Extremes: A Retrieval Artist Novel Read online

  “Exactly,” DeRicci said. “And you know what that means.”

  He raised his head. The sun glinted off the plastic of his hood panel. “She was dumped here.”

  “That’s right,” DeRicci said. “She was dumped here. After she had been murdered.”

  SIX

  IT TOOK OLIVIARI nearly fifteen minutes to find the medical team leader. All of Oliviari’s links to the med teams—except the links to the panic alerts and the initial readouts—had been cut off. She couldn’t access any information at all.

  None of her team members seemed surprised as she left her post near the scooter. No one tried to stop her from walking to the organizers’ table, which had been her first stop, then continuing all the way across the main staging area.

  As she reached one of the maintenance buildings, she saw one of the surface cars drive away, hurrying down the track used by the field ambulances. She had been right: the police were here to investigate a death on the course.

  She was trying to keep her movements easy, her breathing calm. She didn’t want her own readouts to show any agitation, even though she was feeling some. Mostly anger at her own curiosity, and at the fact that her curiosity had led her to make a blunder.

  Her scans of the course had led to someone shutting down her access. Even though she’d made clones of the access information, she couldn’t use them now. She would have to wait.

  If Oliviari could cover, though, she might be able to make this blunder into a tiny mistake, something no one knew about except herself.

  The medical team leader, Mikhail Tokagawa, was a tall, slender man with lightning-quick reflexes. During the training sessions, Oliviari had often speculated about his background. He had almost a paranoid’s reaction to surprise.

  He reacted like that when Oliviari approached, turning, stepping forward as if he had been doing something wrong. He hadn’t been, so far as she could tell. He had been standing near one of the maintenance buildings, talking to a guard, when Oliviari finally located him.

  Funny that he would know she was coming. Her footsteps made no sound out here, and she hadn’t been in his line of sight. Perhaps the guard had warned him.

  “Excuse me, Dr. Tokagawa,” Oliviari said, going on the offensive as she had planned. “My med links seem to have shut down.”

  His visor was tinted like most of the others, but she could see his face through it. He seemed tired, almost as if the race had been too much for him. “Shut down?”

  She nodded. “I get the panic alerts and the initial readout, and then nothing.”

  “Strange,” he said in a tone that led her to believe that he didn’t find it strange at all.

  “I was hoping I could piggyback on someone else’s link,” she said. “My team’s about to be called up.”

  He shrugged, the movement making his entire suit rise and fall. “I’m sorry. I would have no idea how to do that.”

  “But you could authorize it.”

  “I’m not even sure I could. You’ll have to go inside.”

  She sighed. They wanted her away from the runners now. Why? Had the organizers finally checked her credentials?

  “I will go inside,” she said, “but there was one other thing I wanted to talk with you about.”

  He lifted his head slightly and looked past her. She turned. There was movement on the horizon. Something faint and small. The first runner was coming in.

  “Make it quick,” Tokagawa said.

  “I was just wondering about Team Two. They haven’t followed up, and I tried to see their response on my visuals. That was when my links crashed.” A little grain of truth added a lot to credibility.

  He looked at her. “Why would you check up on another team?”

  “You asked us to, sir, at our first training session. You told us about all of the changes that had occurred because of the unfortunate lack of response to a panic alert a few marathons ago, and you said should any of us notice anything that seems unusual, we should come to you.”

  “Oh.” It was clear he didn’t remember that statement, but this time, Oliviari wasn’t lying. He had said those things; she supposed he just hadn’t expected someone to take him quite so literally.

  “Two unusual things happened as far as I’m concerned,” she said. “First, Team Two didn’t report, and then when I check to see if I’m the one who missed anything, my links fail.”

  He put a gloved hand on her shoulder. The touch felt oddly impersonal through the suit layers. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Clearly something has to be done.”

  Patronized and dismissed. She was beginning to think all doctors were the same everywhere, believing they were smarter than everyone else around them.

  Then a panic whistle went off inside her helmet. She winced, wishing she could find a way to turn the damn sound down. A readout trailed along the bottom of her visor: female runner, age 35, ruptured suit [repairing], dislocated right kneecap, tears in multiple ligaments in the right leg. Mile 14.3.

  Oliviari was about to press her response when the readout and the whistle shut off. Someone else on the team had signaled then.

  She moved to return to her scooter, but Tokagawa’s hand tightened on her shoulder. She hadn’t even realized he was still touching her until he held her in place.

  “You can’t go without the proper links,” he said.

  “But I’m on Team Five,” she said. “We’re up.”

  Not to mention that the victim was female within the right age bracket; this was the opportunity Oliviari had been hoping for.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll move a member of Team Ten up. You can go when they’re called, so long as your links have been repaired.”

  “Obviously my standard communication links are working, and since the rest of the team—”

  “No,” he said, letting go of her shoulder. “Go inside the dome. Get the technical difficulties resolved.”

  The scooter shot past. Oliviari frowned at it, seeing two suited people on it as it headed onto the trail. Her place had been on that scooter and she had jeopardized it. Chances were that her links wouldn’t be repaired by the time Team Ten left either.

