Al-Haiyan, the capital of the Sultanate of Er-Rummal's colonies on Tar-Mariat
"It's very convenient when murders happen in a medical center," the Wad-Princess pronounced, having finished examining the body, and nodded to the pale chief physician hovering nearby. "Proceed with the autopsy and toxin analysis."
"But Your Highness!.."
"Otherwise, the police or even Al-Shadiyar[1] will appear here. I assume you prefer to handle this internally?"
"Yes, Your Highness," the chief physician said meekly. The body of the unfortunate Dawud ibn-Omar Kamal was lifted onto a stretcher. AlNilam nodded to her bodyguard, and he followed the chief physician and orderlies into the hospital wing.
"Camera footage from the kitchen and Kamal's personnel file," Her Highness ordered Gemma curtly.
"Yes, ma'am, Effendi," Nightbird murmured. She was still trembling. It was a mercy she could never speak of this; Eric would never know! With shaking hands, she dialed HR. Death had been a single sip away, and if not for Al-Fayyaz... Oh, Great Spirit!
It took considerable effort to steady her voice as she spoke first to HR, then to the IT department. While she requested Kamal's file and footage, the princess spoke with the kitchen staff and sent them to the medical wing for sedatives.
"Kamal's dossier and the camera recording will be sent to your personal email within minutes, Effendi," said Gemma. She was alone now with the Wad-Princess, whose gaze did not waver. Nightbird felt a chill creep up her spine.
"Do you know why Dawud died?" Her Highness asked.
"He took poison?"
AlNilam grimaced in irritation.
"Terrorists commit suicide when capture is imminent because lying to an epsilon-class being during interrogation is impossible."
"Dawud was a terrorist?" Gemma choked out. "But he was vetted, like everyone..."
"The SS makes mistakes too. Though the poor boy might simply be a sacrificial decoy. After all, you brought the tea and coffee, and you were about to drink the poisoned beverage."
Gemma gasped.
"It wasn't me!"
"Why should we believe you?"
Nightbird opened and closed her mouth several times, like a goldfish, but no sound came out. How could she prove she wasn't a terrorist?! How could anyone prove what they weren't?!
The princess filled a glass from the teapot, passed her bracelet's poison detector over it, and pressed the gemstone on one of her rings. The stone flipped up like a tiny lid, and AlNilam shook a minute white grain into the glass.
"Drink," she commanded, extending it to Gemma.
"No!" Nightbird recoiled.
"It's not poison," said the Wad-Princess. "It's veritamine. A mild truth narcotic."
What choice did she have? Gemma drained the glass in one gulp. The reasons why the entire SS leadership had scattered like cockroaches were becoming painfully clear.
"I'm just a scapegoat!" Nightbird thought furiously. Her entire life now depended on what this crazed religious fanatic from the Sultan's family thought of her!
The princess spent several minutes silently studying something on her phone (Dawud's dossier, presumably), then asked indifferently:
"Your name is Layla?"
"No," escaped Gemma before she realized she was speaking.
"Today is the fourteenth of July?"
"No!"
"Are you an accomplice to terrorists?"
"No," Nightbird whispered.
"Good," said AlNilam. "Did you participate in vetting Dawud Kamal when he was hired?"
"No," Gemma shook her head. This wasn't so frightening, actually. "I don't handle hiring checks. Ursula Wojtowicz does that."
"Where is she?"
"At work," Gemma replied, slightly surprised. "All SS personnel are on duty today. She's in office five hundred six, fifth floor, administrative wing."
"Excellent. Let us visit Saida Wojtowicz."
"Yes, ma'am. This way, please."
They left the kitchen, passed the dining hall, and Nightbird ventured to ask:
"What will happen to Dawud?"
"After the autopsy, the body will be returned to his family."
"But how did he..."
"Apparently, he caught the terrorist infection somewhere in college. Do you know who he was?"
Gemma shook her head.
"No. I only saw him in the cafeteria; I think he maintained the vending machines."
"Yes. That was his part-time job; the rest of the time, he studied at the college. In colleges, Gemma, students get swept up in all sorts of things. Including ideas about justly restructuring society," the Wad-Princess's voice carried a note of bitterness. "Young idealists just need to be heated sufficiently, then used like disposable gloves."
