UNPOL Headquarters, Deep Trace Operations Room, 188th floor.
Saturday, 14 December 2109, 4:45pm +8 UTC
Cochran called the meeting at 4:45pm with a soft voice command to the Dev.
The message from Cochran hit their Devscreens. “Full review of Case #JM-2109, 5:00pm, Conference Room 35.”
Dominique ‘just call me Dom’ Signora couldn’t believe it.
What a bitch, he thought, and with a scowl and shrug, turned to his colleague and fellow trace partner, Martine ‘Marty’ Shorne, and said, “Calling the meeting just when we’re going back to our Envs. What are we going to do about Fatima’s party?”
She just lifted her eyebrows in reply, and feet sprawled out in a huge vee in front of her, chin on her small chest, arms folded, she continued to scan the Devscreen. They’d been working together for over three months, him joining straight out of the Academy and her transferring into Trace Operations from Large Commercial Crimes Unit (LCCU).
She looked like she was asleep, but she was wide awake. It was just her style. In this team everybody had their own style — usually it only outed after you’d been in the team for a while — a style that would fit, that evolved into and synced with the other styles in the team. Marty came fully loaded with hers, and the team evolved and revolved around it.
Marty brought her knees up and her legs together, and pushing her hands into her spine, rolled onto her back in the Siteazy. She straightened her legs out and pushed back with her head until she was standing on her head, arms out straight and legs dead straight. She held the position for a count of fifteen and bringing her hands into play, slowly lowered herself in an arc over the back of the Siteazy.
“Let’s go,” she said, and turned for the door.
The meeting would be held in the executive conference rooms on the two hundred and forty-second floor. Marty held out her hand to Fatima who slowly walked from her Devcockpit in the south west section of the room to the door where Marty was waiting. Taking Fatima’s hand she nodded at the others and with the door sliding open they stepped out of the Cave. They all hated this part of their contribution.
Cochran stood at the head of the Clearfilm table, Marty sat opposite Cochran, with Dom and Fatima on her left and Stanislav on her right. She sat cross-legged on her Biosense knowing it annoyed Cochran and knowing that Cochran wouldn’t do anything about it.
Marty didn’t like Cochran. She knew the type: ruthless and selfish, overachievers with no interest in morality. But there was no need to call a meeting at this time. They could do this tomorrow. Cochran called the meeting to show them what a dedicated contributor she was and how she was totally committed.
And she is, totally committed to herself, thought Marty as she sat listening to Cochran’s intro. Now she’ll pick on Stanislav with his stutter knowing she freaks him out, she thought.
“Stanislav, can you give us a run-down on the illegals that our runner was running?” Cochran asked and sat down, swiveling sideways in the Biosense and crossing her legs. Stanislav stuttered under stress. He was brilliant at spotting something where there was nothing in the ether and being able to translate what it meant, but he was incapable of speaking to Cochran.
Marty didn’t like what was going to happen, so she said, “Sharon, before coming into the meeting, the team and I have discussed what we think has happened here and we’d like to present those ideas to you and then go and enjoy Fatima’s birthday party which is today. We can go over the objectives you set for us, of course. However, we believe that our time would be more productively employed if we focused on a new angle. Would that be acceptable?”
Cochran continued looking at Stanislav who had gone bright red and was darting glances at Marty as if to ask her to come and rescue him, then she swiveled to face Marty smiling. “Well that would depend on the plausibility of your presentation and the credibility of your evidence, but I’d like to hear what your ‘new angle’ is, so please go ahead.”
Marty pushed herself off from the table and the Biosense rolled across the space behind her until she was facing the Devscreen. She called up a static image on the Devscreen that covered the far end of the room in huge quarter circle. The image started moving and showed two men walking together, one with his head bowed and his hands in the pockets of his outers as he talked with Bo Vinh. As he talked, the two men suddenly stopped and the one with his hands in his pockets waved and smiled in the direction of the camera Dev. A little boy ran out to him and jumped up into his arms to be lifted high, but the man protested, laughing and telling the boy that he was too big to be lifted that high anymore. The little boy jumped up and down until the man picked him up, and standing together with Bo Vinh, they posed for the camera. The image stilled on the two men and the boy.
