{"id":483,"date":"2024-06-29T07:58:24","date_gmt":"2024-06-29T11:58:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/?p=483"},"modified":"2025-01-28T23:44:14","modified_gmt":"2025-01-29T04:44:14","slug":"identity-theft-chapter-42","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/identity-theft-chapter-42\/","title":{"rendered":"The Changeling Game, Chapter 42"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\">\ntt {\nfont: .857em menlo, monaco, consolas, monospace;\nmargin: auto;\n}\nh2 {\ntext-align: center;\n}\nh2.chapterhead {\nmargin-bottom: 2em;\ntext-align: center;\n}\n  .nowrap {\n    text-indent: 0;\n    display: inline-block;\n}\n<\/style>\n<p><b>Title:<\/b> The Changeling Game <small>(Formerly <i>Identity Theft<\/i>)<\/small><br \/>\n<b>Author:<\/b> Ardath Rekha<br \/>\n<b>Chapter:<\/b> 42\/?<br \/>\n<b>Fandom:<\/b> TCOR AU<br \/>\n<b>Rating:<\/b> M<br \/>\n<b>Warnings:<\/b> Adult themes, controversial subject matter, harsh language, violence<br \/>\n<b>Category:<\/b> Gen<br \/>\n<b>Pairing:<\/b> None<br \/>\n<b>Summary:<\/b> Hunting the hunters, Jack follows Toombs and Logan and learns of an imminent threat to the Meziane family. Taking care of that threat, however, opens up a new can of worms.<br \/>\n<b>Disclaimer:<\/b> The characters and events of <i>Pitch Black,<\/i> <i>The Chronicles of Riddick,<\/i> and <i>The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury<\/i> are not mine, but belong to Universal Studios.  I just <i>wish<\/i> I were in charge of their fates.  No money is being made off of this.  I\u2019m writing strictly for love of the story.<br \/>\n<b>Feedback:<\/b> Absolutely, the more the better!  Shred me, whip me, beat me, make me feel grammatical! I post \u201crough,\u201d so I can always use the help. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n<input type='hidden' bg_collapse_expand='6aac15516a8324066177546' value='6aac15516a8324066177546'><input type='hidden' id='bg-show-more-text-6aac15516a8324066177546' value='Long post is long. Click to read the story.'><input type='hidden' id='bg-show-less-text-6aac15516a8324066177546' value='Hide the story again.'><button id='bg-showmore-action-6aac15516a8324066177546' class='bg-showmore-plg-button bg-green-button  '   style=\" color:#D9ECFB;\">Long post is long. Click to read the story.<\/button><div id='bg-showmore-hidden-6aac15516a8324066177546' ><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"chapterhead\">42.<br \/>\n<u>A Growing Stack of Felonies <\/u><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Jack didn\u2019t bother keeping a discreet distance between herself and Eve Logan as she shadowed the merc. There was no need. She was, after all, in Elsewhere as she did it. It was more fun that way, hiking practically by Logan\u2019s side; she got to hear everything the merc was muttering as she walked.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cIdiot! Absolute idiot! He\u2019s gonna get us kicked off this planet\u2026 not that I\u2019d be sad to leave this teetotaler shithole\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Only when Logan hurried up the flight of steps that led to New Marrakesh\u2019s courthouse did Jack stay behind; there were no such steps in Elsewhere for her to climb. It didn\u2019t matter too much; she knew exactly what the merc was doing inside.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Her honey trap had caught Toombs; now Logan had to bail him out of jail.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Kyra had stayed back at the <i>ait Meziane<\/i> house, not wanting to be a phantom attendee of a party that had, originally, been clandestinely in her honor. She intended to spend the evening-day researching other opportunities that could replace the one she had lost, and that her false ID qualified her for. But Jack hadn\u2019t been able to stay away.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She had begun worrying about the four women she\u2019d thrown into Toombs\u2019 path too much to just let everything play out without watching. Elsewhere and U1 were similar enough in terrain\u2014most places\u2014that following everyone back to the garden, invisibly, hadn\u2019t been hard at all. She\u2019d felt like the star of one of the <i>Ginny Lane, Kid Spy<\/i> novels she\u2019d voraciously devoured at the age of nine as she did it. Ginny\u2019s cases would have been <i>so<\/i> much easier if <i>she<\/i> could have conducted surveillance from another universe. She wouldn\u2019t have needed so much of the tech Audrey\u2019s father had insisted didn\u2019t actually exist.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>She had antigravity shoes, which don\u2019t exist, but never once used a Master Key, which does\u2026 huh.<\/i> Of course, using a Master Key <i>was<\/i> a felony. Jack had, months ago, already discovered how different adventures were in reality, compared to those safe, sanitized books where every case was solved, and every caper foiled, within a hundred pages.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">The party hadn\u2019t even begun yet. The grotto was still being set up by the garden\u2019s regular staff. Cedric was greeting men and women in military uniforms outside of the garden complex itself and directing them inside. Apparently, among the officers Tomlin had served with, early was on time, on time was <i>late<\/i>, and there was absolutely nothing fashionable about being late. The wait staff was still arriving, intermingled with the officers they would soon be serving, when one of the four waitresses Jack had added hurried up to Cedric\u2026 and Toombs pounced.