by Eric Brown
‘Cyber-Tech,’ Barney said. ‘Christ, that’s the outfit Nigeria worked for, right?’
Halliday nodded, accessing the Net and initiating a search for Cyber-Tech. Seconds later, the screen flared. He peered, reading.
‘Cyber-Tech,’ he said. ‘According to this, they’re at the leading edge of cybernetic research and VR development. All very top-secret stuff. They own some of the first VR Bars to open in the city. Have their headquarters on River Drive, Archville, up in Westchester County.’ He killed the screen.
Barney looked at him. ‘So, what we waiting for? Let’s get up there and pay this Mr Wellman a social call, okay?’
Before they left the office, Halliday checked on Culaski. The guy was breathing evenly, still struggling against the paralysing effects of the freeze. He’d come round in an hour or two with one hell of a headache.
On the way down the stairs, Halliday looked in on Gaines. He was still seated on the john, the white towel covering his head decorated with a bright red stain where Barney had got even.
As he stepped from the building, into the cold wind, Halliday caught the smell of cooking food from a nearby Thai stall. He ordered spare ribs for Barney and fried chicken for himself, then climbed into the passenger seat of the Ford. Barney took the tub of ribs and lodged it between his legs. He eased the car from the kerb, steering with one hand and eating with the other.
They headed north, out of the Bronx.
Halliday knew the Hudson coastline pretty well, an area of once-wooded hills and secluded inlets where the affluent had weekend holiday chalets and pleasure boats. His father had rented a holiday villa in a small town five kilometres south of Scarborough. He recalled escaping his father’s caustic attention for long hours, losing himself in the woods around the house. That was before the various blights and diseases decimated the trees all across America, of course. Now there were still plenty of trees along the coast north of the city, but most of them were dead - and those that were still in the process of dying, struggling vainly to put out green shoots and leaves every spring, only hinted at the beauty he recalled from the days of his childhood.
The trip would be a painful reminder of that time.
He thought of Eloise and wondered if he should visit his father over on Long Island at some point, try to talk to him. The idea did not appeal, but if the images of his sister continued as they had been doing, then he would go to any lengths to try to find out what the hell was going on.
They motored up Interstate 87, through Yonkers and into the country. Halliday stared out at the phalanx of dead and dying trees on either side, as perpendicular and denuded as ships’ masts.
Barney finished the ribs and wiped his mouth and chin on a napkin. He glanced across at Halliday. ‘How’d it go at the VR Bar yesterday? Kim said she was taking you.’
‘Great. We had a great time.’ Halliday laughed, without humour. ‘Then we get home and she accuses me of liking the image of her in VR better than her real self. She says I don’t love her.’
‘Thought you said yesterday that you didn’t know what you felt about her?’
Halliday stared at his fried chicken. ‘It changes,’ he said, trying to articulate something beyond easy definition. ‘Most of the time I can’t imagine being without her, and sometimes she drives me crazy. Is that love?’
Barney shook his head, a far-away look in his eyes. ‘Just be thankful the kid’s so stuck on you, Hal. Be thankful you got her, okay?’
Halliday entered River Drive into the Ford’s com. Seconds later the directions scrolled up the screen. ‘We turn off about two kilometres further on.’
The sun was going down over the country when they took a left turning and headed west, towards a sky stratified with bands of blazing orange and blood red. A line of dead trees on the horizon resembled so many used matches in the aftermath of the sunset.
They came to the coast road and turned north. To their left was the wide expanse of the Hudson, dark in the falling twilight, the occasional ripple from a small boat catching the reflection of the sun like so many slivers of gold.
The dead trees to their right gave the landscape an eerie, apocalyptic atmosphere. They passed a half dozen abandoned clapboard holiday homes, their owners long since fled west after the first of the meltdowns cast its radioactive pall over the north-eastern seaboard.
‘River Drive starts a mile before Archville,’ Halliday said. ‘Any second now
They slowed as the car came to the crest of the road. Down below a vast one-storey honey-coloured building, set in an expanse of manicured emerald lawn, came into view. It had the newly-constructed appearance of one of the many fledgling service companies that had sprung up out of town in recent years.
Barney rolled the Ford down the hill and braked beside the silver triangular sign in the driveway entrance: Welcome to the home of Cyber-Tech and Wellman Industries, Pioneers of the Future.
He turned the car into the drive and rolled across the parking lot. The frontage of the building displayed a long slanting face of black glass, maintaining an air of insularity and reserve.
They climbed from the Ford and entered reception through sliding black glass doors. A blonde receptionist looked up from behind a desk and smiled, her quick glance taking them in from head to foot. Halliday was aware of his dishevelled, unshaven appearance in the art deco perfection of the foyer. To her credit, the woman’s smile never faltered.
‘How can I help you, gentlemen?’
‘We have an appointment with Mr Wellman,’ Barney said.
The receptionist consulted a screen. A minimal frown marred her cloned-blonde features. ‘And you are?’
‘Kluger and Halliday, Private Investigators. We’re here to question Wellman about certain illegal activities he engaged in earlier today.’
