Ure Infectus (Imperium Cicernus Book 4) Page 26

  He knew she still harbored doubts about what they were doing—and likely even some personal resentment toward him—but Jericho had done everything he could to convince her of his mission’s validity without jeopardizing that very mission.

  As they approached the edge of the settlement’s distant subsidiary, Jericho’s eyes settled on what he took to be their destination. One of the dozen, gaudy signs made of old-fashioned neon lights was that of a voluptuous woman wearing absolutely no clothing. She had several religious icons scattered around her, and her hands were folded across her breasts and groin while her pouty lips seemed to blow an eternal kiss through South Virginia’s thin atmosphere.

  “That’s our stop,” Jericho said, gesturing to the building, “the Saint’s Blessing.”

  He was mildly surprised when Masozi failed to make some predictable barb about men and whorehouses, and a concealed grin spread across his usually stoic features when he opened the door for her and she strode into the structure as though doing so did not offend her.

  But, as usual, Jericho knew better. Still, he felt more than a twinge of trepidation as he followed her into the building. He knew that the actual degree of her involvement in his plan would be determined in the coming hours—and he prayed to God that he hadn’t misjudged her.

  Too much depended on it.

  Chapter XXII: Justification

  “We’re here to see Tera St. Murray,” Jericho said, and Masozi looked around the room to see a surprisingly sterile environment—for a colonial brothel, anyway.

  There was a handful of ‘employees’—some men, some women, and even one whose gender Masozi wouldn’t have ventured to guess—as well as a few patrons who appeared to be making last-minute additions to their ‘orders.’ She noted with alarm that all but one of the patrons of the establishment had severely blotchy skin riddled with small sores, and she had learned those symptoms were signs of radiation poisoning during disaster training. One of the women who had come to avail herself of the ‘services’ offered within the locale had a large, clearly cancerous, lump growing on her neck.

  “Madame St. Murray does not see couples,” the docent at the desk said smoothly, diverting Masozi’s attention from the clientele. The docent was a thin, lithe woman with skin that almost shone yellow in the soft, white light suffusing the building’s interior. “But I am certain we can accommodate your desires, whatever they may be.”

  Jericho shook his head, and Masozi eyed the docent critically. She seemed tense, as if expecting violence to erupt at any moment. But the way the woman carried herself it appeared to be a more or less natural state for her. “We’ve got an appointment,” Jericho said in a tone that brooked no dispute, “tell her we’re here.”

  “I am sorry,” the woman replied in her silky smooth voice, “but as I said, Madame St. Murray will be unable to entertain you. If you cannot find your pleasure among her employees, I encourage you to try at any of the other establishments in the Sense Quarter.”

  Jericho leaned fractionally across the desk and said, in a lowered voice, “I’m a friend of General Pemberton’s. He sent me here, and told me I was to speak with Tera St. Murray—T-E-R-A,” he added pointedly, for some reason at which Masozi could not guess.

  The docent’s eyes hardened briefly and her hand twitched, as though it was about to move for a concealed weapon beneath the counter. But she stiffened suddenly and, after a momentary pause, she relaxed and gestured with her long, slender arm to a nearby door, “Madame St. Murray has been expecting you. Please proceed to the end of the hall.”

  The door popped open of its own accord, and Jericho nodded wordlessly before proceeding to the door. Masozi followed close behind, briefly making eye contact with the yellow-skinned docent—who gave her the barest hint of a smirk—before she entered the corridor and moved close to Jericho. “This is a trap,” she whispered as they made their way down the hall to a simple door at the end.

  “Of course it is,” Jericho replied blandly, making no effort to quiet his voice. “But it’s baited with some evidence we’ll need; we don’t have a choice.”

  “Evidence?” Masozi repeated. “What kind of evidence? I thought you had everything you needed for the Adjustment to be legal?”

  “We do,” he agreed simply, before reaching the end of the corridor and opening the door.

  Inside was a large, circular room about fifteen meters across, with a depression set into the floor. That depression was ringed with various pieces of furniture, and at the center was a soft, padded bed of some kind.