  Oliviari sighed and left him, heading back to the organization table. Everyone there was on their feet, staring at the finish line.

  She turned so that she could see.

  A single runner, bent almost in half, headed toward the tape. Another runner had appeared on the horizon, taking large leaps, low to the ground.

  A push to the finish, a chance for a real race this year.

  Oliviari forgot both her mission and her own disappointment in herself as she watched the competition. The first runner continued at the same pace, clearly at some kind of personal limit. The second runner was gaining, the leaps surprisingly effective.

  They were side by side as they headed toward the tape. Then the first runner attempted a leap—

  —and the second runner broke through, arms raised.

  The first runner had used too much energy going up instead of forward. The change in stride had ruined a beautifully run race..

  Oliviari shook her head. That was precisely what she had just done to herself. She had run a beautiful race and then, at the last minute, had blown it by being too curious.

  She watched the runners attempt to slow down, the volunteers gather around them to assist, the beginning of the last part, which would include examinations as well as trophies and media interviews.

  Maybe she could salvage this after all.

  Tokagawa had headed toward the finish line. He wasn’t watching Oliviari at all.

  She took a deep breath, and headed toward the medical tent. A guard stopped her and she flashed her medical clearance. The guard let her through.

  She stepped into the airlock, felt her own movements slow as the heavier gravity settled on her, and then she pushed open the door to the medical tent.

  “Some race, huh?” she said as she stepped inside, flipping the control
s so that her helmet would disengage.

  A med tech, someone she didn’t recognize, frowned at her.

  “I just spoke to Tokagawa,” Oliviari said. “He sent me in here rather than keep me on Team Ten since we’ll be getting a lot of people in here in the next few hours.”

  “You’ve got about five minutes before the winners arrive,” the tech said. “Better take the suit off.”

  Oliviari smiled. Mistake repaired. Now she just had to get through the next six hours without calling attention to herself all over again.

  SEVEN

  FLINT WALKED on the sidewalks under the glassed-in high-rises in Armstrong’s newest, most exclusive neighborhood. Flint had never been inside one of these places before, and he was uncomfortable going there now. He’d always thought them extravagant and wasteful. He would rather have seen poorly functioning sections of the dome repaired and replaced than having the city help fund exclusive housing like this.

  But he felt he had no choice. He’d spent nearly an hour tracking Wagner, Stuart, and Xendor’s hacking systems, and found that they were very sophisticated. They had traced him within minutes—and could have done so even if they hadn’t been expecting him to try to find more information on Astrid Krouch.

  It was clear that WSX had the resources to find out anything the lawyers wanted. They didn’t need an outside Retrieval Artist. Yet they seemed determined to hire Flint.

  He had to know why.

  Since Ignatius Wagner had mentioned WSX’s previous dealings with Paloma, Flint felt that Paloma was the place to start.

  Normally, he would have called her to his office, but she would have asked why he sent for her. This time, he wanted to catch her off guard.

  Paloma’s building was part of a high-rise complex on Armstrong’s outer edge. The city had approved a new section of dome to surround them. Somehow the high-rises’ owners got the Council to change zoning regulations. One entire wall of the high-rises was actually attached to the dome, so that residents got to see the Moon’s surface from the inside of their homes.

  Paloma had loved that feature. She had told Flint so when she used some of the credits he had paid for her business to buy a one-bedroom on the dome side. She still said it was the best investment she’d ever made.

  Paloma seemed to have no trouble with the unnecessary luxury. She liked spending her wealth. Flint had barely touched his. He still had the same apartment he had had when he was a police detective. He had upgraded his security system, but had changed little else.

  His greatest expenditure so far had been his purchase of Paloma’s business. Otherwise, he spent less now than he had when he worked for the city.

  A set of clear steps, built against the far wall, circled their way into the building. They seemed indulgent. Part of him felt annoyed; why couldn’t the place have solid steps like everywhere else?

  But he mounted them, his boots whispering on the clear surface. As he walked, he got slightly dizzy. The see-through steps and the see-through walls made it seem like he was walking on air. Only the ceiling, as solid as any other ceiling he’d ever seen, gave him a sense of perspective.

  The stairs became solid once he went into the main part of the building. They opened onto a corridor that led to a steel door, making him feel as if he were walking into a fortress.

  When he had bought the business, Paloma had given him a guest code for her building. He hadn’t needed it until now. He had stored it inside his links, and it took a moment for the code to access.

  He typed it into the keypad beside the door, an old-fashioned system that seemed odd in such a modern building. He guessed that the keyboard probably had hidden features: a fingerprint-gathering system or a DNA-capture system, to be used only in cases of emergency.

  He hoped so. Otherwise, this building advertised under false pretenses. He could break through a keypad security system—any keypad security system—in less than fifteen seconds.

  When he finished typing in the code, the door clicked and slowly swung inward. As the building’s interior appeared, Flint caught his breath.

