New York Nights [Virex 01]

by Eric Brown

  ‘Stop!’

  Ahead, outlined theatrically in the beam of the headlights, Barney sat slumped against a trash can, legs outstretched, hands lying upturned at his side, for all the world like some discarded teddy bear.

  ‘Wait here!’ Halliday told the driver.

  He jumped from the car and approached the slumped figure, and slowed. ‘Oh, Christ,’ he cried, ‘Oh, Jesus fucking Christ.’

  Barney had taken perhaps six bullets in the chest. The bullets had been fired at close range, shattering his body armour. He was still alive and staring with open eyes at Halliday, and there was a slight smile on his face - a smile that almost acknowledged the fact of his failure, and required absolution.

  Halliday fell to his knees and hugged Barney to him. ‘It’s okay. I’ll get you to hospital.’

  ‘Didn’t think I. . . Hal. . .’

  ‘It’s okay. You’ll be okay.’ Halliday staggered to his feet, carrying Barney in his arms, almost fell. Then the taxi driver was with him, carrying Barney’s legs. They eased him onto the back seat and seconds later the cab was reversing at speed into Hudson Street.

  Halliday held Barney to him. His eyes were closed now, his breathing ragged. He stared at the entry points splashed around Barney’s chest. Depending on the calibre of the bullets, the wounds might not prove fatal. But if they had torn great exit holes in his back, taking bits of internal organs with them . . .

  He was in a bad way. But they could perform miracles these days. Time was of the essence, and the taxi driver was making up for his earlier lack of speed. The snow blizzard swirled in the headlights as they raced through the quiet streets. They were heading north towards St Vincent’s. Halliday knew they had a great emergency unit, were magicians with gunshot injuries. If anyone could save Barney . . .

  ‘Hal. . .’ the merest croak.

  ‘Easy, Barney. Easy. You’re gonna be okay.’

  ‘The package . . . the program...’

  Halliday remembered. The program: it was what all this was about. Christ, but why had they ever got involved with this, why hadn’t they had the sense to leave well alone?

  He told himself that they were not to know, that every case was just another case to be solved. Who the hell knew when shit was around the corner?

  Barney closed his eyes, and his head rocked on Halliday’s lap, and for a second he thought that Barney was dead. Then he heard the laboured breaths, and he felt a strange surge of joy, almost elation. He was alive, still, and there was hope . . .

  He checked the pockets of Barney’s coat and trousers. There was no package. He thought of the program, which Joe had written and for which he had paid with his life, and it occurred to him that LINx might not be eradicated now, but the fact did not worry him as he thought it might. LINx was no longer his responsibility. The technicians at Cyber-Tech could work on a new program. All that Halliday wanted now was that Barney should live. That was all that mattered, and fuck everything else. The world could go to hell. He wanted Barney back, smoking his clichéd cigars in the stinking office and drinking beer at Olga’s . . .

  Halliday called ahead to St Vincent’s. He pulled rank, told emergency that a cop was on the way, shot in the chest and bleeding bad. He gave Barney’s name and code, and hopefully by the time they arrived the medics would have matched his blood group and whatever the hell else they did these days.

  ‘Hang on in there, Barney,’ Halliday whispered as the cab sped through the entrance to St Vincent’s and slewed to a halt outside emergency. ‘You’re gonna pull through, man.’

  He jumped out while the car was still in motion. Three paramedics were waiting with a stretcher, and no sooner had the taxi halted than they were in the car. Halliday could only stand and watch. The medics extricated Barney with a speed born of practice. They loaded him onto the stretcher and hurried him inside, and at the sight of Barney disappearing through the swing doors Halliday experienced a plummeting sense of despair.

  He remembered the taxi driver. He was standing by the cab, watching the doors swing shut. Halliday found a hundred-dollar note, pressed it on the driver.

  ‘What about. . .?’ the driver began.

  ‘Keep the change,’ Halliday said. He turned and hurried in after the medics.

  Barney was on a trolley now, already hooked up to blood and plasma, surrounded by half a dozen medics. Halliday followed, overcome by the irrational conviction that for the assurance of Barney’s continued survival he, Halliday, must maintain close contact.

  He was aware of someone hurrying along beside him. She was speaking, waving something in the periphery of his vision. A small Oriental woman - an inferior version of Kim - was skipping alongside to keep pace, a com-board raised almost above her head. ‘Mr Halliday, will you please fill in the necessary forms and waivers?’

  Ahead, the trolley turned a corner, was momentarily out of sight. Halliday felt a surge of panic, then relief when he turned down the corridor and made out the reassuring sight of Barney on the trolley, the medics working on him as they went. They arrived at a pair of swing doors and swept through, and Halliday felt a pair of strong arms restraining him.

  ‘There’s nothing more you can do, bud,’ a massive black orderly told him. ‘He’s in theatre. They’re doing all they can.’

  Halliday calmed himself, worked to control his breathing. He nodded, saw the sense of what the orderly was telling him. Barney was in the best place now, the only place where he might be saved. Even so, he felt that he too ought to be there, as if his presence might in some way communicate itself to Barney, might work to effect a miracle recovery.

