Waypoint Kangaroo Page 9

  Now I don’t have a response.

  “What do you want us to do, Chief?” Danny asks.

  “Do what he says,” the woman orders. “Call the captain.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Dejah Thoris—Deck 15, excursion lounge

  20 minutes after security decided not to shoot me

  Danny and Mike leave the room when Captain Santamaria arrives in the excursion lounge. It’s just me, the female security officer, and the captain. I’m sitting on one of the couches. The woman stands with her back against a wall, stunner still in her hand but dangling at her side instead of pointed at me. I’ve handed my pistol over to her, as a gesture of trust. Her unspoken promise to take a half-second longer to drop me if I move is, I guess, her way of reciprocating.

  The captain stands in the doorway for a moment. He seems more curious than annoyed. The look he exchanges with the woman is priceless. He actually appears to be amused at her exasperation. It’s too familiar to be the relationship between mere coworkers, but too casual for lovers. Relatives? Father and daughter? But they look nothing alike.

  “He was carrying this sidearm,” the woman says, handing over my pistol. “We don’t know where he was hiding it. Mike gave him a full pat-down. And the piece was cold as ice.”

  The captain turns the pistol over in his hands. He ejects the magazine and examines the ammunition. He replaces the clip, checks the safety, and hands the weapon back to the woman.

  “That’s practically an antique,” he says. I’m not sure if he’s talking to me or her.

  “We didn’t find anything in the pressure suit he used,” the woman says. “He must have been jamming the locator beacon.”

  The captain nods. He sits down in a chair across from me and asks, “Mr. Rogers, which department do you work for?”

  I flick my eyes over to the woman, then address the captain. “Your chief of security has me at a disadvantage.”

  “You don’t get your weapon back until you’re off this ship,” the woman snaps.

  “Chief,” the captain says, “he means he doesn’t know your name.”

  The woman frowns. “Who the hell talks like that?”

  I can see the barest hint of a smile underneath the captain’s beard. There’s definitely something between these two. It feels like family, but I can’t quite make the connection.

  “This is Chief Petty Officer Andrea Jemison,” the captain says. “Head of security aboard Dejah Thoris, as you’ve correctly surmised. She served six years at Olympus Base, through the end of the war. You can look up her full record yourself, can’t you?”

  I’ve been moving my jaw muscles as soon as he said her name, constructing a query to send over my secure connection to the agency. Anyone might notice that, but it would look like nervous teeth-grinding to a civilian who didn’t know about my control implants.

  “And I’m sure you can look up my record as well,” the captain continues. I tap my molars together, transmitting my search parameters, and my left eye HUD blinks while waiting for the response. Back on Earth, the data would have come back instantly, but out here there’s a lightspeed delay.

  The woman—Jemison—has tensed up. A lot. “Captain, what the hell is going on?”

  Without looking at her, Santamaria says, “Mr. Rogers snuck outside the ship to set up a secure communication link with Earth. Right now he’s using his shoulder-phone to search for our military service records. Once he knows how much security clearance we have, he’ll decide which cover story to feed us.”

  “He’s a field operative?” Jemison says, as if it’s hard for her to believe.

  “Well, they can’t all be as handsome as I was,” Santamaria says.

  Jemison makes a dismissive noise. “I don’t see an interface and he hasn’t been talking to himself. How is he working the phone?”

  “I would guess there’s a heads-up display in one of his eyes,” Santamaria says. “And biometric sensors implanted throughout his body. A few eye movements or twitches of specific muscles will control the phone and whatever other devices are hidden under his skin.”

  The search results light up in my vision. I don’t bother trying to hide my eye or finger movements as I read the information. There isn’t much. A lot of the relevant records are still sealed. But I see that Jemison and Santamaria served together for eight months at Olympus during the war. Before that, Jemison was quartermaster of the Earth Coalition corvette Cincinnati. And Santamaria’s prior command was … First Mars Battalion? Jesus, he fought in the vanguard?

  And now they both work for Paul Tarkington.