Marty said, “The little boy is your runner. He’s ten in this image. The man walking with Bo Vinh is Philip Zumar, the boy’s father. We know nothing more about the boy other than he disappeared and was presumed dead by authorities in Byron Bay in the Geographic of Australia. We have, however, found out a lot about the boy’s father, Philip.”
Cochran, turning her Devstick end-over-end on the table, her lips pursed together in a chaste kiss, said, “Go on.”
Marty didn’t turn around and sat cross-legged, her back silhouetted against the image of the three people on the Devscreen. She touched the Devstick clipped on her belt and the image changed to another image of Philip Zumar only as a much younger man.
“Philip Zumar was a firebrand activist in the early sixties.” The Devscreen changed again, bringing up a slew of images, while Marty continued speaking in a soft voice telling the story of Philip Zumar. As each topic changed, the Devscreen enlarged one of the images and displayed it wall-length on the screen in front of them.
“He was married to a fellow activist Rebecca Oriata Hamilton. In 2063 she gave birth to a son, Gabriel Alexander Zumar. Gabriel was lucky to be born — his mother had already contracted leukemia as a result of her work supplying food to people on the edges of the nuclear-ravaged world. His poems about her death are particularly poignant. Philip kept his son by his side at all times after the death of his wife. He retreated from his activist life and instead focused on the child. This is when he really began to write. He was twenty-six going on twenty-seven at this time, and this is when he met Bo Vinh.”
The Devscreen had enlarged an image of a list of writings by Philip Zumar. The titles ran from the floor to the ceiling.
Cochran felt a deep sense of unease settling into her stomach. This case had just taken an even more serious and complicated turn. Anything to do with Bo Vinh could potentially be linked to his assassination and that was a path that Cochran wanted nothing to do with.
“I see. Thank you. Please go on,” said Cochran, the slightly crisp tone unavoidable with her increasing unease and irrational irritation at Marty’s back.
“Bo Vinh and Philip Zumar met at one of Zumar’s readings in New Paris in 2064. There were no cameras allowed. It was a condition of the reading. Philip Zumar was notoriously image-shy, so we don’t have any image of the actual event. However it is reported that when Zumar finished reading Bo Vinh crossed the room and gave him a hug, the tears of their cheeks mingling. That last phrase is actually a quote from a later poem that Zumar wrote to Bo Vinh on his birthday, shortly before Bo Vinh was assassinated on the 1st of January, 2075.”
The Devstick in Cochran’s hand was turning ever more rapidly as she grew impatient with Marty’s diatribe. Each time Marty referred to Bo Vinh the weight of unease crept up a notch in Cochran’s gut.
“Wait a minute, before you go on, just to appease my growing concern at the irrelevance of all of this, how do you make the connection between Jibril and this Gabriel boy, who disappeared thirty-six years ago?”
“Jibril is Arabic for Gabriel. Muraz is an anagram of Zumar. The house where Jibril Muraz was registered was 61 Sholle Street, Paddington, London. That was also an anagram for 16 Holles Street, Paddington, London, the birthplace of Lord Byron in — ”
Cochran interrupted again, “Wait a sec, this Lord Byron, who’s he? What does he have to do with this? Does he have something to do with Sir Thomas?”
With difficulty, Marty stifled an urge to laugh, and said, “Uhm no, Lord Byron was born in 1788. He has nothing to do with Sir Thomas, however Byron Bay was the last known sighting of Gabriel Alexander Zumar.” Marty waited to see if Cochran was going to interrupt her again. She cocked her head slightly to one side.
For some reason this little move made Cochran flare up inside with a hot flush of rage, but she suppressed it saying in a tight, clipped voice, “Continue.”
Marty waited. The room filled with silence. As the seconds went by the silence increased in volume. Marty’s head straightened, her body immobile. Cochran licked her lower lip. The three other members of the Gang of Four swapped furtive glances. None dared look at Cochran.
“Continue please, Marty.”
“Philip Zumar and Bo Vinh became good friends. They collaborated heavily on Bo Vinh’s masterpiece ‘We are one tribe’, which as you know became the foundation for the popular vote movement that swept the globe in the mid-sixties. Zumar insisted that his contribution to the work should remain unknown, however it was made known by Bo Vinh himself who later said, that actually the work was more Zumar’s than his.
