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By Aedh
It was a bit late to go back to the office, so I went
to my place. It was only two stops and a short stroll
along. I lived in a building on the edge of the industrial
district, not far from the TranspoLibria maintenance depot; you
could see the grey, hulking metal-roofed shops among steel power masts
topped with blinking lights visible at night. My street was drab,
faceless, with lookalike fronts; a wholesale electrical equipment
dealer, a medical supply outfit, a food delivery service’s motorshop,
offices of chemical engineering contractors, a commercial
laundry. If you went to the top floor of my building and looked
out through the window of the top landing, you might be able to
see, tucked in among low hills to the west, the cooling tower of the
Libria #3 power plant.
Down the block was a food store, a little one with long, narrow aisles
run by a little old guy in an apron that looked as if he’d been
standing there since Father was a schoolboy. He sold noodles and
pickles and dried fish and packaged sandwiches and canned drinks
to the lunchtime workers and said very little and saw everything with
his rheumy eyes. Twice in the past ten years he had wheezed a few
words to me that had saved my life, but had never introduced
himself. So I called him Sal, because he looked like he ought to
be called Sal, and he’d never blinked at that. Correcting what I
called him didn’t seem to be worth the verbiage to him.
My building had been office space at one time, then had stood vacant
for some years, then been bought at a bankruptcy auction by a
businessman who’d been betting on immigration reform, and he’d begun
converting it into a series of slapdash apartments for a wave of guest
workers that never arrived. The work had been abandoned. I
had managed to rent myself an entire floor for what a studio would have
cost in most other neighbourhoods. I’d finished my own space
myself, knocking out a wall here, rewiring there, doing a little
plumbing somewhere else. The owner didn’t care; he seemed
content to get at least something out of his investment, and it was
still classified as vacant commercial property, so I escaped the
periodic residential inspections that other Librians had to put up
with.
I liked it. Very quiet during the day, if you didn’t mind the
occasional noises from the laundry, the motorshop and some of the
loading docks, and grave-like after five; nobody on the whole
block but me and Sal, who for reasons unknown stayed open until ten,
and, it seemed, just turned the lights out and locked the door and
stayed put until morning. It was also my alternate gym when I
sometimes didn’t want to train at the Ministry facility. It could
have been, and perhaps one day would be, my office as well; but
my space downtown was paid for by ConSec, along with my office
assistant and equipment from LibMed, so I had decided to ride that
train to the end of the line.
I had ‘net, thanks to a tap into the wires under the street which the
TeleLibria maintenance people believed went to a ConSec router somwhere
nearby; which, in a sense, wasn’t wholly untrue. I went up,
pulled up the seat to my workstation, and, in fairly short order,
pulled up some data on Citizen Sami Petanko.
He was an immigrant, as a small child, with his parents, father died
shortly after the revolution, mother passed more recently.
Twenty-eight years old, married, one child, University graduate in
computer engineering with top marks; the Ministry of Education
would have slotted him for juicy government work if he’d been
native-born. I didn’t have access to his health and review
records here. I’d need the secure connection to the ConSec server
at the office for that. But I had a few minutes’ reading on him
and his, including a picture and his current workplace and duties, and
that would do for now.
Outside the building at TeleLibria’s accounts center where Citizen
Petanko worked, I hadn’t very long to wait. I fell in behind him
as the crowd of workers dispersed after their shift change, and went
along as he stopped for a protein shake from a street bar and then down
to the nearby tube station. I boarded his car and held a strap
near him as he settled into a seat. About three minutes after the
train began to rumble, I flashed him by Number Two engaging
grin. “Citizen Petanko,” I said. “Good day at work?”
His dark eyes, under their mop of hair, flashed over to me and took in
the badge I had ready for him. “Um … sure,” he mumbled.
“It’s been a while. How’s the wife and baby?”
He said nothing. I continued: “How’s your mother
been? What say you and I stop off, catch up on a bit of this and
that? Eh citizen?”
“My mother’s dead,” he said.
“Two years. Bone marrow cancer,” I told him. “I’m
sorry. Let’s get off here, shall we?” I said as the cars began to
slow. He got up without a word; hostile, suspicious, as he
had, of course, every right to be.
We got off at one of the larger station, and as we stood on the
escalator, he looked at the metal treads and asked me: “Who are
you, ConSec? What’s this about?”
