Ure Infectus (Imperium Cicernus Book 4) (11 page)

Not long after it had begun, the Popper pulled back and
Jericho leaned down to see that the bone had indeed been knitted back together.
A small, thin layer of silvery threads—thousands of them—had been woven around
the broken bone, and Jericho knew that even that thin layer of material was far
stronger than the bones which it secured.

“Satisfactory?” the Popper asked neutrally as it hovered
over the wound.

Jericho nodded. He hadn’t needed a professional reconnect
job—he could get that done later if need be—but he actually thought it was
possible he wouldn’t need such a follow-up procedure. The Popper knew its craft
better than he had suspected, so he shook his head. “Better than satisfactory,”
he said, more than a little surprised to hear himself say it.

“Pain,” the Popper said as it leaned forward and began to
knit the edges of the surgical wound together using the same, fibrous, silvery
material it excreted from the multi-purpose glands in its mouth.

But that part of the procedure was easily the least painful,
and after just a few minutes Jericho’s arm had been more or less repaired and
sewn back together. There was a small, triangular patch over the wound made of
the same silvery stuff the Popper had used to knit his bones together, but
other than that it was impossible for Jericho to discern that he had just
undergone surgery.

“Go,” the Popper said before turning toward the wall it had
scraped with its leg earlier and began to consume the material. Jericho tested
his arm and found everything to be in satisfactory condition. While he knew it
would take days for the swelling to go away entirely, at least it would no
longer distract him.

Jericho watched as the Popper scraped the fungus from the
wall—a fungus which was based on something entirely different from DNA and
would have died in the light of the Virgin primary, which was very different
than that of its home world. He had a rare moment of contemplation as he
wondered where the creature would have been at that moment had the Imperium not
torn its ancestors from the world which should, of a right, have
still
been theirs.

But he pushed the thought from his mind as he turned and
left the building, knowing he had a job to do.

“Leave philosophy to the philosophers,” he muttered after
closing the door behind himself and making his way to the hover bike.

Jericho set up in the apartment which his third New Lincoln
operator had secured for him some months earlier. He made a manual inspection
of all the gear and found everything to be in order, and he anticipated being
finished with his third Adjustment of the day in less than another hour.

He had attempted to contact Baxter at the designated time,
but his number two operator had failed to reply to the missive. This set
Jericho ill at ease; he knew that he was being pursued by agents who wished to
prevent him from carrying out his duty but he had been careful—careful even for
him, which spoke volumes of the importance of the trio Adjustments—in planning
his New Lincoln trip.

Jericho set up the large bore, single-shot, slug-thrower on
its tripod and checked his lines of sight with the structure two buildings down
and on the other side of the street. Using a weapon like the one he had
selected for this particular Adjustment carried risks, but he preferred those
risks to the alternatives.

He checked the chronometer on his data link and saw that he
still had twelve minutes before his target would enter the zone of engagement,
so he decided to try contacting Baxter again. He initiated the connection and
waited for the operator to accept the connection.

But the seconds went by and Baxter never replied, so Jericho
closed the connection and considered his options. No operator Jericho had
worked with in the past decade had failed to follow the preset
schedule—predictability was key in an Adjuster’s line of work—and Jericho was
forced to conclude that someone had gotten to Baxter.

The Timent Electorum Adjusters were limited in several ways,
not the least of which being that the law afforded them no actual protection
for their actions unless they managed to successfully execute an Adjustment and
prove its legitimacy. But those whose actions supported an Adjuster—like
Benton, Baxter, or his current mission’s operator, Shu—were afforded no such
protection.

Their contributions were made in spite of the risk in the
pursuit of profit or, more usually, for less quantifiable reasons. Some—like
Benton—seemed to enjoy ‘beating the man’ at his own game and others, like
Baxter, had felt wronged by their government in the past and wanted to take
some measure of revenge.

But Shu was a mercenary, through and through, and Jericho
would have used her more often if he hadn’t already had two incredibly capable
operators in Benton and Baxter.

Jericho activated his earpiece as he continued to consider
whether he should attempt contacting Baxter directly. He needed to check in
with Shu and see if there had been any new wrinkles.

“Shu here,” the woman’s crisp voice replied as soon as the
connection had been made. “Target is on the seventeen twenty high-rail; ETA
seventeen minutes.”

“Is he alone?” Jericho asked. This last Adjustment was of a
significantly lower value than either of Cantwell or Angelo, which meant that
collateral
damage
was expressly forbidden according to
T.E. protocols. Some Adjusters were little better than marauders, kicking in
the doors and laying waste to everyone inside whenever the mission permitted.
Jericho preferred a cleaner, more concise approach.

