Jimmy Ramirez was not screaming, His teeth were clenched so tightly together that his breath came between them in small whistles of pain. He was still carrying one of the masers they had taken from the first batch of Peaceforcers they had run into, right hand clutching the weapon as though it were his link to life.
Jimmy's left arm, where the laser buried in the Peaceforcer Elite's fist had touched, was gone from the elbow down.
A maser burst had taken him against the back of his calves.
Forty meters of well-tended grass separated the entrance to the Detention Center from 57th Street proper. Trent had only a second to glance down the line of waiting vehicles; five Peugeot cabs, two independents, and a single black, unmarked Chandler sedan. Trent was vaguely aware of Denice, of her thoughts touching his. He said nothing aloud; together they ran down the slidewalk toward the sedan. It was hardtopped rather than canopied, with four separate doors for the front and back seats.
The front left seat was reclined all the way back; Bird, sitting up, rubbed his eyes sleepily and said blankly, "What took you so long?"
Leaving Capitol City is not difficult. There are no stop points, no identity checks. There are PKF patrols at every intersection around the border, but they check only incoming traffic.
Trent owned three different cars, none of them under his own name. Only two of the three vehicles actually ran. The third car was properly registered each year, but only so that its license caster ID was kept current. As the car, with its windows opaqued, left Capitol City proper, floating at an even 45 kph past the PKF check stations, the car's license caster flickered for a moment, declared to the world that it was now a 2055 Chandler HammerHead running under carcomp control, and applied to TransCon for handling instructions. TransCon queried the destination and Trent said aloud, "The Red Line Hotel."
The carcomp said, "Destination approved. Proceeding."
Unobtrusively, over the space of nearly a minute, the car's polypaint, under the light from the street lamps and PKF glowfloats, brightened from black to pale blue. The vehicle's shape altered, memory plastic warping itself into a close approximation of the lines of a '55 HammerHead.
Behind them, back toward Capitol City, all was quiet. Trent sat in the front seat with Bird, listening on the car's radio to PKF and City Police bands. There was nothing abnormal on the City Police bands; PKF bands were almost totally silent except for two channels where Peaceforcers speaking in monotones kept assuring one another that everything was under control, and no, they didn't know yet what was happening either.
Punching for 115005-TRNT on the car's terminal got him nothing. Either web angels had taken Johnny Johnny down, or they'd come so close that Johnny had shut down for fear that they would.
Denice, in the back seat with Jimmy, said, "What?"
Trent said, "How's he doing?"
"I put him to sleep. How are you doing?"
"What do you mean?"
"You're talking to yourself, Trent. What did you just say?"
"Win a few, lose a few." Trent leaned back in his seat, relaxed into the gentle hum of the engines. He was aware of Bird watching him, of the weight of the boy's gaze upon him. "Carl--our father," he said to Bird, "used to say that, when things were so screwed up he didn't know what to do next."
The response left Bird visibly disturbed. He said after a moment, "And you don't know what to do now?"
"I'm afraid not, Bird." Trent stared out through the windshield, at the maze of spacescrapers, the aerial walkways and skystreets, the pre-dawn pedestrians, the cars and cabs and buses that clogged the thoroughfares of the city. "I need my traceset."
Denice said softly, "Trent?"
"I need my Image."
They took a two-room suite on the thirty-second floor of the Red Line Hotel. Denice checked them in under a false name while Jodi Jodi took Trent and Jimmy up through the service maglev. They had called ahead while still in the car; Tiny was waiting for them in their suite, with the doctor, when Trent carried Jimmy through the door. Jimmy was still unconscious; the doctor took one look at the missing arm, snapped, "Twice on this, Tiny, triple if the Peaceforcers did it," laid Jimmy down on the bed, sliced his shirt off and got to work.
Trent watched long enough to be certain the doctor knew what she was doing--a Fringe habit, and one he doubted he would ever shake--and went into the second room. Jodi Jodi and Tiny followed him in; Jodi Jodi closed the door behind them.
"How bad is it, Trent?"
