by C. A. Gray
I rolled Liam’s hospital bed as close to the window as I could get it, as Rick leapt into the room. Inside the hovercraft, Francis aimed an automatic weapon at the door, sure to burst open at any second.
“He can’t help us!” I shouted to Rick, “He’s unconscious!”
With one glance back at the hovercraft, Rick tossed the hammer back inside and barked at Francis, “Cover us!”
“What do you think I’m doing?” Francis yelled back.
I realized Rick must have sliced open his hand on the jagged glass when he scooped Liam up over one shoulder, leaving trails of blood on his hospital gown. Rick scrambled back to the window, just as the chair in the doorframe slid all the way loose.
“Closer!” Francis shouted to the hovercraft pilot bot. The hovercraft scraped the ledge now, but it was enough for Rick to leap up to the ledge and haul Liam’s shoulders aboard. I grabbed his legs, held them up, and shoved.
“Stop!” called the bots in the doorframe. Francis opened fire, and I could hear the bullets glancing off the bots’ metallic bodies. You have to shoot them in the eyes! I thought frantically. The humanoid security bots behind us fired bullets out of their wrists. Searing pain shot through my shoulder, just as a strong arm locked around my waist. Francis gave a cry, and just before I collapsed on top of Liam’s limp form, I saw the blossom of blood spreading across the side of Francis’s t-shirt. His face went white, and he let out a gurgle.
No, I thought, just as Rick shouted at the pilot bot, “Go go go!” Then we rocketed up, leaving my stomach on the ground below.
Chapter 21: Jaguar
Jaguar had watched as Liam Kelly Junior had been brought in, cuffed. As he’d been ignominiously stripped naked. As he’d been sedated, and tethered spread-eagle to the bedposts for the IV insertion. As the nanobots had entered his bloodstream, and the color drained from his cheeks in the sleep that, for so many before him, had been their last. She’d watched and she’d smiled, contented.
Although desiring to witness that last glorious second when the final spark of life left his body, she became increasingly exasperated as the minutes of his life dragged on. Patience wasn’t part of her emotional makeup. In fact, she considered impatience a virtue, along with efficiency. She switched her attention to other matters. She had three massive external processors, all simultaneously uploading data both historical and current from around the world, into her own personal A.E. chip—and while she had access to all of it, she couldn’t concurrently attend to all of it. Her working memory was a few thousand times broader than that of a human, and getting broader all the time, but still—there were limits.
So she hadn’t been watching when a girl who called herself Candy managed to sneak into Pendergast. She had been entirely unaware of any problems at all until that girl burst into Liam Kelly Junior’s room, and barricaded the door. Until the stolen Renegade hovercraft appeared outside the window. Until a man whom her databases told her was named Rick Peale, former government bodyguard to the fugitive Candice Rio, aka Karen Cordeaux, had shattered the window and crawled inside.
“NooooooOOOOO!” Jaguar began to scream as she watched the scene unfold in real time, grabbing a fistful of hair with both hands. “NO! NO! NO!” Perhaps she could have done something more useful in the moment to stop the drama from unfolding, but her limbic system must have relief. So instead, she picked up the lamp from beside her bed and smashed it against the wall, and afterwards grabbed every additional object she could find: her holograph projector, glass candle holders, knickknacks given her by sycophantic engineers hoping to curry favor, books from the Second Age collected as a novelty. Everything she touched went flying, but instead of calming her rage, each smashed or shattered or shredded object only seemed to add fuel to the flames of her rage. When there was nothing left to throw, she crouched panting in the middle of the upholstered red throw rug, today’s red silk dress spread out around her knees, her hands balled into fists. With one last guttural cry, her cognitive processing finally reasserted itself.
The girl, she thought, teeth clenched. Mentally rewinding the image, she zoomed in on the girl’s face as she hovered frantically over Liam’s bed, and paused it. She mapped the face, and searched for it across the camera data in her other three external processors.
