Emergence (Fox Meridian Book 5) (8 page)

‘My name is Tara Meridian, Mister Palomino,’ Fox told him. ‘I’m with the idiots at the elevator. I’m here to talk to Miss Sakura.’ Kit was supplying the fact that this was Sakura’s manager along with a name.

He covered embarrassment with irritation: another feature which did not endear him to Fox. ‘Why didn’t you say so? I–’

‘Because you didn’t give me any chance to. Please let go of my arm.’

Palomino took a step back. ‘Nishi is busy. What is it you wish to talk to her about?’

‘You’re the manager assigned to her by the Independent Music Channel, is that right?’

‘I am.’ His spine straightened as he said it.

‘Then I’d like to talk to you as well. Miss Sakura should be expecting me.’ Fox set off through the reception area, heading for the room directly opposite the entrance corridor and leaving Palomino to trail behind her.

Palomino did not like that. ‘Nishi isn’t expecting anyone. She would have–’

He stopped as the door opened before Fox got to it and Iberson took a half-step out. ‘Fox. Thanks for coming. Nishi’s… not exactly happy, but she’s going to listen to what you have to say.’

‘She shouldn’t be disturbed,’ Palomino said. ‘If her performance is–’

‘Shut up, Wally,’ Iberson snapped, and Fox saw the better-known face of Charlie Iberson emerge as ice-cold eyes glared at Palomino.

‘I thought his name was Brett,’ Fox queried silently.

‘He changed his name to Brett Palomino about a year before joining IMC,’ Kit replied inside her head. ‘Prior to that, he was Wallace Booth. Miss Iberson clearly knows about his original name.’

‘Apparently.’ Aloud, Fox said, ‘I think Miss Sakura’s performance may suffer more if she’s attacked by some obsessed fan. I’d like to discuss the situation, determine a strategy, and handle it. That should put her mind at ease more than ignoring the situation, don’t you think?’

Iberson was already turning to lead the way into the suite’s reception room. ‘Welcome to the Big Top, Fox.’

‘Sorry?’

‘The circus that is the media business. Lots of glam and glitz hiding the peeling paintwork and rotten foundations. Marie hasn’t had to deal with it all yet, and she seems like a pretty grounded girl anyway, but she’s going to have to learn to put on a brave face when she wants to cry, and be nice to people she wants to stab in the eye.’

‘Doesn’t seem like you do.’

‘Oh, I
really
want to stab Wally in the eye, but I haven’t. Yet.’ She walked through another door on the far side of the little lounge and into a much larger room. ‘Tara Meridian, meet Nishi Sakura.’

The singer-songwriter got to her feet as Fox walked in, regarding the newcomer shrewdly and with a hint of annoyance. She was a couple of inches shorter than Fox, quite long in the leg. The legs were obvious thanks to a pair of very short shorts, and added to by heeled sandals. She was slim, fairly flat-chested, but her body was toned and fit, supple. She was, in some ways, more handsome than beautiful, but certainly attractive with sharp cheekbones, a narrow pointed chin, and a full mouth. She had a cap of short black hair, dark eyebrows with an intriguing arch to them, and her eyes were a warm hazel-brown.

She might have been a little annoyed, but Sakura was Japanese: politeness was an instinct. She executed a short, formal bow which Fox copied. ‘Miss Meridian, I am afraid that you have made a wasted journey. Charlie’s concerns are… unwarranted.’

Iberson had moved to a position beside Sakura, far enough away that Fox knew there had been an argument. Iberson’s face twisted a little: annoyance, frustration. ‘I have sufficient evidence to suggest they are not,’ Fox said. ‘Palladium has moved to a higher alert level. Security has been tightened and will remain that way unless I can verify that there is no threat.’

‘Over one email?!’ Palomino burst out. ‘That’s ridiculous! How can you–’

‘No. I haven’t seen the email. The fact that it was sent to Miss Sakura’s personal address supports my position, but it’s the LifeWeb posts by the same man which cause me concern. He’s a hacker. Not, perhaps, the greatest ever, but certainly very good. He’s obsessed and has violent tendencies. He warrants closer scrutiny.’

Sakura frowned. ‘Please, sit down, Miss Meridian.’

‘Nishi,’ Palomino began. ‘You shouldn’t be stressing yourself over–’

‘Sit down, Brett. We will hear Miss Meridian out.’ Palomino sank onto a chair with an exasperated expression on his face. Sakura waited until Fox had taken one of the sofas before sitting down opposite her, and when Iberson sat down beside her, she shifted a little closer. Some of the argument was forgiven at least and Fox saw Iberson’s eyes brighten a little.

