Robert Charrette - Arthur 03 - A Knight Among Knaves

by Robert N. Charrette

  How could she know what was timely if she didn't know what was going on? "Perhaps there is another way to forestall whatever it is our friends at MetaD are planning. I'll have Duncan arrange an offer on the Pickman property."

  "Any offer will be refused," Hagen said confidently.

  Why was he so sure? "Is there something you're not telling me, Mr. Hagen?"

  "I am not prepared to discuss the matter further at this time, but be assured that the property will not be sold."

  More of his dwarven secrets? She disliked being prodded to action while information—possibly vital—was withheld. So far Hagen had always steered her in a direction that offered some significant gain or avoided some pitfall, yet something about the dwarf's attitude hinted that this time the interests of Mitsutomo and Hagen's secret masters might not be coincident. It would be best to have Duncan arrange some independent verification of the situation. In the meantime ...

  "We'll make the offer nonetheless." Hagen might be wrong, and if that was the case, she would enjoy telling him so. "However, just in case you are right, we will buy whatever adjacent properties MetaD has not already acquired."

  "A reasonable course of action."

  She hoped so. She was involving Mitsutomo primarily to satisfy Hagen's interests, though any chance to hinder a rival like MetaD was not to be snubbed. Such holding action was unlikely to harm the Keiretsu, but she didn't see the profit in it. Yet. Once she learned what MetaD was after, she would make sure there was profit for the Keiretsu, and for herself.

  Hagen rose from his seat. "If that is all?"

  "Have we begun to work at cross-purposes, Mr. Hagen?"

  Her question clearly caught him off guard. He schooled his expression, studying her stonily for several moments before replying. "I remain as committed as ever, Ms. Martinez."

  Committed to what goals? To hers and Mitsutomo's, or to those of his fellow dwarven conspirators? She had never thought to doubt his dedication, just his allegiance.

  "I recently received a message from Detective Gordon," she said, calling a copy and the attendant files to the wallscreen. "It seems that he has been ordered to close his investigation of the Wisteria killer. I would like an explanation of your role in this."

  Hagen read Gordon's note. He didn't bother to open the accompanying files. "I had no role in this."

  "You wanted the investigation stopped."

  "I discouraged your interest in the matter, yes, but I have not interfered with the police investigation. The matter more properly belongs in their sphere. Let them deal with this aberration inflicted upon us by the otherworld."

  "This particular aberration is being ignored." Which had not turned out to be the problem she had feared it might be. the killer's destination had not proven to be Brookfield or the facility where Quetzal had been held, and none of the recent incidents had touched upon Mitsutomo or any of the Keiretsu's dependents. The killer was one problem that had not come knocking on her door. Since she had apparently been wrong about the creature's connection with Quetzal, perhaps her suspicion of Hagen's motives was wrong as well. "So you had nothing to do with burying the investigation?"

  "Nothing. Gordon cites federal interference, which implies I sa and Dark Glass. That is an issue of concern. I will look into the matter."

  Her source, a congressman on the FSA oversight committee, had told her that the investigation was being dead-ended, labeled a hoax, by Dark Glass. She declined to tell Hagen that bit of information, preferring to see if his "look into the matter" would uncover it. She'd give him a chance. What he reported would tell her something about where he stood.

  The outside of the office building gave no sign that Holger's destination lay inside. The lack of an identifying logo gave him a moment of doubt, but only a moment. The street number on the wall confirmed that he had found the right building. What had he been expecting?

  What was he expecting?

  He was no more sure of that than of why he had come.

  But come he had. He was here. He gave a tug on the outer door and it swung open on well-oiled hinges. The supposedly silent screech of the security system drilled at his head as he entered. He wasted no time in the entry, ripping hard on the inner door to open a way into the lobby. There were people there, staring at his precipitous entrance, but he didn't care. The closing of the inner door cut off the annoying whine. Unknotting his facial muscles, he blinked a few times and looked around. The people were gone, leaving him alone in the lobby.

