The Courier (San Angeles) (13 page)

D
EVON SAT IN
his office watching the displays blur in front of his eyes. He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his stiff shoulders and neck. Things just weren’t adding up, and it was starting to take its toll on him. His shirt itched where it touched his skin, and even the faint hum of the computer was irritating.

It was obvious that SoCal had sent the package. It had originated from one of their offices after all. After that it had gone to Innotek where, go figure, SoCal Black Ops had been waiting for it.

There was some piece of the puzzle still missing, something that tied all of this together into a neat little package. Devon liked neat little packages, and he made sure that his world fit into those boundaries. His software made sure everything fit into those boundaries as well, but now it was doing anything but.

The amount of ancillary information collected around the
courier and the package was staggering. Everything from a recorded interference by some skateboarders, to when the streets the courier had taken were last cleaned of garbage. And yet the systems couldn’t find a thread, couldn’t see how all the events tied together. That was a first. The only thing the system continued to do was track the courier—and by doing so, the package. Even that wasn’t working too well . . . she kept dropping off the map.

The last report that came in was from a real-time feed. The building the courier operated out of had been utterly destroyed. The investigators would be picking through the rubble for weeks trying to figure out what had happened. The corporations were being quiet about the whole thing, considering that they’d had more people there in the last two hours than they had in the last decade.

Police drones had scanned Kris and another male survivor just outside of the billowing cloud of smoke. The only anomaly there was that a second drone was required to rescan the man. The first drone had gotten nothing but garbage. That could have been interference from the explosion, or the man could have modified his tracker ID. Devon had the computer searching for more information.

He ran his hands through his hair. Who was he trying to fool? The system had already started checking into the anomaly before he told it to. That’s why they had the stupid thing. Some days, Devon wondered why he was even there.

The computer beeped and opened up a display window. Devon leaned forward and focused on the text. Damn, the anomaly was the same Black Ops agent who had scanned Kris’s motorcycle at the failed drop-off point. No identification on who yet, just that it was the same ID number. SoCal really wanted whatever was in the package. The timing of the explosion couldn’t have been better, for Kris’s sake. If she had walked into the depot, she would never have walked out.

The computer popped open another window. It had just made a
new connection between the disparate pieces of data. Apparently, the dead man on Level 1 had used a fairly high-end encrypted comm unit. That very same unit had just been used only a few blocks away from the bombed building. The chances of that being a coincidence bordered on zero percent. Kris must have grabbed the comm unit before she took off. It took another ten minutes for the system to crack the message and find out who it had been sent to.

Devon picked up the hard line and called the AD.

“Yes.”

“Sir, the courier has just contacted someone using an encrypted comm unit.”

“Yes.”

“She’s requested a meeting at 3:00 p.m. today at McConnell Park on Level 5. It may be that she’s trying to dump the package.”

“Who with?”

“It looks like IBC,” Devon answered.

“Thank you.”

“Are we going to do anything?”

“We have the situation under control. Keep me posted on any changes.”

“Yes, sir.”

The line disconnected.

Devon held on to the landline for a while before slowly lowering it back onto his desk. He looked around his office, safe in the knowledge that no one knew it existed. Safe knowing that if anyone came within a hundred meters of the place, he would be warned and could monitor the situation. All he did was hand out information. And here was a sixteen-year-old girl who had been through more in the last two days than he could ever imagine. And she kept on going. Kept moving no matter what the corporations threw at her. She was an anomaly. Something that didn’t fit into the boxes he liked so much.
The courier’s tracker ID popped on the screen at his request, and he instructed the computer to continually update her position. A new window opened, displaying a map with a pulsing blue dot.

Devon watched the list on the right display. A line filtered to the top. Nigel Wood had assigned one of his teams to retrieve the courier. Devon smiled as the courier’s box began to take form.

Another line pushed to the top of the list, and Devon’s smiled disappeared as quickly as it had formed. The computer had identified the man emerging from the explosion.

Devon’s life had just become more complicated. He left his office to make a call.

