DeathWeb (Fox Meridian Book 3) Read online

  ‘Fairly large breasts,’ Sam said. ‘Not excessive, but moderately large. Firm, good shape, nicely rounded. Slim, fit body. Her designs will work well with a little muscle.’

  Marie swallowed to wet her suddenly dry throat. ‘Fox would probably do well.’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t think Fox would wear Mrs Groves’s designs and she certainly wouldn’t model them. Your legs.’

  ‘My legs?’

  ‘You have… fantastic legs. Long. Good… form. I sound like I’m talking about a racehorse.’

  Marie managed another giggle, but it was a little forced. There was a growing ache, an itch deep in her groin which was going to need a long session with two or three toys to ease, or…

  ‘Warm tonight,’ Sam said, turning to the bar and lifting his glass.

  ‘Very. They must’ve set the environmental controls wrong. Or something.’

  ‘Or something.’

  Change the subject! Talk about anything else. ‘Anyway,’ Marie said, trying to keep her voice light, ‘I’ll be away for a week, but Belle says she can handle things. You know, Belle is quite capable of handling everything I do. I kind of feel bad getting room and board, and being paid, and doing stuff that could easily be handled–’

  ‘I’m not going to kick you out because we have a house AI designed to run an entire arcology, Marie. When your career is earning you enough to live on, we can discuss it again. Consider it as a furtherance of Felix’s faith in you.’

  ‘Okay.’ Marie grinned. ‘You know, I’ve got this stupid maid’s outfit. The skirt’s so short and I practically fall out of the top. When Felix was feeling sad, I’d sometimes put it on and wander around dusting things, and he wasn’t interested like that, but he’d laugh and it would cheer him up a little. I could wear that around the house…’

  Sam flashed her a grin. ‘I’m sure that would be quite enjoyable. You should practise a fake French accent.’

  ‘Got that. Oh mon-sewer! I am zee good girl.’ Sam looked at her, one eyebrow raised. ‘Okay, so it might need some work.’

  ‘Stockings with this outfit?’

  ‘I usually go with fishnet thigh-highs and six-inch heeled pumps. You did say I have good legs.’ Even while she was saying it, Marie was wondering how she had steered the conversation back in that direction.

  ‘You do.’

  ‘Sam?’

  ‘Yes, Marie?’

  ‘Have you ever been in one of those privacy booths downstairs?’

  ‘Not here. I don’t come here for work. I’ve used a couple, though my clientele tends to prefer more private environments.’

  ‘What’s the attraction?’

  ‘It’s the danger. It’s not really dangerous, obviously. You can’t be discovered in the act, but there’s the feeling that you could be, and the slight embarrassment of everyone seeing you go in and come out. Everyone knows, or thinks they do, what you’ve been doing.’ He turned, looking right into her eyes. ‘Why? Do you want to try one?’

  Marie’s throat was dry again. She swallowed. ‘Yes.’ She was not really sure that the word had left her lips, but he took her hand and turned, walking toward the stairs. Marie’s heart was hammering in her chest, and her stomach felt as though a host of butterflies had taken up residence.

  There was one booth free when they got to the bottom floor. They were busy tonight, unusually so, and if all the doors had been closed, Marie might have managed to stop what was happening. She was sure that Sam would have come to his senses. Instead, they walked straight into the booth and she did not have time to be embarrassed at the thought that what was going to happen was obvious to everyone watching. The room was circular, a curved, bench-like couch taking up all the space aside from the doorway. Above that was a shelf where drinks could be placed. The floor was open, no table to get in the way, and there was thick, soft carpet on the floor if the occupants thought the bench was too narrow.

  Sam turned even before the door was closed. His mouth took hers, urgent, hungry. Marie knew how wound up she was, but it seemed that Sam felt the same. His hands rolled her top down around her ribs and she felt the coolness of his silk shirt against her breasts, the heat of his skin behind it. The ache between her legs was becoming unbearable. He broke the kiss, bending to suck one of her nipples into his mouth, biting.

