Emergence (Fox Meridian Book 5) Page 5

  ‘What changed? You’ve consulted for the Tokyo police and the UNTPP. I got your name through the UNTPP when I was looking for someone to fill the Japanese position.’

  ‘My father died.’ Fukui paused, her fists tightening where she held them on her knees. She took a deep breath. ‘It is my strong belief that Taro had him killed to gain control of the Fukui-kai.’

  ‘Taro is your brother, right? You really think he killed his own father to take his place?’

  ‘Modern medicine could have kept our father alive and in power for decades and Taro has never been a patient man. We speak only on the rarest of occasions. So long as I do not interfere in his business, he does not move against me and his people do not trouble me. We have an uneasy truce, because I cannot prove that he killed my father. I still have contacts within the organisation, but I utilise them only when I absolutely must. I did checking of my own when the offer was made. Many companies doing business in Japan have yakuza ties of one form or another. MarTech does not.’

  Fox gave a small grimace. ‘I’m not stupid enough to believe there’s no one in the company over there with divided loyalties. We do our best to make sure they’re caught during the interview process and rejected, but no system is perfect. And you can’t do business in Japan without dealing with the Fukui-kai in some manner.’

  ‘Minor players hoping to pick up corporate secrets,’ Fukui said dismissively. ‘Taro sits on the boards of three large corporations and has influence in many other companies. But not MarTech. Not Palladium.’

  ‘All right. You’re confident in your ability to do the job? As you say, you’re from a largely academic background and we’re asking you to do fieldwork.’

  ‘I admit to some anxiety over that. I will not know for sure until I am doing it. My skills are strong, and I believe the equipment Palladium has available will make up for what I lack. I also believe that you would not have selected me if you did not think I could make the transition. I thank you for that confidence.’

  ‘Do your best and we won’t have a problem.’ Fox flashed a grin. ‘That wasn’t too bad, was it?’

  ‘Discussing my family is not an easy thing for me, but no. I think I will enjoy working under you. You are direct. You express your concerns and expect them to be addressed. I respect that. I cannot help but respect your record.’

  ‘It sounds like we’re off to a good start. Pay close attention to the Pythia introductions and I think you’ll do well.’

  ~~~

  ‘This,’ Fox said, indicating the large, rectangular box standing beside her, ‘is Pythia. To be precise, this is the first of the Pythia units, the one I’ve been using for a few months. Explain what you do, Pythia.’

  ‘I am a semi-autonomous, forensic analysis system,’ Pythia said. With Pythia, you just got a voice: an avatar had never been required, though she could display graphics as and when required. ‘Utilising a number of cyberframes and forensic swarms, I am able to collect evidence from a crime scene. I can then analyse and interpret in a number of ways, including chemical and biological analysis, ballistics analysis, and scene reconstruction.’

  ‘And what are you not, Pythia?’

  ‘I am not a detective. I am a class three AI, well-suited to detailed analysis work, but I lack intuition and creativity. I can suggest evidence collection strategies based upon past scenes. I can suggest interpretations which fit the collected evidence. However, novel situations or incomplete evidence will tax my abilities and may result in incorrect results without the intervention of a human investigator.’

  ‘Thank you, Pythia.’

  ‘You’re most welcome, Miss Meridian.’

  Fox grinned at her audience. ‘So, Pythia won’t do it all for you, but she’s a very good forensics technician. All this hardware is needed because she’s a very bright AI, and to make sure she can get to where she’s needed, she’s built on a mobile platform, so there’s a fair bulk of batteries in there. Even so, she can only keep going off the mains for about an hour. Her primary transport is a custom-fitted vertol aircraft which she can pilot. It’s all about rapid deployment to where she, and we, are needed. Yes, Mister Keen?’

  ‘What’s the range on the vertol?’ Keen’s accent was thickly Australian, which made sense given that he was based out of Sydney.

  ‘Nominally, four hours. Top speed is seven hundred and ninety kilometres per hour. I believe, however, that they’re looking at an extended-range model for your part of the world, just in case. You’re qualified on vertols, right?’

  ‘I am. How does she handle?’

  ‘Beautifully, of course. Pythia’s a beauty.’

  ‘Thank you again, Miss Meridian,’ Pythia said. ‘I am also not subject to embarrassment.’

  ‘I know, but I have to keep trying. Okay, Helen’s going to start going through Pythia’s capabilities in detail with you. We’ll get the basics done with and then I’ll start dragging more of you into the break room for a chat. Helen?’