  The lobby was spectacular. The floor was as black as the lunar sky. Furniture and plants were scattered along it. The air smelled faintly of lilacs, making it seem fresher than it probably was. Only a handful of people were in the lobby: two security personnel dressed as doormen, standing near the occupants’ entrance; a woman working behind a black onyx desk; and three people sitting on the couches, watching tiny screens.

  No one was looking at the view, but Flint couldn’t take his gaze off of it. The lunar landscape, with its black dunes rising in the distance, dominated the room. For the first time, Flint felt like he was Outside without wearing the uncomfortable suit and breathing the stale air. This was Outside as he wished it could be—accessible and comfortable.

  “May I help you, sir?” A woman had approached him from the side. He didn’t even see where she had come from, and he was usually aware of such things.

  “I’m looking for the elevator,” he said.

  Her smile was conspiratorial; she knew as well as he did that he had forgotten all about what he had been planning to do until she broke into his reverie.

  “Over there,” she said, pointing toward a door kitty-corner from the one he had just entered in. It was part of a black wall that, from here, had looked like an extension of the floor.

  “Thanks,” Flint said, and walked purposefully across the floor, trying not to look at the Outside. But it was there, so much a part of this place that thinking about anything else was impossible.

  He had lived on the Moon his entire life, and sometimes he went days without thinking about the lunar landscape. He could have been in any domed colony on any inhospitable world; it wouldn’t have mattered at all.

  Often the dome around his office was so covered with dust and dirt and general grime that he couldn’t see the moonscape even if he wanted to. When a nearby section of the dome had been replaced and the moonscape was suddenly visible, Flint found himself staring at it at odd times, almost as if it were a secret that had suddenly been revealed.

  Perhaps that was what made this lobby seem so decadent: the unobstructed view of a place that a person couldn’t visit without permission, money, or connections.

  Flint was almost disappointed when he reached the elevator. He wasn’t ready to leave this view behind, wasn’t ready to reenter the mundane world of other people’s concerns.

  Still, he pressed the call button. The elevator door slid open, and Flint felt his breath catch again. On three sides, the elevator was glassed in. As he stepped inside, he realized that the floor was mirrored, reflecting the view from the windowed sides.

  He spoke the number for Paloma’s floor and the doors closed silently behind him. The elevator rose. He walked to the closest window, and saw the moonscape grow smaller. It felt like he was flying without an aircar.

  He had never done anything so simple that had been so exhilarating. He wondered how anyone could be depressed living in this building, or sad or even angry. The views alone should have been enough to lighten any mood.

  Too soon, the doors behind him opened. He turned his back on the moonscape, sighed, and stepped into a carpeted hallway. A soft voice announced his presence.

  A door opened in front of him, one he hadn’t even noticed because it had seemed like part of a smooth wall. Paloma stood there, watching him, one hand on the frame as if she weren’t certain whether or not she wanted to let him in.

  She looked frailer than she had in her office. The majesty of this building accented her small stature and her unnatural thinness. She hadn’t used age enhancers. The skin was stretched over her delicate bone structure, giving her a birdlike appearance. Her white hair, flowing down to her shoulders, looked almost like wings.

  “Miles,” she said in a voice that belied all the frailty in her appearance. “I thought I wasn’t going to coach you any more.”

  “If I were asking for coaching,” he said, “I’d invite you do
wn to the office.”

  She stepped away from the door, as if those were the words she’d been waiting to hear. “This is a social call?”

  The surprise in her voice made him feel guilty. He hadn’t visited her socially since she retired.

  “It’s not that either.” He crossed the threshold, and saw a white wall covered in still images. The images were black and white, mostly ancient collectibles of the Moon.

  “You’ve never been here, have you?” she asked.

  He shook his head.

  She lead him around a corner, and into an open living room. The moonscape was here too, but not quite as dominant as in the lobby. In this room, the Outside almost seemed like a flat vid or an image that had been tamed.

  Perhaps it was the brown carpet or the upholstered furniture. The illusion of being Outside didn’t exist here, and Flint was glad for it. He didn’t need any more distractions.

  “Drink?” she asked. “I have sun tea.”

  A favorite of Armstrong’s rich. Tea made with water heated by the sun, tea which could be brewed only in clear terraces near the dome. Most connoisseurs claimed they could taste a difference between tea brewed this way and tea brewed by boiling the water, but Flint couldn’t.

  He thought it was all pretension, something he never would have associated with Paloma. But then, he had been surprised when she had moved here.

  “Just some water, thanks,” he said.

  She smiled, and squeezed her hands together. Then she sat down on an armchair with a central view of the lunar landscape.

  A tray with two glasses of iced water floated into the living room.

  “Sit down, Miles,” she said.

  He did, nearly colliding with the tray as it tried to serve him his water. He caught the bottom of the tray with his left hand, and took his water off with his right.

  “I’m not used to all this fancy stuff,” he said.

  Her smile widened. “You’d be surprised how quickly you become accustomed to it.”

  And how quickly you come to expect it? The question reached his lips, but he didn’t allow himself to speak it. He didn’t want to offend Paloma. In some ways, she was the truest friend he had ever had.