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">It was one of the two who looked a great deal like Kyra, technically not even <i>his<\/i> bounty as much as Logan\u2019s. In person, the resemblance was even more uncanny, although the woman had straight black hair and bangs instead of Kyra\u2019s wild, dark brown tangle. But Kyra had been wearing a long, black wig with bangs at Tomlin\u2019s memorial, when Toombs and Logan had gotten a brief look at her and been told she was Ewan\u2019s cousin Dihya. The waitress was almost at the entryway, and had begun asking Cedric in Arabic if she was late, when Toombs emerged from concealment between two ornamental topiaries and grabbed her from behind.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cAin\u2019t happenin\u2019, Miss Wittier-Collins,\u201d he said, grasping the crown of her hair and pulling as if to remove a wig. \u201cYou\u2019re comin\u2019 with me, an\u2019 you\u2019re gonna tell me where your friends\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">The waitress, who hadn\u2019t understood a word of what Toombs was saying\u2014none of the women Jack had hired spoke English\u2014obligingly picked that moment to scream.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Within seconds, Toombs was surrounded by several active members of Tangiers Prime\u2019s military service and the two off-duty police officers Cedric had asked to join the event. While Tafrara comforted the disheveled waitress once they\u2019d pulled Toombs away from her, <i>he<\/i> shouted about how they were harboring a fugitive from the law and would pay for interfering with an officer conducting an arrest. Seeing <i>him<\/i> arrested, on the spot, by two <i>actual<\/i> police officers had made Jack very glad that nobody could hear her whoop of victory in Elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYou stupid son of a bitch,\u201d Logan had quietly said from behind another topiary.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Seriously? You\u2019re hiding behind a bush shaped like a camel and calling him stupid?<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">A military captain, a few years older than and almost as handsome as Ewan, had taken the young waitress in hand, charming away her tears and asking her if she would accompany him to the police station, promising to stay with her and hold her hand the whole time she gave her statement to the authorities. Jack could see the young woman going from thinking that this was one of the worst days of her life to the starry-eyed hope that it might turn into one of the best.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Do the men of this planet just breathe in suave from birth?<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Toombs, meanwhile, was staring in outraged confusion at the second Kyra doppelganger, who had just walked up and begun asking Safiyya for directions to the party. This one looked even <i>more<\/i> like Kyra than the first. <i>Both<\/i> of Jack\u2019s own lookalikes had arrived with her, one shorter and much curvier than her and the other with long auburn hair braided in an updo that would be impossible to pull off with any wig. Several of Tomlin\u2019s former colleagues had begun murmuring to each other, gesturing to the waitresses and to Toombs as they did.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>He just lost all credibility with the military officers who witnessed this,<\/i> Jack thought with delight as some of them offered to escort the new doppelgangers inside. <i>Everybody at the party is gonna hear just how full of shit his accusations turned out to be. And they\u2019re all gonna see how easy it is for a New Marrakesh woman to meet the descriptions he\u2019s been throwing around\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">But, she admitted as she waited for Logan to re-emerge from the courthouse, it wouldn\u2019t be enough. Kyra was right. Their mere presence on Tangiers Prime, if ever proved, would reveal that they had to have traveled on the <i>Scarlet Matador,<\/i> and that anyone who had given them shelter might know too much about that accident to live.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">They still had to leave the planet, and they could only ever possibly return if they broke their trails too thoroughly for any connection between their visits to ever be made.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Thinking about that filled her with strange, hollow pain. This world, she thought, could have become Kyra\u2019s home, maybe even hers too, if only\u2014<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Logan and Toombs, fortunately, emerged from the courthouse right as she was in danger of wallowing in the unfairness of it all. Although the two mercs walked side by side, Jack could <i>feel,<\/i> even across the threshold between worlds, just how angry both of them were with each other.