The Memory Box (audio story)

The Memory Box was the pilot for the Vienna audio series, starring Chase Masterson as Vienna Salvatori.

Publisher's summary
Berkeley Silver, one of the richest men in the Earth empire, lies dead in the Penthouse Suite of the Galileo space-hotel. Law Enforcement Officers Detective Captain McGinnis and Detective Sergeant Mead are called in to investigate – but it seems to have been the perfect crime. Even when subjected to a memory scan, everybody in the space-hotel has an alibi for the murder.

Which means it can only have been the work of one woman. The most accomplished – and the most glamorous – bounty hunter in the galaxy. Her name is Vienna Salvatori. And she has a little rule; nobody gets to hear her name and live...

Plot
Entering warp, the captain of a ship complains of yet another headache. His colleague offers him medical assistance but he declines. His assistant tells him that they are headed for the Galileo Spotel at the Animoi Ring Station to investigate a suspected homocide of Berkley Silver, one of the richest men in the empire who owns half a dozen planets. The captain gives the order to begin their investigation.

Idenitfying themselves as Detective Captain Arned McGinnis and Detective Sargent Lois Mead, they speak to the manager of the now crime scene. They exchange details of the finding of the body. McGinnis orders the continuation of the lockdown, to which the manager complies. However, when Mead asks for all camera footage, the manager states that the establishment does not record footage due to the discrete nature of their business.

The two of them make their way to the Penthouse Suite. McGinnis informs Mead that the Slithergee race use their auras of guilt to make those around them pity them. They come to the conclusion that Silver was shot by a single laser bolt through the head, making a post-humous brainscan impossible. After establishing further evidence, they come to the conclusion that a trained and hired assassin must have done this murder, and that they are also still within the spotel.

McGinnis comes to the conclusion that they must get a memory scan from everyone within the spotel. The two head downstairs where they are met with a woman calling herself Miracle Valentine who insists she must leave. The investigators inform her that if she wishes to leave first, she must consent to their memory scan. They take their scan and appears clean. Letting her leave with her service robot, they then begin to round up the other suspects.

Miracle Valentine is heading for her inter-planetary cruise ship, itself heading for Colossos. Managing to pass security, she rushes to board her flight. Back at the spotel, Mead informs McGinnis that she's memory scanned every guest but to no prevail. All memories point to Silver being alone wherever he was, which McGinnis points out is itself suspicious. McGinnish approaches Ignashus to ask about Valentine, who states that she had watched The Infernal Prince two days in a row, both times at the exact same times, much to the confusion of McGinnis. McGinnis suggests that maybe Valentine has used her memory from the day before to override her memory from today, and immediately gets to hunting her down.

Meanwhile, Valentine is rushing for her cruise ship. Instead she boards her own ship. Her accent drops and her true identity, Vienna Salvatori is revealed. Upon her ship, the ship reminds her to release an assignment crystal, and fill it with her recent memories. Her true memories state that she entered his room, informed Silver of the seven million poldaks bounty on his head, and then shot him through the head. She then somehow melted the gun in the shower cubical and removed all of her DNA in the room. Returning to her room, Salvatori then locked the memories inside a memory box. She is then given verification of the murder and co-ordinates for where she can collect her bounty. Before she can leave, however, all passengers are made aware that there is a murderer at large, and all flights are grounded, including her own.

Mead informs McGinnis that there is a positive identification on a 'Miracle Valentine' at the gate for the Colossos cruise ship. However, no-one by that name actually went aboard. Mead confirms Salvatori's current location and together, her and McGinnis head in her direction. Vienna becomes panicked when another ship is blocking her path, causing her ship to refuse to take off.

Taking a different approach, Vienna erases all files on her ship and pulls out a weapon. She approaches the owner of the other ship. With the officers fast approaching, Vienna learns that the ship belongs to Norvelle Spraggott, and then forces Spraggott at gun point into his star yacht. She then forces him to take off as the officers fail to shut down their computer. The officers board their own ship in an attempt to follow them. Spraggott inputs Vienna's co-ordinates and they set off.

Upon their own ship, McGinnis orders the firing of a missile towards the star yacht, which doesn't deter Vienna. The star yacht enters warp, leaving the other two to analyse the anti-matter residue, allowing them to work out Vienna's destination. On the star yacht, Vienna forces Spraggott to scan their location. They are orbiting the fourth planet of an unchartered solar system. Spraggott notes an energy trace near the equator, towards which Vienna orders they fly.

Mead identifies the location as being in the Angelo Spiral. The two officers enter warp in pursuit of Vienna. Meanwhile, the star yacht lands at their destination. Spraggott notes that the planet is freezing cold, to which Vienna offers him a capsule which will raise his interal temperature. When Spraggott asks to return to the ship, she refuses and forces him to come along. She tells Spraggott that she is a bounty hunter, which Spraggott is horrified. Vienna reads the sign on the building: 'Research Base Algor'. They enter, with the officers hot on their tails.

