by Eric Brown
A thin figure in a cream-coloured suit climbed with agonising slowness from the back of the car and crossed the street, leaning heavily on a walking stick. Halliday jumped from the Ford and assisted Wellman to the sidewalk.
‘Should we go into the bar?’ he asked.
Wellman took ten seconds to regain his breath. ‘I won’t keep you, Halliday. The car will do fine.’
He helped Wellman into the passenger seat and resumed his own seat behind the wheel, trying not to stare at the deterioration that time and an incurable disease had wrought on the executive.
He’d last seen Wellman in the flesh almost eighteen months ago, when the executive was in hospital after being injured in the firefight that resolved the Sissi Nigeria case. He’d looked the picture of health then, despite serious leg injuries. Wellman was in his mid-forties, but now he looked like a man in his eighties.
‘Are you sure it’s a wise thing to do?’ Halliday asked, hesitantly.
‘Hell, why not?’ Even his voice was affected, little more than a croak. ‘I’ll get back into VR as soon as I’ve seen a couple more people. I reckon I’ll have another week of virtual life before the old body gives up the ghost.’
‘You said you need to see me?’ Halliday said, conscious that, every minute he kept the executive in the real world, he was denying him precious time in VR.
‘Sure do, Hal,’ Wellman said.
‘About the case?’ Halliday looked at Wellman, wondering how much his mind had been affected by whatever drugs he was on. The man didn’t seem himself; his speech was clipped and informal, unlike his usual precise, sometimes ornate elocution. And never before had he called Halliday by his first name.
Wellman sat hunched forward, clutching the handle of his walking stick with emaciated hands. Halliday noticed the thin, pale skin stretched between the metacarpal bones like the etiolated membranes of a bat’s wing.
He nodded. ‘About the case, Hal. Indulge an old and dying man. I want to know what you’ve found out so far?’
‘Everything?’ Halliday asked.
‘Everything you think relevant, Hal.’
He was about to point out that he’d gone through the details of the case point by point in the Serengeti site, but stopped himself. Obviously Wellman’s memory was going the way of his frail body.
He marshalled his thoughts, sorted the many incidents into some kind of order.
He went through the case from the initial interview with the Suzie hologram, though his interrogation of Jimmy King, Anastasia Dah, and every other player in the drama. He recounted what he’d discovered in Nyack, his brush with the mysterious Charles in the restricted site, and his shoot-out with Tallak.
Wellman asked frequent questions, and it became obvious that the executive had forgotten much of Halliday’s initial report. When he asked Wellman if his technicians had managed to glean anything more from the Suzie hologram, he was met with a blank stare.
‘The device I gave Roberts,’ Halliday reminded him. ‘You said that you’d found out that Suzie Charlesworth was involved in the Mercury Project, working on the R&D of von Neumann machines...’
Wellman turned a watery gaze on him, and his hand trembled as he touched his brow in confusion. ‘I did? Forgive me, Hal. You know, the failure of the body I can almost tolerate - I was never one of these people who pride themselves on their physical perfection. But what I find so terrible about my condition is the state of my mind. I’ve always thought of myself as a reasonably intelligent man.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, you were saying ... ?’
‘Things’ve come to a standstill since the shooting. I got out of hospital this morning, so I haven’t had much time to follow anything up. Oh, there is one thing.’
Wellman looked at him. ‘Significant?’
He shrugged. ‘Hard to say. I have a contact in Virex - or rather she was involved with them. It seems that for the past six months they’ve been infiltrated and run by members of the Methuselah Project. The Virex techs on the street have been raiding Mantoni sites, among others, and passing on what they find to the Methuselah people, unwittingly, of course.’
‘That’s very interesting. Who is this woman?’
Halliday hesitated. He doubted whether Kat would thank him for passing on her name to the head of Cyber-Tech. ‘She uses a tag,’ he said. ‘But I can give you her com code...’
Wellman nodded. ‘I’ll have my people contact her, find out what she knows about the Methuselah Project.’
Halliday repeated the code.
Wellman reached out and tapped Halliday’s knee with a trembling hand. ‘I have faith in you. Keep up the good work.’
He pushed up the sleeve of his suit jacket and peered at his watch. ‘It’s time I was getting back.’
‘I’ll see you across the street. The sooner you’re back in VR, the better.’
He took Wellman’s arm and walked him slowly towards the Merc, feeling the slack play of sinew and atrophied muscle against bone.
He opened the rear door of the car and Wellman laboriously folded himself inside. He turned and looked up at Halliday. ‘Farewell, Hal ... if we don’t meet again.’
Halliday raised a hand and stood in the street as the Mercedes started up and eased away from the kerb.
He returned to the Ford and sat behind the wheel, considering the executive and what he’d told him about his lack of success so far.
