by Jason Mather
“You two make a pretty cute couple.” There was kidding in Hans’ voice, but no real bite behind it. Gino ignored it.
“You need something?”
“I could do with something to eat. Maybe Grit, too.”
“Let ‘er sleep. She doesn’t get enough.”
“I’d imagine not. What about you?”
“I sleep fine, when I’m allowed.”
“I meant food. You hungry?”
Gino just shrugged.
“How ‘bout we go find a bar?”
“I’ll tell the nurse to bring something in.” Gino stepped out.
Ten minutes passed. A nurse appeared with a tray of food. Hans thanked her and ate what he could of the tasteless feast. Modern medical technology had pieced him back together from disparate parts, grown new organs from his own flesh, sewn him up and removed the scars, yet they couldn’t cook broccoli without turning it into mush.
Grit awoke halfway through his meal, eyes opening, sitting up, fully aware. She folded Gino’s jacket and set it on the bed beside her.
“What time is it?”
“Not sure. Afternoon, I think.”
Grit stood and walked to the door. She knocked and Gino opened it from the outside. Hans couldn’t hear what they were saying. More state secrets. She turned and came back.
“How’re you doing, Hans?”
Hans thought about it for a second, realizing that, despite recent events, he was actually feeling pretty good at the moment. He could feel a decent amount of strength in his legs and arms, his head was clear, disposition almost cheerful. It was pleasantly odd state from him, and he had no doubt it would fade quickly. It took too much energy for him to be cheerful.
“I’m all right. Can I get out of here now?”
“Can you walk?”
“I think so.”
“I’ll see if Doctor Laud is around.” Gino collected his coat, followed her out.
Doctor Laud arrived some twenty minutes later, looking as wan as everyone else. Hans was beginning to feel like some sort of sleep vampire. He’d sucked out everyone else’s energy in the night to generate his current relaxed, aware state.
“How’s Antonia?”
“Ms. Juarez is currently in stasis. Her body functions are normal, thanks to the machines, and her brain does not appear to have received any additional damage besides the initial trauma.”
“Can you save her?”
“I don’t know. I can re-grow the damaged tissue in her brain, but there is a large difference between re-growing a brain and re-growing a mind. Her neural tissue can be made good as new. Whether or not this means anything remains to be seen.”
That effectively soured Hans’ mood.
“I need to get out of here, Doc.”
“I agree.”
Hans hadn’t expected it to be that easy.
“Your presence here is a danger to other patients and staff…”
“Wait a minute now, I didn’t….”
“I don’t mean to accuse you of anything. I know you didn’t mean for any of this to happen. Lack of sleep has made me indelicate. Whatever you are involved in is too dangerous to continue to keep you in this facility. Your recovery is progressing, and is nearing its end. You may notice a bit of weakness here and there, but it should fade quickly. In the meantime, I think you need more protection than we can provide here.”
“You turning me over to the cops?”
“The commander has agreed to take over your protection.”
Hans didn’t like it, but Laud was right.
“So, when am I out of here?”
“The discharge has already been finished. I believe transport should be arriving shortly.”
— «» —
Hans was not enjoying his first trip outside very much. He did not enjoy flying or heights, both of which he experienced in short order as Grit hustled him into her jumpcraft. The pilot was completely incompetent, unable to hold any sort of stable altitude or even fly in a straight line. Hans did his best to appear relaxed.
“Where’s this base you were talking about?”
“About ten minutes from here” Grit answered, “on the outskirts of the city proper, in one of the reclamation zones.”
“What’s a reclamation zone?”
“It’s a place where the city is making efforts to retake a district from the neglect of the last few decades, putting up housing and industrial and employing the citizens to help clean up.”
“So, it’s a slum.”
“No, it’s a reclamation zone.”
“Sounds like a slum.”
The windows inside the jumpcraft were miniscule, but even the view he did have was unwelcome. The great glass spires of the inner city passed quickly, giving way to smaller, older skyscrapers, which, at a mere hundred stories or so, were less than half the height of the behemoths downtown. He would never understand how someone could choose to live and work four thousand feet in the air. In this day and age it was possible to live your entire life and never put a foot on solid earth, a thought both frightening and depressing. At home the tallest building was an old theater, topping out at three stories. Developers and politicians could go on forever about the advantages of vertical civilization. Everything was provided; food and meat grown for you in farms nearly a mile high; energy generated by sun and wind; each city-state almost completely self-sustaining and independent from its neighbors. The green revolution had gone a long way toward repairing the damage that humanity had done to the earth. It had also drastically shrunk the need for a central federal government. Each city-state now fielded its own sovereign government and military, with the federal forces reduced to protecting the roads and transport lines between cities, a job that became easier as tube transport lines increased in speed and robustness.
