Rebel (The United Federation Marine Corps) (11 page)

Chapter 22

Seth had been right about one thing, Michi conceded.  Neither she nor anyone else was going to force the issue by getting into fistfights.  This was not a refereed fight in a ring going three five-minute rounds.  This was real life, and if Michi wanted to get the Marines off Kakurega, she had to use more than a roundhouse kick.

As she came home from Seth’s dojo, his words echoed in her mind.  Maybe she was biting off more than she could chew, but she had never actually analyzed that.  She had just acted willy-nilly on her emotions.

Despite the apparent success of their little mission to Kelli Mae’s home, Michi realized that they were amateurs, and that almost got the four of them arrested—or worse.  If she was going to continue opposing the company and the Federation occupation, that had to be addressed.  She decided to take the bull by the horns and called Doug, asking him to stop by on his way to work in the morning.

Tamara was still asleep when Doug showed up, eager to see what Michi wanted. Michi took Doug to the kitchen table, poured him a cup of coffee, and sat him down.

“What’s up,” he asked.

“Did you tell anyone you were coming?”

“No, I did as you asked.  What’s with all the secrecy?” he asked, a puzzled look on his face.

“You know that our little mission the other day almost ended up as a disaster, right?”

“Yeah, I was monitoring it.  Close call, huh?”

“Did you wonder why, how the jacks knew to come?”

“I guess someone spotted you on the way in?” he offered.

“No one spotted us.  The jacks were tipped off by someone in the WRP.  And you are going to help me flush him or her out.”

“I, uh, what?  What am I going to do?”

“I figured it out last night.  There’s a traitor in the organization, and we’re going to find out who it is.  That’s why no one else can get wind of it.  Look, who’s the leader of the NIP?” she asked.

“The National Independence Party?  No one knows.  It’s a secret.  That’s how they keep going,” he said.

“Exactly, but with the big rally tomorrow, don’t you think they might want to have a hand in it?  And wouldn’t they maybe reach out to the WRP?”

“Yes, but so what?  How does that help you find this traitor you think is there?”

“I don’t think.  I know!” she said with conviction.  “Look, this is what I want you to do.  Can you send out, say, eight different messages, all saying that the leader of the NIP wants to meet, but he wants to meet only one person in absolute secrecy?”

“Sure, that’s easy.  But what will that get you?”

“I want each meeting place in a different spot, somewhere where we can monitor and see if the jacks show up,” she said.

“Ah, kilo-brills!  I get it.  So if there really is a traitor, and if the jacks show up, that’s our man.  Or woman, I mean.”

“So, can you set that up?  I was thinking if we stagger the supposed meetings and put them close together, like at Morning Star, we could keep an eye on all of them,” Michi offered.

“Morning Star is compact, so if you wanted to physically stake out a place, sure, that apartment complex would work.  But get with the times, Michiko!  We don’t need to be there at all.  Tennyson I and II are easy hacks, and we can sit right here and watch each meeting spot.  There’s no way we can miss them,” Doug said with just a hint of condescension in his voice. 

Michi let it slide.  This was Doug’s arena, and she let him take charge.  He muttered to himself for the next twenty minutes before asking Michi how many meeting sites she wanted. 

“I’m not sure.  We need enough to cover anyone who might have the information that the company wants, but they would have to be high enough for the NIP leader to want to meet.”

“Well, I can think of a few.  Rosario, for sure.  He’s in charge of security, and he would a logical suspect.  I never did like him, anyway.  Gabriella, Su, and Rangle.  They’re all on the board, but Su hasn’t been active lately, so maybe not her.”

“No, keep Su on the list,” Michi told him.

“I guess you want Hokkam, too?”

“Yep.  He’s in position.”

“OK, that would be five so far,” Doug said.

“And Cheri,” Michi said with conviction.

“You think Cheri could be a traitor?” Doug asked surprised.  “She hooked the three of us up.”

“No, I don’t think she is, but we need to be sure,” Michi said, ashamed for even doubting her. 

But Seth said you had to be ruthless to succeed, and she’d be damned if the person who either ordered or allowed Franz to be killed got away with it.

“OK, that’s six.  Any more?”

“Maybe Sven Tyler.  He seems to be in everyone’s hair.  Can you handle seven?”

“No problem.  I could handle more than that,” he said confidently.

“No, if we don’t get a bite on this attempt, we might go down the list and try again.  Let’s work on the wording of the message itself.”