She smiled and turned to her screen. ‘One minute, sir.’ Judging by her unflappable poise, Wellman might have been accused of nefarious activities on a regular basis.
‘I’m afraid Mr Wellman is in a meeting at the moment.’
‘Then we’ll be happy to talk to his deputy.’
‘That would be Mr Kosinski.’ She turned and spoke in low tones into a microphone. ‘Mr Kosinski will be with you in one minute.’
They paced the length of the foyer and back. Barney pulled a fat cigar from his coat pocket and began the laborious process of setting it alight. ‘You talk to Kosinski, Hal. Find out what Nigeria was doing here.’ He puffed a billow of noxious fumes. ‘I’ll take a walk around.’
Barney returned to the reception desk. ‘Which is Wellman’s auto, sweetheart?’
The woman blinked. ‘The silver Benz, but why . . .?’
Barney ignored the question, stepped outside and approached the Benz, shielding his eyes and peering inside.
Two minutes later a thin guy in his twenties, dressed in faded green jeans and a black T-shirt, pushed through a swing door. ‘Mr Kluger or Mr Halliday?’
Halliday nodded and gave his name, keeping his hands in the pockets of his jacket.
‘I’m Joe Kosinski. Ah . . . vice-chairman of Cyber-Tech and Wellman Industries.’ He shrugged. ‘I know, it sounds bizarre even to me. Come on through to the office.’
Kosinski wore his shoulder-length dark hair in a hank, secured by a knotted length of what looked like fibre optic cable. In profile, his Adam’s apple was almost as prominent as his jutting beak of a nose.
Halliday followed him into an office whose opposite wall was one vast window overlooking the work-floor on a lower level. A line of technicians sat at screens. In the distance, floor to ceiling flatscreens pulsed with frantic bursts of primary colours. Halliday made out fractal landscapes swirling into dizzying infinity.
Kosinski smiled. ‘Prototypes for a new VR-scape,’ he explained. ‘Have you VR’d yet, Mr Halliday? Please, sit down.’
‘Yesterday, for the first time.’ Halliday sat on the ledge of the window, his back to the shop-floor.
Kosinski lifted both hands from his knee
s in a nervous, habitual gesture. ‘It’s an incredible experience, so I’m told . . .’
Halliday looked at him. ‘You mean you’ve never . . .?’
Kosinski had the attitude of a long-term science student; a kind of geeky awkwardness combined with unsocialised affability. He sat cross-legged on a swivel chair and gestured. ‘You see, I grew up with this stuff. I got into VR at the ground level, so I’ve been intimate with it from the start. There was no first time for me, or rather the first time was in a prototype VR rig about as realistic as a turn-of-the-century computer game. For the past five years I’ve practically lived in VR, so I haven’t really noticed its advance.’ He laughed and held up a thin arm. ‘You could say that VR is my reality. Why do you think I’m so skinny?’
‘I thought you couldn’t spend more than a couple of hours in VR at any one time?’
‘Between you and me, we’re being conservative with the two-hour limit in the public VR Bars. It’s actually safe for up to around four, five hours. Any longer and you start suffering side-effects - impaired vision, nausea - when you emerge. I spend the top limit in VR every day.’ He clapped his knees with both hands. ‘Well, that’s me, Mr Halliday. How can I help you? Sal said something about Wellman misbehaving?’
‘You might say that. You have a woman working for you, Sissi Nigeria.’
Kosinski chewed his lip and nodded his head. ‘That’s right. I don’t know her personally, but I know her work.’
‘What exactly does she do here?’
‘She’s in the design and programming team. Actually, she’s a freelance. Very talented woman.’
‘What does she design and program? Virtual reality?’
‘Well, not directly. You see, she’s actually a specialist in active recognition systems and data condensation.’
‘And that is?’
Kosinski blinked. ‘Ah, that is to do with work on machine intelligence, Mr Halliday.’
‘Were you aware that she disappeared about a week ago?’
Kosinski shifted uncomfortably, like a fakir suddenly finding his bed of nails beyond endurance. ‘Ah, well... as a matter of fact.’ He nodded. ‘I was told that she hadn’t reported in for a few days.’
‘You have no idea what might have happened to her?’
Kosinski lifted his hands. ‘None at all. I’m sorry. You see, I might be the vice-chairman here, but between you and me the title means jack shit to me. I work here because I love the technology. The people . . .’ He stopped himself, then looked up guiltily at Halliday. ‘They’re just so many faces . . .’
Halliday smiled. ‘It must be great to be so enthusiastic about something as pure and rational as science.’
Kosinski looked at once relieved and grateful that Halliday understood. He nodded enthusiastically. ‘You got it.’
‘People can be so irrational at times.’ Halliday paused. ‘How do you get on with Wellman, Joe?’
‘Ah ... as a matter of fact, we don’t have that much contact. You see, he manages the business side of things, the people, and he lets me get on with the R&D.’
‘You have any idea why he would hire heavies to warn my partner and myself from trying to locate Sissi Nigeria?’
