“Don’t you have to doublecheck that on your computer gadget?”
“I have an excellent memory, my dear,” Dr. Spearman assured her. “Plus a deep interest in your case.” He rubbed his fingertips across his bearded chin. “What gave you the idea that you’d been—”
“I don’t know. It simply flashed into my mind.”
He moved his kit an inch or so to the left. “When do you think that other visit might have been?”
“It was ... She spread her hands wide, looked up at the grey ceiling. “I don’t know. I ... I was much younger.”
“You had a very happy childhood and adolescence, Alicia. We’ve talked about that a good deal,” he reminded her. “There would have been no reason for your coming here when you were—”
“My mother died when I was fourteen. That wasn’t a very happy event.”
“No, certainly not, my dear. But, really, it didn’t have any harmful—”
“That’s not what other people think.”
“What do other people think?”
“That I’m promiscuous, indiscriminate about men. That I sleep with anybody and everybody.”
“Do you?”
“No, not exactly. Not anymore, but ... I’m not sure about how I used to be.”
Spearman lifted the lid of the black kit box. “I’d like to begin our session this morning with—”
“It’s morning, is it?”
“Don’t you know?”
“I’m sort of losing track of time somewhat,” she admitted. “I’m not even really certain exactly how long I’ve been here at the Centre. How long has it been?”
“Not that very long, my dear.” Smiling, he cleared his throat. “Right now another injection is called for, I’m afraid.”
Moving her right hand to her upper left arm, she rubbed at it. “Isn’t there some other—”
“We’ve gone over all this before, Alicia, and I’ve taken you into my confidence as to our methods here,” he said, very patiently. “In order to get the best results, the most beneficial results for you, we have to use means that are sometimes—”
“If the results are so darn beneficial, why am I back here?”
“You suffered a relapse.”
“I’m still fuzzy on the details of that.”
“Yes, that’s to be expected in cases such as yours,” he assured her. “There are, no matter how hard we work at it nor how much hope we put into it, people who have setbacks now and then. Now I’ll get this injection ready for you, my dear, and we’ll—”
“Jesus, are you still sitting here on your fat ass spouting the usual bullshit?” The door had whispered open and Sam Trinity, wearing a copperplated hand this morning, had come striding in. “I told you last night that this has dragged on far too—”
“And I told you, expressly, never to come here.”
Shrugging, the OCO agent settled into the chair next to the young woman. “You’re not looking too great, kid,” he mentioned.
Alicia moved herself and the chair back from him. “Dr. Spearman, who is—”
“A colleague of mine,” answered the doctor. “And one who is not, I assure you, authorized to sit in on our sessions together.”
“I’m staying,” said Trinity. “I want to see why it’s taking you so frigging long to take care of a simple—”
“I can’t allow that, Trinity.”
“Hey, you got this all ass backwards, Isaac. It’s me who tells you what goes on around this dump.” He reached out with his metal hand, caught a leg of Alicia’s chair and pulled it back to where it had been. “You’re giving me the idea that you don’t much like me, sweet,” he said. “You do like me, don’t you?”
“You’ll have to leave us now,” insisted Spearman, standing up. “I can not continue this therapy if—”
“You want me to continue it for you, Isaac? Because, you know, I think I can sure as hell do a better job than you.”
Dr. Spearman rubbed his hand over his whiskered cheek a few times, looking from Trinity to the young woman. “Very well,” he said finally. “You can sit in, but you have to keep quiet and not interfere in any way.”
“I’m just an interested observer. Okay, Isaac?”
Alicia slid her chair back again. “Dr. Spearman, I’d prefer, really, not to have anyone else here while we—”
“It doesn’t matter a rat’s ass what you prefer, sweet,” Trinity told her. He took hold of her arm this time and pulled her and the chair closer to him.
“Trinity, if you don’t—”
All at once a loud hooting began in the corridor outside. Up above the door a band of scarlet light blossomed and began to throb.