“With the popular vote accepted globally and countries abandoning their sovereignty for the sake of a single global nation, Bo Vinh stepped into the limelight, becoming our first Secretary General of the United Nation and remaining in that role until he was killed. Zumar faded out of the limelight. The only other image we have of him is this one taken at Bo Vinh’s funeral. It’s indistinct because he is so far back in the crowd. But it is him.
“Bo Vinh was assassinated on the 1st of January 2075. About ten months after Bo Vinh’s funeral, Philip Zumar disappeared. This was the 6th of October 2075, according to Sir Thomas’s case file. His partner called Sir Thomas for help in finding him. In the transcript of the call she says she thinks the disappearance is something to do with Bo Vinh’s assassination.”
“He has a new wife or has his old one suddenly cropped up from the dead as well?” Cochran asked with a bite in her voice.
Marty ignored the sarcasm and smiled to herself. She’d really gotten under Cochran’s skin this time.
“He never married this woman. Her maiden name was Mariah Claire Foster, but she gave birth to a son on the 23rd of September 2075 at two in the morning. The birth was registered and a PUI assigned to a Mark Anthony Zumar, father, Philip Zumar, mother Mariah Claire Oliver.”
“She was related to Sir Thomas?”
“Yes, she was his wife, or his estranged wife — by this time they had been separated for over a year, but by all accounts they were still on favorable terms.”
“I see.” Cochran’s voice had lost its bite with Marty’s latest revelation. “What happened to her and the baby?”
“Sir Thomas’s report, he was Director of Special Operations Executive at that time, stated that he found Philip Zumar’s yacht floating forty-five kiloms off the coast of Byron Bay and there had been no indication of foul play, so 'death by suicide or accidental drowning' was recorded as the coroner’s verdict. The report stated that during the time UNPOL was searching for Philip Zumar, the woman, boy, and baby disappeared. After investigating but finding no trace of them, Sir Thomas presumed his wife had also committed suicide and probably taken the children with her. Despite global alerts being put out, they weren’t found and Sir Thomas’s opinion became the recorded decision.”
“And now you think this Gabriel, or someone using his identity, has transferred his anger at the death of his father to Sir Thomas? Is that it?”
“Yes, something like that — it really is the only explanation.”
“But why go to all the trouble? Why didn’t he just kill or have Sir Thomas killed?”
“Because he wants to make him suffer. In his talk with Jonah, he says, ‘You probably think I am crazy’. This is transference — deep down he thinks he is crazy, but transfers that emotion to Jonah. There are other lines in the discussion between Gabriel and Jonah that give us an indication of his thoughts, which are ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t be asking such personal questions so early in our relationship, but then I feel as if I have known you for so many years’ and, ‘Will you request God to strike me down for my sins, or having sought repentance of Him, shall I be saved as you were vomited from the great fish’s mouth onto the shores of Nineveh?’ The Devscreen had changed to the image of Jonah naked in the room with Gabriel. It switched focus from Gabriel to Jonah and back again. Something about the image made Cochran feel uncomfortable but she couldn’t put her finger on what it was.
“For someone who is supposedly crazy, the capture and escape were an extremely well put together plan and well executed. Hardly the mark of someone who is crazy.”
“On the contrary, people who are obsessive can be extremely detailed in thought and action. Their lunacy is in the premise they are acting upon not in how they accomplish those actions.”
“What is the significance of the meeting with Jonah Oliver?”
“It’s a threat. Jonah Oliver is Sir Thomas’s last surviving relative, so as Gabriel has lost his family he is telling Sir Thomas that he can touch Sir Thomas’s family in the same way.”
“I see. And is Jonah Oliver in immediate danger?”
“That is harder to predict, although we do think that he will be the first target and he won’t simply be killed — he will be made to disappear.”
Marty spun around in the Biosense without otherwise moving and, still sitting cross-legged, faced Cochran.
How does she do that? Cochran thought, with the quick hot flush along her cheekbones, and said, deadpan, eyeballing Marty, “Well I am sure you are on the right track, but we really aren’t in any better position than we were a week and a half ago, are we?” Cochran pointed her Devstick at Marty.