“Patience, citizen,” I said. “You’re in no trouble that I know
of. It’s about someone you know. Just a couple of
questions.” We emerged on the sidewalk, and I steered him over to
a bench backing on the low retaining wall of a sports complex. We
sat.
“So?” he asked.
“I’m Slater,” I said, producing badge and ID. “I’m not an
officer, but I do work for ConSec. Then I pulled out my PDA and
showed him Irina Madour. “You know this girl.”
“Why should I tell you?” he demanded.
“She’s missing, citizen. She’s been seen with you lately. I
thought we’d keep things off your record by just having a chat rather
than taking you in for official questioning. Which could be
arranged, if you prefer.”
He shook his mop, making it no more of a mop than it had been.
This seemed to be his way of relaxing a tiny bit. “Yeah.
Well, I don’t know her,” he said, emphasising the ‘know,’ “but I’ve
seen her around a bit.”
“Had a drink or two with her?”
“Maybe.”
“What’s her name?”
“I don’t know.”
I tried again. “What’s she call herself?”
“They call her Star,” he said.
“Who’s that?”
“I don’t know. Just everybody. She called herself that.”
“’Called?’” I lifted an eyebrow and tapped my PDA pocket.
“Past tense, citizen?”
“I mean, when we met!” he exclaimed. “You’re the one that said
she was missing. I don’t know what’s happened to her.
Whatever, it’s nothing to do with me.”
“Alright, citizen,” I said. “You’re not accused of that.
Just take a minute. We’ve got nothing but time.”
A sudden breeze blew a piece of discarded plastic wrap along the
sidewalk. He looked at it for a moment.
“Where did Star live?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I met her at a tube station.”
“The first time?”
“Every time.”
“How did you first meet?”
“Through a friend.”
“And that friend’s name, citizen?”
His eyes flickered. “Dennis. Dennis Teague.”
I said kindly: “Dennis Teague? The lacrosse forward for
Team Excel? You’ll have to do better than that, citizen. I
don’t think Citizen Teague mixes with Commo programmers in tube trains.”
Sami Petanko buried his head in his hands.
“Let’s try again, citizen. The friend’s name? For real this
time. Not someone you remember from being mentioned on ‘netcasts.”
“Keef Herzog,” he said through his fingers.
“Citizen Keef Herzog,” I said calmly, inwardly making a note to buy my
office assistant a dozen red roses, a rarity in Libria. “A
security officer at TeleLibria, where you also work. Twenty-eight
years old, the same year as you in school. He was up for
promotion to team leader. That’s better, citizen. Much
better. What were you and citizen Herzog into?”
“What do you mean?”
I hit him with the other one. “You seem to have done very well
for a junior designer,” I said. “Your mother’s cancer case wasn’t
fully covered by LibMed because as an immigrant she didn’t have any
more children after your parents arrived here. They cut the
benefits. You were left with some heavy bills which you paid in
rather short order.”
“My wife makes good money.”
“We’re talking many thousands, citizen. And you didn’t go into
debt. You have a flat in a building that’s mostly inhabited by
people worth considerably more than you. Now, talk to me,
citizen, or talk to the officers. You decide.”
He considered for a moment. “You wired?”
“I don’t have to be. I’m not an officer.”
He made a gesture of a finger across his throat. It was my turn
to consider. Then I reached in to my PDA pocket as if I were
deactivating something.
“I swear, I swear, it was temporary,” he said. “That’s what I
told myself. I had Mother’s bills to pay and Lalia and I were on
the outs then. Baby blues. She was yelling about
divorce. Herzog talked to me, and I agreed. I’d meet
someone who delivered the files on magcards. I uploaded and ran
them just like any others. They never check, there’s too many
citizens. There’s no way to verify everything. It was so
easy. Then I’d dot them and deliver the dots to Herzog. I
don’t know what he did with ‘em.”
“It’s not hard to guess. He worked regularly with ConSec.”
“Of course.”
“Including the Citizen Safety Division,” I said as if to myself.
When he didn’t react, I went in for the kill. “And how many false
ID ‘bands would you say came out this way? Through your work?”
“Twenty, thirty a week,” he said slowly.
“And this started when?”
“Six months after Mother died.”
“And your wife, Lalia. She knows, of course.”
He shook his head. “She thinks I inherited an annuity from
Mother. They route the money through an account.”
