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chapter fourteen

Providence Station

Transverse, non-congruent


Isaac peered through a one-way abstract window, which provided a view of Beltrame seated at the interrogation table, her hands cuffed to the chair back and her head high and attentive. Providence Station didn’t have dedicated detention facilities yet—those were still who-knew-how-many weeks or months further down the schedule—so Gordian agents had converted one of the station’s many empty rooms into a makeshift cell. They’d isolated it from the station’s infostructure, then tossed Beltrame inside and locked the door.

Isaac wasn’t sure how robust the room’s data isolation would prove, but when he mentioned this concern to Schröder, the Commissioner assigned a pair of abstract Gordian agents to monitor the surrounding infosystems for any incursions.

He watched Beltrame for a few minutes, deep inside his own thoughts, wondering what was really going on and why. His mind failed to latch onto any real answers, and he huffed out a breath.

“Is something wrong?” Susan asked.

“Hmm?” Her question caught Isaac by surprise and he looked her way.

“You’re making one of your faces. Sometimes that means you’re a step ahead of me.” She shrugged. “Or three.”

“Just deep in thought.”

“Yeah, I see that. But something’s worrying you. I can tell.”

“Is that so?” He felt his lips curl into the hint of a smile.

“Well, I have tried to pay attention this past half year. And you tend to get these faces. But what you have now is your ‘worried face.’”

“There’s plenty to be worried about on this case.”

“Isn’t that the truth. Anything in particular bothering you?”

“I’m not sure how Beltrame fits into the larger picture.”

“You’re not?” Susan sounded surprised. “But we have a confession from Coble and all the abstract evidence on the ship. She’s in deep, and we have the proof to back it up.”

“We have proof of something,” Isaac pointed out. “And that something very much stinks of criminal intent, but the more I look at it, the more I find myself doubting we’re on the right trail.”

“But what about the bomb and the drone?”

“I know.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Maybe I’m working myself into knots for no good reason. You ready to have a chat with her?”

“Whenever you are.”

“Then let’s see what she has to say.”

Isaac palmed the lock, and the door split open. Beltrame’s eyes snapped over as he and Susan took their seats. The LENS floated into position, looming above and behind her.

“This isn’t what it looks like,” Beltrame said.

Isaac took his time opening his case log before he met her gaze. “And what, precisely, do you think this looks like?”

“You’ve got it in your head somehow that I’m involved in the bombing.”

“Are you?”

“Hell, no!”

“Then what are you involved in?”

Beltrame hesitated. Her lower lip quivered, and she looked away.

“Let me make the situation crystal clear for you.” Isaac clasped his hands and leaned forward. “The explosive device that nearly perma-killed two men came from your ship, as did the drone that delivered it.”

“There’s no way you can link me to either of those.”

“Furthermore,” Isaac continued, not missing a beat, “the records on your ship are riddled with inconsistencies, and through those, we’ve already amassed enough evidence to press charges against you.”

“Yeah, I read them. ‘Conspiracy to falsify records.’ Is that really the best you can do?”

“For now. It’s more than enough to keep you here, where you can’t cause any more trouble. The rest will come to light as we comb through your ship.”

“I’m not a killer!”

“Then what are you?”

Beltrame hesitated again, her jawline tense.

“Silence will only make your situation worse,” Isaac said. “You can either help us by explaining how you and your crew are involved, or you can—”

“My crew?” she asked urgently.

Isaac paused and sat back, regarding the prisoner. Had he somehow struck a nerve? Were her relations with her crew a pressure point worth exploring?

“Yes, your crew. We’ve already pressed charges against one of them.”

“That would be Coble, then.”

“You have something to say about that?”

“I . . . ” Her head tilted forward, eyes downcast, brow furrowed.

“Is she behind the bombing?” Isaac pressed.

“No!”

“Did either of you aid the bomber in any way?”

“Hell, no!”

“What about the rest of your crew?”

“None of them are involved!”

“Besides you and Coble?”

“Yes!”

“Involved in what?”

Beltrame’s lips stuttered on the edge of answering, but then she shut her mouth.

“How do you know no one on your ship helped plant that bomb?”

“Because . . . ”

“Because what?” Isaac pushed his chair back with a metallic screech and rose to his feet.

Beltrame shook her head.

“What’s going on here?” he demanded.

Beltrame shook her head again.

“Tell us.”

She shook her head once more.

