Anniversary Day (10 page)

People were standing, crowding forward, wanting to talk to the governor-general, to let her know what they thought of her proposals.

Byler had to get in there and pay attention so that she could offer advice.

I’m so sorry, Rudra,
she sent,
but I have to go.

It’s okay
, Popova sent and signed off.

Byler sighed and went around the chairs, trying to find a way to get to the podium. The slender boy was gone, probably ducked out the back way.

Then Byler saw him, near the front of the crowd, as if he wanted to talk to the governor-general. He probably was one of the children of the victims or maybe he was an anomaly, like she had been, one of those kids who actually found politics fascinating, and dreamed of a career in it.

She sent a message to the governor-general’s security detail as she walked toward the front:
Go to high alert status.

She didn’t have to justify it, nor did she have to explain it. It was probably a false alarm anyway. Arek Soseki was one of those men who seemed healthy, but he ate all the wrong foods and participated in a lot of risky behaviors. He probably had some kind of medical condition that the stress of the day brought out.

The security detail moved closer to the governor-general. She was smiling at the young man.

Suddenly, one of the security detail grabbed the governor-general and hoisted her away from the crowd. He carried her toward the back. An urgent message filled Byler’s emergency links, along with an encoded message.

Situation 8564

Her breath caught. Medical protocol for the governor-general, because the governor-general couldn’t activate it herself.

Byler sent the correct codes into the governor-general’s links, hoping that would help. The governor-general had all of the latest medical tech, including medical nanobots that theoretically blocked any foreign agent in her system.

Clear the room!
Byler sent to the remaining security team.
Make sure everyone is detained! Get an emergency team here now!

She ran the rest of the way to the front. The security detail had already disappeared through the designated escape route.

She ran to catch up, swearing at herself the whole way.

She should have acted sooner. She should have sent some kind of warning through the entire system.

She should have, she should have, she should have.

But she didn’t.

And now the governor-general would pay.

Seventeen

Sometimes Flint wondered why he came to his office. He didn’t take clients anymore. He had retired as a Retrieval Artist, at least until Talia had made it through school.

He had put her in danger too many times.

Flint’s office was in an unprepossessing building in Old Armstrong. The Dome was ancient here, and the filters didn’t work very well. Outside, Moon dust covered everything.

Inside his office, the Moon dust was no longer a factor. He had bought a state-of-the-art filter and upgraded it continually. His environmental systems here were as close to perfect as such systems could get on the Moon itself. They were almost as good as the ones in his space yacht.

He was rebuilding his entire computer system from scratch. As a young man, he had gotten his start in computers. When he had married Rhonda, Talia’s mother, his programming skills were legendary, and he combined them with hardware skills.

If his daughter Emmeline hadn’t died, he probably would have stayed in computers and never gone on to work for the City of Armstrong Police Department or branched out on his own as a Retrieval Artist.

Of course, that’s what he always assumed. Since Rhonda died and Talia came into his life, he wondered if his assumptions were wrong. Rhonda had planned her escape from their marriage years before Flint had even known there was a problem.

Still, he found it hard to get past years of assumptions with what he actually knew had happened. Particularly when what had happened was so very inexplicable. And Rhonda was dead, so he couldn’t ask her about her motives.

He desperately wanted to ask her about her motives.

Computer parts sat all around him. He had disassembled his entire front desk. Only one screen still worked. It was a floating holoscreen and he had it on random, so sometimes it was in his line of sight and sometimes it wasn’t.

He had it on a live feed that mixed entertainment news with sports and a few current events. Normally he had regular news or history programming on while he did this kind of work, but today he knew all that he would get was Anniversary Day programming. Either he’d hear all of the stupid speeches live or he would listen to the history programming droning on about what had happened.

Suddenly the screen stopped floating, and flew with great deliberation to the space just in front of his eyes. The entire screen glowed red.

Breaking news
. Something important.

He sighed. He didn’t even want to look. It was Anniversary Day. Either the news would be something stupid or it would be something awful.

He expected stupid. Some politician said something idiotic in a speech or a bystander accidentally dropped a knife.

He glanced up and concentrated on the female anchor standing in a sea of images. He didn’t recognize this woman. He hadn’t paid attention to reporters since Ki Bowles died, probably because he still felt a bit guilty about that.

“…shortly after giving his speech, Mayor Arek Soseki collapsed outside O’Malley’s. Aides say Soseki died of natural causes, but add that the authorities must always investigate a sudden death….”

Flint frowned. Authorities didn’t have to investigate a sudden death.

He tapped the screen and opened it to all the Soseki news. Each media service had the same story. Then he glanced at his own computer system in pieces around him. His most powerful system was down.

But that didn’t stop him from using the little screen in front of him. He tapped it because he never used voice commands in his office—voice commands were too easy to compromise—and he searched for information that he knew had to be publicly available.

All of the Moon’s senior public officials had to put their latest health records into a public database. DeRicci had complained about this, because not every dome had ratified that law, which was a United Domes of the Moon law. But Armstrong had.

So Soseki’s health information should have been readily available.

Flint found the file quickly enough. But his screen told him that he couldn’t access that material because the system was overloaded.

He shook his head slightly. The system never got overloaded, not for a simple information search.

That little excuse was something that officials used when they took down information they didn’t want the public to see.