  Marie let out a sharp gasp and there was the shock of her first orgasm, a blinding explosion of lights behind her eyes that subsided quickly and promised more. ‘H-how good’s the s-soundproofing?’ she gasped.

  ‘Good enough,’ he replied. He pulled her micro-skirt up. She gasped as his hand cupped the wet, silky material over her mound. ‘Again,’ he whispered. ‘Come again.’ His fingers pressed, circled; she let out a whimper and her knees buckled as the second wave of bliss washed through her. She did not realise he was holding her up until he placed her down on the bench, her butt almost hanging off, and worked her wet panties down her legs.

  ‘Want you in me,’ she moaned. It seemed to take forever for him to unbuckle his slacks. ‘Want you in me now.’

  He drove into her and her back arched. Her long legs wrapped around him, heels pressing into his back as he took up a rhythm, urgent, forceful, driving her higher and higher as he climbed with her. She felt herself sliding over the edge again, gripped him fiercely as he kept up the onslaught of her senses. Her vision blurred and darkened, and cleared to find him still inside her, still moving.

  ‘With me this time,’ he said as she began to buck her hips against his thrusts. ‘Come with me, Marie.’ And then he was emptying himself into her and she could barely feel it because of the pleasure washing through her body.

  Topeka Agri-Zone, 3rd July.

  ‘I want to thank you,’ Andrea said.

  Fox looked up at her. They were alone: Jonathan had gone to the toilet, the result of excess whiskey. ‘For?’

  ‘Everything. You found Sandy, as we asked. You got her and her mother out from under that monster’s thumb. You taught me a very valuable lesson. Two very valuable lessons.’

  ‘Two? That has to be the most I’ve taught anyone in ages.’

  ‘You taught me,’ Andrea said seriously, despite her look of amusement, ‘that betraying my husband, who loves me, was possibly the stupidest thing I have ever done. Especially when the betrayal was with a man like Cory Druss.’

  Fox shrugged. ‘I won’t argue, but if Dad’s willing to forgive you… He says it’s partially his fault. And it generally takes two to fuck something up properly.’

  ‘Mostly it was my fault and I won’t let him say otherwise. The second thing you taught me was, don’t give up. I’ll carry on working, but this time Jonathan will be working with me, and we’ll be making a Watch worthy of the name.’

  ‘Good.’ Fox looked around as Jonathan walked back out to the veranda. ‘Made room for more?’

  ‘One more,’ Jonathan replied. ‘It’s two a.m. You’ll stay the rest of the weekend?’

  ‘I guess I can manage that. As long as there isn’t another party.’

  ‘Oh,’ Andrea said, ‘I don’t think I want to have my daughter upstage me with another dress. There’ll be celebrations tomorrow, of course, but that’s not really a party.’

  Fox had almost forgotten that some areas still celebrated the fourth of July. ‘Not sure how I could outdo the last one unless I turn up in titty-tape and a thong.’

  ‘I’m quite sure you’d think of something, Fox. Overachievement runs in our side of the family.’

  New York Metro.

  Helen Dillan opened her eyes, evaluated her position, and yawned, loudly and profusely. Saturday off. Saturday off and only another sixteen days before she would be starting her new job. And before that there was going to be her trip out to the Moon with Terri. Now that was something to look forward to, and while she was away, Palladium would be moving her into her palatial new accommodation.

  She slipped out of bed and padded through to the bathroom and the shower. Her new apartment was not actually palatial, no
t compared to Terri’s place anyway, but it was a damn sight better than the little place she had now. The shower had never really worked as well as it could, but it got her clean. On the other hand, the air system was totally useless and she had to resort to a towel to get dry. She was in the middle of that when her implant signalled an incoming telepresence call. Frowning, she accepted it.

  The sight of the white-clad shape of Kit appearing in her bathroom came as something of a surprise. ‘Oh, Detective, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you in the middle of drying yourself.’

  Dillan sagged a little. ‘I should’ve screened my avatar. Sorry, Kit. Uh, what was it you wanted? Isn’t Fox out of town?’

  ‘She is, and that is why I thought I might ask you to examine some evidence I have uncovered. Prior to her return, I thought you might provide some insight.’

