“I know,” Flint said. “I’ve been talking to them.”
“Well, she’s legit. And a newly Disappeared. I’ll vouch for that.”
“That’s good,” DeRicci said. “He’ll vouch for something we already know. How about giving us something we don’t, like whether you’re dealing with old Disappeareds too?”
The pilot looked back and forth between them. His stomach rumbled, and he put a hand over it. His skin got even greener. “The room’s spinning.”
“We’ll leave you alone if you answer,” Flint said.
The pilot burped. The stale smell got worse. The levels on the wall remained elevated. “All I know is that I was supposed to tell any group I delivered to that there were back files they could download, for a price.”
“What was the price?”
“I didn’t know. They were supposed to link up to an address I gave them, and then they’d get the information.”
“What’s the address?” DeRicci asked.
“I don’t know.” The pilot had that tight, strained sound to his voice that people often got when they were afraid they were going to lose control of their body. “It’s on my link.”
“Tell me how to download it,” Flint said, “and we’ll leave you alone.”
The pilot held up his hand. The back was covered in tiny chips. He pointed to one, then turned his head sideways, burying his face in the pillow.
The chip he pointed to was smaller than the others. DeRicci touched it. It glowed.
“Probably safer to use your hand-held,” he said to DeRicci. He didn’t want their personal links compromised by anything the pilot had picked up.
She nodded and removed her hand-held from her pocket. Then she brushed the pilot’s chip, initiating a synch, and transferred the information.
“Have there been any complaints about this change in policy?” she asked the pilot while the synch was going on.
“No,” he said, his voice muffled by the pillow.
“Because you never see what the aliens do to the Disappeared,” Flint said, unable to stop himself.
The pilot looked at him as if he just realized that he and Flint did not hold the same opinions on these matters. “Why should I care? They’re the ones who made the mistake, not me.”
“But no one on Earth has had word of this?” DeRicci asked.
“Why would they?” the pilot said.
“He wouldn’t know if they did,” Flint said to her.
She nodded, pocketed her hand-held, and sighed. “I really hate this job.”
“And the people you run across,” Flint said as he let them both out of the room.
The door closed behind them, the sound of the heavy metal frame echoing in the hallway.
“We didn’t thank him for his information,” DeRicci said.
“He’s lucky we didn’t hurt him just on general principle.” Flint started down the hall. The other doors here were metal as well and all of them had screens above the identifying lock. “He doesn’t realize that there are two innocent children here that his company sold to the Wygnin.”
“He would say that the parents are at fault.”
“The parents probably are.” Only Flint had realized he didn’t care. He had always thought he’d be able to deal with this part of his job, but holding Ennis had changed that. Flint hadn’t expected enforcing the law to make him so angry.
“It’s our job, Miles,” DeRicci said.
He nodded and kept walking. “You had it right earlier. They shouldn’t expect us to enforce something that’s so morally reprehensible. They should find other solutions.”
“But they won’t.” DeRicci had to struggle to keep up with him. “And we’re still going to give a baby to the Wygnin.”
“Not if I can help it,” Flint said.
Twenty-four
Shamus put a finger to his lips and his eyes twinkled. Ekaterina frowned. He bent down and grabbed the bracelet on his ankle, putting his fingers over the twirling red lights. She could see the lights reflected through his fingernails. It was eerie.
Carefully he raised his foot and pointed the toe to the ground like a ballerina. Then he slid the bracelet from his ankle and slowly lowered the bracelet to the floor.
“I don’t want any,” he said loudly. “I really hate solicitors. So go away.”
Then he pushed the bracelet two feet inside, grabbed the door, and pulled it closed. He took her by the elbow and moved her behind a shabby plastic hedge that someone had once thought decorative.
“I’m not going to ask you how you did that,” she said to him, feeling like his lawyer once again.
“Good, because I might be obliged to tell you. It’s brilliant, really, and brilliance should be shared.”
She had forgotten how words just rolled out of his mouth, rich and warm and melodic. Shamus had always been a charmer. That was one of the things she liked about him.
“But I have this hunch you’re not here in an official capacity,” he said. “If you had been here in an official capacity six months ago, I wouldn’t have had to learn how to take that thing off.”
“Why didn’t you call me?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Earth, Moon, expenses. You know. The business isn’t paying what it used to.”
“In other words, you were covering your own legal fees this time.”
He nodded. “And see where it got me?”
She smiled. If she had been feeling like herself, she might have said that. But right now, she didn’t have the right to be superior to anyone.
He peered over the hedge, then put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her down even farther. If someone had been watching they might have thought the two of them were lovers.
“You’re all over the nets,” he said. “There’s vid of you everywhere and I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the buildingboards are flashing your image.”
Buildingboards were wallspace rented to companies so that an image could be projected—usually an advertising image, but sometimes breaking news covered them too.
“Oh, God,” she said. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Be smart,” he said, “which it sounds like you’ve been so far.”
She leaned against him, relieved to be able to talk to another human being, even if it was Shamus. If she closed her eyes, she could pretend it was Simon. Dear Simon, who probably had no idea what had happened to her.