Nightbird remained silent, bewildered. It seemed strange that AlNilam would speak this way of a terrorist accomplice.
"He was only twenty," the princess murmured. "Barely older than a child. This is why terrorists are despised," she added sharply. "They prefer others to die for their righteous ideals."
Gemma found no reply. Until today, terrorists had been something distant, things you saw on the news but which had no connection to ordinary life.
She escorted Her Highness to the elevator and was about to press the call button, but AlNilam turned towards the restrooms.
"That's the men's, Effendi," Gemma hastily warned.
"Yes, I see," the princess replied and disappeared inside.
Nightbird stared blankly at the door. A terrible suspicion began to take root in her mind. She grabbed her phone and opened a search engine.
Siona obligingly presented her with the official website of the Er-Rummal royal family. The main page featured a photograph of the reigning Sultan, Sayyid ibn-Fahad, surrounded by his six[2] wives, twenty children, and four grandchildren. Gemma struggled to find, in that colorful crowd, the slender figure in a headscarf and floor-length robe.
Touching the princess's image, she was taken to a personal page where, in black on heraldic green in Fahti and Konti[3], it read: *"His Highness Wad-Prince AlNilam (Year 178 NPrE), son of His Majesty (may Allah prolong his years) and Fatima bint Shadid Al-Bihar."* And just below: "Adherent of the Safiyat doctrine." Gemma mechanically clicked on a pop-up window, learning that the Safiyat doctrine required all its followers to conceal their faces and heads.
"Oh, Great Spirit..." Nightbird leaned weakly against the wall opposite the elevator. It was terrifying to consider how many laws regarding the insult of the Sultan's family she had broken by calling the prince "ma'am." Twice! Or even three times!
His Highness! His! The bloody prince who wrapped himself in curtains up to his eyes and wore floor-length robes because, if you please, his doctrine demanded it!
Meanwhile, the prince had returned from his place of seclusion and was studying Gemma with interest. She was struggling to compose herself, to maintain her Chokon dignity, and to convince herself that she could clearly see signs this was a man in a robe, not a...
Why the hell was this prince a head shorter than her?!
"Your Highness," said Gemma, "I offer my most profound apologies."
"I'm a blind idiot," she added silently. But how was anyone supposed to guess?! He might as well wear a placard around his neck!
"Oh," the Wad-Prince intoned; fine wrinkles gathered at the corners of his eyes, and the tips of his brows rose, as if he were smiling beneath his drapery. "Finally noticed. A startling revelation, is it not?"
"I certainly did not intend..."
"And it is not a dress," His Highness added; Gemma flushed crimson. It was as if he were reading her thoughts. "This is a musht, traditional outerwear for men. Have you truly never seen it on any Haiyani?"
"I have," Gemma admitted despondently. But the other Haiyani, even in their traditional robes, did not look like this!
Yet the Wad-Prince did not seem angry. Chuckling softly, he pressed the elevator button, and Nightbird noticed his hand. The palm was small, narrow, with slender, long fingers — yet still not a woman's. Lowering her gaze to his footwear, Gemma thought glumly that even that gave nothing away. The leather shoes were quite a small size for a man.
"I will send an inquiry regarding your Dawud to Al-Shadiyar," said AlNilam, gesturing for Gemma to enter the elevator. "Let us see what they manage to uncover."
His voice still confounded her. Its timbre was too low for a woman, yet too high and melodious for a man.
"You promised our doctor you wouldn't summon them here," Nightbird ventured to remind him.
"Nor shall I," the Wad-Prince replied serenely. "They know who I am, and they obey my orders without question."
***
Rain lashed against the glass elevator shaft; lightning split the black sky, and heavy peals of thunder reached Murad. This was normal for Al-Haiyan — storms with torrential downpours and hurricane winds would batter the city five times a day, only to be replaced ten minutes later by bright sun and a gentle breeze.
"Not a bad place," Murad thought. "To settle down here, in a house with a view of the sea or the cliffs..."
He sighed. Sultan Sayyid, may Shaytan take him, would never leave them in peace.