Isaac glanced over to Susan, who could likely read his building frustration. He grabbed his seat and dragged it back into place before dropping down.

“Well,” Susan said to Isaac, crossing her arms. “This doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.”

“Unfortunately not,” he replied, not sure where Susan was going to take this but willing to play along.

“Oh well.” Susan gave him an indifferent shrug. “Guess it’s back to waiting on forensics.”

“Guess so. But we’ll learn the truth eventually.”

“Shall we pass the time by dragging her crew in one by one while we wait? I’m sure they’re all guilty of something from the mess.”

Isaac let a subtle smile slip, wondering if Susan had spotted the same pressure point he had.

“That sounds like a wonderful idea.”

They started for the door.

“Wait!” Beltrame cried.

He stopped at the threshold, then turned back with careful lethargy.

“Yes?” he asked after a deliberate pause. “Do you have something to add?”

“I . . . I do.”

“And?”

“We’re . . . running a scam. That’s all. No murder. No bombs.” She seemed to deflate in the chair a little. “Just a simple scam.”

“I see.” Isaac and Susan returned to their seats. “Who is ‘we’?”

“Me, Paula Coble, and Byron Fortenberry. Though, really, Coble doesn’t know what’s going on except that I’ve been handing down instructions to edit our records.”

“Which she followed?”

“Yeah.”

“Who’s the third name?”

“An assistant project manager for MG and our point of contact with the company.”

“What’s the scam?”

“We’ve been tweaking our construction records.”

“Which records?”

“Grav plate fabrication.”

“To what end?”

“We’ve been overreporting the amount of exotic matter used. We then sell off the excess to keep our inventory aligned with our records.”

“Who’s the buyer?”

“Fortenberry. He’s on board Kelly Johnson. Our two ships are coordinating all the time, so transferring the goods is easy. We’ve been sending over a shipment every four or five days for the past month.”

“What’s he doing with the excess?”

“I don’t know,” Beltrame confessed with a headshake, “but if I were to guess, I’d say he’s shifting resources from one part of the project to another in order to make himself look good in front of MG’s management. Maybe he’s shooting for an extra big Esteem bonus this year. Who knows?”

“Whose idea was this?”

“Fortenberry’s. He said he could tap into some discretionary funds without rousing suspicion. All we had to do was cook the books and transfer the goods to his ship.”

“Why did you go along with it?”

“Because he was offering good Esteem and . . . ” Beltrame let out a long sigh. “And I thought we would get away with it.”

“Do you know how the bomb was produced or delivered?”

“No.”

“Did any member of your crew participate in or help enable the attack on Director Shigeki?”

“Again, no. And that’s the truth.”

“Did Fortenberry participate in any way?”

“To the best of my knowledge, no. All he’s guilty of is running a construction scam.”

* * *

Once Isaac relayed the update to the Gordian Division, their agents stormed aboard Kelly Johnson and arrested Byron Fortenberry. Isaac and Susan’s interview with the Mitchell Group project manager proved both brief and unproductive, since he refused to answer any questions without legal representation.

They joined Gilbert back aboard Charm Quark soon after.

“I hear you have another ship for me to sweep,” Gilbert said in security chat with a wry grin.

“The Johnson is a low priority,” Isaac said. “Gordian already managed to locate and seize the missing exotic matter, which matches the confessions we’ve received. Unfortunately, this also means we’re staring at a dead end.”

“Hey, at least you two achieved something.”

“That’s what I told him,” Susan said. “Glass half full. Right, Isaac?”

“It doesn’t count unless we tie it back to the bombing.”

“Speaking of which”—Gilbert shifted one of his screens aside—“would you two like to hear about how I’ve been banging my head against the wall?”

“Is there a happy ending?” Isaac asked.

“Not really. I spent most my time trying to link the edits Coble made with the bombing attack, but I kept coming up empty.”

“Which lends credence to Beltrame’s story.”

“Seems so.” Gilbert rubbed the back of his neck. “Anyway, I’m almost certain the intrusion that corrupted the drone came from off-ship. I found leftovers from what appear to be a sophisticated attack virus in one of the ship’s communication logs. Someone took control of the drone and then used it to print the bomb. That’s what I think happened, anyway.”

“Any idea where the intrusion came from?”

“Not yet, sorry.” Gilbert raised his empty palms. “Somewhere off-ship. Could be the station or another vessel. All I know is it passed through the communication buffer.”

