Duplicate Effort Part 4

"I know," Flint said. "And like I said, this is all supposition. I'm trained to look for the worst case. Best case is exactly what you said in the beginning. Your mother is gone, so the Gyonnese no longer have any interest in our family."

"You don't think that's what's going to happen, though, do you?" Talia asked. "The fact of your mother's kidnapping bothers me more than anything," Flint said. "It means that as of six months ago, the Gyonnese were still trying to prosecute this crime in a way that'll satisfy their people."

"And you think they're going to keep trying," Talia said.

"I hope not," Flint said. "But we have to be prepared for it."

"Are we?" Talia asked.

He nodded. "I've already got some plans in place for the two of us. I hadn't counted on five other viable clones."

Talia raised her head. "Maybe the Gyonnese won't find them. Maybe they're not looking." "But if they are," Flint said, "I need to know what you did."

That guarded look returned to Talia's face. "What do you mean?"

"To find the others. I need to know how you tracked them down."

"It wasn't hard," she said, "once I knew what to look for."

"Walk me through it," he said.

"Why?" she asked. "Won't that get their attention?"

He smiled gently at her. "I'm good at what I do. I'm hoping we have the time to cover the tracks you laid."

"And if we don't?" Talia asked.

His smile faded. "We'll find out soon enough."

5.

Noelle DeRicci sat at her desk, watching the screen she had called up in the middle of the room. The screen covered her floor-to-ceiling windows and stretched from the comfortable chair on the right side of the room to the large green tree-thing on the left.

The screen itself was clear, which made the images look like they were acted out especially for her, on the white carpet that she still hadn't managed to get rid of.

In the center of those images: Ki Bowles, looking smug, not knowing what a disaster faced her at the end of the story. Bowles was standing in front of the Armstrong City Complex, her strawberry hair setting off those goofy tattoos that covered her nasty face.

"Given her history with various alien cultures," Bowles was saying, "many have asked if we should trust Noelle DeRicci to handle all of the Moon's security."

"Many," DeRicci snarled. She always snarled at this point in the story. "Meaning you you." She knew she should shut the vid off, but she couldn't. The d.a.m.n story was back, and even though the media cited it as the source of Bowles's disgrace, they still reran the d.a.m.n thing.

DeRicci had already gotten calls from the media center, asking how she wanted to handle this. But she was older than she had been when Ki Bowles first attacked her. Older, wiser, and used to inane media coverage, no matter how hurtful.

DeRicci had told the media center that the only comment they should issue was this one: The story that Ki Bowles is covering has nothing to do with the United Domes of the Moon or its security chief. Our comments on the discredited story that got Ms. Bowles fired six months ago are all on the record. We have nothing to add. The story that Ki Bowles is covering has nothing to do with the United Domes of the Moon or its security chief. Our comments on the discredited story that got Ms. Bowles fired six months ago are all on the record. We have nothing to add.

DeRicci figured that would have to do.

Still, she was wallowing. She didn't have to watch this. Technically, she had won this battle. Bowles had been fired over this story, her career in tatters.

Yet she was back, with some kind of sensational piece about the law firm Wagner, Stuart, and Xendor, which created its own problems for DeRicci's office.

DeRicci's boss, Cecelia Alfreda, the governor-general of the Moon, had once worked for WSX. She still kept them as her personal attorneys.

DeRicci hoped that someone would find a way to discredit Bowles's latest story. Otherwise the media center would have a lot more to do than defend DeRicci against ancient charges. It would have to defend the governor-general against whatever scandal Bowles thought she had uncovered.

Finally DeRicci waved a hand. "Off," she said to the office system. The images on the screen winked out, and then it disappeared, leaving the windows unblocked for the first time that day.

DeRicci stood. She loved the view from those windows. She believed it was a view of consistent triumph. Nearly two years ago, an unknown bomber had tried to destroy the dome. The bomb had opened a hole in a section of the dome, and had ruined an entire neighborhood of Armstrong.

That had been one of the last cases DeRicci had worked as a detective. She had never caught the bomber-no one had. Most people, including her, believed that the bomber had died in the explosion. DeRicci used that view to remind herself that not everything had an answer. And even so, people, the city, the dome, the Moon itself, could recover from unanswerable-and catastrophic-events.

She needed to remember that she was in charge of security-not just for Armstrong, but for all of the United Domes of the Moon. She needed to protect the entire place against the unknown and the unimaginable.

And that did not include Ki Bowles. Bowles was known and, unfortunately, easy to imagine. She wasn't that easy to ignore, however.

DeRicci's desklink chirruped. She sighed. She had shut off most of her personal links because of the revival of the Bowles story, leaving only the emergency links and contact information for the people who worked with her directly.

The chirrup sounded again. It had to come from someone who wasn't on her approved list. She slammed her palm onto the desk, activating her side of the link. A face she didn't recognize appeared on the desk's edge.

"I'm sorry to disturb you, sir," the young woman said.

"Apology accepted," DeRicci said.

She was about to shut the connection down when the woman said, "But there's a Detective Nyquist trying to reach you. He says it's important."

DeRicci frowned. Bartholomew Nyquist was on her approved list. In fact, he was at the top of it. "What the h.e.l.l is he going through channels for?" DeRicci asked.

"I don't know, sir, but-"

"The question was rhetorical," DeRicci snapped. "Put him through."

The woman's image vanished, replaced by Nyquist's rumpled face. He looked tired and sad. DeRicci had gotten used to tired, but sad was something new.

DeRicci braced herself for some kind of bad news.

"Noelle," he said, his voice soft. "I'm at the Hunting Club."