  Ellie Gavilán, on the other hand, seems to have made a clean break after her prewar military service. She’s barely even visited a VA hospital since then. Definitely not in the loop. Is that good news? Does that mean she’s actually interested in “Evan Rogers”?

  Not now, Kangaroo. You’re still in a situation. Focus!

  I blink away my HUD and retrain my eyes on Santamaria. I study his face for a second, then look over at Jemison. Each of them has earned a stack of war commendations they can never wear. Their service records will only be declassified long after they’re dead, and they’ll both have ships of the line named after them.

  I feel really bad about holding a gun to Jemison’s head.

  “Captain, Chief,” I say, “I’m sorry for any trouble I’ve caused you. I’m not here on assignment. I’m on vacation. I just—got a little bored, and wanted to be able to communicate securely with my department back on Earth. I’m not used to being isolated like this. I hope you understand.” It sounds a lot dumber coming out of my mouth than it did in my head.

  “Apology accepted,” Santamaria says. “Isn’t that right, Chief?”

  “Yeah,” Jemison says. “Now answer the captain’s question. What department do you work for?”

  I have nothing to hide from these people. “I report directly to Director Tarkington. My code name is Kangaroo.”

  Jemison sucks in a breath. “So that’s where you hid the gun.”

  Even Santamaria seems impressed. “I can understand why Lasher sent you on a vacation. Sounds like a real shitshow back home right now.”

  My head is spinning. My whole world has just been turned inside out—instead of the big, bad spy strutting around a ship full of civilians, I’ve been reduced to a schoolboy in the presence of giants. Santamaria even knows what’s going on in the office right now. He apparently knows things that Paul flat-out refused to tell me.

  So what else is new, Kangaroo?

  Even if I could get a status from D.C., there’s nothing I can do to help. Is there?

  “I have to ask, Captain. How connected are you to the agency these days? Not many people know about me and—what I can do.”

  Jemison actually laughs out loud before covering her mouth. “Sorry,” she says. “You didn’t look up our current service records?”

  I feel my face growing hot. I need to work on not always appearing to be a bumbling idiot.

  Santamaria says, “Those would be under higher security. Probably not accessible off-world, or at least filed under a different section.”

  “I’ve powered down the dish for now,” I say. “Why don’t you just tell me, Captain?”

  He smiles. “Your abilities notwithstanding, the agency still does plenty of traditional smuggling. We have a regular supply route through the inner planets. About five percent of our cargo containers, usually.”

  I sit down on the couch. Now I know why I’m on this particular cruise. This is a milk run for Santamaria and Jemison, but Paul can trust them to get me out of any trouble I might get into.

  They’re my babysitters.

  “Captain,” Jemison says, “maybe Mr. Rogers can help with our current situation.”

  Wait. What situation?

  Santamaria pauses before asking me, “Rogers, what kind of scanners do you have in that eye?” He points to the left side of my face.

  “The full kit,” I say. “Passive sensors throug
h the entire EM spectrum. Now that I’ve got the comms link, I can also download any analysis software I need. I see through walls better if there’s a baseline particle emitter on the other side, but I can pick up a lot just by zeroing out ambient sources.”

  “That’s better than what we’ve got now,” Santamaria says.

  “Which is nothing,” says Jemison.

  “What do you need to scan for?” I ask. What kind of problems could cruise ship passengers cause that would require high-tech scanners to resolve?

  Santamaria stands. “It’s probably easier if we just show you.”

  I notice that Jemison is holding my pistol out, grip facing me. Her stunner is in its holster.

  “Your sidearm, Mr. Rogers,” she says.

  I can’t quite make the word sorry come out of my mouth. I’ll try again later. I’ll have to apologize to Danny and Mike, too. That will almost certainly be harder. I can see in Jemison’s eyes that she doesn’t hold a grudge—when you put enough secrets into play, they’re going to start colliding with each other.

  Besides, I’m sure she could take me down at any time if she really wanted to.

  “Thanks,” I say, standing and taking the pistol.

