Robert Charrette - Arthur 03 - A Knight Among Knaves

by Robert N. Charrette

What was he thinking about? He had no time for idle speculation. He needed to concentrate on the job at hand. Yes. Do it and be done with it. Get free of the facility and back into the real world. That's what he needed to be thinking about.

  "Data acquired," the console announced.

  His program had done its job and collected the Westwind file, his ticket out. He dumped the file to chip and pocketed it.

  "Good time on retrieval," Chartain said.

  He didn't need to be told that.

  Holger turned in place. As he did, he took his right hand from the pocket of his greatcoat. Gilmore and Chartain stared at the H&K Viper™ that he held in that hand. The weapon wasn't really a Viper, but it looked like one. Felt like one too, almost. The weight was the same but the balance was a little off. But to all appearances it was a standard-issue weapon. Were they wondering if he had replaced the test's surrogate with the real thing? Chartain's hand was sliding toward his hip and the holstered pistol there. The major would have seen that the safety on Holger's weapon was off. "Entertaining doubts, Major?" Holger asked him. Holger shot them both. A bullet in each neck. Chartain first. They looked surprised. They shouldn't be, especially Gilmore. They should have known that he would be playing to win this little game. Was he supposed to let them raise the alarm before he'd gotten out of the facility?

  The anesthetic in the bullets was fast, but not fast enough. Holger had made the neck shot to minimize the delay in reaction to the drug. Chartain fought it. Holger had to step close and take Chartain's pistol away from him. Chartain didn't struggle long. Holger laid him on the floor beside Gilmore.

  Once he'd instructed the door to seal after he left, and the workstations to simulate activity, Holger plucked Chartain's badge from his pocket and clipped it to the front of his own greatcoat. He took the major's hat from the rack by the door as well. The fit was satisfactory; he hadn't been sure that it would lie. He was pleased. The security officers were considerably less vigilant about checking persons leaving the facility than they were about those coming in. Just as well for him—if anyone looked closely at the photo, he would not pass for Chartain. But no one would be looking closely at him. The hat, the military-cut greatcoat, and the mere presence of the badge would be enough to disguise him as long as no alert was on, and he had just arranged that the alert would be late.

  The next step was to walk out of the Philips Sanitorium as if he had every right in the world to do so. And didn't he? The world outside was waiting.

  CHAPTER

  3

  In weeks of looking, John hadn't found where Spillway Sue slumped. With no money to spread among the streeters, he'd gotten no talk from them. He was still new enough that the locals wouldn't open up to him out of kindness or in hopes of earning his goodwill. Yet, for some reason he didn't really understand, he felt that he needed to try again to find her before he left with Bennett.

  He was sure Sue knew he was looking. She was well established on the street. Surely some of those John had asked were her friends or owed her favors, if not loyalty. They would have talked to her. So why hadn't she come out of hiding? She could have found him anytime; she knew where he slumped. Why hadn't she contacted himl

  John didn't want to believe that Sue was hiding from him, but that seemed the inevitable conclusion. They had only begun to discover each other—he didn't want it to end without a word. He was afraid it already had.

  He drifted through the neighborhood south of 195 near the river. Without knowing where Spillway Sue might be, all he could do was check places where she had been seen and hope that he would run across her. His path was nearly as aimless as the errant leaves that rattled and rasped along the pavement driven by the chill autumn wind. The leaves didn't know where they were going, any more than did John. John's thoughts were as tumbled as the leaves.

  Sue—about whom he knew so little—had spent years on the street, maybe her entire life, while he had been raised in safe corporate turf. They had grown up in different worlds. What did they have in common? They had shared a harrowing time, confined by the dwarves who had taken Bear. Isolated from contact with anyone other than the dwarves, John and Sue had grown into a strange sort of closeness, two frightened kids as scared of what was happening around them as they were of their attraction to each other. Though he didn't understand the attraction, John couldn't deny it.

  He also couldn't escape the feelings of guilt he felt whenever he stopped to think about it.

