Lucia gasped “Are we talking about... a thought?”
Donald nodded. “Or a memory. They’re people, Lucia. Whole chunks of living memories encoded at quantum speeds, probably from living subjects.”
“That’s...” Roland did not know what word to use.
“Genius?” The doctor offered.
“Obscene,” Roland corrected.
“That too, I suppose.”
“Dad!” Lucia said sharply, bringing her father’s attention back to her. “Just who the hell is in Chico Garibaldi’s head?”
The doctor’s answer was quiet. “Roger Dawkins, Torvald Haraldson, and Laura Schneider.”
Her reply was soft and quiet. “Oh, fuck me sideways.”
“Jesus,” Mindy confirmed.
Roland sat in morose silence.
Parker broke the tension. “Wanna clue a guy in, here?”
“They are all old ghosts, Sam.” Roland curled a lip, deep-rooted rages finding new life as he explained. “I killed Dawkins and Haraldson. Lucia killed Schneider.”
Lucia took the lead when it looked like Roland’s anger might get the better of him. “Dawkins worked for Corpus Mundi. He’s the one who kidnapped my dad. Laura was Pops Winters’ assistant. She betrayed him to The Brokerage and tried to overthrow The Combine for them. Torvald was a Galapagos mercenary, he worked for The Brokerage, too.”
Parker whistled. “That’s a lot of Brokerage bad blood, you guys. Not to mention, Roland killed Chico’s brother.” The young detective shook his head. “Nope. I do not believe in coincidence. This guy was built to kill you, Roland.”
“Easier said than done.” It came out as bravado, but his perforated lung chose that moment to remind him of his mortality with a lance of dull pain.
“But not impossible,” said Lucia. “We need a plan.”
Roland did not argue that point. “The tactical problems boil down to that gun and his speed. Eliminate either of those and I can handle him.” He pointed to the mangled pistol still on the table. “I don’t think he can cycle it fast at high power. The capacitors have to charge if he wants to punch a hole in my armor. It took more than a minute from when he shot me with beads until he hit me with the penetrator.”
Lucia’s jaw flexed and her eyelids fluttered while her brain recalled the fight and calculated scenarios. “We know he could hit you in the head as easily as the chest if he wanted to, so we can assume that you must have rushed his shot. I’m guessing a minute is about as fast as he can manage, then.”
Now that the conversation had returned to an arena where she felt comfortable, Mindy began to add her contributions. “A lot can happen in a minute, especially for a guy as fast as Chico. Let’s say he comes to the fight already charged up. He gets one shot and then has to wait a minute. Well, if he has the drop on us, that’s the end of it. He’ll pop Roland in the head and that’ll be it. The answer seems obvious to me.”
“And that is?” Lucia did not feel Mindy’s observation had been helpful, and this showed as a fierce tension in her voice.
“We need to get him to come to us so we can be ready for him. If we know he’s coming and from what direction, it won’t be hard to get him to blow that shot.”
Lucia was uncertain where Mindy was going with this. “He doesn’t, miss, Mindy. That’s sort of the problem. Whoever he goes for first is going to take that hit.”
“I can make him miss.” They all looked at Manny, who had been uncharacteristically quiet up to this point. “I can make him miss. You all saw his eyes. Full bionics.” He winked and tossed them a cocky grin. “I can mess up his aim for a bit.”
Lucia relaxed visibly. “Now we are making progress. So we can spoil his first shot. Great. What then?”
“Bring him in close,” Roland growled. “Take his speed away. Make him fight me somewhere tight.”
“We need to lure him into a tight place that we control? What are the options?”
“The office?” Roland suggested. “It’s small enough.”
“He is never going to just walk into your office, Ironsides,” Mindy said. “He needs to feel comfortable enough to stroll right in.”
A voice, small and scared, broke into the strategy session. “Hideaway.”
They all turned to look across the room into the red-rimmed eyes of Kitty. She sniffled and wiped her nose on the back of her hand. “He’ll go to Hideaway if I’m there.”
Mindy’s jaw shut with a click and she hissed. “Out of the goddamn question.”
Roland found himself in rare agreement with Mindy. “That is a terrible idea, Kitty. You’d be putting yourself right out in front of him.”
“I know. I just don’t want to be afraid of him anymore. I don’t want Mindy or you guys to get hurt because I was too scared to help.” Her words caught in her throat, and she croaked out the last part. “Most of all I just want him dead and gone forever.”
Mindy looked like she was about to speak, but Lucia shut her down. “It’s her fight to pick, Mindy. This is her demon.”
“She’s just a kid. She doesn’t know what it will be like.”
“Did you?”
“That’s not fair, Boss. This is different.” It was not different, and Mindy’s head bowed with the weight of a lie no one present bought for single second. Lucia said nothing, her point having already been made.
Kitty stood up and walked to the table. “I’m not asking, Mindy. I’m telling. I am going to go back to work tonight, and I am going to tend bar and shake my ass and fish for tips just like I always do.” Her voice grew stronger, as if speaking the words took some of their weight away. “It might take a few days, but Chico will come as soon as he finds out. I guarantee it. If you are really worried about my safety, well then you better make sure you fucking kill him when he does.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
It was a frantic call from Schultz the sex-bot maker that told them Chico had broken out once more. The subsequent visit from Bob was merely an unwelcome bonus. The inscrutable businessman had come alone to the office, and his cold and indifferent demeanor remained unchanged from their previous conversation.