  I decide to show off. I turn to my right—facing away from the captain and the chief—then think of a small woolly mammoth, and open the pocket without the barrier. It appears as a black disk hovering in space, surrounded by a ragged, sparkling white halo. Air rushes noisily into the portal. I let go of the pistol, and it flies into the pocket. I close it, and the room is still again.

  “Wow,” Jemison says.

  I’m sure I have a huge grin on my face. It’s not often that I get to impress people with my superpower.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Dejah Thoris—Deck 5, passenger section

  The middle of the night, when I should be asleep, but this seems more interesting

  Santamaria and Jemison accompany me into a service elevator, and Jemison fills me in on the situation.

  “We’re keeping this quiet so we don’t cause a huge panic aboard the ship,” she says. “While you were having fun outside the ship, a fire alarm sounded in one of the passenger staterooms. Crew responded and found two bodies.”

  “Bodies?” I repeat. “People died in the fire?”

  “It’s not clear what happened,” Santamaria says. “Nobody in the adjoining areas heard anything unusual before the alarm went off. But we do have decent soundproofing between staterooms.”

  “Two bodies,” Jemison continues. “But there were three people booked into the stateroom. One passenger is missing. That’s who we were looking for when we found you.”

  “How did you find me, by the way?” I ask. “I thought I was pretty careful about covering my tracks.”

  “You’re a lousy acrobat.”

  I always do my victory dance too early. “Somebody saw that, huh?”

  “You tripped one of our exterior proximity sensors,” she says. “You’re lucky you weren’t moving any faster. Our navigational deflectors almost fried you.”

  My mouth suddenly feels very dry. “Hmm.” Note to self: ask more questions during engine room tours.

  We stop in front of stateroom 5028. Jemison hands out plastic covers for our shoes and nitrile gloves, then opens the door with her thumbprint.

  I walk inside and immediately put a hand over my nose and mouth. The odor of burnt flesh is overpowering. I look for the bathroom in case I need to throw up.

  “Sorry about the smell,” Jemison says. “We’re running the ventilators, but this is still a crime scene, and we can’t clean it up until a real forensics team goes through here.”

  This suite must be four times the size of my stateroom. The bedrooms are smaller, but there are three of them leading off the central area, one on the left, two on the right. The largest bedroom, on the left, has its own bathroom, and there’s a second bathroom next to the kitchen area.

  The living room is a shambles. Lamps have been shattered, the coffee table is smashed, and there are pieces of glass and plastic all over the couch and floor. Anything flammable has been charred to some degree. Everything is also soaked, I presume from the automatic sprinklers that put out the fire.

  “Who was staying here?” I ask through my hand.

  “The Wachlin family,” Santamaria says. “They won a sweepstakes. Random drawing for a free cruise.”

  “Lucky family.”

  “Good and bad luck.”

  Jemison leads me into the master bedroom. There’s a body on the bed, and blood everywhere. The body is a woman, pale-skinned, gray-haired, probably in her eighties. It looks like she was sleeping when somebody slit her throat. She must have woken up and struggled while being held down. There are dark red smears across both her wrists.

  “This is Emily Wachlin,” Jemison says. “She was traveling with her two adult sons, Alan and David. David is currently missing. Alan’s in the other bedroom.”

  We walk through the living room, to the bedroom directly across from the kitchen. It’s a blackened mess. The remains of a burnt human body lie on the bed.

  I gag and turn away, doing my best to keep down the gourmet dinner I enjoyed a few hours ago. I’m not successful. I run to the bathroom and throw up in the sink. I wasn’t expecting anything quite this gruesome on my first cruise.

  “Take your time,” Santamaria says while I rinse out my mouth. “David isn’t going anywhere. He can’t leave the ship, and we’re broadcasting his face now. Everyone on board will know he’s dangerous.”

  “I thought you were trying to keep this quiet.”

  “Come into the other bedroom when you’re ready.”

  Jemison is waiting for us in the last bedroom, next to the open closet. There’s a plastic tub on the floor.