“That doesn’t narrow it down very much.”

“Hey, if I had better news, I’d share it.”

“Sorry,” Isaac said. “I’m not complaining. I know you’re working as hard and fast as you can.”

“Could the crime still have been committed from inside the ship?” Susan asked. “Maybe someone bounced the signal around to throw people off the trail?”

“I suppose it’s possible,” Gilbert replied doubtfully. “Though, it seems like more work than it’s worth. Routing the intrusion through another ship would increase the odds of discovery.”

“I have to agree,” Isaac said. “If the criminal had access to the ship interior, then why not corrupt the drone directly? That would leave the least amount of evidence. The fact that we see anything in the communication buffer tells me the crime didn’t originate from Charm Quark.”

“Okay, I see your point,” Susan said. “But then, where do we take this one from here?”

“That’s the big question, isn’t it?” Isaac lowered his head in thought. “Searching every industrial ship isn’t practical. Not in a reasonable time frame. Would you agree with that, Gilbert?”

“Depends. How many ships are we talking about?”

“Over thirty.”

Gilbert whistled. “Yeah, forget it, then. Not this month. Not on my own, anyway.”

“Is there some way we can narrow the candidates down?” Susan asked. “Can we at least limit the sender to a SysGov vessel?”

“Not with any degree of certainty,” Gilbert said.

“There must be some way to limit our search.”

“Possibly,” Isaac said. “Let’s look at what we know. We’re still confident the bomb came from the Quark.”

“The drone, too,” Susan added. “And that drone is still missing, despite Gordian’s ongoing search.”

“Right. In addition, we suspect that Shigeki was the deliberate target based on the bomb’s composition and how many people walked past it before it blew. What else do we know?”

“Not a whole lot,” Susan said with a sigh.

“Maybe. But maybe not.” Isaac raised a finger. “Remember, we’re looking at what could be one piece from a larger problem. Perhaps it’s time for us to zoom out and consider the larger picture.”

“You mean take the destruction of Reality Flux into account?”

“And the update from the Kleio.”

“What update?” Gilbert asked. “What’d I miss?”

“The Kleio was attacked by a strange TTV belonging to a group called the Phoenix Institute,” Susan said. “But I’m not sure how that’s going to help us.”

“If we only had Reality Flux to go off of,” Isaac began, “then other SourceCode ships would be the next logical step. But instead we have crimes committed on a CounterGravCorp ship, too, so it looks like the perpetrators aren’t picky about who they use.”

“Which again leaves us with every other ship as a possibility,” Susan said.

“Unfortunately.”

“Yeah.” Susan crossed her arms. “Maybe the three of us just don’t have a good enough view of the big picture.”

Isaac’s eyes lit up. “You know what? You could be right.”

“I am?”

“Yes. We’re not familiar enough with the Providence Project to judge where to look next. But there’re people who may be able to lend us a hand. Two people, in fact, who should be intimately familiar with the construction progress. And, more importantly, any recent irregularities.”

“You’re not talking about Peng and Muntero, are you?” Susan asked, sounding a little concerned.

“No, I was thinking more along the lines of subject matter experts.” Isaac smiled at her. “Why don’t we see if Hinnerkopf or Andover-Chen are available for a chat?”

* * *

Cephalie managed to catch both chief scientists between tasks and arranged the meeting. Isaac and Susan headed up to CHRONO Operations and met them in a conference room featuring an unusual triangular table. Isaac would have preferred to sit down with each of them individually, but Hinnerkopf and Andover-Chen weren’t suspects or even witnesses. They were subject matter experts, and so Isaac set aside his normal preferences in order to expedite their interviews.

“Anything unusual amongst the contractors?” Andover-Chen repeated. He sat back and glanced up at the ceiling. The equations on his black, glassy skin grew brighter and more energetic.

“I know it’s a broad question, Doctor,” Isaac said. “However, we’d appreciate your insight on the matter.”

“I think the better question would be what has been normal about this project,” Hinnerkopf said.

“True enough,” Andover-Chen agreed. “The whole ordeal’s been one learning experience after another. No one’s ever built anything in the transverse before, which I suppose is fairly obvious given we didn’t know the transverse existed until little over a year ago.”

“We certainly jumped into the deep end of this one,” Hinnerkopf added.

Andover-Chen snorted out a laugh and nodded.

