Great North Road (8 page)

Constantine closed his eyes against the icy splendor of the stormscape and the much closer glittering constellation of industrial systems that were his own creation. Still the ancient telephone bell rang, an impulse seeping into his brain at a deeper level than any auditory nerve could reach. He let his consciousness rise through several levels of autonomous thoughts, which now formed the strata of his resequenced brain, until he reached the artificial layer, the one that stretched beyond his skull. His attention slipped across the multitude of connections until it reached the junction with the simplest nerve bundle that handled communications to the habitat AI. It opened like some third eye revealing a topology that could never exist in a Newtonian universe. The ethereal call of the telephone vanished.

“Yes?” he asked.

“Dad,” Coby replied. “You have a message.”

“From whom?” There was no question of why he’d been disturbed. Coby, or indeed anyone at Jupiter, knew not to interrupt him when he was contemplating the universe. Whatever event occurred, it would have to be supremely important to warrant breaking his ruminations. The AI alone didn’t have the authority unless they’d suffered a catastrophe, like a full-on asteroid impact. Therefore only a very limited number of people could send a message that got bumped up the nominal chain of command to this exalted altitude. Two, in total, out of all humanity. He made a guess which it was.

“Augustine,” Coby said.

Right.
Constantine breathed in, scenting the faintest tang of atmospheric filter purity, an air really too clean for humans. At the moment, time delay on a radio signal from Earth was forty minutes. This was not a conversation. And there were a limited number of things the brothers had left to say to each other. He made another guess as to the topic—and it wasn’t good. After all, Augustine’s medical and genetic technology wasn’t as advanced as anything available at Jupiter. “What does he want?”

“It’s encrypted. A very heavy encryption. I’m assuming you have the key.”

“Let us hope so. Route it to me.”

The message began to play. Constantine’s eyes snapped open. His shocked consciousness viewed the autopsy images superimposed across supersonic cyclone spots the size of oceans charging along the storm bands to clash with counterswirls in neighboring bands amid explosion blooms of frozen ammonia and grubby ultraviolet-charged smog. An eerie backdrop indeed for the sharp functional graphics detailing cellular decay, blood chemistry composition, and hard-focus pictures of the sad butchered heart of a dead nephew-brother.

The message ended, leaving him trying to blink away the tears that would never otherwise flow free in zero-g. And how arrogantly wrong he’d been about the topic. Not that it was a bad thing, but the fright he was experiencing was akin to the sight of his own grave opening up. He was aware of his heart rate increasing, of adrenaline rushing through his blood, flushing the skin that radiated the new heat back out toward the lonely, majestic gas giant beyond the bubble.
No,
he told himself,
this is not fright. This is excitement that the challenge has finally come. It has been long enough.

“Dad?” Coby asked. “Is there a reply?”

“No. Just an acknowledgment that the message was received. I will prepare an appropriate message of sympathy later.”

“Right.”

“I’m coming down. Please have Clayton and Rebka meet me at home. And prep a lightwave ship for a trip to Earth.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

*

Sid was watching the preliminary autopsy report slither across his iris smartcell grid. The neat tabulations on cellular decay and stomach contents were superimposed over the pasta he was twirling onto his fork. Around him the bustle of the station canteen continued apace as people took their lunch break. He ignored it completely as he put the information together in a list he could use. The body had been immersed for barely two hours, which gave them some figures on how far it could have drifted down the Tyne. Which was almost irrelevant compared to the shock that was estimated time of death: the morning of Friday the eleventh, three days ago. A North had been missing for three days and no one had called it in. That wasn’t merely suspicious, realistically it was impossible—and that was downright creepy.

