The Ghost Network, 1/?. A/A. NC-17
Title: The Ghost Network
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: NC-17 (eventually... That will be clearly marked when I get there)
Pairing: Ariadne/Arthur
Disclaimer: Everyone here belongs to Christopher Nolan and not to me. I like making his toys do naughty, naughty things.
Spoilers/Warnings: Post-movie. For the inception_kink meme prompt: Serial killer or Assassin Arthur, victim or FBI agent Ariadne, and Stockholm Syndrome. It's an AU fic, folks, but I tried to keep them as IC as possible! Also written for the "wild card" box on my hc_bingo card.
Summary: Someone has been killing people involved in sleep labs. As part of the Sleep Crimes Unit of the FBI, Ariadne has to help track down the Dream Killer. Things go very wrong very fast, and she's exactly in the last place she wants to be.
In the middle of the journey of my life,
I found myself at a place where the straight road had been lost sight of.
Dante Aligheri, Inferno
The Ghost Network
"This is going to suck," Ariadne said, looking around the bullpen. It was in constant motion, as it usually was, but she could feel dozens of eyes tracking her movements as she walked through it. The main reason for that was Inspector Eames walking beside her, as well as the knowledge that this case she was working on was international.
"Darling," Eames drawled, lips drawn back into an amused smile. "I do love those Americanisms you insist on using. It won't be that terrible."
"Of course it will," Ariadne replied, grasping the handle to the conference room. "The SAC would never use the conference room unless there was a new development. And he did not sound like he was in a good mood."
The smile on Eames' face slid right off when he took in the somber faces of the rest of the Sleep Crimes Unit. "Oh, dear. Something's happened."
"Do sit down," Special Agent in Charge Dominic Cobb said, pointing to an empty portion of the conference table. "I've just received word from Ainsworth, Nebraska. It looks like there was an underground sleep lab there, and its director is dead. The MO matches our UNSUB."
Ariadne's heart sank. This definitely was not good news.
"This brings our tally to fifteen known deaths in the United States alone, six in the UK and possibly more that Interpol won't release to us." Dominic leaned forward slightly, gazing at each agent in turn. "The UNSUB is laughing at us."
Ariadne ignored the sinking feeling in her stomach and accepted the piece of gum that Eames pushed across the table at her. They had been working together for nearly three weeks at that point, and she felt like she had known him for three lifetimes. He was easy to talk to about things outside the job as well. She was aware that most of the other agents in the bullpen assumed that the two of them were sleeping together. He liked to play off of those rumors because he found it amusing, though he had always been unfailingly polite and professional in the Hoover building. The only reason they had been stuck together from the start was that Ariadne was the newest recruit to the SCU, and that by default meant she got the tasks no one else wanted.
There wasn't anything that seemed to point to a particular rhyme or reason to how sleep labs were picked. Some were legitimate, some were not, some danced across the border of legalities by offering legal and illegal somnacin use. However the targets were chosen, they were kidnapped from their homes without any sign of entry or forensic evidence left behind. Within a week, they were found in a public park nearest to their place of business. There was a single shot to the head made by a 9 mm Glock, with old ligature marks on wrists and ankles as if the victim had been tied tightly to a chair. Puncture wounds from multiple needles were found all along the inside forearms of the victims, as well as an elegantly carved MEA CULPA across the chest. The carving had been done before death, as there was usually a copious amount of blood present on the clothing of the victim. No matter how many times the bodies were analyzed, there was never any forensic evidence to be found.
Their UNSUB was a ghost, and there was no pattern to the choice in victim other than the fact that they were sleep lab directors. There were thousands of sleep labs across the country, possibly even tens of thousands of illegal labs. With the advent of somnacin and the PASIV, it was easy enough to delve into dreams. Most legitimate labs restricted use for therapy, treatment of night terrors, sleep disorders or the occasional recreational use. With highly trained specialists, memory retrieval could aid in investigations. With underground labs, anything went. Some of them were rather decent, treating the same problems that legal labs did, but without the exorbitant proprietary fees involved in the use of somnacin and the machinery. Some of them were downright unsavory, and there were plenty of users on the black market. It was partly why the SCU was so necessary; there were similar teams in different governments all over the world to fight just that sort of crime.
SAC Cobb was currently in charge of a joint team involving agents from Violent Crimes Unit as well as the SCU. The SCU was very small, only five agents. They needed to work with VCU for their expertise in profiling criminal minds, as this was clearly a serial killer. Inspector Eames was a profiler of sorts with Scotland Yard, and apparently he had known Cobb's father-in-law, Stephen Miles. Ariadne had been recommended by Professor Miles specifically for the SCU because of the facility she had picked up dreaming skills in her training at Quantico. She hadn't known that Professor Miles was Cobb's father-in-law, as Miles had never mentioned it. Ariadne had figured it out during her interview with Cobb. It was hard to miss the pictures of Miles, Mallorie Miles-Cobb and Cobb on his desk. There were also photos of their two children, Phillipa and James, though Ariadne had never met them and never asked about them. She knew that Mallorie was a pathologist that worked for the FBI as well, but she generally tried to keep out of office politics. It had been intimidating enough to realize that Miles thought she was that gifted a dreamer, that skilled in the self defense techniques that the classes tried to instill.
Of course, the additional talent she seemed to have was the ability to always know when she was dreaming, even without a totem. That was an innate skill, Miles had said, and something that was impossible to teach. Ariadne had one anyway, but she never had to check it. It hung on her keyring as if it was an ordinary key chain, but only she knew how it was supposed to feel in the real world vs. the dreamscape.