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201c\u2026and don\u2019t even get started on me about them bein\u2019 locals,\u201d Toombs was growling as they came into hearing range. \u201cI was goddamn set up and nobody\u2019ll say who by.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cNobody <i>knows,<\/i> damn it,\u201d Logan fumed right back at him. \u201cThe women were hired last minute to work for the party, but not by the Meziane family. There\u2019s no record of who contracted them or where the payment came from, but the garden staff was expecting them. Whoever arranged this\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201c<i>He<\/i> did. He\u2019s <i>here.<\/i> This proves what I\u2019ve been tellin\u2019 ya.\u201d Toombs scratched at his neck. \u201cSon of a bitch flushed us out\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cI hate to break it to you, especially now, but you\u2019re wrong,\u201d Logan said, pulling out her comm and cuing something up on it. \u201cI got an alert about this from the Merc Network while I was waiting for you to get processed and released. Hot off the damned <i>presses<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Jack, who had fallen into step with the mercs as they came in range, didn\u2019t need to look over Toombs\u2019 shoulder to see what he was about to watch. She\u2019d spent most of the morning-day and part of the noon sleeping period building the video file, using extremely powerful, and even more extremely illegal, programs to do it. The programs had just needed some archival footage of Riddick and a few minutes of posing and talking on camera from her and Kyra, and they had assembled everything with such speed and precision that Jack had been left wondering if the people of Helion Prime were right about AIs after all. Even so, it had taken hours to get just right. Toombs\u2019 face, to her delight, became more and more confused, and angry, as he watched.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">On the little screen, in long-shot but looking as real as if they were standing in front of the mercs, she and Kyra were dancing, clad in slinky little dresses, on either side of Richard B. Riddick, touching his chest and arms suggestively as he finished a drink and said something that made both of them laugh. They were surrounded by other revelers out on a public street at night, the glittering buildings in the background indicating that the street party was on\u2014<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201c<i>Shakti Four?<\/i> What the fuck are they doing on <i>Shakti Four?<\/i>\u201d Toombs looked as if he was about to break Logan\u2019s comm. She grabbed it back out of his hand before he could.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cIt was the spring equinox on Shakti Four two weeks ago,\u201d Logan told him. \u201cBig party. The ship that took off for there was the <i>Barsoom.<\/i> It boarded and launched while we were fussing over the <i>Scarlet Matador<\/i> and <i>Bon Temps<\/i> passengers, and landed there just in time for a hemisphere-wide shindig. I checked the <i>Barsoom<\/i>\u2019s manifest and there were three last-minute passengers. A man and two women. It\u2019s them. We\u2019ve been chasing wild geese here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cFuck. I <i>hate<\/i> that guy.\u201d Toombs scratched at his head, making Jack glad that whatever vermin his fingers were chasing down couldn\u2019t jump across the threshold and onto her. \u201cWe thought he was distractin\u2019 you from the passengers on the <i>Matador.<\/i> Then, when they all cleared, we thought maybe it was a diversion to keep me away from the <i>Bon<\/i> fuckin\u2019 <i>Temps\u2026<\/i>\u201d His mimicry of Logan\u2019s correct French pronunciation was childishly mocking. \u201cAnd by the time we were done with that, and thinkin\u2019 maybe we\u2019d missed somethin\u2019 on the <i>Matador<\/i> \u2019cause no cameras glitched over by the Pretentious Fuckin\u2019 Good Times\u2026 he and his girlies were gone on a whole \u2019nother ship. Son of a bitch. The big ones are s\u2019posed to be <i>dumb\u2026<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Jack didn\u2019t bother hiding the smug grin that had bloomed over her face. The false trail had worked.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">It wasn\u2019t even something she could really take much credit for, aside from a few moments\u2019 research into which ships she and Kyra could have departed on instead of the <i>Matador<\/i>. Her father had told her about several very dangerous worm programs that still showed up from time to time on the networks\u2026 some of which could be tamed and even trained by people with the right codes and sent on new targeted missions. He\u2019d showed her the codes, probably unaware that they would stay in her head forever. Now two of those worms had been liberated from law enforcement containment and, after a little bit of domestication and instruction, one was burrowing its way through the Merc Network, laying bits of false trail and erasing contradictory data as it spread from node to node. In a few weeks, the entire merc network, from one end of the Federacy to the other, would carry her video\u2026 and the accuracy of the information about her and Kyra would be massively diminished, too. Another, smaller worm was making minute changes to the <i>Barsoom<\/i>\u2019s flight manifest records throughout the Federacy.