McConnell Park lay at the base of an up-ramp leading to Level 6. It was a medium-sized grassy area with a gravel path that wove its way around the perimeter between stands of sickly oak trees. A pond, which according to the sign had once held ducks and geese, filled the southern corner. The water looked like the trees, gray and bland, covered in the general dust and grime of a big city. I stopped briefly, using the fetid water to clean my face and hands. The liquid burned as it hit my neck and the cuts on my fingers, but I felt cleaner. The northwestern section held various monuments, men holding swords or guns high in the air, riding horses.

I remembered reading somewhere the significance of the horses in these statues. It was something like, if the horse was on its rear legs only, the person on the horse had died in battle, if the horse had at least a front and a rear leg on the ground, the person was just famous. Or some crap like that. Really, who cared anyways?

All I cared about right now was that I could see most of the park
and stay hidden behind one of the statues. The one I was behind still had a plaque on it, the writing obscured by years of grime. I crouched near the base, the horse on its rear legs only reaching upward to the ceiling.

Level 5 always felt so open to me . . . a feeling I didn’t enjoy. Levels 4 and 5 were about thirty-seven meters tall, almost twice the height of the twenty-one meter ceilings I’d grown used to on Level 2. Never having been on Levels 6 or 7, I had no idea how high up they might go. Being in the open space without my motorcycle or helmet made my heart race, pounding in my chest, and I slowed my breathing to try and calm it down. It seemed to work.

I could see why the park had been picked as a meeting place. The traffic heading up to Level 6 was all stop and go, waiting to be cleared through security before entering the rarefied communities and businesses. All of the drivers would be too concerned with their own business to be watching what happened in the park. Still, if something did happen, they were close enough to see just about everything. Three o’clock in the afternoon made sense, too. The trail through the park had a few mothers pushing baby carriages and a jogger or two, but other than that privacy was pretty much guaranteed.

The security at the up-ramp wasn’t the government-run police either, it was corporate. For all I knew, they could have been paid to ignore anything that happened here anyway.

From my vantage point, I could see a couple of guys dead center, just north of the pond. They both wore short gray jackets and slacks, and they were the only people in the park who didn’t look like they were just passing through. I pulled the comm unit free of my jacket and sent a single word.

North.

A few seconds later, the tall one with what looked like a freakishly huge comb-over pulled out his comm unit and read a message.
He put the comm unit back in his pocket and walked to the gravel path, turning north when he reached it. The path would take him right past me. I watched him for a while before turning my attention to the other man. He had left the park and was heading around the south side of the pond. I ignored him.

I turned my attention back to the man with the comb-over. He followed the path until he was into the memorial statues. With each step, my uncertainty increased. For the tenth time today, my fingers reached for the golden figure of Oscar in my pocket. For the tenth time, I jerked them back.

I still wasn’t sure this was the right thing to do. But did I really have any choice?

When he passed me, I stepped out behind him and pressed Frank’s gun into his back. He stiffened for a second, and then continued his slow walk down the path. I followed close behind. He smelled faintly of coconut hand cream.

“We found Frank,” he said.

I didn’t falter. “Over to the bench.”

Comb-over left the path and sat down slowly on the bench. He still hadn’t looked at who might be pointing a gun at him, though if he had any kind of intelligence he would have guessed by my voice. I stayed on my feet behind the bench, the gun now pointed at the back of his head.

“You did quite the job on him,” he said.

“I didn’t do anything. Your sniper got him by mistake.”

“Ahhh. We thought it might have been a sniper, probably on the building across the lot. Not one of ours though.”

Not one of theirs? Who the hell had it been then? Quincy, or the people he worked for? Maybe. Maybe Frank had enemies, and it had nothing to do with me. That didn’t explain my close escape in the elevator shaft, though.

“Explain,” I said.

“Frank’s job was to bring you here, to us, so we could talk to you.”

I took a quick look around, shifting from one foot to the other. “Us?”