  How could he be so attracted to Sue? What about Faye? John was living with Faye, if you could call sharing a slump with an incorporeal presence "living together." Faye was his confidante and friend, as she had been since he was a kid. But John wasn't a kid anymore, and only recently he had learned that Faye had never been one. She was one of the Faery folk, an ethereal being from the otherworld. Ever since he first saw her in the—was flesh the right word?—on his first trip to the otherworld, his feelings toward her had changed. She had become real in a way he had never anticipated. Since then, he'd been all too aware of the sexual attraction between them, an attraction simultaneously frustrated and enhanced by her intangibility.

  In some ways, Faye was as much a mystery to him as Spillway Sue.

  Faye hadn't understood why John didn't leave at once with Bennett, the guy who had once tried to kill her. She had been full of good reasons for John to go. In Faery, John could learn about his heritage. In Faery, John could be what lie was born to be. In Faery, John would come into his own. Hut she had missed one of the best. In Faery, Faye would be tangible. Beautiful, loving Faye would be touchable.

  But, in Faery, there would be no Sue.

  Despite the marked differences between the two women, John found each of them strikingly attractive. Different, but desirable. Equally desirable? John wasn't sure. At best, in

  the right light, Sue was pretty, in an earthy sort of way; she was a real world woman, and she had been on the streets a long time. Faye was, without a doubt and by any standard; beautiful. Admittedly, John had only seen her by the fey an deceptive light of the otherworld, but he was sure her beaut was no glamour. Had the issue been looks alone, the choice would have been easy, but John's longing for Sue had a fierce heat that was missing from his slow burning desire fo Faye. Lately he had been telling himself that he needed to see Sue again, that talking with her would settle his confusion.

  He wondered if Faye knew how he had been spending his time away from the slump. He certainly hadn't told her. He still hadn't told Faye about what happened between him and Sue, that they had made love in the slump upon their return J from captivity. Things had gotten dangerous shortly thereafter and there hadn't been time to talk. Later—well, later the time never seemed right. Faye had never mentioned the incident, and John had let it lie, lacking the courage to bring it up. Talking to Faye about the longings that he felt for Sue just seemed wrong.

  And there was no one else to talk to about it. Even if he were still around, Bear wouldn't understand the problem. Talking to Dr. Spae was out of the question. Maybe if John's mother were still around. But no, even had he been able to find her, he would have found no solace there; no matter what she said Marianne Reddy still thought of John as her little boy, and little boys didn't have these kinds of problems. There was no one he could talk this out with but Sue. Only he hadn't been able to find her to talk to her.

  Bennett had given him twenty-four hours to take care of his business. Even without Bennett's deadline, John had a sense that time was slipping away. The more he walked, the more he felt sure that unless he succeeded in finding Sue tonight, the opportunity to straighten things out between them would slip away. The seasons of the year were poised on the cusp of change, and the wind seemed to carry whis-

  pers that all would be different soon. Somehow he felt that the wind had the truth of it.

  Most of the night was gone and John was tired. The wind started to pick up, so he took the first offer of shelter, the entryway of a building. He leaned against the wall, grateful
to be free of most of the wind. He could hide from the wind, but he couldn't hide from his problems.

  Why couldn't things be simple?

  A leaf gusted into the alcove and fetched up against his boot, a fellow refugee from the rising tumult. Another leaf blew in and landed atop the first, clinging to it. A third tumbled in, fluttering over the first two and leaping the toe of John's boot to skitter about the alcove in an errant vortex, John shifted his foot. The first two leaves joined the third and all three were swept up and tossed back onto the street. John watched them flutter away, tumbling over and around each other. They whisked past a figure moving furtively along the street. A slight figure, wearing a familiar floppy hat. The figure wore layered clothing, pure bag-lady fashion, but the jumble of rags couldn't disguise the lithe, lively grace of the body beneath them. Spillway Sue.