He had to admit that he was no nearer solving the case now than he had been ten days ago, at the very start of his investigations. He’d amassed a lot of diverse information, witnessed sufficient incident to keep a holo-scriptwriter busy for months, but he had nothing concrete on which to base further enquiries. He hated to admit it, but he was relying on Kat Kosinski to come up with the next positive lead.
Perhaps he was being hard on himself. Christ, he was only a few hours out of hospital after being shot in the chest. What did he expect?
Tomorrow he’d begin the round of routine investigation again, try to find out more about Tallak, or Temple, or whatever his real name was. He’d look further into the business dealings of Andre Connaught, see if that might lead somewhere.
He looked at his watch. It was four. He was due to meet Casey around seven ... He had some time to kill. He glanced up at the sign outside Olga’s, neon tubes bent into the shape of a beer bottle ... How often had the lighted sign beckoned him through the darkness? Even deactivated, grime-encrusted and somehow sad in the hot afternoon air, the redundant beacon possessed an alluring power. Or perhaps he was just weak-willed? One for the road, he told himself. For old time’s sake.
He descended the cellar steps and pushed through the swing door. The familiar smell of hops and stale tobacco smoke, the familiar low lighting and serried, cushioned booths. It felt like he’d been away for months.
A new girl was serving behind the bar, and Olga was nowhere in sight. Halliday ordered a wheat beer and carried it to his regular booth by the steps.
Although he’d just left hospital that morning after major surgery and six days in VR, he was feeling fine. Okay, so his body was wasted, and he was easily tired out, but what did he expect? It was improvement all the way from here, he told himself. This was the first day of his recovery. No more VR ... or only when it was absolutely necessary in his investigations. He’d work out a bit more, eat sensibly.
He sat back, took a long drink, and thought about Casey and what she’d told him in VR. He tried to work out his feelings for the girl. Did his reluctance to get involved stem from the fact that he was almost twenty years older than her, or was he reluctant to commit himself again for fear of being hurt a second time?
Stuff it, he thought. She’d find some young stud nearer her own age sooner or later. She was just going through the regulation teenage crush for an older guy, the father figure missing in her life for so long; it was merely a phase she’d pass through, given time.
He finished the beer, bought another at the bar and returned to his seat.
Five minutes later he heard a familiar voice. ‘Long time no see, Hal.’
Vanessa Artois, the VR-queen, stood beside the booth.
‘Vanessa...’
‘Well, are you going to sit there gawping or are you going to buy me a drink?’
She slipped into the seat opposite with one svelte, practised movement, swept a tress of midnight hair from her eyes and smiled at him.
‘I ... sure. White wine, sweet, right?’
‘You remember? That’s nice.’
He escaped to the bar, his heart thumping. He ordered a wine and stared back at the beautiful woman in the booth. She wore a silver lame dress that followed the curves of her body like waves of liquid mercury. She was even more stunning than he remembered her. Staring at her across the rapidly filling bar, he felt the renewal of the familiar and sickening emotion that had gripped him during the time he had worked with Artois a year ago.
He returned to the booth with her drink.
‘Thanks, Hal,’ she said, sipping and eyeing him over the glass.
He could not stop the laboured pounding of his heart as he stared across the table at the fine, angled planes of her face.
‘What the hell,’ he found himself asking, ‘are you doing here?’
She laughed. ‘I was in the city doing a little publicity.’ She wrinkled her nose at him. ‘And I thought, why not drop by and see how Halliday’s doing these days? So I went to the office, and it’s all locked up. Then a stall-holder told me you were here. It’s great to see you again, Hal. How’s work?’
He shrugged. ‘Work’s work,’ he said, finding it hard to believe that she really was here. ‘You know how it is. Cases come in, and some I solve and others...’ He shrugged again.
She once meant a lot to me, he thought, and I blew it...
‘I’m staying with friends up in Nyack,’ she said. ‘You know it?’
‘Matter of fact,’ he said, ‘I was up there on a case the other day.’
‘You don’t say, Hal? How about that for a coincidence. Tell me about it.’
He shrugged. ‘Just another missing persons case. A Cyber-Tech employee went walkabout, or was kidnapped, or whatever. I went up there on a tip-off, looking for this organisation.’
‘You found where they were based.’
He looked at her. ‘Yeah, yes I did.’ He paused, wondering at her interest.
She nodded. ‘You know who these kidnappers are?’
He shook his head. ‘Enough of my work,’ he said. ‘Tell me about what you’re doing these days.’
‘Oh, nothing interesting. I’d rather hear about—’
For a fraction of a second, the image of her beauty froze. The drinkers around them in the bar stopped suddenly, drinks stilled before open mouths. The hubbub of the bar ceased, replaced by an eerie and absolute silence. Halliday felt himself lose his grip on this reality, felt his sense of touch depart him.
The image of the bar before him was locked. It was as if he was staring at a stilled holo-screen, the actors frozen in mid-gesture. He wondered, for a second, if he was going mad.
