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Eukara Vox -> RE: Writing through the Genres - my class 2013 (4/11/2013 23:27:50)
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Mystery and Science Fiction
Hunting the Hunter
Co-written with Kellehendros
Impera hated the interstellar flights aboard the standard cruisers. They were advertised to be perfectly attuned to the needs of all races, but that was an untruth. The needs of most humanoids, maybe, but her people, the Tarbh Nathrach, were not comfortable aboard these vessels. The back of the seats pressed against her wings painfully, there wasn't enough leg space, and there was absolutely no atmospheric conditioning. It didn't matter how much scented pheromone one put on, it never really masked a person's true smell. Currently, according to her calculations, approximately seventy-five percent of the passengers had some strange notion that the essence of blooms made them more acceptable.
The last time she had traveled via Nicholbeck Liners, she had submitted a formal complaint. They had assured her in honey-coated words they were looking into it. It had been ten intergalactic years since that complaint. Inefficiency was annoying.
The exit from the wormhole was jarring, even with the warning from the captain. Impera grumbled, catching a few looks aimed at her from other passengers. It felt as if she was the only person who expected precision and professionalism from the ship’s crew. Was it so much to ask for a smooth exit? It seemed to take an unusual amount of time to dock, keeping Impera’s senses on edge. Surely, the issues she was called in to investigate hadn’t spread to the port. If so, this planet’s inability to contain its crimes and infractions needed to be evaluated by the Galactic Prime. She flipped open the small screen on her primary right wrist and entered a note for later. Someone would hear about this.
The announcement to exit the ship came and Impera hurried off. She had a job to do, and if her initial reports indicated anything, it was that this one wasn’t done. High priority hit, selective, efficient and completely by surprise. A dozen hitmen fit that profile so far, which she already had downloaded into her wrist processor. As she entered the commons, Impera saw the Head of the Nichle Planetary Security waiting for her. She examined him as she approached. He was already on her list of wasted time.
Sabarel stared off the roof evenly, looking down into the plaza below. The golden pupils of his eyes slipped back and forth, taking a moment to gauge the buildings around the open space. This would do. It was by no means a perfect vantage point, but if he knew anything it was that finding the perfect vantage point was both impossible, and sure to result in discovery. Discovery invariably lead to conflict, and conflict was to be avoided at all costs.
He was not, to be honest, afraid of conflict. Bloodshed was his business, after all. It was simply that open conflict was... inefficient. Sabarel took a last look around the roof. Yes, this would do, it would do nicely. Kneeling, he slung the black bag off his shoulder and opened it, drawing out the tools that would be necessary for the task ahead.
“I am very well aware of the implications that I have stated, quite openly and clearly. Take it how you decide, Commander Gist, but the facts are the facts. The Chancellor of Bordek was killed, quite easily, while your patrol stood by outside his door.”
The commander sputtered as he struggled to keep up with Impera’s long stride. “My men were doing their jobs. This assassin was a magician. I cannot help that.”
Impera spun around, halting the entire procession and looked down into the commander’s face., towering over him “Your men were not doing their jobs. Had they been doing their jobs, at least one would be dead, another wounded and the chancellor would be alive.” She blinked her compound eyes as her skin registered the levels of hormones flooding his body. Anger, humiliation... and a taste of frustration wafted off of him. “There is no such thing as magic, Commander. There is but sleight of hand, illusion, and perfect science. What you call magic is merely what you do not understand.”
“I have the surveillance footage on my wrist processor. I’ve already looked over it several times.” She continued to move towards the room the chancellor’s body still lay in. “There were no guards on the balcony, nor were there any guarding the windows. I am surprised, Commander, that such little protection was afforded a man who was so highly valued in the underground as dead.”
They paused in front of a door. The commander fumbled with his ID to open the door for the group. Impera sighed and tapped a single line of code into her wrist processor, opening the door. Still one of the fastest in the Prime.
