It was unusual for the precinct to so busy this late at night. There was the assault squad to debrief, evidence to be logged and examined and three suspects in custody to interrogate. Li had requested a lawyer, who had immediately recused himself. Their conversation was private, but Lin suspected Li had revealed some kind of criminality to the attorney but had intended to lie. He had waived the right to subsequent representation.

The other two had refused to speak at all. They were cooperative, as far as it went, submitting silently to DNA swabs and acquiescing passively when their equipment had been confiscated. The equipment itself told a story.

Lin had been present for the woman’s search. Despite the gunshot, the medics had declared her fit and, apart from some work at the scene, she had needed no medical attention. The answer lay partly in the low caliber of Lin’s issued weapon and partly in the strange weave of the fabric the woman had been wearing. The bullet had barely penetrated the strange mesh-fabric and by the time they got it off her, the fabric had begun to regrow in filaments over the small, worn hole.

Whatever Estis had been involved with, someone was putting a lot of resources in to keeping it a secret. The soldiers, for that is what Lin heavily suspected they were, remained silent in the bright spartan interrogation room affectionately nicknamed the tank. Without their helmets and gear, Lin would never have been able to pick them out of a crowd. The man had shaved stubble on his head, so short as to almost be transparent, with pale golden skin. The woman also lacked strong features, with pale brown skin and plain brown hair. In short, they were a line-ups nightmare.

Not that they would ever see a line-up, Lin thought.

“For the purposes of evidence, this conversation is being recorded by video,” Lin nodded at the camera, “and audio. Present are Detective Santos, Detective Park and,” at this point the prisoner should identify themselves. The man remained silent. “A DNA analysis came back positive from the database. The suspect has been positively identified by the designation Jinn.”

The ID had been strange enough, when it had returned from the lab. The fields for name, age and even sex had been greyed out for both suspects, instead the only information were the codenames, Jinn and Gui.

“Please can you confirm you whereabouts between second hour and third hour today?” Lin asked.

No reply.

“For the record, the suspects were arrested outside Takeshi’s Technology at two-fourty six.” Both interviews passed much the same. Lin would ask her questions, and she would receive no response from either suspect.

Santos tried reasoning with them but met a similar wall of silence.

That was frustrating, and eventually Lin stopped asking questions and moved onto making statements that would paint the suspects lack of cooperation in a favourable light.

“At three thirty six, two days ago, you tortured and murdered Professor Estis,” Lin began.

Silence.

“This was prompted by the contents of a communique sent by Professor Estis that same day.” Lin stopped short of giving up the destination.

Silence, again.

“An attempted cover-up using a cleaning drone was thwarted by Takeshi Li, when he appropriated the drone in question.” Lin looked at the camera. “For the record, this drone was logged as evidence but was commandeered by the Council Armed Forces before a more thorough analysis could be conducted.”

Silence. Jinn crossed his arms, but his gaze remained fixed on the door behind the detectives.

“Meta-data on this drone led us to interrogate and administer a stay-in-place order on Mr Li. The drone also led you to Mr Li, whereupon you attempted to murder him.” Lin stared Jinn in the eyes. “Why is that?”

Silence.

“There are two options here, Jinn.” Lin informed him. “Either you are covering up loose ends or Mr Li has more information, which you were prepared to murder and torture to obtain. Which is it?”

“You are about to discover that I am not subject to your jurisdiction.” Jinn said. His flat, plain voice surprised Lin, as she was about to launch into her next accusation. He began to rise, Santos and Lin rising with him.

“Sit back down,” Lin barked, steel in her voice.

“No.”

At that point, the door to the tank opened and Superintendent Tor walked into the room. Their time with the soldiers, as Lin knew it eventually would be, was at an end. Lin walked out into the main office and saw Major Qaitu loitering near the exit. He took custody of his soldiers like a mother coming to collect her drunk teenagers.

“I want you to know,” Lin said in a low voice as she approached. “I witnessed your people commit a crime and no amount of interference from the Authority Judiciary can change that.”