The team discussed what they knew so far about this UNSUB, dubbed the Dream Killer by one of the VCU staff. Their profiler and Eames agreed on many points in their profile: white male, lived alone, had likely been a subject of abuse himself in the past. From there, the profiles differed. The VCU agent felt that the Dream Killer was motivated by anger at the sleep labs, and was trying to make a statement against them and the somnacin development teams in particular. There were many fringe groups that felt dreams should not be altered in any way, and that this was going down a slippery slope until all of humanity was stripped away. Eames believed this was motivated by revenge, that there was a cold calculation in how the directors were killed. Eames believed that their UNSUB was a patient of these sleep labs, and that whatever his illness was could not be cured by the treatments. In anger, he was killing the directors.
Personally, Ariadne thought Eames' theory was more sound.
The only problem with both theories was that there was no overlap across any of the victims. None of the victim profiles seemed to match in anything other than their involvement in a sleep lab of some kind. There were no similarities between types or size of labs, or even treatment specialties. None of the patient lists matched, and even looking for potential assumed names had been a needle in a haystack. There had been no apparent timetable; most of the killings had been discovered after the fact, when local authorities had given up and asked the FBI for help. It was only after carefully combing through records that they could identify all the killings that carried the same earmarks as the Dream Killer. That didn't eliminate the possibility of earlier killings, as rituals always evolved over time and could change even as they searched for him. Known victims dated back over five years; both the VCU profiler and Eames supposed that the Dream Killer had been doing this for years prior to that.
"Inspector, Agent, a word." Cobb motioned at Ariadne and Eames as the meeting came to an end. "You're planning to head to Nebraska," he said, not really asking a question.
"We're planning to re-interview everyone at the scene," Ariadne affirmed. They had done this after the latest New York killing, as well as the one in Portland. Neither had yielded extra information that was helpful, but it had eliminated the local police forces' suspects from their search. Ariadne still considered it almost wasted effort.
Cobb nodded. They were alone in the conference room, and Ariadne watched him run his fingers through his hair in frustration. "I don't have to tell you that the AD is on my back about this. He thinks that this makes us look bad, even if it's not publicly discussed as much as the war efforts or terrorism. This is still domestic terrorism of a sort. Or international terrorism," he corrected, looking at Eames. "I had a call from Scotland Yard this morning, Inspector. They're still willing to let you stay to help with this case, but they're getting frustrated on their end as well. There's been a copycat, sloppy work they could tell wasn't our guy. They want to be able to nail somebody to the wall to put an end to this."
"Of course, sir," Ariadne said with a stiff nod.
"We've been working our arses off, but the Dream Killer's a professional. He's smart, very smart. He's stepped up his timetable recently," Eames mused. "He's bound to make a mistake that we'll be able to use."
Cobb's tension eased somewhat, though he still seemed keyed up. "I know the two of you work well as a team. See what you can find in Nebraska and bring this bastard in."
***
Nash was a squirrelly looking man that seemed altogether too nervous to see an FBI agent and Scotland Yard Inspector at his place of business. The locals of course were aware at this point that he had been helping provide a location for the illegal sleep lab, so there was no opposition from townsfolk in pointing out the new warehouse his shipping business was located in. He said all the right things, heaping the blame on the dead man for the illegal lab. "He was my friend, you know? He asks for a place to stay and keep some stuff, and I wasn't about to say no," Nash said, his voice a whine. He combed his hand through his hair, which already looked spiky from prior pulls. "I mean, I don't ask him what he does, I don't ask what his stuff is. I just gave him a place to keep it. You know, a warehouse and all that. I had space to spare for him. I mean, I never really charged rent."
"I've noticed," Eames began in a pleasant tone, "that folk telling me they mean something usually mean quite the opposite. Have you ever noticed that?" he asked Nash.
Nash's eyes flicked between Ariadne and Eames. For a split second, it seemed like he looked past them, and then he shook his head quickly. "Uh, no. But you know, I work a lot."
"Shipping, Mr. Nash?" Ariadne asked, checking her little notepad. She had known that. She checked downward so she could see his reaction through her eyelashes, could try to track where his eyes went. Her senses were screaming at her that he was still a liar and a thief and there was something off about him.
He didn't relax in the slightest. "Yeah. I ship stuff. You know, in and out of the state. People coming and going all the time, you know? I have to stay on top of 'em, make sure it all runs smooth." His eyes flickered slightly.
"Is something the matter, Mr. Nash?" Eames asked. "You look almost ill."
"Oh. No, no, I'm fine, really. Just... I talked to the cops already. It's hard to believe that Manny's dead, you know? Killed that way? It's such a shame. Makes you wonder what sick freak does that kind of shit." He flushed and glanced at Ariadne. "Sorry, ma'am."
She gave him a mirthless smile. "I assure you, I've heard worse."
"Was there anything unusual in Mandeep's behavior before he disappeared?" Eames asked, pen poised over his own notebook. "I'm sure in retrospect there must be something."
Nash's eyes definitely flicked behind them as he answered, toward the wall with the bookcase. "N-no. I can't think of a thing. I mean, he was a busy guy, you know? In and out and doing his thing, not really meeting up much. He wasn't much of a beer and pretzels kinda guy, you know?"
"No, Mr. Nash," Ariadne murmured, turning around. "I didn't know the man. Is there something on the bookcase that's worrying you?"
