“It is that very case, si,” he confessed. “You see, cara, there’s a wellknown civic official from Greater Los Angeles who took off with a satchel full of important infodiscs. They contain information that certain of his colleagues back home don’t want to have to buy back from him. I only hours ago learned that he was lying low at the lodge.”
“And that’s why you wanted me to help you sneak around the guards and security people?”
Gomez nodded. “I didn’t tell you earlier, because I feared you’d ferret the lad out on your own and break the story to the world. That would’ve screwed up me and the Cosmos agency and—”
“Why, Gomez, dear, all you had to do, and I’m really surprised that you haven’t realized that about me in all the many years that we’ve known each other—all you had to do was ask me to lay off the story until you had your man.”
“Really? Well, how did I get such a wrong impression of you?”
“While I’m interviewing Carlos Taffy, you go right ahead and apprehend your blackmailer,” she told him. “We’ll meet back here in this tunnel afterwards. If you’re ready to share any details, why that’ll be plenty of time for me to file a story and impress Newz, Inc. with the fact that I’m still an ace reporter.”
“Terrific, Nat, I’ll do just that.”
Smiling, she turned on the seat and slipped an arm around his neck. She pulled herself, gently, nearer and kissed Gomez on the cheek. “No hard feelings,” she assured him.
“You’re making a mistake, sis,” said the robot.
The dusty white dog, a small scruffy mutt, was standing wide-legged on a weedy patch of dry lawn at the center of the dimlit courtyard. He was barking enthusiastically at the dented, rattling robot who was attempting to mow the grass.
“Leave me be,” complained the battered bot.
On the red plaztile porch of Cottage 3 of the Venice Vista Apartment Court sat a plump young woman in her early twenties. She had a woebegone set of Tek gear, including a dirty Brainbox and a bent headset, arranged on the top step beside her. There was an old unplugged guitar spread across her wide lap and she was laughing at the unhappy robot gardener.
“Norm thinks it’s important to live among the people he’s working with,” explained Molly as she and Dan made their way along the white gravel path that circled the courtyard.
“Beat it, darn you,” the robot warned the yapping little mutt.
When the plump woman laughed again, her guitar went falling off her lap.
“Norm’s back in Cottage 8.”
“I’m wondering,” said Dan, tightening his grip on her hand, “how smart it was to come down here.”
“This is good practice,” she said.
All at once up ahead in Cottage 8 someone cried out in pain.
“Tell us! C’mon, you putz!” shouted someone else.
Letting go of Molly’s hand, Dan started running for Norm Porter’s cottage.
“Wait now.” She ran, too, catching up with him and then reaching under her skirt. “We can use this.” Her right hand reappeared holding a small stungun.
“Where’d you get—”
“Watch him, look out!” came another voice from within the cottage.
The door of the place came flapping open. A tall suntanned young man, his face battered and bloody, dived out into the night.
“Norm,” gasped Molly.
Another young man, thickset and shaggy, appeared in the open doorway.
“Leave him alone,” warned Molly, clutching her stungun in both hands and aiming it up at him.
“Hell with you, bitch.” The shaggy young man started to come down the steps.
Then a large hand grabbed him from behind and yanked him back into the house. “Time to go, asshole!”
Norm had managed to come stumbling down the stairs. “They wanted ... wanted to know where ...
“Easy, take it easy.” Dan lunged, caught the bloody social worker before he toppled over.
“They want Jimalla,” Norm was able to get out before he dropped into unconsciousness.
Roger Zangerly was in an office where he wasn’t supposed to be. It was long after closing time and this wing of the Mechanix International complex was quiet and deserted. The night lights made everything seem pale green.
Roger was sitting at a desk he wasn’t supposed to be sitting at, using a computer terminal he wasn’t authorized to use. He also wasn’t supposed to have knowledge of the access procedures he’d used to get at the Security Division files.
“Okay,” he was requesting, “give me the current whereabouts of Alicia Bower.”