  Sitting opposite the bed from the door through which Jericho and Masozi had just entered was a woman, who appeared to be in her forties. She wore a lacy, frilly gown which Masozi would have never been caught dead in, with a neckline that plunged so far that her belly button was exposed.

  “Any friend of the General is a friend of the Saint’s Blessing,” the woman said, gesturing for them to be seated at a nearby sofa. “Please, make yourselves comfortable.”

  “Comfort’s not necessary,” Jericho replied as he closed the door behind them. Masozi heard mag-locks engage instantly, and her body tensed reflexively while Jericho strode down the trio of steps which led to the depression. “I’ll skip the formalities: I’m the one who killed Pemberton, but before he died he gave me a message to relay to you.”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed as Jericho continued to move casually across the floor. When he was halfway across the lowered section of the room, the woman flicked her wrist and a quartet of panels on the ceiling slid back to reveal multi-barreled, slug-throwing weapon turrets. Those weapons spun up and trained on their individual targets—three of which settled on Jericho and one aimed itself squarely at Masozi. Jericho stopped his approach and gave the weapons a pointed look before setting his gaze back on the woman with the frilly dress.

  “A bold confession,” the woman mused, “considering he was my brother.”

  “Not so bold,” Jericho retorted calmly, “if I hadn’t killed him then his granddaughters wouldn’t have made it back from their little graduation cruise.”

  The woman cocked an eyebrow. “I will enjoy watching my turrets tear you apart,” she said just as calmly before flitting a look to Masozi and then re-settling her gaze on Jericho. “Do you have any last words?” she asked icily as her hand began to rise from the arm of her chair.

  “For the good of us all,” Jericho replied evenly, and the woman’s hand stopped mid-motion as her eyes widened briefly.

  Her eyes then narrowed in silent contemplation. “You coerced that from him,” she concluded as her voice turned hard. “I don’t know how, but you managed to break him…he loved those girls, and would have done anything for them including giving you that phrase.”

  Jericho looked around pointedly at the room, and Masozi realized she hadn’t taken a breath in several seconds so she slowly released what air remained in her lungs before drawing in what may be her final draw of life-giving atmosphere. “In an establishment like this you’re privy to all kinds of information,” Jericho observed, “such as the truth about certain events at Chambliss, I presume?”

  The woman cocked her head, and Masozi thought she could detect surprise in her expression.

  Before she could reply, Jericho continued, “Whatever powder you’ve been keeping dry for the opportune moment, I’m here to tell you that moment has arrived.” He slowly pointed to his long overcoat’s pocket, “I’m sure you’ll understand if I show you what I’m carrying in this pocket.”

  “You are ‘sure’?” she quipped icily, and her gaze sliced over to Masozi once again. “And what of you?” she asked sharply. “Or are you merely a well-formed sex-cessory who lacks a tongue?”

  Masozi opened her mouth to reply, but Jericho held up a hand haltingly. “Please,” he urged, “time is of the essence.” He slowly reached into his pocket, and Masozi felt her pulse pounding in her ears as he withdrew a small, familiar-looking piece of metal: a T.E. insignia.

  The woman’s features
, which had been cold and calculating, veritably exploded in surprise and she actually had to steady herself against the arm of her chair. “Impossible…” she breathed.

  “Far from it,” Jericho replied as he set the insignia down on the bed. They stood there for several seconds, none of them so much as moving their eyes until the woman blinked rapidly and made a gesture with her hands. Masozi drew a sharp breath as she braced for death, but when the guns retracted into their concealed locations in the ceiling she exhaled loudly. “I can sympathize with your trepidation, Ms. St. Murray,” Jericho said as he took a step toward her, “but you have to understand that time is against us. Whatever you have, I need it—and I need it now. So if you’re not going to kill us we need to get down to business.”

  “It’s ‘Mrs.’,” St. Murray corrected, “but you should call me Tera. And you’re right; we don’t have much time. Follow me.”