Still, there was one good thing about the mass concentration of people into the urban centers. It left a lot of room for Hans to roam. Plenty of old roads to drive, ruins to explore, valuables to be collected. A whole industry had sprung up around reclaiming metals and electronics from abandoned neighborhoods and towns. It was a good job for a misanthrope.
Finally, there were no more buildings of any kind outside Hans’ window. The engine noise decreased as the power reigned in, the craft dropping quicker than could possibly be safe. He gripped the handle tightly.
“You all right?” Gino asked him.
“Did you hire this pilot out of sympathy? Or was it ‘train a retard to fly’ day?”
“I’m pretty sure he can hear you.”
“Good, tell him to fuck off.”
The craft’s nose took a severe dive, pushing Hans against Grit. She laughed at the look on his face. He was considering punching her when a sudden jerk and rise in engine power brought the nose back up, then came a small bump as the craft landed.
“Thank you for flying retard airways,” the pilot said over the intercom. “Please exit out the back and refrain from drooling in the causeway.”
Hans signaled his disapproval.
— «» —
A small cadre of what looked like military VIPs awaited them on the ground. They had a wheelchair available, but Hans ignored it and forced himself to walk past, keeping a hand on Grit’s shoulder for balance. His legs were close to normal. A bit wobbly though, and he fatigued pretty quickly. He did not want them to know.
The jumpcraft had come down in the parking lot of an old warehouse supermarket, most of it still in a state of natural upheaval as native grasses and invasive trees pushed their way up. The only clear spot was the landing zone, an artificial clearing showing signs of burnt vegetation around its perimeter. A path of well-maintained concrete led off through the new forest growth toward a large building whose exterior was in desperate need of repair.
“You take me to the nicest places, Grit,” Hans said.
“Only the best.”
They walked in silence along the path up to a very out-of-place, modern-looking armored door in the wall. It opened
into a well-lit, cool hallway. A desk manned by a capable well-armed woman sat up against one wall. She nodded at them as they went past. They walked just a few dozen feet before turning into an open doorway and entering large, functional room with a table that could easily accommodate a couple dozen people. There were no other obvious decorations in the room, but, in an age where every wall, window, floor, and ceiling could possibly be a disguised viewscreen, looks were deceiving.
Grit stepped forward and pulled a chair out for Hans. The chair gave slightly as it subtly changed shape to make itself more comfortable. Hans resisted the urge to jump out of it. Everyone else took a chair, with Grit moving to the head of the table.
What followed was a surprisingly informal question and answer session, led by Grit, punctuated here and there by others’ interjections. Hans had decided to answer all their questions straight, not wanting to spend any more time in custody than necessary. He told them as much as he could remember about the night he had almost died, and moved immediately into what he remembered about the previous night. They questioned him less about the mysterious creature than he expected, though he guessed they were keeping their cards very close. He figured they probably knew that asking him for any more would be useless. After about forty-five minutes Grit called the meeting and everyone stood up to leave.
“Would you mind waiting here for a few minutes, Hans?” Grit asked him.
“Do I have a choice?”
Hans was confused. The questioning had been short and shallow. There had been no accusations, no cross-examination, very little in the way of questioning his rather odd story. He did not know whether this was because they already had all the information he provided, or if they just didn’t believe him and didn’t care. The only thing he knew for sure was that he was very tired of surprises, sick of feeling like he was on the back foot. His life since waking had been a string of weirdness, and he wished somebody would explain what the hell was going on. He expected very little out of Grit and her cronies.
Grit came back in, by herself this time. She was holding a portable and a plate with some sandwiches on it. She sat down in the chair next to Hans and placed the plate between them, taking one of the sandwiches and removing the top to peel off the tomatoes.
“You don’t like tomatoes anymore?” he asked
“Never did.”
“You used to eat Mom’s.”
“Fed ‘em to the dog when she wasn’t looking.”
“I doubt you fooled her.”
“Me too,” She smiled through a mouthful of bread.
“When do I get out of here, Grit?”
“When would you like to go?”
“Just like that?”
“This isn’t a police state, Hans. We have no authorization to hold a citizen who has not been accused of anything. I have been authorized to offer you state protection for the time being, but I doubt you’ll accept it. I can prepare a jumpcraft to take you home if you want.”
“Thanks, but I’d rather not put myself at the whim of your undertrained pilot again.”
“I figured that, too. How about a car to take you to the monorail depot?”
“Sounds good.” Hans was still disbelieving.
“Eat your sandwich.”
He did. It was a definite improvement on hospital food. While he ate Grit stepped out for a minute and brought them back a couple of bottles of lukewarm, tasteless water.
“It can’t be that easy, Grit.”
“What do you mean?”
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“What do you want to know? I’ll tell you what I can.”
“Which is probably not a lot.”
Grit shrugged and downed the rest of her water.
“OK. Who were the people I delivered the package to?”
“Delivery boys probably, same as you.”
