“People adapt very easily. In prison he can eat, read, work if he wants, watch VT, make friends, take drugs and fuck. He’s got guaranteed food and bed—a lot more than many people.”
“He’ll get death!”
“No, he’s a psycho—unbalanced.”
“He’ll be put away, isn’t that what counts? The public will be safe. Think of Opal, man…think of your woman. Think pink.” Vern tried to chuckle, make a joke of it.
Black looked away with a kind of sullen pout, his tensed jaw a little thrust. One poster showed a soldier cutting the throat of another soldier with a huge knife. Actors.
“Alright.”
“Great, man—that’s great. We’ll kill him if we have to. Only if we have to.”
“I hope we have to.”
“He is dangerous,” Vern admitted.
“Good.”
“Just don’t push it to that. Promise me, Black. Or I won’t help you. Believe me I’d love to smoke that fuck. But we can’t. Too many eyes. Promise me.”
“I promise you,” Black said like a robot.
“Beautiful.” Vern threw his head back, sucked the suds out of his Zub can, crushed the metal and tossed it at a wastebasket. It missed. “You got a civilian gun?”
Black was dressed all in black but for his robin’s egg blue tweed jacket, which he held away from his left side. Glints on a dark form in the darkness there. “Lead-slinger. Decimator 220, snub.”
“Ballsy old piece. I been lookin’ for the 340 all my life. You got good plasma for it?”
“No.”
“We want HAP-style plasma. This fuck plays with M-670 and God knows what else…we can’t risk splashing him. Innocents might be around. We got to do it pro.”
“Our plasma is illegal. If we get caught with it on us…”
“I know, but what else can we do? Here.” Vern moved to a plastic footlocker, swept it clear of clothes and magazines, punched in its code to unlock it. He lifted out a pistol in a holster. Before returning to Black he retrieved the pistol he’d worn in his waistband when he’d answered the door but had then set aside. “Take this.” He extended the holstered handgun. “I’ve got a good plasma for it…my own little stash.”
Accepting the gun, Black unsheathed it from its scratched old holster. It was a squat, more compact version of Vern’s gun, a semi-automatic made from a glassy red plastic. This one was more scuffed and dulled than Vern’s longer version. It felt nice in the hand—not light and ineffective like so many guns these days.
“I’ve got lead for it, too. Keep the lead clip in it in case we get checked out along the way. Keep the plasma clip hidden…sew a pocket in the lining of your jacket or something. Quick to get at if you need it.”
“Thanks.”
“What else will we need?” Woodmere pivoted to glance around the apartment, enthused despite his previous caution. “Ahh…”
“I put my tools in my trunk in case we have to break in somewhere.”
Vern snapped back to Black. “Hey, now…let’s not be reckless, huh? Think of me, too, will ya?”
“I am, I’m sorry…just in case, you know? You never know.”
“Yeah, right, just be careful, huh? We have to stay calm with this. We gotta do it clean and pro. Like we were still health agents.”
“Some places we’ll wanna go will have weapon scans. I want to pull surveillance on the Hill Way Galleries, where he made that Auretta Here vid with his cameo appearance. He’s got a painting there, too, I found out. A place like that will have a scan.”
“True. Hm.”
“Can you shield us?”
“Yeah, maybe—no. No…look. The syringes they use at HAP, plasma-proof syringes they use to inject and dispose of contaminated lab animals? I can get something just like it from the black market goons where I got my plasma. It’s a pen. You put a plasma bullet inside, you push the plunger and the capsule breaks, the plasma gets injected. You have to get close, but that will pass a normal scan looking at weapon shapes. Unless they got one looking for plasma.”
“We can’t go against him weaponless at any time.”
“True. Look, I’ll get four pens—two each. Right? Two blue and two red. In the red will be the plasma. In blue we’ll put remonil to knock him out and take him alive if we can. Sound good?”
“Very good. I knew I could count on you to work these things out.”
