Rules of Conflict (42 page)

Jani’s smile faded. “Yes, sir.”

“That takes . . . an extreme amount of willpower.”

“I’ve learned how to control him. All it takes is practice.” A
wave of shivering overtook her. She could hear her teeth chatter.

Burkett swallowed hard, then twisted in his seat and thumped his
fist once more against the privacy shield. “Damn it, hurry up!”

“Yes, sir!” The young man’s voice sounded tight. “We’re almost
topped out, though.” The skimmer’s insect hum increased in pitch. They had left
the last of the city buildings behind. Forests and parks now whipped past in a
series of green blurs.

“The Bluffs.” Jani grinned. “I know people who live here, but I
don’t think they’d admit to the acquaintance.” She sniffed. Amid the wet rat,
she detected the unforgettable rank of corpse. “Roger?”

Pimentel looked up from the recorder display. “Yes?”

“Does this cabin smell funny to you?”

“Do you recall that smell, Jani?”

Jani nodded carefully. “A cellar. On Guernsey. Spring floods—we
found all these dead rats in the cellar. Drowned. And a body—”

The trauma surgeon thrust the recorder at Pimentel and dived into
the bag. “She’s accessing sense memory. We need to take her down now. If she
flies off, we may not be able to control her.”

“No!” Pimentel grabbed her wrist. “We only have a few minutes to
set up the pin blocks. We take care of the pain first, then we worry about her
augie!”

A sharp tingle, like an electric shock, radiated through Jani’s
right arm. “How much time do we have left?”

Pimentel checked his timepiece. “We’re still supposed to have
fifteen minutes!” He turned and pounded on the panel. “Speed up!”

“I’m going as fast as I can, sir!” The driver’s knuckles showed
white as he clamped down on the wheel. “I’m losing her on the curves as it is!”

“You should have called for air transport, Colonel,” Burkett
snapped.

“I tried, sir.” Pimentel’s hands flew as he clamped the pin block
array around Jani’s forearm. “I couldn’t get approval for an in-city trip.”

“Then you should have lied!”

“I’ll file that recommendation away for future use, sir, thank
you!”

Jani stiffened as the second wave broke like a studded club across
shattered bone. She reached out her carrier-encrusted left hand. Pimentel
grabbed it and squeezed. “I didn’t think it would give any warning.” She winked
at him. “Write it up. Maybe you can get a journal communication out of it.”

Pimentel thumped the block touchpad with his free hand. “I’ve just
activated the blocks, Jani. Hang on for a few more seconds.”

“That’s easy for you to s—!” Her back arched as the third wave
hit. No mercy this time. No quarter. And, after a split second of white-hot
pain that exploded from within like a swallowed shatterbox, no consciousness.

She inhaled.

No rats, this time.

Metal.

Antiseptic.

Hospital.

Jani eased open her eyes just as Morley’s familiar face poked into
view.

“Don’t move too much. Your arm is going to be pretty sore for a
couple of days.”

Jani looked around as well as she could. It wasn’t worth the
effort. This room mirrored her last room, which in turn mirrored the one before
that. “Are you still on afternoons?”

Morley checked the readouts on the monitors surrounding Jani’s
bed. “In answer to your unspoken question, you’ve only been out four hours.
It’s about what we expected. There are only two sedatives we could risk using
on you, and neither is worth much. They pumped you full as soon as they skimmed
you into Triage, but your augie fought off most of it.”

“Oh.” Jani stifled a yawn, then ran a tongue over her dry teeth.
Her head throbbed. She swallowed again, and detected the tell-tale odor of
berries. “They took me down, didn’t they?”

“They had no choice.” Morley held a straw to Jani’s lips and
supported her head as she drew down a wonderful swallow of cold water. “You
came to a few minutes after the chip stopped emitting, and you came up
swinging. You wouldn’t let anybody touch your arm.” She pulled the straw away.

Jani gazed longingly after the water. “What else happened?”

