DeathWeb (Fox Meridian Book 3) Page 24

  ‘You want me to go in with you?’

  ‘Three voices are better than two. I will make a formal request to Palladium to investigate a potential problem with the LifeWeb software as well. If I engage your company as part of the international investigation into these murders, it will put it on an official level. The matter will need to be handled in confidence, of course. We cannot have rumours of this getting out.’

  Fox smiled. ‘That we can handle. Thank you, Jason. Let me know when you’re going to LifeWeb and I’ll be at your disposal.’

  ‘Day or night,’ Kit said into Fox’s head. ‘Preferably night, in a bedroom.’

  Fox felt her cheeks heating again and the very slightly lascivious twist to Deveraux’s smile was not helping. Apparently, he thought commenting on her choice of words was pushing the bounds too far. ‘I will inform Kit as soon as I have a time,’ he said. ‘It is likely to be next week, however. Aside from anything else, this weekend is predicted to be stormy, possibly bad enough to disrupt travel.’

  ‘It’s been feeling like there was something coming all week,’ Fox replied. ‘I guess we’re due something and there’s always the chance it might break the heat a little.’

  ‘If there is one thing I have learned since coming to New York, Fox, it is that nothing seems to break the summer heat.’

  9th July.

  It was the first time Fox had really got a chance to use her office. Right now, it was an office which appeared to be about twice its normal size and holding a conference room table with the Palladium board sitting around it.

  Vaughn was briefing them on preparations for the weekend, from the safety of Chicago. ‘We are expecting the storm, tropical storm Chris, to reach New York around six p.m. today. It is currently seeing a maximum wind speed of sixty knots with heavy rain and the probability of a small but significant storm surge.’

  ‘So keep your waders handy, Fox,’ Jarvis said.

  Fox gave a shrug. ‘The barrier is complete enough to hold that kind of thing back. Going out won’t be much fun though.’

  ‘Probably not,’ Vaughn agreed. ‘Your building management system can monitor outside conditions and it can provide some predictions on when things will be safe. Exactly the same software is used in the arcologies where meteorology is a more important factor.’

  ‘I assume the towers will be locking down?’

  ‘All our New York facilities will be on storm status from midday. Full lockdown will go into effect when the city shuts down the maglev, which we expect to happen no later than seven p.m.’

  ‘They’ve already issued an alert and called for people to be in secure locations by five. Unless something comes up, I plan to be home all weekend. Clean-up always seems to take longer than they expect.’

  ‘This, of course, is why you should have moved to Chicago,’ Eaves said, though he was grinning. ‘We only get the very occasional tornado.’

  ‘Oh yeah, much better. We haven’t had a hurricane make landfall since I moved here. I think this might be the worst storm I’ve seen.’

  ‘The recent seasons have been fairly light,’ Vaughn agreed. ‘This one may change that trend, however. We’re instituting a full check of all eastern seaboard facilities over the next week. You’re okay there since we just did the refit.’

  ‘Good to know we’re state of the art. I assume the basement is sealed?’

  ‘Once Belle initiates the lockdown on the doors, that building is secure against NBC, flooding, riot, alien attack, and plagues of zombies.’

  ‘We put down the zombie plague last year and we haven’t had aliens in more than a decade, Alice.’

  ‘Yeah, but this is New York. I’ve seen the vids. No one ever invades Chicago.’

  ‘God, haven’t you ever heard of tempting fate, Alice,’ Jarvis said in a moan.

  Vaughn gave a shrug. ‘I’ve done the analysis. Plague, yes, zombie plague or alien invasion, no.’

  Fox peered across the table at the redhead in the pastel pink, frilled blouse. ‘You did an analysis on the probability of zombie plague in Chicago?’

