And it was clear that Clare also intended to be caught on this one, and there could be only one of two reasons for that. Either she was playing out a plot designed by her employers, or she wanted to stop being a killer and find whatever it was she had lost of herself.
Two diametrically opposed options. To act on either one and then find out you were wrong could be deadly.
"And right now," she said out loud, "I haven't got a flying cock's clue which one is right."
The lightning beings danced in the night sky, and she asked them to tell her in the simplest of words what she was to do next. But they only continued to dance, their motion like laughter mocking her own sense of unwilling stillness.
Nick turned with irritation toward the computerized voice coming from the screen he'd opened and put into find sequence.
"What?" he asked. "What is it?"
The computer voice responded. "Improper authorization code."
"It's the only authorization code I have, you box of bolts. Put it through," he snapped back.
The letters re-formed to read: jaguar addams authorization.
"Come to Papa," he said to the screen as words began to move across it.
The screen shifted and a soft voice said, "Failure to input proper authorization code will result in automatic shutdown sequence. To begin in thirty seconds."
"Shit," Nick said. "What's this about? Somebody's got your records locked up tight, and I'll bet it's a Supervisor we share—though not in any interesting kind of way. Now what?"
"You talking to yourself?" a voice asked, causing him to twist sharply in his chair, fist raised.
Terence Manning stood next to him, grinning. "Hey. Hold your fire, all right?"
"Sorry," Nick grumbled, lowering his fist. "I thought you were—never mind."
"You thought I was Dzarny, didn't you? He's off on some home-planet thing. Won't be back for a while, I hear."
Nick narrowed his eyes. Terence always seemed to know everything about everyone. Must be his record-keeper mentality. His computer sounded a high-pitched tone, indicating the automatic shutdown sequence had started.
"Shit," Nick said. "God fucking dammit."
He slammed a fist against his desk and watched his screen go blank. He'd have to start over again.
"What's wrong?" Terence asked, coming around and peering over his shoulder. "You got shut down?"
"Yeah," Nick said. "Wrong authorization code, I guess. I can never remember those things."
"Pain in the ass, right?" Terence agreed. "Whose file you want?"
Nick looked up at him, realization dawning. He had the record keeper with him. Of course.
"Addams. I want hers. The Board requested it."
"Yeah? You charging her after all? I heard she was pissed as hell at you. In Dzarny's office threatening your life and so on."
Terence knew everything. Nick wondered how much of it was actually true.
"Keep it under your hat, Terence," Nick said. "These things need a little discretion."
Terence beamed at him. "Oh sure. I know." He leaned his elbow on Nick's desk and called up the code for restart, and began the file sequence again.
When the lock appeared on Jaguar's files, Terence rapidly fed it a series of numbers that Nick would never be able to remember. But he didn't have to, because they worked, and her file scrolled across the screen.
"There you go, buddy," Terence said. "All yours."
"Hey," Nick said, "thanks. I owe you one."
"Just remember me to the important people," Terence told him. "When you meet them, that is."
"Right," Nick promised, and turned back to the screen as Terence left, still smiling.
The information that Nick found was enough to make him forget all about his past failures.
It was in Alex's private files, reports on cases that no one had ever heard the real story about. He'd been whitewashing them, apparently, but kept a running record of his own on his classified line. Nick wondered why he did that, and if Terence knew that he'd given him Alex's classified code instead of the more general supervisory code.
He put a call in to the Governor he dealt with most frequently and made arrangements to meet with him and another Board member that same day. All he had to do was read two lines from one report, and it was enough to get them going. Especially Paul Dinardo, who set up the meeting with two other Board Governors, but excused himself from signing her warrant.
The other two Board members had signed without a murmur, and kept the reports, which was fine with Nick since he'd made copies for himself just in case.
Even better, he got their permission to bring her in himself, which was code for do whatever you want with her. He suspected it might even be code for don't bother getting her to us at all, just make the whole mess disappear. No wonder Paul excused himself, Nick thought. Dinardo wouldn't be able to face Alex if he'd signed off on Jaguar's death certificate. Certainly nobody would be surprised if Dr. Jaguar Addams was killed resisting arrest. She wouldn't be one to go quietly, after all.
And he assumed that's what the man with the glasses wanted, too. Make the big cat disappear.
He wished he knew a way to get in touch with them and ask. Better not, though. Better just follow his own instincts, and he could have a good time with her—a very good time—fulfill some of his wildest dreams before he fulfilled the dreams of the Board and the Looker.
When he left, the two Board members cast furtive glances at each other. They needed to talk to each other, but not to say what they thought. Tricky.
"This," one of them said, "is something best left to the discretion of the Teacher involved."
The other Board member nodded. He understood. That meant better not mention it to her supervisor. Dzarny's a little weird about Jaguar, and everybody knows it.
"It's so difficult to control workers in this system," the other Governor complained softly.
"True. We don't have nearly enough safeguards against this sort of difficulty. It's like the old institutions for the disabled. Workers used to throw basketballs at clients' heads, and nobody said a word about it."