“Weaponry is my life, my man.”
“I’d love to get into Greenberg and look for a trap-door, an air vent, something. See how he made his exit.”
“Forget that. Forget those tools of yours—we break in there and we blow it. Too obvious; HAP could be around. Anyway, don’t you think they already picked that place clean? Let’s try new angles, man…the museum and Greenberg have already been done.”
“It’s just a start to get our feet wet. Anyway, our perspectives aren’t the same as other perspectives. We might find things the others missed.”
“There’s no trap-door. Loveland was either a hologram or he teleported out.”
“Where would he get a teleporter…on the black market?”
“Maybe. Maybe he made one. He’s supposed to be this freakin’ genius, right?”
*
The blue pen was clipped in the spiral binding of Black’s sketchbook and the red one holstered in his shirt pocket—and the scan at the Hill Way Galleries let him pass. Last night Vern had also acquired two miniature, powerful communication devices disguised as rings (tacky rings, Black thought) from his black market contacts. They went in together for now; if any HAP people spotted either one of them alone, it would arouse just as much suspicion anyway. If Loveland ever saw them both together, it was doubtful he’d remember them from his show—and anyway, Black had shaved off his mustache and goatee since then. Even Vern had shaved.
After selecting a number of museum guides and brochures at the reception area, Black located Toll Loveland’s painting Matter of Life and Death in an index, took note of its floor and wing location. If nothing more came of this—and what might, anyway?—Black had to see this painting. The title. His heartbeat grew more pronounced as they made their way upstairs in the nearly empty building, more pronounced down every hallway, as if when he finally turned into the room they sought, there would stand the handsome Toll Loveland. Smiling. Expecting them. He wasn’t there; the room empty, though a stern gray-suited man strolling in an adjacent gallery gave them a look, resembling a strict teacher presiding over an exam and keeping an eye out for cheaters. “There it is,” said Vern. “I remember seeing that on VT, now.”
“I didn’t.” Though he must have had it in his hours upon hours of unwatched vid files. Black followed Vern to the painting, his heart still beating with anticipation.
It was a moderate-sized light painting, portraying a moldering skeleton against a black background. A baby boy was trapped in the rib-cage of the skeleton but the ribs were beginning to break outward. Both skeleton and baby were in the exact same pose, to the tilt of head and spread of fingers, one of the boy’s hands reaching through the ribs. The skeleton just reached at air.
“Pretty good,” murmured Black. “Pretty damn realistic.”
“Hey, it says here the picture changes every hour…it has four stages. For the sake of surprise, it won’t describe what they look like. I guess it has different layers of projected light operating on a timer.”
“Ha.” Just when Black was beginning to feel safe near it. He found himself squinting at the artwork, changing his angle, though he knew he wouldn’t be able to discern the hidden, alternating layers. “Let’s look around for an hour, come back.”
“Let’s look for a men’s room.”
“Well, we’ll split up for a while—meet me here in exactly an hour.”
“All we’re gonna meet here is a health agent with questions.”
“Hey, we’re art lovers, Vern—that’s no crime.”
Black was back first, but only by seconds; Vern joined him outside the galler
y. Too bad—he’d have liked to look at it for a few moments alone. As it turned out, however, the room was no longer empty. A group of five figures, all dressed entirely in black, had gathered at Toll Loveland’s light painting.
They were a particular college type, or an emulation of that type: the black clothing, black slippers without socks (but a therm rub on the skin, no doubt, owing to the chilly weather), mops of spiky blacker-than-black hair shaved almost to a stubble below the temples, and whiter-than-white flesh that looked as smooth and soft and fragile as mushroom flesh…you could imagine pushing your finger through it. A familiar style in Punktown, so normally Black wouldn’t have looked twice. But they were gazing at and talking about Matter of Life and Death.
