by Eric Brown
* * * *
Twenty-Two
Barney rode the elevator down to the labs on the 90th floor. He pushed open the swing door and saw with relief that two lab coats were hanging on the pegs, side by side. He removed his jacket and hung it next to them, then stepped into the working area of the laboratory.
The next four hours seemed to take an age to pass. He cracked a joke with some of the less up-tight techs, and hoped Lew would show so that they could trade some good-natured banter. They put him through all the usual tests and work-outs, comparing his performance, both mental and physical, with earlier results. Lew didn’t turn up, and he took his coffee break alone, staring out through the window at the sparse traffic on Broadway. He wondered if it was the sight of the outside world that made him feel imprisoned, or the knowledge that soon, if all went well, he too would be out there.
At one point, around midday, one of the techs whose coat hung on the peg by the door left the lab carrying a com-board. All it needed now was for the second tech to go walkabout, and his plans would be scuppered. He tried to make a contingency plan in case that happened. He could always try to bluff his way through security, if the worst came to the worst, claim he’d left his card in his office.
He tried not to dwell on the chances of succeeding with that scenario.
One o’clock approached. The remaining lab coat was still hanging on the peg. If only the techs would finish what they were doing and let him go. He felt a mounting impatience as he lay face-down on the couch. One o’clock came and went. At five past he said, ‘You boys anywhere near quitting yet?’
‘Just another couple of minutes,’ said the tech, inserting probes into his NCI.
He closed his eyes and willed the minutes to pass.
He felt a slap on his shoulder. ‘That’s it, pal, you’re free.’
‘Certainly hope so,’ Barney muttered as he rolled from the couch and made for the exit.
He was aware of his heart, pounding like a jack-hammer, as he approached the pegs. He looked over his shoulder. The techs were standing around the lab, drinking coffee, chatting. No one gave him a glance as he reached for his jacket.
With his free hand he turned the lab coat. His heart leapt. There was no ID card attached to the breast pocket. He ran his hand down its length, feeling for the small plastic rectangle. He glanced back into the lab. The techs were still talking away. He wondered how long he could remain here before he attracted their attention.
In desperation he turned his back to the lab, lifted the coat from the hook and checked it back and front. Fact remained, no card. So how the hell had the tech made it through security that morning? Barney had checked that the guy wasn’t wearing his ID card in the lab ... So where the hell was it?
The bastard probably had it on him, he thought, tucked away in his pocket ... That gave him an idea.
He checked the breast pocket, knowing that this was his last chance.
No card.
He replaced the coat on the peg and tried to order his thoughts. Plan B. Attempt to bluff his way through.
He was about to quit the lab when the swing door opened and a white-coated technician stepped through.
‘Barney, still here?’ the guy laughed. ‘Can’t get enough of the place?’
‘After four hours, you kidding?’
He watched, with incredulity and amazement, as the tech removed his coat and placed it on the peg next to his own jacket. He nodded to Barney and continued into the lab.
Barney reached out, undipped the ID card from the lapel and grabbed his jacket. He pushed through the swing door and made for the elevator, heart banging at a rate he was sure was far from healthy.
Doused in sweat, he hurried to his suite and changed his jacket and trousers, clipping the ID to his lapel. He pulled the chu over his head and looked into the mirror. He selected a face that approximately corresponded to the tiny pix on the ID, then slipped the bag of five-dollar coins into his jacket pocket.
He was ready to go.
He quit the lounge and strode down the corridor towards the elevator. There were security cameras on each floor, but he guessed that they weren’t monitored all the time. And anyway, no one would recognise him in the guise of this blond stranger.
As he rode the elevator all the way down to the ground floor, he tried to work out what might possibly go wrong now. If he managed to get through security with his borrowed card, then that would, hopefully, afford him a few hours’ grace before his disappearance was noted and the alarm raised. Around five every day either Lew Kramer or some other exec dropped by on some pretence or other. He had, he thought, about four hours.
Of course, if security was continually monitoring the tracer implanted in his NCI - or if it was linked to a com-system rigged to set off an alarm if he strayed - then he was well and truly stuffed.
He told himself to be optimistic. He would face adversity if and when it arrived. So far, it had been plain sailing ... well, almost. He told himself that he was as good as free.
The descent seemed to take an age, the elevator stopping at every floor to pick up other workers. They hardly gave him a glance. Barney stood at the back, his gaze fixed above their heads, conscious that if anyone looked too closely at the pix attached to the breast of his jacket, and then glanced up into his mismatched face ... He told himself not to worry. The chances of some bored office worker being so vigilant was almost nil.
