Duplicate Effort

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  Nyquist’s stomach twisted even more.

  He tried not to think about those last hours in this building. Sometimes he dreamed about them, though.

  He’d been interviewing Claudius Wagner. Wagner had been a tall, athletic man with a mane of silver hair. He had a patrician look, and he’d used it, staring down his hawklike nose at Nyquist.

  Nyquist would turn to go, and then he’d see Wagner near the door, shaking his right arm as if it were on fire. The man didn’t scream, even though the pain had to be intense.

  For instead of skin, he had a Bixian assassin wrapped around the bone.

  Bixian assassins looked like a rope, except when they were killing. Then they turned into a whirling machine. Their scales flared, acting like individual knives, severing the skin and arteries with ease.

  In his dreams, that whirling thing would detach from Wagner’s arm and twirl toward Nyquist.

  And then he would force himself to wake up, his heart pounding.

  His heart was pounding now.

  But there was more than the dream. He needed to remember the case.

  Once Nyquist became a victim of the same assassins that had killed Wagner, Gumiela had taken Nyquist off the case. At the time, he hadn’t cared. He didn’t want to think about it.

  Instead, he wanted to concentrate on getting well.

  So Gumiela had assigned a junior detective to the case, and that fact alone proved to Nyquist that Gumiela didn’t want to follow where the trail led—to the head of WSX.

  Initially, he’d been called to this place to investigate Paloma’s death. It had taken him some time to realize that what he and the techs thought was a biochemical goo was the remains of a Bixian assassin. At that point, he also didn’t know that the assassins worked in pairs.

  Paloma had managed to kill one of them before the other killed her.

  He shuddered. He’d managed to kill the assassin that had been attacking Wagner.

  DeRicci told him that he eventually killed the other as well.

  He remembered the fight in flashes. His laser pistol, the assassin being smaller than he expected, the pain, the pain, the pain, and trying to think through it, realizing if he didn’t think through it he would be dead, then thinking he was dead, and DeRicci leaning over him, promising he would be all right in that voice people used when they didn’t believe what they were saying, and then the hospital and more pain….

  He took a breath. He hated thinking about this. But if he was going to follow the leads in the Bowles case, he had to.

  Initially, he had suspected Flint in Paloma’s death. Paloma had been Flint’s mentor and she had left everything to him in her will. Including some incriminating files from Wagner, Stuart, and Xendor, Ltd. Justinian Wagner had come to Nyquist, pretending an interest in finding his mother’s killer, when really he had wanted those files.

  Bowles had been part of that investigation, too. She had talked to Flint the morning that Paloma had died. Nyquist had found that strange because he believed that Flint and Bowles hated each other.

  Had they been lying to Nyquist during the Paloma murder investigation? And if so, why?

  He rubbed his fingers across the bridge of his nose, feeling the raised tissue from the thin, almost invisible scars.

  Justinian Wagner had wanted files. Flint had inherited them.

  When Nyquist had awakened in the hospital, he had asked about the case, particularly Wagner. Gumiela had said there was no evidence tying Justinian Wagner to his parents’ murder, although they would continue looking into it.

  And Flint had said…

  Flint had said…

  What?

  Nyquist frowned. He had trouble remembering this, like he couldn’t remember the beginning of the attack.

  Flint had said…

  That he had given the files to Justinian Wagner. That he hadn’t even looked at them.

  And Nyquist, not willing to think about the case anymore, had taken Flint’s words at face value.

  Even though Flint had lied to him before in other cases.

  Now Ki Bowles was dead because she had confidential information. Flint had said he knew about that information.

  Nyquist had understood during the conversation—even though it was all innuendo—that Flint had given Bowles the information that had jump-started her reporting, even hiring bodyguards to protect her.

  Was he protecting her from Justinian Wagner?

  Nyquist’s thumb traced the scars all over his face. They really weren’t visible any more. He’d gone through so many surgeries. But they were still there, small raised areas that the doctors assured him would disappear with a few more surgeries.

  Surgeries that would have been completely unnecessary if Justinian Wagner hadn’t led the Bixian assassins to his parents.

  Something about that…

  Something about that day…

  Nyquist made himself look at the building. Inside that building in one of the cheaper apartments, without a Dome view, on a floor near Paloma’s, he had nearly died.

  But he’d been there for a reason, and that reason had not been to save Claudius Wagner’s life.

  It had been to talk with Claudius Wagner.

  About files?

  About assassins?

  About the reasons Paloma died.

  What had he said?

  Nyquist closed his eyes. His head hurt. He hadn’t allowed himself to remember this before, and he needed to.

  He had to know now.

  Nyquist clutched the edge of the seat, feeling the car’s cheap cloth against his skin, using it to ground himself, like the hospital therapist told him to do when she had him talk about the nightmares.

  He made himself recall…

  The apartment with the single chair and all the high-end entertainment equipment. An apartment of a man who lived alone and didn’t expect visitors. A man who used stories and games to help the hours of his life pass, without doing much good work. Just playing, as if he deserved some kind of vacation.

