Vigilantes (17 page)

She might want to believe that, but Nyquist didn’t believe it. Still, he wasn’t going to disabuse her of it. She wasn’t in charge of the entire Alliance. Technically, she wasn’t even in charge of the Moon. Yet she seemed to be taking responsibility for everything.

He decided to change the subject. “I barely touched on that list of questions we had for Uzvaan. I’ll go back to those tomorrow, when I see him. But if you think of anything else I should ask him before then, let me know.”

She nodded. “I’ll see what else we can come up with,” she said, but he could tell that her mind was already somewhere else.

He wished he could make all of this easier for her. He wished he could get her to rest.

He wished none of this had ever happened.

But none of those wishes would come true. So instead, he said, “Rudra ordered lunch. I’ll bring it in when it arrives.”

“Thanks,” DeRicci said, and sat at her desk. She called up a holoscreen that he couldn’t read.

He felt like he had disappeared from the room.

He told himself he didn’t mind.

And as he walked out, he wondered how long he could lie to himself—and how long any of them could maintain this status quo—how long
DeRicci
could maintain this status quo—without completely collapsing.

TWENTY

FLINT HAD FOUND at least a dozen references to
Legal Fiction
—or whatever that Peyti phrase actually meant. He was surprised he had found so many so quickly. Nyquist had been gone less than an hour.

Flint wandered from screen to screen, plus he was monitoring information on his links as well. His office felt small and stuffy, a feeling he both recognized and welcomed.

He often felt that way when the place was overloaded with information—or rather, when
he
was overloaded with information. That was one reason he used to take some of his dicier research to public, untraceable places like the Brownie Bar.

Here, he felt as if the walls had closed in on him, drowning him inside every single detail.

He welcomed the details now. He was running several searches—not just for
Legal Fiction
, but for information on those masks.

First, he collected all of the addresses of the Peyti clones, stunned that most of those men hadn’t changed addresses at all once they had moved to the Moon. Decades in the same place, often in the same job.

He wondered how many of them had turned down promotions that would have required a move or a greater risk of failure. He wondered how hard they had worked at becoming invisible.

They had certainly succeeded—or at least, it seemed that way. But then, he had spent these last two weeks confronting his own blind spot when it came to the Peyti. When it came to all aliens, really. He had seen them as unfamiliar legal systems that imposed incomprehensible punishments for seemingly small crimes; punishments that, as a police officer, he had had to enforce.

He had also seen them as scenery—just part of the Moon itself, varying and colorful, but inconsequential to him once he had left Armstrong’s Police Department. If anything, he saw the aliens as something to be understood when he decided to take the case of a Disappeared: he needed to know if that Disappeared had broken what Flint considered a meaningful law or just an incomprehensible one.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about that now. What was incomprehensible to him might have been important to them.

No, not
might have been
.
Was
important to them. Otherwise they wouldn’t have made a law forbidding that behavior.

He clasped his hands behind his back, and looked at the hundreds of addresses he had collected. Now, he needed to coordinate that information with the mask shipments, and then find out if the shipments had all come from the same place.

Mr. Flint?

He started. He hadn’t thought anyone could contact him through his links.

Then he remembered: he had cleared a handful of people to contact him directly. Everyone involved in the investigation, from Nyquist to DeRicci to Luc Deshin, as well as Talia and the Armstrong Comfort Center.

That was where this contact had come from.

His heart started pounding. Something had gone wrong. He knew he should have accompanied Talia.

Yes?
he sent back, hoping none of the fear he felt got added to the link.

Evando Llewynn here. I need to speak with you about your daughter immediately
.

Is she all right?
Flint sent.

That’s what we need to discuss,
Llewynn sent.

What’s gone wrong?
Flint asked.
Have you sent for a doctor?

There was a pause, and Flint couldn’t quite tell what that pause meant.

Then Llewynn sent,
Physically, she was fine when she left here. But I’m very concerned about her mental state, and I do not want to discuss it on links. We need to have this conversation in person
.
I am deeply troubled.

If she’s physically fine,
Flint sent,
why is this so urgent?

Because
, Llewynn sent,
I’m not certain how long she’ll be physically fine
.

You said she left,
Flint said.

Yes, with those people you have guarding her
, Llewynn sent.
That’s not the issue. Please, Mr. Flint. Sometimes physical wellbeing is dependent upon emotional wellbeing. Your daughter is fine physically at the moment, but I’m seeing some awful signs that we need to discuss immediately
.

Flint blocked the link for a moment, then ran a hand over his face. His heart was beating triple time. He had been afraid of this. Talia hadn’t been well, and he was truly worried that she might do something to harm herself.

He unblocked the links.
I’ll be right there
, he sent, and signed off.

Then he looked at his computers, all doing massive searches. If he left them on without monitoring them, he might be vulnerable to hacks and incursions. If he shut off the searches, however, he would lose however much time this was going to take with Llewynn.

Before making a decision, he opened another link.

Talia?
He sent.
I’m just checking in. Are you still with Rudra?

Yes,
Talia sent back immediately.
I’ll be here until you set me free
.

Her tone had been like that for days. He had to remind himself that it wasn’t unusual. She was hostile and angry and upset and frightened—and he didn’t blame her.

Let me know if you need anything
, he sent, and winced. It sounded so inadequate.