  He watched her approach, waiting for her to notice him. She seemed unaware of his presence in the shadowed entry-way. She had almost passed by the time he realized that she wasn't going to acknowledge him. He stepped out.

  And she spun to face him, pulling a pistol from somewhere within the tattered rags. She pointed the weapon at him. Streetlight reflections flashed from the three tiny chrome studs implanted on her cheek, highlighting the smooth curve of the bone and the delicate slope of her nose.

  "Tall Jack," she said in a tone halfway between question and statement. Her eyes were narrowed, suspicious.

  He couldn't tell if she was glad to see him. "Hello, Sue."

  "Ya shouldn't oughta sneak up on me like that."

  If a gun had become her answer to anyone approaching her, she was right. He kept his hands clear of his body. She sighed, and the gun disappeared back beneath the rags. He was glad of that. Guns were loud and ugly, not her style at all. "I've been looking for you."

  "I know."

  "Why have you been hiding from me?"

  Instead of answering his question, she scanned the street around them. "Oughta not stand around in the open."

  She led him back the way she'd come, back into the shadows from which she had emerged, the darkness was an alley mouth. They traversed several more alleys between the tightly packed buildings before she led him down a short. flight of stairs to a door. Sue unlocked the door and opened : it, gesturing him inside. He went in.

  The interior was a rat's warren of trash, its only illumination a fading Bulbstrip™. She led him on a twisting path through the debris to another smaller room, less cluttered but no cleaner. Another Bulbstrip, somewhat healthier, lit the place. A mattress sprawled in one corner. In another, a pers-comp, conspicuous by its newness, sat on a board supported by two sawhorses. A jury-rigged patch connected the box to the building's power line. Another cord, a communications line, snaked up and through a small hole in the construction plastic covering the window. There wasn't much else beyond a box holding a couple of apples, a three-pack of YoHo Choc Drink™, and a few Readi-2-eat™ meals.

  "Is this where you've been staying?" he asked. The place wasn't really any worse than his own slump, but he didn't like the idea of Sue staying here. She deserved better.

  "It's a place. Guess I'll hafta find another." She shrugged, fiddling with the keys of the perscomp and not looking at him. "Watcha want?"

  He didn't want to lose her again. Impulsively he reached out and took her shoulders between his hands. Her muscles tensed under his touch. For a moment he feared that she would tear herself free from his grip, but she didn't. Slowly she turned to face him. She said nothing.

  He was drowning in her eyes.

  I don't want you to run away from me," he told her when he found his voice.

  Her answer was slow in coming. "It's not you."

  Then why?"

  It's—" She turned her face away. She seemed to be struggling for a way to express the problem. "It's that weird stuff. It's scary, Jack. That winged monster. The creepoid place ya slump. And that elf guy who says he's your father. I don't understand it, Jack. It's like a bad virtual, only it ain't a virtual. It's all too weird."

  Sometimes John felt that way himself. Gently he turned her face back to his. "There's nothing to be afraid of."

  "Ain't there? Ya telling me ya got it all under control?"

  Her eyes were so deep, her warmth so near.

  Under control? Hardly.

  Mis lips sought hers. After a frozen second, she responded. their hands groped through the barriers of clothes that separated them. His hand found her gun's hiding place. She didn't object when he put it aside; in fact, she helped. There wore more important, more immediate needs. The mattress in her slump was dirty and it stank of mildew, but it was softer than the floor. He basked in her heat, bathed in her passion, and when it was over and they lay in each other's arms, he felt full, satisfied, sated. She curled warmly in his embrace, almost purring.

  He would have been content to pass eternity that way, but she wasn't. From beneath the mattress she pulled a headset and put it on. Music, or something resembling it, leaked from the earpiece. John had thought that they might talk. He tapped the headset and raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  "Crying Child™," she said, smiling, and slipped the headset onto John. "It's Willie Hunter's new album. I don't know if I like it yet. She's been experimenting a lot since she left Urban Wilderness™. Ya like?"

