Law of Survival (34 page)

Jani perked up. “Niall's here?”

“Oh yes.” Montoya gazed up at the ceiling, begging respite. “They're lined up waiting to see you. Mainline colonels and attorneys and parents—”

“My folks are here!” Jani slid off the scanbed, but as soon as she tried to stand, the room tilted and wobbled. She grabbed the edge of the bed to keep from falling, swallowing hard as the acid bubbled up her throat.

“Yes! Now sit down before you fall down!” Montoya pushed Jani's chart into Val's hands and hurried to her side. “They're in the VIP suite in the penthouse, receiving the royal treatment.” He helped her climb atop the scanbed and held her while she steadied. Only when he felt sure that she wouldn't tumble to the floor did he return to his chart entries.

“We had to flee to the North Bay compound after…you know.” Val shuffled guiltily to her bedside. “But as soon as we got the call that you had been brought in, we piled into skimmers and made the trek back down, breaking all existing speed limits along the way.” He eyed Jani sharply. “We made the assumption that the danger is probably passed at this point.”

Jani shrugged, and regretted it immediately. “Probably.”

“Good, because I don't think those poor people can take much more of this.” Val leaned against the bed. The vivacity vanished—he yawned and rubbed his eyes. “Hell,
I
can't take much more of this.” He boosted upright. “We stopped by your flat on the way in, just to check things. Steve and Angevin were there, going not-so-quietly mad. Lively pair, those two.” His bleary gaze sharpened. “They told me you threw out Lucien.”

Jani examined her hands. An abrasion encircled her right wrist, courtesy of the ax-hammer strap. “I did, but I think I made a mistake.”

Val shook his head. “No, you didn't. Not even close.”

Jani watched him grow still and dull. “Can you tell me how Roni McGaw is?”

Val looked back at Montoya, who nodded. By the time he turned back to Jani, his shiny air had tarnished completely.
“She was dying when the ambulance brought her in. We had to install a DeVries shunt to halt the brain damage caused by the prolonged reduction in blood flow. Right now she's in induced coma while we try to fix what broke. We won't know how she is until we drain the regen solutions and test functional levels.”

Val's every word struck Jani, one blow after another. It never changed—she never changed. She was slow. Stupid. She didn't think. Delays, and more delays. Her past dictating her future, defining it, predicting it. Yolan died because of her slowness. Borgi. The other Rovers. And all she could do to honor their memories was steal them a place on someone else's monument. “I should have gone in there as soon as I felt something was wrong, but I waited too long.
Again.
I wait—”

Val's face flushed. “You stepped in front of a shooter to get her here. If that shot had been a little lower and to the left, you'd be lying in the room next to her and that's only if you'd been damned lucky. So I don't want to hear about how this is all your bloody fault, do you understand!”

Jani looked away from Val and stared at the blank wall until her eyes stopped swimming. “Can I see her?”

Val and Montoya shook their heads and answered as one. “No, your parents want to see you—Niall—calls from Registry—Dolly—John—Loiaza has some questions—”

Jani raised her hand, and the babble ceased. “I want to see her.”

 

Montoya wouldn't let Jani attempt the long walk to the Neuro wing on her own, so Val volunteered to play skimchair navigator. He pushed her slowly, and made a few wrong turns along the way. Jani knew he wanted to tire her out in the hope that she'd change her mind and postpone her visit. One would think that after all they'd been through together, he'd have known better.

As they turned down Neuro's hushed main corridor, Jani eyed the nurses' stations and looked into every open door. “Who's guarding her?”

“Ours.” Val looked cowed as Jani twisted around to stare
at him. “They've been briefed by Niall. You don't need to worry about them.”

They pulled up in front of a door bracketed by a man and woman wearing street clothes and packed holsters. Jani took a deep breath, then nodded to Val. He edged the skimchair forward, and the door swept aside.

The room was lit with soft background illumination. Silent, but for the soft murmurs of the assorted instruments that surrounded the bed.

Roni McGaw didn't take up much space. Her bedclothes barely seemed to rise above the level of the mattress—Jani had to squint in the half-light to assure herself that a person really lay there.

