CHAPTER 021
SECURITY MONITORS
Against Michelle’s protest, I left alone. I argued there was a reason they’d never book passage for the president and their vice on the same shuttle; here the same principle applied. She was our designated survivor. She’d seen the body. She knew the score. At the very least, she knew almost as much as I did about what had truly happened on the Lunar Express, and at least most of why. I trusted that in the unlikely event something happened to me, she’d be clever enough to make her way to my room, where G and CAT could fill her in on…
Okay. Shit. Not a great plan. But it was all I had. Not quite enough to inspire confidence, but plenty to keep my thoughts from straying too far on the brisk walk to the captain’s quarters.
As I approached the area designated by the hallway signs as the bow, I found the two toadies that had backed up Bailey earlier in the evening posted outside the secure area surrounding the brig. There was no need to jostle them for the time being. Attempting to check on Wilder again would only raise alarm bells. It was better off if they thought I was bothering Dillon Fox on unrelated business. As if there were so much of that to go around.
To the old man’s credit, he was at the door before I could unleash the second round of knocks. Once again he’d yet to escape his formal garb. One epaulet drooped precariously as he made a show of refastening his buttons before dignifying my intrusion with a response.
“Something I can help you with, Miller?”
“Just a couple questions about your prisoner.”
He sighed. “You know exactly why he’s in there and what he’s done. Don’t you ever sleep?”
“Don’t you?”
The two guards perked up, waiting for Fox’s signal to intervene. Our repartee must have been more heated than I imagined. I did have the tendency to shout over my own sleepiness. He shook them off and waved me into his chambers.
“I’m not sure how you’ve missed this, but I’m supposed to be sleeping right now.”
“Of course. I’m sure it takes plenty of rest to land a ship tied to a string.”
Fox, hands on hips, took a moment for my unwarranted jab to sink in. I couldn’t tell whether it was his grogginess or the sheer randomness of my aggression that prompted the delay.
“Is there something specific I can help you with?”
“You arrested Vance Wilder tonight.”
“Me? Personally? No. I authorized him being placed under temporary detainment, though if you’d seen the mess he made of the fountain I imagine you’d have done the same, at the very least.”
I glanced around the room, trying to get my bearings. We stood at an awkward impasse in a small sitting area that passed for a breakroom– a chipped coffee table bearing the remnants of an abandoned card game, a set of couches with faults too visible for the guestrooms. Behind him, through the glass partition, I could see the shadowed silhouettes of bunkbeds containing the other members of the day shift flight crew.
“And I suppose you have your best people keeping a close watch on him?”
Fox rubbed at a twitching eye with the flat of his wrist. “I’m not sure who is on shift at the moment, to be perfectly honest with you. If you’d like to ask Lieutenant Bailey he will be glad to fill you in.”
“Not that it matters. It’s not like he can leave that room once he’s in there, right?”
“What are you getting at, Miller? It’s late. I have to be on the bridge early to oversee the landing protocol.”
“I’m just saying, it’s not like there are any other ways in or out of the brig. He can’t exactly pry a window open and shimmy out.”
Fox stared back at me blankly.
“I know all about the secret tunnels.”
“You mean the utility corridors? What about them?”
“You said that no one was in or out of Russo’s suite at the time of the killing. I say that someone was, through the only means there is of traveling throughout the Lunar Express without being seen.”
“That’s quite the theory, except for the fact that the tunnels are automatically sealed during the liftoff sequence. There’s no way to access them without tripping the security system, even for those of us with clearance. We’d have noticed.”
“Unless whoever was in there bypassed the security system altogether.”
Fox furrowed his brow, considering the possibility. “They’d have to be a hell of a hacker to pull it off. The ship runs off as much legacy tech as possible. Mr. Denaro insisted upon it. It’s not the kind of stuff most people have ever seen, much less know how to exploit.”
“How about someone trained across multiple disciplines? As in, someone who could also break into the original passenger list and put themselves on it?”
“You think Vance Wilder has something to do with this.” Fox crossed his arms over his chest. His even tone made it impossible to discern whether it was a defensive posture or whether he was bracing for a revelation.
“I think that if he managed to get onto the ship uninvited, there’s a good chance whoever made that possible could also help him move around it undetected. Now I doubt Wilder himself has those skills, but he’s known for surrounding himself with others more capable.”
“Present company included, I take it?” Fox didn’t bother disguising a smirk.
I couldn’t take it anymore. “With all due respect, Captain, I have a job to do. Whether or not you believe it, we are not at cross purposes. You’re charged with keeping Denaro’s passengers safe. I’m trying to do the same thing. Your cooperation would be appreciated but is not necessary. I’m sure when we get to Luna, Frankie will be thrilled to hear that you stood around with your thumbs up your ass rather than lifting a finger to help.”
