Bill's communication device shuddered on the coffee table in his ITF apartment. What did Gilchrist want now?
In no mood to talk to her, he shoved the ear piece into his canal and activated the device. A thin microphone unfolded to the start of his mouth.
'Yeah?'
'Mr Taggart?'
Bill almost dropped his mug of coffee when he heard the voice. 'Yeah?'
'Charles Deighton. Lovely to talk to you, old boy. It's been a while'
Not long enough.
'What, er, can I do for you, Mr Deighton?'
'I just spoke to Ms Gilchrist about this mission and I wanted to add my support to you and your team.'
First time for everything, he supposed.
'Thank you.' Bill had only spoken to the CEO of the World Government twice before, and once was to challenge his orders to send Isla to Exilon 5.
'I must admit I'm a little envious of you, stuck on a sunny planet filled with fresh air and hope. To tell you the truth, I'm sick of wearing my damn gel mask every time I leave a controlled environmental zone.'
'It's... different.'
'Bill... I hope I can call you Bill.' Deighton didn't wait for an answer. 'I must stress the importance of the events about to unfold tomorrow.'
'I'm well aware, sir.'
'But you've had trouble since your wife—Isla wasn't it—disappeared? There's still time for you to step down from the task.'
Bill gritted his teeth at the mention of her name. 'No thank you, sir. I'll be fine.'
Deighton cleared his aged throat. 'That's what I told Ms Gilchrist. She was worried about you, but I said, "Daphne, Bill is one of our best investigators. If anyone can do this, it's him." Are you clear on what's not to happen tomorrow?'
'At the briefing. Just observe. Don't apprehend.'
'Good. This is an important moment for us. It's the first time one of the Indigenes has been brave enough to surface during daytime. We don't want to scare him or her off. Just let it happen.'
Everything Deighon mentioned had already been covered in Bill's briefing with Gilchrist over two months ago, when they first spotted increased activity within city limits. He couldn't see the reason for this call.
'Bill, you've always been a loyal servant, and you proved that when you helped us take down Larry Hunt.'
'Thank you sir.'
'Your wife would have been proud to see how far you've come.'
Okay, he was done talking.
'Thank you sir. I really should get back—'
'Of course!' Deighton chuckled. 'Apologies, I'm keeping you from your work. Back to it, soldier.'
Deighton clicked off and the microphone folded back into the top of the earpiece. Bill yanked it out and tossed on the table.
'Fuck!' He paced the room to try and work off his anger. The last thing he needed was a pep talk from the man who'd put Isla on the very mission she'd disappeared from.
His breaths came short and fast. He punched the wall beside the Light Box causing its 3D image to ripple. Then he remembered the flash of light from earlier and the people probably watching him.
'Shit, shit.' He grabbed his DPad off the coffee table and relocated to his bedroom where he sat on the edge of the bed. 'Calm the fuck down, Bill.'
He couldn't help it. Deighton brought out the worst in him.
Larry Hunt. A prize scalp in the one-hundred and twenty year old's eyes.
He activated his DPad and pulled up Larry Hunt's photo. Staring back at him was the criminal he'd helped to put behind bars. Hunt was an ordinary-looking man, nothing special. But then, most of the serious criminals looked like family men with nothing to hide. Bill had expected Hunt's retaliation for his involvement in bringing him to justice, but he hadn't expected to feel so empty after the catch.
The chase had felt too easy, almost like he'd been set up to succeed. When Hunt Technologies had released their latest food replication model, the Replica 2500, the ESC had ordered Bill to intervene. The hundreds of businesses that had bought the model were touting it as a fake.
Daphne Gilchrist had ordered him to a meeting. When he arrived, she handed him a list of numbers.
'What do you see?'
Bill scanned the information. He recognised the format of prices against amounts. 'Shares.'
'Exactly. Mr Hunt has been pulling a stroke, overvaluing his stocks to gain a better share of the replication market. Naturally, the World Government board members are upset at this revelation. If the Replica 2500 isn't genuine, the company's value will drop into negative equity. That's a loss nobody wants.'
Bill looked up at her. 'You want me to profile him?'
Gilchrist stared at him, her expression cold. 'I want you to take the son of a bitch down.'