“You idiots couldn’t even hold on to him for three goddamn days?” Roland growled at the tall man in the black suit.
“It does seem rather incompetent of us, I agree,” Bob responded with a neutral nod of the head. “Our facility recently experienced an act of what we can only presume was industrial espionage. The damage caused by that event allowed him to slip his tether again.” Emotionless brown eyes met Roland’s, and he droned on as if the escape of a volatile cyborg was merely a minor inconvenience. “We have some very strong suspicions about the nature and provenance of the attack, and I assure you we will follow up on these leads most vigorously.”
Roland, to his credit, returned the stare with the same bland indifference as Bob. “See that you do, Bob. But take some advice from someone who has been here before. You don’t tether an animal like Chico Garibaldi. You take him out back and put him down.”
“I understand your position, Mr. Tankowicz, I really do. However, the unit is not Chico Garibaldi. It has not been that person for some time. I would think you of all people would understand that.” The head took a slight tilt, eyes boring into Roland’s. “Considering your own situation.”
Roland ignored the jab. “There’s enough Chico Garibaldi left in that thing to make it obsess over his ex-girlfriend. When you Corpus Mundi types build a killer, you sure do a shit job selecting the raw materials.”
“Needs must when the devil drives,” Bob acknowledged. “The candidate pool is not what it used to be.”
This made Roland sneer. He bore much of the blame for Corpus Mundi losing access to military personnel. “What brings you here, then? Want us to clean up your mess? We charge for that sort of thing, you know.”
“Quite the opposite, Mr. Tankowicz. We want you to stay out of our mess this time. Your people simply aren’t equipped to handle him.” If Bob was at all smug about this statem
ent, his tone did not reflect it. “Mine are. We suspect he will come here to resume hostilities with your group, and we wanted to let you know our resources shall be in place to collect him when he does.”
“I’d be very careful about that, Bob,” Lucia interrupted. “Between us and Dockside PD, I have a feeling your resources may be rather unwelcome here. I’d hate for your people to find themselves in a crossfire or under arrest.”
Bob’s head swiveled to meet her gaze. “I have secured a variance for paramilitary operators in Dockside from the NBLA and the local police, Ms. Ribiero. If there is any interference with our operations, I must point out that it will be you on the wrong side of the law, not me.” He extended a data stick to her. “You will find all relevant authorizations are in order.”
“Wow,” she droned as she collected the device. “We figured it was you who paid off the lieutenant’s gambling debts, but that NBLA variance must have cost a mint.”
“Needs must,” he repeated. “I intend to move assets into Dockside and shadow the bartender. Our current performance profile indicates a high probability the unit intends to return for her. This should not affect you in any way, just be aware that our forces will not be hostile to you unless you interfere in their efforts to retrieve our errant property.”
Lucia scoffed. “Ha! No variance you can steal, forge, or buy gives you the right to enforce that. If our people perceive any kind of threat to ourselves or our interests as a legally operating enterprise, we will engage that threat as we see fit.”
“Naturally.” Bob seemed unperturbed. “I refer only to deliberate interferences, Ms. Ribiero.”
Lucia found his inflection and affect to be highly off-putting. His imperturbable, unflappable, and completely unreadable nature grated on her nerves. Everything about him put her off and considering what her life had consisted of for the last several years, this was not a thing easily accomplished. She did her best not to let it show. “I would go ahead and count on a whole lot of non-deliberate interference then, Bob.”
Roland could be rather unnerving himself, and he put this attribute to work on Bob. “Let’s just cut the shit. Chico killed a personal friend of mine, as well as two valued clients. He does not get to walk away from this and neither do your masters. I am under contract to both the police and the Dockside Trade Association to bring this fucker down, and I am going to do just that.” He stepped forward to tower over the man. Being a foot taller and at least two feet wider made his posture more looming than towering. Both his shadow and his malice enveloped the suited man and seemed to suck the warmth out of the very air. “How many of your people die over it is entirely up to you. I suspect you don’t really care about that, do you?”
“Needs must,” came Bob’s even response.
“As long as we understand each other, then.” Roland dismissed Bob by jerking his chin toward the office door. “Now get the fuck out of my office.”
Bob turned on his heel and left. He was on his comm giving clipped instructions to his teams before he made it to his waiting aerocar. Roland watched him closely until he had entered the vehicle and it had lifted off from The Drag. A dull wave of pain from his chest washed over him and he turned to look at his partner. “He is going to be a problem.”
“Figured that out all by yourself, did you?” Lucia sounded as tired as he did.
“What’s the word from Mindy?”
“Kitty will be tending bar tonight. She’s been warned that Chico is out. Rodney is pissed off, but he’s willing to go along with it all.”
“How is Kitty?”
“Pretending to be brave but obviously terrified.” She scowled and added, “But it’s Mindy who is making me nervous. She is not in a good place with any of this.”