  Another shrug. ‘Something to do on a rainy Friday afternoon.’

  ~~~

  Fox went over Kit’s network of connections on a rainy Friday afternoon. The storm proper had not arrived yet, still being on track for eighteen hundred, but the sky had darkened and there was light rain falling already. Fox had been through messages from Detective Rogers in Topeka on the progression of his investigations. Malcolm Bateson was well on his way to a windowless box and there were a number of negotiations going on regarding the Watch. Fox’s parents were in the forefront of those, pushing an even more strict policy than the Runyards. NAPA had already agreed to run background checks on all current members and future applicants. And there was an investigation ongoing into several financial irregularities. It seemed that Druss had been skimming money out of the Watch accounts, some of it for the purchase of illegal weapons, but not all of it. NAPA technicians were looking into undeclared income and bribery charges.

  ‘Captain Deveraux has arranged a meeting with Leonard Dandridge,’ Kit informed Fox. ‘Monday at ten hundred. He suggests that you meet him at New York Tower at zero nine thirty.’

  ‘Reply in the affirmative, if you would. You have a link in showing that Grant met Patricia Randall.’

  ‘Yes, Fox. They were definitely at the same company functions more than once and Mister Grant visited the family at home.’

  ‘No linkages to any of the other victims, though.’

  ‘None that I have been able to uncover. The links between all our victims are several levels removed. None of them knew each other, but they had friends, or friends of friends, in common. The only real connection between them is LifeFit.’

  ‘So if Grant turned out to be the killer, which is by no means certain, we’re still thinking he picks his victims at random, through LifeFit.’

  ‘Whoever the killer is, that is the case.’

  ‘Huh. What about the camera footage from the park on the day Marie was targeted?’

  ‘I was unable to identify anyone in those files who appears in our persons of interest list. The park’s coverage is far from perfect, however. I would imagine the killer knows where the cameras are and arranges to avoid them, or wears clothing which obscures their face.’

  ‘A hood or something in summer is going to look odd. Anyone like that in the feeds?’

  ‘I will run a search. However, something like a visor makes identification difficult, and between wearables and anti-glare visors, there will be a number of those.’

  ‘See what you can find anyway. I’m going to stare at this map until my eyes turn inside out. Maybe there’s something in here we aren’t seeing.’

  ‘This is because you can find nothing else to do, I assume.’

  ‘Pretty much. I’m an investigator. You’re handling the bulk data and Travis is on the software from Marie’s implant. On Monday, I’ll have something else to investigate. Until then, it’s backtracking and reviewing.’

  ~~~

  ‘Fox? You in here?’ Marie edged just her head into the lounge in Fox’s apartment. Her heart was somewhere in her throat, but Sam had said it would almost certainly be a good idea to talk to Fox rather than, as Marie realised she had been doing, hiding.

  Fox was there, on the sofa, right in front of Marie, but her eyes were closed and they flickered open, unfocused for a second as Fox reasserted what was real. ‘Hey. You been hiding from me?’

  Marie stepped into the room. ‘No. Maybe. Yes.’

  ‘Got all the bases covered there. Sit down. We need to talk.’ Marie edged in, settling onto the corner of the sofa and sitting there with her hands clasped. ‘And stop looking so nervous. I’m not going to bite. I think we’re past that.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You expected me to just jump back into bed with you?’

  ‘Well, no. I guess not, but–’

  ‘I think, maybe, that you should consider this as a good thing
.’ Fox said it quickly so that she did not falter.

  ‘A good thing?’

  ‘I think… that I was an experiment for you. Um, that sounds a little clinical, but you know what I mean. I was your first girl and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.’

  ‘It was… Yeah, I enjoyed everything.’

  Fox could see the tears forming. Fair enough, she was holding them back herself. ‘Kit thinks I was more affected by what Sandoval did to me than I thought. I picked up with you because I didn’t want anything to do with men.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Yeah. I think we’d have had fun, but eventually we’d have realised we were both… doing something different for a while. So… so I think you should give Sam a spin. To be honest, I think he needs to try someone who isn’t paying him for it, but that does bring up a problem you need to discuss with him.’

  Marie’s hands were shifting, twisting her fingers, and clenching and unclenching. ‘I can’t take this all in.’

  ‘Think about it. If you want to talk more, we can, no problem, but think about it.’

  ‘Okay. Not like I’m going out running.’