Then she looked more carefully, and her breath caught. Roni looked mummy-like, her head swaddled in a white wrap that shielded her eyes and left only her nose and mouth visible. Her head and upper body lay slightly elevated on a wedge-shaped pillow. Her hands rested on her stomach. Tubes everywhere—nasogastric, catheter, IV. The apparatus for the DeVries shunt filled the wall behind the bed like a vast and complex headboard, a multicolored array of blinking indicators and scrolling displays.

“That was you last summer.” Val pushed Jani close to the bed. “Eamon installed some improvements when he visited last month, as well. The shunt inlet and outlet are fixed inside the pillow assembly. Roni's head is immobilized within a light restraint cage that's attached to the pillow. The last thing we want is for any of that plumbing to shift.”

Jani reached up and touched the back of her neck, just above the hairline. She could barely feel the thread-fine scars that marked the sites of her own shunt jacks. “Did you shave her head, too?”

“Yes. We have no choice, what with all the relays and monitors we attach. But hey, your hair grew back. Hers will, too.” He grasped one of Jani's curls and gave it a tug. “I'm going to check in with John, give your folks an update. I'll stop back in, say, fifteen minutes?”

Jani nodded. She felt Val's hand on her good shoulder, the increase in pressure as he squeezed. Then it was gone. She
heard the muffled tread of his shoes on the lyno, the hush and whisper of the door.

She sat, silent. She'd never possessed the gift for knowing the right words, but what could one say at a time like this?
I'm sorry I missed the cues…I'm sorry I lost sight of your back.
How many people over the years did she have reason to say that to? Yolan. Betha. Sasha. You'd think the words would come easily to her—she'd needed them often enough.

“I had the same thing you've got now.” Jani paused to clear her throat. “A DeVries shunt. Eamon DeVries is a creep of the first press, but he designed a good shunt.” She fingered the crease of her grape-colored trousers, feeling like an inkblot amid the light-colored surroundings. “You'll have a headache after they bring you out of coma. It lasts for a few days—you think your brain is going to burst out your ears every time you move your head. But you get over it.” She looked to the wall opposite. No window, not even a nature holograph. It irked her that they would assume Roni wouldn't need any diversions. Jani recalled many details of her own hospital room, things she confirmed after she regained consciousness. She made a mental note to discuss the matter with John.

“Did it catch you by surprise when you realized Lescaux had spearheaded the letter? It did me; I never thought he had it in him. And he didn't, really, he only wished he did. That made him doubly dangerous.” She recalled the Lescaux she had seen at the idomeni embassy, his barely suppressed rage when he caught Anais gazing longingly at Lucien. The jealousy had shown itself then—she should have known it would matter. “I'm sorry. I should have realized.” She switched her attention from the still figure in the bed to the blinking illumins above, on the alert for any signs of trouble.

“After you get out of this….” She dug a thumbnail into the arm of her chair and waited for her throat to loosen. “If you're going to continue in this line of work, you need to learn a few rules. Laws of survival. They're simple, but they're not always intuitive. One, remember that trust is earned, not bestowed. Two, travel light and travel armed. Three, don't write anything down—sheer hell telling a dexxie something like that, I know, but it's better for you in
the long run. We wouldn't have had a thing on Lescaux if that idiot in Helier hadn't written down the details of that meeting. Up until then, all signs pointed to Lucien.” Thoughts of Lucien intruded, and she quieted until they went away.

“Back to the commandments. Use public whenever possible. That applies to comports and transportation. Lescaux must have had a snoop on your office line—that's how he knew you were meeting me somewhere tonight. All he had to do was get into his skimmer and follow you. If you'd stuck to the L's and people-movers, you and I could be sitting right now in my flat setting up our case against him and he'd be stuck on a train to Minneapolis wondering what the hell happened.” She smiled at the thought, but it faded quickly.

“I'm sorry I didn't get to you sooner. But Nema came out of nowhere and Cèel will execute him if he gets any sort of chance. I had to make sure he got back to the embassy. Then Dathim wouldn't leave me alone.” She thought of long-fingered gold hands evaluating her wounds, reclaiming the ax-hammer, and wondered if she had hallucinated them. “But then, if he hadn't given me the ax-hammer, I wouldn't be sitting here jabbering at you now.” She relaxed, a little, as the truth of the statement settled over her. “That chock wouldn't have had the same effect, no matter how hard I threw it. And I could only have thrown it once. I would have saved so much time if I had a shooter. This bioemotional restriction is a pain in the ass. They'll probably pin one on you, too, until you show them to their satisfaction that you haven't gone over the side.” She slumped in her chair. Her entire body ached.