They went back and forth on that for a good half an hour, trying to make it compelling, but not going overboard. They stressed that the meeting had to be extremely confidential, that the “leader” only wanted to meet one person.  Michi didn’t want anyone to start comparing notes about the liaison. Finally, between the two of them, they had something they thought would work.  Michi thought someone might suspect a trap, but Doug pointed out that a real traitor would have communications with the company, and he or she would know it wasn’t some company trick.  If any of the others suspected something, then it wouldn’t matter anyway.

“OK, send it out,” she told him.

It only took a few minutes before he broke out into a broad smile and said, “Done and done!”

“Done and done what?” Tamara said, coming out of her bedroom and rubbing her eyes.  “What are you doing here so early, Dougie?”

“Ah, we’ve been—”

“We’ve been working on some new ideas for the face-spoofer, you know, so it can change more of the body, too,” Michi said, stepping firmly on Doug’s foot under the table.

“And this had to be done now?” she asked as she reached over for Doug’s coffee, took a sip, and made a face.

“You need to freshen that up,” she said, tossing the cold coffee in the sink and getting a refill from the brewmaster.  She took a sip.  “There, that’s better,” she said before giving the cup back to him.

“OK, you two have fun.  I need a shower,” she said with a yawn as she went to the bathroom.

“You think Tamara could be the traitor?” Doug asked incredulously.

“No, I don’t,” she said, even if she felt a touch of guilt because no, at the moment, she didn’t trust anyone 100%.  If she hadn’t needed him, she would have done this without Doug, too.  “But what she doesn’t know, she can’t be implicated in it.”

“I guess so, but it seems weird.  We’re like the Three Musketeers, aren’t we?”

He seemed so earnest that she had to assure him that yes, they were a team.  All three of them.

“OK, while she’s in the shower, give me a rundown on how to monitor these things,” she told him.

“No reason, to.  I’ll be doing it, so there’ll be no screw-up,” he told her.

“We set this up for this afternoon.  Don’t you have work?”

“Oh ye of little faith, my queen.  As I sit here, I am at work.  Little packets of information are going out:  key strokes, messages, some unauthorized surfing.  If anyone checks, I’m at my desk right now.”

“Really?  Well what happens if someone tries to find you to talk?”

“Like in person?  For real?  No one does that, and if they did and saw me missing from my cubbyhole, they’d think I was in the lab or in the field.  I do this all the time, and no one has ever caught on.”

“You do?  What do you do when you’re playing hooky?”

“Oh, you know.  All sorts of things.  Sleeping in.  Seeing a flick.  Going to a game.”

“A game?  What sports do you watch?” she said with a disbelieving laugh.

“Oh, I get it Miss MMA superfighter.  Just because I like tech means I can’t like sports, right?  For your information, I’m a Gryphons fan, always have been.  I’ve had season tickets since I was 18,” he told her, a hint of anger in his voice.

Michi felt bad about that.  There had been no reason for her attitude.

“Sorry,” she said, trying to fix things.  “Of course you like sports.  It’s just you never talk about them, and most guys, you can’t shut them up about this team or that.”

“Umpf.  Maybe,” he said, only slightly mollified.

“The Gryphons suck, by the way,” she added.  “You need to root for a real team, like the Desecrators!”

“Desecrators?  Oh, let me tell you about the Desecrators . . .”

That started at least 20 minutes of smack talk.  Tamara came out, listened for a moment, then shook her head and left for work without a word.  They ended up agreeing to disagree, as most sports arguments ended, and turned on the holo.  They settled on watching an old Frank Garrison comedy, one both had seen before but still got them laughing.  Frank G was so stupid that he shouldn’t be funny to anyone with an IQ over 60, but still, they both enjoyed the flick.

When it was over, Michi looked at Tamara’s cuckoo clock.  The analog hands showed it was only 9:20.  Michi groaned.  They had almost five hours to go.

Time crawled while every possible thing that could go wrong was brought up and discussed.  Maybe two of their targets started talking.  Maybe they weren’t even checking their messages.  Three of them worked for the company, and if they did access their private zips, they might not be able to get away.  Michi and Doug realized that they should have made the meeting for the evening, instead.

Their brainstorming revealed one possible hole in their plan, though.  If the jacks did react, and then when there was no NIB leader there, they would certainly contact their spy.  They decided to block all messages to the traitor, then they ginned up a “success” message that Doug would send if the jacks did react.  That should calm the traitor and keep him or her from bolting.

They made noodles for lunch, but after one bite, Michi couldn’t eat any more.  She was too wound up. Finally, 2:30, the time of the first meeting was approaching.  Doug put his PA on an easel and turned on the seven surveillance cams into which he’d hacked.  Each one had the name of the target person to whom that apartment number had been given.  There was some movement, and Michi jumped from where she was standing looking over Doug’s shoulder.

