The Thin Blue Line (The Empire's Corps Book 9) Read online

  Belinda nodded, checked that her weapons and IDs were safely concealed, then headed out of the door and down to the lobby. The doorkeeper hurried to open the door for her, something that always left her feeling slightly awkward, then muttered something about it not being safe on the streets. Belinda gave him a charming smile, then started to walk towards the universities. It hadn't been a surprise to discover that the deep cover agent lived close to the primary source of recruits for the Nihilists.

  They should shut the place down, she thought, recalling the role Imperial University had played in the Fall of Earth. Teaching children – teenagers – how to work was one thing, filling their heads with radical ideas and political correctness was quite another. No wonder the Nihilists were so popular on campus. Their doctrine was the epitome of the pointlessness of existence, the complete lack of morality, that students were taught by their tutors. And any tutor who actually tried to teach the kids how to think would swiftly get the boot.

  She gritted her teeth as a handful of male students wolf-whistled at her as she passed. They were on the streets to show their defiance, which would have been brave of them if the university district had actually been patrolled heavily by the Civil Guard. She fought down the urge to lure them into an alleyway and administer a quick beating, settling instead for ignoring them as contemptuously as possible. The simple absence of any female students on the streets spoke volumes about the dangers of being out alone.

  Bastards, she thought, nastily.

  The student accommodation was nothing more than a series of apartment blocks, very similar to Glen’s home. There were no official guards, somewhat to her surprise, but several students stood outside the building, carrying makeshift clubs and other weapons. They’d be in deep shit if the Civil Guard saw them, Belinda knew, wondering if they were actually prepared to use the weapons. It was quite likely that, sooner or later, the growing anarchy would find its way into the university district.

  She walked past them, nose in the air, and pressed her fingertips against the scanner. It bleeped as her implants interfaced with the system, convincing it that she had a right to enter the building. The student guards ignored her, confident that the system wouldn’t have let her in without permission. Belinda, who knew just how easy it was to spoof just about any automatic system with the right preparation, knew better. But the students wouldn't have been taught to doubt the computers. Or the security cameras, even though a quick check revealed that they'd been disabled long ago.

  And yet someone, with the right training, could make sure he graduates with the highest of marks, she thought. There had been a scandal on Earth, she recalled, where a pair of computer geniuses had fiddled their own marks. She hadn't seen the point of it, she recalled, because degrees from Imperial University were largely worthless anyway. The students wouldn't have gone straight to the top even if they graduated with perfect marks. Or rob them blind before they even notice they’ve become victims.

  Inside, the corridors were warm and brightly lit – and decorated with countless posters from movie flicks. Belinda sighed as she saw a poster for Psychopathic Marine VI – a very popular, if utterly unrealistic flick featuring a crazy Marine – and firmly resisted the urge to tear it down and rip it to shreds. Instead, she walked up the stairs, glancing into each floor as she passed. Half of them were deserted, but one of the corridors had been turned into makeshift sleeping space and another seemed to be hosting a party. But, when she reached the source’s floor, it was deserted. She wrinkled her nose at the smell, then walked up to the door and checked it. It was locked.

  She tapped the door and waited, then used her multitool to open the lock. It clicked open, allowing her to step inside. This time, she resolved not to be surprised, but as her eyes adjusted rapidly to the gloom she realised it wouldn't be necessary. The source – a young man called Richard Keystone – was lying on the sofa, his body stiff and cold. Belinda closed the door behind her, then crept forward, every sense alert for the presence of someone else in the apartment. But there was no one.

  “Shit,” she muttered, as she pulled on her gloves. There was no mistaking Keystone for anyone else. He looked roughly nineteen – his file stated he was twenty-five – and looked alarmingly sloppy, just like a regular student. Belinda felt a moment of professional kinship, then leaned down to examine the body. There was no apparent cause of death. “Why ...”

  She saw the headband on the ground and picked it up, then swore. A neural simulator, one designed to feed a program directly into the wearer’s head. The technology was dangerously addictive – among other things, it activated the pleasure centres in the human brain – but largely unrestricted. It was considered an affront to human dignity to ban it.

  And it helps keep the masses under control, she thought, as her implants scanned the headband’s processors. It swiftly became apparent that there had been a glitch in the system, which had caused immediate and fatal brain trauma. Keystone would have died instantly, maybe as little as two to three days ago, without ever knowing what had hit him. And why did no one come to visit?

  She put the headband back down on the ground where it had fallen, then searched his body thoroughly. There was nothing, apart from a handful of datachips, including five marked as belonging to various university modules. Belinda considered taking them for later inspection, then decided it was probably futile. Keystone wouldn't have survived for years as a deep cover agent if he had hidden anything incriminating in his apartment.

  Straightening up, she started to search the rest of the room. There were several piles of paper books, including a number that were considered restricted, and literally hundreds of datachips scattered on the floor. She glanced at a few of the titles – most of them seemed to be pornographic – and then left them where they’d fallen. But something was missing, something so obvious ... it took her several minutes to realise what was gone. Keystone should have had a computer, something to use to read datachips and type out his essays for his professors – assuming he'd bothered to write any, of course. Attendance was hardly mandatory. Students could get a passing grade just by signing up for the class.

