Emergence (Fox Meridian Book 5) (7 page)

‘They
blocked
him from her LifeWeb page.’

‘Okay.’ Fox leaned back in her seat. ‘Kit, check LifeWeb, see what you can find.’

Kit appeared, standing beside Fox. ‘I’ll start the run immediately.’

‘Oh, hello again, Kit,’ Iberson said, managing a smile for the kitsune avatar.

‘I would rather it were under different circumstances, Miss Iberson, but hello again. It will take a short time to access deep records in the LifeWeb databases, Fox.’

‘Thanks,’ Fox said, ‘get them when you can. Look, Charlie, if it looks like this guy could be trouble… I can’t really do much if Miss Sakura won’t
let
me investigate it.’

‘I figured, maybe, you could play the security card? If this guy
is
a threat, then Palladium might need to be aware of it.’

‘It’s worth a shot. Is she in the metro?’

Iberson nodded. ‘She’s staying in that new arcology MarTech put up. Right up near the top in the VIP suites. I’m, uh, staying with her.’

‘Okay, then she’s safe for now. Tower three has excellent security. It’s where my investigations division has its HQ. Ryan Jarvis and his people are good, and so is the more automated security. No one gets past the mall level without authorisation. Leave it with me and Kit, and we’ll see what we can dig up.’

‘Thanks,’ Iberson said, getting to her feet. ‘Really, thanks. Even if this turns out to be me worrying over nothing, I’ll feel better knowing someone’s looked at it seriously.’

7
^th
January.

‘I’ve located the posts Miss Iberson mentioned,’ Kit said as Fox swung her legs out of bed.

‘Minotaur? What does he have to say for himself?’ Fox was interested, but a shower beckoned.

‘He posted as “BeastOfKnossos,” not much of a change. I cross-checked against the blocked list. LifeWeb
should
have blocked the account earlier given that the personal data is obviously faked. However, since assuming control of LifeWeb, MarTech has suspended several hundred thousand accounts which broke the rules in this way.’

The shower was already running, at just the temperature Fox liked. She pushed her head under the stream of water and let it wash the last of the sleep from her mind. ‘Okay. So he created a fake account specifically to post to Sakura’s page?’

‘He created it on the twelfth of August last year, favouriting Miss Sakura’s page immediately and not looking elsewhere. His first post was on the twenty-third of that month, a rather effusive fan posting about how Miss Sakura’s music “spoke to his soul.” He posts once a day after that, each post just as flowery as the last, but we get extra posts when he finds anyone suggesting that Miss Sakura’s work is less than perfect. He is blocked on September twenty-eighth after suggesting that one poster did not deserve to live and that he would “erase the freak from existence.”’

‘Okay…’

‘BeastOfKnossos logged in once on the twenty-ninth, presumably discovered the block, and the account was not used again. Having received only one block, he did not trigger LifeWeb’s automated checking and the account remained active but unused until October ninth when MarTech instituted the new auditing system.’

Fox nodded. ‘You’ve looked at obsessive fan posts before. What’s your opinion?’

‘The posts themselves show an obsessive aspect to Minotaur’s personality which is worrying and might warrant further investigation. However, there is another factor which I believe suggests a greater threat.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes, Fox. I scanned the account of the person Minotaur said he would “erase” and found a number of posts indicating the difficulties that person has had since September. His accounts on a number of private music sites have been deleted along with any posts he made there. He has also had problems with banking and access to his apartment block on several occasions. Minotaur has not erased him, but someone is making life hard for him.’

‘But his LifeWeb account is okay?’

‘MarTech acquired LifeWeb last August, if you recall. LifeWeb’s security was upgraded almost immediately, and further upgraded at the end of September.’

‘Okay…’ Fox rubbed shampoo into her hair and considered. ‘Send a message to Ryan indicating that we may have an issue. Give him the basics, and tell him I’ll call him when it’s a reasonable hour in Chicago. Send something to Charlie saying we’ll drop in and see Sakura this afternoon. And find me a slot in the schedule when I can do that.’

‘You were planning to come back here to change for the party, correct?’

‘Yeah, that was the plan.’

‘If you change in your office at the tower, we could easily fit in a visit to Miss Sakura’s suite before socialising.’