  She turned and moved to a nearby chair and, after reaching deftly beneath its cushion for a moment, a nearby section of floor fell away to reveal a tight, spiral staircase leading straight down.

  Masozi stopped at the bed to collect the T.E. insignia, which Jericho had apparently forgotten, before following him and Tera St. Murray down the stairs. They descended for what must have been fifty feet of continuous descent before the staircase stopped at a solid metal door. With just a wave of her hand before a bio-reader, St. Murray opened the vault-like door and the three of them entered.

  Inside was a small, but absolutely packed, set of data processing stations each of which was currently manned. St. Murray turned after Masozi had entered the room, and Jericho nodded approvingly. “An underground data nexus,” he mused, and after looking at a few of the monitors—of which there were hundreds—Masozi concurred with his conclusion. Judging from the raw feeds being streamed through them, it appeared that the little room had tapped into every single data feed in the System.

  “Freedom of information is the only freedom of consequence,” St. Murray said grimly.

  “I’d argue that point,” Jericho said dryly, “but we’re short on time.”

  “Quite so,” the woman agreed, and Masozi marveled at the sheer volume of data being processed—and presumably stored somewhere nearby—in the tiny chamber. It could be no more than ten meters on a side, but it housed two dozen technicians who were frantically working to keep the feeds alive by changing between satellite relays, ground-based transfer nodes, and other systems with which Masozi was completely unfamiliar. “You’re here to kill Governor Keno, correct?”

  Jericho nodded, and the casual way the two of them had broached the subject actually gave Masozi a shiver as Tera St. Murray turned to a nearby workstation. With the input of a short series of commands, the workstation unexpectedly popped open to reveal its still-active internal components. Using her long, delicate fingers, St. Murray reached inside and retrieved a tiny data crystal, impressively avoiding contact with the highly-charged processing equipment within.

  She handed the crystal to Jericho, who reached into his pocket before freezing as a look of concern crossed his features. Masozi produced the T.E. insignia and said, “You forgot this.”

  Relief came over his features before he sighed and rolled his eyes. “I must be getting old,” he muttered before gesturing to the data crystal. “Go ahead and load it—all you have to do is make contact between the two devices.”

  Masozi warily took the data crystal and did as he had suggested. A moment after placing the crystal on the insignia’s flat, eye-shaped icon at the center of the interlocking triangles which made the device’s base, a series of soft flashes began to occur with increasing speed on the various panels of the insignia. The speed and regularity of those flashes increased until it made the lights appear to glow a solid, yellow color for several seconds until abruptly darkening.

  Jericho took the crystal from Masozi and handed it back to Tera St. Murray. “Can I assume you’ve vetted the information?” he asked.

  “I have,” she replied with certainty, and Masozi watched as the woman pulled the right side of her dress away from her skin, revealing a beautiful tattoo of a Timent Electorum ‘Mark’ insignia, “but you are free to do so at your leisure if you believe time will permit.”

  “I’m guessing it won’t,” Jericho replied with a shake of his head, “we’ve only got two days before this window closes for good.”

  “Excuse me,” Masozi cut in irritably, “would someone explain to me why we’ve only got two days? And if you’re an Adjuster, why haven’t you gone after Governor Keno?”

  The other two exchanged a look before St. Murray replied, “In two days’ time, Governor Keno will leave to attend the annual System Summit.”

  Masozi was aware of the pending event, which had always seemed to her to be nothing but an excuse for the System’s highest-ranking officials to meet and congratulate each other on their mutual greatness.

  “When she arrives at the Summit,” St. Murray continued, “Governor Keno will be taken to Virgin’s most secure facility where she will participate in a series of annual votes.”

  “Ok,” Masozi allowed, but she was unwilling to abandon the topic, “but why does that necessitate the Adjustment—and why didn’t you attempt to make the Adjustment?” she repeated irritably.

  St. Murray shot Jericho a glance, and he nodded after a brief hesitation. “You can trust the Investigator,” he said with a tilt of his head toward her, and Masozi felt her neck hairs stand up at his words. “For better or worse, she’s in this thing as deep as any of us.”

