Fred nodded, not knowing where she was going with this and afraid to ask.
“Good. I was thinking about this, Fred, and I came up with a question for you. Are you ready?”
Such a long windup. Fred was so tense the door frame creaked. Mary looked at him with pity and said, “Did Thomas Russ have something for little girls? Because, from what I witnessed in the park last night, mister, you sure do.”
THE NEXT THING Fred knew, he was sitting on the side of the bed, with his head hanging so low it nearly touched the floor. Mary was gone, escaped. She had knocked him down with a handful of words. Despite his shame, he was impressed. He got up and wandered around the apartment. She had nailed him, and still he couldn’t keep the thought of Kitty out of his head. Or Costa, for that matter, or the cute michelle he had just run into in the shop downstairs. What was happening to him? Whatever it was, it would have to wait. Mary was a dead clone if he didn’t do something fast. But what? His first impulse was to call Nicholas and turn her in. That was what a “normal” russ would do, and he didn’t have any better ideas. He was a russ in need of a plan, and a friend.
“WE WENT YESTERDAY,” Kitty said.
“I already told him that,” the chair replied, “but he doesn’t remember.” Kitty had caught the chair on the first floor, trying to sneak out of the house.
“Remind him that that’s because he slept through it.”
“He asked how Ellie looked, and I told him we were turned away at the gate.”
“Tell him again, but tell it to him on your way back to my room, and this time stay there.”
The lifechair swiveled a bit to face the retrogirl straight on. “With all due respect, Myr Kodiak,” it said, “Sam is my sponsor, not you.”
“What?” Kitty said. “Belt Hubert, are you talking back to me?”
A frail hand rose above the rim of the basket. “Kitty,” Samson peeped.
Kitty climbed up and leaned into the basket. “Morning, Sam,” she said, caressing his cheek. “I was just telling the chair to take you to my room.”
“My daughter Ellie,” he said in a strained whisper.
“They won’t let us see her,” Kitty said. “We tried, Sam. It’s no use.”
The chair said, “He says, I have no time to argue. I must go.”
“There’s no point in going, Sam, if they won’t even let us in.” The retrogirl climbed off the chair and said, “Belt Hubert, take Sam to my room. Do it now.”
The chair didn’t budge. Neither did Kitty. It was a standoff.
“Let him go,” Bogdan said. The boy had just come from the kitchen with a steamy cup of troutcorn chowder. “It’s something he has to do, and you shouldn’t be trying to stop him.”
“Fine,” Kitty said and got out of the chair’s way. “You can go with him, because I’m not.”
“No problem,” Bogdan said and went to the chair. “Good morning, Sam,” he said. The old man smiled up at him. “I hear you’re off to see your daughter.”
The chair said, “He says, That’s right.”
“Can I go too?”
“That would be nice.”
Bogdan turned and led the lifechair to the foyer and out to the street. Kitty stood with her arms crossed and watched them go. A moment later she heard the chair clop, clop, clop down the porch steps. “Oh, for pity sake,” she said and took off after them.
MARY TOOK A taxi all the way to the clinic. At the gatehouse, the sealed sample in her large tote bag passed through the scanway without raising a flag. She hurried down the path through the little woods that separated South Gate from the cottages. Inside Feldspar Cottage, Cyndee and Nurse Hattie stood at the tank controller. Mary could see that Cyndee had something to tell her.
The brain model above the controller showed only sporadic neuronal discharges, like fireflies on a summer night. Hattie switched it off and said, “They declared her irretrievable early this morning. I have to go now, but I’ll return to help Matt pull life support.” She hugged the evangelines in turn and said, “I know it’s hard to lose your first one.” She paused at the daybed on her way out. The Ellen jacket was still twisted in her never-ending scream. “Tell Matt to shut this thing off first.”
When the evangelines were alone, Cyndee told Mary that she and Ronnie had been discharged by Wee Hunk, but that they didn’t leave. But when Mary and Renata failed to show up at shift change, Ronnie decided it was really all over and left.
