Suicide, Inc

by Ron Goulart

  CHAPTER 21

  Cruz landed the skycar in the quiet jungle clearing. “Heckling will do you not a shred of good, my pet,” he told Jazz.

  “You’re really being incredibly stupid.” She was in the passenger seat beside him, slouched, arms folded. “Putting yourself into the jaws of Syndek is-”

  “Jazzmin,” put in Winiarsky from the back seat, “as a neutral observer, allow me to point out that-”

  “But you aren’t a neutral in this,” she said impatiently. “Syndek wants you, too. They want to pump your brain dry, then dump you someplace.”

  “Even so, what I hear from my vantage point is-”

  “Oh, calamity! Quit lecturing me, since I’m no longer-”

  “We all get out here,” mentioned Cruz as he dropped from the cab to the orange moss of the clearing.

  Coming toward them from the neolog hunting lodge some fifty yards distant was a large jungle-green robot.

  “Ah, it is Bwana Cruz unless these eyes fool me.”

  “I think your boss is expecting me, Tomo.”

  “He is, most anxiously. For we have a saying here in the Great Jungle…” Tomo paused, raising a metal finger to his metal chin. “But, alas, it appears to have been erased from my store of useful aphorisms. Pity.”

  A small, wiry man with shortcropped greying hair stepped out onto the shady verandah of the lodge. He wore a two-piece tan huntsuit. “Glad I could be of help,” he said as he came down the steps.

  “If you really want to help, Mr. Macumazahn,” said Jazz, who’d disembarked and was standing close to Cruz, “you’ll convince him to drop his crackpot scheme.”

  “This is Jazz Miller,” introduced Cruz. “And Professor Winiarsky.”

  Tomo was peering into the skycar, chuckling. “Run-fling true to form, Bwana Cruz,” he said. “Bringing along not one but two pretty ladies. This one in here, though, seems to be out cold.”

  “I’d be grateful if you toted her inside, Tomo.”

  “Glad to oblige, sir.”

  Henry Macumazahn said, “Right after you called, Cruz, I had Tomo run my spare skyvan out of the hangar. It’s beyond the house, ready to take off.”

  “We have a saying about gratitude, Henry, but it slips my mind,” Smiling, he glanced skyward. “Nobody tagged us from Jungleland, but I think it’s best that Jazz and the professor make the rest of their trip in another craft. That way-”

  “Fooey,” said the reporter. “I’m not budging. Because if you honestly think I’m going to let you commit suicide, Mr. Cruz, you-”

  “Young woman,” said Macumazahn. “Take the advice of a fellow who’s led many an expedition in dangerous country. There can be only one leader and if-”

  “Who voted him boss?” She jerked a thumb, angry, at Cruz. “I volunteered to tag along, but that doesn’t include standing back while-”

  “You don’t seem to have much faith in him,” said the hunter. “I myself am certain Cruz will come out on top.”

  “This is not an actual authentic female,” mentioned Tomo, who was carrying the unconscious Camilla toward the house.

  “Merely a reasonable facsimile,” said Cruz. “Now, Jazz, I have to see about putting through the pixphone call to Bjorn. You and the professor head on to the Museum.”

  Dust swirled up when she stomped her foot. “Why don’t we all go? Then you and Mr. Smith and that polite Mr. Saint can all sit around and discuss-”

  “We’re beyond sitting around,” Cruz told her.

  “He’s absolutely right,” said Winiarsky. “We’d better get moving, Jazzmin.”

  She hesitated, taking a slow deep breath. “Okay, I won’t let the team down,” she said finally. “But I still am convinced you’re being dippy.”

  * * * *

  “Skinny is a better word,” said Liz Vertillion.

  “On the contrary, my dear, a deucedly more appropriate one is slender.” Saint was looking back at her over the top of the passenger seat of their skycar.

  Huddled on the backseat, wearing the simple dress he’d brought, Liz said, “You really are a conman, aren’t you?”

  “That doesn’t mean one’s lost the ability to speak the truth,” the green man assured her. “Despite your ordeal, you are still a most attractive young woman.”