From a voxbox beneath the flashing stripe of red light a message came booming. “Attention all security staff! Attention all security staff! Serious Rioting in Violent Wing! Serious Rioting in Violent Wing! Fire Raging! Fire Raging!”
Spearman took a step in the direction of the door. “I’ll have to—”
The door slid open again. Jake, his stungun in his hand, came into the room. “Really isn’t a riot, Dr. Spearman,” he announced. “Just a little diversion I arranged when I was down in your Control Room.”
“Who the devil are—”
“It’s Cardigan, you asshole,” exclaimed Trinity, popping to his feet. “And he’s come to spring the damn girl.”
34
“MISS BOWER, I’M JAKE CARDIGAN—with the Cosmos Detective Agency in Greater LA,” Jake said as the door shut behind him. “You’re going to have to trust me. Barry Zangerly hired us to find—”
“You’ll never pull this off, Cardigan,” warned Trinity.
“Keep that hand in your lap, Sam,” suggested Jake. “You, Spearman, don’t go for your phone.”
“This intrusion is absolutely—”
“Wait,” said Alicia. “Why did Barry hire you?”
“Because you’d disappeared.”
“That’s absolute nonsense,” said Dr. Spearman. “This young woman, Cardigan or whoever you are—this poor young woman suffered a serious relapse. To intrude here now and try to poison her mind with audacious and extremely harmful lies will only cause—”
“How’d I end up here then,” she asked Jake, “if I didn’t have another breakdown?”
“That was Sam’s work. He’s an agent with a government intelligence agency called the Office of Clandestine Operations,” he told her. “Abduction is one of his specialties. I imagine he stungunned you when you went to visit your father in the hospital.”
“You must, I insist, stop this!” said Spearman, voice rising.
“This girl’s mental stability is not such that she can be subjected to—”
“If you’ll just get up, Miss Bower, and come with me,” Jake said. “We’re on a pretty tight schedule.”
She hesitated a few seconds, then rose to her feet. “Is Barry allright?”
“Relatively so. Some goons, probably in the employ of Sam here, worked him over.”
“This man is lying,” Spearman told her. “I don’t know what his objective is, but if you go with him, you’ll be doing yourself great harm. And you’ll erase all the valuable work we—”
“This is no time for bullshit, Isaac.” As Alicia passed in front of Trinity, he gave her a powerful shove with his metal hand.
That sent her stumbling across the room and smack into Jake.
Jake fell back, landing on one knee and dropping his stungun onto the grey carpeting.
Trinity lunged, shoving the fallen Alicia out of his way. He dived, landing on top of Jake and sending him over on his back.
“Now I’ll take care of you,” promised Trinity, his metal fingers reaching for Jake’s throat, “the way you should’ve been taken care of right off.”
Georgia had headed for another part of the facility. Wearing a medical jacket and carrying a notebook, she went walking rapidly along a lemon-yellow corridor. She looked efficient, purposeful and as though she actually belonged there.
When the corridor forked, she headed down the sea-blue branch. Up ahead a few paces was a young human nurse, who was walking slowly alongside a robot breakfast cart.
“Damn,” muttered Georgia, “witnesses.” She increased her pace.
“No,” the small, freckled nurse was telling the slowly rolling cart, “it’s supposed to be six orders of imitation hashbrowns and seven of imitation homefries.”
“On the contrary,” said the cart out of its chromed voxbox, “it’s seven hashbrowns and six homefries.”
“That’s absolutely and completely cockeyed, Oscar,” said the nurse, her hands turning to fists. “I really don’t understand why we have to go through this every single goshdarn—”
“Nurse, excuse me.” Georgia had caught up with her and was tapping on her freckled arm.
“Oh, yes, Dr.... I’m afraid, since I’m new here, I don’t know your name.” She and the cart came to a stop.
“McClennan,” said Georgia, smiling cordially. “Dr. Mary Lou McClennan.”