“But you stayed,” Mary said, tapping Cyndee’s saucer hat, “and that’s all that matters.”
Mary went to the controller and brought up the rhinecephelon display. She took the package from her tote bag and unsealed it.
“Yuck!” Cyndee said. “What is that?”
“I looked up Myr Starke on the WAD and learned that her father was a seared,” Mary said and held the napkin against the olfactory sampler grate. “Ellen,” she said, “your father is here. It’s time to wake up. Samson Harger is here. Ellen, do you hear me?” She watched the skull’s eyes as she talked. She pulled a chair next to the sampler grate and propped the napkin up on it. She stood in front of the skull and told Ellen Starke all she had learned of her father.
On the rafter above her head, the Blue Team bee recognized the signature aroma of the hankie. The bee flagged the human who had brought this sample as a possible friendly.
FRED SAT ON a packing crate next to the porthole of a TUG Moving and Storage container that was flying in a parking loop over Decatur. Its figure-eight route brought him near the Roosevelt Clinic once each sixteen-minute lap. This flying boxcar made an ideal staging platform, and Fred’s access to it was remarkably sudden. Veronica Tug, when he called her from his apartment, had taken his list of logistical needs, no questions asked. A few minutes later she called back with the address of the storage container. He took a taxi to Decatur and made a midair docking with the container. It was loosely packed with several households of wrapped furniture and appliances. He found the field identikit that he had requested and a scanway-proof weapon that he had not. The blackmarket kit contained everything he needed to create and assume a foolproof new identity. Fred went through it and found a red and black jumpsuit cut in a garish paramilitary style. It looked like the household livery of some self-important aff, but it was lightly armored and included a fairly decent cap and visor. Fred put on the cap and read his cover doss. Myr Randy Planc was a Chicago area russ who lived in an APRT near Gary Gate. He was engaged as major domo to a materials broker named Abdul al-Hafir. Fred researched both Planc and al-Hafir on the National Registry and found neither of them listed. He consulted the UD Whois, Applied People Directory, and several other key sources. Neither man existed—at least not yet. Fred’s disguise required the conjuring up of not one, but two, complete identities out of thin air. It couldn’t have been cheap, and Veronica never mentioned the cost.
Fred broke open a tube of skin mastic and squeezed it on his arm. While it melted into his skin, he swallowed a capsule of self-migrating keratochitin concentrate that would collect on his cheekbones and chin to slightly alter several key facial landmarks. He chewed a gum that thickened his larynx and deepened his voice.
Eyecaps, mouth dam, false palms, uniform—Fred changed into Myr Planc. He considered the weapons package. It was a carboplex dagger that came in binary blister packs. To use it, he would need to spread the contents of a blister on the skin of each leg, taking care to keep his legs apart until he was through the scanway. Though the weapons package bore the seal of a reputable arms dealer, Fred was doubtful about trying to smuggle a weapon of any kind through a Fagan clinic scanway.
Checking the cap’s chronometer, Fred peered through the porthole to watch the clinic pass below.
A MEDTECH ENTERED the cottage and said, “Holy shit!” She pinched her nose and looked around the room. Mary and Cyndee had been joined by Renata and Alex, an evangeline from swing shift. “What are y’all doing in here?” the medtech demanded. “And what is that smell?”
Ha
ttie and Coburn entered after the first medtech, and Hattie said, “I know that smell, but I thought they were all dead by now.” She, too, looked for its source. Mary held up the offending napkin, then rewrapped it and dropped it into her tote. It had apparently had no effect on the comatose woman.
The Blue Team bee, on the beam over Mary’s head, watched the human activity below with the dimmest of comprehension. Today, all of the humans seemed to be running hot.
The first medtech left in search of nose plugs, but Coburn stormed over to the evangelines at the controller and demanded, “What are you dittoheads doing?”
“Her father was a seared,” Mary said, “and quit using that word.”