“Why build in the transverse at all?” Isaac asked. “Why not construct the station in SysGov or the Admin first and then relocate it?”

“That was certainly an option we considered,” Hinnerkopf said. “However, SysPol already possessed a handful of transdimensional carriers—you call them ‘scaffolds’—which gave us the ability to deliver just about any conventional ship to the construction site itself.”

“And if we can do that,” Andover-Chen said with a half smile, “why not build in the correct spot to begin with?”

“Exactly,” Hinnerkopf continued. “Working in the transverse is certainly an inconvenience when compared to, say, the abundant resources available in Earth orbit, but not a debilitating one. It means we have to be more on point with our project planning, but even then, it’s more a hassle than anything else. Forgetting something typically means a few hours’ delay to bring the missing material on site, for example.”

“And the reason for the station’s location?” Isaac asked.

“There are both logistical and technical advantages to this position.” Andover-Chen’s equations flashed briefly. “The logistical side should be obvious to just about anyone. We chose the halfway point between our two universes with its joint nature firmly in mind. Furthermore, being positioned outside either universe’s outer wall gives our instrumentation an unobstructed view of the surrounding environs.”

“Have any contractors proven difficult to deal with?”

“Contractors are always difficult to deal with. That appears to be one constant of both our universes.” Andover-Chen glanced to Hinnerkopf, who sighed and nodded.

“We’ve had our hands full keeping our eyes on them,” she added.

“In what way?”

“Some problems couldn’t be avoided given the nature of the project,” Hinnerkopf said. “Just about every Admin company here has been working around technology they’re, quite frankly, ignorant of. We tried to divvy up the scope with this in mind. For example, our own Fusion Power Solutions is responsible for the station’s conventional power plants, while your SourceCode handles the hot singularity reactors. Issues started coming up when FPS had to integrate their fusion reactors with the SysGov-style main power bus.”

“There are also culture clashes to deal with.” Andover-Chen rolled his eyes. “SourceCode is a predominantly abstract company, which makes the FPS managers ‘uncomfortable.’” He used finger quotes for emphasis. “Pointless drama like that makes sitting the two sides down a challenge in and of itself.”

“To be fair, we’ve had only a few problems of that nature,” Hinnerkopf said. “Some companies have actually been eager to engage with their SysGov partners. Temporal Technology Incorporated is an excellent example of this trend. They’re a big DTI contractor, supplying over half of our impellers currently in service, and they’ve been working closely with the Mitchell Group on both the station’s impeller and main array.”

“Quite right,” Andover-Chen agreed. “Custom Malmetal Construction is another good example, I’d say. They’re working so closely with the Mitchell Group on the station’s substructure that you’d almost think they were a SysGov contractor!”

“Then would you consider the friction between Fusion Power Solutions and SourceCode to be an outlier?” Isaac asked.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Andover-Chen said. “We’d be here all day if we had to list every time the various project leads butted heads. We haven’t even started talking about the SysGov-on-SysGov friction. Sometimes, I think that’s the worst!”

“Or when two Admin companies go for each other’s throats.” Hinnerkopf sighed wearily. “I swear, herding cats would be easier than this job.”

“Do any of these confrontations stand out to you as especially significant or unusual?” Isaac asked.

“Not really,” Andover-Chen said. “Most of it boils down to each company looking out for their own interests or disagreeing on who’s responsible for which part of the scope. All typical stuff you’d encounter on any large-scale project. Wouldn’t you agree, Katja?”

“In general, yes. Some of the confrontations are more contentious than others, but none of them stand out as especially unusual. All of them can be traced back to rational reasons. Not always good reasons, mind you, but I can at least understand their positions on a business level.”

“Then, would you say—”

The door to the conference room buzzed and then split open, and Jonas Shigeki hurried in with what might have been a flustered expression. Or perhaps conflicted. He eyed Hinnerkopf and Andover-Chen, as if he hadn’t expected them to be in the room, and the two scientists eyeballed him back with combinations of surprise and confusion.

“Director?” Isaac asked after the prolonged silence.

“Sorry to barge in like this,” Jonas said. “I suppose I should have called first.”

“Is there something you need?”

“Just a moment of your time.” Jonas gestured to the two scientists. “After you’re finished with them, I mean.”

“We can certainly make time,” Isaac said. “But would you mind sharing what this is about?”

“It’s the case.” Jonas paused as if debating his own words. “Or related to it, I think. Vassal can explain it better.”



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