A good forty kilos heavier than me, and less agile, Parsec had to stop further down. He couldn’t reach me, unless he wanted to risk breaking a branch and falling to his death.
“So you were that jaguar,” he said, referring to our run-in a few years back. “Mighta guessed. How many forms do you have, anyway?”
“A couple,” I said breathlessly.
“What’s a couple? Three? Four? Five?”
“None of your goddamn business is what it is,” I said, automatically defending my secret. The best defense is offense. I learned that lesson from Sophia. Head down, swaying on my branch above him, I went on the attack. “You used my ship to smuggle contraband.”
“That’s what got you all bent outta shape?”
“You crossed the line. You can break the law all you want, but don’t involve me and mine.”
“Jealous?”
“Jealous of a bottom-feeding, tax-evading, lying, cheating, stealing, murdering fleabag like you?”
“And rich,” Parsec said, apparently unoffended. “Don’t forget rich. I could buy you ten times over and not even miss the pocket change.”
“Go ahead and try.”
“Your miserable little company ain’t worth my time,” he sneered.
“Yet you saw fit to smuggle your shit on my ship, because my service is safer and more reliable than yours.”
“Naw. Sometimes they check my ship, because I have a certain reputation,” Parsec said, denying it out of one side of his mouth, while admitting I was right with the other. “They never check yours, because you also have a certain reputation—for being a law-abiding, tax-paying sucker.” He laughed. “That’s what’s funny. I know the kind of thing you do out there.”
“I don’t shit where I live,” I said, “and that’s the difference between us.” I felt big for a minute, before self-awareness kicked in and reminded me that I was clinging to a wet branch at the top of a murder oak, after getting into a fight at a hospital. That was pretty much the definition of shitting where I lived. I had just burned my wolf, too.
The irony, however, went straight over Parsec’s head, probably because every day of his life was like the evening I’d just had. He let out a deep growl, scrambled a bit higher, and swatted up at me. He was too low to connect, but he couldn’t contain his rage. “Did the cops promise you immunity?” he snarled.
Panic swept over me. “Do I look like a goddamn snitch?”
“You are a goddamn snitch! You sicced your tame cop onto my business uptown! Their algos were crawling all over our servers.”
“About that business, Parsec—”
“What did you tell them about me?”
“Not a goddamn thing,” I shouted. “If you think I’d betray my own kind like that, you’re wrong! I’m not like you!”
“I’ve done more for Shifters on this planet than you ever have, or ever will.” Parsec pointed up at me with one claw, a thing a real bear doesn’t do. It was a visual reminder that this was a man in a bear suit made of flesh and bone. “I know about you,” he said with a new gravity, like a judge pronouncing sentence on me. “You’re a contractor. You use your shipping business as a cover to kill folks for money. You’ve taken out aliens, humans, even Eks, I hear.”
So Sophia had told him.
“Do your new besties in the police know about that?”
“I don’t do that shit anymore!” I winced at the shaky, frightened note in my own voice. “That was years and years ago.”
“Uh huh. That’s why you got enough guns on the St. Clare to fit out a Fleet battle cruiser.”
He was right, of course. We still did take contracts from time to time. But only if the money was really good, and never anywhere near the Heartworlds. Never where anyone who mattered could find out. “I gotta make a living,” I said.
Parsec hooted. “That’s what’s so funny! You hustle that hard, and you still can’t even look after your family. Tell ya the truth, it would be sad, if I gave a shit.”
“What are you talking about?” I roared. I slithered further down the tree, forgetting to be cautious. My paw flashed out at his head. He ducked, but my claws caught the edge of one ear, tearing it. The smell of blood pinged my nostrils through the odor of torn leaves and rain. I dropped down another branch and slashed at him again.
“Stay classy, Mike,” Parsec said. He gave me a bearish grin, tongue lolling, and then rolled his head and shoulders downward through the vines and began to descend the tree.
I slithered after him. “You’re playing with fire,” I yelled. “That front company in Bonsucesso Tower is one fuck of a sketchy setup!”
“How would you know?” he yelled back.
“Because my ex is involved!”