  ‘Or anywhere else for a while. It’s getting nasty outside. Good time to be curled up with a glass of wine, if you ask me.’

  ~~~

  ‘Fox, you should stop.’ Kit was using her concerned voice. They were back in the murder room and had been for five solid hours. ‘I don’t get tired, but you do. You have been staring at the same document page for five minutes.’

  Annoyance buzzed in Fox’s brain for a second before she realised that Kit was right: she had been staring at the same page for a long time, and it was not because she was concentrating. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Okay, I should take a break.’

  ‘Sam has opened a bottle of wine and wishes to know whether you would like to take the same advice you gave Marie.’

  Fox opened her eyes, seeing her lounge and Kit standing in the exact same relative position. ‘I assume Marie’s with him. I mean, she damn well better be.’

  ‘She is.’

  ‘Let’s go make merry then.’

  Sam and Marie were sitting in Sam’s lounge, not very close together, each holding a glass. Another glass was waiting since Fox had made sure Belle told them she was coming down. There was a vid playing on the wall, some sort of comedy, but the sound was down to a minimum and Fox was not exactly sure why it was on.

  ‘It’s getting really bad out there,’ Marie said. ‘Time to huddle up with a glass of wine.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Fox took her wine glass and settled onto the sofa, between them since that was where the space was. ‘You know, you have one of the best collections of porn I know of, and you’re watching some crappy comedy with the sound off.’

  ‘I didn’t think porn was particularly appropriate,’ Sam replied.

  ‘I’ve seen some of your porn. It’s… instructive.’

  ‘Ha! I thought we might talk. It’s a dark and stormy night. I was going to discuss things with Marie and I thought you should be here to provide a balanced viewpoint.’

  ‘Balanced? How am I going to be balanced?’

  ‘Because I’ll probably be excessively negative and you’ll feel obliged to provide an alternative.’ Sam’s grin was a little forced.

  ‘You know,’ Marie began, ‘I don’t know if–’

  ‘Want to try things out with Sam?’ Fox asked.

  ‘I… yes.’

  ‘Well, he needs to work.’

  ‘Which means,’ Sam said, ‘that you’re going to have to face the fact that I’ll be sleeping with other men and women, and then coming back here to you. I’ll be away for days at a time, with other people, and then come back to you.’

  ‘On the plus side,’ Fox said, ‘when he does, he’ll make your toes curl. The sex is going to be incredible.’

  ‘But while I’m doing those incredible things to you, you’ll be thinking that I was doing the same incredible things to a rich, sixty-year-old two hours earlier, who’s had millions of dollars of bodysculpting and rejuvenation therapy done to her.’

  ‘But you still get incredible sex,’ Fox asserted.

  ‘And there’s the bodyguard work,’ Sam went on, frowning a little. ‘I might have to spend several days, maybe weeks, away from home. My life would be in danger and you’d be here, worrying about me.’

  ‘Did I mention the sex?’ Fox asked.

  Sam’s frown deepened. ‘I am getting the feeling that I am a sex object.’

  ‘It is kind of a dumb conversation,’ Marie said. ‘I mean, I doubt I’m going to know how I’ll feel until I’m facing it. Discussing it isn’t going to help.’

  ‘Probably true,’ Fox said, ‘but you should at least know what you’re getting into.’

  ‘True, but there’s the other side of it. I mean to do acting, like stage would be nice, but I’ll end up on the IB channels. Bound to end up on those. But there are also sensies. I don’t know about those, but I may end up in them and you can’t fake a sex scene in a sensie.’

  ‘How the Hell do they make those anyway?’ Fox asked. ‘I mean, traditional porn is multiple takes and cuts, and a lot of angle changes, and… if you’re recording some guy’s sensory inputs while he’s banging away–’

  ‘Editing,’ Sam said. ‘Editing sensie porn is an incredibly skilled job. Editors get paid more than some of the stars. However, you’re right, and I suppose I won’t know how I feel about that until I have to deal with it. I suppose it would be hypocritical of me to take it badly, but emotions are strange things.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Marie agreed. ‘So we give it a go and if we can’t handle it, or I can’t handle it, then we each go our separate ways.’