"You seem awfully troubled by something," Eames added, watching his expression carefully as Ariadne stepped forward to examine the bookcase.
"No!" Nash said, taking a half step forward. "I mean, no, I'm fine. Nothing doing. But lookit, I got my business to run..."
The bookcase held mostly shipping manuals, catalogs for Staples and various machine shops in the area. There was one book bound in red leather that appeared worn and well read. It had no title on its spine, and Ariadne reached out to touch the book.
"Listen!" Nash said, his voice a trifle too sharp and loud. "I'm trying to do a legit business deal around here, and I can't have feds come in and asking stuff the cops did. It makes the people nervous..."
"You seem to be very nervous," Eames remarked, observing sweat break out on Nash's brow. He lofted an eyebrow at the man. "Is there something wrong? I would have assumed you wanted Mandeep's killer to be brought to justice.
The book didn't move, but it felt as though something shifted when she tugged on it. Ariadne pulled harder and there was a definite click that made Nash freeze in place. "I wonder what this is," Ariadne murmured. She looked around the bookcase and saw a seam in the wall. She stared at Nash. "Care to explain, Mr. Nash?"
"Look, Manny's been gone almost a month now," Nash began, nervously licking his lips. "It's not like you can just toss 'em back into their lives like nothing happened."
Eames pulled the bookcase, which was mounted against the inset door in the wall. "And I assume that this was the same bookcase from pictures of the prior crime scene?"
"What else was I gonna do?" Nash nearly wailed as Ariadne headed into the doorway. It was a landing for stairs leading downward, and she led the way, her hand on her service weapon.
It was another illegal sleep lab.
There were five sleepers hooked up to machines. They weren't the simple PASIV devices that police had confiscated the month before from the prior illegal lab, but fully actualized dream machines. There was a man of Indian descent behind a row of laptops, with one large computer server and large monitor at his side. He appeared to be monitoring each of the five sleepers, and was startled by the appearance of Ariadne and Eames.
"Oh, dear," he murmured. He made no move to get up from the monitors. "Is there something I can help you with?" he asked in cultured tones.
They introduced themselves, but the man didn't seem to be perturbed in the slightest. "Isn't running a lab dangerous in these times?" Eames asked, stepping forward as Ariadne went to inspect the five sleepers.
"Well, a place already hit once won't likely be hit again. And I keep my ear out for news on the network," the man said, leaning back a little. "I assume Nash is in serious trouble."
"Very much so," Ariadne said, straightening and coming forward. "You are?"
"Yusuf," the man said with a smile, extending his hand for a shake. Eames did so, and tipped back one of the laptops, curious to see what was on it. "Careful. I need to keep an eye on that while they're sleeping."
"You're awfully calm about all this," Ariadne remarked.
"Not my first bust, unfortunately," Yusuf admitted with a shrug. "But I'm not the organization guy, so I tend to get a slap on the wrist."
"What's your role in all this, then?" Eames asked, gesturing toward all of the computers. They appeared to be readouts of various things that pulsed and had wavelengths.
"I'm the chemist," Yusuf replied easily enough. "I make the somnacin cocktails, I tinker with things. I'm the one that adjusts the dosing and makes sure they go in on time and out on time. My cousin Mandeep used to do this job."
Eames stilled. "Mandeep Kapoor. As in, the man that was recently killed." Yusuf nodded. "We thought he was the director?"
Yusuf snorted. "Mandeep is a lousy organizer. Nah, that was Nash pushing that bullshit. He was the chemist, and did a piss poor job of it, too. I kept telling him to make sure his lines were clean and the needles on stock, and that he couldn't just go out to party, but he was a player, that one." The annoyance in his voice faded. "I suppose it wasn't a surprise when Nash called me in to replace him. Mandeep was a loser."
"I'm sorry for your loss," Eames murmured. "Were you close?"
"He lived in fucking Nebraska. Hell, no." Yusuf shook his head and chuckled at something he remembered. "Couldn't hack it in LA."
"But you were able to fly here and replace him?" Ariadne asked with a confused air.
Yusuf shrugged. "This life... You don't easily leave it behind. I tried, believe me I did. I mean, LA has plenty of opportunities to go legit. All the rock stars and movie stars think it's such a trip to go into dreams and do crazy shit. I made money hand over fist until they busted me the last time. I've been disbarred from the profession, but once a chemist, always a chemist." He shook his head ruefully. "Besides. There's some actual good in it, even if we don't pay the fucking crazy overhead to the government. Just because they developed the somnacin in the first place doesn't mean it's any good. I mean, hell, I've developed better, cleaner versions of the stuff. The old shit was terrible. But the government's a monopoly, so no point for them to improve the formula, right? I do a good job. I take it seriously, and I've had some good successes. Less chance of the patients coming out of it with a hangover or feeling like they were hit in the face." He took in Ariadne's pale face. "You feeling okay?"
"You mentioned a network," Ariadne said, changing topic.
"Well, yeah. The Ghost Network." He looked at their blank faces. "Nobody's told you guys about it yet, have they?"
"You're the most forthcoming person we've dealt with," Eames admitted with a gracious smile.
"We could see what we can do about offering protection, if you're afraid of reprisals," Ariadne said seriously.
There was a soft beep from one of the computers. Yusuf immediately turned his attention to that laptop. "Excuse me," he said distractedly, fingers beginning to fly across the keyboard. The corresponding sleeper started to stir and stretch on the cot behind Eames and Ariadne, then yawned and sat up. Yusuf got up and went to the sleeper, talking in a low tone of voice. "Talia. How are you feeling?"