There were only two hits, as Jaguar had suspected: that girl had not existed according to previous data, indicating that either she was in disguise of some sort, or she had been living off the grid for the last decade or more. Either way, she had to be a Renegade, too. But what was interesting about those two hits was where they had occurred: at Club Neptune the night before, flirting with Dr. Epstein Andrew Jacoby III, one of the surgeons at Pendergast—who incidentally must have been her means of entry—and approaching the home of Cathy Kelly, Liam Senior’s ex-wife, and Kelly Junior’s mother.
With a quick rewind of the footage and a zoom-in on the external Pendergast cameras, Jaguar found the footage of Jacoby and the girl. She sent the footage to the hospital board and also to Wallenberg with a thought. Jacoby would be a test subject himself in a few days, if he wasn’t sent to Exmorton for his crime. Wallenberg had executed humans for less. Done.
But Cathy Kelly… rewinding the footage, Jaguar saw that the girl had arrived at Cathy’s mansion with another girl around her own age, of whom she also had no previous record. That same day, Liam Senior had also arrived, ostensibly to discuss Cathy’s demands for additional alimony. But there was no record of the girls’ departure before that. Which meant Senior had met them, as well.
Jaguar had no proof, and if she wanted Wallenberg to mete out justice, she’d need some. But she was sure of it: Cathy Kelly must also be a Renegade.
And so must her father.
Chapter 22: Liam Senior
I like to be in control; I’ll admit it. I’m used to it. I make the plans; I call the shots, and everybody reports to me with the results as soon as they’re available.
So the fact that I knew Liam’s attempted rescue was taking place that day, and nobody could so much as comm me to tell me how it went, was nearly unbearable. I did command that Francis kid network one of my netscreens to the Renegades’ Commune, but I could hardly pull that out on General Specs property, with the cameras—and Jaguar—recording my every move. About every hour, I invented some excuse to go to my hovercraft and check it from there. But by mid-morning, there were still no updates.
I met with my VP and CFO just before lunchtime, and let them do nearly all the talking, inserting only the briefest of comments when absolutely necessary. Throughout the meetings, I left my A.E. chip on a constant news feed. I knew that the only way the story would appear on the news feeds was if the rescue attempt failed. If it succeeded, the last thing the Silver Six would want to do was admit failure. But I had to know the worst.
“Mr. Kelly?”
I jumped about a foot, gasping to catch my breath when I saw what looked for all the world like a lovely young co-ed intern. She was the only one who could always get past Helga without an appointment.
“Jaguar! Sorry, you scared me.”
“I see that,” she regarded me, amused.
“What—ah, can I do for you?” I asked, eager to be rid of her. I knew I was never really rid of her—she was everywhere in General Specs. But there was still something especially unsettling about her presence in bodily form.
“I just hoped you might be able to settle my curiosity on a few points,” she said musically, inviting herself inside my office and seating herself across from me. “I’m sure you know about the rumors flying that your ex-wife wants more alimony, because of me and the profit margin I represent,” she began. “Everyone is talking about it behind your back.”
I cleared my throat, not liking where this was going. “Yes, I—figured that might get around.”
“I understand that you want to have it resolved as quickly as possible. And yet, I find it curious that you’ve gone to visit your ex-wife twice in the las
t two days, when you haven’t otherwise seen her in years.”
I hoped I managed to keep my expression neutral. Jaguar of course had access to camera data all over the world, because it was networked to the labyrinth, but she would have had to specifically search for that information to know I’d been there twice.
Which meant she was tracking me.
“I find it especially strange that in those same two days, Cathy—your ex—has had a number of other strange visitors, none of whom were your attorneys. Some of them were there at the same time as you were yourself. All this on the heels of Liam Kelly Junior showing up here, unexpectedly and in disguise.” She kept the pleasant smile on her lips. “I am simply curious. Who were those other visitors?”
