The Great Game

Preliminary analysis confirmed that Hallet had been dead for twelve days. Speech and retina analysis from surveillance confirmed that he’d been fine this morning. The guys on the ground had followed the shooter’s trail for a few hundred metres — until it just vanished into thin air somehow. The footprints matched Hallet’s weight and foot size. What the hell was going on?

For the last twelve days, there had been two copies of Arthur Hallet, one live and one dead. Nothing else could fit with the facts. How the hell did you copy a middle-aged man though? Replication was still theoretical. Clones couldn’t be force-matured. Identical twins? There was no hint of a sibling in his history. It was just possible that Hallet had spent his life engaged in a very subtle, careful deception, but why? And why would one murder the other and then leave his body out on the table like that?

We’d been watching him for three days, on and off. Surveillance had put him across the city shortly before we’d gone into the house. So… maybe the shooter wasn’t the Hallet copy, but an associate. Except the footprints leading away from the house were Hallet’s, or those of someone very similar… Two similarly stocky guys with the same brand of size 9s?

I set a search running with Overlook, digging for any records of Hallet out in public in the last two weeks, and put a call through to Steve Clark in surveillance.

He answered immediately. “Clark. What’s up, Taylor?”

“Hi Steve. You’ve been tracking Arthur Hallet.”

“Yeah, three days now, on and off.”

“How did we get interested in him?”

“He wandered out of the black market operation on Beak Street. We recorded his ID and forgot about him. A couple of hours later though, we saw a surprisingly shabby guy heading into the Regency. We’re keeping an eye on Salia Moses there, so we dug a bit deeper, and it was Hallet again.”

That was odd. “What does Moses have to do with the black market?”

“Nothing, as far as we know.”

“Hallet was playing courier for her?”

“Maybe. He wasn’t carrying anything visible, but that doesn’t mean much.”

“Right.”

“After that, we starting looking out for him in earnest. He’s been popping up around town like a jack-in-the-box for the last couple of days. He doesn’t seem to be making any effort to stay hidden. The order to tail him came through about an hour ago.”

“Where is he?”

“Not sure. He was out north four hours ago, at the university. Next time he appears, we’ll keep eyes on him.”

“OK Steve, thanks. Let me know if you spot him.”

“Sure thing.”

I closed the connection. The raid had been a little over three and a half hours ago. Hallet’s place was south-east, in Oakdale. It would take you more than an hour to do the journey by road. Sure, you could do it in five minutes in a flitter — if you didn’t mind scrambling all kinds of military response as you thundered over the city. It had to be a third man. Damn.

I checked my Overlook search. It was still rolling along happily, churning out hits. Lots and lots of hits. A nasty sinking feeling crept over me. I opened the log, and stared. The first three days of the search, he stayed local. Then eleven days ago, Hallet had been registered flitting in to San Francisco. And Boston. And Tampa. And Milwaukee, Vancouver, Columbus, Las Vegas, Austin and Detroit. All before midday.

Hell’s teeth. How many damned Hallets were there?

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Today’s photo is Market Street by Alister Coyne