“And when did you start meeting with Star?”
“A few months ago. Three months. Once a week.”
“She was your information courier. Not your first one, but the
most recent. The ‘bands would be made by CSD people and then
delivered by someone else. You got money. What was Herzog’s
price? I doubt he was highly paid. Security personnel are
audited pretty closely.”
“He got nick.”
I exhaled slowly. In cashless Libria, substances sometimes took
the place of what money had once done in trade. Tobacco would be
perfect. Light, easy to conceal, and—to use a pre-War
phrase—worth its weight in gold; considerably more.
“Was he a nickhead, then?”
“Not at first. He started dealing in it when we were in the
University. It was perfect payment for eros, for guns and
ammunition, for Lightning—“ a relative of the old White Magic, also
illegal—“anything else you care to name. Girls would sell
themselves for a few nick sticks. But he started hitting it
himself. He’s one now for sure. Can’t go half a day without
it. Lucky he’s not married. He moonlights as a night man at
a distribution company over in the East Forties somewhere.”
“And you?”
“Not me, citizen,” he said decisively. “I was already engaged to
Lalia, and she’s into that BCI stuff. She’d have had my
nuts. I had a kid on the way then, and twins on the way
now. With twins, we’re on our way to a pension from the
Council. Then I can kiss this goodbye,” he said with a
descriptive motion.
“You into that? BCI?” I said. “I’ve heard some men
are.”
“Aw, I can’t get my head around it,” he said, seemingly glad of a
change of subject. “Seems to do her good, though.”
“What’s she do?” I asked him.
“She’s a key clerk at the Ministry of Commerce. It’s a good
position. Not great money, but highly classified. Her
department relies on her—always having vidmeets like some exec while
she was home on maternity. Her next promotion will be big.
And she’ll get it,” he said confidently. All that checked out
from what I had read.
“Good for her,” I said.
“And now what, citizen? Now, what will I get for this?”
“The truth,” I told him. “You’re not the only one who did this,
I’m sure. And you being taken away from your family and sent to a
Libria Service camp cleaning up War rubble out in the toolies for a few
years helps me not a whit. I’m dealing with something else.
So in exchange for this little talk, you and your peccadillo may walk,
and I say good luck to you and Lalia. I’m not saying you won’t
get caught somehow. I am saying I won’t turn you in. Unless
there’s murder involved. One thing.”
“Yes?”
“For this you will put my PDA number into your PDA, and you will call
me immediately if and when you see Star again.”
“What’s going to happen to her?”
“Citizen, what’s going to happen to your family and own sweet self
should be your chief concern,” I told him. “If you never
see Star again, it will be well for you. That will represent
success for everyone concerned. Think about that.
Understand that. Dwell on that. Repeat it to yourself every
time you see Lalia and your baby across the table. Will you do
this?”
“I will,” he said.
I gave citizen Sami Petanko my number and watched him program it in.
“Now go your way, citizen,” I said, standing up. “And do not fail
to call me if and when.”
“I won’t,” he said, sprang up, and walked rapidly back toward the tube
station.
I went for some falafel.
Back at my place, I poured myself a Jax and kola, fired up
Old Betsy again and scouted around for some more info involving Citizen
Keef Herzog, fake ‘bands, and CSD. After that it was late enough
so I figured Doctor Authier Madour would be home as Nedra had
said. So I gave him a tinkle on his home line. I set my
call to route through my office, which my background showed, suitably
adjusted for evening conditions, complete to the occasional whirr of
cleaning equipment in the background. On the phone’s options menu
it was called my ‘digwola’ screen, for ‘darling, I gotta work late
again.’ Which, again, wasn’t untrue.
Citizen Nedra Madour answered it after a few moments when she was,
undoubtedly, checking my caller ID. Her window showed what I
didn’t doubt was her real home. Nice. Probably a penthouse
in one of Parkside’s tonier buildings. “Citizen, good evening,”
she said, putting a hand toward her hair momentarily. “You’re
working late. Does this mean you have news already?”
“I have an avenue or two,” I told her. “I’ll inform you of anything
definite. Just now, though, I was hoping that Doctor Madour was
back.”
“He arrived a few hours ago. Via his office,” she said with a
hint of resignation. “There was a problem there. Some kind
of pilferage was discovered.”