“You should’ve hung onto that woman.” Parsec’s voice floated up to me, amidst the crashing sounds as he made his way down the tree.
“What is she building up there?”
“No fucking idea. Who cares, anyway?”
I heard the thump as he hit the ground—on the outside of the garden wall. I clawed out to the thin end of the branch I was on. Parsec’s sleek black sub-limo idled at the curb. He shambled along the sidewalk towards it.
A gunshot cracked out, swiftly followed by another one. The sub-limo’s rear windshield frosted over with cracks.
I didn’t see where the shots came from.
Nor did Parsec, I guess. He didn’t stop to find out. He sped up into an ursine gallop. The sub-limo’s back door opened. More shots fractured the night. Parsec moved faster than I thought a bear could move. He hurled himself into the back seat. The sub-limo accelerated even before the door finished closing.
As it rocketed off down the street, Dolph—in human form once more—darted out from behind a truck parked across the street. It was my truck. I hadn’t even noticed it. Dolph stood in the middle of the empty, rain-slicked street and shot at the sub-limo’s retreating taillights. He shot one of them out. Then the sub-limo turned the corner and vanished.
“Damn it,” Dolph muttered.
I scrambled down to the branch overhanging the sidewalk. At the noise, Dolph reloaded so quickly I hardly saw his hands move, and pointed his Koiler up at the tree.
“It’s me,” I yelled. I hung off the branch by my hind feet and dropped down to the sidewalk.
“Aw fuck,” Dolph said. “You’re OK, you’re OK.” He reached down and rubbed my neck fur. I pushed my nose into his hand—these things come naturally in animal form, sometimes. His hand smelt like blood and gunpowder.
“I thought I was gonna have to start a war with Parsec,” Dolph said, as we crossed the street to my truck.
“I think we’re at war with him already,” I said. “What happened?”
“Dr. Zeb broke it up. We all got kicked out.”
“Ijiuto?”
“He got kicked out, too.”
The truck’s back doors opened. Over the tailgate, I saw Martin, back in human form. Ijiuto lay beside him, unconscious, on the old blankets I keep in the truck for wrapping cargo. There was still an IV in his arm. Martin held the pole upright. I consoled myself that Dr. Zeb, however pissed at us he was, would not have discharged Ijiuto unless he were legitimately on the road to recovery.
“Your phone’s been ringing nonstop,” Martin said to me, holding it out.
I climbed into the truck, Shifted back, and threw my clothes on before checking my phone.
Later I would regret the waste of those few seconds, even though I rationally knew it wouldn’t have made any difference if I had checked my phone half a minute earlier. Or half an hour earlier. As it was, I was soaked to the skin and eager to get out of there, so I carelessly added a few seconds to the end of my life as I had known it.
“Nanny B? What’s going on?”
I spoke sharply, already electrified by worry.
The bot’s voice, as ever, was inhumanly calm.
“Hello, Mike. I have been attempting to contact you for one hour and fourteen minutes.”
&
nbsp; “What is it?!”
“I regret to say that Lucy has been abducted.”
36
Lucy.
I felt an overwhelming sinking convulsion in my belly, as if my guts were melting and dripping out of my ass. As an old soldier I recognized the feeling of pure, unalloyed terror. But unlike in battle, it didn’t go away after a moment. It just kept on crushing and shuddering through me. The sense of interior liquefaction affected my voicebox, as well, so that my voice came out as an unfamiliar croak.
“What happened?”
Nanny B related the catastrophe as we raced back north towards my apartment. Every robotic word increased my anguish.
“She went to bed at ten PM,” Nanny B said. “I confirmed that she was asleep at 10:17. At 11:20, Robbie arrived. In accord with your instructions, I told him that he could make use of the living-room if he wished. However, he said he would remain on the porch. I then returned to my charging station and entered self-repair mode.”
Though bots do not sleep, they need to perform system maintenance on themselves. In self-repair mode, Nanny B’s sensors were active, but she would not initiate any action unless a pre-set event interrupted her—such as someone calling her name.