  Experimental was a kind way of describing what John was hearing. The pounding, raucous beat trashed most of the lyrics, but at least it did have lyrics. Most popular sound only used words as another kind of noise, and John had never cared much for music that didn't have a story or theme. Words had always made the music's story clearer for him He tried to find the story in the piece he was listening to. It took a few moments but he finally caught a bit of the tale be hind the music, realizing with surprise that the song had something to do with the legend of Tam Lin. Willie Hunter's plaintive voice was complaining of the queen's "timely tithe to hell."

  John was reminded of the passage of time.

  "I have to go away for a while," he said.

  The suspicion that had been in her eyes when they met on the street returned. To allay it, he said, "I'll come back."

  "When?" Her voice was very soft, guarded.

  "Soon."

  The talk didn't go very well, but in the end, by the time he had to leave, she said that she understood.

  "I keep my promises," he told her.

  She smiled, and kissed him, and said, "See ya soon, then."

  CHAPTER

  4

  Holger was driving south on the M27 heading for Southampton's old city center when the alarm went up. The agent he'd left active in the facility's computer had detected the signs, watched for and captured the alert, and narrowcast a copy to him. In reaction to Holger's neutralization of gilmore and Chartain, the Department had chosen to break the rules of the test; the alert carried a directive from the big man to all involved agents: converge on the old city center. The free ride was over. Time to watch his back.

  He checked the time. Not bad. He hadn't gotten as far as he'd hoped, but not bad.

  He was a bit surprised by the directive. Vectoring the opposition in on him was contrary to the rules. Holger hadn't broken the rules of the game, just stretched them. Hardly a fair response to break them as a counter, but then it wasn't a fair world. In a fair world, it wouldn't be raining tonight.

  At least the big man hadn't gone all the way and revealed Holger's destination point. Not yet, anyway. The game was still on. There was still a decent chance for Holger to come out ahead.

  Someone passed him, horn blaring, and sluiced water across the windscreen. The wipers were momentarily rendered useless. When visibility returned to its previous miserable level, the taillights of the car that had passed him were already distant. That driver wasn't allowing himself much

  margin for error, given the road conditions. Whoever he was he was in a big hurry. Someone heading to cut Holger off?

  He wished he'd thought to have the computer agent primed to survey a
nd relay the messages to his hunters. Even a simple counting function would have told him the number of operatives arrayed against him. Then again, maybe it was just as well he hadn't added any functions to the agent. More muscle would have made the thing more visible to the De partment's safeguards. For all he knew, the agent had been detected and the message he'd just received was what the Department wanted him to receive. Operatives could be clos ing in on him right now. The hurried driver might be arranging a roadblock. Others might be—

  Paranoia, he told himself. A useful survival trait, if not overdone. There was no good reason to think his agent com promised. He was ahead in the game. He was doing fine He'd worked to eliminate problems and reduce the trouble he would have in the test, and he'd succeeded. Thinking other wise was just paranoia.

  Wasn't it?

  Certainly. He'd built a proper fail-safe into the agent. If it had been discovered, its complex of programs would have dissolved and unleashed a code eater to devour the fragments. The only reasonable course was to assume that the agent hadn't been compromised.

  He would have felt better if it hadn't been raining.

  It had been raining the day of the accident. He didn't remember much about the accident, but he remembered that, even though remembering made his head ache. The doctors said that the memory loss and the headaches were to be expected. Typical traumatic stress reaction. They said that in time, when he was better able to deal with it, he might remember. For now, they said, don't worry about it. The doctors had done what they could; the Department took care of its own. Don't worry about the past, they said. Deal with the present. Concentrate on the present.

  Good advice, given the road conditions.

  He almost missed the exit onto the A33 because he wasn't concentrating. It wouldn't do to miss his meeting with the contact in Southampton. A headache had come out of nowhere to almost blind him. The doctors had said that it might happen. It was mercifully brief; some kind of feedback problem, he guessed. A recurrence at the wrong time could be a real problem. He'd have to speak to the doctors about it. After the test was successfully completed.