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.
Seeing a hologram of Silver, Mead remembers that her real name is Roxanna Ceverley and that she is a refugee of the Wrath Empire and a member of Flaming Sword, who oppose Silver's use of revenants as a workforce on planets like Volcana. 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
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.
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)
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