Metal Fatigue

by Sean Williams

  "Whatever it is, it went right by us." He shook his head in disbelief. "Right under our noses, and we didn't even see it."

  "That's not quite true. Do you remember just before the Shadow appeared on the roof, when David picked up a few 'small movements' ? One of them was the door to the basement toilets. It moved slightly, as though a breeze had blown it open."

  "But it wasn't a breeze."

  "Evidently not. The tape shows the ... ... going through the door quite clearly, once you know what to look for."that

  "Shit." He ran a hand through his hair. "But how did it get into the toilets in the first place? Are you going to tell me it was there all the time?"

  "If the Shadow set off the alarm at Emergency Services, then it might have been — although that means someone must have known about Blindeye before we started setting up that morning."

  "I don't want to think along those lines."

  "Neither do I, but the only other entrance is via the sewers."

  "And I think we can rule that out."

  She let him ponder what she had found for a moment before calling up another image: Roads in the reading room, reaching out a hand to grab the power cable of the data fiche drive.

  "I haven't shown you the best bit yet."

  He groaned. "Go on."

  "Okay. Look over your left shoulder when I run the tape."

  He nodded, and she set it going at half speed. Predictably, the glitch glided into view from behind a bookshelf and drifted toward him. It grew larger, suggesting that it was getting closer, then became the Mole.

  The transition was almost instantaneous. First the thief wasn't there, then he was. It looked like magic.

  "A cloak of invisibility?" Roads suggested, only half believing it himself. "Some sort of gadget that can bend light around him, but not completely — hence the 'dimpling' effect?"

  "Maybe. He'd get through the trip-wires that way."

  "Easy."

  "But you're forgetting infra-red — "

  "No, it masks that too."

  " — and his mass. The dimple passed over a number of pressure-sensitive pads without setting them off."

  "He jumped over them."

  "Don't be ridiculous, Phil."

  "Have you got a better idea?"

  "'Better' isn't the word I'd use." Her face was clouded as her hands moved over the keyboard, calling up an image of the Mole in mid-transformation. The thief's teeth looked longer than Roads remembered, and he hadn't noticed the subtle shift in posture. The Mole looked hunchbacked in the picture, crouched over a quailing Roads.

  "Are you trying to tell me something?"

  "I'm not sure, Phil." Next she produced an image of the five points of light she had seen emerging through the shattered skylight. That, in turn, reminded Roads of the recording Morrow had given him, of the Mole's image in infra-red: five points at throat, nipples and hips.

  "A pentagram," said Barney, "often associated with werewolves, has five points."

  "Don't be ridiculous. That's impossible."

  "Less impossible than a cloak of invisibility?" She shrugged. "Weirder things have happened. Just look at him; have you seen someone do that before?"

  "No, and I refuse to believe it. The Mole is not a werewolf."

  "But what if he thinks he is?"

  The small joke didn't raise a smile. "Besides, werewolves can't make themselves invisible."

  "Can't they? Have you ever asked one? Maybe that explains why they've never been seen."

  "Don't be a smartarse." He scowled furiously, even as he remembered his earlier "ghost" theory and his comment to Chappel that he was ready to believe anything. "There has to be another explanation."

  "Right. Let me know when you find it," she said. "Look, I hate admitting this as much as you do, but I've got the creeps. The Mole can change his shape at will, can even become invisible whenever he wants to. We all saw him do it, but no-one can explain how he did it. If he's not a werewolf or whatever, then what the hell is he?"

  "Better than us, that's all. His behaviour seems incredible, yes, but all we have to do is work out how he's doing it, what he's using, and it'll make sense. Trust me."

  "That's what you said two days ago."

  He was about to snap back a response when the intercom on his desk buzzed.

  "Officer Roads?" The voice belonged to the secretary he shared with the other senior officers on the fifth-floor switchboard.

  Roads tsked in annoyance. "What is it, Marion?"

  "I know you said you didn't want to be interrupted, but there's somebody down at reception who simply won't go away."

  "Who?"

  "She won't say."

  "What does she want?"

  "To see you. All she'll tell me is that it's in connection with the incident on Old North Street."

  Roads sighed and reached for another pain-killer. He didn't have time to waste on extraneous details — but he couldn't afford to turn away anyone who might have information relating to the case.

  "Officer Roads?"

  "Okay, Marion. Have her escorted up to my office."

  "Yes, sir."

  He swigged from the bottle of water and swallowed the tablet.

  Barney shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "Do you want me to stick around?"

  "If you like. We'll continue this conversation later." He switched off the screen, and the image of the bestial Mole vanished. "That's a promise."

  * * *

  The girl was Katiya, the one with the missing boyfriend. Roads let her in, dismissed the escort, and told her to take a seat. She sank into the chair, glancing nervously around the room.

  "Coffee?" asked Roads. The woman nodded, and he buzzed for some via the intercom.

  "Thanks for coming, Katiya," said Barney, smiling encouragingly.

  "That's okay," she said. "If I can help in any way, it'll be worth it."

  The coffees arrived. As Katiya took hers, the sleeve of her grey T-shirt rose a few centimetres and Roads caught a glimpse of her inner arm. It was pock-marked with tiny scars.

