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She looks at the projection from Holiday’s datapad. Various angles of me touring the museum glow in the air. “On which side of the museum did you meet him?”
“The west entrance.”
“That’s our blackspot, yes?” the Sovereign asks Holiday.
The Gray nods. “The cameras there were scrambled with laser disrupters.”
“Just like we guessed. Something happened there. It’s likely the Red pickpocket was working for Philippe.” I watch her mind work, wondering what else they’ve pieced together while I’ve been running for my life. “If Philippe talked the officers down, then there would be no incident report. But the officers would have bodycams. Holiday…”
“Already in Watchmen Central Command. Searching for officers on duty in the area.” She pauses. “Shit. There’s more than a hundred. If we had his name…”
“Officer Stefano,” I say abruptly. “He was the older officer. From what he said, he was Warden Cohort.”
The Sovereign looks at me in surprise. “Holiday…?”
“Found him. Stefano ti Gregorovich, First Sergeant. He was on duty around the museum that day.” Holiday glances sideways at me.
“Very good, Lyria,” the Sovereign says. Holiday pulls up Stefano’s bodycam and blurs through his day, starting in the precinct locker room, whizzing past interactions with vagrants and young hoods spraying graffiti of the Sovereign mating with a wolf, before coming to me. They speed through my arrest. And just when I’m loaded into the wagon, the camera distorts.
“Feed’s dead for ten minutes,” Holiday says. “His partner’s too.”
“So we have a ghost,” the Sovereign says. “A gravWell, a blast door, zero DNA, Citadel intinerary information…this isn’t some low-level operator. But at least it narrows the field. I don’t think it’s Red Hand, despite their mark—they don’t have the resources. Did you go anywhere else with him?” I tell her the sites we visited. As Holiday works, the Sovereign continues. “And at what point did Philippe give you the EMP drone?”
“It wasn’t that day. It was later on.”
“Under what pretenses did he offer it?”
“Sorry? Pretenses?”
“Why did he give it to you? More importantly, why did you take it?”
“He said it was because we were friends,” I admit in embarrassment. “Should have known something was wrong. Got security clearance training. I know we aren’t supposed to take gifts, but…” I don’t say it. But I think it. I was lonely.
“Don’t blame yourself. If he knew to target you, then he knew your position in the Telemanus house well enough to know when on the itinerary you would be with my son and in the proper position for his plan to come into effect. That would mean he had access to your personnel files. He knew about your family.” She grimaces. “He knew how to play you.”
Play me. Like I’m not even a person. When I told him about my family, he already knew. It makes me nauseous.
“Got the feeds from Aristotle Park and the restaurant,” Holiday says. Then she curses. “They’re slagged.” She throws them into the air from her datapad. A score of videos of me in the streets and the monuments appear. Philippe is there in his dark suit, but in place of his head and face is a flaming sphere of white fire.
“What is that?” the Sovereign asks.
“Blighter,” Holiday says, surprised the Sovereign doesn’t know. “New blackmarket tech. Giving the Watchmen a hell of a time. It uses a prism of high-frequency light waves to create an invisible mask around the user to slag facial recognition. Not as thorough as a jammer, but more range and more elegant with a fraction the power usage. Same breed as the ones used on Earth last month.” A knowing look passes between them.
“Could they be connected?” Holiday asks.
“I really don’t see how. Unless it’s meant to draw him out. If that’s the case, we can expect this to be public soon. If it’s not public, then we know the ransom will be political, and I’m the target. Or Victra.”
Holiday absorbs the consequences of that deeper than I can. She looks back at her screens, a shade paler. “He also paid at the restaurant with a ghost debit card. Anonymous account now with a balance of a hundred credits. The card was used only on that day, once at a tech vendor for a datapad, twice at museums, at a coffee shop, at the restaurant, and at a shop on Alemaide Street.”
“What did he buy at the shop?” the Sovereign asks.
“Item 22342C. Cross-referencing with their online catalogue.” She pauses. “A toy lion.”
“He’s mocking us.” The Sovereign watches out the window as a ship passes, thinking. Since the questioning began, her face has guarded her inner workings. But now I see how afraid she is. I saw the same look on my sister’s face when I told her the Red Hand had come. There’s nothing like a mother’s fear. I feel sudden pity for the woman.
“We found a Red at the scene of the accident. Dead. Body torched. Did you see any other accomplices?”
“He had a crow with him,” I say.