“Again,” there was almost the ghost of a smile on Qaitu’s features, “I admire your commitment to justice, Detective but these are Council Military assets and as such subject to a court martial.” Qiatu’s plain expression remained impassive, but in Lin’s ears the sarcastic elements of his words were magnified, mocking. “I’ll see that justice is done.”

“Bullshit,” Lin hissed through gritted teeth. “I don’t know what you’re in to, but I’ll have you and your people languishing in a cell before this investigation is over.”

Qiatu smiled pleasantly and gestured for Jinn and Gui to follow as he left the precinct.

“Want to take a minute?” Santos had appeared by Lin’s side. “He’s not going anywhere.”

“No,” Lin replied, taking a breath to calm down. “No, bring him up and we’ll get this over with.”

“You lied to us, Li.” Linn stated, putting disappointment into her voice after she had informed him the interview was being recorded. The young man seemed to respond to it, sweating in his chair and looking dejected.

“I-“ he stammered the beginnings of a feeble denial.

“What were they looking for?” There was no need to elaborate on who they were. Li was lucky to be alive, lucky that Gui’s shot had gone wide.

“I- I don’t know,” Li’s tone was almost hopeful.

“For the record,” Lin looked up at the camera. She knew Santos was watching. “I want it noted, as per my statement given in evidence as a witness, that Detective Park reports the suspect identified as Gui told Mr Li to, and I quote, And by the end we will have the core. We know Estis was here yesterday.” Lin turned back to look down on Li, fidgeting in his seat. “So, tell me about this core and tell me about Estis’s visit.”

“I told them, I have no idea,” Li pleaded.

“I don’t believe you!” Lin declared, harshly. “When I interviewed you yesterday,” she consulted her notes. “I made the following observation. Interviewee appeared nervous but cooperative. Visibly relaxed when victim was mentioned, became nervous upon drone questioning.” She glanced back at Li. “Is that a fair assessment, Mr Li?”

“I don’t know-“

“We know Estis sent a large transmission to Valya,” Lin informed him. “And we know he took the datacore from that machine in order to hide the contents of that message. You yourself told me; he would come to the shop for datacores. So tell me, where is the datacore that Estis gave to you.”

“Like I told those two demons,” Li said, steel in his voice despite occasional sobs. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Fine,” Lin raised her palms and stepped away from the table. Time to try a different tactic. “Then I have no reason to hold you and you’re free to go. Valya, is it? I know a lot of people are heading out that way, new life new opportunities and all that.”

“That’s right,” Li confirmed, slowly, uncertainly. “You can’t stop me from going.”

“Of course, Mr Li, of course I can’t stop you.” Lin tried to put some geniality in her voice. She made it light and carefree as a Valyon beach party. “But you should know, about fifteen minutes ago, a Major from the Council Military came and collected Gui and Jinn,” she glanced at Li, “your attackers, just in case you don’t know.”

“So what?” Li paled at their mention but was trying to keep his voice even.

“Well,” Lin sat down opposite Li. “I’m just giving a personal observation, but this Major didn’t seem particularly inclined to punish his subordinates...” Lin let that sink in. “In fact, it seems that these individuals are unlikely to face any consequences to the attempt on your life.”

“Are you threatening me?” Li asked. “I will get my lawyer back here!”

“Why?” Lin asked with a shrug. “You’re free to go and we have nothing to hold you on.”

“But they’ll kill me!” Li said, agitated and fearful.

“Then you need to start talking,” Lin stood abruptly, her chair scraping on the metallic floor of the former colony ship. “Starting with this datacore. Where is it?”

Li put his head in his hands, playing with his sweat soaked hair. He was crying, but Lin knew she had him.

“It’s in my hand terminal. I can dual boot from it’s original core or the one Estis gave me,” Li mumbled.

“And why did Estis give you this core?”

“He told me…” Li sniffed. “He told me it was old, nothing on it but he wanted it deep cleaned and then I could sell it.”

“So you had a look at what was on it?” Li nodded.