“No, I wouldn’t say that, Sharon. We have narrowed down the focus of this trace into a very specific area. We have identified the runner and identified the most likely target of his actions. We’ve also figured out how he escaped right from under your nose.” Sitting in a perfect Lotus position, her face without expression, Marty's words hung in the air. Dom and Fatima cringed but didn’t say anything and avoided looking at Cochran.
Her record until Gabriel had been perfect, and then the impossible had happened. Escape from the Deep. Until then it was thought to be impossible. That’s why when the trembler alarm went off, the guard, under the command of Cochran, had ignored it as a malfunction.
The jagged hole in her reputation gagged in her consciousness. Frowning and turning her Devstick over end to end, Cochran said, “Supposing for a moment that this theory of yours is true, does Jonah’s recent trip to the Moon have anything to do with this?”
“Yes. We think it’s possible that Gabriel hypnotized Jonah in the White Room and planted the suggestion that he visit the Nineveh Resort.”
The Devstick spun just a little faster. “So wouldn’t this indicate an urgent need to provide UNPOL protection for Jonah Oliver?”
“No, that wouldn’t be a good idea — I think you’re missing the point.”
Cochran’s nostril’s flared, the spin of the Devstick just a little harsher, and she said in a flat tone, “No, Martin, I think you’re missing the point, but please go ahead, tell us. What is your point?”
Marty’s posture straightened just that little bit more. Her gender re-assignment was common knowledge to the gang, but outside it wasn’t, and no one inside or out called her Martin.
“Agent Cochran, my name is pronounced Mar-teen, not tin, and I’ll thank you to remember that if you want one iota of contribution from me in the future — and that takes into account your likely promotion to Director.”
Stanislav said, “Ma, ma, ma, ma, me too.”
Dom and Fatima nodded their heads in unison.
“Martine, please forgive me. That was uncalled for, and unkind. Please accept my profound and sincere apology.”
Dom and Fatima’s heads stopped nodding and they turned, in unison to look at Marty.
Marty felt the lie beneath the sincerity, but now was not the time to take this bitch down. There would come a time.
“I accept your apology, Sharon. Please let’s forget this incident ever happened. So to answer your question as to what is my point, I would say that the point was bait. We know that Gabriel is going to come after Jonah. The fact that he made it back from the Moon means that Gabriel wants Sir Thomas to suffer for a while, before he makes his move. But if we shroud Jonah in protection, then he may pull back from Jonah and go straight for Sir Thomas.”
“Bait?” the surprise in Cochran’s voice was clear to them all. She hadn’t expected this. She hadn’t thought of using Jonah as bait.
“Yes, bait. Put a shield around Jonah but make it invisible, and sooner or later Gabriel is going to try to penetrate that shield. If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to stop him.”
“Lucky?”
“Sure. Gabriel might be crazy but so far he’s shown he is a brilliant operator, Sharon.”
Cochran nodded her head, the casual use of her first name rankled her system somewhere and was stored away for future damage creation but right now her systems were running on full, thinking about the possible scenarios that would involve Sir Thomas. She needed more information before she could go to him with this. What she had wasn’t enough.
Cochran looked at Marty, her hands still on the table. “What next?”
“We have a gap of 36 years to fill in Gabriel’s life. If we can get more detail on that then we will have a better handle on predicting his moves. We plan to start in on that next.”
“I see. Well, time is of the essence so I suggest we call this review to an end and get working this problem. I’d like to see a list of your proposed solutions to this investigation by midnight.”
“Sharon, in our calculations for the time we require to come up with a solution, I’ve taken into account the fact that this is Fatima’s birthday and we’re taking the night off. We’ll be back on by the midday shift tomorrow, but otherwise I agree that this review is over. I just can’t say exactly when you’ll get our list.”
I’m going to fry this little creet when this is over, Cochran thought, but smiled at the Gang of Four, one by one, as they waited for her answer.
“Of course, how silly of me. I completely forgot.” She looked at Fatima, who flushed a deep red at being the object of the undercurrent of tension in the room.”It is, isn’t it? Well happy birthday to you. I hope it is a happy and — ” looking hard at Marty, “- a healthy year for you.” She rose from the Biosense and walked out of the room.