  Nyquist opened his eyes.

  His heart was pounding, and his skin was clammy. He couldn’t do this.

  But there was no record of any of this. He hadn’t written it into any file. Gumiela assured him it wasn’t necessary and he hadn’t cared. He’d been so badly injured, all he wanted to do was get better.

  It had been the first time he’d failed to close the documentation on a case—even a case that remained open.

  He’d let his situation—and the fact that the case revolved around the Wagners—lull him into thinking it was done.

  And of course it wasn’t.

  Nyquist gripped the seat even harder. He’d stood up to two Bixian assassins—and survived. The first documented case of a human surviving a Bixian assassination attempt.

  He’d had courage that day.

  Yet it seemed that he needed more courage now.

  Remembering it was harder than living it.

  And, he reminded himself, he didn’t have to remember the attack. Just the conversation with Claudius Wagner, before the assassins had slithered their way into the apartment.

  Isn’t it funny? The voice that appeared in Nyquist’s head was Claudius Wagner’s. I would rather have given up my life and risk a hideous death than admit that I had anything to do with those cases.

  Cases. Nyquist didn’t remember the cases or the files. He tried to make himself remember, and he couldn’t.

  What had the therapist said? Breathe. Relax. Come as close as you can to sleeping. You’ll find the memories. They exist. They’re part of you.

  But Nyquist had always resisted. He didn’t want the memories.

  Bowles and I made our deal before I found out about Talia. That was Flint. Flint, who seemed frightened for the first time since Nyquist had known him. Flint, who actually had something to lose now.

  I need to know what happened to Bowles because…

  Nyquist knew Flint had to figure that out. Because he thought he was the next target.
And some killers—especially cruel ones, the motivated ones—thought that killing a man was less desirable than slaughtering his family and letting him live.

  Nyquist shuddered.

  Even if this weren’t his first case back, even if he didn’t feel an obligation to the dead—Bowles, Whitford, and the bodyguard, the man who had tried to defend Bowles—he had an obligation to solve this.

  Flint had helped him. Flint had guaranteed the money so that Nyquist could have life-saving surgeries.

  Flint had told him that he would never ask for repayment—and Nyquist believed him.

  But there were still unforeseen complications.

  Like this one: I need to know what happened to Bowles because…

  Because of Talia.

  Because, Flint had been saying, My daughter might die if I don’t have that information. And you owe it to me.

  Only Flint was too classy to say that Nyquist owed him.

  In fact, Flint might not have even thought of it—at least not consciously.

  Have you ever seen the footage of the daycare incident?” Ki Bowles had asked Nyquist that day he interviewed her.

  He hadn’t known what she meant. Daycare incident?

  Flint’s daughter was killed in a daycare by one of the workers. Turns out that worker killed other children — shaking them too hard — but it took a second visible death before anyone saw the pattern.

  Bowles had been holding a mug of tea. If he closed his eyes, he could see her, as if she were still sitting across from him.

  She swirled the mug because she was clearly nervous. He watched as the liquid would crest near the edge, then vanish again, never spilling, but always threatening.

  That incident, she had said, that’s what started Flint on his journey from computer tech to Retrieval Artist. I think that journey has an ethical base. I think he tried to make things better as a police officer, then realized he couldn’t enforce certain laws. So he became independent. I’ve talked to him. He’s really firm about the way people should behave.

  She had been right. Flint was really firm about how people should behave.

  They should protect children.

  Flint couldn’t protect his daughter because of his past. Flint had had no idea his second child, the one that his wife had kept hidden from him, existed, and now he found himself in the middle of a mess, so he had come to Nyquist.

  Nyquist, whose brain was refusing to remember its conversation with Claudius Wagner.

  Although it seemed to have no trouble picking up memories of Ki Bowles.

  I can’t talk to you, detective. I swore an oath. Claudius Wagner this time. Had he said that? Or was Nyquist’s brain coming up with an excuse not to remember?

  “What kind of oath?” Nyquist whispered.

  Client confidentiality. I will tell you that we had the same client.

  We. Nyquist frowned, almost opened his eyes. We. Claudius and—who?

  I took over the account when she had to leave — and believe me, I was surprised at what I found.

  Paloma. Or as Claudius probably called her until the day of his death, Lucianna. They’d hidden in plain sight because the Bixians didn’t know Armstrong laws. They didn’t understand that humans could legally change their identities and stay in the same area.

  Nyquist almost opened his eyes as that information came back to him, then realized that he would break this, this slow trickle of memory.

  A half-remembered conversation.

  He leaned back, tried to relax even more. He wanted to picture Claudius Wagner, but all he got was that stupid entertainment system—a system he’d shattered with a shot from his laser rifle not an hour later.

  The explosion—

  The explosion had startled the second assassin and Nyquist had managed to move away from it. Somehow. Backing into the chair on his way to the kitchen.

  The kitchen and a knife of his own.

  He wouldn’t be able to shoot when the thing latched onto him. He wouldn’t be able to shoot, just slash and hope he killed it—hope he had enough time to survive.

