The thing raised a clawed hand to tear me in two.
The blow never fell. Instead, the thing spun, slashing wildly at the empty air and screaming in frustration and anger. Had Rodney got his spell off? No, the elf was still muttering, although now he was also gaping at the monster's gyrations. Good old Jocasta was still peppering it with bullets, with predictably minimal effect. What the frag was going on?
"Get out of here!" Not my voice. This time it was Amanda's. For an instant, I saw her shadowy image locked in hand-to-claw combat with the thing. She lashed out an insubstantial arm, landing a blow to the creature's chest. I was amazed to see the monster's exoskeleton buckle as though struck by a battleaxe.
The thing struck back, its claws passing through Amanda's body with no effect. No, I was wrong, there had been an effect. No wound in the normal sense, but her appearance was changed. She looked less human, the lines of her body were altering, becoming more angular, as though . . . My mind rebelled at the conclusion I was drawing. The thing's claws tore through her transparent body again. She cried out once more, and now her voice was very alien: wind howling down a deserted alleyway would have sounded more human. The words, however, were clear as a bell: "Get out of here."
I ran to Jocasta, grabbed her arm. She was still staring at the combat, at what Amanda was metamorphosing into. I had to shake her to get her attention. But then she was back in the real world. We grabbed Rodney by the shoulders and literally dragged him out of the apartment. As we pounded down the hallway, I heard a hollow, breathy voice sound in my ear. "Goodbye."
Chapter 24.
"He's taking it hard." Jocasta sat down on Rodney's couch, rubbed her eyes with her fist, like a tired child.
I nodded. It wasn't until we were downstairs and out of the building, on the way to the car, that the elf brought himself far enough back from the edge of exhaustion to fully realize what was going down. He fought like a wild-man, trying to break free of our grip, desperate to charge back into the apartment. Back into the fray, to save Amanda. I had to physically restrain him, then shove him into the hatchback of the Jackrabbit, while Jocasta drove us out of there. Fast. All the way back to his doss I heard him weeping in the back, calling over and over, "Amanda." I knew she'd never answer.
When we got back to his apartment, we put him to bed. Just like that, just like a little kid. Jocasta had a couple of Lethe™ sleeping pills in her purse, and she got the elf to take them, though it was probably more like forcing them down his throat. Now, at least, he was resting more or less peacefully.
"I think I know what really torments him," Jocasta said softly, "Left to herself, Amanda would have been immortal. Spirits never die, they just get wiser and more powerful. She could have lived forever. Instead she threw it all away so that he could live. That's a hell of a weight on his soul." She was silent for a good minute, wrestling with her own thoughts. I left her to them. Finally, she said, "I think he loved her."
My first reaction was to scoff. How could a man love a spirit? I wanted to say. But then it occurred to me that it was, to a great extent, exactly what we do fall in love with. In most cases, the spirit-or the soul, if you want to call it that-is housed in a flesh body. But whoever said that was a necessary condition? Rodney Greybriar had behaved as though he considered Amanda something of a pest. Did I believe him, or was he like the schoolboy who says, 'What, love her?' about the girl whose picture he hangs in his locker?
Methinks the elf doth protest too much.
I shook my head. I was scragged to the bone. Maybe that's why I was thinking about things like love and soul and even a misquote from Shakespeare. Not my usual behavior pattern. I sighed.
Jocasta broke into my thoughts. "Where do we go from here?"
"I don't know," I said. "Maybe nowhere." She looked at me, her eyes steady. I was tired, and when I'm tired I think out loud. Sometimes that's when I do my best thinking, when the mental watchdog that edits out "politically incorrect" thoughts is dozing in a corner. "You were right earlier," I went on. "Private investigators usually do handle divorce cases. I have. I've also helped people recover lost items, tracked people who've skipped on various obligations, and bailed people out of office politics gone bad." Jocasta smiled a little sadly at that, she'd caught the allusion to Lolly. "That's what I'm good at. That's my level. I'm a little guy, Jocasta. I've never thought any different. We're all little guys-you, me, just about everyone I've ever met. We don't play in the big leagues.