Morley grinned. “First Pimentel stormed over to the JA’s and went
critical all over Incarceration. Turns out their four-hour grace period really
equaled three hours and forty-five minutes. The traditional warning shot, they
said. Endangering the life of my patient, Pimentel said. I think it was the
attempted murder threat that really made their day. Some of them are augmented,
but they’re going to be reluctant to come here for their precautionaries for
quite a while.” She dragged a chair between the monitors and sat down.

“Watching what you went through with that chip shook the hell out
of Burkett—he was green-faced when he shot out of your skimmer. Tore off to the
JA Executive Offices right behind Pimentel, sweaty casuals and all, and
threatened everyone within shouting distance with a charge of treason, saying
that what happened to you endangered sensitive negotiations, thus imperiling
Commonwealth security.
Then
, last but far from least, the idomeni
ambassador called the A-G. Something about the Oligarch’s extreme displeasure
and the disruption of sacred rituals. He also mentioned Lord Ganesha?”

“He’s a Hindu god.”

Morley chuckled dryly. “Talk about threats to body and soul.
Everyone at North Lakeside must be afraid to walk outside for fear of lightning
strikes.” She thumped the arms of the chair and rose slowly. “Well, I’m going
to let you get some rest. Pimentel will be around soon, if he hasn’t staged an
assault on Base Command.” She straightened Jani’s sheet. “Hit the rail pad if
you need anything.”

Jani licked more cotton coating from her teeth. “I’m really
thirsty now.”

“Thank the sedative for that,” Morley said. “We need to hold off.
Your fluid levels are satisfactory, but post-takedown vomiting is still a
threat, and the usual antinausea meds we give might do you more harm than
good.”

Jani stuck out her tongue at the closing door. “I have such
glamorous illnesses.” She stared at the ceiling, hunting for any interesting
blemishes that would set it apart from the other hospital ceilings she had
known.

“Hello, Kilian.”

Jani raised her head too quickly. The room spun.

Neumann sat in Morley’s recently vacated chair. He wore
desertweights. A rancid smile. “Didn’t think you’d see me anymore, did you?”

Jani stared at the years-dead man. “Guess the takedown didn’t.”

“Yeah. Can’t trust technology. Pin blocks. Shooters. Pulse bombs.”
He straightened so he could look over at Jani’s bandaged arm. “So, your
marble-eyed buddy set you up. With friends like him, who needs a death
sentence?”

“I was never in any danger.”

Neumann snorted. “Shows what you know. Hell, you said it yourself.
Knives have slipped during those little bouts before, and Cèel’s a hard-liner
who’d like nothing better than to offer a prayer of thanks over your corpse.”

“But instead, Nema forced him to accept me.” Jani tried to sit up,
and made the mistake of using her right arm for support. Stars exploded. She
slumped back against her pillow, breathing in quick gasps to keep those
precious sips of water where they belonged. “He’s ten steps ahead of all of
you. Always was. Always will be.”

“You better hope so. Your continued existence depends on it.”
Neumann stood and walked to the window side of the room. The wash of daylight
highlighted odd shadows in his pale tan uniform, darkenings across his torso,
his right trouser leg and sleeve. “Yeah, he’s got them all running scared.”

“Cao can’t afford to lose whatever idomeni support she has.” Jani
sat up, this time more carefully. “Colony-Haárin trade increases every month.
Financial stakes are huge. The colonies will vote her out of office the second
her policies affect their pocketbooks.”

“Since when did you become a political analyst?” Neumann sneered.
“Well, you were always good at flummoxing those too ignorant to know better.”
The taunting expression turned self-satisfied. “But you never fooled Acton van
Reuter. And you sure as hell never fooled me.”

“I
killed
you.”

Neumann shrugged. “My shooter caught in my holster.” The front of
his shirt had darkened further. Looked shiny. Wet. Red. “You’d have never
outdrawn me in a fair fight.” He turned from the window to face her. The blood
from the shooter entry wound in his abdomen had soaked from the V of his collar
to below his beltline. “But you don’t know a goddamned thing about fair fights,
do you, Kilian? All you know is fucking your way to the top and interfering
with your betters.”

