The Credulity Nexus (9 page)

Their nurse
avatar was certainly friendly as it led them along endless
corridors and up and down levels, chatting non-stop about how good
the hospital was, how nice it was for the patients to receive
visitors, and what this week's special offers were on body
augmentations and upgrades. The distraught and dishevelled figure
that barred their way when they finally neared the intensive care
ward stood in stark contrast to the neat and chirpy lucie.

“
Brie! My God, are you all right?” Rik was
shocked at the sight of her. Her hair was uncombed, her blouse torn
and bloodstained, and her right arm was in a sling.

“
This?” She glanced down at her injured
arm. “This is nothing. If Blake's shot hadn't gone through my arm,
he'd have missed the bastard's heart. Then we'd both be
dead.”

“
Jesus, Brie, I'm so sorry. I never
meant–”

“
Just fuck off, Rik. I don't ever want to
see your stupid face again.”

“
I just wanted to see if Blake was
OK.”

“
Oh, what? You're concerned now? You
weren't so worried about him when you sent that shit through the
post. You damned well knew someone would come looking for it,
didn't you?”

Rik moved to
take her by the shoulders, to try to calm her, but she wrenched
herself out of the way. He'd known Brie for years, and it hurt like
hell to see the fury in her eyes. He found himself pleading for her
understanding. “Honest, Brie, I didn't know.”

“
Tell it to the police, asshole. They want
to know what the hell's going on, too.”

“
Mrs. Bonomi.” Agent Freymann stepped
forward. “I work for the Government, and I need to ask you a few
questions about the package your husband received.”

Brie's eyes
never left Rik's. Her nostrils flared, and he could see her jaw
working behind tight lips. “This is the real reason you're here,
isn't it? You don't give a damn that Blake's probably dying in
there, do you? You just came to find out about the fucking poison
you sent him.” Rik was helpless with pain and guilt. Brie turned
her head and focused on the woman beside him.

“
As for you... I've told the police
everything. I have no idea what he did with it, and he's in no
state to tell anybody. Go and read the fucking file.”

Her final
words were for Rik. “And don't come back.”

“
Brie!”

But she had
gone, storming into one of the side corridors without a backward
glance.

Freymann moved
to follow her, but Rik caught her arm and held it. He felt hollow
and shaky, the reality of what he had done to his friends gouging
out his insides.

“
We should go,” he said.

“
Are you nuts? We haven't got a clue where
the package is! We can't leave it like this.”

“
She doesn't know anything. Leave her
alone.”

“
Like hell I will!”

Rik tightened
his grip and pulled her closer. “We should go. We'll work it out,
somehow.”

Freymann's
cold stare told him she was considering her chances of disabling
him, maybe getting to her gun before he broke her arm. It wasn't a
pleasant look. He held her firmly and waited for her to think it
through. When she spoke, her voice was calm.

“
OK. You're right. She doesn't know
anything. Let's get out of this dump. Hospitals give me the
creeps.”

By the time
they got to the exit, the limo was waiting for them, having
retrieved itself from the car park. Rik took control of the vehicle
and directed it through a series of complex manoeuvres around the
back streets of LA, just in case they'd picked up a tail.

“
So what do we know?” Freymann asked as
they made their way east along the Santa Monica Freeway, heading in
the direction of LAPD headquarters.

Rik had been
making more calls. He looked out at the familiar streets, the
mellow sunshine. It didn't look like home any more. “According to a
guy at the station, Blake turned up fifteen minutes late for his
shift, worked a normal day, and went home at the end of it. He was
shot about half an hour later. They must have been waiting for him.
In Brie's statement, she said the package arrived during breakfast
and Blake took it with him when he left for work. It's still
missing.”

They both
cogitated in silence as the car negotiated the traffic.

“
So you think we should retrace his route
to work?” Freymann asked. “That's why you're heading to the
station?”

Rik sighed.
“It's something. If the package had been at home, in his car, in
his locker, anywhere easy, they'd have found it by now.”

“
You know the police are looking for you?
And you're heading straight for them?”

“
What does it matter? Full co-operation,
right? I should probably go turn myself in.” Freymann looked
uncomfortable. Rik eyed her suspiciously. “You got a problem with
that, Company girl?”

“
Let's just hold off on that for a while,
OK? See if we can get a lead. Once you're in custody, they'll be
questioning you for hours. You can do more good out here. What else
do we know?”

Rik could see
that the question was meant to distract him, keep him from turning
himself in and putting himself out of her reach. But that didn't
bother him. Freymann was right. Going over his movements ten times
for the LAPD wasn't going to help anyone.

“
We know that they saw me post the package
in Berlin,” he said. “It's the only way they could have been there
to stake out Blake's house.”

Freymann shook
her head. “If they were close enough to see the address you put on
the package, they were close enough to snatch it in Berlin and save
themselves a trip. Maybe they knew Blake was the only one you'd
send something like this to.”

This time Rik shook his head. “It could
have been anyone. I chose Blake because I could trust him, and I
felt safer getting the package back to the States. But I could just
as easily have sent it to other people, in other countries. The
Moon, even.”
And maybe anyone else I sent it to would have ended up like
Blake.
He had a sudden
flashback of Peth Cordell handing him the file she had on him.
There were lots of names and addresses in there, lots of people he
knew.

“
Shit!”

He pulled the
car off the road and parked.

“
What if they didn't know it would be
Blake? What if they just targeted every single person I know?
Everyone!” The thought hit him like a slap. “Jesus!
Maria!”

He put in a
call to his ex-wife in New York, but there was no answer. The voice
message said she was busy just now, but she'd get right back to
him. In the sack with her dumb boyfriend? Taking a shower? What the
hell time was it in New York?