The first task was to secure a perimeter. From the bag came a small, clinking package of black silk. Sabarel placed it on the roof and stood, tail swishing back and forth as he raised one booted foot and drove it down hard, heel first, on the package. There was a muted crunching as the fragile glass of the package gave under the concerted pressure, shattering into fragments. A scaled hand reached down, lifting the package, claws tearing the black silk open and scattering the the broken glass back and forth before the door that lead back into the building. There were a hundred other methods he might have used to give himself warning, should someone come onto the roof while he was watching the plaza, but Sabarel preferred glass. It was an old method, generally shunned in favor of infrared beams, contact pads, or even localized tremor detectors. Sabarel had found, over the years, that glass was best. It did not require batteries, or sound systems, or even attention beyond normal hearing. Glass had the additional benefit of being easily overlooked, and even easily dismissed, by overworked guards doing a final security sweep. Beyond climbing the sides of the building, or dropping down from the air, the door was the only way onto the roof. A good choke point.
He straightened up, inspecting the work for a moment, before turning his gaze back towards the edge of the building. Sabarel sidled to the side, taking in the view of the plaza and surrounding buildings as he moved along the roof, settling on a location he was satisfied with after a moment. Going back down to one knee, he drew a marker from a pocket, making a small dot on the roof. Stretching, he made a second dot before him, almost touching the raised lip of the roof, and then a third dot to his left, creating a long, isosceles triangle with its tip aimed at the plaza. Sabarel stood again, taking a long moment to stare down into the plaza from his chosen vantage point before nodding to no one in particular.
Looking at the scene, it was a wonder how this man was so important. Chaos ruled the quarters, and it was not from the assassination. It was from the slovenly, hedonistic behaviour of the occupant. Sitting down on a chair brought in from the outside, the woman set her case in front of her. Her primary hands worked a touch screen computer she drew from her case, while her secondary hands worked with an electronic drawing pad.
Impera began to diagram everything, from the position of all the entrances and exits, to the arrangement of the furniture, with her secondary hands. Her primary hands were quickly connecting to the infrastructure of the PlanetNet, code being typed rapidly as she looked around. Periodically, she would stand and walk around, her compound eyes reflecting the various lights. Angle was everything, mathematics her evidence.
She blinked and paused. An odd...blip on the PlanetNet coding. She diverted all her attention to the code work, the drawing pad hugged to her thorax by the secondary arms. She could hear the commander in the background, speaking rapidly. An argument ensued, but Impera ignored it. Something about this was exceptional. The code looked familiar, yet the changes made set up loops and channels that only funneled her hacking skills to places she wasn’t interested in.
Commander Gist held up his hand and stared at Impera. He never understood her kind. Always in another world, thinking on a level no one understood. Tarbh Nathrach were odd people. It didn’t help she was a six foot tall bug. He knew the dragonflies on Terra that she resembled... or they resembled her. Apparently the jury was still out on that one.
He knew she had found something by the way she worked her touch screen. She, he had heard, was the best at what she did. Investigative researcher, but also hacker of superb ability. Having a hacker here made him uneasy, mostly because of what it implied. There was a deeper issue than just the death of a chancellor.
Location marked, Sabarel turned to preparations for an emergency exit. A cutting tool and a coil of synthrope emerged from the bag. He knelt once more, running the edge of the laser cutter along the raised lip of the roof, shearing away a section of the metal lip and revealing the structural girders beneath. A careful adjustment to the cutter produces a wide, hot beam, and a slow, practiced application of the tool created a perfect hole through the center of the otherwise solid girder. Sabarel threaded the long, thin strand through the hole, looping the end back on itself and through the hole several times. Coiling the remains of the synthrope up, he carefully stored it in the empty space between two of the support girders revealed by the removal of the lip. Another adjustment to the cutter produced a thin, weak beam, unable to cut much of anything, but just hot enough to activate the synthrope, which expanded, fibers meshing together to grip metal and its own strands with a tenacity that would only yield to a concerted effort of a professional with a heavy-duty deconstructor.