  ‘Well, it’s my day off, but I guess I could take a look. What do you have?’ Dillan finished drying her hair and started through into the lounge. Breakfast was calling.

  ‘I have been studying the connections between a series of murders,’ Kit began.

  ‘I think Fox mentioned something… Uh, people going missing on runs, tortured, killed. Eleven victims?’

  ‘Twelve now. The body found outside the conference centre was the latest. All the victims used LifeFit and their last route was recorded.’

  ‘So NAPA would know precisely where they were abducted. I’m surprised no one’s found something to stop this guy.’

  ‘It is, indeed, an odd problem. However, I came across a picture posted to LifeWeb which showed a victim, on the day they were taken, but not on the route LifeFit claimed they ran. I then tracked down more evidence that others were not on their recorded route.’

  ‘That’s… interesting. I get the feeling you’ve got more.’

  ‘I have,’ Kit beamed. She stood there, smiling happily, as Dillan began to organise some cereal and coffee. ‘I examined all the last routes and discovered, in every case, that the same route had been run a few days earlier. This is not strange in itself since the recorded routes are usually favourites. However, in each case, the elapsed times to the route waypoints were precisely the same.’

  ‘So they managed to run the same times on those runs, that doesn’t sound–’

  ‘Exactly the same times, Detective Dillan. Exact to the millisecond.’

  Dillan paused, looked at Kit, and then reached for the fridge where she stored her synthetic milk supply. ‘To the millisecond? Okay, now we’re talking impossible.’

  ‘No, but the statistical probability is… Let’s just say that it’s small. Spread across twelve cases it’s…’ Kit paused, trying to come up with a suitable adjective.

  ‘Ludicrous? That’s either an act of God or someone faked the data.’

  ‘I was hoping you’d say that. Do you always wander around your apartment in the nude?’

  ‘Environmental controls are flaky. You won’t be able to tell, but it’s like a sauna in here.’

  ‘I’d imagine you are keen to move into your new apartment.’ Kit glanced at the milk Dillan was pouring. ‘The dairy products in the MarTech buildings are significantly better too. The problem I have is deciding on how this data could be faked. Data is transmitted at each waypoint from the LifeFit application to the LifeWeb servers. There it is logged in real time. I have theories about how the trick could be achieved, but they seem far-fetched.’

  ‘Okay… Hold on.’ Dillan sat down on one of her slightly forlorn sofas and spooned cereal into her mouth, munching for a few seconds before chasing it down her throat with coffee. ‘That is better. I’m not a tech, but you’d need to hack the servers, hack the LifeFit app, or pull a man-in-the-middle intercept. The last of those would probably be next to impossible over a public network, so someone’s hacked LifeWeb or the app. I’d say the app is the easier option. Some sort of virus or worm.’

  ‘You don’t think it’s far-fetched then?’

  Dillan shrugged. ‘Kit, I’m not the detective Fox is, but I think she’d tell you the same thing. And that is that if a theory fits the facts you have, you work on that theory until you get facts to disprove it. Cant’s the lead on those murders, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes. Fox has been quite surprised at his openness concerning the case. He seems determined to solve it. She believes that it irritates him that this killer got away from him.’

  ‘Cant can hold a grudge. Sometimes that’s a good thing. Why not put together the evidence you have and send it to him? Suggest he has the last victim’s computer checked for any viruses. If they can’t find anything, someone’s going to have go talk to LifeWeb about their server security.’

  ‘I will do that. Thank you, Detective.’

  Dillan grinned at her. ‘You should probably start calling me Helen.’

  ‘Thank you, Helen. I believe that it will be a pleasure working with you when you join Palladium.’

  ‘Thank you, Kit. Do you think they could get me one of your series as a PA?’