The others looked at Marty and smiled. She raised one eyebrow with a flick and said, “Let’s go.”
Fifteen minutes later they’d collected their belongings from the Cave and were back down at ground level outside the central Lev port on Jurong. Dom, Fatima and Stanislav shared an Envspace in Orchard Towers. The party they’d been planning for Fatima would start at 10pm.
Dom said to Marty, “Are you coming with us?”
With a brusque shake of her head, Marty said, “No, you guys go ahead. I need a shower after that meeting and I’ve got a couple of things to do but I’ll be over there before ten. OK?”
They split up: Dom, Fatima and Stanislav for their Env in Orchard while Marty walked north. She lived in an Env that was designated as Commspace — a warehouse on the northern shore of Jurong Island. From UNPOL Headquarters, it was about a three and a half kilom walk.
Marty competed professionally at race walking and the walk to her Env was great practice. Before setting out, she stopped to stretch. She was tall at one hundred and seventy eight cent, something she thanked the errant Y chromosome that had given her manhood. She called it gender realignment, not assignment. Her mind was not meant to be in a male body. She was female, had been for a thousand years, or at least that was her understanding. The surgery had taken twelve weeks from her life, lying in regen while the mistake was rectified.
When she’d come out of regen and first stood on wobbly knees in front of a mirror looking at her twenty-one year old female body, it was perfect. Everything had come out as she’d envisioned. The regen had been painful, frustrating and boring, the last being the worst she had to bear, but it had all been worth it and now, thirteen years later, she stretched out a long smooth tanned leg and eased her fingertips down to her toes. The pose stopped a few males and females in their tracks as her short outers tightened around her taut buttocks. It was an inviting sight, but one that was swiftly over as she tidied up her warm up exercises and straightening, began walking at a furious pace.
Fifteen minutes later she was moving at about eight kilos per hour on the home stretch along the wharf to her Env. The dockies yelled her in, chanting, “Go, go, go,” as she hurled herself with full pelvis rotations at the imaginary finish line in front of the warehouse that housed her Env. Dropping her arms as she crossed the line to the cheers of the dockies on the deck of the ocean hauler tied up at the wharf, she shook off the walk and eyed her Dev. It unlocked her door and she went in, turning to her left and striding to the far corner, she climbed the stairs to the second-story landing that fronted the space she had leased.
The space was huge and after she entered the gap left by the double metal doors, each six meters high, she walked across the measured one thousand meter track that she had painted onto the floor around the circumference of the room. In the middle of this space, she had built a large single room that contained her Devcockpit, sleeper and hygiene facilities with outlet. She thought of this room as her cabin, sound-proofed against the noise of the adjoining wharf. Outside, in the warehouse area, the room was filled with her hobbies. Plants grew in various stages all over the space under the nutritious light of grow lamps bought at discount on e-cred. The cooking range and exhaust she’d built herself out of brick and metal, as a prelude to her sculptures, for which she had a following among those who liked their art large and meaningful.
It was 6pm. She went into the cabin and, stripping off, headed straight for the shower. The shower was a slate room of three meters squared. High above it in the rafters of the warehouse hung a huge shower head a meter across.
She said, “Shower,” and the water dropped like a waterfall. Toweling herself off she looked in the mirror, searching for any fat or wrinkles, knowing she wouldn’t find any. Her short black hair was spiky from the water. She stepped into the drier sanitizing unit and blew herself dry on full blast, the upwards draft of the slightly warm air blowing tenacious droplets off her.
Walking back into the main room of the cabin, she flopped down across her sleeper and reached for a Devstick on the side table. The Devstick looked like an ordinary one, but it would explode and fragment if the wrong key was entered. She keyed in a sixteen digit code and the Devstick came to life. She selected her mother’s ID and, choosing message, typed:
Investigation now focused on known threats to TBO.
She waited, lying naked fully stretched out, looking at what she’d entered, the Devstick in both hands, and then she thumbed encrypt and submit. She paused, brushed a hand through her hair, and selecting another contact, typed, I miss you, pressed encrypt and send.