“Negative,” she replied, “he has a tail.”

“A tail?”
Jericho repeated in
surprise as he opened his data link. “Send me the file.”

Almost before he had finished asking for it, the file
appeared in his messages and he quickly opened it and began to peruse the
contents.

There was a medium-short, square-jawed, clearly
professionally-trained agent featured in seventeen still images. He always
appeared in near proximity to Jericho’s last New Lincoln target, and that
target was likely unaware of his dangerous shadow.

“What have you got on him?” Jericho asked as he re-checked
the sights on his stupendously overpowered rifle by flashing an infrared light
briefly onto the window through which he would take his shot in fifteen
minutes.

“Nothing on file; facial recognition and partial retinal
scans are coming back blank,” Shu replied promptly, confirmed one of his many
suspicions. “He’s augmented—heavily, if the extra EM coming off him is any
indication.”

Jericho had suspected as much and was actually glad to hear
her say it. Jericho had just engaged a knock-down, drag-out fight with a
gene-hanced Southern Bloc captain—a relatively small woman, at that—and it had
been a much closer affair than he would have liked.

In his youth he might have thought it possible to take on an
augmented agent like the one in Shu’s pictures, but age had given him more than
just aches and pains. He was now wise enough to accept that there wasn’t a
single chance in a thousand that he could take the agent in a straight-up
fight.

“Is the Adjustment still a ‘go’?” Shu asked with an unusual
degree of tension in her voice.

“Yes,” he replied as he came to grips with what fate had
befallen Baxter—a fate that had almost certainly been decreed by the Agent
following Jericho’s third target. “But we’ll need to go to tertiary escape
routes; assume the others are compromised.”

“Copy that,” Shu replied, and a brief pause ensued.
“Tertiary route confirmed—repeat, tertiary escape route is open.”

“Good,” he said, grateful for small favors. “I need you to
place a trace on my link and do your best to find out whoever’s tapped the
other end of the call I’m about to make. I don’t need you taking unnecessary
risks, but if there
is
a trace then whoever placed it has already gotten
to another of my operators today—and he was higher on my list than you are.”

There was a tense silence before the operator said,
“Understood; ready to run the trace as soon as you make the call.”

“Get me a nearby video feed covering the Agent,” Jericho
instructed as he tapped out a series of seemingly random numbers on his link,
which he then called in a predetermined sequence. The process took nearly
thirty seconds, and when he was finished a video feed opened up on his link’s
screen.

It was from a public transport carriage’s internal security
cam, and it showed Jericho’s last target as well as the Agent who was shadowing
him. Just a few seconds after the feed went live on his screen, the link showed
an incoming call.

Taking a short breath, Jericho connected the call and piped
it through his earpiece.

“It’s good to finally speak with you,” a man’s
perfectly-pitched voice said, and the Agent’s lips moved in perfect unison with
the words coming over the earpiece. “I don’t suppose I could persuade you to
call this off?”

“Nope,” Jericho replied simply.

“I thought not,” the Agent said smoothly, not letting even a
moment’s silence linger between them as he spoke conversationally. “It truly is
a pity; society could use men like you working for them.”

“Nice try; I’m not playing the word games,” Jericho snorted.
As far as he was concerned, making Adjustments for the Timent Electorum was the
highest form of public service of which a person was capable.

“A pity,” the Agent chuckled, “I do so enjoy a bit of
foreplay.”

“Can I assume you’re less than interested in stopping the
Adjustment?” Jericho asked evenly.

“You may indeed,” the Agent replied warmly. “Truth be
told…after reading the man’s file I find myself ambivalent regarding the
necessity of your discharging the duty of your ‘office,’ such as it is.”

The railway carriage the two men were riding came to a stop
and the doors opened. The occupants moved out of the conveyance and the video
feed switched stiffly between the previous video feed to one at the small
boarding station.

“So if you’re not interested in stopping me,” Jericho said,
more than slightly surprised to hear the man admit such so readily, “then why
follow him?”

The target stopped and began to peruse a nearby window
display, causing the Agent to do likewise. “My father was a big game hunter,”
the Agent explained after the two had resumed their trek toward the target’s
residence, “and he taught me when I was very young to learn as much about an
animal as possible before putting it down. He said it was an opportunity to
learn not only of the animal but also of myself, and I believe he was right.”

