Tim did exactly what Frida had expected by contacting the main Life-Ultra offices on Earth. When he asked the limited AI to connect him to the “Quality Oversight Taskforce,” it connected him directly to Frida, thanks to the false entry put in by Tanaka’s netjacker contact in Toronto. Of course, Frida cleared them and assured Tim that Leo and Juliet were on the up-and-up.
The next thing Juliet knew, they both had temporary access cards and were stepping through the security checkpoint. The guard, startled by the sudden activity on a shift that was usually quiet, seemed nervous enough when he scanned Leo, but when Juliet stepped through his full-body scanner, he stood up and began to gesticulate wildly.
“We can’t have you bring all that into the building. There’s a locker in my station . . .”
Leo waved his hand dismissively. “My personal security detail is fully licensed and cleared by corporate for all that hardware.” Juliet took the cue and stepped through, ignoring the man.
“But, um, I don’t have you on any lists . . .”
Juliet turned toward him and gave him the full effect of her icy demeanor through her mirrored helmet visor. In a rasp that would’ve given even Ghoul goosebumps, she growled, “Talk to Timmy about it.” Then, she turned and followed Leo onto the elevator. The guard stared at them until the doors closed, and she could tell the wheels were spinning in his head. “He might be a problem,” she subvocalized into their comms.
Leo surprised her by doing the same, his throat barely giving away the action, “I don’t think so. He’s overweight, sloppily dressed, and used to a long, quiet night shift. He won’t want to stir up a hornet’s nest.” He tapped the elevator control panel, and with a stomach-dropping lurch, it began to descend. “Tim said the weight loss division has labs on sublevels twenty through thirty-two.”
Juliet frowned despite the fact that no one could see her face. “Doesn’t that sound weird to you?”
“What?”
“Thirteen basement levels for diet drugs?”
Frida’s voice chimed in, reminding her that she and Leo weren’t exactly alone, “Life-Ultra is a large company with many products in development. This is an R&D installation, so you can assume they have trials ongoing.”
“How many employees are in this tower?” Leo asked.
“Seventeen thousand and change are listed in their public-facing corporate database.”
“Seriously?” Juliet asked, surprised. “Just here on Luna?”
“Yes, and eighty-four percent live in the tower. That’s why the lobby’s so quiet at night; the workers just use the central, employee-only elevators.”
Juliet started to feel a little nervous, and it took her a minute to realize why; the whole thing was giving her major Grave Industries vibes. “They must have a corpo-sec department. That guy in the lobby can’t be it . . .”
Frida was quick to agree, heading off her further questions, “Oh, they do. They’re mostly off-duty right now, but they’re all on call. It’s probably wise to hurry as much as you can because if that officer in the lobby starts to get too nervous, he might call for backup, and that could lead to higher-ranking officers calling numbers that won’t go through to me.”
The elevator lurched to a stop, the doors slid open, and Juliet stepped through, scanning left to right, still acting the role of Leo’s security. Sub-level twenty of the Life-Ultra building wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Grave Tower. Polished concrete floors, white walls, and plain metal doors that read DIET, NUTRITION, AND LIFE EXTENSION CENTRAL OFFICE were the only things in the lobby, other than an overfull trashcan. Leo marched up to the doors and slapped his temporary pass to the scanner on the access panel. They clicked open, allowing them through. The room beyond dispelled any illusions that Life-Ultra was wholly asleep.
A central reception counter sat at the center of a massive space with low ceilings, bright lighting, and hundreds of partitioned desks. More than the many cubicles and desks, the dozens upon dozens of bustling, harried-looking employees in business-casual attire gave the place the same kind of feeling as a busy train station. Leo marched up to the desk and was greeted by a synth with feminine prosthetics and beautiful, curly, auburn hair. She was focused on the empty air in front of her face and held up a single finger, saying, “A moment.” Then she continued to stare at some invisible AUI, handling a task that was, apparently, quite urgent.
Juliet started to step forward menacingly, but Leo held out a hand, lightly touching the back of her glove where her fist still gripped the stock of her shotgun. “Patience,” he mouthed, winking one of those bright, sky-blue eyes. Juliet nodded and stepped back; for a moment, she’d forgotten she wasn’t inside a pirate base. After a moment, the receptionist blinked several times and then focused on Leo. “Hello, Mr. Farmer. I understand you’ve come to inspect some databases.”
“Databases? Well, I’ll certainly take some copies, but I’m here to review some projects, with a few employees as the focus of my investigation. We’ve had some red flags set off back at corporate.”
“Oh?” The synth did a remarkable job of looking both intrigued and scandalized.