The computer remained silent for nearly ten seconds. Then it said, “May we have your ID code again, please?”
“Sure, it’s 1343K-JSG-94702.”
“Thank you.” Another ten seconds of silence followed. “We have no information on Alicia Bower, sorry.”
“Shit.” Roger drummed his fingers on the desk top. “Okay, then how about Rob Stinson—where can he be found?”
“Forgive us, but can you repeat your ID code again?”
“I just did that. Why don’t you—”
“Once more, if you would, please.”
“1343K-JSG-94702. Make a note this time, huh?”
“That’s fine,” said the metallic voice of the computer. “We’ll have your information for you very soon. If you’ll just remain right there until—”
“I think not, no.” Feeling suddenly uneasy, Roger popped free of the chair and went sprinting for the doorway.
He made it out into the greenlit night corridor beyond and stood listening for a moment. Everything was as quiet as it had been earlier.
But he decided it was time to get the hell out of the building. There had been something slightly offkilter about his encounter with the security computer.
Walking rapidly along the curving corridor, he came to the doorway that led over to his wing of the complex. The thick metal door would no longer open to his touch.
Roger punched out an emergency code on the control panel next to the reluctant door. It still would not slide aside.
He turned, started back the way he’d come. He was running now.
There was another corridor that branched off this one, and the door leading to it opened with no trouble.
He still ought to be able to get himself clear of this damn wing.
But the door at the end of this corridor refused to open.
Roger backtracked.
He found another exit, headed along another shadowy passage.
Another frozen door, another sidetrack.
He stopped finally, leaned back against a pale-green wall. “I’m starting,” he admitted to himself, “to get somewhat confused.”
He was no longer certain in which direction his part of the Mechanix complex lay.
The corridor he was now in didn’t look at all familiar. And there were no signs or direction lights anywhere.
Taking a deep breath, he started moving again.
He located a new doorway on his right. It opened for him.
This was a large, dimlit display room. There were thirteen low pedestals circling the room and on each stood, silent and unmoving, a Mechanix medical robot or android.
“This must be the Medix Wing,” he told himself. “So I ought to be able to get back to my office from here.”
He started across the room.
“Poor Mr. Zangerly.”
He stopped, looking around.
A husky nursebot had stepped off a pedestal and was hurrying toward him. “You don’t look at all well.”
“Actually I’m fine. All you have to do is point me in the direction of my—”
“You’re all feverish.”
“That’s just from running. It’s—”
“What a pity.” The big robot caught hold of him. “You’ll feel a whole lot better after this shot.”
28
YOU COULD SEE THE PLACE glowing, a harsh, throbbing red, from blocks away. It covered
over two full acres of ground, was built of great panes of flashing plastiglass and resembled a gigantic barn. Floating above it was a huge lightsign that flashed its name—the barn—into the surrounding night. At least a dozen skycars were approaching the acre of landing area and land vehicles were rolling into the equally large parking area beyond that.
“Impressive, huh?” inquired Georgia, punching out a landing pattern on her skycar’s dash. “Subtle, too.”
“Explain this setup a little more,” requested Jake.
“The Barn is a sort of entertainment mall for the local sodkickers and faux sodkickers,” she answered. “But underneath you’ll find a warren of assorted criminal enterprises. Many of them are known to the law, but ignored because of a flourishing system of bribes and kickbacks.”
The skycar set down, shimmying slightly, next to a skyvan that had been redesigned to resemble an immense ear of corn.
“And you’re sure Dr. Mel Winter is going to be under here someplace?”
“Damn near sure.” She climbed free of the car. “When you asked me to get a lead as to his current whereabouts, I asked around. Supposedly the good doctor is here, waiting to get himself shipped out of the country. Apparently he’s got a bug up his rear and wants to get clear of Farmland before he disappears like Sharon Harker.”