The middle aged woman smiled at Yusuf. "Much better, Yusuf, thank you. I saw my mother today, and we were able to have tea. I haven't done that in years."
Yusuf smiled. "And told her all about your granddaughter, I'm sure," he said, patting her hand. He smoothly disengaged the needle and cleansed the area before putting on a sterile bandage to cover the entry site. "All right. You're all set for today. I don't think you're going to be able to make more appointments, though."
Talia frowned. "But I've paid through the month for the sessions..."
"There's trouble, Miss Talia."
"Ah, there's always trouble," she sniffed, rising to her feet. "Nash can't keep a secret to save his fucking life," she grumbled. "Very well, then. Thank you for being so helpful."
Eames and Ariadne had watched the interchange, amused. They had never really seen an illegal lab in action, and a middle aged woman having tea with her mother in a dream hardly seemed like the national disaster that propaganda made it out to be. "Well, that was definitely one happy customer," Eames remarked as Yusuf went back to his workstation.
"Like I said. There's a point to these places." The next laptop beeped. "Excuse me. It's going to be a mass exodus in a moment. You'd best wait by the computer banks."
They watched as he repeated the same routine with each sleeper; their wakings were staggered by two minutes to allow for proper removal of each set of needles. It was fascinating to see how professional he was, in some ways more so than the professionals were. Eames noticed Ariadne's eyes looking everywhere, taking in every last detail regarding the setup. She seemed almost agitated by it, and he made a mental note to ask her about it in the hotel later. They had single rooms next to each other at the hotel, and usually worked in one of them until it was time to fall asleep. She always had her hair scraped back into a tight bun at the back of her neck, so it made her wide eyes look that much larger. Perhaps she thought it made her look more professional, but it also seemed to heighten her youthful appearance.
She was all brisk professional when the last of the sleepers left the room. "You were talking about a network," she began.
Yusuf nodded. "This will count on my record, right? That I'm cooperating? It helped me avoid prison the last time around." He started shutting down all of the computers and removed the first one from the bank of connected laptops. "This one is mine," he said unnecessarily. He put it into a messenger bag and faced the two agents. "Nash is probably long gone by now."
"Police will find him, I'm sure," Ariadne replied. "It's a fairly small town."
"True enough." He was an agreeable sort, and they wound up doing the questioning in the local police precinct. They collected Nash and the equipment from the illegal lab to prosecute him. As Yusuf was now considered a federal witness, the local police would only get a summary of their report after the fact to support their case against Nash.
"It's called the Ghost Network because there's a static server to log into that finds where the floating server is. I don't know all the details," Yusuf said, holding up a hand. "I have a Ph.D. in pharmacology, chemistry and biochemistry but I don't know shit about the back end of computer networks. I know enough to use them and replace cards in my computer, but that's about it. The underground has access to it by word of mouth. You need to be invited into the network, and the invite's from a superuser named Ghost. With the invite, you create a login and then you can access the network. It's a lot of stuff, mostly for us in the business." Yusuf drummed his fingers restlessly on top of his messenger bag. "It's like any other forum, I suppose. There's areas to chat about your expertise, how to set up shops, that sort of thing. Complaints about assholes in the business, how to get around the law, whatever floats your boat. It's a free for all."
He took a sip of the water that was provided to him and stared at his bag for a moment. "We heard about the deaths maybe three years ago. An extractor-"
"A what?"
"There are teams that go into minds sometimes," Yusuf explained patiently. "Sometimes they take memories out, or copy them. Those are extractors. Well, one had been working with Gregory Ostlewaithe on the side in London. That guy was the one that first clued us in that something bad was going on in the business."
Ariadne and Eames exchanged a glance. Ostlewaithe was one of the UK murders that was still unsolved. He had been the director of one of the official clinics in Surrey, but circumstances regarding his murder had been suppressed at the time. His name wasn't part of any US investigation. At least, not publicly.
"Most of us didn't think anything of it. You know, just a fluke. But they kept turning up. All these dead assholes, legit and not, and it was just eerie. It was like someone was watching us and knew what was happening in the community."
"It's a community?" Eames asked, startled.
"Sort of. Like every other loose knit community on the internet," Yusuf replied with a smile. "You know how it goes. Someone has a falling out with one guy, some chick creates drama, sends the boards into a tizzy. But these reports of dead guys and women in the field? It was more than just drama and making trouble."
"Can you go back and pull up a list of everyone on this network?" Ariadne asked, curious.
"If this place has wifi I can tap into, sure."
The police station allowed him access to their secure server at Ariadne's request, and he was able to cross reference all of the posts that caught his eye over the past three years. It was amazing how the message board looked like any other. Yusuf poked through several sections, looking for news and any reports of more missing workers. "Nothing yet. The last was my cousin."
Every single name Yusuf had found had been on their list.
"So the common thread between them was that they were all assholes?" Eames asked, amused.
Yusuf laughed a little awkwardly. "Well, they didn't do their jobs. They abused their positions of power in some way. Don't get me wrong, I loved my cousin and tried to help him out and got him into being a chemist. But he didn't really have the temperament for it. Someone reported him having sex with one of the sleepers on the boards, saying that it got hushed up because Nash gave her money back and then some. I asked him about it once I saw the post, and he denied ever doing it. But I know my cousin, and I think it was true."
Ariadne turned her pale face to Eames' with a grim expression. "I think we have our motive and opportunity."