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>And,<\/i> Jack thought ruefully, <i>by doing all that, I\u2019m technically a class-one cyberterrorist now\u2026<\/i> The felonies kept stacking up somehow.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She\u2019d gone back to the old apartment building to pull those stunts, wanting to make sure that none of it could <i>ever<\/i> be traced back to the <i>ait Meziane<\/i> house. That trip could have caused a few problems of its own, but Ewan was the only one who saw her and Kyra sneaking back into the house, and he\u2019d kept his mouth shut even if he hadn\u2019t looked thrilled about it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cDoes that mean we\u2019re leaving?\u201d Logan asked. \u201cFinally?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cSoon as Pritchard turns back up,\u201d Toombs said. \u201cSon of a bitch still has my Master Key. Where the fuck is he <i>today<\/i>?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Logan tapped her comm a few times. \u201cStill somewhere south of here on the coast. The\u2026 Shady La\u2014 damn it, another brothel. How is he <i>paying<\/i> for all this shit?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Jack snickered, remembering the motorcycle pirate that Ewan had given \u201cPritchard\u2019s\u201d comm to. Apparently, the ride it had gone on was a wild one indeed. <i>I should ask him what that guy\u2019s story is\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cMaybe that big score he insisted was about to come through did, and he just didn\u2019t wanna share it,\u201d Toombs grumbled. \u201cFucker\u2019ll be back when he finishes blowin\u2019 through his winnin\u2019s. Meantime, you get anywhere with his account?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cNope. His password clue was \u2018fuck you, Alex.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Toombs snorted. \u201cAsshole knows me, I\u2019ll give him that. Lemme try.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Logan started to hand over her comm again and then stopped, holding it out of Toombs\u2019 reach for a moment. \u201cYou break it, and you\u2019re buying me a brand new one with twice the memory.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYeah, yeah\u2026 gimme.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Now Jack did watch over Toombs\u2019 shoulder as he pulled up Pritchard\u2019s Merc Network login. She paid close attention as he entered the other man\u2019s User ID, committing it to memory.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cHow many tries do I get?\u201d Toombs asked.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Logan rolled her eyes, <i>you should know this<\/i> written on her face. \u201cThree. Then the system locks you out for an hour.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Toombs began to type.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em\"><tt>BOOBS<\/tt><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cOh for God\u2019s sake,\u201d Logan grumbled. \u201cAre you <i>twelve?<\/i> You know damn well that you have to use capital and lower-case letters, <i>and<\/i> numbers, <i>and<\/i> a minimum of eight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cFine,\u201d Toombs snickered, changing his guess.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em\"><tt>B1gB00bs<\/tt><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYou\u2019re really not funny,\u201d Logan told him.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Toombs seemed genuinely surprised that his guess hadn\u2019t worked. His next one was obscene enough to make Logan smack the back of his head.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYou\u2019re just wasting guesses here, fergodsake\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cHe\u2019s spent the last how-the-fuck long goin\u2019 from brothel to brothel and you think this password would be out of character?\u201d Toombs asked, smirking as she rolled her eyes. \u201cYou don\u2019t even know what he pays those places to let him do. Count yourself lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cTrust me, anything <i>you<\/i> find gross, I don\u2019t wanna know about.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cAnnnnd\u2026 now I\u2019m locked out. So much for his favorite food groups\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cWhy are you even bothering, anyway? Let\u2019s just get the hell off this rock.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cHe owes me a Master Key.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cSo what?\u201d Logan groused. \u201cYou\u2019ve got his Cam-Jam. Call it even.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cMaybe I will. What\u2019s the word from Her Majesty?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cOh. Yeah. \u2018You\u2019re fired.\u2019\u201d Logan frowned at him. \u201cThat was for <i>both<\/i> of us, by the way. I\u2019m guilty by goddamn association. Thanks for that, asshole. I had a perfect record \u2019til you came along.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201c\u2019Til <i>Riddick<\/i> came along and took a likin\u2019 to the piece of tail you were huntin\u2019, you mean.