  The Oriental woman took his elbow and steered him towards a bench. He sat down and leaned against the wall. The woman sat next to him, slid the com-board onto his knee.

  ‘I’ll go through these with you, if you like.’

  The questions seemed meaningless, hardly related at all to the business of keeping Barney Kluger alive. He told himself that he had to concentrate, that the forms were necessary even if they did seem a futile waste of time. He answered the woman’s questions, giving Barney’s full name and date of birth - and he surprised himself that despite the shock he no doubt was undergoing, the date of his birth came to him without delay - the 6th of May, 1979, a child of the last millennium. Then the woman asked if Halliday was related to the patient, and he hesitated over that one.

  He had to consider the question. His first impulse was to say that Barney was his father, his second to claim that he might not be related to the patient, but that in no way diminished what he felt for Barney Kluger. He wanted to explain to her that Barney was more important to him than any relation had ever been, but he could not marshal the vocabulary to state what he was thinking with logic or precision. She would probably think he was going mad.

  So instead he just shook his head and murmured, ‘No, no relation.’

  ‘Do you know if Mr Kluger has any next of kin?’

  Again he shook his head. Estelle was dead, and they had never had children, and both his parents had died a long time ago.

  ‘As Mr Kluger’s business partner, will you sign here to accept the costs of his treatment, Mr Halliday?’

  He signed on the screen with a bulky stylus, wondering as he did so if they would have halted Barney’s treatment if he’d refused to sign.

  The woman was saying something. ‘There will be someone out presently to tell you how Mr Kluger is doing. If you’d care for a coffee . . .’ She indicated a machine, and hurried away, and Halliday was suddenly alone in an empty hospital corridor, staring at the rubber-sealed swing-doors and wondering what decisions he and Barney might have made to avoid ending up in this situation.

  Then he considered LINx, and wondered if it had tracked his progress through the city in the taxi, if right at this very moment it was sending its slave to finish him off.

  The thought struck him at first as an abstract notion, a purely intellectual consideration. Then, for some reason, the consequences of the thought
percolated through his apathy, and it came to him that he might very well be in danger. LINx knew who he was, had threatened him in VR . . .

  Christ, if it had managed to track him to the hospital . . .

  He jumped up and barged through the swing-doors, shouting. The big orderly stopped him with a block like an immovable defender. ‘Hey, man! What the hell . . .’

  ‘You can’t put him on a life-support,’ Halliday cried. ‘You don’t understand - if LINx...’

  ‘Cool it, man. Just cool the fuck down! I’m telling you, if we don’t put him on life-support, there’s no way he’s getting outta here alive, okay?’

  The orderly gripped Halliday in a bear-hug and bundled him out into the corridor. ‘Just stay out here and calm it, man. We’re doing all we can, okay?’

  He pushed Halliday into the seat and he slumped, almost weeping, as he realised the futility of trying to make himself understood. If Barney wasn’t put on life-support, he was dead, but if he was . . . and if LINx had control of the hospital’s operating systems . . .

  He leaned forward and held his head in his hands, attempting to assess the extent of the danger.

  LINx, no doubt, knew where he had his office, too. He sat up as he thought of Kim, the arrangement he had made to meet her back at the loft that evening. He looked at his watch. It was eight-thirty.

  If LINx sent its slave not here but to his office, to await his return, then what if it happened upon Kim?

  He tapped her code into his communicator, tried to work out what he would tell her when she finally answered. She was taking her time. Twenty seconds, thirty . . . then a minute. She should have been in the loft, awaiting him.

  Then she answered. ‘Hal? I’ve only just got back. Where are you?’

  The sound of her voice brought tears to his eyes. He wanted to tell her that Barney was dying, and at the same time he knew he could not break the news over the communicator.

  ‘Kim, listen to me. Get out of the loft. . .’

  ‘Hal? What’s going on?’

  ‘I’ll explain later, okay? Get out of the loft and go to the Ukrainian bar on the corner. I’ll meet you there later.’

  ‘Hal, I wish you’d . . .’

  ‘Just do as I say!’ he yelled at her.

  ‘Okay. Okay, Hal. I’m doing it!’

  ‘Kim, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll explain when I see you.’

  He cut the connection.

  And only then realised that LINx might have been monitoring the call. He had to call her back. He felt panic clutch at his throat as he tapped in the code.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Kim, don’t go to the Ukrainian bar.’

  ‘Hal, I wish you’d tell me what the hell’s going on!’

  ‘Kim, listen to me. Don’t go to the Ukrainian bar. Go to the restaurant where we had the meal the other night. Don’t say its name over the link! People might be listening. Go to the restaurant and wait for me there.’

  ‘Hal, are we in danger?’

  ‘No - yes. Not if you do what I told you. I’ll meet you later, explain everything. I love you.’

  ‘Love you, too,’ she said, in a small, frightened voice.

  He sat back, flooded with relief. Then another thought struck him, and he wondered if he was being paranoid or merely circumspect.