I’d taken my shot. If Fox was in actuality aligned with Wilder, I would for sure be the next corpse found in his room. My gut instinct was that his refusal to commit wholly in either direction meant he was as skeptical of me as I was of him. A Denaro man would demonstrate such canniness; a Wilder mark would have been more easily persuaded and given the game up far earlier. I’m not sure what that said about me, or at least who I was pretending to be.
“Then let’s go check in on Mr. Wilder.”
The small command center outside the brig contained a bank of viewing monitors connected to the Express’s surveillance system. In addition to the guard at the door, two others scanned the video feed for any signs of disturbance. None of the guards bothered to salute Fox as he entered. He did not seem to mind. For someone so firmly entrenched in formality, it was interesting that he was capable of separating the trappings of his office from the person filling the position. It spoke to a supreme confidence in his own authority. During off hours, he was perfectly comfortable letting someone else play the role of captain because he didn’t need the title or formal displays of allegiance to know that he was in charge.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
We regarded the blanket-wrapped lump on the bed on the opposite side of the viewing panel.
“Is this good enough for you?” Fox asked.
“And no one’s seen him move?” I polled the room in general. “No lengthy trips to the facilities?”
“Apart from a bit o’ rolling here and there, nothing,” a guard offered. “Heard the med team gave him the full dose.”
“That would make it tough for him to sneak out through the tunnels, even if he wasn’t being watched.”
“What would make it even tougher is that the utility corridors aren’t connected to the brig,” Fox added. “It wouldn’t make much sense to stick a secret escape hatch to the one place we don’t want people escaping from.”
“I don’t suppose it would,” I admitted.
“Like I said, no one in the tunnels.”
“At least not at the moment.”
A serpentine vein pulsed at the side of Fox’s forehead. “Mr. Miller, I don’t know what you’re suggesting but—”
“Look, Fox, I know what I saw.”
The captain’s eyes widened and his mouth clamped shut. “Gentlemen, the room, please?”
“Sir?”
Whatever air of casualness Fox had arrived with dissipated without warning. His speech resumed its clipped, stentorian phrasing. “You can wait outside. Mr. Miller and I will monitor your posts. If the first mate has a problem with that, tell him he can bring it up with me in the morning.”
The guards scrambled to exit, offering hasty half-salutes on their way out. Fox was too busy staring a hole through me to notice. He waited until we were alone to continue.
“Excuse me, but did you say ‘what I saw’? As in, you saw someone in there because you were in there too? Did you think that maybe this was something you should have brought to my attention beforehand?”
“I should have, it’s just that—”
“When Mr. Denaro told me that as his personal guest, I was to grant you a certain range of freedom about the Express, I was wary. I told him that it was none of my business, but if I were him I’d be more skeptical of someone willing to work for Vance Wilder on short notice. Do you know what he told me?”
At least Fox’s righteous indignation suggested that I’d read him accurately. Sure, that was little comfort amidst the ass-chewing, but it was better than nothing.
“He told me I was right. It wasn’t any of my business.”
“Oh.”
“Oh indeed. Now I have spent the last two days with my head on a swivel, trying to figure out which side you’re really on, and now it turns out you’ve been traipsing around in the off-limits areas outside the security grid. I’ve got half a mind to lock you up with your boss and let LunaSec deal with you after we land. They’ll probably want to hear all about what you saw while you were trespassing in dangerous areas of the craft.”
I took a deep breath. I had a very narrow window if I had any hope of calming the captain’s wrath before he ended my investigation prematurely.
“I saw Gianetta Denaro in there, for one.”
“G?” Fox’s anger softened to a very aggressive concern. “Her parents didn’t say anything to me about her riding up with us. She’s not on the manifest, and I haven’t seen her security detail.”
“That’s because she’s been hiding out. I caught her trying to sneak back out of my room. Turns out she’s got some sort of device that lets her interface with the ship’s mainframe.”
“Ugh, I know the one. During one of our test flights she used it to switch the video feed to the inner guest cabin windows to footage from a disaster movie. Thought it was hysterical.”
I stifled a snicker. When I looked to see if Fox had noticed, I caught him grinning at the memory.
“It does sound amusing,” I admitted. “She’s a clever one. I wonder what other tricks she’s got up her sleeve.”
“Plenty I’m sure. I’ve known her since she was knee high to a bumble bee and she’s always been deep into mischief. Is she all right?”
“She’s fine. On a somewhat related note, I also know where all the missing things have been running off to. She said she’ll get your nanodrive back to you when she’s done with it.”
Fox’s grin widened. “Sounds like the G I know. Should I prepare the brig for her once we kick Wilder out?”
“No need. She’s in my room with explicit instructions from Mr. Denaro to stay put. I had her disable the hidden entrance and set an alert for my comex if the main door opens.”