  "I understand you have some information for us," he prompted.

  The woman shifted in her seat. "I remembered something last night. It may not be relevant, but I thought you might like to know."

  "What was that?"

  "The house you were investigating — number 114? It used to receive deliveries after curfew."

  Roads glanced at Barney. "What sort of deliveries?"

  "I don't know, exactly. Every now and again, a truck would pull up outside. A couple of men would unload it and take stuff inside. Most of it was in crates, but occasionally I'd see something strange. They were unloading machines; not drugs or anything, just machines."

  "What sort of machines?"

  "I couldn't tell; it was always dark. They weren't weapons, if that's what you're thinking." Katiya hesitated for an instant, then added: "Some of the crates had been burnt in places, as though they'd been in a fire. I don't know whether that means anything or not."

  "Maybe." Roads made a note on a pad. "How about the men? Would you be able to give us a description?"

  Her response was instantaneous: "No. I never got a good look at them."

  "And the truck? Did it have any markings?"

  "Sorry. It was just a truck, like the ones they use down at the plants — but not one of them, if you know what I mean."

  "I do." Roads did understand: it was dangerous to talk too openly in her neighbourhood. "Anything else?"

  "No, that's all. Does it help?"

  "It might." Even without a clear ID, she had given him something to consider: it now seemed likely that the stolen EPA44210s were parts of machines of some sort, as Morrow's description had implied. Whether that knowledge helped in the long run remained to be seen.

  Katiya folded her hands tightly in her lap, the thumbs of each hand worrying at her knuckles. "Good," she said, clearly waiting for his next move.

  Roads weighed his options. He could continue questioning her
, probably without success, or he could find out whether she wanted anything in return.

  "Well," he said, trying to sound casual. "Thanks for coming in. I'll see what I can do about getting you a lift home, if you like."

  She leaned forward. "Not yet. I... I need to ask you a favour."

  He retreated into the chair. "We don't pay for information, if that's what you want."

  "No, I don't mean money." One hand rubbed absently at the scars under her arm, and Roads decided that they were old, symptoms of a past addiction.

  "What, then?"

  "I'd like to file a missing-person report."

  "Your boyfriend hasn't come back?" Barney asked.

  Katiya shook her head, scattering her long, dark hair. "No, and I'm starting to get worried. Really worried. He's never done this before."

  Barney cast Roads a glance that clearly said: I told you so.

  Roads switched on the terminal and called up the missing-person menu. Filing such reports was a simple process and wouldn't take more than five minutes.

  "Okay." He glanced at her over the screen. "We need your name, first."

  "Just Katiya."

  He typed it in. "Occupation?"

  "I, uh, work in a reclamation plant. Plastics."

  "Address?"

  "116 Old North Street. I don't have a phone, or a news terminal."

  Roads noted the number. The woman had lied about living next door to the house the Mole had broken into. She must have gone elsewhere temporarily to evade the patrol he had sent to check that she'd left. "Your boyfriend's name?"

  "Cati." She spelt it for him.

  "Is that his real name?" The name sounded familiar, although Roads didn't know why. An automatic word-search through the latest population census revealed nothing.

  She shrugged. "I think so. It was written on some of his clothes when I first met him, so I just assumed ..."

  "He never told you otherwise?"

  "No." The faint smile reappeared. "But that's because he can't speak. He's mute."

  Roads glanced at Barney, who raised an eyebrow. He jotted a note under the Description column.

  "Can you think of any reason why he'd leave?"

  "None. We're happy together, and I don't think he'd manage very well without me." She looked embarrassed. "We rely on each other an awful lot, and we don't have any friends."

  Roads could sense her loneliness and felt sorry for her. To be so dependent on another person that life would crumble without them was a fate he had successfully avoided most of his life.

  "I understand," he said. "I don't suppose you thought to bring a photo?"

  "No. I don't have one."

  "Okay. We'll patch together a verbal description, then. Where and when did you last see him, and what was he wearing?"

  "Three nights ago. We went to bed together, but when I woke up the next morning, he was gone. I guess he'd be wearing what he always wears when he goes out. He has this floppy grey hat and a really old overcoat that I keep trying to throw out. And sunglasses, even if it's night..."

  The expression on Roads' face brought her to a halt. Barney, too, was staring.

  "What is it?" asked Katiya. "Have you seen him?"

  "Wait," said Roads. "Three nights ago" was the night he and Barney had met Keith Morrow. He tapped at the keyboard for a moment, then turned the screen to face her. It showed the picture of the man Roads had chased from Old North Street: the huge figure, the hat and coat, and half a profile. "Is this him?"

  Katiya's face fell. "He's mixed up in something, isn't he?"

  Roads hastened to placate her, trying to keep the excitement welling in him under control. "We don't know for sure whether he's involved or not, Katiya, but we have to take a physical description. At the very worst ... and I don't want to frighten you unnecessarily ... we might need it to identify his body."

  She took a deep breath and didn't meet his eyes. "He's big, and very strong. You know that already. What else would you like?"

  "Does he have any distinctive marks?"

