Rasker’s gaze moved across the square to a figure standing near the edge of the group.
Cody.
Holly’s cousin stood with his hands in his pockets, his sandals on his feet, his collection of necklaces catching the dim light. His posture was still relaxed, casual, but the breezy smile had dropped from his mouth.
“Cody is not a drifter,” Rasker said as all eyes shifted to Holly’s cousin. “He’s not a lost relative seeking enlightenment, or a bad cook who couldn’t hold down a job. He was recruited by Complete Respite and placed at Moone’s Landing before Holly arrived. His original task was to monitor Charles Moone as his health declined and to encourage a sale before Charles died. When that failed, and Holly announced she was coming to take ownership, Cody’s mission changed. His job became keeping the station in decline. Making it fail. Ensuring a sale could be forced.”
Cody let out a laugh. It was light and easy and perfectly calibrated. “That’s a great story, Vipp. Really creative.” He spread his hands. “But there’s no proof of any of that. Holly andme, we’re cousins. I came here because I needed a place to stay and Charles took me in. That’s it.”
“The sabotage started small,” Rasker continued, as if Cody hadn’t spoken. “The oven in the hotel lounge. Then the garden. Both incidents were designed to look like wear or bad luck, and both targeted systems that the community found joy in. Damaging them damaged morale.”
Holly thought about the tiny hole in the power gel. How she had told Rasker that the puncture was too precise for Cody. How she had dismissed her own cousin as a suspect because she thought he was too incompetent.
“When the festival succeeded,” Rasker said, “the timeline accelerated. Complete Respite couldn’t afford to let Moone’s Landing recover. The cascade of failures that struck after the festival wasnotbad luck. It was coordinated destruction.”
He turned to Sam.
Sam stepped forward, his face grim. He held up his own d-pad. “Rasker convinced me to send fragments of the ruptured water main to a materials analysis lab on Psion-9. I thought he was off base, but the results came back three days ago.” He shook his head. “A low-grade industrial explosive was detected in the composite surrounding the rupture point. This conduit didn’t fail from pressure. It was purposefully blown.”
A murmur rippled through the gathered residents. Harry’s face went white. Mish’s hands clenched into fists. Alyce’s expression hardened.
“After the failed inspection,” Rasker said, “I went to the campsite Cody has been using in the woods. The one I spotted weeks ago, when Holly and I drove past it on the way to the water station.” He swiped to a new screen on the display. “I found a hidden d-pad and a personal transmitter, buried under a false floor of packed earth. Cody used this spot to communicatewith his handler at Complete Respite. He chose it because it was far enough from the hotel that Luv couldn’t hear him.”
He looked at Holly, and there was something raw in his expression. “Before the woods, he used the lounge, when it was closed and locked, to communicate with his employer. The lounge is soundproof, which made it ideal. But when you fired him, he had no more lounge access. That drove him into the woods.”
Holly’s knees went a little wobbly. Her mother’s hand tightened on her arm.
“The d-pad I found contained financial transactions,” Rasker said. “Payments from an account linked to Complete Respite, deposited into a personal account registered to Cody. It also contained text and vid communications between Cody and a handler. Messages describing the sabotage in detail. The oven. The garden. The water main. The lighting relay. The repair bots. All of it, documented by Cody himself, sent to his contact as proof of progress.”
The square was very quiet now.
Every eye was riveted on Cody.
He stood where he had been standing, hands still in his pockets, necklaces still catching the light. But something had changed. The boneless posture had stiffened. His eyes moved from Rasker to the crowd and back, calculating, measuring, and Holly saw it. The thing she had missed for months. The thing that had been hiding behind the bare feet and the incense and the lazy grins and thebad luck, cuz.
Contempt.
“Fine,” Cody said. The word came out different. Clipped. Cold, lacking the drawling, carefree voice of the cousin who called her “cuz” and talked about cosmic journeys. That Cody had disappeared, apparently deciding that it no longer served him.
“You’re looking for a villain?” he said. “I’ll be your villain. Hardly matters, since Galactic Enforcement isn’t going to come out here. Just a littletoofar out of their jurisdiction. Nice for Harry and his questionable business, but not for an old way station that failed inspection.”
Harry’s face darkened, but he just folded his arms and said nothing as Cody barreled on.
“Before being recruited, I did well for myself hacking and running cons. Skills that made all this easy. Blew that water main with a charge I smuggled in on my first week here.” He pulled his hands from his pockets and crossed his arms. “Most of the rest was uploading some proprietary viruses I wrote that tangled up your systems real good. The repair bots? Even easier. Software kill command, uploaded through the maintenance port while Sam was sleeping.” He looked at Sam. “You really should lock your workshop.”
Sam’s face went white, then red. His cybernetic hand curled into a fist. “Noted.”
“Getting the water diversion hose chewed through wasn’t as fun,” Cody continued, with the detached air of a man reviewing a project. “I had to smear food paste on it, then find a critter living in the woods to chew through it. I’m charging my employer extra for that one.” He looked at Holly. “You should have sold months ago, cuz. Would have saved everyone a lot of trouble.”
“Why?” Holly’s voice came out raw as she stepped forward. “Werenitsthat much more important than helping your family’s space station?”
Cody’s lip curled. “Family. Right. Nephew of a bitter old man who wouldn’t know family if it walked through his door.” He uncrossed his arms and shrugged. “Complete Respite pays well.Verywell. And before you start feeling sorry for yourself, understand this: the station was dying before I got here. Charleslet it rot. You could say I did the humane thing by killing it. Fast and painless.”
“Notpainless.” Mish’s voice was quiet, but it carried. “You destroyed people’s lives, you disgusting, cheating liar.”
Cody smirked at her, then cast a wary look at her children who stared at him with too much intensity for anyone to be comfortable with. “You overreact to everything, Mish. You’re a mess and these creatures you call children should be locked in a cage. No wonder you haven’t heard from your husband in over two months.”
Mish gasped. “Howwould you know that?” Her face darkened with fury. “Are you spying on our transmissions?” This time, she put a firm hand on the shoulder of the closest child to keep them near her. All fourteen of them fixed Cody with malevolent stares, bared their teeth, and hissed.