"Frag, Jocasta, the biggest conspiracy I ever investigated-if you could even call it that-involved a grand total of seven orks running a con racket." I knew I was babbling, but that didn't mean I could stop. "The way I keep score, if I can make a positive difference for one person-like, stop him getting geeked-I figure I've won. You know what I'm saying?" She nodded. "I know."
"This drek, it's about as far out of that scale as ... as ..." I couldn't think of a suitable analogy, and had to be satisfied with waving my arms eloquently. "The way I feel now is that it's time to leave the heavy plays to the heavy hitters, you know? Like, stay with the small drek, the stuff where I can make a difference. The stuff I know." I sighed. "I think maybe . . . Maybe what I should do is just track down my sister. Leave DED and Yamatetsu to frag each other blind. And Theresa and I, we'll just get the hell out of Seattle, once and for all. Start over somewhere like Atlanta maybe, where nobody knows us. Or, I don't know, maybe slip the border into one of the Native American Nations. What do you think?"
She was silent for a long time. Her eyes searched my face. At last she said, "Are you asking me if I approve?" I thought about that, then answered truthfully, "I guess so."
She nodded. Again a long pause. "You know, I've always thought stories and movies and trideo have done us a disservice with the fiction that one person can change the world. You know what I mean: Slade the Sniper brings down an entire government. Neil the Ork Barbarian single-handedly repels the invasion."
She smiled at the idea. "But that's not the way it really works. In the real world Lone Star would toss Slade in jail for civil insurrection, and fifty big guys would beat Neil's skull in. Some things are much too big for one person. The way changes happen is the way you work, Derek. A lot of little people work on the stuff they can change, where they can make a difference. Individually it doesn't seem to matter, but it all adds up."
She chuckled self-deprecatingly. "Now you've got me talking philosophically. But I still think that if you go up against something that's too big for you and you get killed, then the world's lost out. Because you won't be down there in the trenches any more, making a difference for the people you've helped in the past. You know what I mean?" I nodded, and she chuckled again. "Who knows? Maybe when you decide to slip the border, I'll come along." She looked at her watch. "It's later than I thought."
I checked my own watch, saw it was past 2200 hours. I'd have put it at about 1900. Time flies when you're getting the drek kicked out of you.
I don't remember whose idea it was, or whether it was just one of those times when two minds share the same thought without a word being spoken. Whatever. Jocasta and I shared the single bed in Rodney's spare bedroom. It was what we both needed: to put aside the trauma of the last couple of days, to lose ourselves in the sensations of physical love. There was tenderness and warmth, and at last there was deep, refreshing sleep.
I woke at about two in the morning. Through a break in the clouds, the moon was beaming in through the partially polarized window. Jocasta's head was on my shoulder, her arm resting loosely across my chest.
In the moonlight her face was still and untroubled. I could easily picture the child she'd been, the solitary girl whose "invisible friend" had once spoken to her. I felt a slight ache in my heart as I gazed at her. Not love, love doesn't happen like that. But tenderness, definitely. I wondered if she'd been even vaguely serious about skipping Seattle. I hoped so: I could use a friend.
For maybe a quarter-hour I stared at the ceiling. My body needed more sleep,
but my mind wouldn't relax. I had made the decision to bug out. It wasn't one of those logical decisions where you weigh the pros and the cons, and then say categorically, "I select option A." It was more a case of recognizing that some part of your mind has already been persuaded by emotional factors, and knowing that logic wouldn't change the feeling in your heart.
So be it. Accept the decision. What would be the first step to bringing it into reality? Obviously, find Theresa. But how?
I let my mind drift, not directing it at all, but letting my subconscious bring up on my internal screen whatever it wanted to show me. As I slipped down, at last, back toward sleep, I replayed my two calls to the Brotherhood, my search through the other clinics, my request to Naomi to check the records for any mention of my sister. From there I switched to' the news of Naomi's death. And from there-I could see the morbid trend building-to my last Matrix run with Buddy. A less-than-logical transition-isn't it wonderful what the drowsing mind can do?-and I was reviewing the preliminary report on Mariane Corbeau's accident.