\u201d Toombs handed her back her comm. \u201cNot a scratch on it, see? Does that mean you don\u2019t have to finish goin\u2019 through the comm records for the morgue staff?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">A chill moved through Jack.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYeah, she said she\u2019d have someone else do that,\u201d Logan sighed. \u201cI managed to get your charges reduced to misdemeanor assault. The Meziane family was talking about pressing <i>stalking<\/i> charges, saying you had intended to assault a visiting relative\u2014way to be <i>subtle,<\/i> by the way\u2014but I talked them out of it. Plead no contest, pay the damned fine, and we can get off this planet <i>today.<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cDamn right. You wanna come with me to Shakti Four when we do? They\u2019re a <i>civilized<\/i> world that knows how to serve <i>booze.<\/i>\u201d Toombs waggled his brows.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cJesus Christ, you just can\u2019t let go of him, can you? You\u2019re gonna end up like <i>Johns.<\/i>\u201d Logan shook her head. \u201cMaybe. Gotta check on the status of the Wittier-Collins case back on New Dartmouth, first, make sure the bounty hasn\u2019t been pulled. There\u2019s a bunch of pressure on the government about that case from both sides. Half the planet wants to see her hang and the other half wants her crowned as a <i>rebel princess<\/i>. Weird damned world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cThey\u2019re <i>all<\/i> weird. Whether or not she\u2019s good for the bounty, we catch up to her and we find the <i>big<\/i> prize. I\u2019m still willin\u2019 to split the take with you\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Jack turned away from the pair, on a new mission. Slipping back into U1 behind an ornamental screen, she headed for the transit station where she\u2019d rented a locker for a two-month stretch. Once she had liberated the funding cards inside, she went straight to a nearby tech shop, hurriedly purchasing the equipment she needed, and then started back for the Rif. The two mercs would be gone in the next few hours, the next day at most, and she no longer needed to dog their steps. She had something much more urgent to attend to.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">As much as she didn\u2019t like going back to the apartment where Kyra had been stabbed\u2014by a merc she now knew was really named Pritchard\u2014it was better to pull some of her more illegal shenanigans there than near or in the <i>ait Meziane<\/i> house. And anyway, Kyra was using her tablet to plan her next moves. The two of them had agreed, unhappily, that neither one of them should know where the other was going, just in case one of them got caught. Jack spent an hour setting things up on the new tablet, pulling in some of her more illegal resources, before she was ready to get started. Fortunately, the reception for Tomlin\u2019s service colleagues was a lunch-to-dinner affair and she had until full dark to get back to the house without anyone noticing she\u2019d been gone.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">The first issue to deal with, she decided, was the morgue staff comm records.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Sometime after the Quintessa Corporation had informed the morgue of their intention to claim the <i>Matador<\/i> passengers\u2019 bodies, after all, Usadden had called Ewan to warn him. That call linked the Meziane family, even if only tenuously, to the subsequent disappearance of all eighteen of those bodies. It needed to cease to exist.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">It took another hour to locate the cache that was being sifted through, which technically belonged to law enforcement but was being handled by Quintessa Corporation staff and their associates. Once she found her way in, she began searching. She had the advantage of knowing what she was looking for, while the staff did not. It still took longer than she liked.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Usadden had been smart; no calls had been made from the morgue to the Meziane household or Ewan\u2019s private comm number. But his private comm showed a call to Ewan\u2019s, approximately an hour after he had finished talking to the Quintessa Corporation on the morgue\u2019s line, that lasted two minutes. Worse, a recording of the call had been downloaded and logged.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She was going to have to fix that.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cHere\u2019s the problem with trying to steal something, or kill somebody, and not have people realize that you were targeting something or someone specific,\u201d Riddick had told her one \u201cnight\u201d on the skiff, after Imam had fallen asleep and they could speak freely without incurring the holy man\u2019s censure. The cleric was already trying to limit their conversations; talking shop about felonies would have sent him raging if he\u2019d known. But Jack would have been happy to listen to Riddick talk about <i>anything,<\/i> and the world of crime was what he knew best. \u201cYou do a surgical strike, just taking that one thing, or taking out that one person, and you\u2019ve told everybody way too much about the reason behind it. And how to find <i>you,<\/i> or your employer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d she\u2019d asked.