  “We bagged some objects after imaging everything,” she says. She reaches into the tub and hands me a clear plastic bag with several orange cylinders inside.

  “Stelomane,” I read off a label. “And Dalazine.”

  “An antipsychotic and a sedative,” Jemison says.

  “These belonged to David Wachlin?”

  “And this.” Jemison holds up a larger bag, containing a metal doughnut with a wedge cut out of one side and a control panel attached to the top. “Our ship’s doctor identified this as an alpha wave generator. It’s supposed to stabilize the user’s brain wave patterns, help him relax.”

  “So you’ve got a schizophrenic on the loose,” I say. I’ve received enough medical briefings from Jessica to know the basics. “Probably having a prolonged psychotic episode. You can tell people he’s dangerous without telling them what he’s actually done.”

  “I don’t want a panic on my ship,” Santamaria says.

  “How long has he been missing?” I ask.

  “Three hours at most,” Jemison says. “Doc estimates that Emily and Alan were killed around midnight.”

  “Mind if I take a look around?”

  Jemison nods. “That’s why you’re here, Rogers.”

  I activate my left eye. “Anything in particular I should be looking for? My eye isn’t too good at distinguishing organic compounds, but I should be able to spot metal, ceramic, most thermosetting polymers—”

  “Start with metal,” she says. “We still haven’t found the murder weapon.”

  “I don’t suppose you have a composite fermion emitter on board,” I say.

  Jemison blows a puff of air through her lips. “Not today. You don’t have one in that pocket of yours?”

  I shake my head. “I just need something that radiates a steady and known frequency in EM. Shorter wavelengths are better. A radio transmitter should work.”

  Jemison and I stare at each other for a moment. Then her eyes light up, and she says, “Kitchen.”

  I don’t understand the word at first. She walks out of the bedroom, and I follow her into the kitchen area.

  “Maintenance, this is Security Chief Jemison,” she says into a radio button on the collar of her
uniform. “I need an electrics toolkit and two pairs of insulated gloves in suite 5028.”

  I stop behind her in the entryway. Santamaria stands on the other side of the kitchen counter, watching us with muted interest. I wonder why he’s still here. Probably to make sure I don’t annoy Jemison so much that she decides to beat me up after all.

  She taps the glass door of the box hanging below one of the kitchen cabinets, and I understand what she’s thinking.

  I smile. “Now we’re cooking with gas.”

  She frowns. “What? This is a microwave oven.”

  “Never mind.”

  While we wait for the maintenance delivery, I run the microwave oven and tune my eye to its specific frequency. I can see the metal parts inside glowing a brilliant blue-green as they’re bombarded with radiation. The wavelength is just over a millimeter.

  The doorbell rings. Jemison opens the door for a cube-shaped service robot. The top of the cube flips open, revealing a cargo compartment. Jemison crouches down to grab the supplies from inside, then taps the robot’s front-facing control panel with her wristband. Cube-bot rolls away as Jemison stands and closes the door.

  She returns to the kitchen, dismantles the oven like she does this sort of thing every day, and removes a squat gray cylinder with a small protrusion on top and two terminals toward the bottom—the magnetron, a compact microwave emitter. I put on the insulated gloves and hold the magnetron while she connects its terminals to a portable battery. The entire room lights up when she attaches the wires.

  I’m breathless for a moment as I look around, seeing every metal object glittering blue and green as electromagnetic waves bounce off its surface. A yellow-orange aurora ripples around Jemison’s forearm as the microwaves meet the radio waves emitted by her control wristband. I almost forget where I am and what I’m doing.

  “It’s working,” I say. “Want me to tell you how many fillings you’ve got in your teeth, Chief?”

  “Maybe later,” she says. I make a mental note: Jemison doesn’t like jokes when she’s working.

  Jemison disconnects the power, and we move the rig into the late Emily Wachlin’s bedroom. I hold the magnetron in front of me with both arms outstretched and slowly walk around the room. Jemison follows, making sure I don’t pull the cable out of the battery. Santamaria watches from the doorway.