  "A tattoo on his left thigh — not a picture, just numbers — and a scar on his back, across his shoulder blades. Apart from that, nothing, except for his skin itself."

  Roads leaned forward. "His skin? What about his skin?"

  "It's red. As though he's been scalded." She looked at him closely. "Why?"

  "Nothing." He felt light-headed. "What colour is his hair?"

  "He doesn't have any, anywhere. Not even eyelashes." She hesitated, and he could tell that there was more she wasn't going to tell him.

  "What will you do if you find him?" she asked.

  "That depends on the circumstances," he said by rote, trying to conceal his elation while he tapped the information into the computer. This was more than he could possibly have hoped for. "Unless we have good cause, he'll be free to go. As his partner, you'll be notified, of course — either way."

  "Thank you." She glanced at Barney. "I hope I'm not being too much trouble."

  "Not at all." Roads stood. "I owed you one anyway, for what you told me."

  Barney showed her to the door, opened it.

  "Wait." Roads gestured apologetically, as though he had just remembered something. "One last question, Katiya — something I should have asked you earlier."

  She turned in the doorway. "Yes?"

  "What colour are Cati's eyes?"

  "Grey," she said. "And black."

  He smiled widely. "Thanks. That's all I need to know."

  She opened her mouth, as though about to speak, but turned away and disappeared up the hallway without looking back.

  Barney closed the door and returned to her seat, where she leaned back with her legs crossed.

  "So," she said. "Cati is the man from Old North Street. The description of his appearance matches almost perfectly."

  "He's much more than that." Despite the aches and pains of his body, Roads had begun to feel good about the day at last. "His description matches that of the Shadow on the library roof."

  Barney frowned. "How do you figure that?"

  "Red skin, grey-black eyes and no hair." He could no longer suppress a grin of triumph. "That's the face I saw looking back at me through the skylight."

  "Through the ...? So that's what you saw. Why didn't you tell me?"

  The lie came all too easily: "Because I wasn't certain my recollection was accurate."

  "And you've let her go?" She leaned forward, half out of the chair. "He's her boyfriend, for God's sake! She must be worth holding for interrogation, if nothing else."

  He held up a hand. "She doesn't know anything more than she told us. I'd bet money on it. She's just a frightened girl afraid that her boyfriend's in an awful lot of trouble."

  "He might well be, Phil."

  "But not for the reason you think."

  She frowned. "I don't understand."

  "Cati is biomodified."

  Realisation dawned. "And she thinks we're after him because of that. Of course she would."

  "He is both mute and physically intimidating. He looks worse than a berserker, and wouldn't stand a chance of defending himself before a Humanity court. He'd be expelled from the city for sure, or killed outright."

  "So why did she come to us?"

  "Because she wants to find him, first and foremost, and to discover how much we know. I don't think we've put her mind at rest on either score, but at least she's done something. It'll make her feel better, having tried."

  Barney collapsed back into her seat. It was clear that she was unsatisfied with his reasoning, but he could give her nothing more.

  "So what do we do now?" she asked.

  "I want a stake-out on her building just in case Cati comes home. If we can haul him in, we might find out exactly what he was doing last night."

  "Right. I'll organise it straight away."

  "And then you can help me look through the datapools."

  "For?"

  "Anything." He went back to the screen of Katiya's Mis
sing Persons report. "His name rings a bell, but I don't know why."

  "A hunch?"

  "Maybe. I don't think he's the Mole, but he's certainly involved. He'll lead us somewhere, I'm sure of it."

  "You bloodhound, you. Half a sniff and your tail starts to wag." She smiled. "The resemblance between you and the Mole obviously goes deeper than I thought."

  He pointed at the door, and she took the hint.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  4:45 p.m.

  He sent the report identifying Cati to Data Processing, where it would be put onto the daysheets for the attention of the next shift. He doubted the prompt would produce any results, but figured it was worth a try. Then he logged into Kennedy's central datapool and began to browse.

  His first line of inquiry hit a brick wall within half an hour. The name 'Cati' had no reference anywhere in the files he pulled, except for one misspelled word in an old street directory. Next he scanned an alphabetical list of every name on record, but found nothing between Cathy and Catic.

  If Cati was not officially listed among Kennedy's two million citizens, then trying to find him by inference would be like looking for one grain of sand in a salt-shaker by touch alone. Without a genetic sample to cross-reference through the population records, that avenue was closed.

  Giving up on Cati for the time being, he moved to the Mole. Barney's 'weirder things have happened' theory didn't hold water as far as he was concerned, but he had to consider it regardless. He called up a file on werewolves and skimmed through it to the end. Most of it was hearsay and legend, with a brief mention of the pop-culture that had grown around the myth during the mid-twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The only thing he learned that he didn't already know was that there had been werewolf sightings reported to RSD since the War, but none more recent than two years earlier.

  That left the cloak of invisibility, and another long shot.

  He buzzed the switchboard.

  "Marion? See if you can track down O'Dell. I don't know where he is, but I need to talk to him ASAP."

  "Yes, sir." She returned a moment later: "He's tied up in a meeting. I can't break in."

  "Okay. Leave an urgent message for him to call me as soon as he's free, will you?"