Tears in Rain (41 page)

“And nothing else?” Paul finally asked.

“That’s all Natvel told me.”

“But you, you’ve got nothing else to tell me?”

“What do you want me to tell you?”

“I have no idea...that’s for you to say...about the illegal mobile, about what you’re up to. What are doing in the Majestic Hotel right now, for example?”

Bruna lost her temper.

“I’m sick of you tracking me.”

Paul looked at her severely.

“Bruna, things are really bad. I’m not sure you realize this. They’re very bad in general, and they’re bad for you. We’ve found Dani dead.”

“Dani? So, who’s Dani? Another rep victim?”

The face of a human appeared on the screen.

“You don’t know who this is, Bruna?”

Yes, she knew...or she should know. That face rang a bell. The android put her hands over her eyes and made an effort to remember. She reconstructed the woman’s features deep inside her mind and imagined them moving and alive. And then she recognized her. She uncovered her face and looked at Paul.

“She’s one of the people who attacked me the other night when I was going home. It’s the woman who seemed to be the leader of the group.”

Paul nodded his head slowly.

“Dani Kohn. A racist activist. And a well-to-do young woman. The daughter of Phi Kohn Reyes, the director-general of Clean Water. A multimillionaire businesswoman. A bigwig. They’re hassling us over her death.”

They were silent again for a moment.

“When was the last time you saw her, Bruna?”

The rep put up her guard. A mix of fear and anger rose in her throat.

“When she tried to split open my head that night. That was the first and only time I saw her. What sort of question is that? What are you trying to insinuate? What are you after, Lizard?”

“They killed her with a small plasma gun—with
your
gun, Bruna. It’s covered with your fingerprints and DNA.”

Bruna expelled the air that she hadn’t even realized she was holding in. A cold sweat spread across her back.

“Ah, the gun. It’s true. I did have a plasma gun. An illegal weapon, yes. I admit it. But they took it from me. Yesterday, when the killers of the memorist attacked me. And I now think they probably attacked me for that reason: to take my weapon so they could incriminate me.”

Paul nodded, tight lipped. An intense emotion hardened his features. Pent-up anger, maybe. Or sadness, perhaps.

“I shouldn’t have told you all this. You’re a suspect. I know you didn’t shoot Dani, because she died early this morning and at that hour, you were in my apartment, sleeping, sedated, with me.”

That
with me
gave the rep a strange feeling in her stomach.

“But you’re hiding things from me, Bruna. I shouldn’t trust you. Maybe it’s true that a techno conspiracy is underway, who knows? I distrust humans and reps equally. We can all be sons of bitches. So it may well be that you want to kill me.”

“Or maybe what’s happening is that someone is trying to set a trap for me.”

“Yes. That would be the most satisfactory hypothesis. The trouble is that I don’t trust satisfactory hypotheses. We tend to believe them no matter what logic might tell us.”

“Maybe. Maybe it’s simpler than that. When they attacked me, I remember firing a shot. Maybe Dani was one of the assailants; maybe I wounded her at that point and she died hours later.”

“She was executed, Bruna. A shot to the back of her head next to her ear, point-blank range. Instant death. And it happened at around five o’clock this morning.”

“So?”

“So stop lying to me and tell me everything.”

How could she explain that she didn’t trust him—that, in a certain way, she was afraid of him? And yet Bruna breathed in deeply and told Lizard everything he didn’t yet know. She told him about Annie Heart and her appointment with Hericio. She felt like someone allowing herself to fall down a slippery, icy slope, putting up with the vertigo and the fear of crashing at the bottom.

“Who knew about your meeting with the mem pirate?”

“I’ve been thinking about that already. Nopal, of course. And Habib, but he didn’t know the time or the place. And my friend Yiannis, but he’s above suspicion.”

And you
, she thought.
You knew about it, too, Lizard.

“No one’s above suspicion,” grunted the man.

It was the last thing he said before he cut off, and the sentence left the rep with a sense of unease. Suddenly she remembered Maio. The alien was capable of reading her mind and so might have picked up on her meeting with the memorist. He was, moreover, from an extragalactic civilization, a remote world to which he could retreat without any fear of reprisals from Labaric thugs. Yes, it was true that Maio was supposedly a political exile and would be in danger if he returned to his planet, but to what
extent could she believe him? Even more to the point, what did Earthlings know about
bichos
? And what if the aliens were trying to stir up violence between the species in order to destabilize Earth and in this way be able to colonize it, as xenophobic groups maintained? Bruna was ashamed of her thoughts and pushed down her irrational fear until it was buried deep within her. It was unlikely that the immense distance that separated the two worlds would encourage a colonialist adventure.

But the possibility remained that Maio might be implicated in some conspiracy. For money, perhaps. Now that she thought about it, wasn’t it surprising that the Omaá had suddenly appeared in her bed? And what should she make of his insistence at standing guard at her front entrance?
By the great Morlay, what a paranoid world!
Bruna said to herself with sudden disgust. Not only was she suspicious of everyone individually, but to make matters worse, it was enough for someone to treat her with affection for that person to be deemed even more suspicious.