“Of course I did,” he replied. “I thought I could sell the data to set myself up nice on Valya.”

“What happened?” Something told Lin that plan had gone awry.

“There was nothing on it, Estis had scrubbed most of the data himself.” Li looked Lin in the eye. “There were the fingerprints of some pretty vanilla porn, contact lists and some file names.” Li continued, unburdening himself. “I saw one of the names was Morgan Reid, CEO of the ChanReid Corp. I reached out, thinking I could sell it on.”

“That’s when bodies started appearing?” Lin asked. Li nodded sadly.

“You can take the core,” Li said, throwing his arms as though he was throwing the core away. “It’s not worth it, the shop can pay for my passage. I don’t care anymore.”

“We’ll keep you here,” Lin informed him, softly. “We can protect you, until this is over.”

Tech had gone home. It was fourth hour, Lin realised checking her terminal. She had told Santos to go too, but she was happy when he had refused. Maybe it could have waited until morning, but with Li sleeping soundly in the cells and the threat that Major Qaitu might come back with another bullshit warrant Lin felt more at ease in the precinct than even her own home.

Lin held the glassy datacore and then slotted it into her own handterminal, which in turn was hooked up to her desk terminal. The tech department would still need to take a look, but Lin was hoping to get a jump start on the investigation. Santos hovered nearby, a flask of coffee in each hand.

“Here we go,” Lin breathed, navigating the interface. Six folders loaded onto the screen and Lin opened the log for last contacts. At midday, two days ago Estis had sent a huge file to a man called Ray Southern.

“Looking him up now,” Santos announced and practically bounced to his own terminal.

Lin looked through some of the other contacts. Naomi Willow, Gregori Scott, Morgan Reid… Nothing jumped out of her. She checked the attached file names and saw that they all came under a heading called Deimos.

“Can’t see anything to connect Southern and Estis,” Santos announced over the empty desks.

“Try, Naomi Willow, Grigori Scott and Morgan Reid…” There was something about that last name, tickling at Lin’s brain. She began to run a search.

“Got something!” They both announced together. Santos gestured for Lin to continue. “Morgan Reid was the chief scientific advisor to Gudmunder Singh and Director Gryzik....” Lin skimmed the bio. “He was head of the scientific council until… his death ten years ago on Valya.”

“Sounds like Estis had some friends in high places. Southern is a molecular geneticist at the Valyon Terraforming project.” Santos walked over to Lin’s terminal. “Remember when all those whales died?” Lin nodded. A technician had been radicalised by a preservation group and killed a whole pod destined for terraforming. “The Science council sent Southern to oversee the project.”

“There are a lot of files here,” Lin said, navigating through the directory. “Test scores, subject lists… some video… this one’s called approval.” Lin turned to Santos. “It looks like Deimos was some kind of experiment.”

“Whatever it was, someone high up thinks it’s worth killing for,” Santos said. After a moment of pause he asked, “What do you want to do now?”

“First, I need to get a message to Southern,” Lin said, removing the datacore from her terminal. “Estis clearly sent him the records for this Deimos project for a reason, and I want to know what it is.”

About three coffees later, and after much discussion, Santos and Lin sat down to record their message. The effort of the previous days was beginning to show, and Lin struggled to keep her eyes open, necessitating multiple attempts at recording. Since the drone had been taken, Lin had been across the city, taken part in a night-raid and interrogated three suspects all without a blink of sleep.

The morning found Lin and Santos watching their playback as the first officers of the morning shift began to arrive. They sent the message just as Superintendent Tor walked into the room.

“Were you here all night?” He demanded.

“We were reviewing some evidence given over by Mr Li,” Santos replied. “We just need to prepare a report before we log it.”

“Go home,” Tor ordered, looking from Santos to Lin. “Both of you. I want you back to debrief in five hours, then we can take what we have to prosecution.”

Normally, day-shift sleeping was difficult for Lin. She had picked up the usual tricks, blackout windows and a thick visor to block out the sun, but it was as though her circadian rhythm was destined to follow the path of the sun no matter the cost. She had protested with Santos all the way back to her flat that it would be easier for her to stay awake through the night. Santos had quipped that were he not a cop, he would be deemed too tired to drive.

