The Archaeologist's Mistress

by Jamie MacFrey

“Shut up yourself. Why the Neuro Caster?” I asked Gannard.

  “It’s not an equal signal. I’m the head of R&D. We engineered hers to listen in on thoughts from the other one as well as stimuli.”

  “It reads minds?”

  “I wouldn’t say that exactly, that’s a little voodoo for my tastes, but you’re the one with the gun, so call it whatever you want,” said Gannard.

  “Is this a trap?” I asked, pressing down on his balls.

  “No! NO! Oh, God! No!” they both started screaming.

  I walked behind Peppy, undoing her Neuro Caster, pulling the lead out of her neck with a rather careless lack of concern for pain. She hissed, then shuddered and sighed.

  I jacked the Neuro Caster into my neck, and was suddenly flooded with Gannard’s senses, including his very sore pair of balls. No wonder Peppy was relieved to get this thing off her.

  And yet, beyond the pain, there was more.

  My brain was racing a million miles a second, processing all sorts of weird shit, like a created reality juiced up past the point of sense. He hated me. He hated Peppy. He really wanted to fuck Peppy again. He hated Max Yallen. He was deathly afraid of Yallen, and even more afraid of Ivers. He knew some stuff that put things in perspective: he’d been banging Peppy for years, before she’d started going with Theed. Yallen visiting him in the lab, telling him about Theed’s betrayal, asking him to talk to Peppy. Giving Peppy the Six Shooter, a clever front for the Neuro Caster mind reader. Peppy telling her what she’d learned about Theed.

  I pulled Gannard’s transmitter out, alone in my own head for one brief, blissful moment, then I stuck the lead back in Peppy’s neck. She jerked away from it, but I made sure it stayed in.

  Peppy really hated me. In that visceral way that only someone who’s humiliated you can be hated. Her thoughts corroborated Gannard’s account, for the most part. Only, in her mind, she volunteered for it. She’d wanted to sleep with Theed for ages, but fucking Gannard had been in the way. I could’ve sworn that a hundred trysts between her and Theed, sometimes with other women, other men involved, but most of the time just them, slipped through my mind. She’d discovered Theed was a man of integrity. She loved him for it. And she despised him for it. She’d discovered he wasn’t giving away trade secrets, but rather, he had evidence of GJS fixing the Martian pharmaceuticals and genetics market in concert with the Mars Provisional Authority. Security details for bribery trips. Logs of improper access to company cash reserves. He’d fed it to ThorGen through Hary Xu. ThorGen ignored it, they had their thumb on the market as well. Blackmailed Hary for more information. She hadn’t told the whole truth to Gannard. Just the trade secrets. And then, unexpectedly me.

  She’d cried the night he died, knowing she’d had a hand in it. She hadn’t shed a tear for me, the bitch who’d had a history with Theed before her. She’d enjoyed fucking me, the catharsis of making me her little sex toy. She’d enjoyed using the Neuro Caster on me, the knowledge I was floundering in the dark while she knew everything immensely satisfying. Then, the next day, she’d gone into the office and found something. Something Theed had left behind for me to find. And she’d taken it.

  I pulled the transmitter out of her neck and then took the Neuro Caster out, placing them both on the table.

  “I’m taking this too,” I said, grabbing hold of the Six Shooter. It came out of Peppy fairly easily, and she glared at me as I put it with the Neuro Caster.

  I ignored it. I went into the bedroom, peering under her bed. I pulled the strongbox out from under it, then typed in the keycode I’d gleaned from Peppy’s mind.

  There was an envelope with a name on the front. Written in Theed’s handwriting. “Sare.”

  I pocketed it, then grabbed a backpack Peppy had lying around and went back out to the living room before they could free themselves.

  “Gannard, you’re the smart one,” I said. “You want to know how you get out of this? Without GJS sending Ivers to kill you?”

  “How?” he asked.

  “Send me to kill Ivers.”

  “Impossible,” he said.

  “Try me,” I said. “He found her, didn’t he?”

  “Found who?” asked Peppy.

  “The last part of this whole mess. Isibel. Hary’s mistress. The last loose end. Hasn’t shown up for work since the day before he died.”