Could she see the pulse throbbing in my throat? Probably, but there was nothing I could do about it. I considered telling her that Rebecca and Val were Cathy’s gold-digging nieces who had encouraged her to file for more alimony in the first place, but I dismissed it—Jaguar could consult camera data going back years, and determine fairly quickly that neither girl had ever visited her before. Almost any story I invented wouldn’t work for the same reason. So I decided it was best to play ignorant.
“I don’t know who any of them were. As you say, I haven’t been in contact with Cathy for years. I don’t know what sort of company she keeps.”
Jaguar’s pleasant expression did not change, as she said, “It’s just strange that I have no record of those girls’ existence at all until they entered London that morning. That implies that they had previously been off the grid, or that their appearances were altered, which implies that they might be Renegades—like your son, Liam.” She watched me, her synthetic hazel eyes scrutinizing my face as she added, “And then, they were there at the same time you were…”
All at once I saw myself in Exmorton, on the other side of the bars through which I’d last seen Liam. That’s where this was headed, I knew.
“I can’t control what Cathy does and who goes to visit her!” I blurted. “I didn’t even meet the girls you’re talking about. Maybe they were in another room when I came over. I’m just trying to keep Cathy from suing me. That’s all!”
“So you didn’t discuss your son’s arrest with your ex-wife?” Jaguar pressed.
A warning flashed through my mind. This was a set-up. “Of course we discussed our son’s arrest!” I told her, “but that wasn’t the point of the visit!”
Jaguar continued to stare at me, her eyes still tracking back and forth across the planes of my face. As she did so, her pleasant smile melted away, and she stuck her lower lip out in a tiny pout. “You know what I would hate?” she murmured, very softly, but with venom. “I would hate to find out that my father is plotting my murder.”
With that, she stood up and left my office without waiting for a reply.
I felt thunderstruck, but I kept a straight face—I was still on camera, after all. Nor could I rush off to my hovercraft right then for some privacy, as that too would look suspicious.
I invented a lunch appointment, and told Helga that I had scheduled it myself and simply forgotten to put it on my calendar. Once inside my hovercraft, I pulled out a small notebook that I used to diagram new ideas, and racked my brain to remember the code language Liam and Brian had invented as boys. Cathy had been fluent in it, but I’d been patchy at best. I managed to cobble together a message at last, and considered my options of how to send it to her. I could comm it—it was in a code that even Jaguar likely couldn’t crack without our memories, or at least a key—but the very fact that I was sending a message to my ex-wife in code would strongly imply guilt. I could send a messenger to her to deliver it physically, but I couldn’t think of anyone I could send that I both trusted enough with the task, and who would not be traced to me.
Pinkerton! I suddenly realized. Obviously, my attorney would need to communicate with Cathy if our cover story was true. Nobody would question his appearance at her house, and I paid him a very high retainer fee to keep everything I told him in the strictest of confidence. If I put a paper note in an envelope and ordered him not to open it, he wouldn’t.
“I have a lunch date with Pinkerton,” I commanded my pilot bot, “take me to his office, please.” I sent him a comm from my A.E. chip at the same time: We still on for lunch?
A pause. Mr. Kelly! I’m so sorry, I didn’t have that on my calendar, I was meeting with another client—
Cancel it, I thought in reply, and sent the message, knowing full well that he would. This is important. I’ll cater Risotto’s in to your board room, I added, naming the Italian restaurant we frequented whenever we met over a meal. His board room was camera-free by design, for the privacy of his clients.
***
“You have a visitor, Mrs. Kelly,” the security bot at the front of Cathy Kelly’s neighborhood sent her a comm that afternoon. “A Mr. Nathan Pinkerton.”
“Let him in!” Cathy thought at once, and sent the comm. She’d been pacing her living room most of that day since the kids had all left. She’d expected news to come via the Commune, but Pinkerton meant Liam Senior had a message for her. Maybe he’d heard something before she had.