Trent was undressing already, wadding the blue prison jumpsuit into a ball and tossing it to Jodi Jodi. "Burn this, please. I haven't figured out how bad it is yet. If you mean Jimmy, I think he'll be okay. Not much blood loss; he'll need a new arm grown, and maybe new legs, but he's not in danger of dying. Can you get me clothes?"
"What do you need?"
"A suit. Shoulder silks, no tie. Business clothes, conservative cut, they need to hang loose. Shoes I can run in." He stepped into the shower, ran it as hot as he could stand to get the smell of four days imprisonment off him. He spoke over the sound of the shower. "Can you get me a traceset? And an emblade?"
"Maybe. I'll check."
"My squirt gun's empty. Fadeaway?"
"Not a chance."
"How about an Image coprocessor?"
"This early in the day? You've got to be kidding."
"Then I have to go get your brother." Tiny was there; without even thinking about it Trent avoided using Johnny Johnny's name. "Bird should be all right; he was in the car the whole time, they won't have pictures of him. Jimmy and Denice--it depends on how well my Image took down the Peaceforcer Boards. All their records of the escape have to be gone. Without me helping I don't know if my Image was up to that."
"What about you, Trent?"
Trent ducked his head under the spray of water, punched for shampoo and waited while the spray turned sudsy, punched again for rinse and waited until the soap was off him, stepped out of the shower and started drying himself with one of the huge, dove-gray towels. "What about me?"
Not a minute after Trent had asked for it, Tiny laid out on the bed the suit Trent had requested, a black pinstripe that looked to Trent to be a size too large, black socks and a pair of black loafers with soft soles. An emblade, turned off, lay next to the shoes.
Jodi Jodi said, "What are you going to do?"
Trent dressed while talking. "They had me for four days. They have my prints, my face, my retinal scan, all in secure offline storage. They probably didn't get my voice print, and they don't, fortunately, have my gene map; until a couple hours ago I don't think anybody believed Emile that I was a genie. Extensive biosculpture can take care of what they do have on me. Right now my Image isn't answering his calls, and even if he was I don't have hardware for him to come over to. I have to go get him. You can send Bird out for things; Jimmy and Denice stay here until we know better what's happening. Have Denice call in sick with Madame Gleygavass; if Peaceforcers don't show up for Denice by the end of the day, they won't."
"Trent?"
Trent stopped tucking in his shirt at the tone in her voice. He looked over at her, standing next to Tiny. Neither one of them would quite look at him. "Yes?"
"Denice," said Jodi Jodi. "The girl has green eyes, Trent."
"So?"
"We can hide Jimmy, Trent. If we have to hide her as well it's a problem."
Trent spoke slowly. "How so?"
"There's prejudice, Trent. When you're gone--"
Trent winced.
"Trent, it needs to be said. I talked to Jimmy before he went to get you...." She seemed at a momentary loss for words. "Between the PKF, the Syndic and the Old Ones--my God, even the gendarmes will get in on it, they'll have to--you can't stay in the Patrol Sectors any longer. Maybe you can't stay in New York Metro, even if you go back to the Fringe. I don't know." She did look at him now, without flinching. "Your friends and acquaintances are known. We're safe from anything the PKF is really going to care about. Jimmy and Bird aren't, bu
t Bird wasn't seen; Jimmy we can hide, maybe have him sculpted. And bottom line is, he's not a genie, and I expect any genegineer in the world could testify to that. But Trent, my friend," she said gently, "that won't work for you, and it won't work for her, will it? You really did come out of Project Superman, both of you, and any genegineer could prove it. And she's a telepath."
Trent glanced at Tiny, said nothing.
Jodi Jodi interpreted the glance correctly, sighed. "Tiny's safe or I wouldn't be talking like this. Trent, listen: if it turns out she's wanted, we can hide her here for a while. But only a while."
Trent was silent for a moment, then nodded. "Okay. Thanks. If it turns out to be necessary, I'll think of something. The Red Line is safe for her?"
"For a while," said Jodi Jodi again. "If the Peaceforcers suspect anything, it's not. Five of the seven people on the Red Line's Board of Directors are French, Trent."
"I understand." Trent slipped into the coat, sat down on the bed and pulled on the socks and shoes. "How do I look?"