‘Miss Iberson seems quite infatuated with Miss Sakura,’ Kit commented silently.

‘She does,’ Fox replied, but her attention was drawn to the appearance of a petite avatar with oriental features dressed in a short, kimono-styled dress.

‘Misaki,’ Sakura said, ‘these LifeWeb posts Miss Meridian has referred to?’

‘I identified the sender of the emails, Minotaur, as a LifeWeb poster named BeastOfKnossos, Nishi-sama.’ Misaki had a stronger Japanese accent than Sakura did and tended to affect a vaguely submissive posture, but she had to be an infomorph of some sort. ‘That LifeWeb account was blocked from posting after it was used to troll several other posters who left negative comments about your work.’

Sakura nodded. ‘That’s my policy, Miss Meridian. If people want to criticise me, I don’t stop them so long as they remain civilised about it. I won’t tolerate trolls, whether with me or against me.’

Fox nodded back. ‘Good policy, if you ask me, but Minotaur kept sending emails, yes?’

‘That is correct, Miss Meridian,’ Misaki said. ‘I filter both LifeWeb posts and fan emails for Nishi. I only bother her with them if I feel her input is required. For a personal reply, for example.’

‘You don’t follow through on potential threats, however.’

‘IMC have staff evaluating such issues. I am not required to.’

‘My PA did. Kit, would you explain what you found, please?’

Kit appeared in her formal outfit, adjusting her glasses as she resolved in everyone’s vision fields. Her tail flicked a little and Fox saw Sakura’s eyes widen. ‘Of course, Fox,’ Kit said. ‘Minotaur, posting as BeastOfKnossos, threatened that he would “erase” a user with the account name Musikkritiker, a German national who went on to post several times on his own page regarding the difficulties he was having. His banking credentials were revoked, twice, without his knowledge. His posts on a number of private music websites, along with his accounts on those sites, were deleted.’

‘But nothing on LifeWeb,’ Palomino said. ‘After all that scandal about LifeWeb’s security, your hacker didn’t get in there.’

Kit looked over at the manager. ‘Minotaur’s campaign against Musikkritiker happened to coincide with that scandal, Mister Palomino. MarTech bought out LifeWeb and instituted systematic upgrades in security just before the BeastOfKnossos account was blocked. Musikkritiker uses MarTech’s European internet service provider. I was able to confirm an attempt by someone to cancel his service around that time. The false data was detected and the matter reported to the German police, but the attack could only be traced to America. No one was identified as the attacker.’

Returning her gaze to Sakura, Kit went on. ‘Then there is the matter of your personal address being used. We understand that there are very few people who know it.’

‘Maybe twenty,’ Sakura said. ‘I trust all of them.’

‘There are twenty-two, Nishi-sama,’ Misaki said, ‘since you gave it to Charlie-sama.’

‘So that’s twenty-two places he could have hacked to get the information,’ Fox said. ‘Though my money’s on someone at IMC. Minotaur was likely looking for information on the concerts, unreleased music, or personal information he could use.’

‘Now wait a minute,’ Palomino growled.

‘It’s nothing personal. He
will
have put a lot of effort into infiltrating your network and there’s no such thing as absolute security. But why
did
you switch to Palladium for your security at these shows on such short notice?’

‘That was my fault,’ Sakura said. ‘I added the Tokyo gig at the last minute. It’s the first time I’ve been back to Japan since… Well, since I left. IMC didn’t think they had the right kind of resources in Japan and it seemed stupid to contract Palladium for just that one date.’

‘Okay. Look, this could be nothing. The guy could be a crank and no real danger, but I don’t think you should ignore this. I’d like the emails Minotaur sent via IMC and the one he sent direct to Miss Sakura. We’ll go through and analyse them. Kit’s pretty good with abnormal psychology. Once the threat is assessed, we see where we go from there. If he sends any more emails, I want those too.’

‘He already has. I’ve had two more this week.’ She turned to Iberson who was narrowing her eyes at her lover. ‘I didn’t want you worrying. I didn’t consider it worth worrying over.’

‘Balls,’ Iberson snapped. ‘Something in that first one had you worried. If I hadn’t seen that, I wouldn’t have pressed this so hard.’

‘He… I was annoyed that he had got my address. Brett, I want Palladium to have full access to my IMC mailboxes and any other data they need. Misaki, you can recover those messages and forward them, right?’

‘Of course, Nishi-sama,’ Misaki replied.

‘I’ll arrange a connection and transfer them directly,’ Kit said. ‘You’re a Harriet dash four zero one, aren’t you, Misaki?’