***
***
Continue to chapter Two!
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: NC-17 (eventually... That will be clearly marked when I get there)
Pairing: Ariadne/Arthur
Disclaimer: Everyone here belongs to Christopher Nolan and not to me. I like making his toys do naughty, naughty things.
Spoilers/Warnings: Post-movie. For the inception_kink meme prompt: Serial killer or Assassin Arthur, victim or FBI agent Ariadne, and Stockholm Syndrome. It's an AU fic, folks, but I tried to keep them as IC as possible! Also written for the "wild card" box on my hc_bingo card.
Summary: Someone has been killing people involved in sleep labs. As part of the Sleep Crimes Unit of the FBI, Ariadne has to help track down the Dream Killer. Things go very wrong very fast, and she's exactly in the last place she wants to be.
In the middle of the journey of my life,
I found myself at a place where the straight road had been lost sight of.
Dante Aligheri, Inferno
The Ghost Network
"This is going to suck," Ariadne said, looking around the bullpen. It was in constant motion, as it usually was, but she could feel dozens of eyes tracking her movements as she walked through it. The main reason for that was Inspector Eames walking beside her, as well as the knowledge that this case she was working on was international.
"Darling," Eames drawled, lips drawn back into an amused smile. "I do love those Americanisms you insist on using. It won't be that terrible."
"Of course it will," Ariadne replied, grasping the handle to the conference room. "The SAC would never use the conference room unless there was a new development. And he did not sound like he was in a good mood."
The smile on Eames' face slid right off when he took in the somber faces of the rest of the Sleep Crimes Unit. "Oh, dear. Something's happened."
"Do sit down," Special Agent in Charge Dominic Cobb said, pointing to an empty portion of the conference table. "I've just received word from Ainsworth, Nebraska. It looks like there was an underground sleep lab there, and its director is dead. The MO matches our UNSUB."
Ariadne's heart sank. This definitely was not good news.
"This brings our tally to fifteen known deaths in the United States alone, six in the UK and possibly more that Interpol won't release to us." Dominic leaned forward slightly, gazing at each agent in turn. "The UNSUB is laughing at us."
Ariadne ignored the sinking feeling in her stomach and accepted the piece of gum that Eames pushed across the table at her. They had been working together for nearly three weeks at that point, and she felt like she had known him for three lifetimes. He was easy to talk to about things outside the job as well. She was aware that most of the other agents in the bullpen assumed that the two of them were sleeping together. He liked to play off of those rumors because he found it amusing, though he had always been unfailingly polite and professional in the Hoover building. The only reason they had been stuck together from the start was that Ariadne was the newest recruit to the SCU, and that by default meant she got the tasks no one else wanted.
There wasn't anything that seemed to point to a particular rhyme or reason to how sleep labs were picked. Some were legitimate, some were not, some danced across the border of legalities by offering legal and illegal somnacin use. However the targets were chosen, they were kidnapped from their homes without any sign of entry or forensic evidence left behind. Within a week, they were found in a public park nearest to their place of business. There was a single shot to the head made by a 9 mm Glock, with old ligature marks on wrists and ankles as if the victim had been tied tightly to a chair. Puncture wounds from multiple needles were found all along the inside forearms of the victims, as well as an elegantly carved MEA CULPA across the chest. The carving had been done before death, as there was usually a copious amount of blood present on the clothing of the victim. No matter how many times the bodies were analyzed, there was never any forensic evidence to be found.
Their UNSUB was a ghost, and there was no pattern to the choice in victim other than the fact that they were sleep lab directors. There were thousands of sleep labs across the country, possibly even tens of thousands of illegal labs. With the advent of somnacin and the PASIV, it was easy enough to delve into dreams. Most legitimate labs restricted use for therapy, treatment of night terrors, sleep disorders or the occasional recreational use. With highly trained specialists, memory retrieval could aid in investigations. With underground labs, anything went. Some of them were rather decent, treating the same problems that legal labs did, but without the exorbitant proprietary fees involved in the use of somnacin and the machinery. Some of them were downright unsavory, and there were plenty of users on the black market. It was partly why the SCU was so necessary; there were similar teams in different governments all over the world to fight just that sort of crime.
SAC Cobb was currently in charge of a joint team involving agents from Violent Crimes Unit as well as the SCU. The SCU was very small, only five agents. They needed to work with VCU for their expertise in profiling criminal minds, as this was clearly a serial killer. Inspector Eames was a profiler of sorts with Scotland Yard, and apparently he had known Cobb's father-in-law, Stephen Miles. Ariadne had been recommended by Professor Miles specifically for the SCU because of the facility she had picked up dreaming skills in her training at Quantico. She hadn't known that Professor Miles was Cobb's father-in-law, as Miles had never mentioned it. Ariadne had figured it out during her interview with Cobb. It was hard to miss the pictures of Miles, Mallorie Miles-Cobb and Cobb on his desk. There were also photos of their two children, Phillipa and James, though Ariadne had never met them and never asked about them. She knew that Mallorie was a pathologist that worked for the FBI as well, but she generally tried to keep out of office politics. It had been intimidating enough to realize that Miles thought she was that gifted a dreamer, that skilled in the self defense techniques that the classes tried to instill.
Of course, the additional talent she seemed to have was the ability to always know when she was dreaming, even without a totem. That was an innate skill, Miles had said, and something that was impossible to teach. Ariadne had one anyway, but she never had to check it. It hung on her keyring as if it was an ordinary key chain, but only she knew how it was supposed to feel in the real world vs. the dreamscape.