Then, on the fifth floor, the doors sighed open and Lew Kramer stepped aboard.
Barney thought he was about to suffer a coronary.
Lew looked straight into his eyes, seemed to hold his glance for a fraction of a second, then turned and faced the closing door. He wondered if something subconscious in Lew had half-recognised his soma-form, the shape of his body, something unmistakably himself in his bearing. If so, the contrary evidence of the blond stranger presented by the chu had put him off.
He closed his eyes and tried to control his breathing.
Lew Kramer alighted on the second floor and Barney felt as if an immense weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
A minute later the elevator hit the first floor, bounced minimally, and opened its doors. He allowed his fellow passengers to step out before him, then squared his shoulders and emerged into the lobby. At least ten other workers were heading for the exit, and as Barney followed them he concentrated on the guards - two guards - standing beside the sliding glass door. They were eyeing the ID cards of everyone as they passed from the building.
The workers before Barney had come to a halt as they were processed through the exit. Barney slowed as he joined them, knowing that he had no chance. One of the guards would surely notice his dissimilarity to the pix on his card and raise the alarm.
The woman before Barney showed her card and was waved through. The guard had a habit of nodding at every passing worker, though his gaze seemed far away. Barney looked straight ahead, at the busy, beckoning sidewalk outside the building.
He approached the guard, heart pounding. The guy smiled, nodded ...
Barney walked towards the door.
It slid open soundlessly and he stepped out.
He expected a hand on his shoulder, a polite, ‘Excuse me, sir,’ at every step. None came, and he was ten paces from the exit of the Mantoni tower before he realised that he was free.
He hurried across the sidewalk, stepped into the road and beckoned a passing taxi.
He slipped into the cab, gave his destination as 116th Street, El Barrio, and sat back, suddenly limp with nervous exhaustion.
As the cab drew away from the kerb, he looked back at the Mantoni tower.
As he did so, two men in black suits ran from the exit and crossed the sidewalk to a parked car. Something about their build and haste suggested that they were security guards charged with ensuring that the golden goose didn’t fly away.
Barney leaned forward, thinking fast. ‘Make that Monroe Street, Two Bridges. Let’s move it!’
They ca
r turned right, right again, and headed south. Barney looked through the rear window. There was no sign of the car in pursuit.
He’d get out in the area of warehouses around Two Bridges. If they were following his tracer, then it was inevitable they’d get him sooner or later. But... if he holed up, jumped them when they came for him, he could get away and hope that no other heavies had been sent after him.
It would mean silencing the two guys following him, but what the hell.
What had Sellings said about Hal?
‘Expendable.’
If you chose the rules, you could hardly complain when the same rules were used against you.
He’d give the bastards expendable ...
He peered through the rear window. At the end of the street, about two hundred metres back, the silver Lincoln appeared.
‘Turn left. Drop me here!’
The driver turned. They were in a narrow street between a fruit and vegetable warehouse and some other, indefinable red-brick building. Barney handed the driver four five-dollar coins and jumped from the cab. He ran along the street, thanking Lew Kramer for bequeathing him such a fit body. He sure as hell couldn’t have sprinted like this with his old, fat-bellied model ... His? he thought. You’re nothing but a copy, he reminded himself, a copy of someone whose memories had once meant something ...
He came to a turning, a narrow walkway between two factories. There was nowhere to run to, he knew; nowhere to hide. He was looking for a place where he could play dead, then turn on the bastards when they approached.
To his advantage was the fact that they wanted to bring him back alive. When he attacked them with all the emotionless aggression he had inside him, they wouldn’t know if what had hit them was human or animal, or some kind of hybrid killing-machine.
He stopped.
A trash can blocked the walkway. He smiled and kicked it over, then lay on the ground beyond it in a reasonable imitation of unconsciousness.
Seconds later he heard the sound of a car engine approaching, growing louder.
Then it cut out. Silence.
He braced himself to act, knowing that he was doing this for Hal. His partner’s life depended on it. Hal was expendable, after all, in the eyes of the Mantoni organisation.
Was that anger he felt coursing through his NCI? Was such a thing possible? Or if not anger, then perhaps an intellectual appreciation of the iniquity of the situation?
He heard footsteps.
They rounded the corner, paused, then approached cautiously down the walkway. He heard a voice. ‘Delgardo here. We got him. No problemo. We’re bringing him in.’
The footsteps stopped before they reached him. He heard one of the guys approach, wary. They were playing it by the book, real pros. One guy going in, the other covering. Okay, so he’d play along with that, use it to his advantage.
A booted foot punted him in the midriff. He shut out the pain and lay absolutely motionless.