Fox smiled. ‘Good thinking. Okay, get Belle to put my dress and shoes out and I’ll take them with me. Check with Charlie that they’ll be in the suite at that time.’

~~~

‘All right, let’s settle and we can get on with the fun.’ Fox waited a few seconds as her team fell into silence. They had decamped to another part of the kilometre-high arcology for the final item she wanted to cover in the course: choice of weapons.

The morning had been fairly hard. Terri had come over to give them a load of detailed background on the technology they had available. It was probably overkill and they had all looked a little shell-shocked at the end of it, but both Fox and Terri felt it was useful to know a bit more about the inner workings of the equipment. However, Fox had scheduled in something a little more fun to finish up with.

‘I know you’re all checked out on basic firearms,’ Fox said when silence fell, ‘but we have two sidearms we’re using as standard and neither of them are what you’re used to. So, here we are at the firing range. I’m going to go through the weapons, and then you’ll get to try them out yourselves. You’ll want to fully familiarise yourself with both, because they both have their uses.’

Stepping up to a table on which there were several guns of two types, Fox picked up a sleek-looking pistol with a broad ‘muzzle’ featuring two small openings. ‘As a standard weapon, I suggest carrying this. It’s an electrolaser, a wireless electric shock weapon. It’s relatively legal in all jurisdictions, especially if the lethal mode is locked out. As with more conventional shock weapons, it
can
kill someone by accident, but the general result of a good hit is incapacitation. On a full-power hit, your target’s heart will seize and they’ll likely die unless treated quickly by a paramedic.’

Fox walked up to the firing line and took aim at a mannequin android around twenty metres down range. Not bothering with the heads-up sighting, she simply eyeballed it and fired. There was a sharp crack as the twin invisible beams fired and a high-voltage pulse danced down the ionised channels. The droid collapsed to its knees almost immediately.

‘Humans tend to jerk about more,’ Fox said. ‘It’s a little more satisfying than hitting a machine.’ There was a rumble of laughter. ‘Effective, but not without problems. High humidity tends to cause the charge to leak away, and fog or smoke can diffuse the beams too much to be effective. Don’t aim for the face because the beams
do
cause minor burns and will damage eyesight. Centre-mass is more effective anyway. Any questions?’

‘How many shots?’ Keen asked.

‘You’ll get a good thirty charges out of a standard magazine, a lot less on lethal mode.’ When it seemed that no one else had anything to ask, Fox put the pistol back on the table and took a different one out from where it was holstered in the small of her back. ‘This one is a little different and its biggest disadvantage is that it’s not in production yet. This one is mine. Jackson Martins built it for me to test out and it works, and we’re rolling it out to the investigation division because it’s got a lot of different uses. But you are using what amounts to a prototype. Be aware of that if you plan to use one of these as a standard weapon.’

‘Well, yeah,’ Keen said, ‘but it’s a prototype built by Jackson Martins…’

Fox grinned and walked up to the firing line. ‘There is that.’ At her command, a paper target dropped from the ceiling about ten metres away. ‘At close range, this functions like a normal pistol, except that the launch mechanism is electromagnetic.’ She raised the pistol and fired off three rounds, punching three holes in the target’s chest. ‘Normal load is a ten-millimetre, high-velocity projectile. You’re probably going to kill someone if you double-tap them. One round should put most targets down. If you want a less lethal option…’ She aimed at the android again as it got to its feet, fired, and it was knocked over backward. There was something which looked vaguely like a small cowpat stuck to its chest. ‘High-kinetic impulse, less-than-lethal rounds. Yes, I stacked this magazine for this demo. Be warned, I’ve used these on someone who didn’t want to give up and we had to get him medical treatment for internal injuries.’

Stepping sideways, Fox looked down the range to where another mannequin had been set up thirty metres away. ‘At longer range, you have another option. I admit this is easier for me to use because I’m ex-military and I was trained on guided missiles, but…’ In-vision, she got a lock indicator for the target, then she moved her aim off to one side and fired. A few metres out, the projectile began to stream white vapour as tiny rocket motors engaged, and the little missile curved through the air to hit its target. The mannequin dissolved into nothing as the explosive round blew it apart.

‘Shit!’ Keen yelped and there were several other similar exclamations as bits of plastic drifted down to the ground in the distance.

‘Yes,’ Fox said, ‘that was a ten-mil, infrared homing micromissile with an explosive warhead. Have a
really
good reason for needing to use one of those, and make sure you’ve got some distance. I can tell you from experience that being too close to one of those when it goes off stings. However, you can deliver any of a range of warheads out to a klick with reasonable accuracy if you learn to use the homing system. And you only get the standard rounds to practise with.’ She looked over at Keen and added, ‘Seven-round magazines, which is another disadvantage.’

‘Well, yeah, but it fires bloody missiles!’

Fox laughed. ‘There is that. All right, there’s a selection of weapons here and plenty of targets. Try both. Helen and I will be here to advise you.’

It was a rather interesting exercise. Everyone did try both weapons: the pistol was novel enough, but the electrolaser was a ray gun! The Europeans and the Brit looked like they would stick with the lasers. The Americans appeared to be sticking with the projectile weaponry, but Ray Rogers said he would carry the stun weapon as standard because the local watch in Topeka was standardising on them. Keen was going for bullets, big surprise. Fukui seemed a little unsure and was alternating between the two.

‘You seem to be undecided,’ Fox said as she watched the Japanese girl switch back to the laser weapon.

‘I am,’ Fukui replied. ‘I could easily get the permits for a firearm or a lethal-mode electrolaser. I feel using a stun weapon as standard
should
be the better option, but it is highly likely that any situation where I might need either would be sufficiently life-threatening to warrant lethal force. Crime in Japan is like that. It is often very civilised, but when it is not, it is vicious.’

‘If your file is correct, you’ll be good with the electromag pistol. You’d just need to learn to use the homing system. And there is a smaller version of the electrolaser you could use as a backup piece.’

Fukui flashed Fox a smile. ‘That is a most interesting compromise. Practical. This is where your experience shows, as does my lack of it.’

Fox shrugged. ‘I just thought of it myself. Sometimes having a problem to solve is the best way to find a good idea you should have thought of the answer to already.’

‘I am pleased to be the source of a good idea. And I’ll keep practising with both.’