  The brothel owner nodded slowly before tapping out a series of commands on a nearby console. “I am an Adjuster,” St. Murray explained as she called up the information, “but I have nowhere near the requisite RL accrued to qualify for the Keno Adjustment. In fact,” she said, slicing an appraising glance over at Jericho, “every Adjuster but one in the Virgin System who has qualified for the job in the last decade has died shortly thereafter…until now.”

  A screen in front of Masozi sprang to life, and it showed a series of what looked to be shipping manifests. The manifests minimized to one side of the screen, and a stream of real estate transactions loaded onto the display before they, too, minimized and were replaced by a series of executive orders—orders signed by Governor Keno.

  “Since her family overthrew the Marques administration decades ago, Governor Keno and her cohorts,” St. Murray explained tightly, “have systematically worked to undermine the most fundamental component of Philippa’s economy: rare element exports.”

  Masozi arched a brow incredulously. “Her approval ratings are through the roof,” she argued as she took a step toward the monitor to examine the data more closely, “on Virgin she’s regarded as the only undefeatable political figure in the System—maybe even the Sector.”

  Jericho snorted, and Tera St. Murray’s lips tightened in a hollow smile. “She controls every facet of the media here on Philippa, Investigator,” St. Murray explained. “Her family and its allies used that control incite the people to revolt against the Marquez administration. But the truth is that under Governor Fernando Marquez, Philippa had taken real strides toward economic independence—primarily by taking advantage of Pacifica’s element-rich rings, which are more valuable than any other location in the Sector by at least ten times.”

  “If these rings are so rich, why weren’t they exploited by the Imperium’s engineers centuries ago?” Masozi asked as she saw that nearly all of the real estate transaction records she was seeing were actually long-term leases with exclusive mining rights clauses, and they appeared to govern individual regions of Pacific’s rocky rings. They were assigned to individual owners, and seemed to be a kind of non-transferrable system of ownership which allowed the lease-holder to work the area as long as they were able. But ownership would revert back to Philippa’s government in the event that a claim went unworked.

  “No one knows,” St. Murray shrugged, “but the rush to work these claims brought with it a wealth
undreamt of by Philippa’s populace, and that rush lasted for nearly forty years. From all over the Sector, families would sell their holdings and invest in a claim here in orbit of Pacifica. Thousands of those families became extremely wealthy, while thousands more failed to secure sufficient returns and were forced to take up residence here. My own grandparents were among the less fortunate,” she said with a brief look to Jericho, who appeared not to notice.

  “The short version,” Jericho said, turning to Masozi, “is that there was resistance to these mining efforts from Philippa’s wealthiest families each and every step of the way, but Marquez fought through. Naturally he needed the assistance of powerful allies to deal with such deeply-entrenched enemies. You’ve already met one of those allies.”

  Masozi gave him a questioning look until realization dawned. “Hadden,” she breathed unthinkingly, and St. Murray cocked an eyebrow.

  “You have met S.R. Hadden, Director of Hadden Enterprises?” she asked in a challenging tone.

  “She has,” Jericho interrupted before Masozi could reply, “shortly before his home was attacked by the VSDF.”

  St. Murray inhaled sharply. “You mean he is…”

  “Dead,” Jericho replied with a curt nod before turning to Masozi, “Hadden Enterprises provided the mining equipment for the families who staked their claims here, and those materials were provided for less than their cost to manufacture and distribute. In exchange, Hadden Enterprises put in standing order prices for every single mineral produced by the small-hold mines. He also requested the option to match any purchase price an individual could prove they had secured from another source.” Jericho gestured to the screen with the mining leases still scrolling by one at a time, “The elements mined here became the backbone of H.E.’s Phase Drive technology, and Hadden worked closely with Marquez to ensure that the miners were treated fairly while infusing Philippa with a source of income unheard of for a colony of its size.”

  St. Murray nodded, her eyes widened briefly. “Director Hadden is thought of as a true benefactor of this colony,” she said slowly. “His passing will be mourned.”