  ~~~

  ‘Regretting leaving NAPA yet?’ Fox asked.

  Ray Rogers settled back in his seat with a cup of coffee and smiled. ‘Not even a little.’ He took a sip of coffee and then shrugged. ‘Okay, a couple of the other guys I’ll miss working with, but I’ll still see them socially.’

  ‘Have you been to the office yet?’

  ‘I’ve been past it. They were still refitting the place. Miss Vaughn was a little apologetic about that, but she assured us it’d be ready for next week.’

  Fox grimaced. ‘If she was being apologetic to you guys, it means someone got it in the neck for not finishing something on time. Word to the wise, Alice may seem all sweetness and light, but she turns into the Wicked Witch of the West if you piss her off.’

  ‘I’ll try to stay on her good side.’

  ‘Best plan. Well, to be honest, I put your name forward for this and we’ve already worked together to some extent, so calling you in was pretty much a formality. Any questions?’

  ‘They’re getting answered out there. You know Bateson got transferred to Rikers, right?’ Fox nodded; convicted of raping his own daughter, Malcolm Bateson had been shipped to the prison on Rikers Island to serve a long sentence. ‘Did you hear Cory Druss has been indicted for tax fraud?’

  Fox raised an eyebrow. ‘That I hadn’t heard. That’ll hurt.’

  ‘Word is that his delegation base is making like rats on a sinking ship. Everyone out there likes it if you bitch about taxes, but fraud makes you sound like you can’t be trusted.’

  ‘Can’t have happened to a nicer person. Think it’ll stick?’

  ‘Not my area, but the NAPA team seem confident.’

  ‘Maybe they can get him a cell next to Bateson’s.’

  ~~~

  ‘So, what do you think of them?’ Helen asked as the new recruits filed out to the elevators.

  Fox stood beside her, also watching her new people leave for the day. ‘Well, the Brit has a platinum rod up her ass, but she’s cool, efficient, and she’s got good deductive talents. The Australian fancies himself with the ladies, but he gets right down to it when he’s faced with a problem. The German actually has a sense of humour…’

  ‘You think they’re going to work out?’

  ‘Only time will tell. I think we’ve got a workable bunch of people here and it’s a good start.’

  ‘And Fukui?’

  ‘I trust her. I trusted the background checks, but now I’ve talked to her… She’ll do her best for us.’

  Helen nodded. ‘Okay, well, I trust your instincts.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Fox grinned. ‘Try and take the time to chat to her tomorrow at the party.’

  ‘Not sure it qualifies as a party. More of a meet-and-greet, except we already met and greeted.’

  Fox gave a shrug. ‘We’ll get a look at how they act socially. Keen will probably try his luck with all the girls.’

  ‘Wanna run a sweepstake on who he gets?’

  ‘Nah. If he gets anyone, it’ll be the Br
it. You know what they’re like.’

  ~~~

  Belle appeared as Fox was going over the performance reports. ‘Fox, I have Miss Charlene Iberson at the door requesting to see you.’

  Fox looked up at the blue-clad avatar and frowned. ‘She’s alone?’

  ‘Yes, Fox.’

  ‘Didn’t say what she wanted or you’d have told me. Okay, let her in. I’ll meet her in the hall and take her into the downstairs lounge.’

  Charlene Iberson was known, with good reason, as the ice queen of the chat show circuit. She was a blonde, her hair clipped short and shaved close at the sides, and she had blue eyes, but her reputation stemmed from her role as co-host of Straight Talk, a late-night, adult chat show on the Athena channel. Tall, slim, and attractive, Iberson wore her femininity, lesbianism, and strong feminist principles with pride… Normally. Right now, she looked nervous. The ice in her piercing eyes had melted into mush.