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cWell\u2026 say I was hired to get a new piece of military tech that some developer had at home in his safe. I go in, crack open the safe, steal the tech, and leave\u2026 and everybody knows that the tech was the target. They know whoever stole it was hired by someone who wanted to use it, or maybe stop its developer from using it. So there\u2019s a small suspect list, the fences who deal in that kind of tech are put under surveillance, countermeasures go into place to minimize the damage the tech can do\u2026 everybody\u2019s anticipating the next steps of someone who\u2019d steal, or use, <i>that tech<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Jack had nodded. Anything to keep him talking, but it really was fascinating. Riddick was, after all, one of the only people who\u2019d ever defeated one of her father\u2019s security systems, and he\u2019d defeated <i>four<\/i> of them.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cBut what if, instead, I went in like a normal burglar? Emptied out the safe, not just of that piece of tech but all the other documents and valuables inside. Stole the wife\u2019s jewelry. Took the electronics. Made off with some of the smaller artworks. Made it look like my goal was just to grab anything valuable and portable and the tech just <i>happened<\/i> to get caught up with all that. Now they don\u2019t know what I was really after. Now, as far as they know, I don\u2019t even know what I <i>have.<\/i> Now they gotta put every fence in town under surveillance. If they want the tech back, they gotta hope that some of the other things I stole start showing up on the black market and can be traced back to one source. The whole way they look for me, and everything I took, changes\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">If she just deleted that one recording, Jack realized, she would draw all the attention to it, to that one call and the people who had made and received it. But if a wider array of materials went missing or got damaged\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Thank you, Riddick, wherever you are.<\/i> She hoped it was somewhere nice\u2026 just not Shakti Four.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Jack checked the log. Eve Logan hadn\u2019t been replaced yet, and she\u2019d only just finished going through the records from the morgue itself. Morgue employees\u2019 private comm calls, however\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u2026had all been stored in a separate folder. Personal comms required more warrants, many of which were still being signed, filed, and served.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Jack replaced the contents of every single recording within the folder with pure white noise. Then, carefully, she reversed the metadata of Usadden\u2019s call to Ewan, making it look like <i>Ewan<\/i> had called <i>Usadden.<\/i> For good measure, she canceled forty of the warrants that were still being processed, including the one for Usadden\u2019s comm, and erased all evidence that they had ever been filed. A quick side-trip using another Ghost Code, into the comms servicer the Meziane family used, and their records also indicated that Ewan had called Usadden that morning instead of the reverse. Much less suspicious.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She listened to a few of the other comm conversations Ewan and Usadden had had in recent weeks, wondering if the Meziane family even knew such things were being kept on file, picking the most innocuous and extemporaneous of them and replacing the comms servicer\u2019s offending audio file with it. If the file got downloaded again and another warrant was served, all anyone would hear was Ewan asking his cousin to settle a debate he and his\u2014literal\u2014wingman had about when and how rigor mortis set in after death. Ewan had apparently won the debate.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Weird thing to be arguing about,<\/i> she thought. Something to do with a really old vid called <i>Clerks<\/i>\u2026?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">There had been another, actual call from Ewan to Usadden several hours later, which no one from Quintessa or law enforcement had logged or requisitioned. Yet. If they ever did, it would damn the whole family. That one, at least, Jack could erase completely from the system. She spent some extra time making sure that all traces of that call had been eradicated.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">By the time she finished, night had settled in. She still needed to hack into Pritchard\u2019s account in the merc network, but that was something she could safely do back in her and Kyra\u2019s room in the <i>ait Meziane<\/i> house. She wouldn\u2019t be committing any class-one felonies by logging into a dead merc\u2019s account, especially since, she realized, she already knew his password. She wiped her new equipment and reset it to factory specs, hopefully erasing all evidence that it had been used to commit several cybercrimes, and then bundled everything up to take home.