Broken sky, p.7
Broken Sky, page 7
“Carl Prior.”
He compared the photo—at least twenty years out of date—to the one of Holden. “A brother?”
“Half-brother, I think.”
“You’re not sure?” He gave Danny the piercing glare he reserved for employees when they delivered bad news. Danny didn’t flinch.
“There’s no solid connection between the two. Their mothers had the same name, but I haven’t determined if it was the same woman. Carl has been living in Caerton for almost eighteen years.”
Pieter skimmed Carl’s profile. There was little of interest other than he had paid the retirement fee for his residence on Cirrus after his university lease expired. That wasn’t unusual—many thousands of people had each paid millions for the privilege of staying on Cirrus without being sponsored by a corporation. Their money was always welcome. “Why is he important?”
“He’s not. But his daughter might be.”
“How so?”
“The story goes that Carl and his partner, Émile, adopted an Armenian orphan and named her Emily. After the girl finished university, Carl took a research position on Cirrus. Émile was to join him the following year, but died before that. Emily, who had some field experience, applied to fill the vacancy as Carl’s assistant.”
“And you’re saying she was accepted.”
“The AI passed her.”
“So what’s the problem?”
Danny reached over and flipped the page to reveal two photos: one labelled ‘Emily Prior’, and the other ‘Nathan Marke’—Holden’s son.
Pieter bolted upright in surprise; the AI had missed something a human inspector wouldn’t have. Emily, supposedly Armenian, was clearly of Native American descent, as was Nathan. The chance of this being coincidence was slim. “How did they pull this off?”
“I can’t prove it’s the same woman. But if it is, perhaps they found a sympathetic ear in the immigration department. Or maybe there was confusion with the names Émile and Emily. Either way, she moved to Cirrus fifteen years ago, married Victor Scatter, and took his last name.”
“So, it’s Emily Scatter we’re hunting, and she’s really Holden’s daughter, not Carl’s.” He considered the implications of a substitution made decades ago. If Emily Prior never existed, who else on Danny’s list might be nothing more than a false data trail? “We need to know more. Where are the Scatters now?”
“Fairview.”
“We already have an anti-personnel drone there. Have it ready to fly.”
Danny hesitated. “It’s standing by, but I’ll send contractors as well. If they deliberately hid the family connection, they might expect to be watched.”
“Tell me about Holden’s son.”
“Nathan Marke is emigrating to Cirrus, today, with his wife, Grace, and son, Ethan. They’ll be settling in Port Isaac.”
“Today? That’s no coincidence.”
“Their application was registered years ago.”
“But you suspect they’re all one family, don’t you? When were their seats assigned?”
For the first time, Danny had to check his own notes. “The same day as the refinery test.” He was silent as he made the connections. “I’ll send a team to Port Isaac to meet them.”
“If all this is true, then someone planned this a long time ago.” Pieter leaned back in his chair. “An impressively long time ago.” His voice held admiration, but also menace, like a fighter stepping into a boxing ring with a smaller opponent. “Any more family?”
“The Scatters have a son, Jack. There are no photos of him.”
“Jack.” Pieter sat up abruptly, his confident façade unexpectedly shaken. “Jack Scatter. He’s the one. What do we know about him?”
“He’s just a kid. The only thing remarkable about him is that he’s an original Cirran, born a year after his parents arrived.”
“But he’s the one we have to watch.” Pieter stood. “Come with me.”
While Danny would work to confirm the tenuous link between Holden Marke and Carl Prior, Pieter was already convinced. He crossed his office to a blank section of an interior wall. A wave of his hand caused a door-sized panel to slide open, revealing a windowless room, half the size of a squash court but as brightly lit.
“Leave your phone,” he reminded Danny.
Danny dropped his phone in the usual tray and followed. He pressed a button on the inner wall to slide the door shut. Despite being a foot thick, the metal panel glided silently into its locked position. The sealed chamber was now as silent and secure as a bank vault.
Not only was all outside sound blocked, the floor itself—an immense block of concrete and steel riding on inertial dampers—eliminated external vibrations. The only object in the room was a vertically mounted ring set partially into the floor. The black ring’s thickness—eight-inches—was a good indicator of how much current the frame could draw.
“Caerton,” Pieter said.
The frame’s address carousel—a multi-chambered cylinder—ejected a pencil-like cartridge, spun half a turn, and inserted another. A world away, an identical frame was doing the same thing.
On the floor below, sophisticated computers and powerful generators sprang into action. Thousands of amps coursed through the ring, causing a familiar hum. His ears registered a change in air pressure as a door materialized in the opposite wall. A green light glowed at the frame’s apex to indicate the wormhole was stable. He stepped through without hesitation. Danny followed.
Visually, nothing revealed that they’d traveled one-hundred eighty-six million miles. The portal chamber on Cirrus matched the one on Earth, except the door was on a different wall. But the mind always knew when it traversed a wormhole. Without fail, every person who used a portal experienced déjà vu on their first trip. For most, it was a slight disorientation that diminished with each passage. For a small number, the feeling was profound. Those who experienced the phenomenon most strongly—Travellers— believed it connected their consciousness across time, allowing them to remember things from their own future. Pieter Reynard was such a man.