“Oh, yes, us. Of course, I’ll be the only one you’ll talk to, but there are several of my people around. I’d say right now you have about five or six weapons pointed at you. And unlike that sniper on Level 1, they almost never miss their target.”

My back began to tingle, and I moved slightly to be in line with the statue behind me. Coming here was starting to feel like a mistake, but it was too late to turn back now. I tried to act brave. “And you expect me to believe you?”

“Of course. Here, let me help you, let me prove I’m telling the truth. Monica, would you please show us your weapon and then leave the park?”

I glanced around and caught a glimpse of reflected Ambients on metal. One of the mothers pushing a baby carriage on the path raised a rifle out of the carriage, caressed the barrel, and placed it back quickly, covering it with a blanket. She turned her carriage around and took the shortest route to the perimeter of the park.

“Now, you may as well put the gun away. If you do pull the trigger, you will never leave the park alive.”

I hesitated. He may have been lying, and the woman with the baby carriage was the only one in the park with them. Then again, there was the man he’d been standing with earlier. I put the pistol inside my jacket, keeping it in my grip, and moved around the bench, sitting as far from comb-over as I could get. The hidden gun pointed at his chest.

“What do you want from me?” I asked.

“Why don’t we introduce ourselves first? You are, of course, Kris Ballard, the sixteen-year-old runaway with the curious ability to stay alive. I am Michael Fletcher. I work for IBC.”

IBC, the International Business Cooperative, was one of the three major corporations that pretty much ran the country. Most of the rumors on the last election had said the president was just a puppet, bought and paid for by IBC despite what the people wanted. Which was exactly why I’d decided I was never going to vote. What was the point when the corporations basically fought amongst themselves to place a figurehead in the Oval Office?

Time to get to the point. “And why would IBC send someone to kidnap me and bring me here?”

“Kidnap? Oh dear,
kidnap
is such a harsh word. All we wanted was an opportunity to talk to you. Frank was supposed to be your escort to make sure you arrived safely.”

“Yeah, right.” This guy was an idiot if he thought I believed that.

Michael turned to look at me. “You are the reason we sent Frank. Or is it the ‘escort’ part you don’t believe?” The bastard was actually smirking now.

My grip tightened on the gun. “Listen, Mikey.” I felt a minor victory when Michael’s smile vanished. Apparently he didn’t like being called Mikey. His mother probably called him that, if the asshole even had a mother. “Everyone seems to want the package. I just happen to be the one carrying it, which is a job I don’t want anymore.”

“Ahh, yes, the package. I find it almost as interesting that you still have it as I do that you’re still around to
tell
me you have it.” He fixed his gaze on the stunted oak at the edge of the park. “Have you opened it to find out what all of this is about?”

A coldness sunk into my core. He had no idea how close I’d gotten to doing exactly that. “You’re kidding me, right? If I open the package, I’m pretty much dead. If I can get rid of the damn thing while it’s still sealed, I may be able to walk out of this alive.”

“You really don’t understand then, do you?” He looked at me as
though I was some sort of freak. “You really are an anomaly. Fascinating.”

I jumped to my feet. I’d had enough bullshit to last a fucking lifetime. It was time to find out if this guy was going to play ball. “I’ll find someone else to give the package to.”

“If you take one more step, it will be your last one.”

He was a fucking asshole, but at least my bluff had worked. I slowly sat back down. “Just as long as you know—Mikey. If I feel any of this turning sour, you’re not making it out of here either.”

Michael shrugged nonchalantly “Those are the risks I took when I accepted the job. The risks we all accepted.”

“I didn’t accept any of this bullshit. All I want is out.”

“Out, or safety? Those are two entirely different things, you know.”

I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. “What do you mean?”

“Let me fill you in on a few of the details first. Where did you pick up the package?”

I wasn’t about to give this guy any information. “You tell me.”

“If you insist.” Michael sighed and continued. “You picked up the package at a SoCal Level 4 office. Pretty much a run-of-the-mill pickup, though maybe a bit late in the day. That, apparently, was planned. Emily—I believe you all just call her Dispatch—specifically picked you as the courier of choice for this trip.”

