilling, Lara had told Gresham that they had to report to SIS headquarters immediately.
“Lara!” a voice called out across the lobby. Gresham turned first to see Troy rapidly approaching.
“Holy shit, are you guys okay?” Troy asked the minute he was within earshot. He gave Lara a tight, intimate hug and then turned to Gresham and nodded. “Major.”
They shook hands. “Thanks for asking, Troy. It was pretty gruesome but we should be alright.”
“I heard,” Troy answered, glancing at the still silent Lara. “We don’t want to keep Vosen and Cray waiting…”
Gresham stiffened. Simon Cray had just called them in? This was getting unreal.
“I don’t know if you guys really need me here. I’m not SIS, after all, best let the internals handle the internals, you know?”
“You should come too, Major Gresham,” Troy answered slowly. “Trust me.”
The lift ride up to the thirty-ninth floor was a somber one. They exited into a hallway overlooking Crest Avenue’s busy traffic below. Just above the top of a neighboring building, the sparkling ocean was visible. It was an impressive view.
Lara breathed out and smiled at Troy. “You ready?”
“I should be asking you that,” he grunted. He turned his gaze to Gresham. “When we get in there, don’t speak unless you’re spoken to. You can’t get in any real trouble, but Lara and I are probably in deep, deep shit. Worst case scenario, Cray will have General Godford on conference call since you’re involved with this debacle too. Actually, worst case scenario is him having President Paine in on the meeting.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Do I look like I’m joking? You’ll be fine if you don’t let Cray boss you around. That goes for Vosen too – Daniel’s the biggest prick this side of the Pacific, but just remember he doesn’t actually have any authority over you.”
They moved quickly down the hallway towards a simple door at the end. Lara and Troy each took a deep breath, pushed the door open and stepped inside.
Simon Cray’s office was a large but unimposing room, situated in the curve of the building. He enjoyed the same spectacular view Gresham had admired from the hallway, only the windows behind his desk stretched floor-to-ceiling. The walls were sparsely decorated, save photos of Cray shaking hands with all four Presidents who had been in power during his reign – Suzuki, Hayward, Clayton, and now Paine. The flag of the Alliance hung across one wall, and the flag of his homeworld, Dionysus, hung on another.
“Have a seat,” the shadowy figure sitting behind a desk in the middle of the room commanded. With the sun at his back, it was hard to make out Cray’s features. Vosen, less shrouded in darkness, was seated to Cray’s left in an armchair.
Cray pressed a button on his desk and his windows darkened, the office AI tinting them so the glare of the sun lessened. As the windows darkened the lights in the office compensated by intensifying, brightening the entire room.
Simon Cray had a wholly unremarkable appearance. He was in his late sixties but his hair had not completely grayed yet – there were still flecks of dark brown along the sides and top of his head. He had a pockmarked, wrinkled face and inquisitive, intensely green eyes. Nothing about this man suggested that he was one of the most powerful men in the Alliance, and certainly nothing about his appearance lent suggestion to the machine-like mind in his larger-than-average head.
Cray rose. “Ms. Taylor, Mr. Troy, I’m sure you both know why you are here,” he said in a flat, monotone voice. He moved around the edge of his desk so that he was standing in front of where they sat.
“Yes, Mr. Cray,” they both answered dutifully.
Cray glanced at Gresham. “As for you, Major Gresham, obviously I have no means with which to discipline you as you are not an employee of the Service – I wanted you here, though, since I know of your involvement in this matter.”
Gresham nodded wordlessly. Cray smiled slightly and leaned against his desk. “Well then, let us begin. Ms. Taylor, I do hope you are aware that thrice in the past week you have violated basic Allied search-and-seizure laws, correct?”
“Yes, Mr. Cray.”
Cray picked up an ornate box from his desk and pulled a cigarette out. “Cigarettes, anyone?”
Lara and Vosen accepted. Cray lit his with an expensive lighter and blew a smoke ring. The room waited in expectant silence.
“I had initial concerns over your break-in at Lieutenant Jeffrey Vance’s apartment, and they were affirmed when you stormed into a Zone warehouse, shot up the place without backup and then rudely dealt with the division chair when he arrived at the scene.”
Vosen glowed, staring at Gresham with a smug expression.
“Not two days later, Ms. Taylor, you break into a civilian home by shooting his door to pieces and then proceed to contaminate a rather gruesome crime scene by tampering with the body. Lord knows I ought to suspend you for that alone.” Cray turned towards Gresham. “On top of that, collaborating with non-Service personnel without consent from either a division chair or myself is highly frowned upon. I can’t punish you for taking the initiative, Ms. Taylor, but you cover your tracks poorly.”