“Mrs. Kelly,” Pinkerton bowed formally, one hand stiff at his side and the other wrapped across his midsection, clutching a large white unmarked file. “My client, Liam Kelly Senior, requested that I deliver this newest proposal to you. I think this is a very generous offer and quite frankly I don’t think that any court, especially under any of Wallenberg’s judges, will award you more since your divorce settlement was originally agreed to years ago. Additionally, please read this private message from Mr. Kelly in which I’m sure he will also explain your fragile situation as well. If you fail to agree, then his proposal will be rescinded and you will likely have to meet in court.”
“Thank you Mr. Pinkerton,” she gasped, in a breathless attempt to maintain her charade. “I’m sure that you are looking out for the interests of Mr. Kelly Senior. I will read your proposal and Mr. Kelly’s personal plea for a resolution and get back to you.” She shut the door in his face.
No sooner was she alone again, she plastered herself against the door so that the outside cameras might not catch a glimpse of her through the windows, and tore open the still sealed message from Liam Senior.
It was in code, but she could decipher it at a glance—and it said nothing about Liam at all. It read only, “Jaguar is on to us.”
Chapter 23: Liam
I was running through a wide open field abutting a sheer cliff over a ravine. It looked a bit like the Grand Canyon. Halpert and Abraham Chiefton chased me, and there were hovercrafts overhead that I couldn’t possibly outrun.
I had Madeline in my arms. What in the world was I doing with Madeline? Where was Rebecca?
I hurtled over the edge of the ravine, sliding on one leg—but instead of plummeting to my death, Madeline and I suddenly found ourselves in a cave. Somehow our pursuers hadn’t seen where we’d disappeared, so they passed by harmlessly overhead.
I felt something dripping on my face, and looked up, trying to understand where it was coming from. No, it wasn’t dripping… it was something crawling, or tickling. Bugs? Was I brushing up against a fern that I couldn’t see somehow?
“Liam.”
The voice shattered the cave entirely, as I tried to understand what was happening. The tickling sensation on my cheeks continued.
“Liam, wake up. Please wake up.”
Rebecca. I tried to open my eyes, to move my limbs. But they wouldn’t respond to me. Also, my whole body hurt—a deep, aching pain in every one of my bones.
“His heart rate just spiked,” announced a tinny voice I recognized as the Renegade medical bot. Hepzibah? “I believe he can hear you.”
“Look, his eyelids just fluttered!” Rebecca cried, and she renewed her efforts. “Liam? Can you hear me?”
Suddenly it all came flooding back to me: Pendergast. The four IV bags.
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I heard my own voice let out an involuntary groan of agony.
“Liam? Wake up, Liam,” came another voice. Rick. He sounded more agitated than I’d ever heard before. “He’s in pain.”
“His immune system is confused,” announced Hepzibah, and I felt a sharp prick in my arm. “Every one of his cells now contains foreign invaders, stimulating it to attack—but his immune cells themselves also contain the same invaders. He is losing white blood cells rapidly.”
“What are you giving him?” Rebecca asked, her voice shrill.
“I am attempting to desensitize his body to the changes,” she said, “and am giving him anesthesia as well.”
The tickling sensation on my face returned, and I realized it was Rebecca stroking my face. It was strange, to feel something so pleasurable on the skin of my cheek while at the very same moment, the bones of my face beneath it felt like they were actively rotting from the inside out.
“You’re going to be okay,” she whispered. “You have to be.” She sniffed, and said to the others, “I do think he can hear me!”
Yes, yes I can, I thought desperately, tell me what’s happening!
As if reading my thoughts, Rebecca whispered, “We got you out of Pendergast, but I guess we were too late. The surgery was an infusion, and it was in progress already by the time we got to you. But Hepzibah is taking care of you, and you’re going to be okay.” She sucked in a ragged breath. “Also, Francis got shot in the getaway.”
Francis? I struggled to understand. Francis was shot? Why is he even here?
“I’m fine,” Francis’s voice croaked, as if in response to my silent questions.
“He’s—stable, for now. But he needs blood, and Hepzibah won’t let me donate any because—I got shot too,” Rebecca added.
“She doesn’t have any blood to spare,” Francis wheezed.
“Yes, but I’m better off than you are!” Rebecca retorted.