“H’m. You’ve updated him?”
“Yes. He seems comfortable with our arrangement.”
“How do you think he’d react if ConSec had to get involved?”
“Are you telling me something?” she said sharply.
“Not at all. But it’s not impossible that things could play that
way, and we shouldn’t be caught off guard if they do.”
“I’m trusting you, citizen Slater.”
“What’s your choice?” I said bluntly.
“True. I always was a good student, citizen. And I did my
homework on you,” she said. “You have law enforcement experience
underlying your days at LibMed. Somewhat more extensive than you
care to publish. That badge of yours bears a whiff of the double
bluff.” I made a mental note to straighten out citizen
Lasseter. “And don’t blame Vonnie,” she added shrewdly. “There’s
file fixing, and then there’s real file fixing.”
“All right,” I said. “Is he available for a minute?”
“I don’t see why not,” she said. “I’ll put you on for a
moment.” A slideshow of pre-War images of what had been places in
Europe, rebuilt from old liberated EC-10 and accompanied by pleasant
contemporary music. They’d been popular ever since the
revolution. I got to look at mountain valleys, grazing cattle,
cobblestoned backstreets, and white sand beaches for a minute or
two, a pointed complement to the videos of pollution,
overcrowding, and war that had gone out under Father’s imprimatur
during Equilibrium. I wondered idly what those same places looked
like now. Some people liked to discuss why those who lived in
places like that would want to lay waste to them. That I didn’t
wonder about. Too many years in my business had well acquainted
me with the darker byways of human nature.
The pictures changed, and a voice said: “Citizen Slater, is
it? Good evening. What can I do for you?” I was
looking at a dark, handsome man with silver hair whose cut had cost, in
all probability, more than his wife’s, and a short moustache to
match. I didn’t care for the two syllables that had followed my
name.
“I trust your paper was well-received, Doctor Madour.” I began.
Doctors were not ‘citizens.’ They were something more.
“Oh, yes. It will be appearing in the journals, naturally.
Our work is by far the most advanced in its field.”
“Although I’m sure Irina’s situation must have been on your mind.”
“Yes. My daughter is one of my chief concerns. Much is
invested in her. Of course, her welfare is of critical
importance. Do you have news, citizen?”
“Nothing definite to go on yet,” I said. “I wanted to ask
you a few things about her, though.”
“Anything.” he said with a gesture.
“She would go out, occasionally. Sometimes stay away
overnight. This was forbidden behaviour for her, I assume?”
“It’s not good to have one’s underage daughter away all night, citizen.”
“True. But did you talk to her about this? Did she have
any, mmm, consequences from you that might deter her?”
“I told her it would mean deprival of her charge cards. That is a
matter of some consequence for young ladies.”
“She was already undergoing a course of private counseling, shall we
say?”
“Yes,” he said curtly.
“Did she have any consequences from you about that matter?”
“The, eh, counseling itself was a humiliation for her at first.
But she adapted to it quite well, and even, I believe, learned
something about herself. So we did not impose anything extra on
her.”
“When did that begin?”
“Six months ago. There was a period of inpatient residence
at first. That therapy was followed by an outpatient programme
which she was near to completing.”
“Will she have to do it all over again when she returns?”
“No, I am sure she was close enough to completion that they would
simply continue where they had left off, as long as she had maintained
herself during her absence.”
“What activities was she involved in besides her studies?”
“She kept busy. There was Libria Youth, of course. She was
a senior leader. Her sports were swimming, lacrosse, and riding.”
I wasn’t sure I’d heard right. “Riding? Horse-riding?”
“Mm. I’m sure you know of the Equestrian Academy.” I
didn’t, really; I only knew that it existed, somewhere in the
countryside many miles out of the city, accessible only by private
hover, and that it had a small and well-guarded membership. War,
then upheaval, then Equilibrium, had for so long kept domestic animals
out of the hands of Librians that even after the revolution the idea
had never become popular again; some citizens, in the first few
years, had kept dogs and cats, but stiff licensing and
species-protection regulations initiated by activists had rapidly made
ownership impracticable for almost everyone. Some people kept
imported fish from Koguryo; wealthy citizens occasionally had a
dog or cat, or a bird brought from the tropics of Amazonia;
Eastern immigrants were known to keep a few crickets or beetles in tiny
cages. The vast majority had only seen dogs and cats at the zoo,
where they were very well kept; but even the zoo didn’t have
horses. The idea of riding was still considered by most to be a
pre-War decadence, now safely stamped out.