He approached Gresham and made eye contact. “Though I must say, you picked wisely. Godford’s newest detective… did you figure Major Gresham here would let you in on a boundless supply of information? Did you think that a career linguist and analyst would help you do a MID field agent’s job?”
“Somebody had to do it, since you certainly aren’t,” Gresham growled through his teeth. He was tempted to get up and stare Cray down.
“You see this, Daniel? MID’s brightest and finest right here,” Cray chuckled and dragged on his cigarette. His stare was riveting.
Vosen smirked. “Quite.”
“Now, the good news, Ms. Taylor, is that finding Price has its dividends. That leaves us Alan Evans, the bureaucrat, and Frank Price, the thief, as two men with invoices for the stolen Ventura munitions who are no longer alive. Throw in Lieutenant Vance’s incapacitation alongside the goldmine of contraband we found in the Zone, and we’ve got a neat little story.”
There was an awkward pause. Vosen finally broke it, saying, “The conclusion we’ve drawn is that Lugrash had a high-ranking friend within the Allied bureaucracy who scored him some guns. Lugrash, being your average paranoid Balgoshan, freaks and hunts down the records of the theft, killing Evans and then dispatching Price after, we can assume, he was bribed into acquiring the last hard copy of the transaction.”
They get their info quick, Gresham thought. He glanced at Lara. Had SIS already lifted the report she gave to the LAPD at the scene of the crime? Her explanation of what they were doing there had been awfully brief.
Lara and Troy stared at their feet awkwardly. Cray raised his arms triumphantly. “Cheer up, you two! You may have just wrapped up the Ventura investigation!” He looked at Gresham. “That ought to make you happy too, Major. I hear you yourself fired the shot that avenged Jeff Vance. It’s over. I’ll admit… the methods you three used were a tad, shall we say… unorthodox.”
Vosen seemed stunned that Cray was in such a good mood and hadn’t brought down a more total punishment. “Sir… Director Cray… Taylor and Troy have violated numerous laws and SIS protocols over the course of the past week. Breaking and entering, assault, outside collaboration without direct permission, failure to obtain a warrant…”
“The ends justify the means, Daniel,” Cray replied. “You’re all dismissed. Consider the matter closed. I’m putting the whole investigation file away as a settled case.” He looked at everyone in the room. “You’re all free to leave. Enjoy the rest of your afternoon.”
As he rose, Gresham blurted, “Sir, with all due respect, I think you’re wrong.”
Cray stamped out his cigar
ette and grimaced. “Excuse me, Major?”
“I think you’re wrong. I don’t think Lugrash killed Price, and if he was involved, then Lugrash still has friends out there who are sitting on something big.”
Cray motioned for Vosen to stay as Lara and Troy hung uncomfortably by the door. “Give us a moment, Ms. Taylor and Mr. Troy.”
They obliged and closed the door as they walked out. Cray got up and approached Gresham. They were of approximately equal height and their eyes locked. Cray’s good mood had completely evaporated.
“I’m fascinated by this theory of yours. Do go on.”
Gresham cleared his throat. “There were two needles in the back of Price’s neck. I’ve seen them before – okka needles. Anyone in the intelligence field ought to be able to identify those.” He looked at Vosen. “You know about okka needles at Alien Affairs, right?”
Vosen coughed and didn’t make eye contact with either Gresham or Cray. “Yes, okka is a plant native to the planet of Sartokken in the Krokator Star Empire. Its sap serves as a potent toxin that when introduced to the bloodstream of most living organisms begins instantly eating blood cells.” He paused. “It’s one of the most lethal poisons known to man. The good news, however, is that it is only dangerous inside the bloodstream itself – you could drink a whole vat of okka poison and just feel sick, because amino acids in your stomach processes and dilutes its proteins. That’s why the preferred delivery system for okka has always been, and still is, needles.”
Cray scowled. “I don’t need a science lecture from you two. What the hell are you getting at, Major Gresham?”
“Agent Vosen, would you happen to know what the black market price is for, say, a round of okka needles? And the unique compression gun needed to fire them?”
“It’s absurdly high. You rarely find them outside of the Empire, let alone on Terra. This would be the first time I’ve ever heard of a crime committed with okka needles.” Vosen gritted his teeth. “If there is a sudden influx of okka onto the streets of Los Angeles, our crime problem has suddenly gotten a lot worse. We didn’t find any okka guns or needles at the warehouse after the raid, though...”