And suddenly I was awake, my whole body tingling. I had a connection, and I knew what I had to do next. As gently as possible, I disengaged myself from Jocasta's arm, put a pillow under her head to replace the support of my shoulder. I dressed quickly, then scrawled a note explaining where I was going. Then I slipped out of the apartment and into the night.
The Puyallup chapterhouse of the Universal Brotherhood turned out to be in what used to be a medical-dental building. Another heritage building, like Greybriar's apartment. The restoration work was beautiful, down to the neon-illuminated caduceus above the front door. In keeping with the Heritage Committee rules, the signs identifying the building as a Brotherhood chapterhouse were relegated to the lawn on either side of the door ("Unleash Your Inner Abilities!" "Building A Better Tomorrow").
I drove by it slowly, scoping the area. At three-something in the morning, there was almost no traffic on the streets, and no movement in or around the building. Few lights were burning, and I was sure that the front doors were locked (even though you'd think building a better tomorrow would be a round-the-clock concern). Like the Redmond operation, the entry to the soup : kitchen and clinic appeared to be off the back alley. Unlike the Redmond chapterhouse, the Puyallup building was in the middle of the block, which meant that prospective patients had to make their way along fifty meters of darkened alleyway to reach their destination. This entrance was open for business.
So this was where Fitz the troll had taken Theresa when she crashed. I could picture my sister's hulking benefactor parking his stolen car beside the dumpster just inside the alley, then carrying her to the clinic door, her skinny body looking like a child's in his arms.
I parked the car two blocks away, slipped back like a wraith through the night and took up position.
Crouching in the shadow of another dumpster in another fragging alley. Watching around the corner to keep an eye on the clinic door.
I was here because of that final connection I'd made, staring at the moonwashed ceiling. The piece of data buried in the Crashcart file on Mariane Corbeau had brought me here. As I lay in bed, I'd been able to read the closing entries of that file as clearly as if they'd actually been displayed as on-screen text.
Suddenly, I noticed what I hadn't paid attention to the first time I'd seen the file. The name, or I should say the significance of that name. "Authorized by Drs. J. Carter and K. Mobasa, supervising physicians Drs. D. Horbein, X. Marthass, P. Dempsey, and A. Kobayashi." P. Dempsey, Dr. Phyllis Dempsey, newly hired supervisor of the Brotherhood's Puyallup clinic, successor to one Dr. Boris Chernekhov. Coincidence?
Perhaps, but I just didn't fragging buy it.
Assume Dr. Dempsey was somehow dirty. It cleared up a couple of issues. I meant Fitz the troll had brought Theresa here, just like he'd said. No more figuring why he might have lied or where he could have gotten the Brotherhood nurse's name-tag to support that lie. And what about Fitz's death, the murder the Prowlers blamed me for? The troll had liked Theresa, all the Prowlers had thought Ten was "stone." Odds are, he'd gone back the next day to see how his friend was doing. He'd asked the wrong questions in the wrong manner-trolls aren't renowned for their subtlety-and got his throat ripped out for it.
It looked like it was time to have another talk with Dr. Dempsey, a very intense talk. When we'd spoken on the phone, she'd mentioned going back on afternoon shift. She'd also said something about reading some "four A.M. shift report." Add to this fact that health-care clinics generally run twelve-hour shifts. Conclusion: Dempsey 's afternoon shift was probably 1600 to 0400 in the morning. Which meant she'd be getting off duty in-I checked my watch-about two minutes. Would the people coming off shift stay in the building? Doubtful: they'd most certainly want to get home. And would they leave through the front of the building, necessitating unlocking the doors? Again, doubtful: they'd leave by the alley route. Which I was keeping staked out.
If anything was going to happen, it would happen soon. I checked my watched again. 0402.
Bingo! The door into the alley opened. In the wash of light, I saw five figures emerge, heard the chatter of good-nights offered to those inside. Then the group broke up. Okay, the gods were on my side.
Three figures were heading the other way, down the alley from me. Two were coming my way. One large figure-a big man or an ork, I guessed-and one slighter, but almost as tall. Dr. Phyllis Dempsey, with friend/bodyguard. I ducked further into the shadow of the dumpster, pulled my Manhunter from its holster.