Gemma had already set herself up in Shufrir's reception area and was filling out some spreadsheet. Seeing Murad, she inclined her head slightly. She strove to maintain her dignity but looked utterly exhausted.
"Go home, Saida. It's already nine in the evening."
"Can I leave without His Highness's permission?"
"I'll take full responsibility," the Yakzan said with a smile and placed a packet of salted calamari rings before Nightbird. The girl offered an uncertain smile in return.
"Go, Saida. His Highness likes to start work early in the morning, so you need to be here by seven tomorrow. Shall I call you a taxi?"
"No, thank you. My husband is picking me up."
Murad entered the office. His prince stood in the glass bay window, watching the storm, gnawing on dietetic rice crackers, and drinking chemical tea from a plastic bottle. Effendi looked weary, too. They had both been on their feet since five in the morning, spending almost the entire day interrogating staff, dispatching inquiries, and digging through the perinatal center's information systems.
The Yakzan approached Effendi and embraced him by the shoulders, taking advantage of their privacy. Irfan rested his head against Murad's chest and generously offered tea and crackers. Murad, in return, handed him a packet of dried shrimp.
"Tomorrow we continue with the interrogations," said AlNilam. "But I did manage to look into Philippe Anger's file. A very interesting individual."
"Mmm?" Murad responded, struggling with a cracker that resembled crunchy rubber.
"Two doctoral degrees, six patents for inventions, active participation in conferences and symposiums. A fanatic about genetic engineering. Three wives left him because of his love for science. Spending twelve hours a day at work was nothing unusual for Anger."
"So it's probably not him."
"Probably," the prince sighed. "Unless Anger was an exceptional actor, secretly dreaming of destroying everything he lived for."
"Don't be discouraged, Effendi. I found us another suspect."
"Shufrir?" AlNilam perked up.
"No. We've determined where the surveillance system hack originated."
"Already?!" the Wad-Prince exclaimed in astonishment.
"Yes. Let me show you," Murad led him to Shufrir's terminal and logged into Fialkovskaya's account.
"Look here, Effendi. Someone connected a removable disk to Fialkovskaya's terminal containing a program to hack the surveillance system. It was disguised as a video archive, which this someone sent to one of the SS employees on duty that night via a work chat. The archive self-executes as soon as the employee clicks on the message."
"That brazen?" the Wad-Prince whispered, stunned.
"That brazen," Murad nodded. "I could hardly believe it myself. I triple-checked the results, then went up to Fialkovskaya's office and searched her terminal. The action log shows the removable disk connection."
"But why didn't the external media security protocols trigger?"
"Because it was Fialkovskaya's own work disk. The employee on duty the night of June twelfth didn't suspect anything either. The archive contained legitimate video footage from some bioengineering conference, and someone wrote in the chat that they'd sent it by mistake."
"You say someone," AlNilam noted. "But I think the identity of that someone is obvious."
"Let's not jump to conclusions, Effendi. She could have been coerced or intimidated."
"Did the cameras record anyone else entering Fialkovskaya's office before the system was compromised?"
Murad shook his head.
"Only her. She'd given her secretary the day off..." he frowned and fell silent.
"And what about the timing?" AlNilam leaned closer to the screen. "Fialkovskaya left the center at six forty-seven. When did she send the message?"
"At six twenty-eight. But the chat has a timed message function; the duty officer received it at eleven fifty-four. And two minutes later, a second message, supposedly about sending it in error."
"And after the cameras were hacked, Fialkovskaya could have returned to the center without being recorded," the prince ran a hand through his hair. "But the sheer audacity! She must have known this would all be uncovered the very next day!"
"Which means she never planned to stay in Al-Haiyan or on Tar-Mariat."
"It also means she somehow obtained and passed to the terrorists detailed information on how the surveillance system and its security protocols function."
"The terrorists have quite capable IT specialists, Effendi."
"Good for them. So it appears Fialkovskaya was being manipulated for quite some time — at least several months, possibly a year. But what could they possibly use to leverage the head of the 'Bioronica' department?"
"Why do you assume she wasn't acting of her own free will?"
AlNilam gazed thoughtfully at his Yakzan.