Lin’s building was one of the second-gen of habs, when people had craved large ceilings and more natural building materials after the landfall and years of living in small, cramped ship berths. The walls were bare sandstone, and the wooden floors a pale eggshell blue from a native tree species on Deyga. She threw her bag to join the clutter in the hallway, and the stench of dirty dishes greeted her like a neglectful roommate.

Lin was so tired, she flopped onto the bed and was asleep before her head touched the pillows.

A strange buzzing intruded into her disordered dreams. There were fragments of interviewing Jinn and Gui with Major Quietu’s grinning face looking through the very walls. A hand terminal was buzzing somewhere, and the unprofessionalism irked her. Why wasn’t anyone answering it? A door opened gently. Was someone going to answer?

Lin saw that the light in her bedroom had shifted to a golden yellow. Her pillow was wet from drool.

“Santos?” She mumbled, sleepily as she rolled over and saw a figure in black walking down the hallway to her open bedroom door. She knew him, or rather she knew his gear. He wore black form-fitting armour, like the inside of a vac-suit liner, and visored helmet obscured his face. A pistol hung at his hip.

“Santos!” Lin yelled, and the figure paused, turning in the hallway. Lin saw her chance, her only chance, and rushed forward. Get the gun, her training screamed from inside her skull. Getthegun getthegungetthe…

Lin launched herself from the bed and down the hall, every muscle in her legs screaming at the effort. She weighed nothing next to the soldier, it would all be about momentum. There was no after.

Her shoulder collided with the attacker, who had just begun to turn around, and the rest of her body followed after. Go through, her brain grunted at her. It was like running into a stone wall, not that she had ever been stupid enough to try that, and Lin found herself bouncing away onto the floor of the hallway.

Her attacker went down against the door, the wood cracking against his muscular bulk. Lin reached out for the empty doorframe to her left, the living room, and used it to launch herself off the floor and once more at the soldier.

She struck down at him with her hands, trying to press this sliver of an advantage but the attacker grabbed her wrists in his hands and, with Lin pinned, ponderously rose to his feet, his body twisted away to deflect the inevitable kicks that Lin subconsciously struck out with.

Pain lanced all down Lin’s arms and into his shoulders. She was held above the floor by her wrists, kicking feebly. To her own ears, whether real or sickeningly pain-induced, she could hear the bones in her arms begin to crack under the strain as she called out in gasping, sobbing pain.

“Gah,” Lin’s stomach flipped as she was thrown back towards the bedroom. Bile rose, caustic and demanding in her throat as she collided hard with the wooden floor. The soldier seemed like he was in no particular hurry. His hand went, lazily to the holster at his hip, unbuttoning it casually and drawing the weapon in one languorous move.

“Please,” Lin began to beg, shuffling back feebly, with each movement against the floor shooting pain over her wrists. Would her body be dumped in an alleyway, like Estis, exposed and waiting to be picked up by a drone? Or, emboldened by the inaction of the judiciary, would they leave her in plain sight knowing there would be no consequences?

Bang.

The familiar metallic barking of a standard issue revolver.

BangBang.

Lin realised she had closed her eyes. She opened them to see her attacker, gun drawn, stood a meter from her. Gore painted her off-white walls, a bit of bronchus, she thought academically, smeared on the plaster. Blood poured from her attackers throat.

Bang

Another shot. More blood from behind the helmet was accompanied this time with a plastic crack and the soldier fell forwards, gun skittering on the floor. The thud of his body against the hard wood shook the small apartment.

Santos rushed towards her, and Lin had never been happier to see him.

“Are you okay?” Santos’s voice was distant, as though behind a screen. “Are you okay?”

Lin came too, suddenly and with panic. Jinn, for she was sure it was he, had been looming over ready to shoot her. She sighed a breath of relief as she remembered he was dead.