“You’ve got a plan, right?” Shamus asked, and she could tell from the tone in his voice that he hoped finding him wasn’t the extent of her ideas.
She swallowed, trying to find the strength that had disappeared when she saw his ankle bracelet. She had been thinking this through all day. “Do you know any Retrieval Artists?”
Retrieval Artists were private detectives who worked strictly with the Disappeared. Usually Retrieval Artists worked for lawyers or insurance companies to find a Disappeared who was up for an inheritance or was the beneficiary of a policy. Sometimes, though, Retrieval Artists worked for the families who wanted to notify a Disappeared that the search was off and it was all right to come home.
“Retrieval Artists?” Shamus’s voice rose. He clearly hadn’t expected the question. “What for?”
“I have to get out of here. I have money, but I can only access it once. So I figured if I paid someone to help me Disappear, then I’d be all right.”
“Retrieval Artists don’t help you Disappear,” Shamus said. “They find people who’ve Disappeared and usually for a hefty price.”
“I know.” She tried to give him a brave smile. The plan did sound silly when she spoke it out loud. “But they do know who the best Disappearance services are.”
“I’m sure they do,” Shamus said, “and they’ll lie to you. They’ll send you to someone who can’t hide a dog’s bone, and then get paid to retrieve you for whoever’s looking for you.”
“I know the risks.” She ran a hand through her hair. It felt gritty, as if some of the dirt from that house ha
d latched onto her scalp. “But on Earth, at least, there are some Retrieval Artists who pretend to be honest.”
“There are some that try,” Shamus said, “but give them the right price and they’ll lead aliens right to you.”
“I’m not asking them to find a Disappeared for me,” she said. “I’d just be asking for a good Disappearance service.”
“The police had your name wrong at first,” Shamus said, “so it seems to me you already went through a service and got screwed. Am I right?”
Ekaterina nodded.
“Then why try it again?”
“Because I’m out of options, Shamus.”
He sighed.
“You don’t know any good services, do you?”
“It’s not my line, sweetie,” he said. “Most of them have files that are easily compromised if you know what you’re doing. I’ve even gotten into Disappearance Inc’s files, and they’re supposed to be the best.”
She stiffened.
His eyebrows went up. “They’re the ones you hired, aren’t they?”
“I thought they weren’t supposed to keep records,” she said.
“They all keep records,” he said. “Most of them are coded, and no one’s names—new or old—are ever mentioned. But some of them don’t even bother with that.”
“Do you know anyone who isn’t hackable?”
He gave her the same sweet grin he’d given her years ago when he had first come to her for help, and she had asked him if she could put him on the stand to defend himself. Only if you want me to lie under oath, he had said.
“Well,” he said, “some of the services are tougher to hack than others. But if they have a network, I can break into it. Whether or not I can read it is another matter. But that’s not always an indication of reliability. There are a whole lot of factors that make for a good Disappearance service. Some of them might have easily hackable bogus records to throw folks off the trail. I don’t know. It’s not my area.”
“But Retrieval Artists are.”
He shook his head.
She leaned forward, and rested her head on her knees, her hair catching in the plastic fronds of the shrub. She was so tired. Tired and hungry and lost. On the street, someone started to sing a raucous song she didn’t recognize.
“This was your plan?” he asked. “You were going to try to Disappear again?”
“I have no other choice, Shamus,” she said. “I can’t hide here.”
He let out a small breath of air, not quite a sigh, more a sound of exasperation. Then he said, “I used to know an honest Retrieval Artist. Very old school. Ethical, if you can believe it.”
“Used to?” Ekaterina asked.
“It’s been a long time and we didn’t part on the best of terms.”
“I’ll take whatever you have,” Ekaterina said.
“I’ll give you what I can remember,” he said.
And he did.
* * *
DeRicci knew it really wasn’t any of her business that Flint had gone off to ruin his career. She hadn’t been able to talk him out of it, and she hadn’t been able to convince him that what he was about to do was serious.
Her only other choices were to report him or ignore what he was going to do.
She chose to ignore it.
Instead, she went to her office and flicked on her large screen. The Wilders were with the lawyers, negotiating with the Wygnin, so DeRicci was off the hook there. The Wygnin wouldn’t want to discuss the baby until they were done with the eight-year-old, and for that she was grateful.
It also gave Flint’s little scheme, whatever it was, time to work.
Flint didn’t say so, but he probably expected her to calm the Rev. She had nothing to say to them either—negotiating with the Wygnin had been above and beyond; she certainly wasn’t going to deal with the Rev in the same week—so she checked on the status of Maakestad.
So far, the woman was still a fugitive. DeRicci wasn’t sure, but she thought it was some kind of record. She didn’t think anyone had eluded the law for more than ten hours in Armstrong—at least, not in the modern city.
It was hard to remain hidden when the entire street patrol was searching for you. And now that False Dawn was over, and everyone knew the Dome was in Lockdown, Maakestad’s image was being broadcast on all available screens and public downloads.