“Get away from this equipment.”
“Relax, Coburn,” Hattie said. “No one’s harming your precious equipment.” She went to the controller herself and paged through a quick series of diagnostic reports. “So, Ellen had a stinker in the family. Why didn’t they tell us that a few days ago when it might have done some good?”
Coburn set his medkit on a tray next to the tank and laid out his instruments. “Lower armature,” he told the controller.
“Controller, hold up a sec,” Hattie said.
“Hattie, let me do my job. Concierge wants the deceased unplugged and morgued as soon as possible.”
“Give me two minutes,” Hattie said and continued paging through diagnostic reports. She settled on one that displayed a cross section of Ellen’s brain stem.
Mary stood next to Hattie and said, “Did you find something?”
“Did you, indeed?” said Concierge, who strolled in through the cottage door. “I don’t see anything,” it said, answering its own question, “except use of the controller by unauthorized personnel to input odor. Did it work? No, I see no response.” The tall mentar in its snowy white jacket stopped in front of Mary. “Myr Skarland, in the future, if you find employment in a Fagan facility, please bear in mind that only licensed personnel are permitted to operate clinic equipment. That includes the olfactory sampling port of a hernandez tank controller. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Concierge,” she said.
“I am barring you from this clinic,” Concierge continued. “Please leave at once.”
Neither Mary nor the other evangelines protested, but Hattie said, “It’s not her fault. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine. I’m the one who showed them how to sample odors and told them it was all right to do so.”
“I agree,” Concierge said, “and you shall leave with Myr Skarland. As for you, Medtech Coburn, why hasn’t Myr Starke been de-installed as I requested?”
Coburn quickly removed the wings of the tank lid and lowered the waldo armature into place. Its mechanical fingers immediately began removing tubes and wires from the skull. This got the Blue Team bee’s attention—a machine removing other machines from the prize.
“That’s more like it,” Concierge said. He looked at Hattie and Mary. “Why are you still here?”
Hattie said, “I am entitled to disciplinary protocol, which isn’t initiated until Applied People has received a written complaint from you. Unless you’re accusing us of endangering this patient? Is that what you intend to do? If so, I must say, it will be easy to prove that you’ve been aware of the evangelines’ so-called unauthorized use for days and said nothing.”
Concierge said, “As you wish. I’ve ordered campus security to escort you from the premises.” Concierge went to the door and said, “I am appalled by your lapse of professionalism.” It left the cottage and the door closed behind it.
Hattie, Mary, Cyndee, Alex, and Renata stood in stunned silence. Meanwhile, Medtech Coburn quietly tended to the plucking of Ellen’s skull.
Finally, Mary broke the spell. “Hattie, tell us what you found.”
Hattie shook her head and said, “I didn’t find anything, but Concierge thought I did, so there must be something to find.” Outside, there was the sound of footfalls on the garden path. The door swung open, and two security officers in clinic uniforms, a russ and a jerry, came in. The jerry bawled, “Security! Would Myren Beckeridge and Skarland please step this way.”
The women only stared at him.
“Do it now!” he commanded and extended his standstill wand with a loud snap. This was enough to tip the bee into action. It left the security of the blind spot and crawled to the underside of the ceiling beam.
Hattie, the only jenny present, said, “Officer Jerry, I understand you have a job to perform and all, but are you threatening me with a weapon?”
The jerry blanched. “Nothing personal, Nurse Jenny,” he said and telescoped his wand, “but you and the ’leen have to come with us—right now.”
“No, they don’t,” said another clinic guard who entered the cottage behind the jerry. It was a belinda of a slightly higher rank. “You’ve been reassigned,” she said. “Check your orders.”
The jerry did so and said, “They’re all yours, Lieutenant.” When the russ and jerry had left, the bee crawled back to its blind, and the belinda simply vanished.
“What just happened?” Renata said, but no one had an answer.