  “A most attractive skinny young woman,” she said, smiling faintly. “Jared, I feel somewhat less fuzzy-headed now. Maybe you could try to explain what’s going on.”

  Smith was piloting the skycar across the night city. “We found out from Boss Nast where you’d gotten to,” he said. “Then we-”

  “Backtrack a moment,” Liz requested. “How the heck’d you manage to get him to talk to you at all?”

  “Saint and I make a very persuasive combination.”

  “In addition to my many manifest gifts, I’m also an excellent telek.”

  “I helped rehabilitate a couple of them at the Mission.”

  “I’m not quite ready for salvation, my dear.”

  “Jared, it’s been years since we’ve seen each…although once, some months ago, I saw a hopeless derelict stumbling through our district. He looked something like you and I tried to follow. But I lost him in the fog and-”

  “Probably was me,” he said. “I’m just getting over a protracted bout of self-pity.”

  “Still because of Jennifer?”

  “Thought I was long cured, but then she married…” He shrugged.

  Reaching out, Liz touched his shoulder. “I was going to ask why you came looking for me at all. Not that I don’t sure as heck appreciate it.”

  “Originally I was hired, as was Saint here, to track down five missing Horizon House kids,” he answered. “We were told that Jennifer and her mother wanted to have a reunion and were anxious to find every kid who was still alive.”

  “Aren’t we all still alive?”

  “Nope, but I’ll get to that shortly,” said Smith.

  “The first point to grasp, Elizabeth,” said Saint, “is that our employer, the illustrious Whistler Agency, was not entirely candid and open with us. They maintain, by way of mitigation, that their client, Triplan, Ltd., was most stingy with the truth.”

  “That’s the outfit Jennifer’s husband is associated with, isn’t it?”

  “The same,” said Smith. “Turns out Doctor Westerland picked ten of us, you and me included, Liz, for a special sort of mission in life.”

  “What are you talking about? I don’t remember anything like that.”

  “Exactly.” Smith went on and explained things to her.

  When he concluded, Liz said, “I’m disappointed. In Doctor Westerland, I mean. To use us like that and not even-”

  “He was killed, remember, before he could do much of anything about-”

  “Jared, you don’t believe he ever would’ve told us, do you?”

  “I guess not, no.”

  Liz said, “Are you taking me back to the Mission or do you still intend to turn me over to-”

  “I intend to try and save our lives.”

  “Remember, my dear,” added Saint, “that, as Smith told you, the Syndek operatives are not above killing you Horizon alumni once they’ve siphoned off what you know.”

  She folded her hands. “Poor Hal Larzon.”

  “What I want to do is get you to a safe hideaway,” Smith said, frowning at the control dash. “Oscar Ruiz is already there, Winiarsky should be soon. We’re in a position to make a deal with Triplan, since we’ve been used as carriers for this information without ever being asked about it.”

  “I’m not sure I exactly want compensation, although I don’t fancy being hunted. And I suppose with money I could help the Mission to accomplish a lot of…what’s wrong, Jared?”

  “The controls seem to have locked on me,” he said as he struggled with the drivestick and pushed at the buttons on the dash. “Saint, can you-”

  “I’ve been trying to use my telek powers on them for the past couple of minutes, old boy,” he said. “Having, I
fear, deuced bad luck thus far.”

  “Shit, somebody’s planted a parasite controlbox under our car.” Smith kept trying to regain control of the skycar. “We’re being flown to somebody else’s destination.”

  CHAPTER 22

  “Jove, one is sorry this wasn’t mentioned earlier.”

  “You certain you can’t?”

  Saint, face dotted with perspiration, nodded abjectly. “I’m not affected by being up in this skycar, old man, yet to go outside there and crawl under the ship…”

  “Okay, can’t be helped.” Smith snatched the small toolkit off the cabin wall. “I’ll swing down there and-”

  “Why can’t Saint use his telek gift to get rid of that parasite control gadget?” Liz asked.

  “Alas, I can’t teleport anything I haven’t first seen,” he explained forlornly. “And severe vertigo makes it impossible, even in this desperate instance, for one to-”

  “Take the driveseat,” Smith told him, moving to the door. “When I get rid of the damn box, be ready to get us back on our own course.”