"The Hunting Club?" She smiled. He hated that place. She'd made the mistake of taking him there when he got out of the hospital, and that was when she learned how few pretensions he had. Nyquist didn't care if he was seen. In fact, he preferred not to be seen. He wanted to live his life, do his job, and spend time with the people he cared about.

Which, fortunately, included her.

"Yeah." His tone made it clear that he wasn't happy about being at the club. "I'm investigating two murders, only I have a problem."

It took her a moment to realize this was a professional contact, not a personal one.

"Something I can help you with?" she asked.

"Oddly, yes," he said. "This stupid place needs to have its board of directors sign off every time the security system gets shut down. And I don't have the time for that."

"What's the problem with the system?" DeRicci asked. "It's destroying my evidence," Nyquist said.

"But you have to realize that the Hunting Club's security is there for a reason," DeRicci said. "The rich, powerful, and famous of Armstrong-"

"Need the privacy and the protection from I don't know what kind of threats." He shook his head. He'd obviously heard that argument already today. "But somehow someone managed to breach the system anyway and kill two people. And I won't find out why unless the system gets shut down."

While she could empathize with his dilemma, she didn't entirely understand it. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because, I'm told, the only person who has the authority to shut this system down is you."

"Oh." She let out a small breath of air. Of course she had the authority. She had the authority to shut down the entire port under the right circ.u.mstances. She could even shut down the environmental systems in the dome if she believed they'd been tampered with.

But as the governor-general had told her, that belief had better be d.a.m.n solid, because if DeRicci was wrong, she'd lose not just her job, but probably any rights she had to live in Armstrong. "You can, right?" Nyquist asked.

"Yeah, if there's some kind of domewide threat or proof that we need to get into the club to ensure the survival of everyone in the United Domes. I don't think a murder investigation qualifies."

"Of course it does," Nyquist said. "You just told me why. The rich, powerful, and famous in Armstrong spend their leisure time here. This system has been breached, and they're all vulnerable to attack until we learn what caused the problem."

"So shutting down all protection is better than marginal protection?" she asked. "You want to tell me what kind of logic that is?"

"We'll do it before the crimes. .h.i.t the media," he said. "All we need is half an hour, maybe less. If you could do that-"

"I can't, Bartholomew," she said. "Much as I want to."

"It's within your discretion, Noelle," he said.

"Yeah, and it doesn't fit into the guidelines for an emergency shutdown. Unless someone really important died. It's not the governor-general, is it?"

"No," Nyquist said.

And he didn't add any more. He wasn't going to tell her who the victims were.

Which made her nervous. He had a reason for not telling her and it couldn't be the open link. "What if I got the head of the Hunting Club to tell you that he approves the shutoff?" Nyquist asked. DeRicci shook her head. "I can't. I'm sorry."

He cursed. "Well, it was a long shot," he said, and signed off.

She remained at her desk for a long moment. She hated disappointing him. But he had to learn that he couldn't use her position to help his investigations.

Not that he'd ever really tried before.

But her curiosity was up now. Who could have died at the Hunting Club? Why would anyone think it was a murder? And how could anyone murder someone in a place with more security than the rest of Armstrong combined?

She leaned back in her chair, wishing she was still investigating crimes. She liked her new job most of the time, but it didn't resolve that need she had to have her curiosity answered.

She was half tempted to shut down the system anyway. Then she stared at the empty white carpet in the middle of her floor.

Right now she didn't dare do something that smacked of favoritism, even if no one really cared. If Ki Bowles found out about it, she'd use it to question DeRicci's abilities again.

d.a.m.n that woman. DeRicci hated being examined this closely. She hated looking over her own shoulder, questioning her own decisions.

But she would do that as long as that horrible story played.

She hoped something would come along-something bigger-that would allow that ancient history to disappear into the natter that composed most of the entertainment programming.

But she doubted that would happen, at least not for a while.

So until then, she had to be careful.

Until then, she had to do everything by the book, and hope that no one-and no investigation-got seriously hurt in the process.

6.

Talia wanted to leave her dad's office. She just wanted to run out the door, through this horrible messy part of Armstrong, and down the deserted streets. She didn't want anyone to look at her, and she didn't want to look at them.

She just wanted to disappear, vanish out of the universe. She didn't want anyone to think about her, and she didn't want anyone to care about her.

She certainly didn't want her dad to look at her again, not with that sharp a.s.sessing glance he managed, the one that saw her better than her mother ever could. With one look, it felt like he could see all the way down to her soul.

If clones had souls.

Talia brought her legs up to her chest and hugged them. She hated this office. It was too plain. Her dad had upgraded the place since she came to Armstrong, and he said he'd improved it.

If this was an improvement, she didn't want to know what it had looked like before. "So, tell me what you did, Talia," he said in that gentle voice.

She'd only heard him use that voice with her, not with anyone else. His voice was harsher with people who wanted something from him, and softer with people who seemed to know him. But he was not gentle. Except with her. Talia put her cheek on her knee. She wished he hadn't told her anything-not about Mom or the Recovery Man or the Gyonnese.

Especially not the Gyonnese. As she was listening, she was actually feeling sorry for them. For what her mom had done.

And that confused her. Shouldn't she be loyal to her mom? Shouldn't she believe in her mom no matter what?

"Talia," he said again. "I'm not mad. I just want to figure out what happened."

"I know," she said without looking at him.

"So tell me what you did."

It was so embarra.s.sing. And sneaky. Stuff that wouldn't have bothered her back home. It made her feel kinda dirty now, like she'd been bad or something.

"I guessed," she said. She still wasn't looking at him. It sc.r.a.ped her cheek to talk from this position, but she wasn't going to raise her head. She wasn't going to move.

"What do you mean?"