"MT has its own security service, far more capable than our Al-Shadiyar. They would never have appointed someone to such a position whose reliability raised the slightest doubt. Furthermore, employees — especially senior staff — are regularly re-vetted."
"Still, it's possible," Murad insisted. "I'll send a request to MT's Security Service first thing tomorrow and try to persuade them to provide Fialkovskaya's complete dossier."
"Good. It would also be prudent to examine the dossiers of Shufrir and Anger. The terrorists somehow managed to abscond with both of them, which, in light of the embryo theft," the prince's eyes gleamed like a cat's, "appears very, very interesting."
Almonzeia, the capital of the MT Corporation's colonies on Almonzis
When Axel first participated in a mental interrogation with Phan (ah, that was a long time ago... he'd just made sergeant), what surprised him most was the inaccuracy of memory. For some reason, he'd thought that events were imprinted on witnesses' memories the same way they were on camera footage. But every memory was colored by a person's emotions and impressions; personal perception distorted recall.
"Then what's the point of them?" he'd asked Phan, disappointed after his first interrogation.
"People see what machines cannot," she'd replied philosophically. "And cameras aren't everywhere, and they can be fooled too."
The six witnesses had seen the same thing, but from different angles, and different details had stuck in their memories. Even the car's color varied — from bright red to almost purple. Phan was recording onto neuro-discs — small, flat, donut-shaped disks.
Inside a memory, you couldn't touch anything — any interference distorted the picture and could harm the person being interrogated. Now, for the sixth time, Ax watched a dark-cherry "Miro Florian" hit Ferenc amidst the screams of passersby and the piercing signals of the traffic light — and he could do nothing to stop it.
In the sixth witness's memory, what stood out most vividly was the scarlet blood on the white street and the dazzlingly bright side of the car. The sun was so bright that even through the tinted glass, Ax made out two silhouettes — the driver and a passenger. The impact had sent the car into a skid; the delicate metal fence around a flowerbed had left a dent and scratches on the door, and then the car disappeared, barely making the turn.
Ax followed the car with his eyes (the license plate was carefully smeared with mud), and then the witness turned her head. For a few seconds, her gaze lingered on a man standing in a narrow alley between two buildings. The recording stopped, and the vision dissolved at the sound of Phan's voice:
"Thank you, madam. We're done."
"That's it?" the witness asked, slightly disappointed. "It hasn't even been five minutes!"
Phan smiled politely. Witnesses always seemed to think a mental interrogation should be long and exhausting — though the only one who looked tired was Linh herself.
"You've been a great help," Fontaine assured the witness. "Captain Lidmann will see you out. And, by the way, about that coffee..."
Lidmann nodded understandingly and disappeared with the witness, who was frowning discontentedly and muttering about how much time she'd wasted traveling for just a couple of minutes in the company of a silent officer from the MT Inquiry Service.
"Thanks," Phan said, rubbing her temple tiredly. Fontaine thought it would be easier if she had to plug some kind of cord into her head, like in the old movies. In reality, connecting to the neuro-interface was accomplished through Phan's own efforts, without any wires or connectors. Just intense concentration and the special abilities of a brain grown using biotechnology — wholly or partially. Something to do with electrical impulses or waves, hell if he knew — Ax never delved into it.
"How are you doing?"
"I'm fine. Do you worry about your navigators on the express like this?" she asked with a smile.
"I don't bother them when they're working. One wrong turn and the train becomes mincemeat. Did you notice?" Ax asked. "In all the witnesses' memories, there's a man we didn't see on the surveillance footage."
"Really?" Phan perked up. "Are you sure? I was mostly focused on recording the statements. What man?"
"Tall, large build, in a light suit. Standing in the alley between two buildings — a candy store and a beauty salon. Looks like it's a blind spot for all the surveillance cameras — he's not on any video."
The major began scrolling through the recording in slow motion. Lidmann had returned with coffee by the time they reached the end of the memory, and Ax pointed at the screen:
"There he is. Let's check all the others."
Half an hour later, they were looking at six images of varying clarity. The witnesses had remembered the man differently — the color of his suit ranged from white to light gray, his face was obscured by dark glasses and some kind of blur that looked like a scarf or head covering. The man wore a dark hat on his head. Some thought he was slender, others stockily built, but in all the memories, he was quite tall.