  The lobby area was T-shaped. He stood near the entry, at one end of the cap. An anonymous door lay ahead at the opposite end of the cap. To his left, down the upright of the T, two pairs of elevators. To his right, a glassed wall revealed a reception area with an untenanted desk. The letters on the door proclaimed it the law firm of Cohen Masters and Norton.

  Not who he was looking for.

  The wall of reconstituted marble framing the elevator en-

  nances held the usual controls and a set of bronze plaques thai had the names of the building's occupants, organized alphabetically by floor. All the names were presented in subdued serif letters, one plaque to each of the organizations. There were eleven names, thirteen if he separately counted Cohen Masters and Norton. The plaques were of varying sizes: small where several organizations shared a floor, larger where one had a whole level to itself. The largest, proclaiming possession of the top three floors, was also the newest. The screws holding that plaque were still shiny brass, not chemically aged as was the nameplate itself. No artificial dignity for them. The letters on the plaque were no larger than those on any of the others; they seemed almost lost in the expanse of the bronze. Holger nodded as he read the name: Pend Foundation.

  he punched the call button and the doors immediately opened on a waiting car. He was not asked which floor he wanted, so he looked to the controls. The two uppermost lonchpoints were covered by a panel, inaccessible. The Pend Foundation offered only one point of entry. He touched the button and stood staring blankly at the elevator opposite until the doors closed, then at the doors of his car. The ride was smooth, almost unnoticeable. No stops interrupted his transit; he was pleased.

  The doors opened on a reception area furnished in greens and golds and browns. The space was crowded with verdant growing things and caressed by soft, indirect lighting. He might have stepped into forest glade, or an advertisement for the foundation's Re-GreenSM program, or—No! He didn't want to think about that possibility, even if he did associate it with the man. The man hadn't liked being there. He wouldn't have duplicated that place here. To put thoughts of that place out of his mind, Holger focused on the ordinary, twenty-first-century things around him: the Cavendell™ wood-trimmed dish chairs, the stone-and-stump table with its vid readers and flimsy zines, the Glazz™ receptionist desk with its Sonymac Escritoire™ system.

  A secretary sat behind the desk, a university-issue vid reader propped before her. She was dressed in the old-fashioned style of frilly, high-necked blouse and long skirt in vogue among female radical Greens of her age group. She even wore glasses. He flashed on ID shots of similarly dressed women. Hardened, harsh women committed to a dangerous program of reform by terrorist threat. He hadn't seen her face before but her lack of makeup, long hair, and clothing was their look. Idealistic fashionable imitation or ideological livery? The answer to that question would tell him much about the foundation's practices, hiring and otherwise.

  The furtive glances she threw his way while he stood and stared at the reception area were those of a nervous young girl ill-prepared to deal with someone of his appearance. Her discomfort at his approach was apparent. He didn't care. He wasn't here to see her. He stood at the desk until he tired of her pretense that she was so engrossed in her reader that she hadn't noticed that he was there.

  "I want to see him."

  She looked up then, but still didn't meet his eyes. Afraid to, he supposed. Dangerous trash from the streets. He wanted to smile. He might be just that sort of thing
now. She seemed to think so, but her voice was polite when she spoke. He gave her points for that.

  "Whom do you mean, sir?" she asked.

  Which name? He wasn't sure. Without making a decision, he answered, "Bear."

  "We have no Mr. Bear on staff, sir."

  Something flashed on her console; Holger saw its reflection on the lenses of her glasses. The secretary excused herself and picked up a handset. What she was being told wasn't for him to hear, but he heard it anyway. The secretary was to be calm, reassuring, and to take him to office C. Did she understand?

  "Yes, sir," she said into the handset.

  Holger hadn't recognized the voice of the man who had spoken, but he went along. She led him to a door bearing the letter C. The room's lights came on as the door opened. She gestured for him to enter, and stepped clear so that he wouldn't have to pass too near her. The office was dominated by another Glazz desk, this one an executive model smoked to near opacity. Beyond the desk was another door, closed and unmarked. Wooden paneling made the room dark, the opaqued windows darker still.