“You are, citizen Slater, by my wife’s account, sufficiently
enlightened to know that riding isn’t the barbaric practice it’s made
out to be. Properly practiced, it is quite safe, and conducive to
the fitness of both rider and horse, and the animals seem to enjoy it
as well. Horse and rider can develop a remarkable
relationship. Naturally, we take the precaution of disguising her
visits there as time spent at Volunteer Service camps. We are
sure that your discretion can be counted on.”
“Yes, surely,” I said. “I’ve nothing against it.”
“I know. I wouldn’t have informed you otherwise. But I
mentioned it to indicate to you the level of confidence we have placed
in Irina. If she were not an unusually mature and capable young
lady, we would not have introduced her to that world.” If he had
meant to impress me, he had succeeded.
“Speaking of activities and pastimes, was she knowledgeable in
computers? ‘Net operations, programming?”
“More than competent for her age,” he said with a touch of pride.
“She won a number of distinctions for her projects. I am hoping
that she will assist me in my work when she graduates from the
University.”
“Your wife spoke of her ‘acting up at home,’” I remarked. “Irina
sounds remarkably well-put-together.” That elicited a smile from
him. “What did she mean by that?”
“My daughter is an intelligent young woman,” said Authier Madour, “with
her own ideas about things, which is allowed in this house. Her
mother is also a woman of accomplishment, with the ideas of her
own—our—generation, which a man of your age and wisdom will realize are
different in some radical ways. The society we knew when we were
sixteen was different by an order of magnitude than that Irina knows
today. She and Nedra had marked divergences from which neither
often backed down easily. You are not a family man, but you are a
licensed counselor, so you have experience of this, I’m sure.”
I agreed. This man wouldn’t be needing any indirect
approaches. His composure, even with his daughter missing, would
have done credit to a Tetra. So I just said: “Do you have
any enemies, Doctor Madour?”
“There are those who oppose my work. That is to be
expected. But if you are hinting at a possible abduction, I think
it highly unlikely. What would they expect in return?”
“What might they expect?”
“Other than capture and punishment? I couldn’t say. My work
doesn’t generate any results that I could put into a delivery pod and
leave somewhere.”
I didn’t bring up money: Libria’s electronic credit and debit
system was highly controlled, as I had demonstrated to Citizen Petanko,
though Authier Madour might well be able to provide other things of
value. “You’ve developed patents and formulas for treatments and
medications.”
“All of which would require facilities for their manufacture that
rather exceed what would be available to a gang of kidnapers.”
“Perhaps it’s not so much what they want you to do, as what they might
want you not to do. What about politics?”
“I stand aside from Council factions, citizen.”
“You’ve lent your support to the Libria Family Foundation. You’ve
weighed in against Sasha Baker-Preston on euthanization
testimony. It could be simple hatred or revenge.”
“True. There are hotheads on various issues. But that doesn’t sit
well with the message that she sent to my wife requesting time.”
“That was my next question. ‘We need time.’ Why do you
suppose she said ‘we?’”
“That is an interesting question, citizen. I have considered it
myself. There is obviously someone, or some people of concern to
her.”
She was working for someone. I knew that from Citizen
Petanko. But I wasn’t ready to tell that to Authier Madour just
yet. So I said simply: “Any ideas?”
“Not at this time, citizen. We will have to discuss that, she and
I.”
“You sound pretty sure that she will turn up.” I observed.
“It is highly likely. Murder, as you know, is rare in
Libria; perhaps rarer, even, than before the revolution. And,
barring that, we will see Irina back.” I had no argument with the
first statement. Among citizens, homicide had actually been
declassified as a crime. Almost all unnatural deaths fell into
the categories of misadventure, suicide, police action, or
manslaughter, which occurred a few times a year among immigrants.
There was also euthanization, a highly controversial issue both on and
off the Council, kept alive by the celebrated Baker-Preston case.
“We are hoping that your services will facilitate that in a way which
keeps the consquences to a minimum, and will raise the chances that
when she does return, she does so intact and unharmed.”
“Very well,” I said. “I see no reason to detain you further,
Doctor.” We said our farewells and I sat back for some deep
thought.
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