The team discussed what they knew so far about this UNSUB, dubbed the Dream Killer by one of the VCU staff. Their profiler and Eames agreed on many points in their profile: white male, lived alone, had likely been a subject of abuse himself in the past. From there, the profiles differed. The VCU agent felt that the Dream Killer was motivated by anger at the sleep labs, and was trying to make a statement against them and the somnacin development teams in particular. There were many fringe groups that felt dreams should not be altered in any way, and that this was going down a slippery slope until all of humanity was stripped away. Eames believed this was motivated by revenge, that there was a cold calculation in how the directors were killed. Eames believed that their UNSUB was a patient of these sleep labs, and that whatever his illness was could not be cured by the treatments. In anger, he was killing the directors.
Personally, Ariadne thought Eames' theory was more sound.
The only problem with both theories was that there was no overlap across any of the victims. None of the victim profiles seemed to match in anything other than their involvement in a sleep lab of some kind. There were no similarities between types or size of labs, or even treatment specialties. None of the patient lists matched, and even looking for potential assumed names had been a needle in a haystack. There had been no apparent timetable; most of the killings had been discovered after the fact, when local authorities had given up and asked the FBI for help. It was only after carefully combing through records that they could identify all the killings that carried the same earmarks as the Dream Killer. That didn't eliminate the possibility of earlier killings, as rituals always evolved over time and could change even as they searched for him. Known victims dated back over five years; both the VCU profiler and Eames supposed that the Dream Killer had been doing this for years prior to that.
"Inspector, Agent, a word." Cobb motioned at Ariadne and Eames as the meeting came to an end. "You're planning to head to Nebraska," he said, not really asking a question.
"We're planning to re-interview everyone at the scene," Ariadne affirmed. They had done this after the latest New York killing, as well as the one in Portland. Neither had yielded extra information that was helpful, but it had eliminated the local police forces' suspects from their search. Ariadne still considered it almost wasted effort.
Cobb nodded. They were alone in the conference room, and Ariadne watched him run his fingers through his hair in frustration. "I don't have to tell you that the AD is on my back about this. He thinks that this makes us look bad, even if it's not publicly discussed as much as the war efforts or terrorism. This is still domestic terrorism of a sort. Or international terrorism," he corrected, looking at Eames. "I had a call from Scotland Yard this morning, Inspector. They're still willing to let you stay to help with this case, but they're getting frustrated on their end as well. There's been a copycat, sloppy work they could tell wasn't our guy. They want to be able to nail somebody to the wall to put an end to this."
"Of course, sir," Ariadne said with a stiff nod.
"We've been working our arses off, but the Dream Killer's a professional. He's smart, very smart. He's stepped up his timetable recently," Eames mused. "He's bound to make a mistake that we'll be able to use."
Cobb's tension eased somewhat, though he still seemed keyed up. "I know the two of you work well as a team. See what you can find in Nebraska and bring this bastard in."
***
Nash was a squirrelly looking man that seemed altogether too nervous to see an FBI agent and Scotland Yard Inspector at his place of business. The locals of course were aware at this point that he had been helping provide a location for the illegal sleep lab, so there was no opposition from townsfolk in pointing out the new warehouse his shipping business was located in. He said all the right things, heaping the blame on the dead man for the illegal lab. "He was my friend, you know? He asks for a place to stay and keep some stuff, and I wasn't about to say no," Nash said, his voice a whine. He combed his hand through his hair, which already looked spiky from prior pulls. "I mean, I don't ask him what he does, I don't ask what his stuff is. I just gave him a place to keep it. You know, a warehouse and all that. I had space to spare for him. I mean, I never really charged rent."
"I've noticed," Eames began in a pleasant tone, "that folk telling me they mean something usually mean quite the opposite. Have you ever noticed that?" he asked Nash.
Nash's eyes flicked between Ariadne and Eames. For a split second, it seemed like he looked past them, and then he shook his head quickly. "Uh, no. But you know, I work a lot."
"Shipping, Mr. Nash?" Ariadne asked, checking her little notepad. She had known that. She checked downward so she could see his reaction through her eyelashes, could try to track where his eyes went. Her senses were screaming at her that he was still a liar and a thief and there was something off about him.
He didn't relax in the slightest. "Yeah. I ship stuff. You know, in and out of the state. People coming and going all the time, you know? I have to stay on top of 'em, make sure it all runs smooth." His eyes flickered slightly.
"Is something the matter, Mr. Nash?" Eames asked. "You look almost ill."
"Oh. No, no, I'm fine, really. Just... I talked to the cops already. It's hard to believe that Manny's dead, you know? Killed that way? It's such a shame. Makes you wonder what sick freak does that kind of shit." He flushed and glanced at Ariadne. "Sorry, ma'am."
She gave him a mirthless smile. "I assure you, I've heard worse."
"Was there anything unusual in Mandeep's behavior before he disappeared?" Eames asked, pen poised over his own notebook. "I'm sure in retrospect there must be something."
Nash's eyes definitely flicked behind them as he answered, toward the wall with the bookcase. "N-no. I can't think of a thing. I mean, he was a busy guy, you know? In and out and doing his thing, not really meeting up much. He wasn't much of a beer and pretzels kinda guy, you know?"
"No, Mr. Nash," Ariadne murmured, turning around. "I didn't know the man. Is there something on the bookcase that's worrying you?"