  "Please be seated," she said. There were only two chairs in the room, one on either side of the desk. No mistaking where he was supposed to sit. "Someone will be along to see you in a moment."

  She closed the door. He heard a lock click, sealing him in the room. Curiously, though, he felt better almost as soon as the door closed. His mind felt clearer, less fuzzed than it had for—how long?—too long. He sat in the chair, listening to the buzz of ultrasonics in the walls, and waited.

  His seat was positioned in the exact center of the room. A calculated position, most likely. The placement focused him on the desk and the door behind it. A psychological power thing, or something more sinister?

  He didn't get time to puzzle it out. The door beyond the desk opened, revealing a stocky, bearded man. The man walked into the room and took the seat at the desk. To all appearances, this was the man Holger had seen on the video screen. But this was no man. There was no heat to this man. I le might have been made of dreams, all air and thoughts and memories and desires.

  "You're not real," Holger said to him.

  The false man's eyes slid a fraction to one side like a news anchor looking off screen when he didn't believe what his TelePrompTer told him. When his gaze returned to Holger, he said, "You are speaking to a telepresence projection."

  "I don't want to speak to a telepresence projection. I want to see the real man. Why are you doing this?"

  "A precaution. I'm sure you can understand. Just whom are you looking for?"

  "You."

  "You don't sound very sure."

  He wasn't. Had he made a mistake coming here? "The man I knew wouldn't hide behind a dummy."

  "Are you sure of that, Mr. Kun?"

  They knew who he was. Had he made a mistake? The projection looked like the man he sought, but projections could be synthesized. What could be digitized could be manipulated. Who really controlled the image? "The man I knew wasn't afraid to look another man in the eye."

  "The man you knew didn't understand the century in which he found himself."

  The image vanished. The door opened again and the man entered the office again. To all outward appearances he was identical to the first—but this one burned with the fire of life. This was the real man.

  Another man followed, shorter, stockier, and more heavily bearded. Holger started to reach for the weapon he wasn't carrying. He aborted the futile motion. Old reflexes, and, on a closer look, triggered inappropriately. He had never seen this man before.

  "Very jumpy," the short man said. "Still working for Department M, Mr. Kun?"

  Maybe his reaction hadn't been inappropriate.

  "I believe he thought you were someone else, Wilson. Someone I myself would have considered shooting on sight." Bear turned his attention to Holger. "What brings you here, Mr. Kun?"

  Holger was looking at the answer. "You."

  Bear folded his arms, wrinkling the fine fabric of his business suit. "You were more polite the last time you sought me out."

  "Things are different now." Very different. He had come here hoping that they could be more different still.

  "You certainly look different," Bear observed. "And the circumstances are different. We don't have any commandos creeping about with mayhem on their minds."

  Holger didn't like remembering the place, the strange elf place that was as much museum as palace, but he remembered the commandos who had assaulted the place and tried to kill them. He remembered fighting the men in black. Bear had fought them too. They had won, then the elf had come back and nearly stolen their victory. Holger didn't like remembering that. Bear had saved them. With the sword. The elf wouldn't face Bear when he had the sword in his hands. Holger smiled at the memory.

  "Who says he doesn't have mayhem in mind?" Wilson asked. He waved a hand at Holger. "Looks to me like good camouflage for an urban hunt."

  "Camouflage for the hunted," Holger said. He wanted Bear to understand.

  "Hunted?" Wilson didn't sound as if he believed. "By whom?"

  It was hard to say. "The Department."

  "You want us to believe that you've left them? Hard to believe that they'd let you go, considering how much they obviously have invested in you." Wilson scratched at his beard. "Artos, he's more likely a stalking horse—if not the hunter himself. They're still looking for you."

  Holger looked to Bear. "They don't believe in you. Only Spae believed, and she isn't with them anymore either. They want her, too, more than they do you. They don't believe that you are who you are, but I believe. I saw you with the sword. I remember."

  "He's babbling," Wilson said.

