‘Her?’ Larsen sensed a sudden change of subject but failed to follow the meaning.
‘Megan. I let him murder her.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘He brought her in. To the interrogation room. The missing six minutes. He couldn’t get anything out of me. I was too weak to be tortured—I would have lost consciousness. He was in a hurry. Wanted to know where to find you. Location of the Roc. And the security measures. I refused.’ More tears joined the first. ‘He brought her in—Megan, I mean—and he shot her in front of me. He was going to hurt her, but then he just shot her.’ The words came out fast. So fast Larsen struggled to follow. Or maybe it was the desire to believe Megan was alive that caused the delay in processing.
For a few heartbeats, he didn’t know what to say. Somehow, despite all that had happened, he had hoped Megan was still alive. It had been selfish, especially knowing the suffering she must have been going through, but part of him had just refused to accept that he might never see her again. He had needed the hope of believing he could find and save her.
They hadn’t found her body, after all, so he had kept hoping. Until now.
‘It isn’t your fault,’ he said eventually, but his eyes refused to meet Toscano’s.
‘But if I’d managed to stall for time… if I could have made him believe he might get information out of me… Maybe if I hadn’t pushed him so hard then he wouldn’t—’
‘Don’t!’ Larsen snapped. ‘You had no way of knowing. You did what you were trained to do. And… it’s probably better this way…’ He trailed off, not saying what he could never say, but Toscano understood him just fine.
Wagner was dead, but the people, the monsters, that he had worked for were still out there. There was peace in death. If she had lived and if they had taken her away from Olympus before the rescue, she would have known nothing but abuse and torture for as long as they kept her alive. One flashback to the state Megan had been in when Toscano saw her last, defeated and resigned, was all Toscano needed to agree with her CO. It was better that way. The alternative was no life.
The awkward silence stretched until Toscano cleared her throat.
‘We got Wagner. And enough evidence to fry Cassandra, their shareholders, the board of directors and the CEOs,’ she said. She saw the pain in Larsen’s eyes and wanted to repay the favour by giving him something positive to focus on.
‘What we got, Aisha, is the tip of the iceberg,’ he replied sombrely. ‘We had enough evidence to search the compound. All the employees are currently detained until we can determine their involvement in the sex-slavery operation.
‘We recovered a collection of VR brothels they used, along with all the recordings. There was also enough data about their research for Tilly and Eloise to understand how they managed to modify the VRPs. I have no doubt it is only a matter of time before Eloise here finds a way to make such changes impossible in the future.
‘The basements held not only the cells and the VR playrooms where the pleasure slaves were being forced to work but also VR labs where we found additional research material with detailed logs of everything Cassandra ever did. Their facilities were in use since September 2721, expanding fast in the last couple of years.
‘We think that the majority of Cassandra’s employees knew nothing about it, though I’m sure we’ll find many that have been blackmailed into keeping quiet. We also found a handful of Elites who disgraced themselves badly enough to be sentenced to a life as a pleasure slave or a lab rat. They were possibly being used as examples to force others to keep quiet.
‘Not surprisingly, we also found a few interesting names in their files: various dignitaries, well-known people, and of course high-ranking officers in both the military and the police. Some of them were a mere confirmation, the evidence we needed to begin purges. But there were also some new and unexpected names. Most of the MIS operatives are out hunting for the corrupt military officers as we speak. It will be a while before each name can be investigated properly, but we’ve started to rid the ranks of the rot. We’re also running black ops, going after the corrupt mid-level police officers and dignitaries whose involvement has been confirmed, though it’s taking some time to make them all look like accidents. Unfortunately, going after the more powerful ones will be trickier. We might never get permission to eliminate them all.’ Larsen winced, disgusted that money and power could truly protect a person from even such hideous crimes. ‘And finally, we also found a long list of paying customers who frequented their VR dungeon of horrors. Cassandra actually kept records of every single sex VRP played. Hundreds of spoilt Elites are going down. And we found more than one surprise there. Major General Vernier, the current commandant of the Sigma-7 Penal Camp and Governing Council members Dakairi Edwards and Justina Horvat, to name just a few.’
‘Council members…’ Toscano whispered, shaking her head. How could those who had sworn to uphold the constitution and the values of the Afro-European Alliance have stooped so low?
‘We don’t know whether they did it voluntarily or whether someone has been blackmailing them. It will take us a while to investigate every single name. Even then I don’t doubt quite a few will succeed in bribing the justice system, but it’s going to cost them their fortunes if I have anything to do with it. And yes, Cassandra’s management is toast…’
‘But?’ Toscano prompted, sensing there was more.
‘Francesca Harper.’
‘What about her?’
‘She doesn’t exist,’ Eloise cut in.
‘What do you mean, she doesn’t exist?’ Toscano’s eyes narrowed in consternation. Her head still felt woolly, but she was quite sure that what they were