It was a woman with a small child on her arm.  She made her way to the door, swiped it, then went inside.  If the jacks broke into her apartment, she would be terrified.

“Just whose apartments did you pick?” she asked.

“Don’t know.  I never looked at the occupant lists.  I just wanted apartments where I had good coverage.”

Michi was the one who was supposed to be hardened by necessity, but she worried about a woman and child while it was Doug who focused on the mission.  She shook her head and went back to watching the monitors. 

Nothing was happening, and Michi thought that their traitor either wasn’t one of the seven or hadn’t taken the bait.  She was about to give up when three of the feeds flickered.

“We’ve got something here,” Doug said, checking a fast scrolling file that appeared at the corner of his PA screen.  “Someone else is onboard.  This is building 2002.”

“Do they know you’re there, too?” she asked him.

“No reason they would.  I’m passive here.”

They waited anxiously for several minutes, then just at the edge of cam range on one of the feeds, several sets of military-like boots could be seen.  Slowly, the riot-equipped jacks edged along the wall until they flanked the target door.  Another man in a StarEx uniform came up to the door, just a deliveryman making his rounds.  He even had a package under his arm.  He tried the bell first, and when there was no answer, knocked.

He finally stepped back and shook his head.  One of the jacks leaned forward, holding a master keypad to the door.  The lock light flashed green, and the jacks rushed in.

Doug needlessly pointed at the name at the top of the feed, but Michi was already aware of who was the traitor.

“Send the success message, then block anything else except from me.  I’ve got a few people I need to contact about this.  Good job, Doug, we won this fight.”

The only thing was that it didn’t feel like a win.

Chapter 23

Michi tried to calm her expression.  She was just there for a visit before the big rally, right?  She gave herself a body shake, then opened the door to the WRP office spaces.

It was almost 6:00 PM, and those who had been at work all day were straggling in.  There was an air of building excitement.  WRP’s official mission statement was to monitor the treatment of workers, particularly Class 3s and 4s, but over the last year, rallies had become a big part of what they did, and the members hoped that tomorrow’s rally would be their biggest yet.  It was reasonable that Michi, even if she was not officially a member of the organization, would stop by and see how things were going.

“Michiko, it’s good to see you,” Gabriella said, looking up.  She came around some desks and gave Michi a kiss on the cheek. 

Gabriella was the chapter quartermaster, in charge of accounting.  That also placed her on the board.  Michi hugged her back, returned the kiss, and tried to show nothing on her face as she slipped a small, printed note into Gabriella’s side pocket.

“Just coming by to say hi and see how things are going for tomorrow,” she said.

“You can imagine,” Gabriella told her.  “Things are rather hectic.  Let’s catch up after this is over, OK?”

Michi had to hold back a smile.  Yes, they would be meeting sooner than perhaps Gabriella expected.

Michi made the rounds, stopping to chat with people she knew.  There were many people she didn’t recognize.  Evidently, the Federation’s latest actions had inspired a good number of people to join the cause.

As expected, Su was not there, but she exchanged pleasantries with both Rangle and Rosario, slipping each one his own note.  Neither noticed her doing it, which had been a concern.  She didn’t want any discussion in public.

She tracked down Sven in the computer room.  Passing his note was easy.  His nose was so buried in some messages that Michi didn’t think anything would register with him.

Michi didn’t want to seem too purposeful, so it was ten or fifteen minutes before she stuck her head in Hokkam’s office.  As expected, Cheri was also there along with two people Michi didn’t recognize.

“Michiko,” Hokkam said, rising to greet her.  “How are you?”

He was wearing his usual Dashi one-piece, with its sealed pockets.  Michi, expecting that, had his slip in her hand, and she passed it directly to his as he reached out to pull her in for a kiss.  He didn’t bat an eye as she turned around and gave Cheri a hug, slipping the last piece of paper into her back pocket.

“Good to see you, dear,” Cheri said.

“Greg, K’to, this is Michiko MacCailín, a friend of the chapter.  Michiko, Greg and K’to are from Earth Headquarters.”

Greg had started to greet Michi, but his face took a downturn as Hokkam told Michi who he was.

“Oh, don’t worry Greg.  Michiko can be trusted.  She was Franz Galipili’s fiancé,” Hokkam told him.

“Oh, sorry for your loss.  He was a valued member of the WRP family,” Greg said.

Michi thanked him and made nice for a minute before Hokkam said, “Michiko, it’s nice to see you again, but we’ve got quite a bit to do before tomorrow.  Will you be coming?”