“
That would take enormous resources, Rik.
The kind of thing only the Government could do.”

“
Or someone very, very rich.”

“
Cordell? Why would he–?”

“
Someone else then. Another big-shot. Some
kind of industrial espionage. A competitor. Who are Cordell's
competitors? And why would they be fighting over a
bioweapon?”

“
I'll request a search,” she said. She
sounded uncertain. “It could be a long list.”

“
Just the biggest and baddest,” he said
grimly. He was running through his own list: all the people he
might have sent the package to – or the people someone else might
have guessed he'd send it to. Meanwhile, he tried calling Maria
again. Still no answer.

“
It could still be a government,” Freymann
said. “Bioweapons are always nice to have.”

Rik made no
comment. A police car cruised past them, heading east. “We should
ditch the car.”

“
Don't worry. It's in my name and it's
perfectly legit. Besides, I changed the registration once we left
the hospital, just in case they had us on camera going in or out. I
changed the car's colour, too.”

Rik glanced
out at the bodywork. What had been black was now blue. Paints that
changed colour at the flick of a small current were nothing
special, but it was nice to know Freymann had anticipated the need
for it.

So they knew
he was in LA, but not where. Getting out of town might be a bit
harder than getting in, but not much.

“
I need to check on a few people,” he
said.

Freymann
nodded, acknowledging his concern but not looking happy about
it.

-oOo-

The Harsh Mistress
was one of Heinlein's most notorious bars.
A favourite haunt for the city's criminal element, it was also
conveniently located for workers on 'shore leave' from the Moon's
biggest construction project, Alltheway Station. A rigger could
make a small fortune working on the tethers and the two gigantic
orbital platforms. Mostly the workers stayed in inflatable habs
fixed close to their worksites, under the usual strictures of
spacework – no booze, no drugs, no gambling. They worked three
weeks on and three days off. Three weeks in a plastic bubble with
lucies and immersion games, then three days in Heinlein, getting
falling-down drunk in The Harsh Mistress with a hooker in their lap
and a song in their heart.

Most of the
riggers were straight-up humans, reckoning they'd do this for a
couple of years to get a stake together then get the hell off the
Moon and back to civilisation. Many were modded – genetically
engineered for micro-G work and planning to make a life out in the
Big Black. Some were uploads, coming to terms with their new-found
immortality, and the fact that there really was no place for them
on Earth any more. Even offworld, they faced a life of
marginalisation and discrimination.

Veb Degen 1
Rea was an upload, and a typical one at that. In the days when he
had been Michael Kinnings, he had spent every penny he had to buy
his android body and have the upload done. He had worked on
Alltheway Station for peanuts and the promise that he'd be building
and crewing the
Starseeker
, the very first interstellar
explorer. But the project had gone belly-up and the Starseeker was
now a high-end restaurant for the residents of Alltheway. These
days, he was just glad that, here on the Moon, there was work to be
had, and others like him to share his troubles with. He was in The
Harsh Mistress not because he drank there – robots didn't get
drunk, so what would be the point? – but because he worked there as
a bouncer.

It used to
amuse him at first. One day he was an octogenarian, barely strong
enough to lift his oxygen mask to his face, and the next he was
tossing burly riggers out the doors as if they were garbage sacks.
But the joke soon wore off.

The one good
thing about working at The Mistress was the owners. The Drew
sisters were crazy bitches, but they'd been good to Veb. Beauties,
too, both of them. Not that that bothered Veb any more, but it sure
made the place popular with the customers. Nephele and Carlotta
Sylver 3 Drew could have had their pick of men in Heinlein, but
they had chosen that washed-up cop from Earth.

Veb remembered
the day Rik walked into the bar for the first time, almost three
years ago – Rik Sylver, as he was then. Veb took a professional
interest in anybody who was that big and looked like he'd be
trouble. But Rik had turned out to be OK. In fact, they'd become
friends. Rik and his wives were the only human friends Veb had made
since the upload.

As Veb looked
around at the bloody mess in the empty bar – the broken tables, the
shattered glass, the burn-marks on the walls – he wished Rik was
there. The guys from the morgue had carried away the bodies,
although the UNPF cops were still there, taking statements from the
survivors. It had been a hell of a fight. Veb really wanted to talk
to Rik – Rik was good in situations like this – but Veb couldn't
reach him. And that wasn't the worst of it.

Rik would want
to know that his wives were both dead. He'd also want to know that
their killers had been looking for him, and for some package he was
supposed to have.

-oOo-

“
We should get back to the hospital.”
Freymann was looking worried.

Rik hung up on
yet another failed attempt to reach his wives on the Moon. “I told
you, Brie doesn't know anything.”

Freymann nodded. “Yeah,
you
know that, and
I
know that...”

Rik's eyes
widened. “But whoever's tagging us doesn't. God, I'm being dumb
today!” He got the car in motion again and set it on its way back
to Cedars-Sinai. It refused to go any faster than the speed limit,
and all Rik could do about it was sit back and grind his teeth.

“
We haven't been away long,” Freymann said.
“We might make it.” Rik said nothing, focused on willing the
autolimo to go faster. “I'm sorry, Rik. I should have thought of it
sooner.”

Rik looked
hard at his companion. Assuming it wasn't some kind of sarcastic
remark, that would be the first kind thing she'd said since they'd
met. After a moment, he shook his head. “No need to apologise. I've
been so busy worrying about everyone else I know, I didn't see the
danger right under my nose.”

He looked her
steadily in the eyes. “Have you had much to do with uploads?”

“
I saw what your friend did, back at
Heathrow.”

“
Yeah, but you didn't see me empty a full
clip straight into her stomach without making her flinch. When we
get to the hospital, I don't expect you to go in there with me; not
if she's there. But I would like to borrow one of your
guns.”