Black placed a hand on Vern’s arm to warn him into silence. He took in the painting’s mutation at the same time he tried to sort their soft conversation. He was aware that as he and Vern stood off behind the five young people, the stern gray-suited guard stood off behind him and Vern, grimly observing one and all.
The moldering skeleton in the painting had taken on hard, living flesh. Not just any flesh. It was unmistakably a self-portrait of Toll Loveland, extending his arms as if to reach out of the painting. All that was left visible of the baby in the skeleton’s rib-cage was an arm reaching bloodlessly out of Toll’s hard belly…only now it was the tiny arm of a skeleton child.
The black background remained empty. Black had expected to see some white moths there, maybe just one. Nothing of the kind. Still, two stages to go.
From what the black-garbed group related, a special exhibit of paintings, sculptures and film strips by Toll Loveland was coming to the Hill Way Galleries, collected from various small galleries here and in Miniosis and from private collectors…including the giant Screaming Pink Nazis carton from Pandora’s Box, recovered by police and safety-scanned by the Health Agency, plus the two plastic skeletons on fork-lifts. The film Cupid of Death would be shown. Black was gladder than ever that it was from Beak and not himself that the film had been extracted for release to the VT networks, and now this.
“That’ll be something to keep an eye on,” Black muttered.
“Are you crazy? That twisto won’t come within ten miles of it.”
“Excuse me.” Black approached the group; they all turned. Black lipstick, mascara, black beauty mark tattoos. Two or three were probably girls. Whether to let the hair fall down to hide the left eye or right eye was probably a major issue with them, and that was the only major difference Black could see in them.
“Didst I detect the tones of one in inquiry of me?” one asked of his fellows, who chuckled approvingly at his wittiness. “Didst a blond entity address us, in such like a manner as to elicit a response to said inquiry hereto?”
“Do any of you know a girl named Ivory Ebon?” The ticket girl at Pandora’s Box hadn’t known anything, but maybe one of these people could be of help in some way. She could have been one of them—but then, there were thousands of their ilk in Punktown. Probably millions in Miniosis.
“What is this blond person asking of thee, I mean me, I mean we? We?”
“Oui,” chuckled a girl, presumably.
Vern stepped closer. “Just answer the man’s question, you glow-in-the-dark fucking cave fish.”
His eyes could have set them on fire. A vein snaked under his taut forehead skin. The chuckle trickled down the witty boy’s throat like ice water. “Who is it?”
“Ivory Ebon,” drawled Vern.
“No…who is that? Oh, oh…the girl from Pandora’s Box? I saw her on VT.”
“None of you know her personally?”
All shook their heads or muttered in the negative. No one smiled.
“Any of you fucking little ghouls know Toll Loveland personally?”
All said no. “We’re just looking at his painting,” a girl said quietly, the only protest the group offered to Vern’s murderous blaze. Boy, can he turn it on, Black smiled to himself. But was it part fake or all real? This was the old Vern. He’d seemed so mellowed, so tired since Black had gone to see him at his basement apartment yesterday.
“Well, you’re in my way. Go get a tan or something.”
The five young people obliged, drifted silently off like a black cloud. The gray-suited man, less intimidated, stepped up to take their place.
“Can I ask what you two gentlemen are doing?”
“We’re from the Health Agency,” said Vern.
“Oh, I see—what can I do for you?” The sternness lightened.
“When is that Loveland exhibit coming?” asked Black.
“We have the pieces already but we need another week for promotion. The exhibit opens on the first of the month.”
“Where are all these little galleries and who are the private collectors?”
“I thought you people had that information.”
“We’re a separate branch of investigation,” said Vern. “The other team holds out on us; they want the cuff and the glory all to themselves.”
“Well, I’m not sure about the galleries…I know one or two were on Newbury Street. And I wouldn’t know anything about private collectors. Shall I buzz the office?”
“Ah…not yet. We’ll do that ourselves if we have to,” said Black. HAP obviously had that angle covered for now, were probably concentrated on it…best to try to find new, unthought-of angles, as Vern had said. “Was this painting here scanned for dangerous substances or properties?”