“And the woman?”
“There wasn’t any woman in the room when we arrived.”
Hans looked quizzically at her. “How is that?”
“I don’t know, Hans. When we arrived, there were three bodies in the room. Two corpses mangled almost beyond recognition and you.”
“There was a woman sitting in the chair across from me. She’d been shot or stabbed right through the head.”
“No woman. No chair even.”
“So, you’re saying I imagined it all.”
“I haven’t said anything of the sort. I’m just telling you the state of the room when we arrived.”
Hans doubted Grit would outright lie to him. His confusion grew.
“What about the thing I saw in the hospital? The man who tried to kill me?”
“We don’t think you were the assassin’s main target.”
“Then who?” Hans tried not to raise his voice.
“Me.”
“Someone was trying to kill you?”
“In my job, lots of people are trying to kill me. You gonna finish that sandwich?” Hans shook his head and she reached across and took it from him.
“How did he know you were going to be there? Isn’t that kind of thing a secret?”
“We don’t know. Lately it seems certain people have had more knowledge of my comings and goings than I prefer. I don’t think he even knew you were my brother, as your personal information and relationship is under classified encryption.”
“My personal favorite perk of your job.”
“Yeah. Anyway, we are pretty sure he thought I would be there. The gun he brought was designed to penetrate our most commonly worn armor. He wouldn’t have bothered had it just been you.”
“Does it bother you that people want you dead?”
“I just wish I had actually been there. He wouldn’t have taken me out, and maybe I could have done something to prevent what happened.”
“Thinking pretty highly of ourselves, aren’t we?”
“Runs in the family.” Grit took another large bite of the sandwich. She reached across and snagged Hans’ water bottle, almost emptying it. Hans sat in silence for a bit, trying to get a handle on his confusion.
“So, what about whatever it was that came in the window?”
“We don’t know.”
“You don’t know.”
Grit just shrugged. Hans crossed his arms and leaned back.
“You don’t know or you can’t tell me?”
“Is there really a difference?”
“Jesus, Grit… you don’t know anything?”
“It was capable of cutting quickly through a transparent polymer designed to stop most projectiles. Based on its actions it must have an extraordinary amount of strength and speed for its size, and it must have been close by, probably on the outside of the building, without being detected by any of the normal systems we have in place.”
“So, basically you know as much as I do?”
“Pretty much.”
Hans put his head in his hands, rubbed at his eyes. “You’ve honestly never seen anything like this before?”
“I didn’t see this one, just heard your description.”
“Do you think it was the same thing that came after me before?”
Grit thought about that one. “No,” she said finally, “whatever went through there put a hole the size of a sofa in the roof, and left large, deep slashes in the walls and floor.”
“And you don’t know what that was either?”
“No.”
“You seem very nonchalant about all this.”
Grit leaned forward and put both hands on the table. “If I appear to not care, I’m sorry. This is a very serious business and there are too many unknown variables. We have no record of devices capable of this, though what we don’t know about other city-states and the feds could fill volumes.”
“You think the feds could be behind it?”
“I don’t think anything, other than that we need to be filling in the blanks, not creating more.”
Hans ran out of questions. They sat for a while, Grit chewing the rest of hi
s sandwich. He didn’t think she was hiding anything from him that she wasn’t forced to, but inscrutability was practically on their family crest. Still, they’d had a breakthrough last night, and they both were doing their best to be candid.
“So, what was in the package I delivered?”
She didn’t appear pleased he had asked that, though she had to expect it. The silence drew out. Grit took another drink.
“We don’t know.”
“Bullshit.”
“That’s what you’re getting.”
“OK then, who was I delivering to?”
“We don’t know that either.”
“You don’t know, and yet you just happened to be minutes from the drop point.”
“Lucky for you.”
“Who wanted it?”
Grit said nothing. She passed the portable across the table to him, giving him a knowing look and pointing silently at it. He nodded and slipped it into a pocket.
“We really don’t know. There was information that something important was in transit,” she crossed her arms.
“And this something just happened to be within a few miles of you and a squad of soldiers.”
“Lucky break,” she smiled, without any humor reaching her eyes. He decided to let it go. He was too tired to continue playing cloak and dagger. He wanted a car to the monorail station and he wanted a quick trip home. He’d had his fill of this city.
“So, you’re really just going to let me go home?”
“Yes… but…”
“But what?”
“But… If anything happens, please contact me. That portable I gave you has a direct encrypted line to me. I don’t want anything else to happen to you.”
“I don’t want anything else to happen to me either, except maybe a cigarette and a beer.”
— «» —
Grit set Hans up with a driver and escort to the monorail station, and managed to talk him into letting them stay until he was on the train. She gave him a quick hug as he grumbled his way into the backseat. The car pulled away, its electrics whining as it accelerated out of the underground garage and up to street level.