Misaki bobbed her head and gave a timid smile. ‘Yes. Miss Sakura kindly secured a series seventy-two server unit for me last year, however.’

‘I run on a seventy-two at home. You have all the latest security patches, I assume?’

‘I am up to date as of the December sixteenth patch. I have not been notified of anything else.’ Misaki actually looked a little uncertain, as though she was worried that the clearly newer AI model might know something she did not.

‘That’s good. It is the May emergency release which I was most concerned with. The seventy-two is one of the most secure individual servers MarTech produces at this time.’ Kit looked at Sakura. ‘You made a wise investment, Miss Sakura. It is unlikely that Minotaur will gain entry to Misaki’s server without triggering alarms.’

Misaki looked rather pleased at Kit’s praise. Sakura smiled and said, ‘Thank you, Kit. Misaki deserved the upgrade and it let me consolidate the house computer systems.’

Fox gave a nod. ‘Okay. We’ll get started on that as soon as possible and try to set your mind at ease. If you’ll excuse me, I have a small party to attend.’

‘I did wonder about the dress,’ Iberson said. She got up, along with Sakura, as Fox rose to her feet.

‘Not my usual business attire, no, but I had to dress up for the occasion.’

~~~

The German with the sense of humour was called Johann Baum, and Fox pulled him and Yuriko Fukui aside for a quick chat once the little party was underway. ‘You two,’ Fox told them, ‘get special assignments to be handled when you get back. Well, Monday will probably do.’

‘This is good,’ Baum said. ‘I was expecting to be sitting on my ass a lot of the time when I got home.’

‘We’ll find things for you to do,’ Fox told him. ‘First thing, however, is a live one. Kit will send you some contact data for a German citizen who has some internet problems. Go see him, talk to him. We want permission to investigate the hacks. Some of it is banking so you’ll probably need to liaise with the German police.’

Baum winced. ‘Potential minefield. Many banking institutions are highly secretive about security problems.’

‘See what you can get. We think the man who’s been hacking this guy’s accounts could be a potential security risk to a client.’ Fox turned to Fukui. ‘That client being Nishi Sakura. She’s doing a show in Tokyo in February. I want
you
to run background on her. Palladium was brought in because IMC didn’t think they could handle security for her in Japan. I’d like to know why and I doubt I’ll get a straight answer out of them.’

‘I can do that,’ Fukui replied. ‘I know she came out of the industrial sprawl around Chiba. You would say a “rags-to-riches story,” I think? She has no family left in Japan, and she has not been back there in around six years. She remains popular in Japan despite this.’

Fox nodded. ‘Coordinate with Kit. She’ll be doing a run on Sakura’s web presence, and you’ll handle the physical world. Right, I just wanted to give you both some prior notice. Go have fun.’

‘I will,’ Fukui said, ‘if I can manage to avoid Mister Keen for most of the evening. Oh, he’s coming this way…’

‘I’ll run interference. Go.’ Fox turned and smiled as Keen sauntered over, and Fukui beat a hasty retreat.

‘Nice dress,’ the Australian said. ‘What there is of it anyway.’ His grin contained far too much leer.

‘Thanks. See that tall, blonde guy over there chatting to Ray and Helen?’

‘The one who looks like he should be on Bondi doing lifeguard duty?’

‘If you say so. That’s the only guy here likely to get under my dress tonight. He’s the local UNTPP captain as well as my boyfriend. You should talk to him. He’s here to meet the international contingent more than the Americans.’

Keen seemed to take this with considerable equanimity. ‘I’ll try to get over envying the lucky bastard and do that.’

‘Good. He’s a nice guy. And stop scaring Yuriko.’

‘You’re right. We’ll be sharing a flight from here to Japan tomorrow. I should lay off or it could be a bit dodgy spending that long with her.’ Keen sighed. ‘That’s two down. Maybe the stiff-arsed Brit could be persuaded…’

~~~

‘Thanks for coming,’ Fox said when, at some point, she intersected with Jason again. ‘You saved me from a proposition by an Australian.’

‘The horror,’ Jason replied. ‘It has been a useful exercise, and there is wine.’

‘And you’re coming back to my place after, right?’

‘I am. Tonight is the viewing of Marie.’

Fox giggled. ‘Marie’s pilot episode.’

‘Ah, non. Tonight we view Marie viewing her pilot episode. If we wish to watch the actual vid, we do that later on a repeat. Marie is almost certain to be more entertaining to watch, and there is no opportunity for a repeat viewing.’