Kosinski gulped, shook his head. ‘He did that? No, look, people’s motivations . . . way beyond me, man.’
‘Wellman’s busy at the moment, doesn’t want to meet us. So tell him that Kluger and Halliday don’t take too kindly to being threatened, okay?’
Kosinski nodded. ‘I’ll do that.’
‘Also tell him that we’re still looking for Sissi Nigeria, and that we’ll either find her or we’ll find out what happened to her.’ He fished a card from his jacket pocket. ‘Here. If you hear anything concerning Nigeria, anything at all, gossip, scandal, even rumour, just get in touch, okay?’
Kosinski took the card without a word and read the legend, lips moving. He looked up. ‘I’ve never met a private eye before, Mr Halliday.’
‘Then we’re even. I’ve never met an R&D whizzkid, either.’
His communicator buzzed. ‘Hal, Wellman’s just left. We’re going after him.’
‘Thanks for your time, Joe. I have to rush.’
He left the office and ran into reception. The silver Benz was turning from the drive and accelerating along the coast road. Barney was already in the Ford outside reception.
Halliday jumped in the passenger seat as the car started up and swerved from the parking lot. Barney let the Benz open up a lead of some three hundred metres, then set off in pursuit.
‘Learn anything from Kosinski?’
Halliday smiled. ‘Strange guy, not exactly resident on Planet Earth, but harmless. Damnedest vice-chairman I’ve ever met.’
‘What’d he say?’
Halliday gave him a rundown of his conversation with the scientist. ‘He claimed not to know much about Nigeria, but I got the impression he wasn’t telling me everything. She doesn’t work in VR, or at least not directly. She specialises in machine intelligence.’
Barney grunted. ‘We’ll find out more from Wellman when we run him to earth.’
The Benz was coasting at forty up ahead, its tail-lights distinct in the gathering darkness. Barney accelerated, closed the distance to less than thirty metres. Halliday felt his pulse quicken. So much of his job was taken up with routine, predictable cases - missing teenagers, runaway spouses and the like - which neither stretched his powers of deduction nor much interested him. The very enigma at the core of the present investigation suggested that this case might be different.
They followed Wellman for another five kilometres, before he turned inland up a dirt track. Barney slowed and followed, the Ford wallowing along a rutted lane. The track climbed, winding up a hillside. Ahead, seen through a stand of dead trees, Halliday made out the lights of a big house, a multi-level villa with massive picture windows looking out over the distant river.
The villa was enclosed within a razor-topped mesh perimeter fence, with wrought-iron gates now parting to admit the Benz. Barney accelerated, gaining on the vehicle and tailgating as it passed into the grounds of the villa. Whoever was controlling the gates attempted to close them before the Ford made it through. Barney swore as the swinging metal trap crashed against the flank of the car and screeched along the coachwork. They came to a sudden halt behind the Benz and Halliday flung open the passenger door and jumped out. Wellman was already out of his vehicle and shouting instructions to someone in the darkness off to the right. Halliday heard the frantic baying of a dog and slipped the automatic from his shoulder-holster.
Barney approached Wellman, belligerent in his forward-leaning, heavy-shouldered posture.
The company chairman backed off. He was a tall, thin guy dressed in an impeccable cream suit with a foppish scarlet cravat. ‘What do you think you’re doing, invading like . . .?’ he began before Barney cut him off.
‘Save the protests, Wellman. I didn’t exactly like the heavies you sent round to my place, either.’
A light went on, up in the villa. A french window slid open and a dark-haired women in a gown hurried out to the edge of a patio. ‘Honey,’ she called, ‘is everything . . .?’
Wellman turned glanced up at the woman. ‘Everything’s fine, darling. I can handle this.’
Halliday heard the security guard about a minute before he decided to attack. He was approaching across the darkened gravel drive with a series of here-I-am crunches. Halliday adjusted his position without alerting the guard to the fact that he knew he was on his way.
‘I’m sure we can conduct this matter in a civilised fashion,’ Wellman was saying.
‘I’m delighted you think so,’ Barney replied. ‘I’d appreciate a little civility after this afternoon.’
The guard leapt, and Halliday turned and swung a fist. He caught the guy in the chest, an ineffectual blow which did more to surprise than injure. Halliday’s next blow struck the guy’s jaw, and as the guard fell with a cry of pain, Halliday launched a boot towards hi
s midriff and connected. The guard let out a deflated gasp and lay on the ground, moaning in pain. Halliday turned towards Wellman, ready to grab him and march him into the villa at gunpoint.
The dog caught him off guard. He heard a snarl, and by the time he turned in heart-thumping panic the dog was flying through the air, teeth bared. He heard the deafening crack of a gunshot, and the dog performed a crazy somersault, all splayed limbs and limp neck, and slammed into the gravel at his feet. He stared down at the dead animal in silence, something almost comical in his surprised reaction, before he remembered himself and scanned the grounds for any further threat.
Barney holstered his automatic. ‘We can do this one of two ways, Wellman. Either my partner can drag you kicking and screaming into the house in front of your pretty wife, or you can show us inside like the civilised citizens we are.’