Someone would report her soon. It was only a matter of time.
But DeRicci would have thought the street patrol would have found Maakestad long before the city-wide alert had become necessary. Lockdown would look bad on her already awful record, too, although it would show that the fugitive was clever—avoiding not just DeRicci, but the rest of the law as well.
A mixed blessing after all.
DeRicci’s desk was filthy. Leftover food from other long nights, a half-full coffee cup with mold on top of the liquid, and the clothes she had worn in the aircar accident sprawled across one corner. She shoved the clothes on the floor, set the coffee in the breakroom sink, and tossed out the leftover food. Then she grabbed a towel and wiped off her screen.
There was only one way she could think of to redeem herself on this case, and to redeem Flint, should he screw up as badly as she thought he was going to.
She had to find Maakestad herself. Now that they had the woman’s real name, it might not be as hard as it had been the night before.
DeRicci doubted that anyone had run Maakestad’s records, not with the woman’s name coming so late, and a crisis keeping everyone diverted. The chief was dealing with the public relations nightmare, and the street patrols were searching every square inch of the city. If anyone had the presence of mind in all of that looking to link into the main data systems for records, DeRicci would have been surprised.
She plugged in Maakestad’s name and let the system do a search. She asked for all the records pertaining to Armstrong as far back as Maakestad’s information went.
That would keep the system busy for a while. She set it to beep loudly and repeatedly when it was through. Then she put her arms down on the desk, buried her head in them, and closed her eyes.
“Detective?”
DeRicci didn’t recognize the voice. She sighed and sat up. The duty clerk had opened her office door and was peering inside. The woman looked smaller when she wasn’t behind her desk. In fact, DeRicci wasn’t sure she had ever seen a duty clerk upstairs before.
“What’re you doing here?” she asked.
The duty clerk looked nervous. “I tried your links but they were blocked.”
Of course they were. Whenever DeRicci tried to sleep, her links automatically when into privacy mode.
“So?” she said. “You could have pinged my hand-held or used the house system.”
The duty clerk nodded. “I thought it might be better to see you in person.”
“Because—”
“The Rev, Detective. They’re getting restless.”
Great. That was all she needed. “I’m sure they are. That idiot translator hasn’t told them we lost the prisoner, has he?”
“I don’t think so, but he is getting awfully nervous.”
“I think he was born nervous,” DeRicci said.
The duty clerk smiled. The movement was almost involuntary. The worry in her eyes didn’t change. “The Rev are agitated and they’re in a really small space….”
“Move them, then,” DeRicci said. “And tell them we’re almost ready to see them.”
“Good,” the duty clerk said. “That’ll help, but I don’t know how much. They really want that woman.”
“We all do,” DeRicci said.
“You are searching for her, right?” the clerk asked.
“The entire street patrol is searching for her,” DeRicci said. “And I’m looking up records. Or rather, I’m letting the system do it. I have a hunch we’ll find her within the hour.”
“I hope you’re right, Detective,” the clerk said. “The Rev aren’t going to wait much longer.”
<
br /> DeRicci nodded. The Rev wouldn’t wait much longer, and Flint was off chasing a fantasy. If he wasn’t back in a half an hour, she’d page him. She wasn’t going to deal with another group of angry aliens.
The data clerk pulled the door closed. DeRicci glanced at her screen, filling with information on Ekaterina Maakestad. DeRicci didn’t feel like she had lied this time. They were close. They’d get Maakestad back.
And then, at least, the problem with the Rev would be solved. At least this one didn’t have the ethical considerations the Wygnin cases did. Maakestad was clearly a fugitive who had injured two officers in her drive to escape.
DeRicci could hand her over to the Rev without feeling any qualms at all.
Twenty-five
Flint loved the oldest section of Armstrong. It was the only part of the city that seemed to have character. A lot of the buildings dated from the colonization and bore scars from the collapse of the first dome.
Parts of the second dome still covered this section of the city, even though the dome had been rebuilt and expanded dozens of times. The old areas were easy to see because they were made from colonial permaplastic. The permaplastic had been clear when the original colonists put it up, but time and wear had turned this section cloudy.
The filtration systems in this part of town were grafted onto the old dome, so the air was filthy. Sometimes Flint left here with his lungs burning, just because he wasn’t getting enough good oxygen.
And yet, for all the problems, this was the only part of Armstrong that even pretended to have a sense of history. The permaplastic buildings, yellowing with age, leaned against each other. The city council had tried to knock them down, but historic preservationists took the fight to Earth, where there was money and time to argue over these kinds of things.
Eventually the council bowed to the pressure and kept the original buildings intact, vowing to maintain them as well as possible. So far, upkeep had mostly been shoring up walls, caulking cracks, and placing tiny bronze plaques beside the doors, stating what the building had originally been back in the good old days when Armstrong was barely one square mile.
The office Flint headed toward was in Armstrong’s first retail section, in a long building that had been divided into several areas, all of them too small to house a store—at least by current standards.
The Disappeared Page 26