“That’s right. Can you direct me to the labs or offices of . . .” He frowned and pretended to examine something on his AUI, “Just a moment. Let’s see here . . . Ah, there we are! Let’s start with Sabrina Estes.”
“Certainly. Dr. Estes is working tonight. I’ll have her come up.”
“No, no. I’ll go to her. Do not alert her, Charlene.” Juliet smiled inside her helmet. His PAI must have pinged her for an ID, and, of course, she’d provided her name and employee information. “Not unless you want to end up on the chopping block, too.”
“Oh my! Someone’s on the chopping block?”
Leo winked, leaning forward on the counter. “You didn’t hear it from me.”
“I see that you have a temporary access card with C-level permissions. I’m afraid Dr. Estes has laboratories on sublevel thirty-one, which requires A-level permissions.”
“No, no, Charlene. If my access is only C-level, then the young man in the lobby made a serious error. I have full access to everything in this facility directly from corporate.”
She nodded, the articulated plasteel segments of her neck smoothly folding into each other. “I’ll have to verify that.”
Leo sighed and turned away from her, leaning his back on the counter and locking eyes with Juliet. “You have my department contact info. Make it quick, please. I was supposed to be done with this inspection two hours ago.” After he spoke, his voice came through comms as he continued subvocalizing, “This might not work. Frida, is Lee geared up?”
“Geared up, netwalking, and already halfway through the ICE. Just stall that lady for a few minutes. Oops! I think she’s calling.”
Juliet shifted the shotgun in her arms, slowly turning in a circle, letting Angel get a good scan of the bustling room. She highlighted a lot of cameras and scanners but no weapons. A surprising number of the employees walking to and fro appeared to be synths, more than half. By the time she’d turned back to Leo, Frida was speaking into comms, “I don’t think I passed her smell test.”
The synth spoke almost simultaneously, “I’m sorry, Mr. Farmer, but your department manager failed to provide today’s security phrase. She said she’s contacting your head of network security for an updated phrase. You’re welcome to wait here until she gets back to me.”
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Frida’s name flashed on the comm HUD, “Hang tight, guys—Dora’s almost through.”
“If I’d known they were going to breach the corporate network, I might have offered some assistance,” Angel said.
Juliet smiled, knowing full well that Angel would probably have been in by now if only she had access to the network. “Yeah, I know, Angel, but I think it’s better if Dora can do it. I like these folks, and I’m starting to trust them, but I’d rather they didn’t know everything we’re capable of, you know?”
“Yes, I agree.”
“I wonder how she connected to their network.” Juliet wanted to ask in comms but also wanted to maintain voice discipline in case something important came through. “Also, wasn’t she busy with Hawkins interrogating that corpo-sec lieutenant?”
“Impressive versatility and effective hand-offs, wouldn’t you say?” Angel sounded almost smug.
Juliet sighed. “I never said they wouldn’t be good.”
“Sir, there are chairs there by the door if you’d like to sit while you wait.”
Leo smiled and shook his head, somehow leaning further onto the counter. “I’m fine. She’ll get that passphrase soon, I’m sure. My department doesn’t usually run into an issue like this.”
“She’s in,” Frida announced. “Should have it soon.”
“Quite a little flurry of activity in here. Are all your shifts so busy?” Leo gestured to the bustling workers behind the reception counter.
The receptionist took a few seconds to respond, her eyes clearly focused on an AUI element. “Oh yes—always results to tabulate and collate, trial participants to track down and debrief, suppliers to shuffle, accounts to reconcile; it’s a never-ending data mill, I’m afraid.” Leo took a breath to follow up, but she spoke first. “Ah! I’ve just received confirmation from your office, Mr. Farmer. You’re cleared to proceed down to Lab B31. A representative from Life-Ultra corpo-sec will meet you at the elevator on that level.”
Leo frowned. “Is that necessary? I hate an entourage.”
“I’m afraid so. We’re unable to issue temporary passes for A-level access. The corpo-sec representative will escort you and help you to access what you need.”
Leo nodded and turned on his heel, marching back toward the doors and the elevators beyond. Juliet followed, feeling decidedly nervous about descending even further into the depths beneath the tower. It felt awfully risky to her, being thirty stories underground, operating under false pretenses, on Life-Ultra soil without any sort of legal or corporate backing. If they were made to disappear, no one could do anything about it.
Still, Leo was moving ahead as though he didn’t have a care in the world, and she was there to support him. No, she corrected herself; he was there for her. They were all getting into this for her. For the hundredth time that night, she hoped Leo could dig up the evidence they needed and that they could slip away before something went wrong.
As the elevator descended, Frida said, “Lucky, you have a data jack, right?”
“Yeah?”