He was beginning to think it was a domestic that had gone horribly wrong. Simple scenario. Some poor girl had found the North was cheating on her (everyone knew they could never keep it in their trousers) and picked up some weird brass ornament in fury, lashing out with typical
crime passionelle
strength. Explaining the body dumped in the river was a little more tricky. But not impossible, especially if you assumed her family had gang connections; brothers and cousins rushing around to her place and carting the corpse away—oh, and extracting the smartcells, which was a big stretch. She’d be out of town now, having a long weekend break with witness friends and with a little help from a bytehead running up place-and-time-verifiable credit bills. So when she returned at the end of this week—why surprise, her North boyfriend was nowhere to be found. Call the police and put on a worried voice to report it.
Yes, Officer, I did think it was a little odd he didn’t call while I was away, but he’s been so busy lately …

Sid munched down some garlic bread as he reviewed the premise. It simply wouldn’t fly, no matter how much he wanted it to. Not even having family gang connections could explain away the missing stealth smartcells. And the murder weapon—the wound didn’t allow for it to simply be a handy objet d’art you picked up in a moment of rage. Which in turn left him a huge problem. Fingerblades that could ram through a rib cage to shred the heart it protected? So far the database search had found nothing that matched. Not even close. No armament manufacturer files, nothing from history. His e-i was constantly expanding the search.

“He needs you on the sixth floor.”

“Huh?” Sid looked up to see Jenson San standing beside the table. “Aye, man, don’t creep up on people like that.”

“I didn’t. You were in a different universe.”

Sid pointed at his eyes. “Autopsy results. It was a strange one, you know.”

“No I don’t, actually. That information is case-coded. And make sure you keep it that way.”

Sid wasn’t sure if that was a bitchslap or not. “I know
my
responsibilities, man.”

“Come on. He wants you.”

“This is my lunch break.”

“Not anymore.”

“I have a call code, you know.”

Jenson San’s face remained impassive verging on contemptuous. “If the chief constable had wanted to use that he would have. Instead he found out where you were and sent me to collect you. Do you understand, Detective?”

Punching the senior staff representative in the middle of a police canteen probably wasn’t the best idea the day after you return from suspension. Satisfying, though.

Sid took a big bite of garlic and exhaled in Jenson San’s direction. “Lead on, then, man.”

O’Rouke had a corner office on the sixth floor. Of course. Sid hadn’t been in it many times. He could’ve sworn it got bigger each time he did visit.

The chief was sitting behind a broad desk with a wall of screens that were rolling down as Sid walked in. “Out,” he barked at Jenson San. The door closed, and the blue secure seal lit up around it. Both window walls turned opaque.

“What?” Sid exclaimed as O’Rouke glared at him.

“Not you,” O’Rouke admitted. “I’ve just had a message from the Brussels security commissioner himself. This case just became a whole lot more complicated. Access to all data is now restricted to those already working on the case. Nobody else is to be brought in, no external agency work is to be contracted until further notice. It’s been reclassified: Global Restriction.”

“You can crap on that okay. Why?”

“They don’t bother telling me that. All I know is that some specialist supervisor is coming up from London this afternoon to
take charge
. Fucking Brussels bastards. Take charge! This is my city. No government fuckface comes prancing up here and tells me what goes down on my streets.”

“Augustine must have stuck his oar in. Which is odd, since Aldred said they wouldn’t.”

“This isn’t the Norths. This is something else.”

And Sid could see that not knowing was hurting O’Rouke badly. “Do they want me to close it down?”

“No. That’s the weirdest piece of this crap. You’re to keep going.”

“But if I can’t call in experts when I need them, I can’t get anywhere.”

“I know. Look, Hurst, you’ve built up a shitload of data this morning. Get it all processed ready for this supervisor dick. He’s the one who’s going to say where the investigation goes. Your priority now is to brief your team and make fucking sure nothing gets out. I’ll send down some network nerds to beef up your systems security.”

“Okay. I’ll get to it.”

“Are you anywhere near a suspect?”

“Chief, we don’t even know who he was yet. And that can’t be right, not for a North.”

“You’ve no idea? None?”

“No. But …”

“What? Give me something, man.”

“Autopsy said he was murdered on Friday.”

O’Rouke gave him a blank look. “So?”

“Friday was when they announced the fusion station contract.”

“Corporate crap,” O’Rouke hissed.

“I don’t know. But that’s a lot of money even for Northumberland Interstellar. And that much money becomes political. Now we’ve got Brussels interested. I’m joining dots, here.”

“Shit. All right, this prick will be here late afternoon, apparently. Keep the team at it until he arrives. And Hurst.”

