Celia Whitely might be down but she’s not out. She’s after retribution. In this opening scene from the book she’s manufacturing her exit – and she’s up to no good.
Celia refused her legal counsel’s offer of a ride to her apartment building in the city center. Instead she called for a taxi to take her to an outlying shopping mall. The place was crammed with people, most of them perfectly innocent, but not necessarily all of them. Her heart beat too fast and her skin prickled. She’d been in ImpSec for far too long to imagine she was safe just because she’d been released from prison. Mariana Llewynish, Celia’s legal counsel, had prattled on about how easy it had all been and how surprised she was that Fleet had even bothered with listing a hearing. They didn’t have a leg to stand on, and they knew it.
Which was true but it hadn’t stopped them asking questions. For all the good it did them. Celia was certain she hadn’t let anything important slip. The interrogator knew about the attack on Walker and Axmar at the Hurlingham Institute. She still kicked herself. She’d been so sure they couldn’t survive and she’d said too much. Far too much. Just as well they couldn’t testify. She simply denied the conversation — indeed, the event where she was supposed to have made those admissions— ever took place. A trachymex at the Hurlingham Institute? She hadn’t known what a trachymex was until after the attack at the university graduation ceremony. It was horrible, shocking, and it had nothing to do with her. As for the deaths on Valdora, she could honestly say that she knew nothing about it.
Celia left the taxi and walked through a crowded shopping area. She’d been a working ImpSec operative before she’d met Randolf and she’d never let her skills slip. There were two people tailing her, a man and a woman. They were pretty good but not as good as her, especially in such a busy precinct. When she was sure she’d given them the slip she hailed another taxi, checking behind her as it flew off.
Ul-Mellor wouldn’t let it go, though, she thought as she leaned back into the seat. She’d admitted her guilt to Axmar and Walker. She wasn’t safe.
The taxi dropped her off outside the Parkside Mall’s main entrance. Celia scampered across the road to a low, utilitarian building. She had rented a locker in the service center years ago, when she’d become a director of Humans First. One never knew when it would be a good idea to disappear and now the time had come. She opened her locker and took out a pack containing several ID cards loaded with credit for Maeve Wicks, Olivia Beckstein, and Rona Alonso, as well as weapons, wigs, a comprehensive makeup kit, weapons, and a number of scopes and tools to access data systems.
Celia paid cash to rent a room for the day in a cheap boarding house next to the mall and altered her appearance to match Maeve Wicks, an older woman with a rounder face than Celia’s. The cheek pads weren’t comfortable but they did the job. With a suitable nondescript outfit and matching flat shoes, she transformed herself into a middle-aged working woman with mid-length, mousey hair. She checked her appearance in the mirror and smiled. Even her mother wouldn’t know her.
Maeve Wicks took a taxi from the rank outside Parkside Mall and headed for the inner city, where she alighted outside her apartment building. This was the tricky bit. Celia had never planned to return here but she had to. If they’d found her unit to connect to Humans First, she wouldn’t have been released, so it must still be there. She ran up the steps and strode across the foyer as if she owned the place, making sure she hid her face from the cameras. She recognized the security guard but he gave her the merest glance, just another visitor. Maeve’s ID card included all of Celia’s access privileges to the apartment building and the elevators.
She waited for an empty elevator and rode up to her apartment. Before she opened the apartment door, she checked it for an alert and used her scope to turn it off. That would buy her another minute or two. ImpSec had been here so the place would be bugged, but she wouldn’t be staying long. All she needed was enough time to collect her private processor from the wall safe before she left forever.
She found the power circuits for the usual security cameras and shut them down. The investigators would have their own, of course. It took a few minutes to find them all, especially the one in the ceiling panel. She smiled. As soon as they realized someone was here, they’d be alerting people to come and check. Let them. She’d set up an escape plan months ago.
They hadn’t found the wall safe in her office. She knew all the ways ImpSec would have scanned and probed. Only two people knew how to disarm this unit; her and the fellow who’d set up the security for her—and he’d had an unfortunate accident just a day after he finished. Very sad.
Her book collection took up a wall of her office, stored in a glass-fronted cabinet. Celia took out three books and activated the tiny scanner hidden in the spine of one of the volumes with a strand of her hair, then leaned in close so it could scan her retina. It was always wise to have double confirmation. Her identity confirmed, she pressed the section of wall hiding the safe and the door opened silently. The processor was still there.
She stashed the device in her bag and took out two bombs, one for the study, one for the sitting room, both set to detonate in ten minutes. If she was really lucky the people rushing to the apartment to check would be here when they went off. She’d locked the elevator she rode up in and it stood open, waiting for her.
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