There was noise and music pouring out of The Barn. The entire landing area and the walkways leading to the arched entrances were bathed with a pulsing red by the blazing lights of the walls.
“It’s going to be fifty bucks a head,” Georgia told him. “You got that much?”
He grinned. “The agency is generous with expense money.”
A tall, automated scarecrow stood at the doorway. “Fifty smackers each,” it demanded of each customer.
When Jake placed $100 in Banx chits in the scarecrow’s gloved hand, it said, “Much obliged, stranger. You and the little lady make yourselves to home.”
“Shucks,” said Jake.
“We got to head over this way.” Georgia took his arm and guided him to the left.
They passed an enormous woodplank dance floor that held several hundred squaredancers. Up on a platform, electrified downhome music was being played by a quintet of big copper-plated robots dressed in overalls and straw hats. Painted on the face of the bass drum was Granpappy Gitfiddle & His Hired Hands.
As they passed the floor, a heavyset young man took a stumble, fell off onto the walkway in their path. He had Farmboy Industries—Feeding America from the Heart of Farmland inscribed across the back of his jacket in globolts.
Bending, Jake helped him to his feet. “That’s one of my favorite slogans.”
“Huh?” The heavyset youth blinked. “You looking for trouble, outlander?”
“Heck no.”
“C’mon.” Georgia hurried Jake along. “Don’t get into no ruckuses with the yokels.”
“Shucks, I was just trying to be neighborly, ma’am.”
Great smashing noises were coming from up ahead on their right, along with booming explosions and huge swirls of sooty smoke. The walkway wound by a large, open arena where a sizeable crowd was watching a demolition derby involving a score of antique pickup trucks.
Georgia remarked, “We got quite a night life in these parts.”
“So I’m experiencing.”
She guided him down a side passway. “We got to go in here first off.”
There was a barn within The Barn, a big red structure made of neowood. Over the wide entrance hung a wooden sign announcing HAYLOFT WHOREHOUSE.
“Howdy, folks,” greeted the barefooted robot sitting on a bale of straw just to the right of the door. “What can I do ya for this evenin’? We got three under-age virgins—humans I mean to say—along with our usual exceptional run of accommidatin’ andies of every gender.”
Georgia leaned close to him. “We come on business, Zeke,” she told the robot. “The frost is on the pumpkin.”
“Ah, I got ya.” He tapped the side of his metal nose with his silvery forefinger. “Go right on in, missy, and take the door to the Feed Room. This here young feller with you?”
“Yep.”
“Okay, get on in with ya. Too bad, mister, you’re on business. We don’t get virgins every night, I can tell ya.”
Beyond the Feed Room door a dimlit ramp led them down beneath the barn. At the end of that was another door. Passing through that doorway brought them into a long, curving metal corridor.
When they reached the heavy door at the corridor’s end, a portion of the wall on their right turned transparent and revealed a small, brightlit room.
A blond young man was sitting in a rocker with a lazrifle resting across his knees. “Yeah?” came his amplified voice.
“The frost is on the pumpkin,” called out Georgia in his direction.
“Oaky doaks.”
The wall blanked and the door slid open.
The next corridor was longer, narrower and better illuminated. At its end stood a small, pale man in a baggy green suit.
He was shifting nervously from foot to foot. “Evening to you, Georgia dear.”
“Hi, Ryder,” she said. “So can we talk to Dr. Winter now?”
Ryder shifted from foot to foot a few more times and made a disgruntled noise. “Afraid you’re going to have a wait, hon,” he told her. “The crazy fool just tried to do the dutch.”
“Tried to kill himself?”
“Damned if he didn’t. Soon as we finish pumping him out and shooting him up with antidotes, you can give it a try,” he said forlornly. “But I can’t promise he’ll ever be in any shape to talk to you folks.”
“Shit,” observed Jake.