“Their security is a bit stiffer than Dora expected. If the lab has a closed network, which she thinks it will, we’re going to need you to jack into a terminal. Leo will try to create the opportunity for you.”
“You want me to be a pass-through for Dora?” Juliet asked, wondering if that would expose Angel.
“Right,” Frida replied.
As if she had read her mind, Angel said, “I can do that without allowing her to touch any of my data.”
The elevator halted, the doors opened, and Leo stepped out, face to face, with a corpo-sec officer in full tactical gear—a helmet, armored vest, and submachine gun on a sling. Angel highlighted his guns and cybernetic equipment—another pistol, a full-leg prosthetic, ocular implants, and something that glowed like a little reactor in his chest.
“He has a high-end medical nanite suite,” Angel said, trying to explain the unusual highlight.
“Noted.” Juliet stood tall, her boots and helmet giving her about an inch on the stocky man, and faced him aggressively. She had no doubt that she could take him, even without her powered combat armor, and she let that confidence bleed out.
“Hello, Mr. Farmer. I’ll accompany you and open doors.” He looked at Juliet, then away quickly, his natural-looking brown eyes beneath his helmet’s brim looking quite nervous.
“Proceed, Officer Rivera.” Leo gestured impatiently. “You know the way better than I.”
“Right, um, this way.” He started down the short concrete hallway to a closed door labeled LABORATORY B31. Beneath that, in smaller letters, it read, Authorized Personnel Only. Their escort approached the panel and leaned forward, allowing it to scan his retina. A moment later, a green light appeared, and the door clicked open. When Juliet passed through behind the two men, she found herself in a very long corridor lined with reinforced glass windows that provided a view of dozens of individual labs, many of which were occupied by scientists. Some wore white lab coats, and some wore full-on, biohazard clean-suits.
Rivera walked with purpose, apparently knowing where to find Sabrina Estes. They turned down two hallways that looked identical to the first, and Juliet lost count of the number of labs and workers they passed. Halfway down that third corridor, the corpo-sec officer stopped and pointed to the window on his left, where Juliet saw three lab-coat-wearing individuals sitting around a big black table strewn with test tubes, bio-hazard pouches, and data terminals. They were in the middle of a heated conversation. One woman—blonde with a surgically implanted high-end optical visor—gesticulated wildly, her face red with either passion or anger.
“That’s Dr. Estes,” their escort said. When Leo nodded, the officer stepped up to the door and pressed a keycard to it, then leaned forward for an optical scan. When the door beeped and opened, the three scientists within became very still, and you could have heard a pin drop when Leo stepped into the lab.
“Hello there, Doctors!” Leo walked toward the table, and all three scientists stood up from the table and backed away. The woman with the visor scowled and folded her arms over her chest.
“What’s this about?”
“Dr. Estes! I’m delighted to finally put a face to the name. I’ve been reading about you all day as I made the transit from Toronto. I’m Elliot Farmer, executive vice president of Life-Ultra’s new Quality Oversight Taskforce, and I’m here to take a close look at your operation.” He turned to the corpo-sec officer who’d followed them into the room. “You can wait outside, officer. I’m not sure Dr. Estes wants such an audience during our interview.” He gestured to Juliet. “I’m certain I’ll be safe.” Again, he winked, flawlessly pulling off the demeanor of a man who felt very sure he was beyond criticism.
Rivera nodded. “I’ll be just outside.”
“What about your colleagues here, doctor? Should they be present for this interview?” Leo jerked his thumb at the two scientists who were, somehow, continuing to shrink away from Estes.
Estes continued to scowl over her visor, her thin lips twisting into something of a snarl as she waved her two colleagues off with a flick of her fingers. “Take your work and go to module fourteen. I’ll take care of this glorified bean counter.” The two quickly gathered up a pair of data decks and hurried past Juliet, cringing away from her as they went by. When it was just the three of them in the room, Leo stepped up to the table and sat on one of the stools across from Estes.
“Won’t you take a seat? I’ve so many questions for you.”
She groaned. “What’s this about? Farmer, was it?”
“That’s right. Farmer. You can call me Elliot, though. I’m not big on formality. Listen, I’m not here to make your day difficult, and if you can explain a few things for me, I’m sure I’ll be out of your hair in no time.” While he spoke, Juliet moved further into the room, slowly edging toward the far end of the table so she could see the door and Leo at the same time. It didn’t hurt that a data deck with a network cable plugged into it sat on that end of the table. If she could just insert her data cable while Estes was busy with Leo, she might make this whole thing much faster.
“Angel, if I plug you in, are you ready to dig around a little?”
“Always.”
“What’s your goon doing?” Estes jerked her thumb at Juliet.