She missed her huge, half-finished jigsaw puzzle; she needed to relax and the puzzle was the best way for her to switch off quickly. But there wasn’t much time, so she carefully put on her makeup and pulled on her Annie Heart wig. Wrapped in the hotel’s bathrobe, she used her mobile to log in to an Express store and buy a thermal wardrobe for her character. While she was waiting for the robot to arrive, she spoke with Yiannis and sent Habib a message. Both of them were worried about the political situation. The clothes took barely twenty minutes to arrive—Express stores were expensive but efficient. She dressed herself in a pink jumpsuit that matched a padded jacket she thought was hideous but which blonde Annie would undoubtedly adore, and then—the perfectionist’s touch—she took two necklaces she’d brought along for the occasion out of the safe in the room. Nothing like a piece of jewelry to finish off her disguise as a conventional, intense young woman. She immediately rejected the light pectoral, which didn’t go with her thermal clothes, and picked the other piece,
her favorite: an ancient ivory
netsuke
, a smiling little man with a sack over his shoulder who hung from a string of rubies and little gold beads. The necklace was part of her packet of fake mementos; her mother had supposedly given it to her before she died. The
netsuke
was an unusual object, as the package of technohuman souvenirs always consisted of simple, ordinary objects: children’s toys, holographs, cheap rings. However, Bruna had taken the
netsuke
to a specialist, who had certified that it was a genuine seventeenth-century Japanese piece from the Edo era. An extremely extravagant piece. Yet it wasn’t the
netsuke
’s financial value that Bruna appreciated but its unique grace and even the emotion it awoke in her. Despite knowing that her mother had never existed, she couldn’t help loving the
netsuke
with an affection that seemed to come from the depths of her impossible childhood. Whenever she wore the little man with his sack, she felt protected. And she needed to be protected when she confronted Hericio, whose status had so recently grown. She put on the necklace, checking that the clasp was well secured, and after a final glance in the mirror, went downstairs to the hotel bar, swaying her hips with the help of the high nonslip heels on her feminine snow boots, which were also pink and revolting.

When she sat down on the bar stool, it was 15:40. The bar was empty and the waiter darted solicitously toward her. Bruna ordered a vodka and lemon and a pile of cold sandwiches that she quickly proceeded to devour—she didn’t want to be caught fainting with hunger during her interview with Hericio. When Serra arrived, she still had one left on her plate.

“The enigmatic Annie Heart,” said the supremacist by way of a greeting.

He didn’t look very happy.

“You’re not playing dirty tricks on me, are you, Annie? I really wouldn’t like that.”

“And what makes you think I would be? Would you like a sandwich?”

Serra shook his head. He wasn’t taking his eyes off her.

“Good,” said the rep, wolfing down the sandwich with delight. It had cheese and nuts.
Bartolo would have loved it
, Bruna thought ludicrously.

“What happened to you?”

“When?” she mumbled with her mouth full.

“There. And there. You’re covered with bruises.”

The detective took her time chewing and swallowing. Then she answered dryly: “An accident.”

“What sort of accident?”

“Traffic.”

“You were knocked over by a car?”

“I was knocked over by the fists of two technos.”

Serra looked at her attentively, doubtful but impressed.

“Really?”

“Well, if truth be told, I had told them they should get out of my way, that they should get off the travelator.”

“And?”

“They didn’t.”

“That’s why you weren’t answering your calls.”

“I was at the hospital.”

“Have you reported them?”

“No. What for? Those replicking judges would never do anything to them. That’s where we’re at, as you know. Total impunity for the monsters.”

“Do you know who they are? Point them out to me and you’ll see where their impunity gets them,” bragged Serra, thrusting out his chest.

“No, you can do something better than that for me. You can provide me with a plasma gun.”

“A gun? That’s a big word.”

“But I’m sure that if anyone can get hold of a weapon, it’s you,” cooed Bruna, flattering him.

The man swaggered visibly in appreciation of the praise.

“Well, I don’t know. It’s not easy.”

“I need it. I need that gun, don’t you understand? A small plasma one; I don’t need anything more than that. And of course I’m prepared to pay what it’s worth. Are you going to allow them to hit me again without punishment when you could prevent it? Life is becoming too violent, and the immediate future looks set to be worse. All good humans should be carrying weapons.”

Serra nodded.

“Yes. Absolutely. It’s part of our agenda. We’re reclaiming our right to defend ourselves. Well, I’ll see what I can do. And now, let’s go. Hericio’s expecting you.”

Bruna stood up. She was a head taller than the supremacist deputy. She placed her hand on the man’s inflated chest.

“But you have to get it for me now. I’m leaving for New Barcelona tomorrow.”

And to add weight to her request, Bruna-Annie briefly rested her head on the man’s shoulder, although she had to bend down to do it.

“You are going to help, aren’t you?” she asked affectionately.

Serra displayed a fatuous smile of superiority for all the world to see.

“Yes, woman. Relax. You can be sure that you’ll have your little gun.”

And grabbing Bruna by the elbow with the air of a happy proprietor, he led her out of the bar.

The things you had to do to get your hands on a weapon.

B
runa thought that the meeting would take place in some quiet, isolated place, but they headed for the HSP headquarters. It wasn’t exactly the most discreet place in the city right now. A crowd was swirling around in front of the main entrance despite the prevailing cold: journalists, police, and supporters of every shape, color, and class. The supporters seemed suddenly to have multiplied exponentially. On the opposite sidewalk, some twenty Apocalyptics were banging their drums and announcing the end of the world with uncharacteristic joy. Serra shoved his way through the crowd and the android followed in his wake. They crossed the police cordon without any difficulty and then the party’s security line, which was composed of very nervous young men. As they went through, the deputy arrogantly told them to remain alert; the order was unnecessary, but he was enjoying the ease with which doors forbidden to others were being opened for him, having crowds of people looking at him, and being part of the leadershipof a party that had turned itself into a star product overnight. He was walking so tall, with his shoulders back and his head held high, that he seemed to have grown several inches. Above them, one of the public screens was showing them as they went in. Someone in attendance was sending through the images. Serra swelled with pride and wrinkled his brow a little more, playing the role of important-politician-very-concerned-about-the-situation to the hilt.