She felt the sting of tears in her eyes and looked down at the sheets. “I kept thinking about Caine. Kept thinking, had he been standing where I was? Had he seen this too? Who took him there?” She looked back at him. “I got the tech out, but we’re back to square one now. We still don’t know who killed him, and I didn’t see any sign of the Chief’s daughter down there.”
“Look, we gotta go,” he said softly. “Ford’s itching for a debrief.”
She nodded, rubbing her face. “God, I feel awful,” she said, then looked at him. “No offence.”
He gave a soft smile. “It’s the comedown.”
She looked at him again. “I have a past, Mitch. I know what the comedown feels like. This… this is something else. This is a comedown with a large hole in my memory. Like, for a period of time I didn’t exist. Like my mind was separate from my body. Like it was erased.”
He nodded. “And it was.” He caressed her cheek again. “Your lights were on, Salvi, but you weren’t home. It was like being with another woman. You were detached, on autopilot like . . . like some . . .”
“Machine? Some robot?” Images of the android-like humans from Diabolique flashed into her mind.
He nodded. “Yeah.”
She nodded back and whispered. “I guess that’s the point of it.”
Salvi looked down at her body, wrapped in the sheets, and suddenly realized she was a mirror image of how she’d first found Myki Natashi.
Salvi took an autocab alone to the empty office tenancy building to meet with the Trident team, wanting to arrive separately from Mitch. She found a medic waiting with the team, who set about running a series of checks and injecting her with a strong dose of V.
Ford was patient, but as soon as the medic left she pushed Salvi for information, so she told them all she could remember: who she saw in the Ceiling – the Senator – then she described the basement club, Diabolique, how it was underground a couple of blocks from the main club, and how they’d used the old train tunnels to get there. She told them about the tech, the people trying to be like androids, the drugs. She looked at Noble.
“You got the devices, right?”
“Yeah. Good job getting them out in your state. Forensics is working on them as we speak, and Riverton will provide us with an analysis report soon.”
She nodded.
“You were a train wreck,” Kara said. “I made it to the Ceiling last night and saw you leave. But, girl, you’re tough, I’ll give you that. Lots of people would’ve collapsed into a pool of mush. Good job.”
Salvi tried to smile but it failed to reach her lips. “I’ve had a lot of practice at suppression.” She looked back at Ford. “What do I do about Chaney? He’s going to be pissed.”
“What’s your gut tell you?” Ford said. “You know him best.”
Salvi thought for a moment, realized the V shot was starting to take affect and she was feeling less like death. “I’ll go back. I’ll apologize for running out on him. Take it from there.”
“Not back to the basement, though?” Kara asked.
Salvi shook her head. “No. If I go back there, I won’t be so lucky the next time.”
“Stay away from Floor to Ceiling altogether,” Ford said. “Approach him at The Dream Bar. As far as we know it doesn’t have any dark, dirty little secrets like the other one.”
Salvi nodded, her mind turning over again. “Someone took Caine down there, but that wasn’t where they killed him.” She looked back at Ford. “The people in Diabolique were there for a good time. It made my skin crawl a little, but everyone wanted to be there. I saw no one mistreating anyone who didn’t want to be mistreated… I don’t think what Caine saw in Diabolique is what got him killed. It was something else. I think maybe he met someone there. I think this person lured him away somewhere else, and that whatever he saw or heard between Diabolique and the dock is what got him killed.”
“What are you saying?” Sorensen asked. “We need to send more people in to infiltrate Diabolique to find out who it was?”
“I can’t risk sending anyone else into Diabolique,” Ford said. “Certainly not alone. Brentt was lucky to have gotten out in one piece.”
“People are entering Floor to Ceiling and not coming back out again,” Noble said. “If this club is a couple of blocks away underground, maybe they’re using another exit? Maybe that can explain their disappearance?”
Salvi nodded. “Like the other night when you said you lost John Dorant in the area. You saw him enter a building, but never saw him leave. There could be a whole network of underground tunnels we don’t know about.”
“Exactly,” Noble said. “I need you to look at some maps and give us a ballpark area to search.”
“The trouble is,” Salvi said, “I didn’t see any other entrances or exits in Diabolique. Just the elevator up to the Ceiling.”
“Maybe it was somewhere else along the train tunnels?” Sorensen said, before he engaged his comms. “Riverton? Request street, sewer and subway plans for a ten-block radius around Floor to Ceiling.”
Ford checked her iPort. “Speaking of disappearances, when was the last time anyone heard from Bronte?”
“He wasn’t there last night?” Salvi asked.
“He was, but I got a message to him to stay put once you got out.”
Salvi checked the time, saw it was 11am. “He might still be partying.”
“If you see him, tell him to report in asap,” Ford said, grabbing her coat. “I’m going to check on forensics.”
Salvi stood in her makeshift apartment and checked her iPort. It was 7pm and the report on the neural devices had not been uploaded as yet. Earlier she’d spent an hour or so going over the plans with the Trident team, doing her best to