They shook their heads sadly at this state of affairs, never asking who, in this case, was the client, and who was throwing the ball at the client's head.
11
A full twenty-four hours passed during which no attempts were made on her life, and Jaguar decided to see if she could get a few more quiet days by avoiding the House of Mirrors, Nick, even Moon Illusion. If she just stayed out of the way, Nick might finally see the wisdom of getting some help, as she had suggested. Whoever tried to kill her might be lulled into taking a holiday, or at least taking some time to resettle their feathers at their failure.
And she wouldn't worry about Alex's trip to the home planet. He was a big boy. She would defer further probing with Clare until he came back. And she would defer further probing of what Rachel's talk had meant, too.
Now she would focus on Adrian.
He was nearly ready for a final push, she thought. His anger at his failure to con anyone out of anything was building to just the right pitch, and he looked at her more frequently with loathing than with desire these days. He was feeling trapped, impotent, used, and rapidly becoming what he feared most.
She realized that soon she'd have to start turning the rage into depression, which was a little more difficult to manage. Depression bored her so quickly. It was ... depressing.
Maybe it would allow her to catch up on her rest a little. There was that, after all.
She stood in her kitchen, looking over the food he'd prepared for their dinner. She had asked him to do the cooking, since any money that went into food was hers. He'd agreed, but not happily.
"Adrian," she called to him. He walked over to where she stood, pointing down at a bubbling pot. "Does that have oregano in it?"
"Sure. Sauce always does."
She rolled her eyes. "I'm allergic, Adrian," she said. "I told you that."
"Christ," he starte
d to say, but was interrupted by the doorbell.
"Are you expecting company?" she asked. He shook his head.
She wasn't either. Maybe it was one of the guys from the band, bringing back the black jacket she had left at the bar the other night.
She looked out the peephole in the door. It was not someone from the band.
It was Nick.
"I told you," she said calmly through the door intercom, "to stay away from me. Now go away or I'll call the cops."
She heard nothing. She expected him to snap back that he was the cops. He didn't. Nor, she realized, could she hear the sound of his footsteps leaving. She stood to the side of the door and, when Adrian walked into the room, motioned him to stand back.
Then she heard the high-pitched whine of the jammer as it shattered the lock and the knob of her door. She saw Nick's leg, kicking it open, and he was in, sealing it behind him quickly.
"What," she said brightly, "a surprise." She turned to Adrian. "Honey, take out an extra plate. Looks like we'll be having a guest for dinner."
Alex went only far enough into the shaft to be in shadow, but in a place where he could still see light. In the night, throughout a very wakeful night, he'd heard the scrapings and hissings of life moving around him. Bats and mice. Raccoons, maybe. Or spirit life. Trapped men trying to escape. But if that was the case, they would have some sympathy for him. He was in a similar predicament, and they'd understand.
When the sun streamed down over his face in the morning and he determined that he wasn't dead, he began to worry about Jaguar. If they'd killed Neri so quickly just for speaking with him, what were they doing to her? He stood and stretched, crawled out of his hole in the ground, and stood on the ledge that looked over the mist-encased trees and the dew-sparkling grass of the cemetery below him.
The sun was still close to the horizon, so it was early yet. He should get into town and find a telecom. Call her?
That would be dangerous. They could be in her lines by now, if they hadn't been all along. And how long was all along, anyway? They must have someone on the Planetoid, and he assumed it was the strange and rather listless-looking man with the large glasses who said he was assigned as liaison in the case. They must also have someone else on the Planetoid they were working with.
Nick? Perhaps, though he wouldn't want to hire on Nick for anything delicate, and this work seemed to him to be very delicate. The DIE people needed to cover their asses, not expose them further.
At least all the pieces of information were beginning to cohere into something like a whole.
Weaving together the threads of information he'd gathered from Rachel's reports to Jaguar, from his talk with Neri, from his own understanding of how these operations worked, he figured that Clare had worked for DIE for years. Maybe they'd experimented with their Supertoys on her and that was why she was so difficult to find empathically. At any rate, she'd done the hit on Patricks when he started upping the ante on the pyrite deal. Not that they couldn't afford his price, but they weren't the sort of organization to let someone else change the rules on them.
Why Clare had gotten herself caught on this assignment was a question he couldn't begin to answer. Perhaps it was something personal. Or perhaps she was meant to be on the Planetoid for some purpose he couldn't fathom yet. The two attempts made on her life during the course of her trial made him suspect that she was acting on unconscious motives of her own, but that could have been a setup, too. DIE was nothing if not thorough.
Either way, they'd want her kept away from someone like Jaguar, whose skill was probably the only real risk factor in the situation. And they'd probably been playing techno-tool games on Jaguar for a while, which might explain her erratic behavior. Of course Jaguar's normal behavior was nothing if not erratic, but even for Jaguar, she'd been out of bounds lately.
They'd want to keep a lid on their pseudogenics research, on their dealings with Clare, on their Research Center. Neri said it was nearby. He was tempted, briefly, to try to find it.
No. He had to get word back to the Planetoid. Jaguar might be enough to make DIE very nervous, but there were more of them than there were of her. She had to be warned.