He’d been travelling since infancy and trusted the intuitive knowledge he gained. He couldn’t foresee every detail—he wouldn’t have come up with Jack’s name on his own—but right now he knew for certain that Jack Scatter was the one person who could interfere with his plans.
“Do you get any insights at all from these trips?” Pieter asked. “It would save so much time.”
“I’ll do surveillance my own way.”
If Danny felt fear, he refused to let it show. In fact, Pieter had never seen Danny display any emotion, ever. He often wondered if it was due to rigorous training or the man’s ability to see a half-second into the future—a limited version of the Traveller Effect. Regardless, Pieter had come to rely on him, even if he didn’t completely trust him.
The portal shut down as the opposite door opened, and he stepped into an office nearly identical to the one in Seattle. It boasted the same exotic hardwoods, ergonomic furniture, and fourteen-foot floor-to-ceiling windows.
It even had the same water feature wall next to the portal chamber, with a bond more profound than just its appearance. In Seattle, the ice-cold water flowing over slabs of Van Gogh granite came directly from the Oort Cloud mine. After draining into a second array of portals at the base of the wall, that same water poured in a sheet from the top of the stones on Cirrus. For Pieter, the subtle, multimillion-dollar connection between the three worlds exemplified his corporate and personal style.
Other than the wall and other artwork, the big difference was its elevation. From the one-hundred-fiftieth-floor penthouse, he had a commanding view of the entire city.
Danny selected a phone from a slot near the door, made a brief call to dispatch watchers to Port Isaac, then said, “If the Marke family contacts Carl Prior or the Scatter family, we’ll know for certain that Emily Scatter used to be Emily Marke.”
“Be prepared to pick up Jack Scatter too.”
Danny sent a text message, and Pieter sat at his computer to research Jack Scatter. The data trail he followed revealed little. There was nothing to attract unwanted attention, except for the lack of photos. That wasn’t unusual—not everyone posted photos of themselves. Yet, as he dug, he found nothing useful.
Jack’s social media page contained photos of friends, but none of himself. That oddity caused him to expand his search. He was surprised to find that the friends’ pages mentioned Jack but didn’t have photos of him.
Someone has removed them. Unless he’s been extremely cautious his entire life.
As he probed, a second pattern emerged: connections that ended abruptly, fragmented conversations, ambiguous references. Someone else was missing too.
Whoever it is, they’ve deleted their entire profile recently. Very recently.
Someone like Danny could remain invisible forever, but this was different. The missing person was active in their social circle, female, and probably the same age as Jack. She can’t stay hidden for long. Pieter knew he just had to wait until someone in her network noticed and commented. That would reveal her identity.
He created a placeholder icon to represent the missing profile, then retrieved photos of each member of the two families. With the images arranged on the same screen, he considered what he knew and what remained hidden. There were too many coincidences, too many points where a single missing link obscured the entire path. He dragged the empty placeholder to the center of the screen.
“I believe we have found another Traveller.”
Chapter Eleven
Victor pointed to the arrivals board above the station’s main doors. “Here he comes.”
Jack drew a calming breath and exhaled deeply; Ethan’s train had just entered the station’s lowest level. He moved closer to his parents, but stayed behind the park bench to keep some distance from the crowds. Shortly, the doors opened and hundreds of people streamed from the lavish, Beaux arts-inspired building.
His cousin had recently reached the six-foot mark, but those extra inches made the person stepping onto the sunlit sidewalk seem older than Jack expected. In reality, they were only a few months apart, and he’d have recognized Ethan’s slicked-back, medium-length black hair and carefree smile anywhere.
Ethan tugged his collar to cover his neck against the cold—his light jacket wasn’t suitable for a Port Isaac winter. Like most other arrivals, he was carrying a single backpack that contained all he would ever bring from Earth.
Emily waved her arms. “Ethan. Over here.” She leaned toward Victor. “He looks exactly like Nathan did at that age.”
Ethan heard his name and crossed the street, ignoring traffic, which was almost entirely pedestrians and bicycles.
Emily seized her nephew in a hug. Victor shook his hand. He and Jack exchanged silent nods. All around, a similar scene played out between people who hadn’t seen each other in many years or—like Jack and his cousin—had never met in person.
Victor checked the arrivals board again. “Your parents are landing in four hours. We’ll wait for them at your apartment. It’s only a short walk.”
“How was the trip?” Jack asked, struggling to make conversation.
“Long. I’ve got cool pictures though.” He glanced at Jack’s parents walking ahead, deep in their own discussion, then passed his phone over. He leaned closer and said quietly, “Check this out. The entire trip is under constant acceleration or deceleration, but we had about ten minutes of zero-gee at the mid-point.”
In the video, Ethan appeared to hang his phone in mid-air, then tuck himself into a ball floating at chest height. Using the seat backs to push off from, he rotated his athletic frame through three complete mid-air rolls in the aisle.
Jack laughed and handed back the phone. “Did you take any flak for that?”
He shrugged and his smile faded. “The flight attendant gave me a dirty look. I think he was just jealous.”
