Masterminds (25 page)

The problem was that Andre could flag any investigation inside the Earth Alliance system without someone as low-ranking as Goudkins even noticing the flag. And Goudkins had been using Earth Alliance Security protocols to do her investigation.

Goudkins had taken some precautions. Part of her job was to investigate misbehaving Earth Alliance officials, so her little ship had all sorts of layers of security that usually made it invisible to someone who was watching their back.

The problem was that the people she usually investigated didn’t have the reach that Andre did.

Goudkins had focused her initial search on Andre as if Andre were a candidate for a high-level job. Goudkins deliberately did
not
search for any connection between Andre and clones, Andre and PierLuigi Frémont, and Andre and the Anniversary Day investigations.

Eventually, Goudkins would have to do all of that. But she wanted to bounce what she had found off someone else before she did.

That someone would probably be Noelle DeRicci.

But Goudkins didn’t want to leave her ship just yet, and hurry back to the Security Office. She wanted to check one other thing.

DeRicci had also assigned Goudkins to investigate Mavis Zorn. Zorn had been one of the Peyti clone lawyer’s mentors at the Impossibles. From the information that Goudkins had discovered earlier this afternoon, Zorn’s legal career had been a second career, begun when she was seventy and continuing until her death ten years ago.

The Impossibles were part of the Alliance Justice Division, which was not part of the Security Division.

But Goudkins had a hunch.

There was a big legal department inside the Security Division. That Legal Department, which some mistakenly called the Justice Department, prosecuted crimes and often determined whether or not a species had violated another species’ laws. Most members of the Alliance who didn’t travel or who hadn’t really had much experience with the legal system didn’t realize that legal violations often weren’t as simple as they seemed.

Sometimes an alien could violate another culture’s laws, but in arresting that alien, the other culture then violated
that
alien’s rights. It could be a complete nightmare.

Goudkins had initially considered becoming part the Alliance legal system—even going back to school to join the Security Division’s Legal Department—but when she realized how complicated and difficult it could all be, she decided against it.

Zorn, on the other hand, had worked in the Impossibles, where the Security Division’s Legal Department’s lawyers often trained. The prosecutors generally won their cases in the Impossibles. It was the budding defense attorneys who had the most difficulty there.

And all young attorneys coming into the Impossibles spent some time in defense. Including that Peyti clone lawyer. And Zorn had protected him against failure.

Goudkins dug into Mavis Zorn’s resume. It didn’t take much to find what she had done from law school to the Impossibles.

She had interned at a major law firm during law school. She had paid her own way through that law school, so she didn’t have to go to the Impossibles at all after she graduated, and she didn’t. She returned to that major law firm for one year. It was difficult to see what she had done for them, since she was a first year associate, who probably did everything some senior attorney thought amusing and/or important.

But Zorn left, even though she was on a career track, and she went into government service.

“There it is,” Goudkins muttered, and then she smiled. The piece she’d been looking for. It wasn’t quite a firm confirmation, but it was close enough: Zorn had gone from her high-paying law firm job to working for the Earth Alliance Security Division Legal Department.

Since Zorn’s law career was her second career, she didn’t need the money that so many associates needed to repay bills, even if they had served in the Impossibles to get their school loans repaid. Zorn could afford a lower-paying civil service job, one done for the love of government rather than the desire to earn a small fortune.

Or perhaps Goudkins was projecting. She smiled a little more broadly. She had also gone into civil service instead of the private sector. The choices in the Earth Alliance government, when viewed from the outside, seemed a little more black-and-white.

Only when a person became a member of the civil service did she learn that no decision was ever completely black-and-white.

Goudkins wondered if Zorn had ever learned that, had ever been disillusioned by it.

Goudkins would never find out, not unless she found something personal that Zorn recorded or wrote. And Goudkins didn’t have the time to search for that—at least at the moment.

She dug deeper into the files. Zorn had started in the Security Division’s Legal Department Human Division and, according to her files, served with distinction, whatever that meant. Then she got transferred to the Joint Division. Usually transfers came with a promotion, but she didn’t get one. It seemed she had requested work in the Joint Division, where she would work with aliens.

Goudkins wasn’t sure if that was odd or refreshing. Because Andre had repeatedly refused to serve with other species. Zorn had requested the opportunity to do so.

Goudkins looked a bit more, and paused, staring at the information on her floating screen. Zorn hadn’t just requested a position with the Joint Division. She had asked to work in the Human-Peyti section of the Legal Department’s Joint Division. Human and Peyti lawyers worked side by side there to handle issues that concerned both of their various governments.

Goudkins put a hand to her mouth, her index finger resting on her lips. Her heart was pounding. She made herself take a deep breath.

She couldn’t get ahead of herself. That was the worst thing an investigator could do. She would find what she assumed was there rather than what was actually there.

But she had just found a connection between the Alliance Security Department and Peyti lawyers. A
direct
connection.

If only Goudkins could find a connection with Andre—or, at least, a direct connection with Andre. Because Andre was working in the Security Division at the same time as Zorn.

Goudkins made herself get up from the station and walk around the small research area. Zorn’s position in the Impossibles might have been as simple as a woman deciding that she was better off using her skills to help Peyti lawyers with the difficulties of the Impossibles.

But why wouldn’t a Peyti do that?