“You're too nice for this sort of work. You need to be a bit of the bastard. Like Niall. Like me. I'm not saying that you have to…stop caring—do that, and you become a monster. I think we both know a few names we could plug into that category.” She thought of Lucien again, and paused for a time before speaking. “But caring too much freezes you, hangs you with targets that everyone one else can see. It makes you vulnerable, and you can't afford that. Not in this city. It's a delicate balance. Difficult to achieve. I can't quite
seem to get the hang of it myself.” Her voice dropped in volume, dwindled to nothing. She felt useless and stupid talking to the air.

“Get well, Roni, please.” She fell silent, her eyes on the door, and listened to the soft clicks and hisses of the shunt pumps and the faint hum of the monitors.

“And the worry, Janila. When we could not speak with you. When Dr. Parini told us we had to flee Chicago, but that we could not take you with us.” Jamira Kilian broke off a piece of breakfast cake and dipped it in her side dish of maple syrup. “Then we get the call that you had been in a fight, that you had been hurt.” She grimaced at the sodden tidbit and set it down on her plate. “Your Dr. Shroud drove us back. The speed! I wondered if we would make it back here alive.”

Jani stirred the dregs of her soup. Chickpeas and rice in a tomato sauce spicy enough to make
her
eyes water—not her usual morning fare, but someone must have thought she needed an olfactory kick in the pants. “He's not
my
Dr. Shroud, Maman.”

“Hmph.” Declan Kilian eyed her over the rim of his coffee cup. “Remember that white tiger they kept at the park preserve when you were little? The one that spent all his time pacing the grounds and standing on the highest points, watching everyone? The one where you felt better knowing that a very wide moat separated the two of you? Shroud reminded me of him. I would not like to be the person who makes him angry.”

Jani pushed her bowl aside, then tried to appreciate the view as she avoided her parents' probing looks. They sat in the dining room of the Neoclona VIP suite, seventy-five stories above Chicago. Tinted windows formed the exterior walls, allowing well-filtered views of the sunrise over Lake Michigan, the Commerce Ministry compound, and the skyscraper jungle of the deepest downtown.
Tiger John's stalk
ing grounds.
She looked at her mother. “I thought you didn't like him.”

“I do not. Not really. He did not think things through where you were concerned. Now he spends all his time trying to play catch-up, and it is you who pay the price.” Jamira held out her hand, her eyes shining. “
Ma petite fille,
it was not you that I yelled at that night.”

Jani brushed her fingers with her own. “I know, Maman.”

Jamira chuffed and fussed with the napkin on her lap. “No, you don't know. But you won't talk about it, either, so we are left where we were.” She exhaled with a frustrated gust. “I want you to be happy, and healthy, and live without pain. Ridiculous things for a mother to ask for her child, I know.” She sat back, a cup of jasmine tea cradled in her hands. “Two things I can say in Dr. Shroud's favor. He never left us alone, even when we wanted him to. He made sure we were safe. And he worried about you so—I could tell.” She inhaled the fragrant steam that rose from her cup. “And as your father said, better a man like him as a friend than as an enemy. In this day, the way things are, it is good to have friends.”

Jani pushed back her chair and walked to the window. The grandness of the dining room made her restless. So had the plush gold and white bedroom where she had spent what little had remained of the night, and the eerie way that the staff seemed to know what she wanted before she asked for it.
I was not born to the purple, royalty's or Neoclona's
. She longed for her flat, her piled desk. Her own bedroom.
I must be feeling better.
She could already raise her left arm level with her shoulder, and scarcely felt any twinges in her ribs when she breathed.
All the little factories must be running full-tilt.

“What are we doing today, Janila?” Her mother had adjourned to a couch by the lake-facing window, tea and the day's
Tribune-Times
in hand. “Dr. Parini made lists for me of things to do in Chicago—sheets and sheets. Parks and museums and shops. If I stay here until I am one hundred, I will not be able to do all he suggested.”

