Masterminds (15 page)

Only the shadows weren’t real.

Gomez hadn’t liked her reflection. She had put on weight since she left the
Stanley.
She got most of her exercise by walking around her ship, and the
Green Dragon
was tiny compared to the
Stanley
. She had thought she had put on only a little weight, and she was startled to realize she looked a bit tubby.

Then she smiled to herself. The reflecting doors were brilliant. They made the entrant focus on herself instead of the building. She had stepped inside, through obvious security that didn’t seem to mind her, and into a high-ceilinged lobby that had almost no décor. No chair, no sofa, no tables, and no desks. Nothing for anyone to stand near or behind. Everything was open, and that made it all uncomfortable for her.

She almost felt like yelling,
Hey! I’m here! Make sure I’m not going to attack this stupid building!

But she didn’t, of course. Since yelling something like that would be suspicious, and, apparently, walking through wasn’t suspicious at all.

She hit her first barrier just inside the obvious security. A clear wall shimmered before her, and across her vision an automated person appeared.

State your business
.

She straightened her shoulders.
Earth Alliance Frontier Security Service Marshal Judita Gomez here to see Noelle DeRicci
.

You do not have an appointment
.

That’s right
. She hated these automated greetings. All of them frustrated her, and the frustration piled onto old frustrations. Just knowing the automation existed frustrated her, even before the thing started talking with her.

Please exit the building and return when you have an appointment.

She had known it would say that.
Please let Noelle DeRicci know I’m here. This is an urgent matter.

The avatar winked out and the wall before her hardened. Some people would have gotten discouraged here, but Gomez did not.

Then an oval-shaped face appeared in her links. The face belonged to a stunning woman with long, black hair that hung over her shoulder like a waterfall.

Are you the woman who contacted me?
the woman asked.

Noelle DeRicci?
Gomez asked, not certain how to respond to the query.

No, I’m her assistant, Rudra Popova.
The woman looked irritated.
You did not answer my query. Are—

I haven’t contacted you,
Gomez sent.
I decided I should come directly to the office. I just arrived on the Moon. You can check out the history of my ship, the
Green Dragon
. I have information that Chief DeRicci needs to hear.

The woman—Popova—frowned.
What kind of information?

I’d prefer to discuss that with her.

The woman’s image vanished. Gomez sighed. She had no idea if she had made any impact or not.

Then the avatar returned.
Extensive DNA sample required. Test will be measured against DNA already on file.
Place your hand on the barrier before you
.

Gomez did. She felt some heat against her palm, then the system told her to put her hand down.

She wondered how many people that request alone discouraged. She would wager quite a few simply walked away when they were told they needed to provide an extensive DNA sample, instead of the usual minor identity check.

Then the barrier dissolved from the inside out, slowly revealing the actual lobby. It was smaller than the one she had thought she was in.

Two human guards, one male and one female, waited for her.

“Marshal Gomez,” the female guard said. “We’re to escort you upstairs.”

“Thank you,” Gomez said.

She was certain she would pass through other security areas with tests she couldn’t see. The guards flanked her. She could probably have gotten away from them, but it would have taken planning and work.

The Security Office Building didn’t have the best security she had ever seen—she had run into some amazingly secure office buildings in the Frontier—but it had the best security she had seen since she arrived in Armstrong, and that included the port.

She had been startled when she left the port without going through security to enter the city. And she didn’t have to go through any major security to get on the Armstrong Express, the city’s public transit system.

Once she figured out who to report city matters to, she would report on the ways the city could tighten its security.

The guards led her to an elevator, but there were no obvious floors to press, and if they told it what floor they needed, they did so by links. The elevator did not telegraph what floors it was passing, nor could she feel it move.

For all she knew, once the doors closed, the elevator car remained stationary. Only the fact that the exterior looked different when the doors opened told her she had gone somewhere else.

A woman waited before the elevator doors. It was the woman Gomez had seen on the barrier in the lobby. She was thinner than Gomez expected, and her hair was more of a curtain than a waterfall.

Her gaze met those of the guards, obviously communicating with them on links, probably giving the guards instructions as to what to do next.

A male security guard came down the corridor and stopped just behind the woman.

Then the woman’s gaze met Gomez’s.

“Marshal,” the woman said, “I’m Rudra Popova. Please forgive our mistrust. The Moon is not the place it was.”

“I can only imagine what you’re going through,” Gomez said.

Popova took a step back, and Gomez saw that as a signal that she could leave the elevator. She stepped out, and the original guards remained. But the new guard came to her side.

“I have informed Chief DeRicci that you’re here. Before she sees you, she would like to know what this is concerning.”

Gomez looked at the security guard. He was staring ahead, as if the conversation didn’t matter to him at all.

Gomez was prepared for this.

“Over fifteen years ago,” she said, “I discovered an enclave of PierLuigi Frémont clones in the Frontier. I had a rather extensive encounter with them, and reported my findings to the Alliance. Nothing was done.”

Popova clasped her hands behind her back. “This seems like information that you could have sent to Chief DeRicci. Is there some reason you wanted to see her in person?”

“Yes,” Gomez said. “I have more information, some that I do not want to send on links.”