“Yes, I wouldn’t miss it.  I’m sorry for disturbing you, and I’ll let you get back to work.”

She left Hokkam’s office, greeted a few more people, and left the outer office.  In the hallway outside, she started trembling and leaned back against the wall, taking some deep breaths.  That had been more difficult than she had expected.  Slipping the notes and leaving traces of her DNA had been the easiest part.  It was just being in there, knowing what she knew, and acting like a good and loyal friend that had taxed her emotions.

Ever-conscious of surveillance, Michi centered herself and walked out of the building.  Down the street was an upscale café owned by a cousin—an actual blood relative, not the casual use of the term.  She walked in, chatted with Bridgette, and had a cup of Lastermay tea.  Bridgette would have been well aware that Michi was not living at home—family matters were hard to keep private, and gossip was traded like gold amongst the First Families—but Bridgette never let on as they talked.  First Families like their profit even more than gossip, and even a simple cup of tea added to the day’s take.

Michi hung out, listening to what gossip Bridgette was dishing out—and getting interested despite herself—before finally making her goodbyes at about 7:15.  She stepped out into the dusk and made her way towards the Gut, stopping several blocks short.  Checking for any obvious surveillance cams, she flicked on her face-spoofer. 

When she had asked Doug if there was another face she could use, he had eagerly shown her over a dozen he’d already prepared.  She selected one with Indian features.  Without a mirror to check, she hoped that was what she looked like.

Then she took a can of a derma-barrier and started to spray her hands and face.  Derma-barriers were used by medical personnel to keep them from contracting their patients’ diseases, but as a side-effect, they kept skin flakes and other bodily detritus from littering the area.  Hair could still fall, and that could be tested for DNA, but the spray lessened the amount of Michi that could be found by a forensic team. And if they did find anything, well, that is why she had gone to the office earlier and hugged everyone.  Finally, she took out a new silk scarf and wrapped it around her head.  If a hair would betray her and fall, it would have to work to make it to the ground.  Finally, she took a disposable rain poncho out of her pocket and put it on.

  With a new face and as safe as she could make herself, she continued on into the Gut and to the statue.  Three jacks walked by on patrol, but they didn’t give her a second glance.  She felt a stirring of pride knowing that is was because of her actions that the jacks weren’t allowed to walk alone anymore.  Doug had assured her that the spot in back of the statue was clear of surveillance, so she switched off the face-spoofer and was Michi again.  Then she waited.  And waited. She kept looking at her watch.  Curfew was approaching, and she wondered if the notes had been a good idea.  Her first inclination had been to send a regular message to everyone, but despite Doug’s assurances that they could not be traced, she figured if he could trace something like that, so could someone else.  So she switched to printed notes.

If no one found the notes, though then it had been a waste of time.

“Michiko, I assume this is as important as you indicated,” a voice said from in back of her. “And all this cloak and dagger was really necessary?”

Michi spun around to see Hokkam standing in back of her.  At least he’d read the note.  She looked around, but no one was with him.

“Yes, it’s very important, and I couldn’t say it at the office.  I’ve got something vital to tell you, and after that, it’s up to you on what you want to do.”

Hokkam gave her a condescending look and asked, “So what’s so important?  Curfew’s in 25 minutes, and we’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

Michi looked around as if to check for eavesdroppers.  “Not here.  Come,” she said, taking his arm and leading him to the small alley where the trash bins for Franny’s were lined up. 

“Michiko, just tell me.  If you really know something important, then I can take care of whatever it is,” he protested as he resisted her pull.  “Stop pulling me.  I’m not taking another step until you tell me what it is!”

Michi spun him around, shoving him between two of the trash bins.  She jumped forward, putting her forearm under his throat, cutting off any potential cry for help.

“Cheri told me she thought there was a traitor in the chapter, and she was right,” she hissed as Hokkam’s eyes grew large with the onset of panic.  “But you knew that,” she said as she pulled Tamara’s 15cm chef’s knife from her belly pocket and thrust it into Hokkam’s belly.

He let out an “oof” sound that escaped past Michi’s arm, and he tried to struggle.  He was not a small man, but he couldn’t move his killer.

“I should have known it was you.  I saw you edging away from the rest back on the day Franz was murdered, but before any shots were fired.  You knew what was coming, didn’t you?  Because it was you who set it up.”

Hokkam tried to shake his head, probably to deny it.  But he couldn’t deny that it was to his supposed meeting place that the jacks had shown up that afternoon.