Although Spraggott notes that the base seems abandoned, Vienna isn't convinced. She notes that the generator is still running. Investigating the base, they come across a croco from the Golbos System. Vienna gets Spraggott to turn on his translation device, revealing that the croco has been expecting her. The croco opens a door revealing diamonds, much to Spraggott's delight, and much to Vienna's disappointment. She knows that they are fake. Vienna notes that for a warm-blooded species, the croco's breath isn't misting in the air like theirs, leading her to belive that it is a revenant, a cadaver reanimated by an electronic implant. She reaches the conclusion that she's been set-up. The person behind it simply wanted to find out who murdered Berkley Silver.

Within the other ship, Mead is noting that besides the two lifesigns of Vienna and her hostage, at least a dozen other non-human signs are also appearing out of nowhere. From all directions, the reanimated corpses of the dead research base workers come to attack. Vienna notes that shooting them is pointless as revenant are already dead. She tells Norvelle to run back to his ship and to save himself. Asking what's stopping him from leaving her behind, she notes that she'll use the thermal heater to burn him from the inside. The same will happen if she dies. Norvelle then runs back to his ship to wait for her.

Now on the planet, McGinnis and Mead deduct from the tracks that the two of them are inside the base. Meanwhile, Vienna is analysing her surroundings and finds that by following the ventilation shafts, she could reach the surface, so she breaks her way into the ventilation and escapes. The revenant climb up after her. Within the building, McGinnis notes that the building was one of many from the Gadoral Empire. At that moment, Spraggott runs in, informing them of the situation, which is soon confirmed by the rucus caused by the revenant behind him.

The three of them run back to the officer's ship before McGinnis and Spraggott are cut off. Mead makes her way outside and the other two get trapped inside. Mead notes that she is surrounded by the revenant and can't return to the ship. At that moment her coms shut off, leaving deadly silence. Spraggott uses his technical knowhow to hotwire the hatch and they both enter a debate about which ship to take when McGinnis' ship takes off. They head for the star yacht.

On the other ship, Mead is being forced at gunpoint to pilot away by Vienna. Using this opportunity, Vienna forces Mead to look into the computer for the owner(s) of this planet, so that she can work out who set up the trap. Much to their surprise, the desolate world is owned by a group called Flaming Sword. This sparks a memory in Vienna's mind.

Vienna recalls that during her stay in the Spotel Galileo, just before she murdered Silver, he doubled the bounty to fourteen million poldaks to not only keep him alive, but also to kill those who have placed the bounty upon his head. She asks Silver who would want him the dead the most. As far as he is concerned, at the top of the list is Flaming Sword, a terrorist cabal based on the planet Volcana. He warns her that if they suspect she's failed in her mission to kill him then they'll no doubt kill her. Cryptically informing her that he has contingencies for being murdered, he instructs her to place her memories into a memory box using the thought code 'Flaming Sword'. That way she can go about thinking she has completed her original assignment. He then orders her to murder him. When she politely refuses, he takes the gun and does it himself.

Back in the present, Vienna recalls to Mead that she has a memory box, which enables her to lock away compromising memories within subfolders inside her brain. With her new memories of her new assignment firmly in back in place, she tells Mead that their new destination is Volcana, where she intends to hunt down and assassinate all members of Flaming Sword.

On the space yacht, Spraggott and McGillis are soon hot on the tail of the other ship. Mead and Vienna arrive at Volcana, a planet covered in volcanos. Despite this, Mead tells Vienna the place is inhabited by settlers. As part of Vienna's plan, Mead calls Volcana command station, telling them she has caught the murderer of Berkley Silver, in an attempt to gain permission to land and also to flush out Flaming Sword.

On Volcana, the two stage their plan. They note that the workforce is entirely made up of revenants. They suddenly see a huge grinning hologram of Berkley Silver, causing Mead to remember something. Her real name is Roxanna Ceverley, a worker for Flaming Sword. Not long after, the other two make their way onto the planet. Ceverley reveals to Vienna that she wanted Silver dead because Flaming Sword is opposed to the use of the revenant in his workforce. She reveals the revenants are the refugees from the Wrath Empire.

Ceverley reveals that she is one of those refugees who was saved from the system. Her memories of those terrible times had been placed inside a memory box and the key to unlock it was the hologram. Ceverley then placed herself inside the murder unit so that when Silver inevitably died, she would be assigned to his case. She would then find her way to Volcana, the hub of all his business, where she would no doubt find a back-up copy of his mind in someone else's body. Ceverley then reveals that whoever brought her to this planet must therefore be Silver in a new body, much to Vienna's surprise. Before they could finish this thought, the revenant approach and take them inside.