  So where was the computer? It was inconceivable he didn’t have one. The universities handed them out for free to their students, just to make sure they were all on the same level when they started. But, no matter how hard she looked, she couldn't see one or any sign it had ever existed. Whoever had rigged the headband to kill the wearer, and make it look like a dreadful accident, had come back afterwards and stolen the computer. There was no other possible conclusion.

  He could have given it to someone else, McQueen offered.

  Pug snickered. What sort of student would surrender his computer?

  Belinda ignored the voices as she considered the order of events. The headband had been rigged, then Keystone had put it on naturally. There was no hint that he’d been forced to wear it and activate a program – and he had had some genuine training. If he’d believed he was being forced to commit suicide, he would have fought and there was no sign of a struggle. No, he hadn't known he was about to die. But his killer had crept back afterwards, searched the apartment himself and stolen the computer. It would need a dedicated forensic team to find any clues he might have left behind. Sighing, she stepped into the next room.

  The bedroom stank so badly she wondered if he had wet the bet, but when she turned on the light it became clear that he hadn't bothered to clean away the food he’d eaten before his untimely death. There were a handful of female garments hanging from a line in the washroom, she discovered, all labels with a different name. But then, Keystone would have had to sleep around to keep up his cover.

  I’m sure he hated every last moment of it, Pug said, archly.

  The kitchen was almost completely bare, she discovered. There was no food in the fridge, apart from a handful of pre-prepared meals and a couple of bottles of cheap rotgut. Someone had been making it themselves, she guessed after taking a sniff, and selling it to stud
ents too dumb to consider the potential risks. Belinda had drunk plenty of homemade beer and wine on her homeworld, but the brewers had generally known what they’d been doing. The illicit still-owners in the university might well not know anything, beyond the basics. And where did they get the ingredients anyway?

  She snorted at the thought, then checked the rest of the kitchen. There were only a handful of pieces of cutlery, all plastic. Clearly, the university was so obsessed with safety that they’d banned metal knives and forks, as well as weapons and common sense. She snickered at the thought of anyone trying to cut through meat with a plastic knife, then sobered as she remembered the pre-packaged meals. They were designed to be eaten with plastic spoons, she decided. The administrators were trying to install learned helplessness in their students.

  Idiots, she thought, as she went through the cupboards. They were empty, without any trace of food or drink. What the hell were they supposed to eat?

  Belinda sighed, then walked back into the living room and sat down next to the body, thinking hard. Keystone had known about the warehouse, somehow. He had to have known if he’d tipped Glen off. But he’d died, within a day or two of the warehouse being captured and the weapons impounded. Had the Nihilists realised he’d betrayed them, she asked herself, or had someone else murdered him to cover their tracks? There were too many things about the whole affair that didn't make sense.

  “What did you know?” She asked the corpse. “And why were you killed?”

  There was no reply. Belinda looked at him for a long moment, then rose to her feet. There was no point in taking anything from the apartment. Keystone hadn't left anything behind that could lead to the Nihilists – and if he’d set up a dead man’s drop, it hadn't activated yet. She took one last look around the apartment, then slipped out of the door, closing and locking it behind her. Glen could make a call to the campus police and have them ‘discover’ the body. His superiors would have to dispatch a forensic team after their source was found dead.

  She headed down the stairs, then froze as she heard the sound of a struggle. The cold and rational part of her mind told her to ignore it, but she headed towards the sound anyway. A woman was struggling and arguing ... Belinda turned the corner and saw a young girl, probably in her first year of studying, trying to get away from a much larger male. He looked too old to be a student, Belinda considered, although that proved nothing. His hand was reaching down into the girl’s blouse as his body pinned her firmly against the wall. No matter how she struggled, she was trapped like a butterfly in a case. She cried out as her bare breasts bobbled free ...

  Belinda threw herself forward and slapped the back of the man’s head with augmented strength. His skull cracked under the blow and he collapsed, his body hitting the ground like a sack of potatoes. Belinda felt a flicker of regret, then dismissed it. The bastard was unlikely to face any form of justice, even for nearly raping a younger student. She looked up at his would-be victim, who seemed to be going into shock, and sighed. There was no way she could allow the girl to tell anyone she’d been there.

  She had authority to kill unwanted witnesses, if necessary. But she’d never liked the thought of killing innocents, even if it ran the risk of them reporting her presence.

  “Where is your apartment?” She asked. The girl was shaking too hard to answer. “Where is your apartment?”

  “There,” the girl said, pointing towards an unmarked door. She stuttered so badly that she seemed to be on the verge of fainting. “I ... I ...”

  Belinda picked her up, then carried her though the door and into a messy apartment. Thankfully, there was no one else in the room. She placed the shaking girl on the floor and injected her with one of the needles implanted in her fingertips, then watched as the girl fell into a restful sleep. Her short term memories would be scrambled, leaving her unsure what was real and what was a dream. She certainly wouldn't be able to make a viable witness report. Belinda sighed, cursing the schools for not teaching children how to defend themselves, then walked out of the apartment. The corridor was still deserted, so she picked up the dead body and stuffed it in a storage compartment before walking out of the building and onto the streets. By the time they found the body, she planned, she would be a very long way from the university.

