PRAISE FOR AMANDA BRIDGEMAN
“A compelling seat-of-the-pants murder mystery and a fascinating inquiry into good and evil and the possibility of redemption.”
The Guardian
“Part traditional police procedural, part exploration of redemption and the possibility of change.”
Kaaron Warren, award-winning author of The Grief Hole and Tide of Stone
“The Wire meets Blade Runner in this enthralling near-future crime thriller.”
Nathan M Farrugia, USA Today bestseller
“An old school whodunit set in a frighteningly near future.”
Luke Preston, screenwriter and author of Out of Exile
“Convincing near-future forecasting with great characters and a police-procedural murder mystery with some neat twists and turns.”
Locus
“This hard-boiled near-future SF thriller moves quickly and presents some thought-provoking ideas.”
Kirkus Reviews
“Bridgeman does not just build up her characters, but punishes them, and the thrills are all the more visceral for that.”
Aurealis Magazine
By the same author
THE SALVATION SERIES
The Subjugate
THE AURORA SERIES
Aurora: Darwin
Aurora: Pegasus
Aurora: Meridian
Aurora: Centralis
Aurora: Eden
Aurora: Decima
Aurora: Aurizun
The Time of Stripes
ANGRY ROBOT
An imprint of Watkins Media Ltd
Unit 11, Shepperton House
89 Shepperton Road
London N1 3DF
UK
angryrobotbooks.com
twitter.com/angryrobotbooks
Deeper underground
An Angry Robot paperback original, 2020
Copyright © Amanda Bridgeman 2020
Cover by Kieryn Tyler
Edited by Simon Spanton
Set in Meridien
All rights reserved. Amanda Bridgeman asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Sales of this book without a front cover may be unauthorized. If this book is coverless, it may have been reported to the publisher as “unsold and destroyed” and neither the author nor the publisher may have received payment for it.
Angry Robot and the Angry Robot icon are registered trademarks of Watkins Media Ltd.
ISBN 978 0 85766 856 1
Ebook ISBN 978 0 85766 863 9
Printed and bound in the United Kingdom by TJ International.
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
1: CLEARANCE
2: ABSENT MINDS
3: MOVING PICTURES
4: TRIDENT
5: CLUB LYFE
6: ALTERNATIVES
7: THE ‘MISSION
8: GOLD ON THE CEILING
9: DIABOLIQUE
10: ABOUT LAST NIGHT
11: COMPLEX REVISITATION
12: FAR AND WIDE
13: GHOSTED
14: DEEPER UNDERGROUND
15: MASTERSLAVE
16: RISE ABOVE
17: PERMANENT SCAR
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
1: CLEARANCE
Detective Salvi Brentt watched as the department’s designated psych reviewed her file. His face was hard to read; his eyes downcast, lips pursed in thought. Salvi saw the contents of her file through the glass data pane as he scrolled through it. There was a lot of data, more than she would’ve thought necessary. He did this every time they met, reviewed his notes to see where they should pick up from today. Except today was different. Today was the last session she was required to sit before being cleared back onto active duty. At least, she hoped so.
For the past six weeks she’d been desk-bound, reviewing cases for the other detectives of hub 9, providing a human set of eyes to work alongside the department’s dedicated AI, Riverton. She’d been reviewing and lodging crime scene reports, canvassing reports, autopsy reports, suspect reports, interrogation reports, making calls, and basically anything the other detectives didn’t want to do. Mostly, though, she’d been answering a whole lot of questions about what went down on her last case in Bountiful and at the Solme Complex. That was the reason she was sitting there now on Doctor Marr’s couch. The department was doing their due diligence and making sure she was in the right state of mind to be let back onto the streets. She had, after all, killed a man. And he had almost killed her.
Already this morning she’d been physically cleared for duty. The cast on her arm had finally been removed, and with one last set of painful injections to help strengthen the bone, she was good to go. All she had to do was clear this last hurdle, and it was one where x-rays couldn’t speak for her. They had, of course, scanned her brain to analyze it, giving two reasons why. The first was they had to ensure her submergence into the Bio-Lume gel at the Solme Complex hadn’t caused any lasting effects; that the bacteria hadn’t made its way inside her body. The second reason was to ensure no emotional scars had been left from the trauma of what went down. Of course, the latter was harder to prove. Regardless, they would analyze her brain anyway, comparing the new scans to those taken when she’d first joined the police force. It unnerved her. It made her feel like one of the Subjugates at the Solme Complex, being scrutinized to see what state her mind was in; to see whether it was safe to release her back onto the streets.
Salvi felt she bore no emotional scars from what had happened. In fact she’d never felt better. She figured stopping a serial killer would do that to a person; knowing a brutal killer was off the street, knowing they couldn’t hurt anyone again, knowing she had been responsible for stopping them. Well, partially responsible. If Mitch hadn’t wounded the guy, she may not have been sitting here to tell the tale. Mitch’s gunshot had given her the seconds she’d needed to kick her attacker off. The killer had fallen back into the wall, and the crucifix that Salvi had stabbed into his back had pierced through his chest and killed him. The death was ruled as self-defense. Still, what she’d been through only made her want to get back out there and do her job even more. There were criminals to be caught. She was needed.
“So…”