THE STARKE CAR set down in the clinic lot, and Meewee and Dr. Rouselle lifted the hernandez jr. tank out of the cargo well and lowered it into the arms of the medbeitor. Man, woman, and beitor traversed the parking lot and turned down the brick drive. When they reached the gatehouse, Meewee ordered the guard, “Drop the gate!”
The guard, a jerry, raised an eyebrow and said, “Excuse me?”
“I’m ordering you to drop the gate.”
The guard turned and called behind him, “Hey, Chaz, come here. You’ll want to see this one.”
A second jerry guard came over and said, “What’s going on?”
“He’s ordering me to drop the gate,” the first guard said, and the two of them had a chuckle. Then the second one said, “Swipe the post, myren.”
Having used up his small reservoir of bluster, Meewee nodded to the doctor and together they swiped the post.
“Myr Meewee,” said the guard, “it says here that you have FDO status, so you may pass. But I’m afraid that you, Dr. Rouselle, have no visitor privileges. And as for that,” he said, pointing to the medbeitor bearing the hernandez jr., “you’d better leave it out here.”
Meewee said, “Call Concierge at once. I demand to speak to it.”
“Speak away,” said the guard. “It’s always listening.”
“Concierge, I demand you let us pass.”
Concierge emerged through the pressure gate and greeted Meewee with a holo salute before turning its attention to the doctor. “Dr. Rouselle, what an honor,” it said, “and surprise. I’ve followed your career with interest. I had no idea you’d returned to the UD.”
“Thank you,” said the doctor.
Meewee broke in. “We didn’t come here to discuss careers.”
“What did you come here for?” asked the mentar.
“We’re here to assist Wee Hunk in removing Ellen Starke from your clinic immediately.”
“This is the first I’ve heard of it. Why hasn’t Wee Hunk informed me?”
“It’ll inform you now.” Meewee turned to the medbeitor and said, “Wee Hunk, tell Concierge we want to remove Ellen.”
The medbeitor projected a life-size version of Wee Hunk, but its image quality was poor, and it flickered. Meewee repeated his request, but the mentar seemed not to comprehend, and Meewee said, “Hello? Wee Hunk?”
“Yes?” said a new Wee Hunk that appeared opposite them. It was not flat or halting, but a solid, coyote-skin-clad Neanderthal in hyper-sharp definition. “Ah, Meewee, good to see you again,” it said. “And look what you’ve brought me, my missing backup. I was wondering where it had gotten itself off to.”
Identification failure, Arrow said.
The medbeitor projection next to Meewee ceased, and the portable tank buzzed for half a second. Wee Hunk said, “Sorry, Merrill, but as I told you this morning, Ellen has succumbed to her tra
uma. The doctors did all they could, but her injury was too extensive.”
Meewee ground his teeth. “That is bad news indeed, but we’ll see her anyway. At once.”
“Patience, old friend. Let’s let the staff clean her up a bit first.”
Dr. Rouselle peered at the Wee Hunk projection and said, “He is not Wee Hunk?”
“I’m afraid he’s an impostor,” Meewee said. It was time to launch Plan B. He stepped back a little, raised his hand, and brought it down sharply to his side.
Immediately a GOV appeared over the treetops and landed on the greensmoat next to the drive. Its gull wings sprang open, and six deputy marshals in blacksuits trundled out, armed with railgun carbines. A large emblem of the UDJD Marshal Service floated above them, and the pressure gate fell at their approach. They hustled right through the mentars Wee Hunk and Concierge, pausing only to swipe them their writ of habeas corpus. The clinic guards offered no resistance.
Meewee grasped both handles of the hernandez jr. and took it from the medbeitor. Clutching the portable tank to his chest, he hurried to get ahead of the deputies. “This way,” he shouted, skirting the scanway and S-barriers and leading them and the doctor through double doors marked “South Gate Plaza.” From the plaza, he found the path to Mineral Way and jogged past Quartz and Mica cottages to Feldspar.
Counting Heads Page 52