“Well, what can I do for you, Dr. McClennan?”
“Nothing actually,” answered Georgia, continuing to smile. “It’s simply that I’ve been assigned to the Sharon Harker case and I’m going to her room now, which is just a few doors away. I didn’t want you, or your cart, to become overly concerned if you saw me going in there.”
The nurse blinked at her. “But we have strict orders that no one is to enter Room 314, Dr. McClennan,” she said, frowning. “In fact, only ... um ... one person is allowed access.”
“Yes, I know, Agent Trinity.” She tried another smile. “I’m assisting as of this morning.”
“I hope you won’t think I’m being a stickler, Doctor,” said the freckled nurse, “but I honestly think I should see some sort of identification or authorization before I just go on about the business of serving breakfast in this area. Because of the nature of this facility, as it was very carefully explained to me when I began work here two weeks ago, our security measures have to—”
“Shit, I would have to bump into a beancounter.” Still smiling, she reached inside her medical jacket. “Okay, this should satisfy you, nurse.” She snapped out a stungun. “Okay, please, go on into Room 314. You and Oscar both.”
“Hey, I’m not allowed to violate our security rules,” protested the robot cart.
“God damn, everybody got scruples hereabouts.” She slapped a parasite disc on his polished chrome side. “Okay, Oscar, you roll your ass on down to the end of the corridor and wait.”
“Yes, miss.” The breakfast cart moved away.
“You won’t get away with this,” the nurse told Georgia.
“You got any notion what the hell I’m trying to get away with?”
“Well, no.”
“Then quit being so critical,” she suggested, reaching for the door handle.
Trinity got his coppery hand on Jake’s throat and started to squeeze.
Jake swung up both his hands, gripping the agent’s metal wrist. At the same time he brought up his knee and drove it into Trinity’s groin with considerable force.
The redhaired man yelled with pain and his clutching copper fingers loosened their hold.
Jake pushed himself to his knees, still holding tight to the wrist.
Using Trinity’s arm as a lever, he swung him to the right and hard into a grey wall.
The OCO agent hollered as he went slamming against the wall and there was a ratcheting, ripping sound.
He fell back and away from Jake.
But Jake was still holding the coppery hand. Its fingers were twitching and flexing.
Trinity went slumping to his knees. Shoulders hunched, he pressed his real hand to his empty sleeve. A wet red stain was swiftly growing on the cloth.
“I must get help.” Dr. Spearman reached for the phone he’d set on the grey table.
“You’d better not.” Alicia dived, grey skirt billowing, for the fallen stungun.
She snatched it up, sprang to her feet and turned the weapon on the psychiatrist.
“Now now, my dear, you’re really not capable of doing me any harm.” Spearman smiled at her and picked up his phone.
“Don’t,” she warned him.
“We’ll talk about your feelings after I—” That was all he managed to say before the stunbeam from the gun hit him low in the ribs.
The phone spun up out of his hand, hit the table, bounced twice and then skidded over and fell to the grey floor.
Spearman’s plump hands fluttered and he seemed to be trying to smile once more.
He tottered, sighed, fell over unconscious.
Jake, meantime, had slugged Trinity and laid him out near the doorway.
Alicia glanced over at Jake. “It would’ve been nicer,” she remarked, “if you’d knocked him cold with his own fist.”
“Poetic justice, but a mite too obvious!” The alarms were still hooting out in the hallways. “We’ve got to leave.”
She slipped the gun into the dress’s only pocket. “I’m still not completely clear as to who you are,” she admitted. “But I’d rather leave with you than stick here. So let’s go.”
35
THEY HEARD THE SOUND of running feet, a lot of them, both human and robot, over in one of the corridors that branched off the one they were hurrying along. The security people and other staffers were running toward the fake riot that Jake had created with the help of the Control Room.