  Fox gave her a quizzical frown from halfway down the broad steps into the hall. ‘Charlie? Something up? You look… less than your bitchy self.’

  Iberson pulled her back up a little straighter and managed a half-hearted attempt at a scowl. ‘Well, that’s why I’m here. I needed some bitch lessons and I heard you were almost as good as me.’

  ‘You’re not totally off your game. Come into the lounge. Tell me what’s wrong.’

  Dressed in a mid-thigh skirt, light blouse, and a leather jacket, Iberson perched on the edge of a sofa, knees pressed tightly together and her hands making fists on top of them. Nervous, closed in: so very not Charlie Iberson. ‘Palladium’s doing the security for Nishi’s gigs, right?’ she said without preamble.

  ‘The Fire in Her Eyes tour. Yeah, that’s ours. Very last minute, but it’s ours. Not mine, I’m investigation and there’s been no need for–’

  ‘I think there is.’

  Fox sat down opposite Iberson, leaning forward. ‘Explain, please.’

  ‘You know me and Nishi…’

  ‘You’ve been heavily linked in the gossip channels. Everyone assumes you’re an item, though the evidence is circumstantial.’

  ‘I met her in fifty-eight, at a concert. She was… Damn, she’s special. I can’t explain it. She’s not a real stunner, you know? Some of my friends think I’m out of her league, but I saw something in her and I guess she saw something in me. She was going through a bad patch with her music. The enthusiasm was gone. I pushed her to bring it back. The ‘her’ in The Fire in Her Eyes? That’s me. Or Nishi says it is.’

  ‘Most people say you have ice in your eyes, and it goes right down to your heart.’

  ‘Huh. Yeah, and they’re right. Nishi’ll like you. She says the best thing about me is that I don’t tell her nice lies. As soon as we were past the initial bits where you’re not sure about someone, I told her straight up that her music was losing its edge and she should damn well get her ass in gear and make another Songs on the Wind.’

  ‘I’m not hearing a problem that needs me to investigate.’

  ‘Okay. I was up in Boston with her this past few days for the concerts.’ Iberson’s eyes brightened a little and she smiled. ‘She is blowing them away! The stage act is amazing and the music… Um, anyway, the day before the first show, the second of Jan, I hear her swearing and I walk in to find she’s checking her mail. She’s got one through on her personal address, some freaky fan thing from someone calling himself “Minotaur.” She tells me this guy has been sending messages, posting to her LifeWeb page, basically stalking her, but this is the first time she’s got one in her personal mailbox.’

  ‘I’d imagine that kind of thing happens a lot. You must get fans stalking you now and again. Marie hasn’t had any yet, but both Sam and I have discussed the possibility, given the nature of the show she’s doing. And Miss Sakura’s stage shows aren’t exactly wholesome family fun.’

  ‘It’s her personal address, Tara. There are… twenty people who know it. Before this, he’s sent stuff through the IMC PR mailboxes and they’ve been filtering, but there’s no way this guy should have her personal address. And the way she looked… She wouldn’t let me read it. Deleted it straight away. But the look on her face said it was scary. Then she shut me out on it. Said the channel security people had checked it all out and it was just the typical obsessive fan stuff. She was too busy with the concerts to worry over it now. Blah, blah. I’m worried.’

  Fox bit at her lip for a second. ‘You said he posted to her LifeWeb page?’

  ‘They blocked him from her LifeWeb page.’

  ‘Okay.’ Fox leaned back in her seat. ‘Kit, check LifeWeb, see what you can find.’

  Kit appeared, standing beside Fox. ‘I’ll start the run immediately.’

  ‘Oh, hello again, Kit,’ Iberson said, managing a smile for the kitsune avatar.

  ‘I would rather it were under different circumstances, Miss Iberson, but hello again. It will take a short time to access deep records in the LifeWeb databases, Fox.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Fox said, ‘get them when you can. Look, Charlie, if it looks like this guy could be trouble… I can’t really do much if Miss Sakura won’t let me investigate it.’