"Your silks are crooked." Jodi Jodi adjusted them herself, stepped back and said, "Now they're okay."
"Thank you," said Trent simply. "I have to go."
She nodded. "Be careful."
"As opposed to what?" He opened the door to the front room without waiting for an answer, looked out quickly. The doctor had an IV dripping into Jimmy's right arm, was trimming the cauterized flesh away from the stump of his left arm. Denice had finished checking them in; she sat on the side of the bed, holding Jimmy's remaining hand between hers. She looked up at the whispery sound of the door curling open, met Trent's eyes. Trent?
He stepped forward, with Jodi Jodi and Tiny following him. "Yes?"
"Where are you going?"
"You know."
Trent was struck abruptly by how exhausted Denice looked, how pale she was. "Trent. That's the one place in the world where they're sure to be expecting you."
"I lost Ralf the Wise and Powerful," Trent said quietly. "I'm not going to lose him as well."
Denice Castanaveras stared at him as though she were certain he had lost his mind. "Trent, he's just a program."
"So," said Trent with perfect evenness, "are you."
It was nearly eight a.m. when the car pulled onto the Manhattan Bridge and drove out over the East River. It was a misty, pale gray morning, with high clouds blocking the sunlight; a morning that matched Trent's mood exactly. He'd instructed the car to take him to Manuelo's Italian Restaurant, on Clinton Avenue three blocks to the west of Kandel Microlectrics Sales and Repairs. Assuming TransCon was monitoring traffic to and from the shop--and they were, or they were fools, which Trent did not assume--a destination three blocks away from the shop should still be safe.
He listened to the radio on his way home. There was nothing of note; the PKF admitted to a disturbance in the Detention Center in Capitol City, but no more than that. There was no word there had been an escape by a Detention Center prisoner. Trent considered calling Beth, but aside from apologizing for the stupidity of his friends he could not imagine what he would say to her.
The car parked itself on the first level of the garage that extended three levels beneath Manuelo's. The restaurant was not open, and would not be until ten o'clock, for early lunch. Trent took the maglev up one floor, to the slidewalk, and walked down Park, in the dark area beneath the Bullet's monorail, to the rear entrance of the Temple of Eris.
Reverend Andy answered the back door himself. He was a huge, amazingly large black man, 210 centimeters tall, 120 kilos, who had once been a professional football player. Many people, those who knew him only casually, found him intimidating. Reverend Andy seemed unsurprised to see Trent standing on his back doorstep; he poked his head briefly outside, looked quickly up and down the street, and motioned Trent to come in.
"Come on," he said, "upstairs." Wrapping his sari more tightly about himself, Reverend Andy moved quickly up the flight of stairs at the back of the temple. Trent followed him without speaking. The buildings that held the Temple of Eris and Kandel Microlectrics were laid out in almost identical fashion; the same company had designed and built both of them.
Once they reached the second floor Reverend Andy seemed to relax a bit. He ushered Trent into his office, palmed the door shut behind him, and plopped down into the overstuffed leather chair behind his desk. The chair creaked alarmingly beneath him.
"Jimmy and Bird," Reverend Andy said slowly, "they busted you out?"
"Yes. How's Jack?"
Reverend Andy shrugged. "He's staying with us. Peaceforcers sealed the shop, but they don't seem interested in him. He'd be asleep right now; it's been a tough week for the poor guy, he ain't young no more." Reverend Andy paused a beat. "You know I got no connections with the Claw, Trent. I run a clean Temple, no politics."
"I know."
"Okay." He fixed Trent with a piercing gaze. "What they say about you, Trent. Being a genie and all, it's true?"
"Yes."
Reverend Andy nodded. One hand tugged at his bushy, half-gray beard. "You come from that Project Superman?"
"Yes."
"You read minds?"
"No."
Reverend Andy exhaled slowly, a long, deep breath. "Thank the Good Lord and his Prophet Harry. I've got some secrets, I don't mind telling you, matters of the confessional circles and the Tax Boards, I wouldn't want to see spread around. Well." He looked up at Trent suddenly. "What'd you come back for, Trent?"