Then, he did something he hadn’t done in almost two years. He double-checked his daughter.

Rudra
, he sent to Popova.
I trust Talia’s with you?

She just got here,
Popova sent.
She just got back from her appointment.

Is she okay?
Flint asked.

I don’t know,
Popova sent.
She seems the same
.

Somehow that relieved Flint, just a little. The same was okay. He’d hoped she was better, but the same was fine. They’d made it through the same for two weeks now. Surely that could last a few more hours.

He thanked Popova, then stared at the screens.

This investigation was too important to leave anything to chance. One by one, he shut them down.

He would continue the searches when he got back.

A few hours wouldn’t make a difference.

He hoped.

TWENTY-ONE

NYQUIST STEPPED OUT of DeRicci’s office, only to find Flint’s daughter Talia sitting at Popova’s desk. Talia still looked odd: cheeks red, eyes red, hair a mess, as if she no longer cared about her appearance at all.

“Hi,” he said, deciding to pretend he hadn’t noticed. “I was looking for Rudra.”

“She’s getting the food before the guards below completely mess it up.” Talia’s voice was hoarse.

Nyquist hovered near the desk for a moment. He wasn’t sure what to do. He needed to talk with Popova about the translation of
Legal Fiction
, but he didn’t want to do that while Talia was here.

He almost asked if Talia could get the food, but he was certain that Popova had already considered that.

He glanced at the elevator doors, as if they would open and he would miraculously be rescued.

“It’s okay,” Talia said. “I’ll tell her you left.”

Nyquist shook his head. “I need to talk with her.”

“Oh.” Talia spoke as if the idea of talking to Popova was a revelation. “I’ll go…somewhere else.”

“Wait until we’ve eaten,” Nyquist said. The sentence sounded fatuous and parental and all the things that he was not. Or at least he hoped he wasn’t. “She’s not even here yet.”

He wanted to ask Talia why she was here and not with her father. He wanted to ask why she looked so bad. He wanted to ask what was wrong, but knew better, because he really didn’t want to
know
.

As he hovered, Wilma Goudkins appeared at the end of the hallway. She spoke over her shoulder to someone behind her, probably Lawrence Ostaka. Sure enough, Ostaka appeared just as Nyquist thought his name.

Goudkins and Ostaka were the Earth Alliance investigators sent by the Earth Alliance Security Division to help investigate Anniversary Day. They’d both been here for the Peyti Crisis. Goudkins had proven useful. Ostaka less so.

Goudkins nodded at Nyquist as she approached. She was a tall woman who had worn her wedge-cut black hair with highlights matched her clothing—at least when she arrived a few weeks ago. Now her highlights were fading and the wedge cut needed a trim. Her fingernails were ragged, and her clothing wasn’t nearly as perfect as it had been when Nyquist met her.

Ostaka looked the same. A middle-aged man with some gray, he had a bit of fat around his stomach that he apparently didn’t feel like removing. His clothing was rumpled, but it had been rumpled when he first arrived.

Unlike everyone else in the office, he seemed unruffled by the various crises going on around them, as if they didn’t touch him personally. Perhaps that was why he had been sent along with Goudkins, because he was one of those personality types who couldn’t be bothered with messy emotions.

Goudkins was a dicey choice for investigator, in Nyquist’s opinion. She had lost a sister on the Moon on Anniversary Day. While that made Goudkins care, it also put her on par with the investigators here instead of giving her the distance that Earth Alliance investigators often needed.

He didn’t mind, though. He liked knowing that Goudkins was personally involved. At least she understood what everyone on the Moon was going through.

“Noelle asked us to join her,” Goudkins said as she reached Nyquist.

He nodded as if he were DeRicci’s receptionist.

Goudkins passed him and went inside DeRicci’s office. Ostaka followed, giving Nyquist a thumbs-up as he went by.

Nyquist had no idea what that thumbs-up meant, if anything. He looked back at Talia.

She shook her head. “I don’t know what’s going on around here.”

At that moment, Popova came off the elevator holding bags of food. The smell of onions preceded her. Nyquist went to her and removed some of the bags.

“Did you order for the Earth Alliance investigators too?” he asked.

“Oh, yeah,” she said, “and they’re paying. They’re on an expense account.”

He wished he had thought of that when he’d been buying food. He helped Popova take it to the little kitchen that had gotten a lot more use these last few months than the designers had intended. It was a small room to the right of some of the other offices.

It wasn’t as messy as DeRicci’s office—it was hard to be that messy—but it wasn’t the cleanest room in the building, either.

He swept aside old dishes, put them in the washer, and then washed his own hands. He pulled some clean dishes out of the cupboards and set them on the table.

“We don’t need those,” Popova said. “Everyone ordered their own individual meal.”

She was pulling containers of food out of the bags. The smell of fried meat mixed with the onions. She opened each one, and then labeled it with someone’s name.

“Rudra,” he said as he placed Goudkins’ meal with DeRicci’s, “I have another translation for you. This one is really weird.”

“All right,” she said. “When we finish, I’ll take a listen. But you know—”

“That you’re not an expert. Right. Uzvaan translated for me. I simply don’t trust his translation. After you listen and double-check it, let me know if that’s the right name. If it is, will you send it to Jin Rastigan to see if she knows anything else about the corporation he’s referring to?”