Task completed, Sabarel gently refitted the cutaway section of metal facing to the rest of the roof, examining it for a moment before applying the laser cutter again. His clawed hands manipulated the tool delicately, heating the metal just enough to create a thin surface connection along the cuts. To the unobservant, it would appear that the metal lip was all still a single piece, if a bit weathered in one spot. Hopefully he would not need the contingency, but it was better to have it than be without.
Sabarel shifted over to the bag, drawing out three slender rods. He left them atop the bag for a moment, turning and laying on his stomach inside the triangle he had created earlier. The position left his line of sight straight into the raised lip of the roof. Here the laser cutter proved useful again, and Sabarel used the tool to carefully cut away a six inch section of the lip entirely, lifting the now free metal facing up and away to create a clear line of sight from the rooftop to the plaza, and more importantly, from his position to the room he wanted to see. Satisfied, Sabarel returned the metal facing to its original position. It would remain there until he was ready to act.
He turned back to the bag, drawing out a long, slender case. It opened after the moment it took the scanner to recognize his handprint, and sample a drop of blood. Sabarel ran a gentle hand over the dismantled form within the case, the slightest of smiles tugging at the corner of his reptilian lips. The weapon came together smoothly in his practiced hands, and why not? This was simply another way to praise the Black Lady. The dance of death had many stages, and this too was part of it, one as essential as any other.
Sabarel settled the weapon gently within the demarcated area, and rose to one knee, reaching out and taking the rods in hand. He gave the first rod a gentle twist, extending a miniature drillpoint that began to hum softly as it activated. Holding the rod carefully, he pressed it to the surface of the roof at one of the marks, causing the drill to bite and burrow in several inches. The procedure was repeated for each rod, leaving Sabarel in the middle of a triangle now marked out by a series of ten-inch rods. He touched the tip of the first rod gently, twisting the top open and pressing a button. All three rods opened, a series of small vanes dropping open as a gentle hum emanated from them.
Impera stood staring at one window, perfectly still. Out of all the windows, she stared at one.
“Why is she just staring at the window? She has TWO computers in her... hands, has been hacked into the system for hours and she just stands there staring at the window.” Commander Gist looked at another officer, bewildered. “One of the greatest minds in our universe and she is enjoying the view while we have a murdered chancellor on the floor.”
“Perhaps if you were not relying on less than optimal developmental characteristics, you would have the forethought to look at that which is not as obvious.” Impera moved three inches to the left and stood still, staring at the window.
The other officer looked at Commander Gist. “I think... I think she just called you an idiot.”
“Shut up.” Commander Gist growled and moved to stand beside Impera to see what she saw was so intent on analysing. Though try as he may, he couldn’t see what she saw.
“Based on the initial reports of the PlanetNet security task force, the position of the chancellor when he fell and the angle in which the bullet is lodged in his body, one must conclude that you are all looking for the wrong things. All the wrong things.”
Her air of superiority irked him. She spoke as if he was an idiot. But, he had been warned. Ignoring all the documents and all the profiles of her people was a big mistake. Perhaps he should have read more. Now he was stuck with her.
“Okay, so you say we are looking at this all wrong. Care to enlighten us?” Commander Gist barked, unintentionally harsh. Yes, he was perturbed, but his tone was not supposed to have been so gruff.
Impera moved to the window. “Taking your frustration out on me is not productive, Commander Gist. It is not my fault that you are not able to see things like I do. It’s not your fault either. The path of development selects for those it chooses, and bestows gifts on those deserving. You are destined to have only what you have. Nothing more, nothing less. As for enlightenment, unless you are aiming towards a spiritual perception of events, I cannot enlighten you in the strictest sense of the word. I can, however, show you where your error lies.”