  “Yes, to be sure.”

  The skycar was flying south, heading for the edge of the night city.

  “Be careful,” said Liz.

  “Intend to.” Even though he opened the door carefully, the rush of air outside yanked the handle from his grasp.

  Giving an annoyed shake of his head, Smith stepped out onto the wing. He had the small toolkit tucked into his waistband.

  The wind pushed and tugged at him. He took one wobbly step, unexpectedly sat down, and slid toward the car wing’s front edge.

  His legs shot out into the darkness beyond.

  Smith twisted his body, catching the edge of the wing as he fell by.

  As he dangled there the wind did an even more enthusiastic job of shoving at him.

  He inched closer to the body of the skycar. Then he stretched, and grabbed at the rigid landing gear.

  Smith managed to catch hold just above a fender and brought his other hand over. Now he was hanging beneath the belly of the flying machine.

  Down below the city was ending, few lights showed and they seemed to be flying over forest country.

  Smith took a few slow, deep breaths before swinging his legs up and locking them around the axle. Turning and twisting, he pulled himself up and inched out until he was sitting, hunched, on the thing.

  The skycar seemed to be losing altitude now that it had left the city behind.

  From the kit Smith extracted a small palmlight. Clicking it on, he swept the underside of the machine with a thin beam of light.

  “C’mon, c’mon,” he said aloud. “Where are you?”

  He didn’t spot the coinsized parasite control box until he made his second sweep. The little gadget was attached to the fuselage above the other wheel.

  Smith bumped his backside along the axle until he was directly under the damn thing.

  The car was whizzing along just above the treetops. Smith played the light on the box. Since it was a magnetic model, all he had to do was…

  Glancing down, he saw a rectangle of light rushing toward them.

  A landing field, lit by two long rows of ground spots. A domed barn at the far side of the field. And standing in front of that barn, smiling up into the night, was Deac Constiner of the Trinidad Law Bureau.

  Smith caught hold of the parasite, tugging at it. For a few seconds it wouldn’t budge. Then it came free in his hand.

  He teetered on the axle, regained his balance, tossed the gadget away.

  “Take us up!” he shouted.

  Constiner ducked to his left as the parasite came whistling down at him.

  The skycar started climbing, up and away from the field and the waiting lawman.

  “Now,” said Smith, “let’s see if I can get myself back inside.”

  * * * *

  Cruz gritted his teeth a moment after he’d turned off the highway onto the sideroad leading to Pastoral Estates. The road was rutted and cracked, causing his newly acquired landvan to bounce and rattle.

  The giant plaz cockroach atop the roof creaked, shimmied.

  On each side of the pale green vehicle were the words Sonic Bros., Bugkillers Deluxe in glowing twists of neon.

  As Cruz drove through the rusted weedy gateway of the decaying housing development a shaggy goat broke free of the cluster of green nomads camped on the nearest overgrown lawn. It ran, bleating, almost into the path of his landvan. Swerving, Cruz nearly drove up onto the opposite curve.

  That action scattered the small band of looters, mostly ragged catmen, who were carrying off the shutters and patio brix from another of the forlorn houses.

  Getting himself back on course, Cruz drove along Sylvan Lane to Shady Glen and turned left.

  Halfway up the next block a dumpy lizardwoman in a polkadot housecoat leaped in front of his landvan.

  Cruz whapped the brake button. The van shuddered, and stopped about four feet short of smacking her. The giant cockroach made a protesting noise.

  After activating the window-lowering toggle, Cruz put his head out into the gathering darkness. “What is the meaning of this rash act, madam?”

  She held her thumb an inch and a half from her forefinger. “About this long,” she said, shuffling around to his side of the cab. “A disgusting scummy shade of brown. Stunted little wings and a bunch of teenie weenie googly eyes. What is it?”

  “You nearly get yourself plowed under just to ask me riddles?”