  "They did things to me. I don't know what. I didn't ask for it. I didn't. They broke the contract. They sent me after Spae. They told me she was a traitor, but they are the real traitors. They broke the contract." He knew that he said more, told them about the attempt against Spae, about his flight, about the voices. He knew he was prejudicing them, because to them, he must sound like a madman.

  "I think that sedation might be in order," Wilson whispered to Bear.

  "No needles!"

  Holger kicked the chair away as he regained his feet.

  Wilson crouched, protective of Bear. Bear himself didn't flinch. He just watched Holger, eyes calm, assured. Holger saw the strength there, strength that he needed, assurance that he needed.

  "No one here is going to hurt you, Mr. Kun," Bear said.

  Holger took the promise as truth.

  "Put down your weapon," Bear said.

  Weapon? Holger was holding something. He looked down. He didn't remember ripping the arm from the chair. He dropped it.

  "You know, Mr. Kun, I think I have some idea of what you are going through." Holger saw understanding in Bear's eyes, sympathy without pity. "We warriors have to look out for each other."

  "I showed you how to fire an H&K Viper," Holger said.

  "Short bursts," Bear said with a smile. "I kept forgetting. Still, what you taught me saved my life. I have not yet had the honor of returning that gift."

  "The sword," Holger said to remind him. "I saw you use it. I remember."

  "I wasn't fighting for you."

  Holger remembered. "You fight for us all."

  "Don't confuse the legend with the man. There was no King Arthur of Camelot, no Round Table of noble knights in shining armor. It's all legends and stories and lies."

  Not lies, not when there was truth at the heart. "Not all. You're real."

  "Real, yes, but no fairy-tale hero."

  "Heroes are for kids." And desperate men.

  "If I believed that you believed that..." Bear shook his head. "I am a man, Mr. Kun, not a hero. A man, just like you. Don't shake your head at me. You may not believe it now, but you will."

  "You're better than me."

  "We're both men. Men are fallible, and they make mis-takes, but real men own up to and fix their mistakes. Some die trying. What mistakes are you t
rying to fix, Mr. Kun?"

  "I —" He didn't have a clear answer. "You—" I can't fix your mistakes for you, but I can give you a chance to find them and fix them yourself. A chance, Mr. Kun. That's all you really want, isn't it?"

  Holger's knees felt weak. He let them go. The carpet was • ill and thick where he knelt. He looked up at the man who knew his heart so well. "I will be your man, of life and of limb—"

  Fealty is a bit after my time."

  I lolger blinked, confused. "You'll not take my oath?"

  "I didn't say that." Bear's smile was radiant with the warmth of absolution. "But not just yet. There are a few details yet to settle. Wilson, help Mr. Kun get cleaned up. I believe that he will be joining us in our fight."

  John wasn't surprised to find that the rezcom where Marianne Reddy was supposed to be living belonged to a member of the Mitsutomo Keiretsu. Once upon a time, he would have been pleased to see how well the corporation was taking care of its dependents. But "once upon a time" was a part of his past, along with other childish fairy-tale stuff like living happily ever after.

  The Dupree rezcom sat in a pocket of rural Massachusetts, in the middle of a deadsville triangle of three sleepy little towns off the main highways. The public tranz from the nearest rail was the rezcom mall's courtesy bus, and that was only a twelve-seater.

  John took a walk through the property to scout it out. The Dupree rezcom was a lot smaller than any of the Benjamin Harrison Town Project rezcoms, and had a lot lower security. The mall entrances were wide open; property safeguards were left to the individual shops, as shown by the decals for a dozen different rentacop operations. John saw secured access points only at the entrances to the residential area, and those were minimal—nothing more than keypad doors, and half of them were propped open. As far as he could see, there were no cameras and no guards. Even the main entrance foyer was unattended. If Mitsutomo was doing surveillance on this place, they were being deeply subtle about it. Such subtlety would have flattered John, if he'd believed in it; watching this place on the chance that he might show up couldn't be high enough among their priorities to rate such expensive attention.