New to Grim Khonsu? Cick on the button below for an introduction.
The story so far: Grim Khonsu is a serialised sci-fi detective noir story, set aboard a vast generation ship. Xavier Peron is up to something. It might not account for the changes Aveline sees, but Grim’s suspicious. So far, the investigation has involved two deaths and an attempt on Grim’s life. Xavier knows about the investigation, too. And now, Grim has learnt about Lin Leven-Jacobson’s connection.
And he’s not happy. The case is spiralling out of control.
On the way back from Riya Leven-Jacobson’s place I was tempted to drop in at The Depths. Sapphire wasn’t playing, but there was a new band, a couple of regulars and someone I hadn’t heard of on the low end. They played lush, and word was they were good enough to break through. But with this case churning in my mind, I knew straight lines would set me on edge. I needed to keep my head in the game.
So I sat in the Foreshore for a while. They did half-decent chow, and over evening they pulled out keep-chill glasses. I ate and drank, watched the door to Per-LB. There wasn’t much activity. The kid Nate looked tired when he left. A couple of suits entered at separate times. I had Lola run a check on their idents. Finance rats, strings of letters as job titles, names that meant nothing to me. Lola stored the details for reference.
Neither suit looked happy when they left. One — short, frizzy hair that curved into a neat beard — rubbed his shoulder like it ached.
I didn’t see Xavier Peron leave. I didn’t know if the guy was inside.
After an hour I headed back to my place, ready to call it a day.
I should’ve known things wouldn’t go my way. My lights were on, my chair occupied again.
“You always turn up when I’m out,” I said as I hung up my coat. I removed my hat, set it on the hook. “Do that enough, a guy could get suspicious.”
“You’re suspicious of everyone and everything, Grim.” Minerva’s voice was as professional as ever. “As you spend most of your time away from your office, isn’t it more likely I happen along when you’re elsewhere?”
“Still suspicious.” I sat in the closest client chair. Minerva held a glass, a drink from my machine, something opaque floating a couple of ice-cubes. There was a glass of water on the client’s side of the desk, the outside still beaded with moisture.
“I was in the area,” Minerva continued, “so I took the opportunity to see how the Peron case was progressing.”
“You not keeping tabs?”
“The files only tell me the bare details. I’m more interested in your thinking.”
I shrugged. “Early stages. Still gathering information. Still asking questions.”
“But you have a notion of what questions need asking.”
“Running hunches.”
“And?”
“And Xavier’s pushing boundaries. If he’s overstepped, that’s more a tech ethics thing than a part of the case. I reckon he’s flipping between current success and frustration he can’t push further. Nothing hard to indicate Aveline’s right in suspecting there’s more to it.”
“But you have hunches.”
“Doesn’t mean they’re correct.”
“And one of those hunches concerns a connection between the case and Lin Leven-Jacobson. What do you know about the woman’s death?”
“Not like you haven’t read the files, but I’ll play along. Malo forwarded the butcher’s report. Lots of chemicals I can’t even pronounce. Pretty strong likelihood someone added something to the room’s drinks machine, acted as a catalyst in reactions between the woman’s body and the treatments she was undergoing, resulted in her collapse. The butcher reckoned it would’ve been painless — drift off to sleep, fall into a coma, never wake up. Not a bad way to go.”
“And how did that catalyst get into her machine? I understand you were due to meet her in a hired room.”
“Official booking, far enough in advance someone could’ve popped along to ‘service’ the machine. No official records, but I’m not done digging. If I’d wanted to off someone like that, I would’ve run through intermediaries. Doubt the guy topping the machine up had any idea the syrups were anything but genuine. Tox report suggests the catalyst would be most effective in plain chai, and Lin’s condition meant she couldn’t stomach caff or cocoa. And the catalyst was specialist. Anyone else drinking the chai, worse they’d get would be a case of the squits for a couple of days.”
“Charming.”
“We’re talking about someone being offed, and you’re offended by a reference to diarrhoea?”
“Point taken. So you believe the act was premeditated, and the motive concerned her research.”
“Doesn’t mean I’m right.”
“But?” She left that hanging, looked at me like I was a kid. And, of course, it worked.
“But if I’m not on the right track, why am I being targeted? First Natuche trying to seduce and poison me, then someone bringing Regina the Rat into the game.”
“This isn’t the first case you’ve endured attempts on your life.”
“Could say that like it means something to you. And, sure, it happens. Generally, it’s people pushing back through frustrations. This feels personal.” I reached for my drink, shook my head. “Wish I’d never taken this case,” I said as I took a sip. The water was too cold, set my teeth on edge.
“You want to renege on the contract with Aveline Peron?”
The second sip was better.
Minerva watched me, in that way she had, the one where I felt like the chair drowned me, like my feet no longer reached the ground.
I placed the glass on the desk, sat back. I took a breath to compose myself.
“This isn’t going to end well, Min,” I said. “Dig away one rotten support, it only exposes more. Whatever’s eating at the foundations is serious, too. Big-business serious. And you know what that means. Rules don’t apply in the same way.”
“Everyone on Khonsu has to abide by the laws.”
“Unless they can get away with it. You know how it works. Only so much Malo’s hounds can do against power and influence. And a schmuck like me can do even less.”
“A schmuck?”
