Erebus (19 page)

“A composite combat chassis with servo-assists—a fairly standard weapon and e-warfare package. I think, Major Cheng Zao, that you are long overdue for an upgrade,” Frain said, a wolfish grin creeping onto his face. Of more interest to me was why he’d suddenly changed his tune. Why was he tipping his hand, showing his knowledge and his capabilities?

“I do fine with what the People have gifted me with. I do thank you for your concern, though,” Cheng retorted, his voice still calm. “After all, you are the one in custody. Me? I can walk out of here anytime.”

“And you,” I continued, taking over, “cannot. Now is probably a good time to remind you that you are under arrest. You have the right to legal representation if that is deemed practicable—which at this stage it’s not. Oh,” I said, snapping my fingers as if I’d just remembered, “and anything said in this room can be used in court.”

“Thank you for reminding me of my rights, Inspector Trent.”

“Why did you do it? Let’s cut the bullshit; let’s cut the song and dance. Just tell us.” The surge of anger I felt came from nowhere. I just wanted him to admit it, to tell me why. This man was involved up to his neck. How else would he get enhancements enough to sneer at the top-grade equipment Cheng had?

Frain turned his head to the front of the room again, giving every impression he was going to ignore us.

“Like that, is it? Fine,” I said, quickly quashing the unprofessional rage that had threatened to overwhelm me. The heavy door slid open. I made a point not to look at the people entering the room. “You failed, you know. There is a survivor, and we have him.”

The guards, their weapons trained on Frain, took a step back as Cheng stepped around and took hold of the prisoner’s handcuffed wrists. He pulled them toward a metal fastener on the table. With a click, Frain’s hands were locked into position.

Frain folded his fingers together and looked dead ahead, no expression on his face, as Agapov stepped into view behind him and applied a hypo to his neck. With a hiss, the ERPing drugs were shot into his body. Frain gave a slight shudder and closed his eyes. Unlike with Kumba back in Sahelia, Frain’s face took on an appearance of Zen-like calm. Agapov lowered the sensor helmet over his head.

“We’re going to be asking you a few questions, Xander,” I said. The long list of ERP control questions blinked onto my HUD. I began. “What color is grass?”

***

“So you’re telling me you got nothing?” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose. It had been an exhausting few hours, first asking the hundreds of control questions and then questioning him about Io itself. We were back in the observation room, looking over the results of the interrogation—the rather disappointing results.

“Oh, we got something,” Vance growled. “White noise. Evidently our mysterious Mr. Frain either has major psychiatric issues that somehow caused some serious misreads or he’s somehow spoofed the system.”

“You ever heard of anyone managing to fool ERPing?” I asked, glancing at Frain on the monitor. As I watched, he gave the briefest sign of frailty, massaging his temples with his cuffed hands before adopting a composed posture, his hands clasped on the table. “Because I haven’t.”

“No, never.” Vance indicated the screen. “It was all going swimmingly through the control questions. We got the ERP resolution the system needed as you asked them.”

“So what went wrong?” I asked.

“Look at his response to
Are you responsible for the destruction of Io?
”

On the screen was nothing but static.

“Or how about,
Are you working alone?
”

Same result—nothing but flickering across the display.

“It’s time to try my way,” Cheng said icily as he looked at Frain on the monitor.

“Seriously, Zao? I mean, you think a guy who can defeat an ERPing is going to be phased if you put him on the rack?” I snapped sarcastically. “Get real.”

“Mind your attitude, Trent,” Cheng growled, “or—”

“Or you’ll what?” I stood and looked at him, the anger bubbling over within me at getting nothing out of Frain.

“If you two don’t play nice and stop your bickering, I’ll make a formal request that your respective commands relieve you both,” Vance said loudly. “Remember how far we’ve come. We have someone in custody. We’re not going to blow this now.”

She was right; I knew it. I was just frustrated, and I wanted answers straight away—answers from the man sitting in the next room, the man responsible for Dev’s death. Real life doesn’t work that way, though. I held my hands up in surrender. “Apologies. I get cranky when I’m tired.”

Cheng nodded. “Don’t we all. Apology accepted and returned.”