The air around Sabarel seemed to flicker, and then, to an outside observer, the lower half of the kneeling man simply vanished. He reached out, pulling his bag into the triangle with him. The movement was too fast for the energy field’s ability to compensate, creating a blurry smear out motion where Sabarel moved through the field, but once he settled the bag and case beneath himself and went still, the illusion of empty space was perfect. The humming of the rods was easily lost in the background noise of the city, and though the triangle was a little cramped, Sabarel was used to discomfort, and settled in to wait, rifle laying next to him.
He removed himself. It was not hibernation, it was not self-hypnosis, and it wasn’t true absence. If he heard a noise, or had some sixth-sense premonition of danger, he would be back to himself instantly. Sabarel simply closed his eyes, and stepped away from himself, leaving his body behind, waiting. In three hours, his eyes would open, and it would be time to move. Until then, he could contemplate, follow his thoughts wherever they led him, and consider. That consideration led him to her. The scientist had been on his mind lately. It was distracting. It made hearing Her voice hard. It made him... inefficient.
Sabarel’s eyes opened. Judging by the shift in the light, it was precisely three hours from when he had closed his eyes. It was time. One hand lifted slowly towards the segment of metal facing to draw it away, only to freeze. Glass tinkled and crunched beneath boots. Only Sabarel’s eyes moved, catching sight of the man from the corner of his gaze. Heavy tread, breathing elevated, bulky impact armor. Guardsman. That could be problematic.
“Go check the roof Jensen, might be someone hanging around Jensen.” The guardsman grumbled, shuffling across the roof, paying no attention to the glass beneath his boots. “Ruddy barker probably left hours ago. Probably inside with a nice cold glass. But where am I? On a stupid roof. Not my fault reception can’t account for everyone leaving.”
Sloppy. Sabarel continued to watch the complaining man, but only out of the corner of his eye. Even humans could feel eyes upon them. He moved slowly as the guardsman strolled up to the edge of the roof, peering over. Sabarel lifted the section of metal out of the way, giving him a clear view from the roof to the building he wanted. Setting the metal aside, he cautiously shifted his rifled, bracing it atop his case and picking out the correct room.
“Jump off the roof then? Ruddy waste of my time.” The guardsman turned his back to the wind, placing him looking towards Sabarel as he lit up a cigarette.
Sabarel held still, half his attention on the guardsman, and half on the building. He would have to take the shot, even with the guardsman there. Gently, he worked the rifle’s slide, chambering a round. Any moment now...
“Come here, Commander Gist.” Impera approached the glass until her face was nearly pressing against it. “What do you see?”
The commander obeyed, and at the moment, did so to help himself gather control over his own emotions. Inside, he was screaming the best and worst obscenities at the woman in front of him. The nerve she had insulting me as she does. Who on earth was capable of working with such a woman! I would love to meet this person and ask them how they managed to do it and not kill her. “What am I looking at?”
Pointing at the very small hole in the window, she continued speaking. “When I was looking into the security coding of this room, I saw a curious blip in the programming. For a moment, something changed. Now, of course, the common eye wouldn’t have seen it, and I daresay only the original creator of this code would have seen it aside from me, but there was a broken line of code. A systematic subroutine that was supposed to deliver a command was notched to only deliver what looked like the correct command, when in fact, it was really a spliced heterogenous sub-correlation command to divert a minute amount of energy elsewhere when that particular routine was enabled.”
“Um... okay. So that means?”
“It means, the security mandate in the code to make this glass become as solid as a metallic wall in the event of a breach was tampered with using a code that made the transition move from precise and orderly to just a millisecond off in coordination. Enough time for a well trained assassin to shoot your chancellor. This very small hole is what is left of the entry point of the bullet.”
There. The security glass of the building activated, an electric charge rippling through the building’s glass skin. Molecules realigned, becoming rigid, stronger, able to resist heavy weapon fire. The changed rippled down the building like a wave, changing the security glass from clear, reflective blue to a hard, matte black that was impossible to see through. All but for one window.