“A nobody. Call myself an investigative consultant, but what does that mean? I try to solve these little problems, but there’s always more. No such thing as a simple, unconnected problem. And most of the time, I reckon I’ve got one problem sorted, but it opens up a nova of crap. Bring one low-life down, another ten creep out the vents. You know, sometimes I reckon I’m doing more harm than good. Sometimes I reckon it’d be better if I turned every case down.”
She didn’t say anything for a while. But she watched me. I reached for my drink again, then stopped, remembered Minerva had the drink ready when I got back, that it was fresh and chilled. Like she’d known exactly when I’d turn up.
I sat back. I pushed my shoulders against the chair’s fabric.
“Who am I working for?” I asked.
“The client is Aveline Peron.”
“Wasn’t what I asked. She came to me with the job. But you brought her to me. Just like you do with most of my cases, right?”
“If I find individuals who can benefit from your talents, I point them in your direction.”
“Sure. And the clients you find have problems running deeper than first appears. Aveline worries her partner’s gone screwy, but really the case is about dodgy tech and big business. So I take the little case, because you suggest it might be good for me, and all the while you know I’m going to drop into something big.”
“How could I possibly know that?”
There was no change in her tone, no sign in her manner. But I’d been here before. I knew when Minerva was taunting me.
Every other time, I’d backed down. Minerva made me nervous. I’d run checks on her, but they all came up empty. Lola said there was no data on the woman, but the way Minerva worked, who’s to say she couldn’t mess with my assist?
And I was sick of it. I was sick of being played.
“Good question,” I said. I crossed one leg over the other. I rested my hands on the chair’s arm-rests and waited.
I waited some more. Our gazes locked. I resisted the urge to squirm.
She cracked first. I wasn’t sure if that was as positive as I wanted to believe.
“I’ve been good to you, haven’t I?” she asked. “I found you these rooms, and brought you clients to get your business running. I initiated your funding account, complete with a generous set-up loan.”
“Which I’ve paid back in full. But I’m not talking finances. I don’t like being used.”
The shelves of books loomed in. The woodwork was too dark, too oppressive. I knew it wasn’t real — about as real as that fancy skyline, with the twinkling lights and the cruiser flying away to the right. About as real as the person sitting in my seat.
Minerva leaned forward, and the chair — my chair — squeaked. She placed her perfect wrists on the desk. “Tell me about Khonsu, Grim,” she said. “Tell me why things aren’t perfect?”
So she was going for a switch. “You know why.”
“But I’m not sure you do.”
I sighed. “Khonsu set off a couple of thousand years ago. Could’ve made a utopia, but that would’ve bred complacency. Whole point of this ship is to find new planets, set up new human colonies. Bunch of grinning morons who’d never had to work at anything wouldn’t last five minutes on even a perfectly terraformed rock. So Khonsu wanted tension and conflict. Not enough to tip into anarchy, but enough to give people an edge.” I tilted my head. “That good enough for you?”
“It’s not how I’d have phrased things, but if you’d given a text-book answer I would’ve been suspicious. So you understand your role.”
She didn’t phrase that as a question, but the slight lift of her eyes turned it into one.
“Sure. I do what you tell me. Because you work for Khonsu, right?”
“We all work for Khonsu. As far as we’re concerned, Khonsu is humanity.”
“If we ignore the colonised rocks. If we ignore the other ships the old place sent out, all different directions. If we ignore the fact that we can still communicate with everyone else through those gates we drop off every year.”
“Correct.”
Because it was too easy to ignore everything else. Khonsu was contained. Khonsu, spread over five levels — six counting The Gods, the ones who ran the ship. Khonsu was our world, our city, our lives. The whole colonisation mission was not our concern.
Except that it was, because it was the whole reason for the ship. The mission was central to everything.
Minerva worked for Khonsu. She held that mission close to her heart. And, as much as I didn’t like to think of it, I worked for Minerva.
I closed my eyes. The throbbing behind my eyes was only low-level at the moment, but this kind of thinking would only feed it.
I nodded. “Sure.” There didn’t seem much else I could say.
“Everything is connected,” Minerva said. “Even when it is not initially clear, the cases I guide towards your door have far-reaching, and important, ramifications. Many would only solve the surface issue, and the underlying problems would continue to fester, potentially causing catastrophic infestations. It takes a certain kind of person to look beneath the surface here. It takes someone who’s willing to face that burgeoning infection, who’s willing to make tough choices. Someone who won’t back down when things get tough.”
I didn’t open my eyes. I didn’t look up. The chair across the desk creaked.
“Someone like you, Grim.”
The chair creaked again. Her footsteps rounded the desk. The door hissed open, almost too quiet to hear.
“I know you’ll do the right thing, Grim,” she said from the doorway. Another couple of steps, and the door closed.
I didn’t hear her walk away, but her scent lingered. It wasn’t unpleasant. I breathed in the vaguely floral notes, and they cleared my head enough for me to nod.
She was right. Of course she was.
I opened my eyes, stood, turned to face my empty office. Those fake full bookshelves loomed in, books that would be full of words, full of facts and information.
But in my work, I needed more than that. I needed understanding.
“Lola. Get rid of this library crap, will you?”
“Of course.” The aesthetic faded, replaced by plain walls, a blank canvas.
“And pull up the case files. We’ve got work to do.”