Declan joined his wife, plucking pages from the newssheet after she finished perusing them. “The Commerce
Ministry is giving a party next week in honor of the Commonwealth Cup Final Four. Dr. Shroud said that we are all invited.” His eyes lit in anticipation. “All of the United will be there. Desjarlais, even. And Heinrich and Zaentz, from Gruppo.”

Jani perched on the far end of the couch. Replace the posh surroundings with a crowded eating area that vied for space with the overflow from her father's workroom and her mother's collection of glass figurines, and it was a replay of her childhood mornings—breakfast, newssheets, plans for the day.

I have plans for the day.
The Elyan Haárin had arrived with the dawn, and she had already received a formal request from Cal Burkett to attend the afternoon's conclave. After that, she received an identical invitation from the Commerce Ministry. Then one from the Treasury Ministry. No word from Nema, however. Not that she expected Shai to allow him to contact her.

Jani picked at her sleeves. She still wore the purple outfit the orderly had scrounged for her the night before. John had, of course, offered her access to every shop in Chicago, but she planned to use the need to change clothes as an excuse to return to her flat. She had not yet decided whether to attend the conclave. Even thinking about the need to think about it made her nervous. But when she made the decision, it would be on her own turf, and in her own good time. And in the meantime, she had time.
Free
time, the first she'd had in weeks.

“Hand me the Government page, please.” She took the newssheet section from her father, then walked back to the table to get another cup of coffee.

 

Jani left her parents a few hours later with the pledge to return that night. She departed Neoclona with every intention of making the northward trek via her usual system of L's and people-movers. It didn't disappoint her, however, to find Niall waiting for her in the building entry circle, wearing dress blue-greys and a smug expression.

“I'm your new best friend, by special request of General Burkett.” He led her to a dark blue Service-issue two-door,
popped the gullwing for her, and shut her in, his eyes on the teeming morning traffic.

Unlike the sleek Lucien, Niall
looked
like a walking sidearm. Jani waited for him to close himself in and merge into traffic before speaking. He had a job to do, and her new job was to let him do it. “Who else is out there?” she asked, after a slight easing in Niall's level of alert let her know it was OK to talk.

“Five vehicles behind, five ahead, and checkpoints all along the way.” Niall grinned. “Nowhere near the level of the PM. More a Deputy Minister.”

“You trying to tell me my days of hopping the L are over?”

“You got it.” He reached into his tunic and pulled out his nicstick case. “Burkett wants you to have it. Burkett called in all kinds of markers to get it. Pledged a few, too, from what I heard. That attack last night sure lit a fire under his brass.” As if to illustrate his point, Niall shook out a 'stick and bit the bulb end. The tip flared orange; the smoke streamed.

Jani recalled Derringer's last message, his sleep-starved face. “When did you talk to Burkett?”

Niall nodded through the haze. “At about 0300. He looked pissed as hell. Not that he doesn't always look like that, but this held a special edge.”

“You talk to him in person?”

“Yeah.”

“Derringer with him?”

“Nah. Didn't see him.”

Jani smiled.
Looks like your career plans hit a snag, Eugene.
She wondered how long it would be before he turned up again at the embassy, if ever.

Then the thought occurred that Derringer could face something more drastic than mere reassignment.
Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.
That didn't bother her, either. She settled back in her seat and watched the city float past. “Montoya mentioned that you had been at the hospital. I looked for you later, but I couldn't find you.”

“I rode point for your ambulance. Then I spent the rest of the night running from pillar to post trying to find out what
the hell happened.” Niall looked at her. “Care to compare notes?”

“Who else was at the scene?”

“No, none of this answering questions with questions. I've watched you tie other people in knots doing that, and I'm not going to let you do it with me.” Niall blew smoke as he turned onto Armour Place a little more sharply than necessary. “I was on the way back from North Bay when I got your message.”

Jani smiled at him. “You helped move my folks. Thanks.”

“You're welcome and don't change the subject.” Niall slowed to a stop in front of her building. “I wonder how long it's going to take these people to realize that you're the reason their nice, quiet neighborhood has hosted three attempted murders and one accidental death in the last three days.”

“Lescaux wasn't an accident.”

“Well, rumor has it.” Niall tossed another, colder grin at her as he waved the doorman away and popped his own door. “I say we let rumor keep it.”

 

Steve and Angevin reacted predictably to Jani's return, giving loud and persistent voice to the fact that while they were thrilled that she lived, they'd kill her themselves if she ever put them through “hell like this” again.