  “I don’t know,” said Gannard.

  “Call Ivers,” I said. “You have his number?”

  “Maybe. And tell him what?”

  “That I’m alive, and with Peppy. Then make something up. I want to know where he is. Route the sound to Peppy’s home speakers.”

  I held up the dampener, turning it off for the moment.

  Ringing filled the apartment as Gannard called Ivers on his optical. There was a click.

  “Ivers,” came the hired gun’s voice.

  “It’s Gannard,” said Gannard.

  “What do you want?”

  “We have a problem.”

  “No, we don’t. My problems are wholly separate from your problems.”

  “Sare Jeffries is alive.”

  “Fuck,” Ivers swore. I smiled a little at that. “Yallen should’ve just let me kill her. But he wanted to make it look all accidental with ‘science.’ What a moron. Where is she?”

  “She’s at Peppy’s apartment. I watched her go into the building.”

  “Well, what do you want me to do about it?”

  “Come over here and kill her,” said Gannard.

  “No can do, compadre,” said Ivers. “I’m miles and miles away. There’s a house on Lake Gale here I’ve got to check out. Go in and handle it yourself.”

  “I can’t,” said Gannard. “We can’t risk GJS getting involved.”

  “Well, then, your girlfriend is fucked, Gannard. And not fucked with that toy of hers, either. Proper fucked. Have a good night.”

  I fobbed the dampener back on, then placed it on the highest bookshelf I could find. I gathered up the Six Shooter and the transmitters, then bolted out of the apartment, leaving Gannard and Peppy staring after me in shock. Whatever, they weren’t my problem anymore. I called Voddin from ThorGen on my optical as I bounded into my car, ignoring the cameras. It wasn’t important now. The Zond lurched up into the sky.

  “M. Jeffries, what a pleasant surprise,” said Voddin.

  “You want a deal?” I asked.

  “A deal for what?”

  “For GJS trade secrets. That what Hary had, didn’t he? What he was supposed to give you?”

  There was silence from the other end.

  “I don’t have time for this, Voddin,” I said, having the Zond ready for long-distance travel. “And neither do you if you want this deal. Do you want GJS trade secrets?”

  “Yes,” said Voddin.

  “One hundred thousand Unifieds,” I said.

  Voddin chuckled. “M. Jeffries, we’re perfectly content to compete with GJS on the open market for less than that. And you appear to want to unload this information now. Would ten thousand serve?”

  “No, ten thousand would not serve. I’m talking about the Director of Research and Development, the guy who brings GJS’ products out to market, trussed up on a silver platter for you. One hundred is the least you could do.”

  “Unreasonable, given the circumstances, and the time frame you are demanding. Twenty.”

  “Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck!” I screamed at him. “Twenty five.”

  “That is workable. We’ll wire the money in a moment.”

  My poor bank account sent a note that it was unusually plump for this time of year. 25,000 Unifieds was nowhere near what Theed had promised me for tailing Hary Xu. But I didn’t have the luxury of choices anymore.

  “420 Ulysses Boulevard, Apartment 3C. He’s there and his girlfriend is there, she used to work in GJS’ in-house security office. I’ll bet she knows where a few bodies are buried too. You need to hurry. They’re only tied up with tape. Once you get into the building, I left their door
unlocked.”

  I hung up on him before he could answer.

  The Zond was asking for an order, a location to go, and I hesitated to give it one, letting it circle in the air. I felt the envelope from Theed, feeling the thin neurochip inside. Answers, I hoped. I prayed. Answers I could hear, listen to, watch over and over again, and get a grip on.

  And if I did that, a woman would die. A woman I had never met, except in her dead boyfriend’s preserved memory of her. A woman who meant nothing to me, except that my dead boyfriend had told me to find her before he died.

  “Hey Sare,” came Murado’s voice.

  “Murado, can you track me down rentals for houses around Lake Gale? I’m looking for one that started three days ago. Might be a couple. They probably have rented the house before.”

  “Okay,” said Murado. “It might take a bit.”

  “How long?”