‘He’s out cold,’ he heard. ‘Okay, let’s get the bastard back.’
He heard footsteps as the second guy approached, felt hands on his arms. They heaved, lifting him between them. For a second he hung, a realistic dead weight. He opened his eyes, made a decision. The guy on his left first.
Then he came to life.
He grabbed the guy to his left by the neck, squeezing his carotid and killing him in the prescribed three seconds. The bastard hardly made a sound. The second guy yelled and backed off, drawing a pistol.
Barney turned, holding the dead guy before him as a shield. As the second guy backed off, Barney felt for the dead man’s weapon, found it.
He pulled the pistol and aimed at the retreating guy. ‘Stop! Don’t move a fucking step further. Drop the gun! I said drop the fucking—’
The guy dropped the gun, and Barney fired three times, fast and accurate, hitting the sucker in the chest. The guy dropped something from his left hand as he fell to the ground, reached out as it skittered away from him.
Barney shot him again, in the head this time.
Expendable.
He dropped the guy he’d been using as a shield, then went though his pockets. He found the car keys along with a wallet stuffed with hundred-dollar notes. He decided they were better in his possession. He made to leave the alley, then stopped when he saw what the shot guy had been reaching for.
A com.
Barney picked it up, thumbed the command for a return call.
‘Delgardo?’ a voice said.
Barney held the com to his mouth. ‘No problemo. We’ve got him. Bringing him in.’
‘Well done, boys.’
He cut the connection.
He hurried from the alley without a backward glance. The silver Lincoln stood ten metres away. He climbed into the driver’s seat, started the engine, and U-turned.
He headed uptown, towards El Barrio.
He wondered how much time he’d bought himself with the call. How long before security became suspicious that Delgardo and partner had failed to return?
If they were still monitoring the tracer, then they’d know pretty soon. But if, complacent after the reassuring call, they’d quit monitoring . . . Maybe he’d given himself enough time to help Hal, after all.
* * * *
Twenty-Three
Halliday rose like a swimmer through the depths of oblivion. Consciousness came slowly. He found himself blinking up at the nicotine-browned ceiling of the office, reliving again the split second before the attack.
He rubbed his face where the spray had hit him, then struggled into a sitting position. Whatever they had used, it had had an anaesthetising effect on his body. His mind felt distanced from the ache in his limbs, the nausea that had become a constant companion.
He climbed to his feet and looked around. He checked his pockets. He still had his wallet containing his cards and almost a thousand dollars, and ... He hurried over to the desk. Either they had overlooked the oak, or had no botanical appreciation. The tree was still standing in its terracotta tray, unmoved by the drama enacted before it.
He looked around the office. Nothing had been touched, it seemed. He moved to the bedroom. The jellytank was still there. He glanced at his watch. He’d been out perhaps one hour, plenty of time for them to have arranged for the removal of his tank...
So why the hell had they attacked him, rendered him unconscious?
Opportunists? They thought they’d knock him out and ransack his office for valuables, but of course had found none. But why then had they left without taking his wallet? Perhaps they’d been disturbed before they got round to robbing him?
He took his oak from the desk and left the office. He locked the door behind him and hurried down the stairs.
There was no sign of the couple’s car in the street. He slipped into the Ford, placed the bonsai on the back seat, and was about to start the engine when his com chimed.
He thumbed it to receive and stared at the tiny screen.
‘Halliday,’ a voice asked, ‘is that you?’
He tried to make out the face. It was thin, its skin yellowed.
‘Jesus,’ he breathed. ‘Wellman? What the hell... ?’
The semblance of the smile was appalling on so ravaged a face. ‘One last look at the real world, Halliday,’ Wellman said. ‘I went round to your new office, but of course you weren’t there.’
He felt suddenly, irrationally, guilty for wasting the dying man’s precious time. ‘I’m at the old office.’
‘I’m in the area,’ Wellman said. ‘I need to see you.’
Halliday thought it wise not to remain immediately outside the office. ‘I’ll be parked along the street outside Olga’s, okay?’
‘I’ll meet you in five minutes, Halliday.’
He cut the connection and stared at the executive’s stilled image on the screen. He had known that Wellman was dying, of course - but his image in virtual reality had belied the fact of his terminal illness.
He was not relishing the prospect of m
eeting Wellman in the real world.
He started the engine and U-turned, idled along the street and braked outside Olga’s.
He wondered what Wellman wanted. Had he emerged from VR to say goodbye, incarnate, to friends and acquaintances? There was something formal and decorous about such a farewell gesture that would be entirely in keeping with the man.
Five minutes later a white Mercedes pulled up across the street.