Chapter 4

Chapter 4

GDAT 3235.016

C PS Admin Jhankar Nihara felt his anxiety careening into the red zone as he read the two conflicting directives from Security Chief Perlabeaux and Acting Agent-in-Charge Rikenna for the fourth time. Perlabeaux gave him an official order to purge the entire dataspace that had belonged to Agent-in-Charge Jensuradi, claiming she had made a certified hypercube copy of it, and that recent multiple security breaches put the highly sensitive data at risk. Rikenna gave him an official order to disregard Perlabeaux’s order and instead grant Rikenna complete access and control over Jensuradi’s dataspace.

It had been like that for days. Within fifteen minutes of receiving notice of Jensuradi’s death, Rikenna had declared his “emergency acting” title and moved into the large Agent-in-Charge office. He then set up luxury arrangements for food, personal care visits, brand new tech, and upscale office decorations. The deluge of orders seemed to Jhankar to be redressing the huge number of petty grievances Rikenna had complained about since he’d arrived.

CPS all-hands meetings, which had never been pleasant under Jensuradi, but had at least been short and remote, were now multiple hours of twice-daily torture being cooped up in a claustrophobic conference room. His nerves were burning a hole in his stomach.

Jhankar had no other minder talents besides his unfortunately flawless memory, but even he could tell how much Rikenna was reveling in long-sought vengeance after the flameout of his relationship with Perlabeaux. She’d never missed an opportunity to remind him of his many failures, not the least of which was being utterly, fucking boring, and now she was paying for it. Jhankar would have felt sorry for her, but she could take her toxic positivity and shitty work ethic and launch herself in the nearest hypergiant star.

Jhankar was seriously contemplating whether it would be better to consume a fatal mixture of chems first, then murder both agents, or do them before swallowing the lethal dose. He even knew how to steal the energy weapon from the military armory because he’d memorized the access codes, and any recreational chems and alterants shop in Starlane Crossroads sold half a dozen substances that, when combined, would kill him long before justice arrived. As if there was ever any of that in the CPS.

And Jhankar had probably doomed himself with those thoughts. The first CPS telepath who went rooting around in his perfect filer’s memories would find it, and that would be the end of his career. His lip curled in disgust. His job with the CPS was so far from being a career that it may as well be in the Andromeda galaxy. He was barely above one of the poor convicts who got sent to indentured servitude to pay back their monetary debts to the galactic government.

He knew he was in over his head, but the CPS kept dumping more duties on him. Basic admin, logistics, and, as of two years ago, records management. His bosses knew very well he had poor executive brain function. Unlike most minders with a filer talent, he’d never been able to develop a workable system for keeping his memories organized. He knew, because he’d read it in his file, that he should have been sent to therapists, not an isolated duty station with toxic coworkers and no support. If he carried out his plan, they couldn’t say they didn’t see it coming.

The only reason he hadn’t, besides cowardice, was because Agent Narro Sotanova was not only sane, she was actually kind. It would be truly rotten of him to take out Perlabeaux and Rikenna. Even though she’d only been there two years and was the lowest ranking agent, she’d be the only one left to take over until the CPS got off its collective ass and appointed actual replacements.

Her primary job was to assist Perlabeaux with minder testing. Quirky station rules forbid even storing the testing equipment on site, so all testing had to be done in a military starship that was at least five kilometers away from the station. Not many people asked for it, not even for their kids. The station’s quasi-independent status meant that, unlike in the rest of the Central Galactic Concordance, the CPS couldn’t compel parents to send their twelve-year-old and seventeen-year-old kids for testing. If only he’d lived on the station when he was that young.

Sotanova’s other duties mostly consisted of fugitive watch and support for the customs and trade officers in the regular military. In addition, any tasks the higher-up agents disdained, procrastinated, or forgot. He knew she sometimes helped the military medic with overflow or where her minder talents could help, though the traditional anti-minder prejudice that was rife in the military meant they didn’t call her very often.

The best part about Sotanova was her ability to wield CPS policy and CGC laws like scalpels, and did so extremely effectively when any of her fellow agents tried something monumentally stupid. Which was why he was headed down the depressingly utilitarian hallway to her office now. He’d already sent her the two directives, but didn’t want their conversation appearing in any CPS records. Except his perfect memory, but he couldn’t help that.

When he pinged his arrival, the door slid open silently, then closed behind him after he stepped in.

Sotanova’s small office shouldn’t have felt more comfortable than the rest of the military’s part of the station, but somehow, it did. Maybe she’d done something with the lighting.

“Sit, if you’d like.” She waved toward the visitor chairs. “Something to drink?”

“No, sir.” Unlike the other agents, she didn’t seem to mind the generic military honorific. Most CPS agents didn’t like being reminded they weren’t law unto themselves and had to answer to CGC Military High Command.

Since he was still in a bloody-minded mood, he chose the red chair. His barely contained panic prodded him. “What should I do about the orders?”

Sotanova gave him a sympathetic look. “I recommend you refuse them both. I’ll send you the regulations to cite when you do so.”

Panic spiked. “I can’t do that! They’ll put me under house detention.” Not that the detention room was worse than the hideous military quarters he occupied, but he had a small personal life outside the military sector.

“Sure, you can. The regs are specific. Jensuradi's dataspace must be reviewed by the OII or a disinterested third party, such as an outsider CPS staffer officially appointed as Agent-in-Charge. It's a grey area as to whether Rikenna, who is still the appointed Deputy, could enforce the order if he is officially named acting or permanent Agent-in-Charge.” A slight smile crossed her face. “I don’t believe he reads CPS procedures very often.”

“Chaos, no.” Jhankar made a scoffing sound. “It might get in the way of following the gossip newstrends.” Which Rikenna studied like they were part of some obscure religion. Maybe to him, they were.

“I also,” continued Sotanova, “recommend preserving and securing any records Jensuradi ever touched while on the station. Get a cryptogon key from Commander Doseki and lock them down to read-only.” Her gauntlet-style percomp began blinking. A slight frown flitted across her face for a moment. “I’m sorry Jhankar. I’m late for an appointment.”

“That’s okay,” he said, rising quickly. If her appointment involved Rikenna or Perlabeaux, he wanted to be long gone. “Thank you. I’ll see myself out.”

Back in his office, which he should be sharing with at least two other staffers, but those positions had been vacant for five years, he mulled over Sotanova’s advice. It was all very well for her to blithely tell him to refuse orders and bother the military’s top commander on site with requests for security keys. But she didn’t have to bend over and take it when agents screamed obscenities and threw toddler tantrums when someone told them “no.”

Jhankar finally decided to send Rikenna and Perlabeaux generic replies that implied he would comply with their respective orders. Then he’d bury the requests in the miscellaneous file and get around to it when the Helmi 9670, the dead planet below, sprang to life.

In the time he regained from not doing anything with Jensuradi’s dataspace, he contemplated which fatal chems he could blend to give him enough time to shoot up a conference room with a high-energy beamer before freeing his soul to become one with the universe quickly thereafter.