  ‘After a lot of really great sex,’ Fox put in.

  Sam laughed, and Marie giggled. ‘Yeah, that,’ Marie said. ‘Let’s get smashed and not worry about it for now.’

  ‘A simple solution to a complex emotional issue,’ Sam said. ‘I can get behind that.’

  Fox grinned. ‘I’m not going anywhere tomorrow. Who’s got the wine bottle?’

  10th July.

  ‘Are you really so sanguine about breaking up with Marie?’ Kit asked.

  Fox had just struggled up the stairs and was contemplating whether to just fall asleep fully dressed or risk breaking her neck while taking her bodysuit off. ‘No, why do you think I drank way too much alcohol tonight?’

  ‘Then–’

  ‘Because there’s no use crying over spilled milk and there’s plenty more fish in the sea.’

  ‘I’ll attempt to decipher that statement later.’

  Fox sat down on her bed and then shimmied out of her clothes. Balance was not an issue, but it still seemed to take longer than it should. ‘Maybe I will see if Jason wants to stay in for a drink.’

  ‘Isn’t it “go out for a drink?”’

  ‘I was thinking of having the drinks in bed.’ Collapsing backward, Fox lay there wondering whether she had the energy to get under the covers. ‘I’m going to black out now. Goodnight, Kit.’

  ‘Goodnight, Fox,’ Kit said, but Fox had already done as she had indicated she would.

  11th July.

  The storm had blown itself out before dawn, but the sky had remained dark for much of Saturday with a warm, muggy air mass sitting over the city to plague the recovery efforts. There had been no flooding. The primary defences had held up meaning that the secondary ones, formed from the defunct subway and road tunnel system, had not been needed. However, there had been a couple of problems with signs being blown down and impacting building frontages, and there was the general debris of a storm to clear away. City administration expected it to be clear before Monday.

  Sunday had dawned bright and clear, the storm clouds swept aside with the promise of another scorching July day. Fox had felt the need for fresh air and no need to go anywhere to get it. Donning both parts of the blue bikini she had bought for her dust-girl disguise, she trooped up to the roof, laid a towel down, and laid herself out
to catch a little sun before it got too hot.

  ‘The air is clearer,’ Kit said.

  ‘Often is after a storm,’ Fox replied, not opening her eyes. ‘Belle telling you that? Or are you patching into my nose?’

  ‘The house has air-quality monitors with the meteorology sensors. The particulate level has dropped by nought point five per cent.’

  ‘Nice to know.’

  ‘For the man responsible for LifeWeb, Mister R. A. Grant has little in his profile. He does not appear to share very much with anyone.’

  ‘So you can’t find anything on his reaction to being pushed out of the company, or what he’s been doing the last couple of years?’

  ‘No, nothing. His profile reads more like corporate publicity than a candid view of his life. Mister Dandridge is more open, but he clearly self-censors what he posts there. His daughter is a far more frequent poster. She uses LifeFit quite extensively and has a LifeMeet entry. Something of a social butterfly.’

  ‘We might be able to use that as leverage on Dandridge. A father should be interested in the safety of his daughter.’

  ‘One would hope so.’

  There was the sound of a door opening and closing, and Fox opened her eyes, tilting her head back to look. She got an upside down image of Marie, topless and carrying a towel. ‘Morning,’ Fox said.

  ‘Morning,’ Marie replied, ‘and a nice one. You had the same idea as me.’

  ‘I wanted to relax in some fresh air. You wanted the sun, from the looks of it.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Top up that healthy glow.’

  ‘I’m wearing sunscreen. I just like the warmth.’

  Marie grinned. That she felt at ease enough to do so was pleasing. ‘Up here, I can do it topless.’

  ‘Up here, you could probably do it naked. Considering the size of what you’re wearing, you more or less are.’

  ‘You’re one to talk. Is that thing the right size?’

  ‘No. I bought it for a sort of disguise and the look works best with a bra a size or so too small.’ Fox closed her eyes again, settling herself back down.

  Marie giggled as she laid herself out in the sun. ‘Makes your boobs look bigger. Old glamour model trick.’

  ‘You are sounding really perky. Sam woke you up with a smile?’ Fox did not need to see to know Marie was blushing.