~~~

‘Fox? You in here? Oh! Shit, I didn’t know you were changing.’

Fox flashed Helen a grin and finished pulling her dress on. ‘You’ve seen me naked before, Helen.’

‘Not in an office. It’s different. No idea why, but it is. Everything’s ready for this thing. I’m going to get changed myself.’

‘Right. I need to go see our currently resident VIP about a stalker.’

Helen frowned. ‘Nishi Sakura?’

‘That’s the one. Charlie Iberson came to see me last night. Said Sakura received an email from some guy calling himself Minotaur and it seemed like it was bad, but Sakura and her agents are ignoring it. Kit did some checking and it looks like it
might
be a problem, so…’

‘Good luck persuading them. I’ll be back when I’ve got myself dolled up.’ Helen turned to leave and then stopped. She turned back, frowning. ‘I feel like obsessive fan and Minotaur should be ringing some sort of bell.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yeah… It’s not coming to mind though. I’ll give it some thought.’

‘Let me know.’ Fox slipped on her heels, decided she was ready, and headed out behind Helen to take an elevator up to the top of the tower.

The doors opened and Fox found herself looking at a man and a woman, both in the smart, dark-blue tunic and slacks of Palladium security personnel. The woman recognised her even before her ID was processed, but both nodded politely as she stepped out of the elevator. Fox returned the nod and continued down a short corridor. There she turned right toward the group of suites where Sakura had been housed and made it as far as a small antechamber before she was stopped.

‘What are you doing here?’ The speaker was a man who had had
far
too much bodysculpt work done. He was, probably, naturally quite tall, though Fox’s heels gave her several centimetres of height advantage. Everything else looked like it had been modified one way or another. Muscle grafts, sculpted nose, jaw, and cheeks, smoothed skin with an artificial tan… His eyes were a reflective blue never found in nature, and his blonde, dreadlocked hair looked like most of it was extended.

He went on before Fox could say a word. ‘No, no, no! No fans! Those idiots at the elevator should have turned you around. I don’t care
who
you are. Out. Out!’ Kit supplied a name for the artificial features as the man reached for Fox’s arm, which was the only thing that stopped her punching him. Instead, she braced herself as he tried to drag her backward, and he gave her an annoyed look when he could not move her.