531
Charity

“Where have you been?”

Wu DaQi had just dropped his bag onto the desk when Jackson stormed into his office. He wasn’t sure he should be there, but after staring at his reflection for half an hour, he was no closer to answers than he had been. He didn’t believe his dreams were just dreams anymore, which meant last night was a glimpse at the past he’d lost.

A past that Mann Enterprises was actively keeping from him.

And if they were, that meant he had to keep up appearances until he decided what to do. Besides, there was one person he trusted to give him the truth now, and the only chance he had to replace him was through Fulmer.

“Did you miss me?” he asked.

Jackson rolled his eyes. “Salin wants us to head back to the warehouse and see what else we can replace.”

Mann was trying to draw 531 out again, and they wanted to use him to do it. He had other ideas though. He didn’t know how they could replace Fulmer, but the man wasn’t alone. He had people around him. DaQi had been happy to let Jackson do the groundwork and look into all that before, but now he had no faith. Fulmer had been easy to replace and he doubted Jackson had done an in-depth background search on anyone involved with Fulmer.

He thought about arguing with Jackson about going to the warehouse but he decided against it. Whatever else was going on with his head, the interface with his augmentation worked just fine and he could continue his background searches remotely.

“If we’re leaving, let’s go.”

When they got to the parking lot, he headed toward his motorcycle. He didn’t want to be stuck with Jackson on the drive over and he wanted the getaway in case he needed it.

As he drove, he continued his background search, first on Fulmer’s business contacts, and then on his family. There wasn’t much to replace that Jackson hadn’t discussed before they went after Fulmer, but DaQi noticed one glaring deficit in his research. There was no detailed history for Charity Fulmer.

DaQi started looking into her background, digging into it as he drove to the warehouse. Charity Fulmer had started life as Charity Adams. Her family was one of the better to-do families in the Builds. They built a fortune in the biotech manufacturing business. They had ties with most of the major biotech firms in some way or another. He took a deeper dive into her social life and found something else of interest. Back in the day, before her marriage to Fulmer, she’d dated the current CEO of Mariner Tech, the parent company of Mann Enterprises.

Was Fulmer involved in all of this because of his wife?

He started to look for any footage he could replace of Charity Fulmer and was surprised to replace that Mann had been following her recently. And when he checked the records, it was Jackson who’d been tailing her.

He pulled off the main road and into an alley, careful to avoid the people crouched in their makeshift tents. Someone would come by in a few days to shoo them away. Tent villages popped up overnight in the lower levels of the Builds, but they weren’t tolerated. They’d get pushed back down into the Piles before long.

He stopped when he found an area clear of people and turned off his bike. He needed to think clearly and didn’t want the distraction of the drive against the footage running through his head. He watched the feed on Charity Fulmer at high speed. Mann had surveillance drones on all their stakeouts, in case they needed additional information. He was sure no one else had watched it though. It was just standard procedure and there was no one else on this case that would take the initiative.

He watched Charity go to a house in the Skylines. When he checked the address, the home was owned by Albert Sandus, the CEO of Mariner Tech. He couldn’t replace any other correspondence between the two since her marriage to Fulmer, but they must have kept it secret over the years. The question was, what was their current relationship, and why did she go to see him openly now?

He pulled up a new feed from the day to replace out where she currently was. Mann Enterprises wasn’t tracking her anymore, but there were cameras all over the Builds. There was no movement from her for the day, so he tracked it back until he found her leaving her house. He filtered through the traffic cameras and the surveillance of the larger companies until he watched her leave the Builds and head into the tunnel that led to the Skylines. It was harder to track her there. Security was more private and harder to hack, but he thought he knew where she was headed and his hunch was right. She was back at the home of Albert Sandus.

Her husband had been freed by 531. Why wasn’t she with him? What was she doing with Sandus?

There were too many questions and there was only one way to get the answers. It was her name on the secondary warehouse that had housed the Mariner Tech that had been stolen and resold. It was her husband they had retained to get information on his operation. And she hired 531 to replace him.

He pulled away from the alley and headed up towards the tunnels. He didn’t know what he would discover next, but he had to know. Charity Fulmer had the answers and he was going to get them.

How did she connect to 531 and Mariner Tech? What was really going on here? And how did it all relate back to his missing past?