And, more importantly, if Zorn had worked directly with the Peyti
for years
, she should have seen the obvious: that the Peyti clones all looked alike. Most humans rarely looked past the mask, but Zorn would have.

She would have seen dozens of Peyti clone lawyers come through the Impossibles; more than that, she would have recognized them for the clones that they were.

And she had helped at least one of them deal with the Impossibles.

Had she helped the others?

Goudkins sat back down, feeling reinvigorated.

It wouldn’t be hard to find out.

THIRTY-FOUR

Ó BRÁDAIGH’S HANDS
were shaking as he reset all the access codes. He wiped sweat from his eyes. The little room was too hot, and his nervousness didn’t help matters any. He double- and triple-checked himself, knowing that his mistakes could cause some kind of situation he could barely imagine. But he had to take that chance.

Technically, he hadn’t been cleared to do this. He could almost imagine himself defending his actions to someone in authority.

I’m supposed to fix something that’s gone wrong. Fix first, ask permission later. That’s my job. I’m sure it’s in the job description.

As if he actually knew. He’d never checked his job description. He’d been a dome engineer since he got out of training. He’d even apprenticed here.

And he needed the work. What would happen to Fiona if someone indicted him as a terrorist? His mother would take care of her, but it wasn’t the same thing. Ó Brádaigh and Fiona were close; he was all she had, all she remembered. She’d never really known her mother.

The codes had only changed for the sectioning equipment and the entries to the engineering workspaces for the dome. Ó Brádaigh didn’t want to think about what that meant, but he had to.

Best case: It meant nothing.

Worst case: Someone was going to prevent a huge part of the dome from sectioning, from protecting itself. Maybe the main part, with all the government buildings.

That was what he would do if he were a bad guy. And he would make sure there wouldn’t be any way to override it.

Ó Brádaigh forced himself to concentrate, but it was hard. He was trembling all over.

When he was certain the codes were properly reset, he let himself out of the little room.

The air in the substructure was cold compared to the air inside that room. He shivered, blaming the cool air, knowing deep down that it wasn’t the air at all. He ran a hand through his hair, felt the sweat beaded against his scalp, and tried to ignore how hard his heart was pounding.

All the while he’d been working, he tried to think about who he could contact for help, who would be the fastest and solve the problem, not who was the proper authority.

His brain had been working so fast that he actually had to stop more than once and force himself to concentrate on the task before him. He hoped he had stopped the problem right at the start, but he had no way to know.

By the time he finished, he had (again) ruled out contacting his colleagues in dome engineering. He might need them, but he wouldn’t be the one to organize them. Because Ó Brádaigh would have to go through Petteway, and he couldn’t do that.

As Ó Brádaigh stood in the substructure, feeling the cooler air dry the sweat on his body, he almost contacted the Armstrong Police Department, then stopped himself.

They couldn’t help with the other domes. Sure, someone at APD could contact the other domes, but the information would get lost in the bureaucracy.

He needed to contact the United Domes of the Moon Security Office, and he had no direct way to do it.

He opened emergency links and was startled to learn that, while the Armstrong Police had a direct emergency contact, the Security Office didn’t.

So he sent his message with bells and horns and flares, flashing red lights, and the panic he felt deep down.

Dome emergency! Dome emergency!

He didn’t exactly know what to say, so he added not just his name, but all his degrees and his commendations, everything he could think of as part of this contact.

I have evidence of dome tampering and I think it might be Moonwide. Please, someone answer me! Please!

No one was. He cursed, then moved forward. He couldn’t wait for them to answer.

He put the message on repeat and ran across the floor of the substructure to the stairs. He needed people everywhere. Someone had to investigate the dome itself, to see if there was something off about it.

He could tell whoever answered him where the weak points of the dome were.

Because if a dome engineer was resetting the codes, then a dome engineer had helped set up whatever damage was aimed at the dome.

The problem was that dome engineers spent their entire careers thinking about dome damage. There were—literally—a thousand different ways to destabilize the dome.

The question was, which one was the easiest or the most effective.

Then, as Ó Brádaigh mounted the stairs, he realized he was asking the wrong question.

Which damage scenario required some dome sections to be shut off?

His mouth went dry as he realized the answer.

Hundreds of them.

And the problem was that every single one would be instantly—and fatally—effective.

THIRTY-FIVE

MARSHAL GOMEZ HAD
brought Noelle DeRicci an amazing amount of information. DeRicci just wasn’t certain what it all meant.

DeRicci sat on her couch, listening intently. At some point, she had grabbed her wadded-up blanket and clutched it against her stomach, as if the blanket could block the spread of bad news.

Someone—or rather, a bunch of someones—hated the Moon enough to plan these attacks
for decades
. These someones had hidden information all over the Alliance and beyond, and even had a practice attack in the Frontier decades ago.

Then these people casually destroyed clone after clone if those clones did not meet some exacting standard. Gomez had stumbled on this, and had gotten some clones imprisoned, nearly preventing the Anniversary Day attacks fifteen years before they happened.

DeRicci found herself wondering how many other chances authorities had had to stop these attacks and somehow missed the opportunities or had the opportunities blocked.

Gomez looked both enervated by all of this, and sincere. When she finished recounting her trip and all of the puzzling things she had encountered, and after she had sent back-up files to DeRicci, DeRicci asked the first question that had come to her mind.