“Okay,” the man said, putting his hands up and slowly backing into the apartment. “Okay. Okay.”

“Sit down.” Runstom motioned toward a chair at a small table. The apartment was a fair size for just one person, but it was clear the man lived alone. It was open, the kitchen looking directly into the living area. An easy chair sat in front of a holo-vision on one side and a single bed on the other. A large picture window displayed a spectacular view of the city and the hills beyond.

The big man sat down. Jax stood in front of him, apparently trying to be intimidating. Runstom paced about the kitchen, making observations. The package was sitting on the counter, unopened. There was some other mail there as well. Half-opened bills, mostly, all addressed to one Markus Stallworth.

“I did what he said,” the man said to Jax. “I did exactly what he said to do.”

Runstom turned away from the counter and faced the man sitting at the table. “Markus Stallworth,” he said. The man looked up at him. “When X called you—”

“X didn’t call me,” the man interrupted. “He d-mailed me.”

“Of course he d-mailed you,” Jax said venomously. “X doesn’t have time for backwoods parts of the galaxy like this shit-stained moon.”

“When he d-mailed you,” Runstom continued, stepping closer, “he didn’t tell you what the purpose of the program was, did he?”

“No!” Markus Stallworth spread his hands out. “No, of course not! All I did was encrypt it and put it on a memory chip! I got the d-mail with the program and the d-mail with the voiceprint and fingerprint and password. He said to encrypt this program in a package that will make it unreadable to anyone who didn’t have voiceprint, fingerprint, password.” Stallworth counted off on his fingers as he said the last three phrases.

“But you must have had a look at the code before you encrypted it,” Jax said. Runstom could see the operator trying to keep a lid on some very real anger. The phrase voiceprint, fingerprint, password took him back to that very first interview back at the Blue Haven Police Department on B-4, the operator detailing the console login procedure.

Jax continued his grilling. “You must have gotten an idea about what it was for!”

“No!” Stallworth looked away from Jax and to Runstom. “I swear. I mean, I saw the code, sure. It was so obfuscated though – I couldn’t tell what it was. I don’t do very much COMP-LEX programming.” He wiped beads of sweat from his brow with his dingy sleeve.

Runstom watched Jax’s expression. He had no idea what Stallworth was talking about, but his partner seemed to believe the man. He could see it on his face: defeat. This was yet another pawn in some unknown player’s game. Jax turned away from both of them.

“Please,” Stallworth said, looking at Runstom. “I did what he said. Tell me he’s not going to cut off my lines. I have all these customers lined up. Big-time customers, with big-time orders. If I don’t get the materials for my factory, I’ll be ruined.” He started to stand up, knees bent and hands out. “Please. Tell him I’ll double his take. Just don’t cut me off.”

Runstom turned away from the man, disgusted by his begging. Some people are taken advantage of, others put themselves in the path of extortion through their own greed. He guessed Markus Stallworth was the latter. He picked up the package.

“We’re taking this. And we’re going to make sure it gets delivered.” Runstom turned back to Stallworth. “We’ll deliver your offer to X. You better hope he’s in a good mood. You are just one little card in his hand.”

“Yes, yes, I know.” Stallworth was on the verge of tears. “I’ve always been faithful,” he tried, almost blubbering. Jax looked over his shoulder and shared a look with Runstom. The site of such a large man acting like a baby was stomach-churning.

“Markus,” Jax said sternly. “Where’s your terminal? We need to d-mail X and give him an update.”

“Right over here,” Stallworth said, heading into the living area, pointing at a small desk with a green monitor and keyboard on it.

Runstom nodded to Jax, and the operator walked up to the terminal.

“Unlock it,” Jax said. The large man did as commanded and then backed away. Jax sat down and began tapping at the keys.

“Markus,” Runstom said from the kitchen. “Do you have anything to drink in this shithole? I’m dying for a beer.”

“Of course.” Stallworth hurried back out to the kitchen. He dug around the cupboards and produced a bottle. “Does he—” he started, pointing toward the living area.

“No, he doesn’t drink.” Runstom took the bottle and positioned himself in front of the large man, blocking him into the kitchen for a few moments. He slowly drank the beer and watched Stallworth, who stood frozen, beads of sweat trickling down one side of his pink face. The quality of the beer took him aback momentarily. “This is goddamn fine beer. Where’d you get this?”

“Uh,” Stallworth said nervously. “They uh. They brew it here. Just outside of town, I mean. There’s a brewery.”

“Hmm,” Runstom said, drinking slowly and thoughtfully. “Like nothing I’ve ever had before. Must be you can only get it here on Terroneous. That right?”

“Yeah, I suppose so.” Stallworth didn’t seem to really know, or perhaps care, about the beer at the moment.

“Okay, let’s get the hell out of this place,” Jax said, coming out of the living area. He stormed out the door.

Runstom took a final swig and set down the empty bottle. “See ya around, Markus Stallworth.” He headed for the door, then turned and shrugged. “Although I suppose for your sake, let’s hope not.”

He closed the door and left the big man standing in his kitchen, whimpering softly to himself.

CHAPTER 15

“Next time you plan on pulling that intimidation shit, you better let me know in advance, goddammit,” Runstom was saying. “Jackson, I’m talking to you! What the hell are you doing?”

They were back in the hotel room and Jax was getting some of his stuff together, pulling clothes out of the closet. He stopped to pick up the notebook and hand it to Runstom. “We gotta go back to Barnard-4. Look at the address that one of those d-mails came from.”

Runstom looked at the notes that Jax had scribbled down while digging through Markus Stallworth’s terminal. The d-mail that the program was attached to didn’t have a sender ID. The other d-mail – the one that had Jax’s voiceprint, fingerprint, and password – came from Brandon Milton, Block 23-D, Gretel, Blue Haven, Barnard-4.

“This is your supervisor, right?” Runstom said. “Brandon Milton?”

“Yup,” Jax said, stuffing clothes wildly into a suitcase.

Runstom grabbed Jax by the arm. The operator tried to twist away, but Runstom was stronger. “Brandon Milton is dead, Jax.”

“He set me up,” Jax said, eyes blazing. “He sent my biometrics to Stallworth. He set me up to take the fall.”

“But he’s dead, Jax. He’s—”

“No!” Jax shouted. “He’s X! Don’t you fucking get it, you goddamn cop? He’s X and he set me up!”

Runstom bit back the urge to slap some sense into the other man. He let go of the arm. “Tell me something, Jackson. How did you know Markus Stallworth wasn’t X?”

“What?” Jax said, voice shaky and eyes bleary.

“The first thing you said to Stallworth was that we worked for X. How did you know it wasn’t going to be X answering the door of that apartment?”

“I didn’t,” Jax said with a laugh. “I mean, I figured it was a safe question. His reaction would tell us right away if he was X or if he knew who X was.”

“I don’t buy that.” Runstom stared at Jax. “You knew.”

The operator chewed his lip. He spoke quietly. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You knew. You knew Stallworth wasn’t X. You knew he was another one of X’s pawns.”

“How’d I know?” Jax yelled suddenly, eyes watering now. “Another pawn can recognize another pawn when they see one. That’s how I fucking knew. I just had to take one look at the guy.” He began to pace, throwing his arms into the air. “Stallworth is just trudging through his life. He’s got nothing. He’s no mastermind. He’s a loser. He’s a fucking tool.”