  Poor bitch, she thought. The girl would have been raped, right there and then, if Belinda hadn't intervened. Nothing would have been done to the rapist, leaving the girl to pick up her life as best as she could. Suicide was far from uncommon after such violation. And damn those who tried to keep her safe.

  At least you intervened, Doug offered. How many others would have watched or simply joined in?

  Belinda shuddered. The campus police had low crime stats. But they’d done it by ensuring that there was no actual ‘crimes’ on the books. The students had responded by doing whatever they liked, because if nothing was criminal nothing was actually wrong. It was hard to escape the sense that Terra Nova was definitely doomed. She thought of Violet, and then Helen, and shuddered. Would they be going to university soon too?

  Doomed, she thought. Definitely doomed.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Worst of all, it was not long before the Civil Guard was thoroughly penetrated by organised crime. This was nothing as simple as a handful of Guardsmen on the criminal payroll. No, it was far more dangerous; senior officers, some with powerful connections, were bribed into compliance.

  - Professor Leo Caesius. The Decline of Law and Order and the Rise of Anarchy.

  “I’m glad you took care of the rapist,” Glen said. “Not everyone would have intervened.”

  He sat back at his desk and looked up at Belinda. Her report had been complete, comprehensive and extremely detailed, even though nothing had actually been written down on the datanet. Richard Keystone was dead, any leads he might have had to the Nihilists had died with him and they’d hit another dead end.

  “I know,” Belinda said. “But I found nothing apart from a dead body.”

  She paused. “If Keystone was killed,” she added, “why?”

  Glen shrugged. His imagination could provide too many possible answers. The Nihilists had killed him for betraying them. The Governor – or an outside force – had killed Keystone after using him. Or ... it was quite possible that the glitch in Keystone’s headband had been genuine, with his death nothing more than an unfortunate coincidence. Glen rather doubted it – the odds against it were quite high – but it was possible. The prospect had to be taken into account.

  “I wish I knew,” he said. He looked down at his terminal. “The Campus Police did find the body, so there will be a forensic team dispatched once his death starts alerting people. And if one isn't dispatched, it will raise more problems for us.”

  Belinda nodded, then started to pace the small office. “Have you sorted out a security team yet?”

  “I’m asking for three more Marshals as well as you and the security staff already on Island One,” Glen said. “I may not get the Marshals, Belinda. Everyone is considerably overstretched at the moment.”

  “I wish I was surprised,” Belinda said. “Have you thought about asking for a Marine security detail?”

  “There aren’t any Marines on the planet, apart from you,” Glen reminded her. “And you said the Slaughterhouse was gone. Where should we send the request?”

  “Point,.” Belinda said. She didn't seem inclined to answer the question. “Have you seen the list of attendees?”

  Glen nodded. Half of the military and civil leaders in the Core Worlds were attending in person, while the remainder were sending representatives. They’d be escorted, too, by battle squadrons of their own, threatening bloody mayhem if anything happened to them while they were on Island One. It would rapidly turn into a nightmare if anything did.

  “We need to hold the conference somewhere in interstellar space,” he muttered. “But where could they go that would suit them?”

  He sighed. The list of instructions for Island One’s staff h
ad been clear. They were to provide the delegates with maximum luxury, up to and including courtesans from a high-class escort agency if requested. The courtesans alone would be a security headache; they’d need a great deal of very expensive soothing before they agreed that whatever happened on Island One would remain a secret, come what may. Their owners had a habit of supplementing their income by using pillow talk as a source of political intelligence. It said a great deal about human nature that it still worked, even thought everyone knew about it.

  And then there was the food, the drink and the luxury accommodation, all of which would pose its own brand of headache ...

  “It would be efficient, but it would not suit their dignity,” Belinda said. “What do you have in mind?”

  She looked at the datapad Glen passed her. They and the remainder of the staff would move to Island One as soon as possible, taking security equipment from Terra Nova and transferring it to their new posting. The staff, including the courtesans, would arrive the following day, after being inspected before they left the planet and inspected again when they arrived on the space habitat. Food and drink supplies would be drawn from Island One’s stockpiles, if possible, and supplemented from Terra Nova after another security check if not.

  And, after that, there would be no further contact between Terra Nova and Island One until the conference was over.

  Glen sighed. Island One should have been easy to secure, but he had a nasty feeling there would be problems. The delegates would need to be inspected, yet they’d probably take that as a personal affront, disrupting the conference. And their aides, security guards and others would also need to be inspected, which would cause further problems. It was going to be a horrible nightmare, even if nothing went badly wrong.

  “We’ll have to search Island One from top to bottom,” Belinda said, when she’d finished scanning the datapad. “And what about the residents?”

  “They have a guaranteed right to stay on the habitat,” Glen said. “But they were all heavily vetted by the owners and there’s nothing wrong or alarming with them.”