Locked inside Berkley Silver's office, the four of them are soon reunited. Looking out at the burning seas from the office window, Norvelle Spraggott's voice changes and it becomes clear that he was Berkley Silver all along. Silver reveals that Norvelle's mind is locked away deep inside his head. Blocking Vienna's ship with his, and the fact that he had a means of finding the other ship after warp, were all parts of Silver's elaborate scheme to get him back to his office. Silver explains that if he could lure Vienna to Volcana, he would most certainly lure the Flaming Sword operative back too. Silver explains that he is currently in his twentieth body, hence his lack of fear of death. Futhermore, Silver was the one who employed Vienna to kill him in the first place, thus setting his elaborate scheme into effect.

Silver calls the revenants to take Ceverley away and turn her into a revenant. He then reveals that the only thing left to do is to shoot them both. Vienna tells Silver that he's going to deactivate the revenants from here. With that, she uses the code 'Open Sesame' to open McGinnis' memory box. He remembers his and Vienna's secret alliance to bring down Berkley Silver in return for certain deletions regarding Vienna's wrongdoings in the datalogs.

A revenant then takes the two of them out to the balcony, where Silver intends to push them into the lava sea below. Vienna smuggly activates the thermal heater inside Silver's stomach. Vienna blackmails Silver to give his gun to McGinnis and return his mind to Norvelle. She then deactivates the thermal heater. Escaping the revenants, Vienna shows Norvelle around the panels in the office and orders him to deactivate the revenants. He does so and they become dead again. They send Norvelle to check on "Mead". She then wipes her name from McGinnis' mind to avoid Silver returning.

Much later, McGinnis and Mead are heading to find Berkley Silver's killer and stumble across a stationary star yacht. Mead notices that McGinnis hasn't complained of a headache recently. Ignoring it, they go to investigate the star yacht. Inside is Norvelle, who states there was a woman who has recently got disembarked to go to the Animoi Ring Station. They ring the Ring Station to find that all ships left over an hour ago, including Vienna's. McGinnis makes a promise to Mead that will find this "woman", before returning to his quarters.

Now alone on the bridge, Roxanna Ceverley reports to the Flaming Sword that Berkley Silver has been successfully neutralised. She tries to recall the event but can only recall the name of the bounty hunter. Back on her ship, the computer tells Vienna that all of her recent funds have been sent to the hospice on Miracle 3. She receives another crystal, meaning another assignment.

Cast

 * Vienna Salvatori - Chase Masterson
 * McGinnis - John Banks
 * Mead - Gemma Whelan
 * Norvelle Spraggott - Tom Price

Places

 * Berkley Silver's body was found in the Penthouse Suite.
 * "Miracle Valentine" is headed for an inter-planetary cruise ship headed for Colossos, taking off from Stardock 4.
 * Vienna assumes that the research base was built during the Gadoral Empire, going by its design.
 * Spraggott notes that Vienna's payment is enough to buy one of Saturn's moons.
 * Volcana is a planet so named due to its surface being covered solely in volcanos.
 * Vienna sends her fee to a hospice on Miracle 3.

Individuals

 * The crew are attending a suspected homocide of Berkley Silver at the Galileo Spotel at the Animoi Ring Station.
 * Berkley Silver, who was in his late-sixties, was a rich entrepeneur, who was recognised for being one the richest men of the empire. He owned half a dozen planets. He was a trillionaire.
 * Silver's time of death was approximately 18 hours, 30 minutes and 40 seconds, according to Mead's device.
 * Vienna tells Spraggott that she has one little rule: no-one who knows her name lives to tell the tale.
 * Spraggott works for Wills, Probate and Trusts.

Species

 * The manager of the crime scene, Orval Ignashus, is a Slithergee.
 * Inside the research base, they stumble across a croco from the Golbos System. Crocos are warm-blooded.
 * According to Vienna, a revenant is a cadaver reanimated by an electronic implant.
 * Revenants can perform brain scans to identify known people.

Technology

 * Vienna Salvatori owns a D-Class fighter ship, and Norvelle Spraggott owns a J-Class Star Yacht.
 * Vienna provides Spraggott with an internal heater, shaped liked a boiled sweet, to raise his body temperature.

Continuity

 * During her stay at the spotel, "Miracle Valentine" watches a film entitled The Infernal Prince, a film regarding the true story behind Prince Kylo and Princess Aliona. (AUDIO: The Burning Prince, The Acheron Pulse, The Shadow Heart)
 * The revenant workforce are made up of the deceased refugees from the Wrath Empire. (AUDIO: The Burning Prince et al)