"But why isn't he on camera?" asked Lidmann. "He's not on any recording."
"Because he knew exactly where the cameras' blind spots were," Ax snorted. "Came unnoticed, left unnoticed. I wonder what the hell he was doing there. Did he know the accident was scheduled for today, at eleven twenty-two, huh?"
Phan looked at Ax with concern and enlarged the image. Fontaine nearly pressed his nose to the screen. Damn it, the face was impossible to make out!
"Let's check," the captain insisted, unwilling to admit the obvious superiority of mental interrogation methods. "Let's review the footage half an hour before and half an hour after the accident. He's bound to be there!"
"As you wish. But it would be more logical to check the cameras on the neighboring streets. It's hardly possible to avoid them all by staying in blind spots. He must have shown up on at least one."
"It would also be good to get a clearer look at the suspect himself," Lidmann added, somewhat ingratiatingly.
"I'll work on that," said Phan. "Once I've compiled a clear image, we'll review footage from other cameras."
"You can piece it together from this?"
"What do you think they spend all that time teaching us in epsilon-schools for?"
Ax chuckled. Embryos with severe brain pathologies were even luckier than the rest — recombination and a synthetic brain endowed them with mental abilities. Altering a healthy brain in this way was prohibited by the Convention, but if there was no brain to begin with... then there were no restrictions.
"I'll get us something to eat," said Fontaine. "Where's your cafeteria?"
"I'll show you," Lidmann rose, and when they were outside the door, he asked quietly: "Is it hard on her? She looks tired. People like her... do they get tired from this?"
"From digging through a pile of disjointed memories while simultaneously recording them to disk? Of course. But don't worry — Major Phan is a top-class specialist. She'll finish the interrogations in a day or two."
"Strange they only sent her," Lidmann remarked after a pause. "If there were several of them, epsilons, they'd be done faster."
This surprised Ax too, but who knew what passed for common sense in the minds of management. Maybe they thought that sending too many epsilon-beings might let the truth about the plant theft leak to the general public.
Especially since the public, in the form of the police, wasn't exactly thrilled anyway. Lidmann was covertly studying Fontaine with an expression that suggested he was already calculating the irreparable damage a whole squad of such beast-like troopers could do to the city. As they crossed the main hall on their way to the cafeteria, the murmur of voices instantly died down, and the officers silently followed Axel with tense stares, accompanied by the voice of a news anchor from a speaker on someone's desk:
"...which could also lead to criminal charges for the Weisbergs under articles 'Cruelty,' 'Intentional Infliction of Grievous Harm,' and 'Improper Fulfillment of Parental Duties'..."
"Don't worry," Ax said good-naturedly. "No one's infringing on your rights and authority. We're just here to find out who's responsible for the accident, the theft, and..."
"Don't tell me," Lidmann interrupted him sourly. "I know how life works. All are equal, but some are more equal. You corporate types have your own justice system, especially people like you."
"People like me?" Fontaine was always amused when someone thought being a being was a privileged position. After all, everyone had some things and lacked others, and it was foolish to complain. "Being a being isn't a privilege."
"Oh, really? And what is it, then?"
"A chance for the freaks," Fontaine replied, "that your ancestors once came to circuses to gawk at. And now we're almost the same as you, just without a passport — and you still find something to complain about."
"I see something else," Lidmann said coldly. "I see how, the moment one of your corporate cooks gets hit by a car, specialists from the special ones swoop down here like vultures on carrion. And he's not even a being. Just one of your people."
"Everyone defends themselves as best they can," Ax remarked philosophically, long since immune to such arguments. "MT certainly has extensive resources to protect its personnel, but you were assigned here to be responsible for everyone else's safety. So what's stopping you?"
Lidmann caught the hint and fell silent, understanding. Fontaine took out his phone to check on the outside world. He saw two missed calls from Frina Akinola and one message, from which he learned with relief that Ferenc's surgery had been successful. Frina was going to stay at the hospital overnight to monitor the patient's condition and promised to send a report for his family.