The hair rose on the back of Flint’s neck. He didn’t like this.

No reporter had ever flagged Soseki’s health. In fact, the reporters always expressed surprise at how very healthy Soseki was. Flint moved away from the public file and went back to the old news files.

There they were: all the reports on Soseki’s good health.

He leaned back, frowning. Why take down Soseki’s public health records if Soseki had been in perfect health?

Why would anyone cover that up?

Unless Soseki hadn’t died of natural causes.

Flint pushed the screen away, and it returned to its random float. He was being too paranoid. He always thought in terms of things going wrong.

Only something
had
gone wrong here.

Soseki had died on Anniversary Day, and now someone—for whatever reason—had decided to blame Soseki’s death on natural causes. But that same someone hid the health records which would have backed up that claim.

Flint didn’t like this. Right now, the news was calm, reporting the death of the mayor exactly way that the authorities wanted it reported. But eventually a dogged reporter, like Ki Bowles had been, would discover that something was odd.

All it took was one bad news story on a day like this, and the entire city would panic.

He stood and wiped off his hands. He didn’t want Talia to be alone if panic broke out.

Not that she would be alone, not at Aristotle Academy. The place was a fortress.

But she wouldn’t have him there.

If something went wrong, Talia would need him.

And maybe, if he was being honest with himself, he would need her.

Eighteen

DeRicci had put the visual with Savita Romey on the big screen in her office. The screen was in the middle of her office floor, and it rose up like a live thing, covering the floor-to-ceiling windows, and extending from her favorite comfy chair to some green plant-thing whose name she always forgot.

She wished she hadn’t made the screen so big when Popova let her know that Romey wanted a visual link. DeRicci thought it would be nice to cover the windows, so she wouldn’t be focusing on the city itself. But the oversized visual hadn’t blocked the city from her mind.

Instead, it had made her concern worse.

Romey was talking to her from the crime scene itself, and it was a crime scene, no doubt about that. Soseki’s corpse didn’t even look human. DeRicci had seen a few aliens that color, but never a human being, and not in those gradations. Human skin wasn’t the same color all over, but it was usually within some kind of range unless the person purposely changed the colors.

She knew Arek Soseki. He would not want people to see him in shades of gray.

She winced at the mental pun, then wondered if that was intentional. It couldn’t have been, could it?

She wondered if she should mention it to Romey, then decided against it, at least on a link everyone on the Moon could hack into if they really wanted to.

“I’ve already asked for a different coroner,” Romey was saying.

“Let me guess. You had Brodeur first.”

Romey nodded. “And I’ve asked the crime scene techs to double-time it here. But we lost an hour to some dithering about the cause of death—”

Meaning that the aides’ unwillingness to call it a murder had put the detectives behind.

“—and I think we’ve lost maybe half a dozen witnesses, maybe permanently—”

Meaning the suspects had probably escaped.

“—so we’re already behind in this investigation—”

Meaning if the killer never got caught, it wasn’t Romey’s fault.

“—I also wanted to let you know I’ve requested Detective Nyquist. I think he’s one of the best investigators on the force.”

DeRicci kept her expression impassive. Popova had suggested Nyquist and DeRicci had decided not to ask for him, to keep any taint of politics out of this investigation. But if something controversial came up, she could hear the reporters and talking heads now: they’d blame her for having her boyfriend investigate the crime scene.

At least she could now point to the record, which showed her not making a specific request. The actual request had come from Romey.

“You’re right,” DeRicci said. “There aren’t many detectives better than Detective Nyquist.”

The words hung between them for a moment. Then Romey said, “Your man, Kilzahn, is here. He has no investigative skills. I’m not sure what you would like him to do.”

And that was when DeRicci realized Savita Romey was ever so much better at diplomacy than DeRicci had ever been, particularly when DeRicci had been with the force.

Romey had just requested that Nyquist be the liaison between Moon Security and the Armstrong Police Department.

DeRicci was going to let her own reputation for a lack of subtlety speak for her. She pretended to misunderstand.

“Just keep Banyon informed,” she said. “I deliberately sent someone not trained in homicide, so he wouldn’t be active in that part of the investigation. But he has clearance on issues that never make it to the local level and that might be important.”

Meaning this case might be bigger than Armstrong, although DeRicci sincerely hoped not.

“And keep me apprised too, Detective,” DeRicci said. “Unlike the members of my team, I do have experience in homicide, so I might see a few things that echo from my new job into my old one. I’ll have my assistant send you a list of banned substances that might cause the skin tone gradations, and I’ll send a few other things.”

Things that she couldn’t mention on a public link, like information on groups that specialized in such substances, groups that were not allowed in Armstrong, or in the Earth Alliance itself, for that matter.

“Anything else, Detective?” DeRicci asked.

“Not at the moment, Chief,” Romey said. “Thank you.”

DeRicci nodded as she severed the connection, wondering what the heck Romey had to thank her for. DeRicci used to hate it when the brass or another department got involved in her investigations. She suspected Romey did as well.

The screen pinged her links, asking if she had further use of it. She didn’t like it when inanimate objects talked to her, and she used to refuse to answer. But now she just sent a simple no, and let the screen slowly and majestically descend into its little cage or cubby or whatever the hell it was stored in.