“Yeah?”

“Be nice to have a name for the dead North when he gets here. Show the arsehole we don’t need him for anything.”

“You got it.”

Sid went back down to the third floor and found the team still busy at their zone consoles. “A new brief for you,” he told them once the secure seal was on. “This is bigger than we originally thought. So big that Brussels has decided to piss off O’Rouke and send an expert over here to take over from me.”

“What have they got that we haven’t?” Eva asked indignantly. “The Norths have given us an unlimited case budget. We can have this solved by tomorrow.”

“Uh-huh,” Sid said. “Ari, Abner, have you got a name for me?”

Abner shook his head diffidently. “Sorry, boss. Not yet.”

“According to the autopsy prelims, the victim was killed on Friday late morning,” Sid told them. “In other words a North has been missing since then and nobody noticed. Come on, people! This was never a normal case to begin with. Now this. So … we carry on correlating our data, open up some fresh lines of inquiry ready to show our new super-detective when he arrives. Get to it, please.”

Sid went over to the consoles where Ari and Abner were working. “Really?” he asked in a low voice. “Nothing? Not even a brother who hasn’t been seen for a while?”

Abner and Ari shared a troubled glance. It was eerie seeing the same features registering identical expressions. “Not even a possibility,” Ari admitted.

“Okay. How far are you through the list? I assume you have a list, that you do know how many of you there are.”

“We know. There are three hundred and thirty-two of us A’s. We’ve already covered sixty percent with personal calls to each of them to make completely sure.”

“A’s?” Sid asked warily.

“You know the original three brothers split up back in 2087?” Abner said. “Well, all the 2’s and 3’s, even the 4’s, stuck by their tribal father—not that you heard me put it like that. All us A’s—Augustine’s offspring—stayed here in Newcastle or Highcastle on St. Libra, either to support Northumberland Interstellar or, like me and Ari, to build a life close by. The B’s and C’s went with their respective fathers to Abellia and Jupiter. One of them may have been visiting Newcastle on Friday; we don’t know yet. It’s not like they’re forbidden ever to return, the split wasn’t a divorce, and we do have plenty of contact with the family on Abellia. There’s even the occasional visit from a Jupiter cousin when a ferry ship orbits.”

“Oh Jesus,” Sid muttered. “How many total?”

“We’re not sure,” Abner admitted. “I’ve been putting in some calls all morning. Brinkelle’s people have been helpful to a degree. But Jupiter … Augustine himself will have to ask that question for us.”

“Crap on it!” Sid had never considered that it could be anyone other than one of Augustine’s descendants. No wonder the Security Commission was interested. “The coroner took some samples to run a genetic scan with. It was Aldred’s idea, he said they’d be able to tell if it was a 2 or 3 or 4.”

“According to the level of transcription breaks in the genome, yes,” Ari said. “Good call. Especially if he was a 2. We tend to be more connected than our offspring.”

“Will the genetic read be able to tell if he was an A or B or C?” Sid asked.

“No. It only shows how far removed from Kane he is, not which branch of the family he was born to.”

“Okay. The Beijing Genomics Institute is running it now, so the sequencing results should be in by midafternoon.”

“That’ll really help us narrow the search,” Abner assured him. “Once we know that for certain, it won’t take much longer.”

“And if he was a C?” Sid asked.

“I’m not aware of any C’s on Earth right now.”

“As soon as you know …”

“Yes, boss.”

Sid sat at the spare zone console next to Ian. “Any progress?” he inquired.

“Aye, man; I ran the party boat memories myself. Facial feature recognition software picked three with a North going into them in the last week. It also counted them out again. He wasn’t dumped over the side.”

“You reviewed a whole week? That’s devotion to duty. Well done.”

“Aye, well, none of us can afford to bollix up this, now can we?”

“Nice theory,” Sid agreed. “Come on, let’s find the possible dump points into the Tyne. Show that specialist tit how useless he is at doing our job.”

Two network technicians arrived and began installing a dedicated memory core into Office3’s network. “Brand new,” the lead tech announced as he plugged the football-sized device into the office cells. “You guys must have a budget and a half for this case.”