“Fucking bitch.”

“Hmmm, yes. I don’t think she knew all the details, really. Just that this was an important package and needed a speedy and guaranteed delivery. The fact that she pulled you into it was probably meant to be a compliment.

“As I was saying, you picked up at SoCal and dropped off at Innotek. Innotek is a new subsidiary of Kadokawa, and a very quiet one. So, two of the largest corporations in the world are exchanging
data. Not an interesting piece of information on its own. What makes it interesting is the presence of the SoCal Black Ops team when you made your delivery. Did you know that the president of Innotek, what was his name . . . Gorō, I believe, has not been seen since that night? That’s a very odd thing, considering how monitored our society really is.” He shook his head. “But I’m straying off topic. Now why would SoCal have a team at the pickup point?”

Michael looked at me as though waiting for an answer.

“How the fuck should I know? I just deliver the packages.”

“Think, Ms. Ballard. You haven’t stayed alive this long by turning off your brain.”

I mulled it over, playing along. “Maybe the package contains information SoCal doesn’t want known?”

“Doesn’t want known . . . perhaps. How about should not exist? Now what information could SoCal have that should not exist? Interesting, don’t you think?”

“No.” But my mind was working at about two hundred kilometers per hour. SoCal was one of the biggest, if not
the
biggest, corporations in the world. They owned most of San Angeles, and maintained at least four of the massive Sat Cities sitting in geosynchronous orbit. That’s pretty much where my memories from school left me.

“Now what if I told you the Black Ops team was Meridian, pretending they were SoCal? The problem is that we don’t know. Kadokawa may know. To them, the package may only have contained proof of something. And now, Ms. Ballard, to the point. You have the package—”

“And you want it.”

“If you interrupt me again, Ms. Ballard, I shall be forced to walk away.”

For the first time in this meeting, a sense of calm came over me.
“I call bullshit.” There was no way he would go to all the trouble of getting me to just walk away.

Michael gave me another appraising look. “Hmmm, yes. Well, as you most succinctly stated, IBC wants to see the package.”

“I don’t have it. I gave it to Dispatch this morning.”

“Do you think me a fool, Ms. Ballard? Do you truly believe we wouldn’t know if you had the package or not? Your . . . Dispatch does not have the package, and of course she never will. The package is still in your possession. If it was not, you would not have come to this meeting.”

“Fuck you.”

“Hmmm, yes . . . right. I think you are a bit young for my taste, though I find your haircut somewhat appealing, but thank you for the offer.” He paused, staring off into the distance. “Perhaps I should make myself clearer. My job here is to verify that the package is in your hands, which, as I just stated, is clearly the fact. Still, I would like to see it. If I didn’t, my employers may be a tad upset.”

This guy thought he had all the answers. I shifted in my seat. “I left it in the car.”

“And where is the car?”

“Two blocks from here, beside a little service shop.”

“You should have informed us of this earlier.” He tilted his head, moving his mouth closer to his collar. “Find and cover the vehicle.”

Several people turned and left the park. Some of them, I hadn’t even seen before they moved.

“Now, let’s walk to the car, while I tell you about your part of the plan.”

“My part of the plan?” What was this bullshit? “I’ll tell you my part. I get the package and give it to you. End of story.”

“Ahh . . . not quite. My specialty does not lie in that particular area. My instructions are to have you complete your job.”

“My job?”

“Yes. You are to deliver the package to the new president of Innotek. I believe he is already ensconced in his predecessor’s office.”

“I already tried that. It damn near got me killed.” If this guy thought I was going back, he was crazy. I almost laughed out loud to cover up the fear I was sure was written all over my face.

“You will, of course, have the protection of the IBC for this delivery.”

“That didn’t help Frank much, did it?”

“Frank may have been an error. He preferred to work alone, and in this case, his preference was also his downfall.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Refuse? My dear girl, that is entirely out of the question. Meridian has traced you to the park already, and I’m told your friend is with them. I’m afraid I don’t know his name.”