Jani watched the bloodstains bloom. The killshot. The exit wound
that blew out his right leg. The wound in his right arm, that seeped instead of
bled. That was where the shelving had fallen on his corpse during the first
round of Laumrau shelling, severing the dead arm.
He’s a hallucination.
Yet he seemed more real than any person Jani had seen that day.
Big as life
and so damned ugly.
“One of the last times I spoke with Evan, he sounded as
though he missed you. Why?”

Neumann leaned against the window. The blood from his damaged arm
streamed down the glass. “Evan was a good kid. Normal blowouts growing up. The
drinking—that started way too early, but Acton wouldn’t listen to me.” He
smeared a line of blood with his finger. “Evan understands tradition. He
respects it.”

“What he respects are the privileges of being the
V
in
NUVA-SCAN.”

“Ours by right of conquest, Kilian, paid for with those names on
the Gate. Top dog gets the best cut of meat—first law of life in the
Commonwealth.”

Jani watched Neumann draw on the glass in his blood. One line.
Another. Then crosshatches, like a small grid.
He’s here for a reason.
Her ghosts always appeared for a reason. It was her job to figure out what the
reason was. “Speaking of dogs, ever run into Ebben, Unser, or Fitzhugh?”

Neumann drew an
X
in one box. “Once in a while.”

“Did they ever tell you who killed them?”

“Oh, now she wants information.” He filled another box with an
O
.
“Even though she knows I can’t tell her anything she doesn’t already know or
have the ability to figure out.” When the blood on the window became too thinly
spread to work with, he refilled by dipping a finger in his oozing arm. “No,
Kilian, you have to work for your supper like everyone else. No more easy
rides. No more getting by on your Two of Six mystique.”

“That mystique was the reason you forced my transfer to the
Twelfth Rovers.” She watched him puzzle over the half-filled grid. “You need a
naught in the upper-right corner.”

“Oh, thank you.” He drew it in, then cut a diagonal slash through
his line of
O
’s. “Being dead plays hell with the ol’ cognition.” He took
a white-linen handkerchief from the pocket of his short-sleeve and wiped the
window clean. “You think Pierce had something to do with their deaths.” He
tucked the bloody cloth away, then crossed his arms and leaned against the
pane. His right arm shifted as he applied pressure—the elbow slipped down.

Jani tried to sit forward. Every time she moved, her right arm
throbbed. “I know he did. It’s just a question of what.”

“He already told you. At the soccer match.”

“He said we had a lot in common.”

“Nah. He did you two better.” Before Neumann could explain what he
meant, the door swept aside. Lucien stood in the open entry and peered
cautiously into the room. “Who are you talking to?”

Jani eased back against her pillow. “Just myself.”

“Just myself,” Neumann mimicked. “What a choice you have. Keep
your mouth shut and piss him off, or tell him the truth and have him think
you’re crazy.” He minced to Lucien’s side and blew him a kiss. Then he pulled
at his own belt. “Tell you what, Kilian. I bet he shows you his any second now.
Then I’ll show you mine, and you can tell us which is bigger.”

Jani shot back in disgust, “I didn’t know you had one, you son of
a bitch.”

Lucien stiffened. “What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

“I’m only here because Nema ordered me to come. If you want me to
leave, just say so.”

“No.” Jani waved toward the bedside chair. “I’m just tired. My arm
hurts.” She watched Neumann wander to the far corner of the room and turn his
back. He stood hunched, right shoulder jerking up and down. Jani shifted so the
seated Lucien blocked the view.

“You’re not supposed to have visitors, but Nema wants an
eyewitness account of your condition.” Lucien’s heavy-lidded stare moved over
her as Neumann’s grunting sounded from the corner. “So, how do you feel?”

“I just had my arm yanked out of its socket from the inside. How
do you think I feel?”

“Nema said you fought most as idomeni. He crowed to me for over
fifteen minutes. If he’s doing the same thing at the embassy, Cèel’s ready to
kill him.”