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Someone had always escorted her into the <i>ait Meziane<\/i> house, she realized as she reached the locked gates. Even when Ewan had caught them sneaking back during the noon sleeping hours earlier that day\u2014and he\u2019d never said why <i>he<\/i> was up at that time\u2014he\u2019d simply opened each of the gates for them and it hadn\u2019t occurred to her that they might have needed keys, even though the courtyard level was under six meters of Elsewhere\u2019s high tide at the time and bypassing them hadn\u2019t been an option. Fortunately, the next tide had yet to arrive. She passed through the gates\u2019 corridor on the Elsewhere side, wondering if she should ask for keys or if that would be a bad idea, given how soon she was going to be leaving.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">It had gotten later than she\u2019d realized; the party had already broken up. Takama, Safiyya, Cedric, and Ewan were arguing in the dining room as she entered the courtyard. She slipped  back across the threshold into Elsewhere before they could see or hear her, approaching them as a phantom.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201c\u2026can\u2019t keep just going off on her own like this,\u201d Safiyya was saying. The presence of General Toal, seated nearby and diplomatically staying out of the fray, explained why she was saying it in English.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cIt is what she is accustomed to doing,\u201d Takama said. \u201cThat is a habit that we may have trouble breaking.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Kyra? Listen in with me. You need to hear this.<\/i> After a second, she could feel her sister paying attention to what she was seeing and hearing.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cBut if she is to live with us\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cIs she?\u201d Cedric asked. \u201cGavin said she told him she had somewhere she needed to go. What makes you believe either of them plan to stay past Dihya\u2019s recovery? Have you even invited them to yet? Much less heard them say yes?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cThey are <i>children!\u201d<\/i> Safiyya protested.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cD\u2019you think, after everything they\u2019ve been through and done, that they\u2019re just going to let any of us treat them like children?\u201d Ewan asked. \u201cYou know what I was like at that age, and I was still fairly sheltered. They already know how to survive without\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201c<i>Survive?<\/i> Dihya was <i>stabbed!\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cAnd Tizzy killed the man who did it,\u201d Cedric observed, putting a gentle hand on his wife\u2019s shoulder.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Jack winced even as Safiyya did.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cMy point is,\u201d Ewan continued, \u201cyou\u2019re not going to convince them that you\u2019re looking out for them by treating them like kids. Especially since they\u2019re used to us <i>not<\/i> doing so.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cEven if that was\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cEven if that was wrong, <i>yes.<\/i> I do <i>know<\/i> that. But if you turn around and start\u2026 <i>infantilizing<\/i> them now\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Safiyya gasped, staring at her son in offended shock.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201c\u2014it might just be the last time we ever see them.\u201d He looked around at his parents and aunt. \u201cI\u2019m <i>serious.<\/i> For God\u2019s sake, they\u2019re high-powered <i>espers<\/i> with experience living on the streets and cracking security systems, <i>and<\/i> the ability to move into a whole other <i>universe<\/i> at <i>will.<\/i> You couldn\u2019t keep me out of trouble, and I\u2019m a baseline human and your <i>son.<\/i> Even if you <i>were<\/i> their parents and <i>had<\/i> the authority, how could you possibly think to <i>ground<\/i> someone who can do all <i>that?\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYou can\u2019t,\u201d Takama agreed. \u201cNot without locking them up in a way that they can\u2019t escape, even with all of those advantages.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">For a moment, as Jack felt her heart plummeting, no one spoke.<\/p>\n<p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Title: The Changeling Game (Formerly Identity Theft) Author: Ardath Rekha Chapter: 42\/? Fandom: TCOR AU Rating: M Warnings: Adult themes, controversial subject matter, harsh language, violence Cate","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"\u201cThe Changeling Game\u201d 42: \u201cA Growing Stack of Felonies\u201d","bgseo_description":"Hunting the hunters, Jack follows Toombs and Logan and learns of an imminent threat to the Meziane family. Taking care of that threat, however, opens up a new can of worms.","bgseo_robots_index":"index","bgseo_robots_follow":"follow","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fan-fiction","category-the-changeling-game"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1182,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483\/revisions\/1182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}