Michi rammed the knife in deeper, then twisted it and started slowly pulling it across and down Hokkam’s belly, only stopping when the knife hung up on his belt.

A sudden smell of blood, shit, and piss assaulted her nose.  This is what death smelled like up close and personal.  She stared into Hokkam’s eyes as they faded and went dull.

She wanted to feel something as she looked into his dead face.  She wanted triumph, revenge, anger—anything.  Instead, she felt nothing.  She stepped back and let the body slide to the ground. 

Working quickly, she bent over and started sawing through his neck.  No one was going to get him into regen, she vowed.  It was much more difficult to separate his head using a kitchen knife, though, than she had expected.  It took partly cutting, partly sawing, and partly brute strength to yank the head free.

She had to work quickly.  She was bascially out of sight from the road, but anyone—from the bar staff to a jack patrol—could happen by.

She looked down at her gore covered legs.  Hokkam had had a lot of blood in him. She quickly stripped off the rain poncho and dropped it to the ground.  Then off came her slacks.  She had liberally applied the derma-barrier to her legs earlier, and it seemed to have worked in keeping the gore in the fabric of the slacks and not sticking to her skin.  She pulled down the legs of the minishorts she had on underneath the slacks.

Her shoes, though!  She hadn’t thought that through.  They were covered.  Michi bent down, grabbed the slacks, and using the cleaner area around the butt, used them to clean off as much of Hokkam from her shoes as she could.  It wasn’t a great job, but it would have to do. 

As she stood up, another problem made itself known.  Even in the darkness, a bloody footprint could be seen.

Reaching into her belly pocket, she took out the glass bottle that Doug had given her before she left.  Very carefully, she poured it on the pile with her slacks and poncho.  A vile-smelling smoke arose from the pile as the molecular-debonder reacted to break down the clothing.  She had to add a few drops here and there to keep the reaction going.  But within a minute, all that was left of the pile were some component chemicals.  A good forensic investigator could determine what had been broken down, but identifying DNA should be impossible.

After considering her shoes, she poured a few drops of the remaining reagent on the footprint she had left, then carefully stepped on the sizzling ground.  She hoped there wasn’t enough of it to eat all the way through the shoes and into her feet, but she really didn’t want to leave recognizable footprints.

To her relief, her feet weren’t eaten away.

Michi coughed as the fumes from the destruction of her clothes ate at the back of her throat.  She had to get out of there.  Without a look back at the decapitated Hokkam, she pulled down at the hem of her shorts once more, turned off her face-spoofer, and walked down the alley and out into the street by the statue. 

Two men with bottles of beer in their hands spotted her, and one shouted “Hey, where’re you headed?” then “Don’t be like that,” as she ignored them and walked on.  Neither followed her, though.

It took almost 35 minutes on the convoluted route she took to get back to the condo, which was well past curfew, but no one stopped her.  Tamara wasn’t in.  She’d had a date, and Michi guessed it had gone well based on the short “I won’t be making it back” message on the house PA that was cut off with a laugh.

Michi took the knife from her belly pocket.  This was a high-end knife with a serial number.  She couldn’t leave it at the scene.  She shouldn’t even have used it, but this was a thrown-together plan, and she had run out of time.  The knife went into the dishwasher, and she started the clean cycle.

Then it was her turn.  She put some lilac bath salts in the tub and filled it, stripping out of her clothes and slipping in.  She let the salts soothe her, body and mind.  As the water began to cool, she got out and emptied the tub.  She took her shorts, shirt, underwear, and shoes and placed them in the tub, then poured the remainder of Doug’s solution over them.  Doug had assured her the reagent would not harm the tub’s surface, and with the toilet exhaust fan on, most of the fumes went up and out of the bathroom. 

Not quite everything was eaten away, however.  Michi turned on the showerhead and thoroughly rinsed the tiny scraps left before picking them up and putting them in a trash bag.

She was done.

It was still early, but she went to her small bedroom and got into bed, pulling the sheet up to her chin.  She lay there, wide awake for almost 20 minutes before she started to cry.  Within moments, she was sobbing, and it was another five minutes before she stopped.

She wasn’t crying over Hokkam.  Hokkam meant nothing to her—and that was why she was crying.  The first jack had been an accident.  Michi had attacked him with violent intentions, but she hadn’t planned to kill him.  The thought really hadn’t crossed her mind.

But Hokkam was different.  She knew him, she planned out his death, and she had killed him in cold blood while watching his life fade as she stared into his eyes.  A normal person would feel something after taking a life in such an intimate manner.  It could be sorrow or regret.  It could be exultation or thrill.  It could be anger or bitterness.  But it should be something.