“What happened?” Lin coughed. She was sat in a lounge chair in her living room. It was a high-ceilinged room, bigger than all the other spaces combined, with soft grey walls that complemented the pale blue of the floor where it poked out from under her mother’s old patterned rugs. The wall-length bay windows had been shuttered against the weak afternoon sunlight. A small entertainment terminal was tucked away on an oaken cabinet.

Her beautiful living room, Lin mused looking around; the reason for which she had chosen to pay the extortionate rent on the place.

“We were attacked,” Santos called out from the kitchen behind her. He emerged carrying a glass of water and a tray of a still frozen lasagne. “For your wrists,” he said, gesturing with Lin’s dinner-to-be.

“How did you-“

“You were pretty out of it when we got back,” Santos said, anticipating her question. “So was I, so I thought I’d sleep on your sofa.” For the first time Lin noticed her sofa had been made up with a blanket. Her colourful pillows had been gathered at one end and were crushed. “When I asked, you were already flopped out so I thought you wouldn’t mind,” Santos was looking at the shuttered windows.

“Not at all,” Lin smiled weakly. Her throat was sore, and the cool water helped parch it. The wrists were another matter, the pain causing her to gasp as she raised the glass to her lips. A moment of silence passed as Lin drank.

“How are you feeling?” Santos asked after a minute.

“Fine,” Lin lied. Her back was sore, her wrists were agony and something felt wrong in her shoulder. Sitting up, even supported by her chair, was painful though Lin failed to think of a position that would not put pressure on at least one of her injuries. “Have you called the dead guy in?”

“No,” Santos told her, his voice dark. “And I won’t,” he said in response to Lin’s confused look. “Gui’s probably at my place right now, searching for me.”

“What do you mean?” Lin’s head felt foggy and she wondered if maybe she had hit it in the fight.

“Who knew where we would be?” Santos asked plainly. “Who knew we would be at home? The station logs don’t,” he explained. “As far as the roster is concerned, we’re both pulling shifts at the precinct right now. Who is the only person who would know we would be here?”

“You don’t mean…” Lin refused to believe it. “But Tor hates the military.” Lin scrambled for any other explanation. “He was there in the twenties, all th-the interference a-and…”

“It’s not just the military though, is it?” The question was rhetorical. “That warrant was signed by the judiciary, by prosecutions. They’re all in on it,” Santos said. “I’m sure Tor’s not happy but we’ve been in this job long enough to know that anyone, given the right incentive, will do shitty things and claim they had no choice.” Santos paced the living room. “If we call it in, the next knock at the door is Gui.”

“Then what can we do?” Lin asked, anger rising in her voice.

“We can play this message,” Santos held up bulky hand terminal. Lin recognised the yellow and black paintwork as her own.

All pain forgotten, Lin reached out for the brick-shaped machine as Santos cleared some of the clutter around her home terminal.

“It’s Southern,” she said excitedly, seeing the ID attached to the message. “Video” Lin cast the message to the bigger screen. A middle-aged man, with a deep-lined face filled the screen. The triangular shape of the man’s face was accentuated by a greying pointed goatee. A nest of silver-blonde hair looked like someone had glued it to his head. From the room around him, the message had been recorded at night.

Santos settled back onto the sofa and Lin pressed play.

“Detective Park,” Southern began. “I was sorry, although not surprised to hear of my friend’s death.” The scientist seemed genuinely sad. “The manner of his passing is, however, truly awful. Our work, along with Professor Reid,” a look of bitterness came over Southern’s face, “never sat well with him. After his diagnosis he became fond of telling me, the judgements of the Lord are true, and righteous,” Southern rambled his eyes glistening, “but I suppose it has proven so once again.” Southern took a shuddering breath, looking behind his camera, and continued.

“In the late days of Director Singh, or perhaps the early days of Director Gryzik – I’m not sure which – Reid began the Deimos program.” Southern was looking directly at the camera now, unburdening himself. “The stated goal of the project was to create a special forces group, soldiers who would be able to fight anything, anywhere and win. They would be our greatest military assets and could safeguard the Councillate against any threat.”

