Chapter 355
“So this Bronson guy—where is he?” Bronson was the name of the last technician to do a restock of the fire suppressant chemicals at the warehouse. He was also the most likely suspect for Lavender.
”Out.” The man answered a little too quickly. I tapped on the warrant, and he changed his tune. “But I can have him brought in.”
”Do it…” I looked around the meeting room. “How long has he been working for you?”
“Just a moment.” Jerry opened a dataslate and scrolled through it. “Um—two months. He was an ex-embercore firefighter. We hired him as a maintenance specialist.”
Lavender’s been an arsonist for way longer than that, assuming it was all the same person. Lavender could’ve gotten the job here just to burn down that specific warehouse, but that plan had so many variables in it. Someone meticulous like the arsonist probably wouldn’t go for that. And I had no doubt he was meticulous. Someone like that couldn’t avoid capture for so long if was wasn’t.
Speaking of his psychological breakdown, there was a good chance the guy was a raging narcissist too. I mean, he used special color fired for all of his arsons. It could just be an obsession with the color purple, but the narcissist theory held more weight in my mind.
There was something wrong here. I just couldn’t put my finger on what it was. Maybe this Lavender guy wasn’t actually a person, but an identity this corporation used to burn down bad assets? That angle had some merit. It’d also explain a lot of things. I glanced through my files briefly, and yeah, every fire was on something Phyxaflame managed. Granted, they managed half the city.
“Redhook’s suppressant systems were compromised.” I leaned back in my chair. “Did you not send someone to check it out once your warehouse burned down?”
”Bronson was sent to check it out.” Jerry frowned and tapped around on his dataslate. “The report indicates there was a short in the pumps, which delayed their activation time just long enough to miss the opportunity to put out the fire.”
”No mention of Lavender?”
“None. Pump shorts—they’re rare, but they do happen. It’s usually thanks to a faulty install or years without proper inspection.”
Right… an accident. Perfect cover. And there wasn’t any scream stream coverage of the arson thanks to being in the middle of Redhook’s logistic zone. Add in the Crusade coverup my knight Akef, and it was almost the perfect crime—up until I started to dig around.
Bronson was connected somehow. I already knew that, but it was nice to have some actual confirmation instead of just guesswork. I just needed to find him, and then I could figure out who Lavender was. With Lavender exposed, it was only a matter of time till I fished out the traitor.
“Bronson—I need to see him.” It’d start with him regardless. “You have his home address?”
”Uh, yes ma’am. That—you might be better off waiting here. He’s on deployment at the moment, but he should be back soon.” Jerry closed his dataslate and crossed his arms.
”Fine.” There was one more thing that was bothering me about this whole situation. “Do your repair specialists go out alone? That’s a lot of work for just one guy.”
”Times have been tough recently,” Jerry said. “Less people want to work, so we’ve had to make some adjustments.”
So the answer was yes. I didn’t need the excuse as well. It seemed like a terrible idea to send someone out on their own like that. What if they got trapped in a machine or were seriously injured? Not to mention Bronson had only been working here for two months. There was no way he could be fully trained that quick.
I grabbed my warrant and pushed away from the table. “I’m going to have a look around while I wait.”
Jerry hastily followed me to the door, though made no move to stop me. Instead, his Cues read as kinda happy that I wanted to walk around? “Um—I’ll guide you.”
So kind… I ran through this building’s blueprint in my head and went for the stairs down to the sub-levels first. Jerry grew increasingly cheerful behind me. “What’s down here?”
”Research and development.” Jerry stepped in front of me to block my path. I looked up at his face—weird. Had he always looked like that? “Can we go somewhere else? Research is the lifeblood of Phyxaflame Solutions.”
”All the more reason to ensure there’s nothing… nefarious.” I wasn’t all that interested before, but his attempt to stop me roused my interest. I pushed on the door—locked. An ID scanner sat off to the side.
I knew that, of course. The motion was a disguise to hide a Technical Expertise pulse of the door’s systems. They were fairly high tech, with a vacuum seal style frame that’d prevent even air from coming or going.
”I’ll get it.” Jerry moved to the door with his ID out before I could start falling back into heist mode. After the ID scan, he had a retinal one, a fingerprint, and a passcode. They were serious about protecting this place.
The door opened into a short airlock with flashing red lights. Jerry motioned me forward. “The things we test can be quite volatile. The entire lab runs off a separate system designed to strangle any fire and prevent the escape of noxious fumes.”
”What about the researchers?” They’d be trapped down here with the fire and fumes.
“There’s several safe rooms, and each of them has easy access to rebreathers. Here at Phyxaflame, we take safety veryseriously.” The door sealed behind us, and the flashing red lights turned green. The door on the other end of the airlock unsealed.
We stepped out into a white hall slightly reminiscent of a Savant lab. The sight instantly put me on edge. Pulses of Cold-Blooded helped to keep it all under wraps though.
We passed by a viewing window with a scientist standing in the middle of a burning room. He had some kind of suit on, and was simply sitting there as the flames danced across his body.
”We’re always seeking to improve fire-related technologies.” Jerry waved a hand toward the suit. “This is our newest fire-free suit prototype. It can keep someone alive even in the strongest of flames for up to five hours. Eventually, we want to make it a deployable ring model that everyone can have access to in case of a fire.”
By everyone, he probably meant every corpo. Tech like that—it wasn’t cheap. Especially if they wanted to get it into a deployable ring. That’d need all sorts of shrinking tech that simply wasn’t practical yet. There was a reason I went with having storage in another dimension instead of something like that.