  ‘I figured, maybe, you could play the security card? If this guy is a threat, then Palladium might need to be aware of it.’

  ‘It’s worth a shot. Is she in the metro?’

  Iberson nodded. ‘She’s staying in that new arcology MarTech put up. Right up near the top in the VIP suites. I’m, uh, staying with her.’

  ‘Okay, then she’s safe for now. Tower three has excellent security. It’s where my investigations division has its HQ. Ryan Jarvis and his people are good, and so is the more automated security. No one gets past the mall level without authorisation. Leave it with me and Kit, and we’ll see what we can dig up.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Iberson said, getting to her feet. ‘Really, thanks. Even if this turns out to be me worrying over nothing, I’ll feel better knowing someone’s looked at it seriously.’

  7th January.

  ‘I’ve located the posts Miss Iberson mentioned,’ Kit said as Fox swung her legs out of bed.

  ‘Minotaur? What does he have to say for himself?’ Fox was interested, but a shower beckoned.

  ‘He posted as “BeastOfKnossos,” not much of a change. I cross-checked against the blocked list. LifeWeb should have blocked the account earlier given that the personal data is obviously faked. However, since assuming control of LifeWeb, MarTech has suspended several hundred thousand accounts which broke the rules in this way.’

  The shower was already running, at just the temperature Fox liked. She pushed her head under the stream of water and let it wash the last of the sleep from her mind. ‘Okay. So he created a fake account specifically to post to Sakura’s page?’

  ‘He created it on the twelfth of August last year, favouriting Miss Sakura’s page immediately and not looking elsewhere. His first post was on the twenty-third of that month, a rather effusive fan posting about how Miss Sakura’s music “spoke to his soul.” He posts once a day after that, each post just as flowery as the last, but we get extra posts when he finds anyone suggesting that Miss Sakura’s work is less than perfect. He is blocked on September twenty-eighth after suggesting that one poster did not deserve to live and that he would “erase the freak from existence.”’

  ‘Okay…’

  ‘BeastOfKnossos logged in once on the twenty-ninth, presumably discovered the block, and the account was not used again. Having received only one block, he did not trigger LifeWeb’s automated checking and the account remained active but unused until October ninth when MarTech instituted the new auditing system.’

  Fox nodded. ‘You’ve looked at obsessive fan posts before. What’s your opinion?’

  ‘The posts themselves show an obsessive aspect to Minotaur’s personality which is worrying and might warrant further investigation. However, there is another factor which I believe suggests a greater threat.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Ye
s, Fox. I scanned the account of the person Minotaur said he would “erase” and found a number of posts indicating the difficulties that person has had since September. His accounts on a number of private music sites have been deleted along with any posts he made there. He has also had problems with banking and access to his apartment block on several occasions. Minotaur has not erased him, but someone is making life hard for him.’

  ‘But his LifeWeb account is okay?’

  ‘MarTech acquired LifeWeb last August, if you recall. LifeWeb’s security was upgraded almost immediately, and further upgraded at the end of September.’

  ‘Okay…’ Fox rubbed shampoo into her hair and considered. ‘Send a message to Ryan indicating that we may have an issue. Give him the basics, and tell him I’ll call him when it’s a reasonable hour in Chicago. Send something to Charlie saying we’ll drop in and see Sakura this afternoon. And find me a slot in the schedule when I can do that.’

  ‘You were planning to come back here to change for the party, correct?’

  ‘Yeah, that was the plan.’

  ‘If you change in your office at the tower, we could easily fit in a visit to Miss Sakura’s suite before socialising.’

  Fox smiled. ‘Good thinking. Okay, get Belle to put my dress and shoes out and I’ll take them with me. Check with Charlie that they’ll be in the suite at that time.’

  ~~~

  ‘All right, let’s settle and we can get on with the fun.’ Fox waited a few seconds as her team fell into silence. They had decamped to another part of the kilometre-high arcology for the final item she wanted to cover in the course: choice of weapons.