  ‘Why not ask? You are going to a spa with my designer.’

  ~~~

  Marie lay with her eyes closed and enjoyed the rather warm, comfortable feeling of the morning after a night of enthusiastic, amazing sex. Then she opened her eyes, remembered who had been her partner, and the guilt hit her like a blow to the stomach. And this time she was quite sure of what had happened even if she was not quite sure why. Sam did not generally engage in recreational sex. What had happened last night to result in them fucking like bunnies when they both knew it was going to cause problems?

  ‘We’re adults,’ Sam said from the other side of the bed, ‘so we’ll deal with it.’

  ‘How did you know I was awake? And thinking about that?’

  ‘You were lying there, calm as could be, and then you stiffened like you’d been shot. Reading body language is part of the job.’

  ‘Oh. What happened? You’re gorgeous and all, but… I mean, you’re not like that and I was so worried about it when I got drunk. I should’ve been more…’

  ‘Controlled? I have a theory on that. I’ll do some research.’

  ‘O-okay. I, uh, I think I should tell her. I think it’s my job.’

  ‘If you wish. She’s my friend too and we are both to blame, if blame is the right word. Don’t take this on yourself.’

  Marie considered that for a second. Probability was that she would try to shift all the blame to herself, but she was not going to say that. ‘What happens next?’

  ‘Next? A shower and breakfast. When Fox gets back, we can worry over what to do about current events.’ He pulled back the sheets and sat up, and then paused. ‘You did enjoy it, I hope?’

  ‘It was incredible. I’m not sure whether that makes it better or worse.’

  ‘No,’ Sam agreed, his tone a little puzzled, ‘neither am I.’

  5th July.

  Cant was looking grumpy when Fox walked into his office. His expression did not change noticeably on seeing her, but he waved her into a chair.

  ‘Your little friend gave me some information,’ Cant said. ‘I assume you’ve been briefed.’

  ‘On the way back in from Topeka. You managed to persuade the techs to look at Coolidge’s implant?’

  ‘Wiped. Someone got administrative access to it and erased everything. Presumably the killer did it, so he’s got computing skills, which works with your PA’s theory, but we still have no evidence of how this trick is being pulled.’

  ‘She was an LWOS user, right? All her email traffic and messages–’

  ‘Techs are working on it. Not my first rodeo, Meridian.’

  Fox let herself smile. ‘You know, I do know that. How about I look into LifeWeb while you track that down? I’ll get my people to look into their security.’

  Cant gave her a shrug. ‘Can’t hurt, can it? And you’ve got “people” like Jackson Martins to do the looking. Compared to him, the entire NAPA technical department are amateurs.’

  ‘Oh, Terri’s in town wor
king on the new detective assistance AIs. Jackson and Terri together… They could find a pinhole poked in the side of a barn.’

  ~~~

  ‘Okay, Kit. Before we go to Jackson and Terri with this, I want to know all about LifeWeb.’ Fox settled onto her sofa with a mug of coffee, crossed her legs, and settled down for a long haul.

  ‘The software or the company?’ Kit asked.

  ‘Let’s start with the company.’

  ‘LifeWeb was founded in March twenty twenty-three by Leonard Dandridge and Reginald Grant. Dandridge remains the public face of LifeWeb, very good with people, a good public speaker. He proselytised the product and, supposedly anyway, came up with the idea of tying it to the new electronic voting system. New at the time, that is. The launch in August of twenty twenty-four was timed such that users could use LifeRight, the only add-on available at launch, to track voting among their friends and handle the delegation system in a manner many found superior to the government app.’

  ‘And Grant?’

  ‘The technical genius. Not quite to Mister Martins’ standard, but he had very good computer skills and a talent for analysing social interactions. His skill with individuals is considerably less developed and he avoided the limelight. Rumours suggested this was deliberate. He fits the stereotype of the “nerd.”’

  ‘You’re mixing tenses, Kit. That’s not like you.’

  ‘Mister Grant, R. A. to his friends, is alive, but has been taking an increasingly less active role in the company since twenty fifty-six. He officially retired in May of this year. The company’s stock value did not waver. Mister Grant was responsible for the LifeWear line of wearable computers and for all the software variants, but there has been talk of him being reluctant to improve the LWOS software as the board believes should happen. With him out of the picture, a number of analysts are predicting a rejuvenation in the LifeWeb product list.’

  ‘That’d be nice, I guess. Where are they based?’