“Calls. Let's talk about calls.” Angevin fell onto the couch next to Jani, recording board in hand. “
Trib-Times,
chief Cabinet correspondent. PM's office. Commerce office. Treasury. AgMin. Hodge, begging our pardon but asking if you were all right.”

Jani looked across the room at Steve, who sat next to Niall on the window seat and smoked. “What did you tell him?”

“We lied. Said you were fine. Like we knew what the fook were goin' on.” Steve punctuated his displeasure with a smoke ring.

“General Burkett,” Angevin continued the litany of calls. “Frances Hals. Aunt Dolly.”

Jani waggled her eyebrows. “
Aunt
Dolly?”

“Swank,” Steve muttered.

“And the list repeats.” Angevin dropped the recording
board on the seat and slumped dramatically. “There are a lot of deputy ministers mixed in here too, all asking whether you'll be attending the conclave at the embassy this afternoon.”

“Can't be bothered with the names of mere deputies—just too fookin' many to count.” Steve walked to the couch, planting himself in front of Jani. “Gel, I'm enraptured that you're all right, but I can't live like this. It's aging me prematurely.”

Jani turned to Angevin. “I'm sorry. Really.”

Angevin shrugged. “We lived. Kept busy. Your projects are caught up—I've learned a whole lot about many subjects of which I knew nothing two days ago.” She yawned. “And a few of your clients asked that their stuff be put on hold until after the conclave. That saved us some grief.” She blinked. Yawned again. Her eyes watered. “So, are you going to the conclave?”

Jani looked down at her clothes. The brilliant purple held a magenta cast in the morning light. She hated magenta.

“I need to get out of these clothes. I'll be back.” She had darted into her room and locked the door behind her before anyone had a chance to stop her.

 

She perched on the windowsill overlooking the alley and watched the occasional lunchtime trespassers cut through on their way back to work. She wanted to stop them, ask them questions. About their lives. Their thoughts.

Did anyone ever hate you enough to try to kill you? Did anyone ever think you dangerous enough to kill? Did you wonder how the hell you got in that position in the first place? Was it something you did, or was it simply the fact that you
were?

She tried to transmit her questions to a young woman who scurried down the alley, a sheaf of papers flapping in her hand.

Have you ever killed anyone? Did you ever put a friend in the hospital because of a mistake you made? Did a friend ever die because of a mistake you made?

She pulled her right knee up to her chin. It didn't hurt much now, and last night she could barely walk on it.

If someone asked you to be the point man for a new world order, would you say yes? If you knew saying yes would separate you from work you enjoyed, people you loved, would you agree?

If you knew that saying yes meant never being able to call yourself human again, would you still think it a good idea?

She rolled her left shoulder, and felt the mildest of twinges.
Four hours to go.
She shifted position so she couldn't see the clock atop the armoire.

 

She tried to ignore the knock at her door. Neither Steve nor Angevin were the most patient of souls—they'd give up and leave, eventually.

But this knock went on, and on, and on.

“Wait a minute!” Jani struggled to her feet, shaking the life back into her right leg as she limped to the door and deactivated the lock. “I just wanted a little bit of downtime—is that too much to ask—?” Her complaint fizzled when she found Niall standing in the hall, hand clenched in the mail fist salute of someone who would knock as long as he had to.

“We the hapless bystanders wondered if you planned to come out sometime this year.” He lowered his arm and took a step back, his manner suddenly tentative.

Jani stepped aside. When Niall still held back, she grabbed his sleeve and pulled him into her room. “This isn't the sanctum sanctorum—come on in.”

“I didn't say it was.” He hurried toward the window, shooting his cuffs along the way. “You're going to need to move to a higher floor—this won't do.”

“It's cheap.”

“And for good reason.” Niall fiddled with the privacy setting on the windowside touchpad; the glass darkened to black. “I'll talk to the building manager—what's his name—Hodge—and find out what else is available. If I don't like anything here, be prepared to move.” He turned to her, the hard-edged Spec Service officer once more. “Is this something I should plan to do this afternoon, or will you need me to drive you someplace?”

“Is this your way of asking me if I'm going to the conclave?” Jani crossed one foot over the other and lowered to
the floor. “I've still got two hours to make up my mind.”