I sighed my gratitude that one Hive at least did not say ‘Canner Device.’ “I haven’t had a chance yet to start tracking down the people I bought the packaging from. The Censor needed me today.”
“Were they Japanese by nation-strat?”
The question made me frown. “I believe so. We spoke Japanese, but these were underground meetings, no one wore insignia.”
Aldrin nodded. “We scanned the tracker records from the hours around this theft. The artifact’s hex left afterpaths. We are beginning to map its movement. It makes tracker IDs jump from victim to victim as people pass close by each other, so yours might jump to mine, then mine to Voltaire’s, Voltaire’s to another, bumping signal after signal, sometimes swapping back when people cross paths a second time, folding back on itself to make the threads harder to trace. The wielder can cast the hex kilometers from the target, then wait for the desired signal to drift out on the tide of exchanges. The effect entered the Saneer-Weeksbooth bash’house on a guest of Thisbe Saneer, then swapped the signals of everyone in the bash’ several times over, and Ockham’s signal traveled out on Cato Weeksbooth. From there it was easy enough for the caster to acquire it. We are still combing the records to see how many trackers were affected. Hundreds.”
I nodded. “And anyone affected is a suspect. No, anyone near anyone who was near anyone affected?”
“More,” Aldrin corrected. “We found this chain by examining Ockham Saneer, but if the caster also traceshifted themself separately, that will take us much more time to track. The chain we’ve found is just the mask. Until we trace the effects more completely, no one on Earth has a true alibi, nor anyone in orbit. Cielo de Pájaros is close to the Esmeraldas Elevator.”
Voltaire nodded, the visor showing me grim eyes. “Meanwhile we must hunt by motive, Mycroft. What motive do you smell?”
I flinched. “There are too many.”
“You told Martin that you believe occult powers within the Japanese Mitsubishi forged this artifact?”
“I … I have no proof.”
“You have instincts. Voice them.”
I took a deep breath. “I think … I think it was the Japanese Mitsubishi bloc originally. After news of the theft broke, when I was hunting for the thieves, everything I found, everyone involved, makers, smugglers, whatever the continent, they were always Japanese. It’s hard to believe a criminal group wealthy enough to develop something so expensive would be that homogenous. And it didn’t seem like something a criminal group would want to put together anyway. Why spend so much on research and development when you have veteran killers who drop their trackers for hits all the time?”
“Not criminals, then,” Aldrin confirmed. “But why would the Mitsubishi bloc forge such a superprosthesis?”
I smiled at her U-speak, ‘superprosthesis,’ so much more precise than ‘tool’ for describing this thing designed to grant humans a superhuman skill. “I don’t know. The effect you describe, it’s overkill for breaking into Black Sakura. That doesn’t require juggling hundreds of trackers, it requires a good crowbar. Whoever did this wants us to be looking for the device, wants the panic and the witch hunt back.”
A pawing at the door made me jump, but it was only Aldrin’s black unicorn, which had followed us up the hallway. It is strange calling it ‘normal’ watching this unicorn, as sprightly as a lamb and sleek as shadow, scamper to its partner’s side, but, with Utopians among us, such happy wonders are common. It is easy, if you look it up, to learn which types of U-beasts are robots and which biological, but most of us prefer not to research how these fantastic pets are made, so, when we see a Utopian pass by with a miniature pterodactyl on his shoulders, or a gold-plumed griffin trotting at her heels, uncertainty lets us imagine that the wonder might, like Bridger’s Boo, be real.
Aldrin offered her U-beast a welcoming stroke, then turned to me. “Why did you seek the Traceshifter Artifact in the first place?”
“Did Martin not tell you?”
“We know what illusion you cast with the packaging, but why? Your work was done. You had no further need for deception.”
Lies rose by instinct in my throat. I fought them back. “I didn’t want my real methods exposed. I didn’t expect to use them again myself, but I didn’t want that door closed for others.” Shame kept me from glancing up, for fear of the disapproval in their projected eyes. “And also, I figured that, if I had the packaging, whoever was responsible for the device would assume that more investigation might link my crimes to them. They’d have an incentive to hurry the trial along, and my methods would never be fully investigated.”
I dared to peek now at the pair. They seemed to gaze on one another through their visors, silenced by the darkness of their thoughts. Visor. Why is visor not spelled with a z, reader? Surely an object so associated with futurism should contain one of the futurist letters, z or x. It feels right to say vizor, not visor, lazer, not laser.
“And did someone block the investigation of your methods?”
“Yes.”
“Director Andō?” Voltaire leaned forward, so I could see Aldrin through his coat for a moment, a winged froglike creature whose arteries glowed through its transparent flesh like streams of fireflies.
“Y-es.” The word caught in my throat. “But Andō didn’t order the creation of the device, I’m sure of that. My impression is that they were furious when they found out it existed. Their involvement has been damage control, trying to conceal the bad choices of predecessors and subordinates. If you placed the device in Andō’s hand right now they would destroy it.”
As I answered, Aldrin had her unicorn extend a winglike screen, and began skimming through its data. “Do you know the Artifact’s original purpose? Was it forged for one specific end?”
“I don’t know.”
Vizors exchanged digital glances. “Does Andō know?”
“I don’t know if Andō knows. And I don’t know if whoever is using the device now knows either. I think the thief wants to topple Andō. Whatever the device was for, it’s easy to make it seem like it was designed for theft and murder. If the Japanese strat seems to be responsible for my crimes, if they seem to have been plotting to use this device for some kind of espionage, it would drive them out of power in the Mitsubishi for a generation, more. And if Andō and Danaë go down, they’ll drag Ganymede with them.”
Aldrin flipped through more data on the wing-screen. “Do you know why the thief involved the Saneer-Weeksbooth bash’?”
Bridger’s face, white with terror in my imagination, made me freeze. I did not want to lie to them, reader, not to Utopia. I did not want to lie, but, for what hides in that one house, I was prepared to force myself. It took some breaths for me to realize that no lies were needed. “I have no idea. I can’t think of anything to connect that bash’ to Black Sakura, or the Gyges Device, or internal Mitsubishi politics in any way. What I do know is that we need to protect that bash’house, more than anywhere on Earth. Martin I trust, Martin is gentle, but now the public knows one half of what’s happened. If they find out the other half, and the public screams for a big, showy investigation of the Saneer-Weeksbooth bash’, it will … I can’t overstate how much it could disrupt.” I paused. The numbers in the Censor’s sanctum rose blood red in my mind: 33-67; 67-33; 29-71. Should I break confidence? Commit the well-intentioned treason of leaking from that most inviolate of Romanova’s offices? Or could I make my fears clear without treason? “There are … elements of this which align with predictions made by members of the Mardi bash’.”