"You seem awfully troubled by something," Eames added, watching his expression carefully as Ariadne stepped forward to examine the bookcase.
"No!" Nash said, taking a half step forward. "I mean, no, I'm fine. Nothing doing. But lookit, I got my business to run..."
The bookcase held mostly shipping manuals, catalogs for Staples and various machine shops in the area. There was one book bound in red leather that appeared worn and well read. It had no title on its spine, and Ariadne reached out to touch the book.
"Listen!" Nash said, his voice a trifle too sharp and loud. "I'm trying to do a legit business deal around here, and I can't have feds come in and asking stuff the cops did. It makes the people nervous..."
"You seem to be very nervous," Eames remarked, observing sweat break out on Nash's brow. He lofted an eyebrow at the man. "Is there something wrong? I would have assumed you wanted Mandeep's killer to be brought to justice.
The book didn't move, but it felt as though something shifted when she tugged on it. Ariadne pulled harder and there was a definite click that made Nash freeze in place. "I wonder what this is," Ariadne murmured. She looked around the bookcase and saw a seam in the wall. She stared at Nash. "Care to explain, Mr. Nash?"
"Look, Manny's been gone almost a month now," Nash began, nervously licking his lips. "It's not like you can just toss 'em back into their lives like nothing happened."
Eames pulled the bookcase, which was mounted against the inset door in the wall. "And I assume that this was the same bookcase from pictures of the prior crime scene?"
"What else was I gonna do?" Nash nearly wailed as Ariadne headed into the doorway. It was a landing for stairs leading downward, and she led the way, her hand on her service weapon.
It was another illegal sleep lab.
There were five sleepers hooked up to machines. They weren't the simple PASIV devices that police had confiscated the month before from the prior illegal lab, but fully actualized dream machines. There was a man of Indian descent behind a row of laptops, with one large computer server and large monitor at his side. He appeared to be monitoring each of the five sleepers, and was startled by the appearance of Ariadne and Eames.
"Oh, dear," he murmured. He made no move to get up from the monitors. "Is there something I can help you with?" he asked in cultured tones.
They introduced themselves, but the man didn't seem to be perturbed in the slightest. "Isn't running a lab dangerous in these times?" Eames asked, stepping forward as Ariadne went to inspect the five sleepers.
"Well, a place already hit once won't likely be hit again. And I keep my ear out for news on the network," the man said, leaning back a little. "I assume Nash is in serious trouble."
"Very much so," Ariadne said, straightening and coming forward. "You are?"
"Yusuf," the man said with a smile, extending his hand for a shake. Eames did so, and tipped back one of the laptops, curious to see what was on it. "Careful. I need to keep an eye on that while they're sleeping."
"You're awfully calm about all this," Ariadne remarked.
"Not my first bust, unfortunately," Yusuf admitted with a shrug. "But I'm not the organization guy, so I tend to get a slap on the wrist."
"What's your role in all this, then?" Eames asked, gesturing toward all of the computers. They appeared to be readouts of various things that pulsed and had wavelengths.
"I'm the chemist," Yusuf replied easily enough. "I make the somnacin cocktails, I tinker with things. I'm the one that adjusts the dosing and makes sure they go in on time and out on time. My cousin Mandeep used to do this job."
Eames stilled. "Mandeep Kapoor. As in, the man that was recently killed." Yusuf nodded. "We thought he was the director?"
Yusuf snorted. "Mandeep is a lousy organizer. Nah, that was Nash pushing that bullshit. He was the chemist, and did a piss poor job of it, too. I kept telling him to make sure his lines were clean and the needles on stock, and that he couldn't just go out to party, but he was a player, that one." The annoyance in his voice faded. "I suppose it wasn't a surprise when Nash called me in to replace him. Mandeep was a loser."
"I'm sorry for your loss," Eames murmured. "Were you close?"
"He lived in fucking Nebraska. Hell, no." Yusuf shook his head and chuckled at something he remembered. "Couldn't hack it in LA."
"But you were able to fly here and replace him?" Ariadne asked with a confused air.
Yusuf shrugged. "This life... You don't easily leave it behind. I tried, believe me I did. I mean, LA has plenty of opportunities to go legit. All the rock stars and movie stars think it's such a trip to go into dreams and do crazy shit. I made money hand over fist until they busted me the last time. I've been disbarred from the profession, but once a chemist, always a chemist." He shook his head ruefully. "Besides. There's some actual good in it, even if we don't pay the fucking crazy overhead to the government. Just because they developed the somnacin in the first place doesn't mean it's any good. I mean, hell, I've developed better, cleaner versions of the stuff. The old shit was terrible. But the government's a monopoly, so no point for them to improve the formula, right? I do a good job. I take it seriously, and I've had some good successes. Less chance of the patients coming out of it with a hangover or feeling like they were hit in the face." He took in Ariadne's pale face. "You feeling okay?"
"You mentioned a network," Ariadne said, changing topic.
"Well, yeah. The Ghost Network." He looked at their blank faces. "Nobody's told you guys about it yet, have they?"
"You're the most forthcoming person we've dealt with," Eames admitted with a gracious smile.
"We could see what we can do about offering protection, if you're afraid of reprisals," Ariadne said seriously.
There was a soft beep from one of the computers. Yusuf immediately turned his attention to that laptop. "Excuse me," he said distractedly, fingers beginning to fly across the keyboard. The corresponding sleeper started to stir and stretch on the cot behind Eames and Ariadne, then yawned and sat up. Yusuf got up and went to the sleeper, talking in a low tone of voice. "Talia. How are you feeling?"