  “Fifteen, twenty minutes. Depends how many rental companies there are up there and how many directories I have to pore through.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “It’s going to take half an hour to get there anyhow.”

  “Okay. I’ll call you back.”

  “Thanks.”

  I hung up and punched in the general location for Lake Gale. My Zond turned north and sped up.

  I silently cursed myself. I could’ve been smart. I could’ve made the right choices and gotten real answers. But, instead, I chosen to make the dumb ones that I always did. I’d dodged around being smart, and chosen to be stupid instead.

  I’d chosen to play the hero.

  Now all I had to do was not get killed doing it.

  Chapter 11

  T he house on Lake Gale was made up to look like an old Earth-style bungalow, with a broad porch on the front. I’d laughed when I heard the name it was under. Gan and Eve Mead. Ganymede. I’m sure Hary Xu had thought he was being clever, but it was the world’s simplest code to figure out.

  It was night by the time I’d reached the place, and I was hoping to not have to go traipsing around in the dark, especially not this night, when it looked like it was going to rain. Rain on Mars is a rare thing, a special occasion. They tried for years to get it to rain regularly, and failed miserably. We Martians like to say it’s a sign of good luck.

  We also like to say it’s a sign of bad luck, but everything on Mars is a sign of bad luck. You’ve got to learn to take the omens that at least have some possibility of an upside if you want any good luck at all.

  All the lights were off in the house. There wasn’t a vehicle anywhere that I could see, so I was hoping that I’d somehow beat Ivers. Maybe he hadn’t been able to find her as easily as I had.

  On the other hand, he was the only reason I knew to look in Lake Gale.

  I put my finger next to the trigger on the hand cannon, and swore silently that I’d let my derringer get taken off me in Yallen’s apartment. It wasn’t exactly meant to take a house, but right now I was more concerned that Ivers would get the drop on me and fuck up my day.

  Not that I’d had a very good day for a few days.

  And then it started to rain.

  “Fuck,” I swore to myself. It didn’t help improve the situation, but I felt a little better for the moment. I moved around the cabin, glancing into the windows. I didn’t see a thing.

  A back window was open, just a thin screen keeping anyone out. But it was certainly not enough to keep me out. The screen had been molded into the frame, which seemed like a pain to repair if it became damaged, perhaps by a private detective with a knife.

  I fumbled my way into the house. I was in a back bedroom, neatly made bed, and as I discovered when I checked them empty drawers. I really hoped this wasn’t the only bedroom in the house, because it was obvious no one had been in this one for days.

  I cracked the bedroom door, looking around into the darkened hallway, but it was almost impossible to see anything. I pulled the door open, stepping slowly out into the hall, my gun at the ready. I moved as quiet as I could manage, sneaking a glance into each room as I approached the door before moving on.

  I cleared the kitchen and then turned into the front hall.

  A fist like a sledgehammer caught me square in the chest, knocking the air out of my lungs and sending me flying down to the ground on my back. I tried to raise the hand cannon and my fingers exploded in pain as the toe of a boot connected with them, sending the hand cannon flying off my fist, skittering across the hardwood floor.

  I felt the barrel of a gun press up against my temple.

  “You’re like a fucking cockroach, you know that?” Ivers hissed at me.

  “I’d always thought of myself as better looking than a cockroach,” I said, without giving a thought to running my mouth off.

  Ivers kicked me in the stomach, and I tried to curl up into a ball, but he grabbed me by the hair, holding the pistol to my head as he did.

  “God, I’m so fucking sick of this stuff,” he said. “You know, this should’ve been easy shit. Three quick murders and we’re done. But, no, I can’t just fucking kill people, I have to kill them and their freelance employees, and then I have to kill their freelance employees again when they don’t go down.”

  “Frankly,” he said. “I’m never going to forgive Montgomery for hiring you, and I’m glad he’s dead, because you’re the biggest fucking pain in my side.”

  “Sorry,” I coughed. “Tell you what, I’ll just fuck off into the night, and you can pretend I was never here.”

  Ivers laughed at me.

  “Jesus, Jeffries. If you hadn’t just tried to get the drop on me, I’d almost like you. I actually think I do like you.”

  “I always like to make new friends,” I said.