“Please forgive our mistrust, Marshal, but none of us know you. I am loathe to send you into the Chief’s office without much more vetting.”

Gomez understood that. She nodded slightly.

“Whatever you need,” she said in the most conciliatory tone she could manage.

“We’ll need you to sit and wait right here.” Popova led her to a small grouping of chairs near a desk that appeared to be in the corridor. “Thanks for understanding.”

Gomez smiled as warmly as she could. She sat on the edge of one of the chairs.

She wondered what the point of this was. Because she knew they wouldn’t let her so deep into the Security Office if they weren’t sure she was who she said she was.

But then, the Moon had just been attacked by lawyers that the entire legal community had worked with for years. Confirming that a person was who she said she was clearly wasn’t enough. Somehow they would have to divine if she meant the Security Office harm.

She had no idea how they would determine that. She hoped they had a system.

She clasped her hands together and made sure her gaze did not scan the desk or the other chairs. She had learned on the Frontier how to look almost harmless.

She found it ironic that she would need the same skill here, in the heart of the Alliance.

Where they had gotten lazy about protecting themselves—and were now paying the price.

TWENTY

TALIA SAT IN
the waiting area of the Medical Unit at the Port of Armstrong. Until this afternoon, she hadn’t known there was a medical unit in the Port of Armstrong, let alone that the medical unit had a waiting area.

It was hodgepodge of colors—gold walls, orange and green chairs, a pale blue couch that had seen better days, several scarred tables, and signs that popped up on the blank surfaces, warning her that she could be asked to leave if she violated this rule or that rule or some other behavior.

Getting in here had been surprisingly easy, but then, her father had made certain she had access to Detective Zagrando. She had to refer to him as Isamu Vidal, because that was the name all of his official identification used.

A lot of port security guards and several rookie space traffic cops guarded the medical unit. Two higher-ranked space traffic cops stood near the surgical part of the wing, clearly guarding Detective Zagrando—or Vidal, as she needed to remind herself to call him. Vidal without the Detective in front of it.

She felt safe, despite the fact that her father went over and over the escape plan with her should anything go wrong.

She didn’t think anything would go wrong—not with this many police here—but she didn’t know for certain. She didn’t entirely understand what was going on. She figured her father would explain it to her. Or Detective Zagrando would do so when the time was right.

She hadn’t been able to see him yet. They were still working on him.

The good news, according to the woman Talia had spoken to, was that he hadn’t died yet. The bad news was that he needed extensive surgery and reconstruction. Every time they put nanobots into his system, they rebuilt a bit of him, but not enough to compensate for all the damage.

He’s a very strong man
, the woman had said.
Most people would never have survived those injuries
.

But no one could tell Talia when he would get out or become conscious.

So she sat and waited. She had a tablet from the Security Office, and the tablet’s systems were encrypted, but her father had warned her that the standard encryption wasn’t enough. If Talia did any research, she had to do it for items that everyone knew or no one would find suspicious.

Her father had made her uncomfortable enough that she wasn’t going to disobey him, not on this one.

Besides, her mind wasn’t exactly on it all.

She used the tablet to review Detective Zagrando’s arrival. The port records were open, at least to family, which somehow her father had gotten her registered as. So she saw the weird little ship that Detective Zagrando had arrived in, and saw it struggle to land. Plus she saw the security vid of the medical staff getting him off the ship.

His wounds weren’t obvious from the security vid, but the fact that people had to carry him off the ship showed just how badly he was injured. She had a sense—and maybe she was just putting herself in his place—that he was the kind of man who rarely wanted anyone to see how weak he actually was.

She couldn’t get a lot of information from the footage—at least on Detective Zagrando’s condition. So she turned her attention to the ship itself.

It hadn’t been made inside the Alliance, at least according to the public sources that she used to trace it. In fact, there were limitations on its use within the Alliance. And it certainly couldn’t be sold here, because it had some features that would need to be retrofitted before it followed Alliance regulations.

She had stopped researching after looking at the ship.

She was tired too, and still somewhat sad. She was glad that her father had trusted her to do this task, but she still felt out of her depth.

And beneath it all, she was angry.

Over the years, she had always assumed that Detective Zagrando, the kind man who might have saved her life, was doing great and compassionate things in Valhalla Basin. She had imagined that he saved a few other kids, and maybe got married and had some kids of his own.

Sometimes she thought he would have been promoted for all his good works, and every once in a while, she thought of contacting him to let him know she was okay.

When she first arrived in Armstrong, she thought about him a lot. She wondered if he wanted to adopt a girl whose mother had killed herself because of her crimes and if he needed help investigating stuff. She had been so mad at her father in those days; she blamed him for a lot of what happened, even though he hadn’t even known she existed until he showed up in Valhalla Basin.

Eventually, she got that worked out in her head. Plus she knew deep down that Detective Zagrando had no place for her in his life. He had actually told her before her dad arrived that the VBPD job didn’t leave any room for having someone special.

She couldn’t exactly remember what Detective Zagrando had said or if he had actually said the words that he couldn’t adopt her. But she had gotten the message all the same. And it had frightened her, because she had known already that she was alone, and in a lot of trouble, and she might not have had a future at all.