The middle aged woman smiled at Yusuf. "Much better, Yusuf, thank you. I saw my mother today, and we were able to have tea. I haven't done that in years."
Yusuf smiled. "And told her all about your granddaughter, I'm sure," he said, patting her hand. He smoothly disengaged the needle and cleansed the area before putting on a sterile bandage to cover the entry site. "All right. You're all set for today. I don't think you're going to be able to make more appointments, though."
Talia frowned. "But I've paid through the month for the sessions..."
"There's trouble, Miss Talia."
"Ah, there's always trouble," she sniffed, rising to her feet. "Nash can't keep a secret to save his fucking life," she grumbled. "Very well, then. Thank you for being so helpful."
Eames and Ariadne had watched the interchange, amused. They had never really seen an illegal lab in action, and a middle aged woman having tea with her mother in a dream hardly seemed like the national disaster that propaganda made it out to be. "Well, that was definitely one happy customer," Eames remarked as Yusuf went back to his workstation.
"Like I said. There's a point to these places." The next laptop beeped. "Excuse me. It's going to be a mass exodus in a moment. You'd best wait by the computer banks."
They watched as he repeated the same routine with each sleeper; their wakings were staggered by two minutes to allow for proper removal of each set of needles. It was fascinating to see how professional he was, in some ways more so than the professionals were. Eames noticed Ariadne's eyes looking everywhere, taking in every last detail regarding the setup. She seemed almost agitated by it, and he made a mental note to ask her about it in the hotel later. They had single rooms next to each other at the hotel, and usually worked in one of them until it was time to fall asleep. She always had her hair scraped back into a tight bun at the back of her neck, so it made her wide eyes look that much larger. Perhaps she thought it made her look more professional, but it also seemed to heighten her youthful appearance.
She was all brisk professional when the last of the sleepers left the room. "You were talking about a network," she began.
Yusuf nodded. "This will count on my record, right? That I'm cooperating? It helped me avoid prison the last time around." He started shutting down all of the computers and removed the first one from the bank of connected laptops. "This one is mine," he said unnecessarily. He put it into a messenger bag and faced the two agents. "Nash is probably long gone by now."
"Police will find him, I'm sure," Ariadne replied. "It's a fairly small town."
"True enough." He was an agreeable sort, and they wound up doing the questioning in the local police precinct. They collected Nash and the equipment from the illegal lab to prosecute him. As Yusuf was now considered a federal witness, the local police would only get a summary of their report after the fact to support their case against Nash.
"It's called the Ghost Network because there's a static server to log into that finds where the floating server is. I don't know all the details," Yusuf said, holding up a hand. "I have a Ph.D. in pharmacology, chemistry and biochemistry but I don't know shit about the back end of computer networks. I know enough to use them and replace cards in my computer, but that's about it. The underground has access to it by word of mouth. You need to be invited into the network, and the invite's from a superuser named Ghost. With the invite, you create a login and then you can access the network. It's a lot of stuff, mostly for us in the business." Yusuf drummed his fingers restlessly on top of his messenger bag. "It's like any other forum, I suppose. There's areas to chat about your expertise, how to set up shops, that sort of thing. Complaints about assholes in the business, how to get around the law, whatever floats your boat. It's a free for all."
He took a sip of the water that was provided to him and stared at his bag for a moment. "We heard about the deaths maybe three years ago. An extractor-"
"A what?"
"There are teams that go into minds sometimes," Yusuf explained patiently. "Sometimes they take memories out, or copy them. Those are extractors. Well, one had been working with Gregory Ostlewaithe on the side in London. That guy was the one that first clued us in that something bad was going on in the business."
Ariadne and Eames exchanged a glance. Ostlewaithe was one of the UK murders that was still unsolved. He had been the director of one of the official clinics in Surrey, but circumstances regarding his murder had been suppressed at the time. His name wasn't part of any US investigation. At least, not publicly.
"Most of us didn't think anything of it. You know, just a fluke. But they kept turning up. All these dead assholes, legit and not, and it was just eerie. It was like someone was watching us and knew what was happening in the community."
"It's a community?" Eames asked, startled.
"Sort of. Like every other loose knit community on the internet," Yusuf replied with a smile. "You know how it goes. Someone has a falling out with one guy, some chick creates drama, sends the boards into a tizzy. But these reports of dead guys and women in the field? It was more than just drama and making trouble."
"Can you go back and pull up a list of everyone on this network?" Ariadne asked, curious.
"If this place has wifi I can tap into, sure."
The police station allowed him access to their secure server at Ariadne's request, and he was able to cross reference all of the posts that caught his eye over the past three years. It was amazing how the message board looked like any other. Yusuf poked through several sections, looking for news and any reports of more missing workers. "Nothing yet. The last was my cousin."
Every single name Yusuf had found had been on their list.
"So the common thread between them was that they were all assholes?" Eames asked, amused.
Yusuf laughed a little awkwardly. "Well, they didn't do their jobs. They abused their positions of power in some way. Don't get me wrong, I loved my cousin and tried to help him out and got him into being a chemist. But he didn't really have the temperament for it. Someone reported him having sex with one of the sleepers on the boards, saying that it got hushed up because Nash gave her money back and then some. I asked him about it once I saw the post, and he denied ever doing it. But I know my cousin, and I think it was true."
Ariadne turned her pale face to Eames' with a grim expression. "I think we have our motive and opportunity."
***
***
Continue to chapter Two!