“Mindy’s a pro. She’s hot under the collar right now, but you don’t get as many high-profile VIP kills as she has by going off plan or losing your cool. She’ll be fine.”
“It’s unlike her to be so intense about Kitty. You think this sudden emotional investment is about what happened to Mack?”
Roland grunted a derisive laugh. “You’re asking me about emotional states?”
“You’re the expert on combat stress and how macho idiots deal with it.” She muttered an addendum, “Or don’t deal with it.”
Roland found no fault with this assessment and he gave the question some thought before answering in his usual style. “It’s probably about Mack in some ways, and not so much in others.”
“Wow.” Lucia deadpanned. “You really suck at this.”
“I’m working on it. Give me a damn minute.” The big man took a moment to collect his thoughts and transform them into words. The subject was foreign and uncomfortable, making the task more difficult than it might have been for a more emotionally evolved person. “Mindy loved Mack in her own weird way. She got to be her own fucked-up self around him and he didn’t judge her for it. It’s possibly the most relaxed she’s ever been around anyone. I figure she came to rely on that for a sense of self-worth.”
Lucia nodded slowly. “Mack didn’t think she was crazy or broken or awful, so she started to feel good about herself.”
“Exactly. He didn’t even try to get in her pants. She was just his partner and friend. Good in a fight and reliable.”
“I get it,” Lucia said. “She didn’t have to pretend to be friendly, or heterosexual, or stupid for him. But what does that have to do with Kitty? Her intentions regarding that poor girl are not platonic.”
“They aren’t, but she’s not looking for another Mack. After a while, ‘Mack and Mindy’ became an identity unto itself. She liked it and how it made her feel. Mack made her feel normal. Likeable.”
Lucia caught on. “Lovable?”
“Bingo. Then he died, and that knocked her for a loop. As tough as she is, there is still a really messed-up teenager in her head that’s scared of letting anyone see who she truly is. She thinks she’s unlovable. Or fears it, at least.”
“Now that sounds familiar,” Lucia chided with a knowing look to the big cyborg.
“No idea what you are talking about,” he replied.
“I bet,” she laughed. “But why get worked up over Kitty, then? I didn’t think they had gotten that close.”
This part Roland understood very well. “Don’t need to be. In Mindy’s head, Kitty represents the possibility of loving someone. Possibility is all Mindy can handle right now. She’s buried too many friends to do much more than hope for a chance at love someday.” He shook his head and his voice trailed off to a dejected grunt. “Some people lose that hope earlier than others.” Then he straightened and pushed on. “Hoping doesn’t cost anything and has no risks, so it’s usually pretty easy to hold on to. But if Kitty gets killed...”
“Hope dies too,” Lucia finished. “If Mindy can’t keep Kitty alive, then what’s the point of wanting to be loved at all?”
“Why bother?” said Roland. “No profit in trying if the people you love are just going to die on you.”
Lucia shook her head in disgust. “Mindy is fighting purely to keep the hope of ever being loved going?”
“Or she’s just really pissed off. Hard to tell with psychos.” Roland turned somber. “Life is not a comic book or an action holo. Civilians like to think a guy can fight and kill all day long and then go home and make polite conversation with the neighbors. Teenage girls grow up longing for a knight in shining armor to come riding from the battle to woo them with his perfect hair and pretty poetry. That’s just not how it works.” Roland seemed to be warming to his monologue. His voice grew stronger. “If a knight’s armor is shining it’s because he hasn’t done any damn fighting. He’s a fraud. If his armor isn’t shiny because he’s been brawling in the mud and blood all day, then you can’t expect a whole lot of poetry from that guy. Too much time watching your friends get killed and wondering if today is your day to go. You get to be scared for so damn long you end up numb, and you stop caring about whether or not you die. Mindy has been fight
ing since she was fifteen years old. She will never think like or be like a normal person again.” A heavy fist thwacked into a meaty palm. “Kitty has to live because otherwise the little voice in the back of Mindy’s head telling her nothing matters because she is an unlovable monster will be right.”
Lucia had no deep insights to add. She merely shook her head and said, “That is so unbelievably fucked up. No wonder you all drink so much.”
Roland had to agree. “As good as they’ve made us all at killing, they still do a shit job at getting us to live with it afterward.”
“I guess we’ll just have to make sure we put this son of a bitch down, then.”
The big man acknowledged this with a curt nod of his head. “Sounds good to me. Is Manny all set?”
“Locked and loaded. He knows his role, and he says his widget will get the job done.”
“Contingencies?”
“We have backup in position, and two fallback points. Sam has as much of the PD as is willing to act like real cops waiting in the wings. As long as we keep Chico in the kill zone, we can bury him with numbers if we have to. Also,” Lucia held up a small gray hypo. “We have this.”
Roland groaned. “I thought we weren’t going to go that route.”
This time it was Lucia’s turn to be somber. “There was no ‘we’ in the discussion, Roland. I don’t want to use this thing any more than you want me to. But it’s my call and let’s not delude ourselves into thinking it might not be necessary. If it comes down to saving your life? I will not hesitate and I sure as hell won’t ask permission.”
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