“Good. Let’s keep this civilized, people,” Vance said.

I looked over at our Linked liaison, who stood in the corner regarding us with calm eyes, and opted to change the subject. “Cerise, did Voice Patrice send the authorization through?”

“The Consensus,” she gently corrected, “has sent the authorization through. The standard forty-eight hour intersystem detention period has been extended to seventy-two hours. If we need longer, we’ll have to go back to the Consensus. They didn’t ask too many questions for the extension this time, but rest assured, they will if we want to go up to ninety-six hours.”

“Fair enough.” I gave a yawn. It had been a very long day full of roller coasters of adrenaline. As soon as we had Frain in custody, Cerise had gone back to the Consensus to extend Frain’s detention for questioning. We had to justify it, of course. We couldn’t just detain someone indefinitely, that would be kidnapping, but things like the lengthy light-speed-imposed delays and the NYPD deep background checks meant we needed time.

“I’ve got combined intelligence services seeing what they can dig up based on Frain’s DNA samples,” Vance said. Clearly, she had set the argument of moments ago aside. “We’re waiting for them to send back anything they dig up. Considering his enhancements allow him to ghost sensors, chances are he’s had a full DNA remap. I’m betting he shows up as Frain.”

“Here’s hoping we catch a break and we get an easy answer as to just who is in our holding room,” I said. Without a little luck, we might be staring at a dead end; we’d need to find another avenue.

“Agreed. I doubt just hammering him with questions—” Vance started.

“Will work,” I finished. “He’s too cool a customer. We need to go in with solid information to challenge him on.”

“Agreed,” Cheng nodded. “I say we go get some downtime. It’ll give Frain a chance to simmer for a while, and then we can hit him when Earth has turned around our requests.

I raised an eyebrow at Cheng.

“I don’t mean literally…yet.” Cheng’s eyes twinkled mischievously.

I gave a weary nod. Something about Frain’s cool, collected demeanor told me he wasn’t going to buckle easily. We would need solid information on him before he would give anything up.

***

I was lying on my bed in my tiny dorm room, watching Giselle on my HUD as we reviewed the state of the Sahelia case. She was bemoaning the fact that Wade had given the team an endless stream of witness statements and further evidence to gather. She wanted every little thing in place to ensure that the animals we had in custody for the massacre would be nailed to the wall.

She looked tired, and I realized that she was managing both the case and the War Crimes department as a whole. Maybe it would be good for her; it would mean the department would know she still could handle a complex investigation and hadn’t lost herself in admin. When she came to the end of her update, she yawned, wished me well, and then clicked off.

I flicked on a HUD game for a bit, something simple to occupy my mind and chill out. My latest vice was some mind-numbingly addictive load of nonsense where I had to build a colony on a harsh world through all kinds of adversity. I switched it off in disgust after half my population got wiped out by a rampaging horde of predatory xenos and vowed never to play it again. That promise would last until the following night. Damn, these HUD apps were the opium of the masses these days.

Before long, I drifted off to sleep…

***

…only to be woken by the urgent ping of my link. Groggily, I activated it, and Vance’s face appeared.

“Trent, we have a big fucking problem. Frain’s out. We have five casualties so far. Some of them are in a pretty bad way.”

Shit. “On my way. Rally point?”

“HQ.”

I rolled out of bed and flung open the wardrobe. I tugged on my scout armor. New tactical options appeared in my HUD as it interfaced with my implants. Integrity, power, and camouflage options all flashed on. Finally securing the Velcro straps, I pulled out a small lockbox and held my hand on the lid. It analyzed my biometrics and sprang open. I pulled out my pistol and four magazines. Letting my firearms training take over, I cleared and loaded the gun. Pocketing the magazines and tucking the weapon into my thigh holster, I charged out of the room and down the hallway.

***

“How the fuck did he get out?” I asked as I burst into the room. A JAS tactical team was loading for bear, and Cheng was in black combat armor that shimmered as he moved, a sign the active camouflage was booting up. Vance was finishing suiting up, too, getting ready to join the hunt.