  Then a few things happened, Claudius Wagner said, and Nyquist found himself feeling grateful. A different memory, one without the pain.

  Some information leaked, Claudius Wagner was saying. Old cases resurfaced, old angers did as well, and suddenly I found myself subjected to the same treatment as Lucianna. We figured the name changes and the habit changes would be enough. And you know, they were, until yesterday.

  The man had been surprisingly honest. Nyquist hadn’t expected honesty. He remembered that now. He had expected the same kind of creepy personality that Justinian Wagner had, the same kind of oily personality, the kind that shifted and moved with its moods—and tried to get you to do the same.

  What do you think changed? Nyquist had asked.

  I think someone offered my son the same deal I got offered. Claudius had spoken with great bitterness.

  Nyquist didn’t remember a deal. He needed to remember a deal.

  “What deal?” he whispered because asking questions aloud had worked before.

  I can’t go into detail.

  Be vague. He remembered now. He had promised himself he would try to find this information when he left Claudius’s apartment. He would use the vague details to put together a real case. Somehow.

  He’d done things like that before.

  This client, Claudius said, is a long-term client, and this case is one of many. Lucianna kept most of her records and she didn’t let me see the files, although she told me what was in them when I asked that year before I moved here.

  Here was the thing about the files. Nyquist knew there had been something. The entire case had been about files.

  And Flint said he had given them back.

  After making a copy?

  This stuff Bowles was using, Nyquist had asked Flint, this information, is there any way I can see it?

  If she has copies, Flint had said.

  And where would she have gotten copies? Nyquist should have asked, but he hadn’t.

  He hadn’t.

  The client, Claudius was saying, took some of Luciana’s advice, but not all of it. The circumstances happened again, in a different environment, but with the same results, and the client acted in the same way. Only the new case brought the old one up again, and stirred up anger…. he paused. This can’t be making sense to you.

  I’ll figure it out, Nyquist had said. Only he never did.

  He didn’t have time. He nearly died. Then he forgot.

  And then he got this case. And somehow it might be related.

  So related that it frightened Flint.

  Who had never seemed frightened before.

  What if it was more than Talia? What if Flint’s fear had something to do with the cases that Claudius had talked about?

  What if it had something to do with the files?

  We managed to get some of the anger calmed, Claudius said, using extralegal means, very similar to what we had done before. And the result was the same as the ones before. The hurt party hired the Bixians at the advice of the previous hurt party.

  In other words, Claudius’s firm had broken the law—done something horribly illegal, and the injured party had hired assassins—to go after Claudius and Paloma, the heads of the law firm.

  Somehow the Wagners had found out about the threats to their lives.

  And that’s how you ended up here, Nyquist had said.

  It’s not so bad, really, Claudius had said, but he sounded wistful. That’s what Nyquist remembered the most. How wistful the man sounded.

  As if he had once been important and was no longer.

  As if he once mattered and now he was just an old man living in a small apartment with a single chair and too much time on his hands.

  Still, he had made the life sound as good as he could: I can see my children. I can live my life. I find I don’t miss the firm at all.

  At the time, Nyquist hadn’t thought he was lying. But now
he wasn’t so sure. The man seemed like he missed everything.

  And then his wife had been murdered.

  He had to know he was next.

  You said you were offered a deal, Nyquist had said, not knowing what was about to come, not knowing then that Claudius would die and Nyquist’s whole life would change. What was it?

  That I give up the client’s files. Say that I advised them to take those extralegal measures. Admit my and the firm’s culpability — not in public, mind you, just to the families — and pay a steep fine.

  Steep?

  More money than you can earn in a lifetime, Detective. More money than everyone on your force can.

  He had sounded so righteous. But that wasn’t the question. Once again, Nyquist had asked the wrong question. He should have said, So you’d rather risk death than lose money?

  Instead, he had said, So you Disappeared rather than pay out money.

  And that had made Claudius angry.

  First of all, he said, I haven’t completely Disappeared. Secondly, I was supposed to admit to both cases. I couldn’t. I only knew the one, and what little I knew of the other came from a discussion with my wife. I’d have to allocute to the details of both cases, and I couldn’t, not without the files—

  Which your wife had, Nyquist had said.

  Which she wouldn’t relinquish, Claudius had said. She thought the allocution a very bad idea, even if it were supposedly confidential.

  She didn’t think it would be? Nyquist had asked.

  She said we had an obligation to our client. She was right about that.

  But?

  Then there was nothing. For a moment, Nyquist panicked. Was that the end of the memory? He felt so tense. Was that when Claudius had gone to the door and turned around with that assassin covering his arm?

  Nyquist felt vaguely nauseous.

  He was sure there was more.

  Something important.

  Something he needed to remember.

  We’d have to admit guilt, Claudius said as suddenly and clearly as if he were in the car. Maybe he was. Maybe his ghost was. I would have had to admit guilt. And culpability in a bunch of—.

  He stopped himself. Nyquist remembered now. He suspected that Claudius wasn’t thinking clearly, that he was truly upset or he wouldn’t have made a slip like that.