One window didn’t change, or at least, it didn’t change immediately. For a split second the entire surface of the window rippled, the charge running through the security glass to trigger the change at a fraction of its proper strength. The target was already in his sights, Sabarel’s finger was already resting lightly on the trigger. He mouthed a silent prayer to Her, and then gently stroked the trigger.
Impera’s secondary hands went to work, entering code rapidly, as she rested one of her primary hands alongside the entry. “All the assassin had was one shot. Any more would lose the element of surprise, but he had to have known how to use the break in code. He wasn’t just opportunistic, he was intelligent, resourceful and extremely good at what he did. Only the best was asked for this job.”
“You say ‘he’ with great conviction, Impera.” Commander Gist raised an eyebrow. “I know your list has three women on it as strong suspects.”
She paused, but didn’t respond. Instead, she enabled her computer to project an image onto the glass, simulating the shooting. “As you can see, the single bullet, which was found in the chancellor’s body, is bigger than this hole, which undoubtedly caused much of your people’s confusion and left this piece of evidence unfounded. To the lay person, this makes no sense. But, physics and the order of science will actually support my theory.”
The officer from before walked up and looked at the scene. “The bullet penetrated the shielding, at just the right moment to be let through, and the hole is the result of where the shield closed around the bullet as it passed through, until the molecules lined up and set.”
Commander Gist stared at the underling.
“Precisely, sir. Commander Gist, why is this man not doing something more than menial officer duties?” She looked at officer with what looked like a smile on her face. “You name and rank?”
“Third officer, second rank of the PlanetNet Five. Obsidian Dawson, Ma’am.”
“If I remember correctly, that is the lowest rank possible. Either you are brand new, sir, or you have been overlooked, and horribly so. Anything else to your eye?” Impera looked at the officer with a light appraisal.
As if bolstered by her comments, Officer Dawson straightened his back. “The slug is a .300 magnum, and old. I would say the assassin actually used a very old rifle, not a modern one. Again, the shield would have recognised more modern arms. I have a rifle that would use this very same caliber if it weren’t so old and wretched.” He stepped closer. “If your projection is correct, the assassin came not from inside, as was assumed, but that building.” He pointed to a building off to the side, slightly higher than the one they stood in.
“My projection is not wrong. Commander, has anyone looked for security absences?” Impera spoke but her eyes were on her touchscreen, working, while her secondary hands hugged her abdomen. Something was wrong in her eyes, but only one person in the universe would have recognised it. And he was precisely why she was worried.
Even the guardsman could not ignore that. The shot rang out sharply, echoing back from the buildings nearby. Sabarel was already moving, a blur of motion as he burst up from the field, dropping into a spin, his tail flashing out and taking the guardsman at the knees, sending him toppling to the ground with a crash.
He had to give the guardsman credit, the man had heart, if not necessarily skill or smarts. The guard rolled to his feet, buzz baton snapping out as he came back at Sabarel. Sabarel ducked a wild swing, and sidestepped another, arm snapping out and grabbing the guard’s wrist. A twist bent the arm back, causing the baton to fall to the ground, and a turn of Sabarel’s hips transferred the guard’s forward momentum over a leg, sending him to the ground. A fist blurred out, checking a hair at the very last moment, slamming into the guard’s throat. Cartilage crackled, and the man gasped as his larynx was hammered out of position, obstructing his breathing.
Sabarel rose, ignoring the downed guard, fighting down the urge to kill the man as he walked to the side of the building, kicking the weakened metal aside to get to his emergency escape plan. He knelt, casting the rope over the side of the building, and then rose, walking slowly back to the guard. The man scrabbled at his throat, wheezing in pain as he fought to breathe. Sabarel knelt again, tilting his snout to one side, observing the guard with reptilian eyes. His nostrils flared slightly, scenting. Surprisingly gentle, Sabarel drew the weakening man’s hands aside, and then with a hard heel thrust, hammered the man’s larynx back into position. His voice was a soft, sibilant hiss as the guard gasped in relief. “The Lady says that today is not your day to die. I suggest you remain here for now and recover. If you attempt to follow or stop me, I will kill you.”