“At 2:12, I heard Robbie calling me from the porch. I disconnected from my charging station and went out. He said that he had seen a black car driving past our building. I queried him as to why he thought this was a matter for concern. He said that it looked suspicious, but he could not provide any rationale for his view.”
I ground my teeth. It looked suspicious. The kind of hunch that artificial intelligences just don’t get.
“At 2:31, he once again called me. I again went out, and he said that he had seen the same car driving past for a second time. I again queried him why he thought this was a cause for concern, and he said, ‘It just don’t feel right.’” Nanny B reproduced Robbie’s voice over the phone in an eerily perfect mimicry. “I again returned to my charging station. However, at 2:50 he called me a third time—”
“Tell me, Nanny B, did you not at any point think this car might be a cause for concern?”
“Cars are traffic,” Nanny B said. “Traffic is normal. 90th is a through street between Shoreside and Creek, so it is not unusual for cars to drive along it, even in the small hours of the morning.”
“Go on.”
“When I went outside at 2:50, Robbie stated that he had seen the car a third time. He further averred that the rear window had rolled down as it passed, and he had seen someone staring at him ‘in a threatening way.’ When I observed that the car was not in sight now, he became abusive. He called me a ‘lump of useless circuitry,’ and told me to call you. I did so. He also called you himself. However, you did not answer the phone.”
Because at that time, I had been breaking into Kaspar Silverback’s hospital room to torture him for information about a suspected shipment of contraband that was no threat to me and mine, I thought, and none of my goddamn business, anyway.
“Robbie then became distressed. He stated that he believed Lucy was in danger. He said that in his opinion, the alleged persons in the alleged black car had been ‘casing the building,’ and would imminently return to harm or abduct her. He expressed regret that he did not have a firearm.”
“Shoulda got one for him,” Dolph said, sitting beside me in the truck cab, listening to Nanny B on speaker.
“Shut up,” I yelled at him. “Can’t hear!”
Nanny B’s implacably calm voice carried the tale to its miserable climax. “Over my objections, Robbie went into the apartment and woke Lucy. He said to her that he was taking her for a walk. I observed that he was in a highly emotional state, displaying signs of fear and anxiety. I suggested to him that he should go upstairs to ask Irene and Rex for their advice. He said that it was the middle of the night and he didn’t want to disturb them. I then told Lucy that it was a school night, that she needed her sleep, and that she was not to go with him. I further said that you would not approve. Lucy then said, ‘Daddy didn’t even come home to say goodnight. He doesn’t care about me, so I don’t care what he says, and I don’t care what you say, either.’”
The bot’s merciless recounting lacerated my heart. Dolph looked away.
“Over my strong objections, Robbie instructed Lucy to get dressed and come with him. He said, ‘We’re gonna find your daddy.’ They left the apartment together, walking in the direction of Shoreside. That was at 3:17. They have not returned.”
I blinked. “Wait. Wait. Nanny B. You’re telling me Lucy’s been abducted … by Robbie?!”
“Yes,” Nanny B said.
I let out a long breath. All my suspicions seemed to fly away like butterflies after a false alarm. Robbie may have been spooked by the black car, and his judgement in taking Lucy for a walk might have been poor, but he was not an abductor.
All the same, Shoreside in the wee hours of the morning was no place for a child. Worry dug its claws into me again.
“It’s 4:21,” Dolph said.
I was already dialing Robbie.
He did not pick up.
My guts liquefied again. Had I been terribly wrong about him?
I fruitlessly redialed him as I redirected my truck to Shoreside. At the first red light, Dolph jumped out and climbed into the back. He told Martin what was going on. Martin said to leave the back door open and he would keep an eye out for Robbie and Lucy, too. At the next red light, Dolph swung back into the cab with me. “We’ll find them,” he said.
We hit the Strip at 47th. Despite the late hour, music still pumped from the strip clubs and storefront casinos. Drunk humans and aliens wobbled along the sidewalk. I shuddered to think of my little girl somewhere in this. But the thought of her not being here was worse. I left the driving to the truck, and skinned my eyelids back to the bone, clocking every human and humanoid figure on the promenade.