29
GOMEZ THRUST HIS STUNGUN back away into his shoulder holster. Squatting, he took hold of the disabled grey guardbot by its metallic armpits and dragged it away from the spot behind the high holographic hedge where it had been on duty and into the narrow, quirky alley between the two modest villas.
Approaching the bright green simulated hedge again, he scanned the artificial turf. “Sin falta ... here’s the secsystem control panel.”
He knelt, took a small tool kit out of his pocket. Deftly he removed the small panel that covered the alarm system controls. In a little less than six minutes he had shut down the whole setup that protected the villa where Sheldon Gates was hiding out.
Pocketing the kit, Gomez eased through the simulated hedge and approached the blank yellow wall of the villa.
As he’d anticipated, the opaque plastiglass door marked service entry didn’t make any warning noises when he jobbed the lock mechanism.
Slowly and carefully he shoved the door open. The aircirc system was pumping a mixture strongly tinged with the scent of wild flowers into the long blank corridor that Gomez stepped into.
He stopped still, stood listening.
“ ... an International Drug Control Agency spokesman reports a successful raid on a Tek chip processing plant in the TriState complex earlier today ... A deep, slick voice was intoning the news in a nearby room.
Going by the floorplan he’d memorized, the newscast was coming from the lower recroom.
And it seemed likely that the fugitive Shel was in there now, filling himself in on the events of the day.
Gomez remained where he was, bringing his stungun out into the open once again.
“ ... the President today signed into law the final Brazil War veterans benefits package ...
Nodding, the detective started along the hallway.
He walked silently to the door of the lower recroom. Reaching out with his free hand, he took hold of the handle.
He shoved the panel open and ducked across the threshold, gun ready.
“Greetings from the folks back home, Shel,” he said, pointing his stungun at the blond, sunbrown fugitive.
Sheldon Gates had been sprawled in an armchair, watching the vidwall. He was some five feet from the detective.
“Yow!” he exclaimed. Then, somewhat to Gomez’
s surprise, Gates leaped from his chair, came charging straight at him and butted him hard in the stomach with his closecropped head.
A chill night wind was blowing in across the dark Pacific. The realwood sign dangling from the slanting shingle roof of the Oceanfront People’s Clinic was rattling and creaking.
On the cracked sidewalk near the doorway a neon-trimmed robot was hawking soydogs and lentilburgers. “You are what you eat,” he croaked, his body flashing crimson, golden, then sea blue.
Skirting him, Dan and Molly entered the clinic.
In the reception room a motherly robot in a flowered apron was sitting in a rocker, embroidering a hand towel. “My gracious, you two lambs are all splattered with blood.” The robot jumped to her feet. “Whatever on earth has—”
“It’s not our blood,” explained Dan. “A friend of ours was beaten up.”
“We just came from dropping him at the Emergency Wing,” added Molly.
“I think maybe Dr. Moreno can help us,” said Dan.
“Well, now, I just bet he can. You poor things wait right here while I fetch the—”
“What’s the row about, Moms?” Dr. Harry Moreno came lumbering into the room, a mug of steaming herb tea clutched in his hand.
“Dr. Moreno?” said Dan, stepping toward him. “I’m Dan Cardigan and this is Molly Fine. My father is Jake Cardigan and he’s an operative with the Cosmos Detective—”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of him. Matter of fact, I was chatting with his partner, Sid Gomez, only—”
“I know. My dad told me quite a lot about this case they’re working on.”
“Does this mess you seem to be in have something to do with Alicia Bower, too?”
“We think so,” answered Molly. “And maybe with Jimalla Keefer.”
“Jim? How does she—”
“Here’s what’s been going on,” said Dan and told the bearded therapist why he and Molly had come to the Venice Sector and some of what had happened to Norm Porter.
Molly added, “Norm told us that those goons wanted to know where they could find Jimalla. And they didn’t want him or anybody else to talk to her before they found her.”
“Damn, sounds like Jim’s in trouble again.” Moreno scratched at his grey-tinged beard.
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