“That ‘goon’ is very well paid to keep me safe, Doctor. I’m sure she’s moving into a position that will better facilitate that.” Leo leaned onto the table, resting his chin in his palm as he propped it up with his elbow. “Won’t you sit down?” He had a tone and way of looking at a person that, Juliet had to admit, was very charming. Estes sighed and sat down.
“Well? What’s this about?”
“We’re responding to an internal whistleblower report. Well, it started out that way, but after we did a little verifying, we’re finding some numbers that don’t add up in your department. I was hoping you could explain it all away, and I could spend a few days enjoying the sights here on Luna. What do you say?”
“Whistleblower?” Estes narrowed her eyes. “About?” While they were speaking, Juliet had surreptitiously slipped her data cable out, and at that moment, while Estes looked surprised and worried, she deftly slipped it into one of the ports on the data deck. It wasn’t surprising that Estes didn’t notice her; the table was very cluttered, and she wasn’t even sure the doctor could see the deck.
Angel immediately said, “I’ve notified Dora that you’re connected. I’ll use her breach to speed things up.”
To Juliet’s shock and a surprised exhalation from Dr. Estes, Leo said, “Well, we’re receiving some very disturbing reports about some organ harvesting. Can you clear that up for me?”
“What? That operation is one hundred percent sanctioned by corporate! I’m totally covered, Farmer! I’ve got hard copies of the directives to prove it! Are they trying to pin this mess on me? I knew this was going to happen!”
“Woah! Slow down, Doc.” Leo chuckled, tamping his hands down in the air. “Our department operates independently in the corporation. How else would we ever get anything done? Tell me what’s going on, and I’ll take this back up the ladder.”
“It’s not ‘organ harvesting!’” Estes made air quotes as she practically yelled. “We’re recovering faulty specimens from the Genesis Program debacle!”
The way she spat the words “Genesis Program” made it very clear that she expected Leo to know what it was. Angel picked up on that and said, “I’m in their system and searching for the project she mentioned.”
Leo cleared his throat, perhaps trying to buy a moment to think. “Tell me more,” he said.
“They were going haywire! We co-opted some LCS officers the company had on payroll, had them pick up the subjects, and then broke them down, removing any trace! Do you think we shouldn’t have brought back the organs, especially the brains? How else are we going to figure out what the hell is going wrong with that damned project? God! The mess Travis left us with! We still have more than seventy project subjects out there, walking the streets, traveling the system! One of those things killed his ‘wife’ and kids! What would you do?” Again, she made air quotes, and Juliet’s mind began to run down weird paths, trying to figure out why she’d do that for a word like wife.
“Mmhmm.” Leo nodded, rubbing his chin. “Mmhmm. This is making a lot more sense. The dots are connecting."
Estes seemed to be relaxing, but she suddenly glanced Juliet’s way and then back to Leo, and Juliet swore she could read her mind without even trying; she was suspicious and about to panic. Juliet stared at her, slowly breathing in, relaxing, and willing the doctor’s thoughts to come her way. Almost effortlessly, she heard her voice in her head:
This is off. Something’s off. They’re here for me. I’m not going down alone. Rosie, implement purge protocols!
Juliet frowned, puzzling over the thought. Was Rosie her PAI? An assistant? Purge protocols? As she grappled with the implications of what she’d heard, Frida said into comms, “Dora says Life-Ultra corpo-sec just issued an all-hands terrorist threat response to sublevel B31. Get out of there!”
Faster than Leo could blink and straighten up, Juliet yanked her needler out and silently put two botu-rounds in the doctor. As the door hissed open, she jammed the needler back in its holster and sidestepped as she brought her auto-shotgun to bear on the doorway. She saw the corpo-sec officer’s SMG poke through the opening. She didn’t need the arrow Angel drew on her AUI to tell her he was pointing the gun at Leo. She didn’t hesitate, pressing the trigger and basking in the roar as, in less than a second, half a dozen polyblast shells ripped the plasteel doorframe to shreds and did something similar to Officer Rivera. He didn’t even get a chance to scream.
Leo scurried around the table and snatched Estes off the stool where she’d slumped onto the table. He threw her over his shoulder and glanced at Juliet. “She’s not dead, right?”
“Nope.”
“We need to get her out of here. Hopefully, Dora pulls enough evidence, but, shit, Lucky, we’re boned. This wasn’t one bad employee. This is something messed up involving the whole corp! Goddamn it! They’re going to be swarming this floor!” Just then, Angel upped the gain on her auditory implants, and Juliet realized that a sound she’d taken as background noise or a strange machine malfunctioning in the distance was, instead, the sound of people screaming.
“Juliet,” Angel said, “I’m in their network. I’m looking at the camera feeds. The synths working down here appear to have gone mad. They’re killing everyone.”