“We only have a few more minutes before everybody realizes they’ve been flimflammed,” said Jake as he and the young woman ran toward the Staff Landing Area.
“Did Barry really hire you?” she asked.
“He hired the agency I work for.”
“What did you say its name was?”
“Cosmos Detective Agency.”
“Oh, yes, I’ve heard of them.” She was breathing hard from the running. “How badly is Barry hurt?”
“They beat him up, couple of thugs and a bot,” said Jake. “There was no serious damage, though, and he’s recuperating well.”
“In a hospital?”
“Last time I talked to him, yeah.”
She said, “It’s comforting to know he’s still interested in me.”
“Lots of people are interested in you, Miss Bower.”
“Look, if we’re going to be on the run together for awhile—just call me Alicia, will you?” she requested. “And your name was?”
“Jake Cardigan.”
“That’s right, you already told me that,” she said. “I’ve been having all sorts of trouble remembering things.”
“Understandable.”
Stopping, she caught hold of his arm. “What do you mean? Do you know something about why—”
“We can discuss what I know after we get ourselves clear of this—”
“Oh, dear god,” exclaimed Alicia. She was staring down the corridor.
A large matronly robot, gunmetal in color, was coming toward them.
“It’s her,” whispered the young woman, her grip on Jake’s arm tightening. “It’s Tin Lizzie.”
The ball-headed robot on the small screen of the bedside phone said, “I’m sorry, sir, we’re still not getting an answer.”
“But there’s nothing wrong with his phone?”
“Not a thing, from what the company computer tells us,” replied the hospital switchboard robot.
“Okay, I’ll try again later.”
“Perhaps, Mr. Zangerly, you ought just to rest,” suggested the roundheaded mechanism. “You tried your brother’s home phone until our outgoing switchboard shut down at midnight, and then this morning, as soon as we were back on—”
“I’m anxious to talk to him.”
“That’s obvious, sir. Yet, since you’re here to mend and get better, it—”
“Try his work number again,” said Barry, who was propped up in bed and twisted toward the bedside vidphone.
“We did that very thing only—”
“Try it again.”<
br />
“Very well, sir.” The small rectangular phonescreen went blank.
“Where the hell is Rog?” Barry asked himself aloud.
The robot’s image returned. “Roger Zangerly is not at Mechanix International,” it announced. “As before, they have no idea where he is.”
“Okay, thanks.” He sighed out a breath, leaning back.
“I’m concerned about you, Mr. Zangerly.” A handsome, blondhaired android physician had stepped into his room. He had his name tag, which identified him as an android, fastened to the pocket of his pale-blue medcoat.
“Who are you?”
“Dr. Malloy.” He came over to the bed. “I’m filling in for Dr. Steinberg.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
Malloy chuckled. “Not a blessed thing,” he answered. “This is simply his day off.” He seated himself on the edge of the bed. “I understand you’re extremely upset about something and haven’t been sleeping.”
“I’m just trying to get in touch with my brother.”
“It must be something extremely serious to cause you to—”
“Doctor, I appreciate your concern,” Barry told the android. “This really, though, isn’t any of your damn business, not at all. In fact, since I’m really feeling a lot better, I want to check out of your little establishment. Today—right now, this morning.”
Malloy shook his blond head. “That’s not possible.”
“Sure, it is. I have the right to—”
“Not in your present condition,” the doctor informed him. “You aren’t well enough to—”
“What do you intend to do? Keep me from—”
“I hate to think that would be necessary,” said Dr. Malloy. “But if you attempt to take a course of action that we feel is dangerous to your wellbeing, then we have a perfect right to restrain you in order to keep you from leaving the protection of the hospital.”
“How—you going to tie me down?”
“Nothing that drastic, though you might be moved to a more secure portion of our hospital. It might even become necessary to administer drugs to calm you down, Mr. Zangerly.”
After a few seconds, Barry nodded. “All right, okay,” he said to the android physician. “That won’t be necessary.”
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