“Take a look,” Vance said as she tied back her hair and glanced at the display. I looked over. Frain sat in the same room we had interviewed him in, the two JAS officers still looking over him. I barely saw the motion when it came. His clasped hands went from resting on the table to lancing out into one of the officers. The officer flew back into the wall so hard he left a dent in it. The other managed to get his weapon up about halfway before Frain touched him with the palms of his hands. The guard shook like he was being electrocuted and dropped to the floor. Frain stood from a half crouch and went to one of the fallen officers. He knelt down and pulled something out of the man’s pocket. A moment later, Frain’s cuffs were on the floor, and he walked toward the door like he had all the time in the world. It slid open, and he sauntered through.

“Who opened the door for him?” I demanded.

“No one,” Cheng said. He cleared a carbine from the arms locker and passed it to me. “His e-warfare package clearly had the capability to open it at any fucking time.”

“And no one thought of this?” I said, taking the weapon and making it ready. I knew playing the blame game was useless, but I couldn’t help myself. Were we a bunch of complete fucking amateurs here?

“There’s no way he should’ve been able to crack it. I wouldn’t have been able to,” Cheng retorted.

We all loaded up, and Vance barked orders to Frampton and Sihota. “Stay here and coordinate with Cerise.”

With that, the tactical team all rolled out.

***

“Last known position is on the pathway leading to the Chandrasky building,” Cerise announced over the link. “His e-warfare package defeated our internal security. He’s ghosting through the cams and sniffers now. We have mosquitoes up and about, but they’re even less sophisticated than internal security sensors. He’ll likely just walk past them.”

Great. He was pulling off the same trick he had used in New York. We would have to look for him the old-fashioned way.

We made our way down the crunching gravel path toward the Chandrasky building, some kind of science block. The security officers glanced around nervously.

“We never managed to get a deep scan on Frain’s implants,” Cheng murmured. “He’s exhibited a hell of a lot of advanced technology.”

“But you can take him, right?” I asked.

Cheng turned his head and gave a gallows grin. “I guess we find out.”

“Contact. Team Three has engaged. Two hundred meters spinward of the Chandrasky building,” Cerise announced. Team Three had already been deployed and were a bit ahead of us.

“Let’s move,” Cheng barked.

The coms chatter from Team Three had gone from nervous to desperate pretty damn quick—they were getting their arses kicked. They were holding Frain up but paying a heavy price for it.

I ran flat out at a dead run past the art-deco-spired university building with Cheng, Vance, and the JAS team. We slowed when we neared the fracas to recoup our breath for confronting Frain. Ahead, I could see one of the thick spokes of the station torus connecting the habitat ring to the central docking hub.

“Their implants are showing they’re all alive, thank God. Most are unconscious, though,” Cerise called. “He doesn’t seem particularly interested in killing anyone—he’s even making efforts
not
to.” That was interesting, especially since he had a lot of blood on his hands already. You’d think a few JAS officers on his conscience would be no problem for him.

He was on us before we realized it—he was that fast. The first shot knocked Vance onto her back. I skidded behind a stone bench and glanced her way. She was lying on the grass, groaning, electricity crackling over her armor. The camouflage malfunctioned, flashing through all kinds of strange colors.

I could see the JAS officers around me, taking what cover they could. Cheng dived behind the next bench over.

“You spot him?” I called to Cheng.

“Negative,” he said, dropping into military speak. “He must have got hold of some active camouflage armor.” He ducked his head as a round struck his bench. “Probably off one of the disabled officers. He’s not showing visually, and he’s still ghosting sensors. Vance, are you okay?”

“I think so,” she groaned in reply. “Got me in the chest plate. Armor going mad. Must have hit me with a disrupter round.”

Dammit. Chances were she was out for the count unless she wanted to shed her armor and brave this fight exposed.

I saw one of the JAS officers bob his head over the trash bin that he was using as cover. The incap round struck him. Fortunately, the blast merely grazed his helmet, causing his armor to lock up, and he fell to his side, frozen in the same half crouch he had been in.

“He has us pinned down,” I called.

“No shit. He can’t be far ahead, though,” Cheng called back.

A tactical map popped up in my HUD with the JAS officers and us highlighted and tagged. “Hester, Rikard. Stand and provide cover on my mark,” Cheng called. “Mark!”