The two figures approached. Side by side, no conversation. The guy with her was a human, and from the way he glanced side to side, I knew he was a bodyguard. But his night vision would still be pretty lousy after the brightness of the clinic. Even with enhanced optics, he'd be at a disadvantage for a second or two, and that's all I needed.
Time! The two figures drew level with me. My legs were coiled under me like springs. Now I straightened them, hurled myself right at the taller of the two figures. Crashed the mass of my pistol into the side of his head behind his ear. As he started to fold, I pistoned my other fist, weighted by a chunk of cement, into the back of his neck. He went down bonelessly, without making a sound. It had all happened so fast that Dempsey had time to do nothing more than start to turn toward me. Then I grabbed her arm, dragged her almost off her feet, and slammed her into the alley wall. I stuck the Manhunter muzzle into her face and triggered the sighting laser. I saw her pupils contract to pinpoints, knew she was effectively blinded for the moment. "Let's talk," I hissed at her. Her chest was rising and falling fast, and I could see the gleam of her white teeth against black skin. I thought she was panting, her lips drawn back in a rictus of fear. But then I realized she was laughing, and that profoundly scared me. I moved back a step, keeping my gun leveled on her face and the laser playing over her eyes.
"Well, good evening, Mr. Montgomery," she said quietly, a tone of truly disturbing amusement in her voice. What the frag did she find so funny? "And just what is it I can do for you tonight?"
Even though, by all objective judgments, I had the drop on her, I was staring to feel like it was me who was at the disadvantage. I was in deep drek again, probably even deeper than I suspected. And I didn't know why, or how. But I wasn't going to show her how I felt, so I kept my voice harsh and forceful. "I want my sister, you scag," I told her. "Where the frag is she?"
Dempsey chuckled, a quiet and horrid noise in that dark alley. "Oh, she's safe, Derek Montgomery," she said. "Safer than most people in the sprawl." She grinned. "Safer than you, for instance. And soon to be safer still, in one way of looking at things."
"What are you talking about?" I demanded. "If you're lucky, you'll find out eventually." Her smile, obscene in the shifting, reflected laser light, made the phrase sound like a threat. No, not a threat, a baleful prediction.
Again the sense washed over me that she was in control, that she was playing with me. I tightened my grip on the pistol. "Where is she?" I snarled.
"Somewhere where you won't get to her."
"Where?" I demanded again. She just laughed quietly. Fear and disgust merged, churning, in my belly, and then burst into flames of anger. I snapped my pistol forward, rapping the barrel hard against her forehead, hard enough to break the skin. The impact should have been staggeringly painful, enough to stun virtually anyone, and rack most people with nausea. Although the crack of metal against bone was loud in the deserted alley, she gave no indication that it had hurt her in the slightest. Her smile was unchanged, her tiny-pupiled eyes fixed on mine. "Where?" I repeated.
She remained silent. I contemplated hitting her again, harder. But the fear of seeing her untouched by even a more solid blow was enough to stop me. "A troll brought her here," I said instead.
"Of course. He came back the next day asking too many questions, sadly for him."
"You'd sent her elsewhere."
"Of course," Dempsey repeated.
I wanted to sigh with relief. There'd always been the fear, so deep-seated that I couldn't admit it even to myself, that Theresa was dead. Something seemed to shift in the depths of Dempsey's eyes, a hint of more profound amusement, and I was convinced she knew what was going on in my mind.
"Where did you send her?" I was almost shouting by this time, regardless of our proximity to the clinic, the very real danger of being overheard. "Where?"
Now she laughed. Full-throated peals of laughter. "But you know, Derek," she said through her mirth.
"You've been there. It's in Fort Lewis. The ISP facility. Good old Building E."
Oh, Jesus fragging Christ... So, that was where ISP obtained their experimental subjects for SPISES, from the city's free clinics. And that was why David Sutcliffe had wanted Patrick geeked when he asked about his missing woman: she'd probably already been shipped to Fort Lewis. Oh, Jesus, Theresa ...
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