“Good. I’ll post extra security in your hall just in case.” The smile faded from the captain’s face as his phonological loop kicked in. “You said that you saw her for one. Who else did you see in there?”
“No visual contact, unfortunately, but right after I caught up with G we heard someone else walking around back there.”
“Are you sure? It could have just been echoes down the ventilation shaft. They can be quite disorienting.”
“I’m not sure echoes would have been able to manually override one of the airlocks G shut to try to slow them down.”
Fox went over to one of the guard’s workstations and hammered in a few strokes on the keyboard. An array of menus popped up. He scrolled through them quickly, not giving any indication what he was looking for.
“Son of a bitch. None of this is showing up in the reports. Corridor access, airlocks…”
“How about the artificial gravity generators?”
Fox arched an eyebrow at me and pressed a few more buttons.
“No, nothing. I knew these systems were outdated, but I had no idea it was this bad.”
“Is that the same reason the comms network is down? Old infrastructure?”
The captain thought about it long enough to tell me hadn’t considered the option. “I knew we’d hit a dead spot, but our tech said that solar flare conditions were consistent with levels capable of causing a temporary outage.”
“I think it is more likely that whoever killed Russo has full access to the ship’s systems. After all, would solar flares explain why all the accessible passenger info has defaulted to prior versions?”
Fox set his jaw. Unlike G’s previous feats of technology, this one elicited no note of surprise.
It was my turn to appraise the captain critically. I let the silence linger, giving him the opportunity to clarify on his own. When he chose not to, I pressed on. “I’m guessing solar flares have nothing to do with what’s going on there, does it?”
“I can explain.” The captain’s voice was calm and flat in a preemptive sense, like he was trying to condition me to mirror him no matter how bad the news was he was about to deliver. “It’s the only way we could get clearance to leave Earth. Even though it’s a private flight, there are still certain requirements that need to be met. It used to just be a matter of having the right slip of paper for certification. Now thanks to onboard integration with the government’s systems, the Lunar Express won’t fully function unless all the criteria are satisfied.”
I couldn’t quite fathom what Fox was getting at. “Criteria such as…”
“I am not, technically speaking, licensed to pilot this craft.” My eyes must have flicked to the exit more obviously than I planned. “And before you get the wrong idea, Mr. Denaro knows this. In fact, he was the one who insisted on it. If we get caught it’s a minor infraction, a small fine at most.”
“But why would you get caught?” I continued with Fox’s train of thought. “It’s a space elevator. It’s not like you’re worried about going off course or running out of fuel or crashing into another vessel. And outside of a specific incident, who would care? There’s no reason that one of the richest men in the system would risk bending the rules over something trivial.”
“Exactly. And it isn’t like he was afraid of me running off with the Express. It’s a fairly conspicuous vehicle, as you might imagine.”
“Plus it’s connected to a string,” I reminded him.
“It’s a carbon nanotube tether,” he responded humorlessly. “So we used an old smuggler’s trick to bypass the standard security protocol, jiggering with certain dates and altering a few preconfigured settings. It was Matteo’s idea, actually. Must have been something he picked up from Marco. It worked. According to the government’s own safeguards, everyone who needs to be is cleared for duty.”
“And at the low price of having no idea who else is on board.”
Fox bristled at the suggestion. “I was an exception, one that Mr. Denaro himself signed off on.”
“What about Vance Wilder?” I reminded him. “He was never supposed to be part of this trip.”
“We knew about him ahead of time.”
“How about G? No one had any clue she was along for the ride.”
“Obviously an exception.”
“And I’ve seen the file photos your staff was using to confirm passenger identities.”
“Mr. Denaro thought more intrusive methods were unnecessary and unbecoming. This is an invitation-only luxury experience, not the L train.” The edge in his voice told me Fox was beginning to take my scrutiny personally.
“I saw the picture they used for Michelle. If she hadn’t been there to confirm it herself, it could have been any number of people. Now she’s probably a poor example, considering that she’s a public figure, but how many of the other passengers could pass for someone else a decade ago? Or vice versa.”
“You’re saying we have an impostor on board?” The captain reddened with indignity. The silvery cast of his hair and beard exaggerated the effect, making his head appear a ball of flame.
It was important that Fox knew I was not his enemy. Even if the workaround that allowed the captain to maintain his post had benefited the killer somehow, there remained a chance it was purely coincidental. I tried to defuse the situation as best as possible.
“All I am saying is that I would like to get a better sense of who we are actually dealing with.”
Fox, recognizing the olive branch, cooled down a tad. “And how do you suggest we do that, go room to room checking IDs? At this hour?”
Next to Fox, the security monitors cycled through feeds of empty hallways and dining rooms with their chairs flipped up onto the tables, waiting to be reset for morning service. According to the clock on the screen, that would be sooner than later.
“I think I’ve got a better idea.”