“Oh yes, all Toll Loveland’s work has been exhaustively scanned.”
“Alright, thanks for your help.”
More trusting now, the guard strolled out into the hall to leave them alone.
“Now what?” asked Vern.
“I wonder if anyone’s thought to extract Ivory Ebon’s memories of Toll Loveland approaching her to do the tickets, or her approaching him, however that went. I’d like to see him in the non-performing mode. Mrs. Greenberg’s memories, too.”
“He wouldn’t reveal anything to them. The kid was truth scanned, right?”
“Just to observe him. Study him unguarded, you know?”
“He wouldn’t have been unguarded with them. It was still acting.”
“True.”
“Anyway, we don’t have access to that kind of gear.”
“Was Mrs. Greenberg truth scanned?”
“I don’t know. You still get inside HAP, not me.”
Black pouted at the painting. “Well, time to split up again.”
“He’s not coming here no matter how much he likes to tease us. Just ask the guard what the other two phases are. Maybe he can adjust the timer and run through them.”
“He can’t do that…hey. Wait. Your glasses. You got your sunglasses?”
“Yeah. Shit.” Woodmere reached inside his leather flight jacket for a small case, opened it and handed over the glasses he had worn inside the Greenberg plant to see in the dark. “Give it a try. Want me to show ya?”
“I got it.” Black placed the glasses on his face, touched a button near the frame hinge. A red spot of light came on in each lens. He turned to the painting. No difference—dimmer if anything, colors faded to ghost light. There were tiny dials, and a switch he flicked with his fingernail. The colors jumped up in intensity. He adjusted a toothed dial. Toll Loveland’s flesh became insubstantial. Bones showed through. “I got it!” He moved the dial the other way. The entire picture surface clouded over. New flesh. It became solid, a chest with nipples and a trim, steely belly filling up the entire frame. Baby in man, now man inside this man. What was last? A baby inside the baby?
He moved the dial and watched for moths.
“So what do ya see?” asked Vern, impatient.
Back to the skeleton, the baby in the rib-cage breaking out, and no moths. Only one thing was different. No one had noted its significance, Black was sure. He had known his individual perspective would benefit him. The painting had reached out to him; maybe some obscure faculty of his had perceived the hidden l
ayers. He smiled.
In the previously empty, sightless sockets of the skull were now two spheres like bulbous eyes. Crystalline globes filled with a glowing, translucent milky liquid. And inside the globes, one in each like pupils, were beautiful metallic blue fish.
Navigator globes. From a tran.
“Come on, let me see—what is it?”
“I think we’ve found our teleporter,” Black said at last.
SEVEN
“For all intents and purposes, a tran is a teleporter between dimensions for the Bedbugs,” Black observed. He was piloting his helicar.
“And how the hell would Loveland know about Bedbug technology?”
“Like you said, he’s a freakin’ genius.”
“Yeah, but he’s not God. Maybe he got a book out of the library, huh?”
“Maybe he did.”
“Shit, man.”
“Maybe they helped him.”
“Who?”
“Some Bedbugs.”
“They don’t associate with humans. We don’t like them and they don’t like us.”
“But some of them live in our dimension, right? They have to function here. So they need money. You need money, you can be bought. Right?”
“True.”
The gate was locked at Greenberg Products, the barbed wire-garlanded fence charged with a strong but nonlethal current. A uniformed young guard came to meet them on the outside of the gate, both fists on the handles of an automatic blaster that moments earlier had been slung over his shoulder. Black kept his own hands still and in sight on his helicar’s console. “Who are you?” the guard demanded. A second guard was approaching, too.
“Health agents.” Black slowly flipped open a badge I.D. that Vern had also acquired from his black market friends. He’d had it at the museum but the guard there hadn’t asked to see credentials. If he ever got caught by the authorities with this on him, it would be as bad as the plasma.
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