Turning, Sabarel rose, ignoring the feebly moving man, who was more intent on his regained ability to breathe than stopping anyone, and walking to his gear. Sabarel twisted, hand blurring out and jamming a needle into the guard’s neck. The man siezed, gasping, and then going slack. A gentle pair of fingers on the carotid told Sabarel that the man was out but alive. Scopolamine, along with a mix of sedatives. The guard would be out for hours, and the cocktail would erase his short-term memory.
Sabarel turned, rising again and crossing the roof. He tapped the top of each rod, activating their overloads. It was a shame to lose them, but he did not have time to pry them out of the roof, and he would have to move quickly. There may have been more guards. He slung his rifle across his back, leaving behind the bag with its assortment of cheap tools, and the case he had used to sneak the rifle through customs. Clipping the synthrope to his suit harness, he slid over the edge of the roof, and rapidly down to the ground below.
Moving away from the pair, Commander Gist rejoined the other group. He relayed what Impera had discovered, meeting a mix of disbelief and admiration. He wasn’t satisfied. She had avoided his inquiry about her emphatic use of “he”. It was as if a part of her already knew who it was, yet she wasn’t talking. And then, that lowborn officer Dawson interrupted her, giving her a way out. He may not be a super genius like her in the academic world, but she wasn’t a super genius in his. She was flawed, just like everyone else, and she was hiding something.
Officers were dispatched from the outside to search the building both Dawson and Impera singled out. Within minutes, a security officer was reported as downed, throat heavily bruised, alive but left without memories of the previous hour or so before he lost consciousness.
“So, you were right. We also found a few things at the site where the assassin had set up shop. A lot of broken glass was scattered, as if it were an alarm system. Another device of some sort,-”
Impera interrupts, the screen’s glow lighting her face. “Was found embedded into the buidling’s infrastructure. Yes, I am seeing that report. Also, the guard was drugged with a compound of amnesiac and sleep medications. That is a great amount of information. It definitely narrows the pool of possibilities.”
Trying desperately hard to not blow up at Impera, Commander Gist swallowed and took three long breaths. He hated hackers, but this... “Yes. And you very obviously indicated that this was a man earlier. Does that narrow it a bit more?”
Looking up abruptly, she blinked and paused. Yes, it did, she thought. More than I like. “I am still convinced that this was done by a man. I have two suspects, one which has a higher probability of being guilty than the other. Nevertheless, I shall submit both names.”
A Galactic Prime major approached her. “Miss Impera, what are the two names?”
“Seamus Declaran.” She looked out the window and towards the place where the assassin had set up. “Sabarel Sislen.”
“Good gods...” The major shook his head. “Neither is good news and neither means this is the end...”
All Impera could do was look, as if sweeping the scene with a final glance. She knew exactly who it was.
Hours had passed. He should be well on his way by now. Transit was waiting for him, purchased discreetly for a handful of untraceable certified credit chips. Still, rumor was often the best source of knowledge leaking from official channels. Sabarel had returned to the scene, or at least, to the roof of another building overlooking the plaza. Rumor had it that a high level specialist had been called in to examine the scene. If some analyst was going to pick the area into pieces, Sabarel wanted to get a look at him or her. A picture of the specialist’s face, with some cred chips and a good hacker, could get him an idea of what kind of chase he could expect. Leaning against the chest-high parapet of the building, Sabarel rested his rifle over his arm, staring through the scope and sweeping over the hit site and firing position. He paused, stepping back, the rifle lowering. It was her, the scientist. His voice was a soft whisper, wicked away by the wind.
“Impera...”
This changed everything.
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