Because we were heading uptown, I was looking across traffic at the promenade, while Dolph had the landward side of the street. He kept up a low-voiced commentary on the various species of alien scum infesting our fine red-light district, until I told him to shut up. I could not spare an iota of attention from my twin tasks of watching the promenade and redialing Robbie.
60th. The sidewalks got cleaner. Callow merrymakers took the place of furtive alkies and whores.
65th. St. Andrew’s Pier. The ferris wheel hung dark and still, the funfair was silent. The families and tourists that thronged the pier by day had vanished. Drinkers sat on the seawall. There was not a single child in sight anywhere. Despair began to crawl over me like a sickness.
“We could be looking in the wrong place,” I said. “Who says he’d have taken her to Shoreside, anyway? He knows kids shouldn’t be out here at night.” A new thought struck me. “Maybe he took her to his house!” I picked up my phone to retrieve Robbie’s home address. All I could remember was that it was in Smith’s End.
Before I could touch the screen, Robbie finally picked up.
Or rather, someone picked up Robbie’s phone, but it was not him.
“Give it up, Starrunner,” said a thick, distorted voice. “You’ll never see her again.”
The sound that came out of my mouth resembled a roar more than a human voice. “Where is my child?!”
“She’s safe,” the voice said, with an air of grudgingly dispensing privileged information.
“Who—”
Click.
“—are you?”
Silence.
I hurled my phone at the windscreen.
It bounced off and fell to the floor.
I punched the steering wheel. I banged my head against it.
Dolph grabbed me around the shoulders, got me in a headlock. I fought him. The back of my head collided with his face. He let go with a curse. I slumped in my seat. I vaguely noted that blood was gushing from his nose. “Sorry,” I said.
Dolph wiped his nose with his forearm. “Fought three bears without a scratch, and now I get
a bloody nose from you.” He was trying to lighten the mood but I scarcely heard him.
Pain echoed through my body as if I was a bell that had been struck. I didn’t know if it was physical or emotional. I growled, “That fucking punk. That lying piece of shit.” I remembered that Rex had recommended Robbie. I bent over to search for my phone in the footwell, intent on calling Rex.
While I swept my hands over the floor, Dolph’s phone rang. He said, “What?” He reached over me and hauled on the wheel. The truck’s AI responded. We glided towards the median. Dolph kept hauling on the wheel. I sat up, pushing him aside, as we U-turned.
“That’s him, isn’t it?” Martin said from Dolph’s phone.
On the edge of the beach steps at 82nd, head in his hands, sat Robbie.
Alone.
37
I jumped out of the truck before it came to a stop.
I sprinted to Robbie. Cursing incoherently, I hauled him to his feet and drew my fist back to punch his face in.
Tears smeared his cheeks. More water welled from his eyes as he stood limply in my grasp. Sobs broke from him.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Starrunner. I’m so sorry.”
*
Dolph came up while I was wavering as to whether to kill Robbie with my bare hands or not. He got between us. His nose was still bleeding like a faucet. If it isn’t yet abundantly clear, Dolph is a better friend than I have ever deserved. He made Robbie sit down and gave him a nip from his flask. Robbie spluttered, coughed, calmed down. Martin came and sat on his other side, quietly ensuring he did not make a run for it.
There, with the cool night breeze blowing from the sea, while I paced up and down in front of them like a caged wolf, Robbie spilled the following story.
*
The black car had spooked him badly, for reasons that he had not explained to Nanny B. Robbie was into the ripper scene. I didn’t know what that was, so he had to fill me in, with interjections from Dolph. Ripping was an offshoot of rugby, the most popular sport in Shiftertown. We had our own city league with six teams. The teams clashed regularly on the pitch, collecting the usual complement of stomped heads and sprains, but that wasn’t enough blood for the rabid fans. The younger players—Robbie’s age group, not Rex’s—had begun to carry their sporting rivalry onto the streets. It had become expected that wherever players from rival teams met, they would at least posture and threaten each other, if not actually brawl. Fans vidded the confrontations, fueling a feedback loop that incentivized ever more violent smackdowns.
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