The Memory Box (audio story)
The Memory Box was the first story of the Vienna audio series, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Jonathan Morris and featured Chase Masterson as Vienna Salvatori.
Publisher's summary
Berkley 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
Detective Captain McGinnis and Detective Sergeant Mead travel by warp to the Spotel Galileo at the Animoi Ring Station to investigate the suspected homicide of technological entrepreneur Berkley Silver. Orval Ignashus, a Slithergee and manager of the spotel, informs them that a room hygienist found the body that evening, that a lockdown has been in place since then and that the spotel has no security cameras due to it being used for prostitution. In the penthouse, they find that the corpse is unrecognisable due to him having been killed by a laser bolt through the head, but McGinnis's scan confirms that the DNA is Silver's and that there is no trace of anybody else having been there. He deduces that it is the work of a professional assassin who must still be in the spotel.
McGinnis decides to request voluntary memory scans on everybody inside the spotel and performs one on Vienna, who is going by Miracle Valentine and using an accent. The memory scan exonerates her and a scan of her luggage and her person detects nothing, so she is permitted to leave for the spaceship to Colossos whilst McGinnis and Mead scan everybody else and find it suspicious that Silver seems to have been alone wherever he was. Also believing that Vienna was too eager to leave, McGinnis reviews her memory scan and learns from Ignashus that Vienna watched The Infernal Prince two nights in a row, both at the same time. He wonders if the memories he and Mead have viewed are actually of the previous day and puts all units on maximum alert to capture Vienna, grounding all spaceships.
Vienna boards her D-class fighter and the computer plays a recording of her saying the key phrase for her memory box. She remembers how she shot Silver, melted the weapon in the shower and cleared away her DNA traces before locking her memories of the previous twenty-four hours away inside the memory box, which she has play back its contents to her assignment crystal. The assignment crystal confirms Silver's death and gives her the coordinates for where she can collect her payment, but she is unable to leave as a J-class star yacht is blocking her from leaving. She erases all of her ship's data and threatens Norvelle Spraggott into giving her access to the star yacht, keeping him aboard upon learning that the ship's controls will only respond to him. McGinnis and Mead attempt to have the star yacht's navicomputer overridden, but Vienna and Norvelle manage to get away and enter warp before McGinnis and Mead can hit them with missiles.
Following the assignment crystal's coordinates, Vienna and Norvelle arrive at the fourth planet in an uncharted star system in Angelo's Spiral and head towards an energy trace near the equator whilst McGinnis and Mead track them through anti-matter analysis. Vienna gives Norvelle an internal thermal heater to deal with the cold and they enter the apparently abandoned Research Base Algor where a croco pays her in cut diamonds she recognises as fakes. Discovering that the croco is a corpse reanimated by an implant, she realises that she has been lured into a trap and fights off the attacking corpses of the base's crew. She sends Norvelle back to the star yacht, threatening to remotely burn him to death with the thermal heater if he leaves without her, and he runs into McGinnis and Mead whilst she escapes the revenants through a ventilation shaft.
Mead is separated from Norvelle and McGinnis and Vienna orders her to take her off of the planet in the enforcers' ship, forcing McGinnis and an uncomplaining Norvelle to leave in the star yacht. Making Mead access the ship's computer, Vienna learns that the planet was recently purchased by Flaming Sword and remembers how Silver told her that the Flaming Sword terrorists on Volcana were likely the ones who put out the hit on him. She had accepted his offer to double her bounty in return for her keeping him alive and killing whoever put out the hit and then put her memories in a memory box triggered by the name of the group, after which he shot himself with her gun. Now aware of her true mission, she has Mead fly to Volcana and inform the authorities that she has captured Silver's assassin to draw Flaming Sword out.
Hearing a message from a hologram of Silver, Mead remembers that she is Roxanna Ceverley, a refugee of the Wrath Empire and member of Flaming Sword who opposes Silver's murder and reanimation of refugees to serve as a workforce on factory planets like Volcana. She believes that Silver had a copy of his mind stored in a memory box inside of somebody else's mind and attempts to shoot Vienna, believing that she is said person, but Vienna has removed the power pack and they are both captured by the revenants and locked in Silver's office. They are soon joined by Norvelle and McGinnis, who followed them to Volcana, and the view of the Burning Sea opens a memory box in Norvelle's mind, replacing his mind with that of Silver's. Silver reveals that he hired Vienna as his previous body had become unsuitable, has Ceverley taken away to become a revenant and prepares to shoot Vienna and McGinnis.
Vienna activates a memory box in McGinnis's mind by saying "Open Sesame", reminding McGinnis that he had agreed to delete records of Vienna's wrongdoings in return for her helping investigate Silver as she suspected all along that she was being used. Before Silver can push the two of them into the Burning Sea, Vienna uses the thermal heater to force him to hand over his gun and then uses her name as a key phrase to restore Norvelle's mind. She gets Norvelle to deactivate the revenants with a panel in the office and then makes him, McGinnis and Roxanna forget her name and most of what happened. From her ship, she anonymously donates her fee to a hospice on Miracle 3 and is given a new assignment: finding the Grand Vizier of Tellis Stellaris's puppy.
Cast
- Vienna Salvatori - Chase Masterson
- McGinnis - John Banks
- Mead - Gemma Whelan
- Norvelle Spraggott - Tom Price
Worldbuilding
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 homicide 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.
Notes
- The Slithergee originate in the Big Finish Doctor Who audio story Flip-Flop.
- This story was made available as a free download as part of Big Finish's Weekly Freebies, or lockdownloads, from 29 March,[1] to 4 April 2021[2], Its page is still online, though has no purchase widget.[3]
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)
External links
- Official The Memory Box page at bigfinish.com
Footnotes
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