"My Image coprocessor, Reverend."
Reverend Andy looked interested. "You're really a Player like they said?"
"Yes."
"By Harry." Reverend Andy leaned forward in his chair. "All this time I've thought you were just a nice, polite young man who stole things for a living, and here you are a genie and a Player all at once."
"We have walls in common, Reverend, and I need to use one. The entrances to the shop will be sealed. If I cut through them the word goes up right then. As long as there's no motion sensors left inside the shop, chopping through the wall won't alert anybody."
Reverend Andy made a dismissing motion. "Don't talk to me about motion sensors and the like, Trent. I'm just a preacher. You should know, there are Peaceforcers in front of Jack's shop, just parked there. Been there about two hours. And they got with them a pair of those crawly things that--"
"Hunting waldos."
"Them," Reverend Andy agreed.
"Anything else?"
"Can't think of anything."
Trent waited.
Finally Reverend Andy, looking distinctly uncomfortable, said, "Damn it, Trent, you chop through the wall and it looks like we helped you in."
"There's no proof, Reverend. Nobody saw anything, nobody heard anything except you; that's the truth. And the PKF doesn't mess with holy men; they wouldn't dare brain-drain you, for example. If you do get annoyed by the PKF, my lawyer, Beth Davenport, is on retainer; it's got around twenty-five hours left on it before she needs to be paid again. She'll put a stop to it."
"What's in it for the Temple, Trent?"
"I have nothing to offer you, Reverend."
Reverend Andy looked desperately unhappy about it all.
Trent said, "I need your help."
Reverend Andy came to his feet, moving his vast bulk with such ease and grace that Trent was forcibly reminded that the man had been one of the most feared linebackers in the history of the WFL. "Stay here," he said sharply. "Let me clear people out of the way, and then come downstairs when I call. You can cut through from the kitchen; it'll look like you didn't get so far into the Temple, so maybe nobody saw you." The Reverend stopped in the doorway. "You owe me one, man."
Reverend Andy had helped get Trent and Jodi Jodi and Bird and Jimmy out of the Fringe, had transported them into the Patrol Sectors inside a Temple bus.
Trent shrugged and looked at the man and said simply, "Reverend Andy, I owe you everything. I couldn't pay you back if I spent my life at it."
For a single instant
a look that was almost pain flickered across the huge man's features, and then vanished. He came close to smiling. "You don't pay it back, little brother. You can't." He stood there in the doorway for a second longer. "You just send it on down the line."
The section of wall, about a meter in diameter, came loose; Trent reached forward as the chunk fell, caught it, and lowered it to the ground gently. He waited, twenty, thirty seconds, for a response from inside the shop.
Nothing.
Trent turned off the emblade, put it in his pocket, and ducked his head, crouching low to crawl through the new entrance; he had cut the wall at its lowest point, so that the piece, if he had missed it after knocking it through, would not have far to fall. He came through the wall in the back of the shop, underneath the workbench Old Jack normally used. He crouched in his suit beneath the workbench, listening to the silence, balancing himself with the fingers of both hands.
Still nothing.
He moved forward slowly into the walkway between the benches; the stairway leading up to the second floor was fifteen meters to his right, and the shop's entrance was forty meters to his left. He glanced toward the front of the shop; he could see the PKF hovercar Reverend Andy had told him about, parked across the street from the shop. From the angle at which it was parked, he could not see either of the PKF inside, which was just fine; they would not be able to see him either. He backed toward the stairway, still stooping to keep the work benches between him and the entrance, and had taken two steps up the stairwell when the quiet metallic clattering sound, the sound of steel on tile, froze him where he stood.
They'd left a hunting waldo inside the shop. Trent had only a moment to look at the low-slung waldo, to watch it in its horribly efficient, softly clicking glide across the floor toward him. He had just an instant to notice how brilliantly designed the thing was, its terrible functionality.
Trent turned and sprinted up the stairs, hit the top of the stairwell and cut left into the small bedroom that led upward to the third floor, dove into the bathroom and grabbed the bazooka that had been there when he moved in. Then, it had not been loaded; now it was.
The Long Run Page 11