“Of course,” Southern sighed, “the overreaches of the Gryzik Directorate are well known and documented. The project, for the government, became another way in which to keep control. The Councillate had no enemies to justify the creation of these soldiers but Gryzik did.” There was a pause, Lin and Santos glanced at each other. A chasm had opened in the pit of Lin’s stomach.

“The project stole five hundred children,” Southern confessed. “They were taken exclusively from the Crèche, after routine medical procedures, and their guardians were told they had died. Instead the children had been taken to secret bases on Deyga and underwent a training regimen that constitutes abuse.”

“I joined the project at the crest of its most heinous crescendo,” Southern cried. “Ten years into the project, the subjects- the children, were taken to the new Ostia station and subjected to experimental treatments. Their hearing, sight and smell were all augmented. We experimented on their nervous system to create quicker reaction times and higher pain thresholds.” Southern wept quietly for a moment. Santos let out a breath he had been holding. “We even altered their very DNA to make them less susceptible to disease, cancer and the like. We strived at the very edge of scientific possibility to give these children every and any combat advantage.”

“By the, Gryzik was dead and gone, we all know the story, and Le Pham came to power promising a new council, but the work continued and they, unwilling to fully reign in the military and risk civil war, opted for a strategy of plausible deniability.” Southern sniffed. “I left the project shortly after, with Estis. We were promised good government jobs in return for our silence. Estis found God, and I found… salvation in good works.”

“Detective,” Southern’s eyes seemed to penetrate through his camera, right into Lin. “This program is still active. The training of the soldiers is over but they are very much still military assets, I’m sure. Estis was killed to keep this secret, many others too most likely. I have attached to this message all the records kept by Estis. They detail what happened, training logs and experimental protocols. They also detail government approval for the experiments.”

“I am willing to testify to the authenticity of the documents, and much else besides but,” Southern’s voice cracked again. “But if I am unable to, if I am found before then, I want it noted, that the reason Estis and I stayed was to care for the children.” Southern sobbed. “I caused so much harm to them but I tried to treat them with the respect they deserved and I tried to shield them from the worst of the ideas.” The scientist composed himself, finally. “I want the system to know, I’m sorry.”

Silence greeted the end of the message.

“Weren’t sorry when you were getting paid, dickhead!” Santos yelled out angrily. He shot off the sofa and began his pacing. “Holy fuck!”

Lin was dumbstruck, in every sense of the word. Her brain was still processing the video. She noted that Estis had found God, yet Southern was the man unburdening himself as though at a confessional. The twenties had been a dark time, she knew, but only from lessons at school. She did some maths and thought back to her appendicitis surgery as a kid. She would have been too young, Lin realised, but wondered how many like her had woken up in a strange government facility to be broken down and… remade.

Glancing out into the hallway, Lin could see Jinn’s legs poking from behind the wall and she thought back to the shop. He had heard reinforcements approaching before she had, and the way he moved… Lin realised that he could have been one of them. It gave her a new appreciation for her own life and just how close it had come to ending.

“Well, shit,” Santos said once he had calmed down somewhat and sat back down on the sofa. “How do we get this out, without a bullet in the skull?”

Lin had no idea. Tor was probably in on it, or at the very least complicit now. The prosecutors and judiciary had signed Quietu’s warrant and so they too were suspect. Nupolis Council, other politicians? Gryzik had allegedly waged a campaign of intimidation through violence and council members bled just as easily as anyone else. The press?

The flash of an idea hit Lin. She tried to stand, but her back locked with a painful shock and she fell back down.

“The press,” Lin said, looking around for her handterminal.

“The press?” Santos asked his inflection raised sceptically. “Government could pull the story easy. Besides, no one will touch it.” He waved his hand dismissively.

“We both know someone who would,” Lin replied, a smile threatening to pull on her mouth as she typed on her handterminal. The details would not be hard to find. “Aha!” Lin exclaimed. There, on the staff page of the Valyon Moon press she saw the contact for Nadezhka Pushkov.