He wondered if they had the capacity to get in on other kinds of communication. Did their Supertoys allow them to listen in if, for instance, he was able to find her and get her attention empathically? With Jaguar, who was so good at closing herself off, they might find they'd gotten more than they bargained for. He often had. At any rate, he'd have to try.
He closed his eyes, and as his breathing settled and his thoughts focused, he found her.
There, in her apartment. She was ... calling him?
His name. He heard his name. What was going on?
Adrian was there and—shit. Nick was there. Nick was—
"Christ," Alex said, his eyes flying open. "Christ Almighty."
Nick pulled back his free hand and slapped her hard, with the back of it.
"Jesus—Jag—what the hell is this?" Adrian came running to her side, and she held up a hand to stop him. She slowly twisted herself around to face Nick.
"Having a bad day?" she asked, trying to capture his gaze as it darted from one side of the room to the other. If she could get him, she could hold him.
"Baby," he said, "you're under arrest." He waved the papers that she recognized as a warrant in her face.
"That old news? Didn't Alex tell you the charges were dropped for lack of evidence? Nicky, you've got to learn to keep up."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Adrian muttered. She ignored him.
"I don't need my old charges, sweetheart. I've been in your files, and there's some real interesting stuff in them. This warrant's for the rest of your crimes."
Her files? "What files, Nick?"
"The private ones Alex kept on your antics. I got some friends who let me help myself to them."
He moved toward her, and pressed his weapon against her head, pressed his mouth against her ear. "Your precious Alex," he whispered. "Where do you suppose he is about now? I understand he's being taken care of by somebody with more power than even your ego could conjure. And they seem to want you out of the way, too. You should've seen those files."
Jaguar felt the sinking in her stomach that signified danger. Alex. Where was he?
"What are you saying, Nick?" she asked. "Nick, look at me and tell me what you're talking about."
"How stupid do you think I am?" he scoffed. "Look deep into those sea-green eyes. Those witch eyes? Right."
"Who're you working for, Nick?"
"No names, no trouble. All I know is the Board signed the warrant, and sent me out to collect you, personal like."
"Where's your backup, Nick?" she asked, knowing what it would mean if he'd come without.
"Don't need any." He chuckled as he saw her face express an understanding of what this meant. "That's right," he acknowledged. "They don't care what shape you're in when I get you to them. Your ass, my sweet, is the perennial, proverbial grass."
"What'll you do, Nick?"
"What's the worst you can imagine me doing, Jag?"
He backed away from her, keeping his weapon pointed at her face. Always hit between the eyes, he'd told her. Don't give them any time to talk.
Jaguar eyed him coldly, all grief for this loss gone. Now she noted only the necessary instincts of self-preservation that attuned her whole being to what moves he made, what moves she could make in response. She noted that his eyes shifted quickly here and there. That he backed away. That he fumbled when he reached for his weapons scanner. He talked a good game, but he was too nervous or too excited. It made him clumsy.
She raised her arms toward him for the cuffs.
"Not so fast," he said. "I gotta scan you first." He ran his sensor up and down her, front and back and sides, keeping his eyes near her face, but not near enough so that she could hold him. He slipped the sensor back in his belt and pulled out the temporary cuffs. She held her arms out, ready f
or them. She would have a second to act. Maybe two at most.
When he got close enough to put them on, she moved the fourth finger of her left hand to a button on her right cuff and pressed.
The soft snap of the knife into her palm couldn't be heard by anyone except her.
"Nick," she said, and in the time it took him to hear her say his name, she moved. A small motion. Hardly any ground covered or any energy lost.
She thrust her right arm forward and up and pressed into him until she could feel his living heart beat around the edge of her blade.
He gasped once, looked down at his chest, at her blade embedded in it. He lifted a hand to the wound, looked back up at her, then began to drop. She lowered herself with him and did not let go of his gaze.
"You told me about it a long time ago, Nick," she said to the dying light in his eyes. "The sensors don't pick up glass knives."
He was kneeling now, tottering, breath coming only in guttural gasps as his heart struggled against the impediment lodged there. He wanted to say something. Words wanted to emerge from his shocked mouth. She knew what they were.
"The knife in the heart, Nick," she said smoothly. "It was always your deepest fear."
Breath rattled out of his throat as he closed his eyes and slumped at her feet, her knife still in him.
"What the hell," Adrian said, stumbling over to where she knelt next to the still body. "Is he—did you—"
She pulled the knife from Nick's chest and wiped the blade on his pant leg. "He's dead," she noted, putting a finger against his carotid. "Quite dead. Though he still may be able to hear us, you know. Better," she said, "watch what you say."
"You—you killed him."
"Yes. I did." She sighed, held up the hand that curled around the thin, translucent red blade. "Handy thing, this. A present from someone who loved me once, long ago." She pressed a button at her wrist, and it retracted. Pressed again, and it slid silently into her hand. She would still need it. The act was not complete yet, either in practical terms, or in terms of the proper way to deal with the body of a shadowed man. "I guess we'll have to clean up now."
THE FEAR PRINCIPLE Page 17