”Interesting.” I turned to a different window. A fire surged around the room, but a white cloud of something chased it around and snuffed it out quicker than it could spread. “What about this one?”
“Suppressing nanodrones.” He sounded oddly proud as he introduced the research target. “They’re capable of putting out any fire at record speed. Just load a canister into our proprietary launcher, and then fire it toward the fire. It’ll be out before any major damages occur. It’s been a decade of development, but they’re almost ready for market.”
A suppressant swarm of nanodrones, then? This could easily put groups like Embercore out of a job. Why waste manpower and endanger people when you could just fire one shot to take out a fire?
“What about really big fires? The kind that spread across a city?” There were only so many drones in a launchable canister.
“Still just one. They’re designed to self-propagate by devouring the fire—“
”Self-propagate?” Heh—I see why they had those doors now. It wasn’t to stop a fire, but to prevent them from escaping. Self-propagating swarms weren’t anything new. There was a reason no one used them anymore. “Like the Locust Swarms?”
He paused his explanation. ”Uh—no. These ones are under control.”
”So were those.” Locusts were supposed to be the answer to the whole Dune Walker situation. Now they made it nearly impossible to approach the core of the sandstorm without having your flesh and skin torn from your bones. Thankfully, they stuck to the center of the Eternal Sandstorm.
“Yes, well, these only propagate from the thermal energy of fire.” He laughed off my concerns and waved a hand. “Even if they escape control, they won’t last long.”
”What if one of them got onto a nuclear reactor, though?” Micro nuclear reactors were common enough that even I had one. They definitely gave off enough thermal energy for these things to keep propagating.
“They’re still in development.” Jerry’s voice hardened. “Now, if we can continue this way.”
”Chek.” I followed after him, though my eyes never left the nanodrones. Although I was talking about how bad they were… I wouldn’t mind sneaking back down here to steal their prints at some point. Or maybe I could sell this info to Embercore. Get myself a double run, if I played my cards right. They’d want someone to come and sabotage the drones if they knew, and then I could double dip Embercore’s wallet.
Suspicion would be leveled at me for exposing the nanodrones, though, so maybe not. Then again, they must not be too worried about this stuff being exposed. I was let down here without any real resistance. Even with a warrant, that was far too easy. Hmm… maybe they had further sub-levels and he was just trying to hide them. Make it seem like he was being open by showing me the less important stuff.
Still, I could sneak in here and swipe some stuff… or maybe not. Outside of greed, I wasn’t quite sure what I’d use the suppressant nanodrones for. Regardless though, I knew where they were if I ever needed them.
”Are you coming?” Jerry popped open the door back up to the levels above.
”Chek.” I shifted over to the next room. It had… a guy flying? “What’s this one for?”
”Ah! The AeroJet.” Jerry pointed to a rather large canister on the man’s back. It looked lie a giant oil drum. “It’s so firefighters can reach high up places easier without the use of ladders.”
Hmm… It looked like a bit of a waste. If they incorporate Gravitic like Sentinel and I had into their tech, they could shrink down the size of that thing by several times. Phyxaflame was advanced in some fields, but obviously lacking in others.
— - —
We walked around the place for over an hour, and then I spent three more hours waiting around. I spent the time working on blueprints, so it wasn’t a complete waste of time. Still, it got to the point I that I had to approach Jerry once more. He’d sat with me in the meeting room the entire time.
”Jerry! My man…” I let the joking tone in my voice shatter and turn cold. A slight ionizing charge built up in the air. “Where is he?”
“U-um…” Jerry froze in his chair. “Bronson?”
”Who else?”
”R-right, sorry…” Jerry clicked around on his terminal. “He’s still out. Should be back—“
”Any minute? If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were aiding and abetting a criminal… you wouldn’t be doing that though, would you?” I crossed my arms. “It’s a very expensive mistake to waste the Crusade’s time.”
“Of course not!” He flipped his terminal’s screen to me. “He hasn’t left this apartment yet. The systems there must be quite messed up for him to take this long on a repair job.”
I eyed the apartment building in question. It was an upscale one in Little Yukoto. “Have you called him?”
”No. He should be back—“
”Stop saying that or I’ll genuinely arrest you.” Abuse of power who? It was just… tactical. A tactical threat to get this annoying guy to quit being so… well, annoying.
He went silent, which gave me a moment to think. I could continue to just wait here—but what if something spooked him? He could be running already, and left whatever Jerry was using to track him behind at the apartment.
“Don’t contact him. I’ll go there myself.” I could get there quickly with my Roughrider. ‘Sides that, he could very well be my arsonist. He might be setting up for a fire already. ”If I find out you called, I'll ensure you get charged with every arson Lavender has pulled off for the past decade.”
“I-I-I won’t, ma’am.” Jerry looked absolutely petrified by my threat. Something flashed in the back of his chrome eyes too, but it was gone as soon as I noticed.
“Good.” I kicked open the door and stalked down the hall. My threats were getting better. I was actually kinda proud about that one.
I left Phyxaflame behind and mounted my bike. I should really get some wee-woo lights or something on this. I was already fast moving through the flyer lanes, but lights would be nice. Maybe if I could get a contract with the Crusade to produce Roughriders…
The chances of that were terrible, though. I couldn’t be a CEO and a squire at the same time. That was just asking for trouble. Right. After the one I was making for the Knight, I’d have to try and avoid the Crusade entirely as Shiro Tsukuyomi. Hopefully it wouldn’t be that hard.