  If LINx had been monitoring the calls, then it would be aware of his change of plan. And it would use the traffic surveillance cameras to follow Kim from the office, along the street to Silvio’s bistro along the block, and it would send its slave to wait until he showed . . .

  He wanted to leave now, get up to El Barrio and get Kim away from there to a place of safety.

  But at the same time he knew that he could not leave Barney.

  He seemed to have been sitting in the drab corridor for an age. He had no idea what time he had arrived here. Surely, by now, there would be some word on Barney’s condition. He looked around for someone he might ask. The corridor was deserted.

  When a nurse did sweep past him, he began to say something, or at least open his mouth, before realising that he could not summon the words required for the question. ‘Will he be okay?’ was all he wanted to ask, but the simple request in the circumstances would seem ridiculous asked of an arbitrarily passing medic.

  He wanted merely to bend his head and weep, and knew he would do so in time, but not here.

  The swing-doors flapped open and he looked up. Miraculously someone was approaching him, and his heart embarked on a laboured pounding, and he knew he would recall this moment for the rest of his life.

  A tall grey-haired man looked down at him. ‘Mr Halliday?’

  ‘How is he?’ He could not summon the strength to climb to his feet,

  ‘Mr Halliday,’ the medic began, and sat down on the bench next to him, which had to be a bad sign, Halliday told himself. ‘Mr Kluger underwent extensive surgery to remove six bullets from his chest and stomach.’

  There seemed to be some delay between the medic saying the words, and Halliday being able to make sense of them.

  six bullets . . .

  ‘And although the actual operation was a success, Mr Kluger lapsed into a coma and subsequently

  lapsed into a coma . ..

  ‘And subsequently, Mr Halliday, he was placed on life-support apparatus and fifteen minutes ago was declared clinically dead. I’m very sorry, Mr Halliday.’

  clinically dead . . .

  Halliday was staring straight ahead, at the swing doors, and as the medic began again at the beginning, he heard the words.

  Clinically dead ...

  He needed clarification, desperately wanted to know if “clinically dead” was some conditional term meaning that there was hope, that perhaps with some intervention, a miracle perhaps, there was yet hope of saving Barney Kluger’s life.

  ‘He - Barney’s . . .?’

  ‘Technically, the body is still being kept alive with the aid of the life-support apparatus, but clinically Mr Kluger was declared brain-dead at twenty-one hundred hours. I’m sorry, Mr Halliday.’

  Halliday nodded, not even sure what he was acknowledging, the information that his friend was dead, or the futility of the medic’s spurious condolences.

  ‘Can . . . Can I see him?’

  ‘As the declared representative of Barney Kluger,’ the medic said, ‘we need your permission to turn off the life-support apparatus. You will be allowed to be present when this occurs.’

  ‘Are you sure . . .? Are you sure that nothing can be done?’

  ‘Mr Halliday, I assure you that we have done everything within the capabilities of modern surgical techniques to keep Mr Kluger alive. There’s nothing more we can do. Of course, you can discuss the case with my colleagues.’

  The case? Halliday wanted to say that Barney’s life was more than just a case.

  He nodded. ‘I’d like to see Barney,’ he said.

  The next fifteen minutes seemed to pass in a blur, and later he recalled only hazy images of what happened. He remembered being led to the small room where Barney lay, and being left at the door. He recalled that it was a while before he could bring himself to enter, as if he were trespassing on territory where he had no right to be.

  Then he recalled standing next to the bed and staring down at Barney. He wore a light blue hospital gown, tubes entered his mouth and nose, and he appeared merely to be sleeping, as if at any minute he might stir guiltily and make some excuse for falling asleep on the job.

  He remembered thinking, as he stared down, that just a few hours ago Barney was alive.

  Six bullets . . .

  He later recalled two surgeons, their faces, but not a word of what they said. Try as he might, however, he had no recollection of acceding to their recommendation that the life-support apparatus should be switched off, but he knew he was there, holding Barney’s solid, still-warm hand, when the technician touched the screen, and the surgeon nodded gently, and Barney died.

  And he made arrangements for Barney�
��s cremation in four days’ time, and thanked the surgeons and the Chinese orderly, and walked from the hospital in a state of frozen shock.

  He took a taxi from the hospital, somehow remembering that LINx might be watching. He asked to be dropped off along a quiet street where he knew there were no police surveillance cameras, and walked a couple of blocks to a taxi office down a sidestreet. There he booked a cab, and sat back and closed his eyes as the taxi carried him through the swirling snow to Silvio’s Bistro, El Barrio.

  He climbed from the cab and stood, very still, in the falling snow. He was suddenly aware of the blood on his jeans, stiff and freezing. He looked down. Against the dark material, he could hardly make out the slightly darker stain. He moved around the corner and paused before the bistro, knowing that this was not the time to tell Kim of what had happened to Barney. He would break it to her later, when he could speak of what had happened without cracking up, and even as he thought this he knew that Kim would have chastised him for yet again keeping his emotions to himself, for being unable to open up and share his grief.