Despite his flippant remark, Jack got the sense that his cousin wasn’t in a good mood—and he had an idea why. Fairview was a small town, and he often felt confined there. Port Isaac was much larger, but still tiny compared to Seattle. He guessed Ethan was feeling the same way about Port Isaac as he did about Fairview.
Less than a block from Ethan’s building, his parents' text alerts sounded at the same time. They were still facing away, but he noticed a falter in his mother’s step and sensed her alarm as she turned to face him.
“Jack …” Emily’s calm manner seemed forced. “You and Ethan can go to Fairview this afternoon—I know you want to get ready for your trip. Your father and I are staying here tonight, to help Grace and Nathan get settled. We’ll join you tomorrow.”
“Is something wrong?” He was certain that his mother was hiding something but couldn’t work out what part of the statement was false; they’d already discussed the possibility of staying the night before leaving Fairview.
Victor glanced at his phone. “It’s nothing important. But the late bus is usually full, so you two should head for the station now to make sure you get seats on the early one. There’s no reason to bring your luggage upstairs.”
Ethan accepted the change of plans without question, even though they were only a few steps from the entrance to his building. “C’mon, Jack. Let’s go.”
Jack realized that his father was covering for him, suggesting they might miss the bus when he knew Jack would be more comfortable in a less-crowded one. He waved to his parents and followed Ethan. As he turned, he noticed two vehicles—black vans with blacked-out windows in the rear and CorpSec logos on their sides—parked across the street. There was nothing unusual about the vehicles themselves except that the two men inside each appeared to be watching Ethan’s building.
-- -- --
Danny rode Pieter’s private elevator to the basement and entered the arcade.
At twenty-five-hundred-feet, Pieter’s needle-like building was the tallest in Caerton, but not the largest. Some, broader at the base, contained thousands of apartments, or a mix of business and residential suites. However, every tower in the city had a cavernous underground bay that was part warehouse, part market, and part factory. Virtually any product needed by the thousands of tenants above could be sourced or 3D-printed there, then delivered by conveyor to their floor’s central locker.
As it was nearing the lunch hour, the central market was frantic with hundreds of vendors preparing meals for their regular clients. Danny ignored the tempting aromas and the chaos of a dozen different languages, and took a table at a café that catered solely to the arcade’s workers. Two men and two women at the next table recognized him, stood and bowed respectfully, then hurried away without finishing their drinks.
He turned his chair to put the wall at his back so he could see anybody watching him. Satisfied that no one passing would be in range long enough to hear anything important, he made a phone call.
“Where is Jack Scatter?”
“The family left town this morning,” Hank said.
“Where?”
“We think they went to Port Isaac.”
“You didn’t follow them with the Enforcer?”
“It’s … No, sorry. But they got on the Port Isaac bus. They should be there by now.”
“Where is the drone?”
“It’s at … You sent a message that CorpSec might be searching for the Scatter kid. His family’s shop is right across the street. I couldn’t take the chance that they’d find it in a door-to-door search.”
“Fool. Do you think you avoid arrest through your own cunning? I own Fairview’s corporate security. Where is it?” Danny heard labored breathing as the obese man struggled to maintain his composure.
“On its way to the camp.”
“Redirect it to Port Isaac.”
Hank paused. “It’s, uh, carrying a cargo.”
Danny sighed. “How long before it gets there?”
“Soon, but, there’s a problem. One of its rotors has a crack. But it’s okay. I was thinking ahead and sent spare parts out there yesterday, just in case. My guys will replace the blade and have it ready to fly in an hour. Two at the most.”
He did a quick mental calculation. “You are a lucky man, Hank. The rest of the family doesn’t arrive for four hours. If you fail me again, you will not be so lucky.”
“There’s, um, another problem. One of my guys called. There are more of those little drones—maybe dozens of them—hiding in the trees around the site.”
“The same as the first?”
“Could be. He says they’re tiny. Fist-sized and camouflaged. What do we do?”
“Surveys drones.” Danny dismissed the number as a paranoid exaggeration. “Catch one and send me a photo. What about the safe?”
“We found it. It wasn’t buried, after all. Someone moved it. Someone was at the site.”
Danny disconnected without responding. Pieter might not have foreseen how Jack Scatter fit into the picture, but Danny now suspected who had been there and moved the safe. He made another call.
In Port Isaac, one of the vans parked next to Ethan’s building drove away.
-- -- --
Jack forgot about the corporate security van as soon as he started walking; there was still much to see in the city that was new to him. Fairview’s architecture was diverse, but Port Isaac’s was eclectic. They strolled past buildings that could have been transported from Paris, Tokyo, or Moscow, as well as delicate forms that could only have risen on Cirrus, which would never suffer earthquakes or hurricanes. Ethan was impressed by the newly built stadium directly across the street from his own building. He’d be able to watch games from his balcony when the domed roof was open.
Wherever possible, Jack cut through parks or chose quieter streets as he led Ethan to the bus station. He hoped his cousin didn’t notice he was avoiding crowds. He’d already told him about his phobia—as he’d told Sarah and a few other close friends—but hadn’t conveyed the full extent of his anxiety. Until this morning, he hadn’t really known how severe the problem was.