  “Whatever it is…I got me ten thousand of the rascals crawling all over my kitchen,” she explained. “We’re one of the few decent families left in this sinkhole of a community. Now, as if we didn’t have enough to bear with nomads barbecuing goats on our lawns and looters and mewts and welfs and…now we’ve been cursed with a blight of disgusting slimy brown things. Oh, and they eat linoleum.”

  “I happen to be en route to a home with an even more momentous problem.” Cruz reached behind him. “However, spray this on the beggars and it’ll work wonders until I can get back to you.” He grabbed up a spraygun, tossed it out into the oncoming night to her.

  “Bless you, sir…wait now! This says BriteKoat Wallpaint/Lemon Brickle Shade #2. How in Plaut’s name can paint-”

  “Trust me. This is, after all, my profession.” He rolled up the window, released the brake and rolled on.

  Two blocks farther on he spotted the Pastoral Estates Middle School. Cruz drove on by the weedfilled playground and the ramshackle buildings to park a block away.

  As he stepped from the landvan a pudgy humanoid boy of ten popped up on the other side of a dying hedge.

  “Better pay me ten trubux to watch your car, chump,” he advised. “Otherwise severe damage and looting is likely to-”

  “Ah, I never worry about things like that,” Cruz informed him. “This thing’s equipped with Kilguard.”

  “Kilguard? What the heck’s that?”

  “Just touch one dainty finger to this vehicle and you’ll get the answer to that question, my lad.” Smiling, Cruz went off.

  * * * *

  When darkness filled the schoolgrounds, Cruz moved clear of the overgrown shrubbery at their edge to go sprinting over to the nearest building. Getting inside was simple, since the door had long ago been taken away. Moving around the remains of a nomad cookfire, he eased along the dark hallway.

  Bjorn, contacted on the pixphone by the mind-controlled Camilla, had told the imitation junglegirl to come to this abandoned school complex at nine tonight and leave the stunned body of Professor Winiarsky in the pantry of the cafeteria.

  Cruz stationed himself in a closet that gave him a view of the only entrances to the cafeteria. It was a few minutes past eight.

  There were a radio and a tiny earphone built into his metal arm. Cruz, hunkered in the closet, tried to find a newscast but couldn’t bring in anything but a local music station that was featuring three hours of uninterrupted music by the Sophisticates.

  He waited patiently in si
lence.

  Eleven minutes shy of nine Cruz heard footfalls.

  Two people approached the cafeteria.

  “…like little old aunties,” a harsh croaking voice was complaining. “We ought to quit behaving that way and get tough.”

  “That’s not Syndek policy, Otto.”

  “Which is exactly why, Mr. Bjorn, if you don’t mind my saying, we’re not getting anyplace in this blasted quest.”

  The two men halted a few feet from Cruz’ hiding place.

  “We’ll finally have one of the Horizon Kids in a few minutes now,” said Bjorn. He was a tall man with white hair; his companion was a thickset toadman. “And all we need, Otto, is one part of the Westerland secret and we can bargain with Triplan and whoever else is interested.”

  “That’s fine, but I still don’t see why we have to keep this guy alive after we-”

  “Syndek does business in certain ways. No killing. Ever.”

  “Stupid damn way to-”

  “Quiet down now, Otto. We’ll go inside to await our delivery.”

  Cruz was rubbing his metal thumb knuckle across his moustache. “That wasn’t a faked conversation,” he told himself. “They didn’t have any notion I was lurking nearby.”

  If that were true, it meant Syndek agents hadn’t been the ones who’d gotten to Hal Larzon and killed him.

  “Who then?” Cruz asked himself as he slipped silently out of his hiding place.

  CHAPTER 23

  The airfloat train rushed through the sunbright afternoon fields. There were rolling hills, rich with high orange grass, a few farmhouses with sharply slanting sewdoshingle roofs. Far off, in the hazy distance, a herd of grazing grouts.

  Smith watched the familiar countryside unwind beyond the windows of his compartment. Just about everything seemed to be the same as it had been when he was growing up in this territory years ago. He felt neither depressed nor elated about being here again.

  When the train began moving through shadowy woodlands, Smith stood and lifted his small suitcase from under the seat.