“It’s a good piece of advice,” Jericho admitted, knowing
that his work as an Adjuster had taught him a very similar lesson. He relaxed
his body and leaned his shoulder against the butt of the rifle in a
long-practiced, pre-shot routine which had served him well for decades.

“I certainly think so,” the Agent agreed. “I must admit that
you are considerably more interesting than most of my assignments…and, between
you and me, I’m genuinely curious whether you’re going to electrocute him by
overloading the magnetic coils in the lift, blow the apartment with a gas
overload, use nerve gas—likely concealed beneath the kitchen sink—or pull the
trigger of the rifle you’re holding against your shoulder.”

Jericho felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. But
he knew that if the Agent had a bead on him, either directly or indirectly, he
would have already made it known. That Jericho had initiated the call meant
that he still had an intelligence edge over the mysterious Agent—an edge that
would seem to be disappearing more quickly than he had anticipated.

“Make no mistake,” the Agent continued into the brief
silence, “I cannot officially condone any of the aforementioned acts of barbarism,
but it will illuminate several factors which may later be useful to me.”

“So…what you’re saying is that you like to watch?” Jericho
deadpanned as the two men neared the target’s apartment building and the camera
feed switched to one of that building’s external security units.

The Agent burst into laughter and actually drew some
attention from passersby as he did so. “Nothing could be further from the
truth,” the Agent assured him after quickly suppressing his laughter. “But I am
glad to see that you have a sense of humor. Our line of work is usually so
tedious, is it not?”

“Are you suggesting we do the same thing?” Jericho asked
neutrally. He knew it was important not to divulge too much about himself, but
he also knew that he could gain valuable information about his pursuer if he
played things right.

“Of course,” the Agent replied with a hint of surprise in
his voice. “We each locate, verify, and eliminate threats to our society’s
well-being.”

“Sounds like we should have drinks later,” Jericho said dryly
as the video feed showed the target entering the lift—a lift which Jericho had
actually considered overloading, just as the Agent suggested, but decided
against it because of the cost to repair the damage.

“If you like,” the Agent allowed as he went to a fire escape
stairwell and, with little more than a quick series of taps and the swipe of
his palm, overrode the security measures which restricted public access to it
outside of an emergency. “But forgive my selfishness when I say I would prefer
our little game went a little longer than that.”

“You’re forgiven,” Jericho said as the Agent slipped off the
camera feeds. His operator had apparently been unable to override the fire
escape’s internal cameras, so although the Agent was inside a building over a
hundred meters away, Jericho’s senses sharpened as he knew that he needed to be
ready for anything.

“So…no elevator,” the Agent said smoothly in his
perfectly-composed voice, “which indicates that you’ve got something of a
conscience. I suppose it wasn’t to be expected, considering the agency you work
for.”

“It’s not an agency,” Jericho said irritably.

“Forgive me,” the Agent gushed as the lift bearing the mark
stopped at seemingly each floor on its way to his destination: the sixteenth
floor. “But we know so little about the actual operation of your people that
some clarity on the matter would be greatly appreciated.”

“It’s all in the First Right,” Jericho quipped as he settled
against the butt of the rifle again while scanning the roof of the building for
signs of movement. He was unwilling to risk the possibility that the Agent
decided to line up a counter-shot after the Adjustment had been made. “Maybe
you should read it?”

“I prefer
actual
history to studying the
philosophical wet dreams of our ancestors,” the Agent retorted casually.

“You want history?” Jericho said measuredly. “Ok…how’s this?
The man you followed, for whom society requested I target for Adjustment, is a
Public Works and Highways overseer in Tsushima. Two years ago he shut down a
major intersection and has, since then, re-routed traffic some three kilometers
around it. This put unnecessary pressure on the adjoining streets and has
already cost society roughly three million credits per month in lost
productivity—due to trapping several thousand people per day in a needless
diversion which lasted an estimated three minutes forty three seconds—in
addition to unnecessary vehicle maintenance totaling nearly half that amount.”

“Oh, I understand that part,” the Agent replied as the
Adjustee exited the elevator.

“Good,” Jericho said dryly as his link shifted from a camera
feed to one showing a three-dimensional grid of the building across the street.
A small, red, flashing dot appeared and was marked ‘Agent,’ and it did appear
that he was still in the fire escape.

A brief text message flashed across the screen which read,
Getting
hot here.
Can’t crack their encryption before they break into
my own system.

He quickly tapped out a reply which read,
Bug out ASAP.
I’ll contact you in two hours’ time.

He received a prompt reply,
Copy that. I’ll make it up to
you.

“Something happen?” the Agent asked smoothly.