“What do you mean?”
“I mean almost none of the stuff we’ve been doing is actually in the logs. It’s like 90 percent of the shit we’re doing winds up with no record at all while some stuff is logged that never happened.”
This was getting very interesting. “Like what?” Tosh asked.
“Well after all our safety gear failed, we were like, ‘Who did the last inspection?’, figuring no one’s looked at any of it in 20 years. But the logs said all the crawlers had full inspections just a week before the shutdown. The names attached to the inspections didn’t match any of our names, nor anyone any of us had even heard of.”
“Then who are they?”
“Other citizens, supposedly. They have profiles and addresses and everything according to IDA, but—”
“–but now you don’t know if you can trust IDA, either.”
“Exactly.”
Byron was a straight shooter who generally kept his head down and did his job. But if he had his doubts about IDA, maybe it was all right to share what she’d learned about Downing’s whereabouts — and how.
She explained about her strange visit to the Nexus and the sleight of hand that gave her access to the location data. Then, reluctantly, she told him about his attempt to drug her with a memory-erasing Macro and Elle’s surprising intervention.
If Byron didn’t already have a reason to hate Downing, he did now. There was murder in his eyes. It was almost sweet in a way.
“That son of a bitch,” he growled. “You need to go to Elle with what you know. She’ll protect you.”
“She loves him, Byron. She’s not gonna throw him under the bus for my sake, and certainly not for Hideki’s. Plus consider the optics. The Administrator’s lover — the Director of Security — is the saboteur and my crazy brother isn’t? No one’s gonna believe that.”
Byron looked flummoxed. The world was generally simple to him, which is not to say he was simple. Far from it. But shit had just gotten complicated and he was still getting his head around it. “Well… so what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know yet. Owen was with Dek when they arrested him. I need to know what they were up to. It’s bad enough that Dek is tied up in this but if Owen…”
“I know.”
40
They stared at Hideki as though he were the devil incarnate, their thoughts so clearly telegraphed he could practically hear them.
This is our badguy? Doesn’t look like much to me.
What a monster. I hope he dies.
The Charter was very clear. Acts of sabotage or terrorism, or any action or plan of action that poses an existential threat to the citizens of the Dome, is punishable by death.
The hearing was just to give the illusion of due process. They’d already decided. The only real question was what whether they’d really do it.
“You’ve seen the evidence,” Downing said, making a slow circle around the Council table. “Mr. Yamamura was not where he was supposed to be, not only during the Exchanger failure, but during the Epoch as well. Apparently, something that only happens once every 20 years wasn’t enough to distract him from his illicit activities. While we have yet to discover his true intentions, his movements during the O2 situation are undeniable. He had the knowledge, technical ability and opportunity to do all of it.
“And let us not forget that Mr. Yamamura also was convicted of using his privileged station in bioprinting to make and distribute illegal Macros, a problem that’s never really gone away. He’s a dangerous individual who has flouted our laws for years. The time for leniency is over.”
Earlier, Downing showed them a visualization of the location data he’d obviously manipulated. It dovetailed perfectly with his narrative. The little metal box bearing Minerva’s corpse sat on the conference table along with the pile of electronic junk they’d confiscated from his unit. The restraints dug painfully into his wrists, but it seemed Downing’s little show wasn’t quite over. He wished he could stretch out and get comfier.
Downing gestured toward the pile with a mix of disgust and confusion. “And what about all this… junk? What could a man with such intellectual gifts possibly want with it? What was he so feverishly trying to make there, all alone?”
He locked eyes with them one by one. At the end of the long table sat Elle, her expression inscrutable. She’d avoided eye contact with everyone, Downing included. Almost conspicuously so.
“This,” he said dramatically. He picked up the little box wrapped in copper wire and held it up in his palm as though it represented everything they should fear about the unknown. “This is what Mr. Yamamura was so focused on. What’s it look like to you? Because it doesn’t look like anything to me. A small box wrapped in wire. It could be anything, right?”
Downing removed the tight lid and the room almost instantly filled with the smell of Minerva’s rotting body. He set it on the Council table and slid it across so it settled near the middle. The Directors recoiled and covered their noses but leaned in to see. Even Elle perked up and leaned forward.
“My god, what is that?” asked Harrison, the Director of Infrastructure.
“I believe it’s a mouse,” Downing said.
None of them had ever seen a live animal. The outer wall was sunk 20 meters into the ground. Even insects were rare. But when Hideki found the hapless little mouse hiding under a broom in the Stores the previous summer, he took it as a sign. They’d found a nest of baby mice in his parents’ empty unit after they disappeared but never understood their origin. He still didn’t.
“I thought the Dome was vermin-proof,” commented the woman named Anaya, Director of Health, seemingly directing her comment toward Infrastructure.
“It is, supposedly,” Harrison said, then turned to Hideki. “Where did you find this?”
“In the Stores,” replied Hideki. “I’ve been keeping it as a pet.”
“A pet?” said Anaya. “Do you have any idea how dangerous mice are? One bug could kill us all. And if it were to reproduce…”
“I don’t think Minerva’s reproducing anytime soon,” Hideki said. “And not just because she hated kids.”
He chuckled at his own joke, but it seemed no one at the table was in the mood. Downing took the box off the table and replaced the tight lid.
“It seems you feel like talking, Mr. Yamamura,” Downing continued. “Perhaps you wouldn’t mind explaining to the Council what purpose this device was meant to serve. Correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t mice once used for scientific testing?”
“So I’ve read,” Hideki said.
“So you’ve read. In the Cache, you mean. Would it surprise anyone to learn that Mr. Yamamura here has virtually exhausted the Cache?
“How long a leap is it to think that the same person who introduced illicit Macros to our city, who has always blamed the Authority for his parents’ tragic deaths, who is clearly obsessed with the past, might want to threaten our future? Is it hard to believe that a man who has spent more than half his life cleaning up after productive, law-abiding citizens would use a mouse to test whatever destructive idea he was indulging? Remember, this is the same man who violently attacked Authority guards at a Quietus, of all things, turning a day of solemn remembrance into a shameful circus.”
He let that sink in for a few seconds, not that he needed to. All they needed was for someone to ease their conscience. Downing had just seen to that.
“Are you finished?” Elle asked.
“I am,” he said, and set the box back on the table with the other junk. It still smelled of death in there.