Another seventeen messages Ax had received from the head chef — Sandro Maranzani was a temperamental man, and the loss of his pastry chef had driven him to a state bordering on insanity. While Fontaine read these seventeen, waiting for buns and hot coffee, Maranzani sent three more, filled with despair and untranslatable, but obviously unprintable, expressions in Temiran.
Fontaine snorted. He'd trade places with the head chef's problems any day. Someone, skillfully hidden from the cameras, had watched the accident, which meant it was all staged. Maybe those who robbed the Corporation had their own plans for "Briareus" — they could well be counting on no one daring to search, let alone detain, an express packed with the elite of society, like a salmon stuffed with caviar. Even Phan, a major in the MT Inquiry Service, an epsilon-class officer, needed Ax's help in this matter — and unofficially at that. He imagined explaining all this to Anna Dmitrievna and sighed. On the other hand, who had it easy these days...
***
It was almost one in the morning when Ax climbed into the shower, closed his eyes, and pressed his throbbing head against the cool tiles. Anna Dmitrievna's anniversary celebration was over. His own memories still mingled with others' — the aftereffects of a long mental session. Phan had once taught him how to deal with this, but today Axel hadn't had time to seclude himself in a quiet place, calm down, and meditate for an hour or two.
For a few minutes, Fontaine stood motionless as the water washed away the sweat, dust, and smells of the sun-scorched city, then reached for the sponge and soap. His gaze fell on his brand, and a short, unpleasant memory of the conversation with the journalist pricked at him.
The brand Ax had worn on his body since birth was bright green, like spring grass, and shimmered under the light, reflecting off the white tiles. The "MT" monogram, crowned with the Birdeye, the Corporation's emblem, and beneath the letters — a stylized image of a dove in flight. Doves had been Marco Tadić's favorite birds, the genius, inventor, and astrophysicist — the creator of this brave new world.
This was the first thing all children were taught in school — the era of barbarism and ignorance, replaced, thanks to Tadić's discoveries, by an era of prosperity and knowledge. How that journalist pup had managed to miss this lesson was anyone's guess... though he'd probably gone to some elite school for rich kids; maybe they taught different things there.
"And this is how we've been prospering ever since," thought Axel. Prospered all the way to interplanetary expresses, while degenerates in cars who nearly killed people still hadn't died out.
Ax didn't hold it against Phan — there wasn't much she could tell him now that he'd left the service. Though his own brand contained enough information classified as "secret," which, thank God, could only be read by special scanners in the Corporation and a couple of other intelligence agencies. Memories, many of which Axel would gladly erase if he could.
He had interrogated witnesses and police officers with Phan until late evening, then went to the hospital to see Ferenc. The poor guy looked like he'd risen from the dead. Frina Akinola said he wouldn't wake for at least four or five days. From the hospital, Fontaine called Eliza and told her what had happened. Everything else, to Ax's somewhat shameful relief, Frina took care of.
No sooner had Fontaine returned to the express than Maranzani attacked him. Having barely fought off the old vulture, the Security Chief went to Anna Dmitrievna and reported that security was, in fact, compromised. Lavrova didn't like this one bit, nor did she like the idea of searching the express, and she made her displeasure quite clear to Ax about promises he was making on her behalf without her knowledge.
But Fontaine had dealt with her for five years and knew that by morning, she wouldn't exactly have cooled down (Anna Dmitrievna, even in the best of moods, resembled the Snow Queen), but she would assess his decision from a common-sense perspective. After all, a small search conducted by one's own people was better than thieves — or, worse, terrorists — wandering through the train, right?
The watch he'd left on the shelf above the bathtub emitted a trilling chime. Ax sighed resignedly, got out of the shower, and trudged to the terminal to check his mail. There he found the dossier of the first candidate for the pastry chef position, vindictively sent by Lavrova with the note "urgent." He opened the folder to immediately upload the data to the Registry for verification, starting the in-depth background check in the morning. Fontaine's gaze slid over the photo, over a name as long as a dining car, and stopped at the line: "Being Certificate Number..."
What the hell!
[1] Er-Rummal's special service for combating threats to the state and the monarchy.
[2] The number of the Sultan's wives corresponds to the number of emirates comprising Er-Rummal.
[3] An artificially constructed language for international communication.