Bill had spent months trying to get inside the head of the man who had dominated the food replication world for an aeon. He eventually found his way in: through a disloyal colleague of none other than his secretary's boyfriend. A little bribe helped to loosen his lips.
Bill recalled his only encounter with two of Hunt's henchmen shortly after his indictment. He'd tried to shake his pursuers as they chased him through London's dark streets. When they cornered him one man grabbed his arms so roughly he almost dislocated Bill's shoulder. The other produced an antique knife from his pocket; the blade gleamed in the overhead street light. Bill sucked in a sharp breath as the knife-wielding man stepped forward and plunged the blade into the soft area of his left shoulder. The blinding hot pain disarmed him in seconds.
A fucking antique knife. There were easier ways to kill him.
The attack came with a verbal warning attached. 'Hunt wants you to remember this.'
Bill touched the area where the knife had penetrated his skin. Although it was repaired with no sign of a scar, he still remembered the sickening feel as the blade tore through his skin.
His hands shook as he flicked Hunt's photo away and returned to his files on the Indigenes. His caffeine tremors were getting worse. But with enough Actigen he could balance out his addiction and maintain his focus—as long as he kept the nausea at bay.
He needed answers soon, if only to kick both bad habits.
Bill combed through the dozens of files the World Government held on the Indigenes. There were so many to choose from, but he kept coming back to the one about the government's capture of a young Indigene a year ago. The alien had not lived long because it could not survive in the same atmospheric conditions as humans. The file contained details about an atmosphere-controlled containment unit in a medical facility on the outskirts of New London. Maybe he would take a closer look at that facility once his mission ended, or things quietened down.
'Apprehend the subject, but make sure it's alive,' Gilchrist had said at the last briefing. 'And make sure those idiots we assigned you don't go off half-cocked.'
Bill had requested a Special Forces team from the World Government. What they stuck him with was Armoured Division, minus the heavy artillery. 'Divide and Conquer' was their motto.
He planned to keep the alien alive long enough to torture the information out of it. After, the World Government, the ESC—or whoever wanted it—could do what they liked.
Memories of his wife seemed more vivid than usual. He was a realist by nature whereas Isla had been the optimistic one—the antidote to smooth out his rougher edges.
Her hair had hung down to her waist. He never did understand why she'd let it grow so long.
'Why don't you ever cut your hair?' he'd asked her once.
'Because it makes me feel feminine. It's also where my strength lies, like Samson,' she joked and gathered up a bunch of hair. 'It took me so long to grow. I guess if I cut my hair, I'd feel like I'd lost a part of me.'
The memory unsettled him more than usual as he returned to the living room. Maybe it was because he used the mug she'd given him. Or maybe he inched closer to the truth about her disappearance. He trawled through past memories, searching for clues about why she'd disappeared. Deighton had been helpful enough initially, but it didn't take long for him to lose interest.
'She's gone, Bill. You must accept that. We have all suffered a great loss. We share in your pain.'
He walked over to the window and rested his face and hands on the cold glass. Belgrave Square Gardens sat across from his apartment. He watched an automated vehicle pull up to the entrance through a fog his breath had created. Half a dozen children and one woman—presumably their teacher—alighted from the vehicle. The children screamed as they bolted for the swings in the park. The teacher yelled after them to come back but they ran free and wild.
The window fogged up more as his breathing became laboured. Isla had been open about her desire to have children, but Bill hadn't been as keen as her. He didn't think Earth was the right environment to bring up children and had promised to think about it again when they transferred to Exilon 5. Now Isla was gone and suddenly he wanted a child: her child, a little version of her to make him laugh the way she always could. But Exilon 5 was no safer than Earth as long as the Indigenes existed. They had taken from him the one person he cared about the most.
'Forgive them, Bill.' Isla was in his head.
'Forgiveness is earned,' he said out loud. If it came down to it, would he grant it to the Indigenes?
He buried his nose in the transcripts from the previous week's surveillance operation. His heart hardened as he read the detail about one male Indigene's attempts to contact a boy in Belgrave Square. But the mother returned and took the boy with her. Now the Indigene had a new boy in its sights: Ben Watson. A scrawny kid with black hair, according to one of his men's reports.
The last attempt had happened in the hour just after dawn. People who committed crimes usually fell into predictable patterns. There was no reason this Indigene wouldn't follow suit.
And when he did, Bill would be ready.