  Light illuminated the room, washing through the window, starting at the ceiling and working to the floor, the bright headlights of an autocar settling down to earth. Ivers and I glanced up at them, both of us alert and focused.

  “Don’t fucking move,” he told me, sinking to a firing position on one knee, aiming his pistol at the door. He still had me by a grip on my hair, so that I was staring at the door.

  I heard a car door slam closed, then the rhythmic crunch of gravel as someone walked across the drive. Footsteps on the stairs. Ivers’ whole body seemed to tense.

  “Isibel! Run!” I screamed as loud as I possibly could. I reared back, tucking my feet under me and ramming my head back into Ivers’ chest.

  His pistol went off, the shot of energy loud, punching a hole in the door about as wide as a finger, but because he’d dragged his aim a little when I’d rammed into him, it extended off and to the left for about an inch. There was a scream from outside, and I heard the footsteps head back down across the drive.

  I was free of Ivers, but not safe, and I threw myself off him, diving for the divider between the living room and the kitchen. Ivers fired a couple of times blindly, and I crawled under the dinner table as appliances on the counter exploded as the shots tore through the wall and hit them.

  “Shit! Shit! Fuck,” Ivers swore. I heard him take a step towards me, then the sound of the autocar’s electric engine starting, and he swore again and went barreling out the door.

  I scrambled to my feet, rushing back out into the living room. Mari’s hand cannon was in a corner, and I grabbed snatched it back up.

  I heard another shot and a scream, and I bolted out onto the porch. Ivers stood in the driveway, firing into the windshield of Isibel’s autocar, and I could see she was huddled down in the front seat, trying to hide under the dash.

  “Hey, asshole!” I shouted. Ivers started to look at me.

  I shot him twice, the first shot hitting him just in the upper abdomen, above the belt, the plasma punching a big hole in his body, the second shot missing by a country mile. His gun went flying out of his hand.

  To my shock and surprise, he only went down to a knee. He pulled himself up and I thought he might make a move for the gun, but instead he turned and started to run towards the lake.
r />   I leapt off the porch, took a quick aim, and hit him once in the leg. He stumbled, his momentum carrying him forward a few more steps before he struggled forward, his strength sapping out of him, his legs turning to jello and he landed roughly on the gravel, catching himself on his hands.

  I approached cautiously, gun drawn. I’d never shot anyone with the hand cannon before, but Mari had said it wasn’t the sort of thing people walked away from. Ivers had run from it. I wasn’t going to take any chances. Ivers pushed himself back up until he was kneeling, and turned to face me.

  “I know you, Sare Jeffries,” said Ivers. The wound in his leg was pretty bad, judging from the blood. He was panting now, his shirt soaked through, clinging to his body, he chest rising and falling in great, big, heaving ragged breaths. His hand was wrapped around the hole in his stomach the hand cannon had made.

  “Yeah?” I asked. “You gonna tell me a sob story about how you see a killer like me every day in the mirror?”

  Ivers smiled.

  “No, you’re no killer. Just a girl who got unlucky today,” he said. “No, I knew of you before all this bullshit.”

  “What are you talking about, Ivers?”

  “I saw your girlfriend, Mari Grant, get killed, Sare.”

  “You’re lying,” I said.

  Iver shrugged a little, then smiled again.

  “I sat across from her in the truck on the way to where she died. She showed me your picture, told me you were gonna marry each other. I told her you were a knockout.”

  He laughed, then moaned, then looked down at his wound and laughed again.

  “More than a knockout, I guess,” he chuckled.

  “You’re going into shock,” I told him.

  “Yeah,” he nodded. “I knew she’d kill me, you know?”

  “What?”

  “I knew it would come back to bite me. I’m not, you know, religious, but there are people, I think, that the universe just watches out for. Your girlfriend was one of them. Now I’m paying the price for her death. We all are.”

  “What are you talking about?!” I screamed at him. He was terrifying me. Mari’s murder, never solved, had been one of the great unexplained events of my life. She’d left for a case she hadn’t told me about, in the middle of the night while I was sleeping. I knew she was gone when the SPD called me to come down to the morgue to identify her body.