Then the bar disappeared, and the vision of Vanessa Artois with it, and he was aware of himself floating in the familiar medium of the suspension gel, rising from the tank as someone hauled him out by the arm.
He struggled to free his face from the visor. He felt hands on his arms and legs, pulling free the leads and sensors. Physical awareness returned to his body, filling him with nausea and sickness. As he stepped from the tank, the muscles of his legs protested.
Oh, Christ. . .
He felt his legs weaken and buckle and he collapsed against the side of the tank.
Then he heard a familiar voice. ‘C’mon, Hal! This ain’t no time for amateur dramatics. Get dressed!’
He clutched the tank, staring at the figure before him.
Christ, but it was Barney. Or rather it looked like Barney. The same face, only younger...
‘Barney?’ he said, incredulous.
The figure threw a bundle of clothes at him. Halliday caught them, for a second too stunned to act.
‘Move it, Hal! We gotta get outta here!’
He dressed in a daze, working solely by touch as he stared at the figure of Barney Kluger before him.
This Barney was a little taller, not as paunchy. He had the same heavy-jawed face, the same receding hair. ..
‘You look like you seen a ghost, Hal,’ Barney said.
‘I think I have.’
Barney embraced him, slapped his back. ‘Solid flesh and blood, this ghost.’
Halliday felt the solidity of Barney against him, experienced a surge of emotion he could not name - the desire to believe that Barney had miraculously risen from the dead, together with an intellectual knowledge of the impossibility of that hope.
He shook his head, on the verge of tears. ‘You’re dead,’ he said. ‘You died back in ...’
‘So I came back to life, Hal,’ Barney said. ‘Look, I’ll explain later, okay? It’s a long story. For now, just trust me.’
Halliday screwed his eyes shut, but when he opened them again Barney was still standing before him.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ he managed.
Barney - or whoever it was - stared at him. ‘Remember the broad who called by your office earlier? The guy who jumped you? You’ve been in VR since then.’
Christ... Hehad come round feeling great, attributing it to some anaesthetic effect of the knock-out spray. All along he’d been tanked.
He pulled on his shoes. ‘Okay, fine. I’m knocked out by two intruders and placed in my own tank. I wake up and continue my life as if nothing had happened ... But why the hell did they do that?’
‘Because they want to know everything you know about the Methuselah Project, the case you’re working on at the moment. Why do you think they sent Wellman to question you?’
Halliday held his head. ‘But Wellman knows all about the case. I mean, I told him everything the other—’ He stopped.
‘That wasn’t Wellman you met earlier, Hal. It was a construct, to fool you into telling it what you knew about the case.’
He shook his head, dazed. ‘But who wants to know about the Methuselah Project?’
‘Mantoni. They’re paranoid about the people running the Methuselah Project. They want to know what they’re up to, why they’ve been raiding Mantoni sites, rustling information.’
‘How do you know this?’
‘Couple of days back, I overheard ‘em planning to dupe you.’ He stopped. ‘Hey, we’re standing around here gabbing like old maids. Let’s get the hell out.’
They left the bedroom and paused in the office. ‘You still keep the hardware and ammo in the bottom drawers?’ Barney asked, moving to the desk.
Halliday took the keys from the top left drawer and passed them to Barney. Seconds later Barney found a body-holster and his old automatic. He hurried to the door. ‘You got the car?’
‘Outside.’
‘I need to take it for a while, okay? Come with me. I’ll drop you off. You go to earth and stay hidden for a while, got that? We’ll arrange to meet somewhere in a couple of days.’
‘Why split up? Why not—?’
“Cos the bastards got a trace on me. They’re on my tail right now. I plan to lead them a dance, pick ‘em off one by one till they have no more operatives able or willing to risk themselves trying to track me down. Then ... then I’ll try to work out how to get rid of the fucking beacon. Let’s go.’
He hurried down the stairs. Halliday looked back at the office, some vague thought niggling at him. The oak tree? He’d left it in the back of the car ... But that had been in VR. Here, in this reality, it stood on the desk.
He ran to the desk, grabbed the oak, and locked the door after him.
Twilight was falling in the street outside. Barney stood by the Ford. He tossed the keys to him and slipped into the passenger seat, stowing the bonsai safely on the back seat as Barney revved the engine and hauled the car
from the kerb. He accelerated, missing a street-stall by centimetres, and headed south.
‘Where you want dropping, Hal?’
He thought about it. ‘Anywhere on Lexington.’
Barney nodded. ‘You find somewhere safe and hole up for a while, okay? The bastards at Mantoni won’t stop until they’ve got you. See, you know too much, Hal.’
He nodded. ‘I’ll do that.’
‘You still got the same com code?’
‘Yeah.’ He stared across at Barney. Every intuition he had, every gut feeling, told him that despite all reason, all logic, his partner was sitting beside him, driving the Ford with reckless abandon, just like old times.