The Foul Mouth and the Cat Killing Coyotes (The King Henry Tapes) (15 page)

Considering how we’
re on a timetable . . . I was not best pleased.

“Going to repeat myself I think
, with my favorite word added for effect: 
why are we still sitting in your fucking car
?”

More tap
ping and typing.  For such a big man he sure did have deft fingers.  “We need an excuse.”

“To go in?”

“Exactly.”

“I thought you had some card or
skeleton key or shit?”

“I have a consultant’s security badge and my face is
n’t unknown in the building . . . but, it’s almost 5AM and I’ve never been to this building at this ungodly hour.  In fact, for me to be at this building at 5AM would require an emergency with their computer network.”

My phone rang again, I ignored it again too.  “So you’re creating your own emergency.”

“Exactly.”

“Won’t you showing up a few minutes after the emergency starts be suspicious?”

“No . . . every system I set up flags intrusions and emails them to me.  So . . . I backlog everything for an hour ago when I’m messing around.”

I shook my head.  “Making this more difficult than it has to be.”

The typing stopped for a second.  His head turned to study me.  “One of us already has the cops after him; I don’t wish to be added to the list.”

“But it’s so fun
. . . there was coffee and next time might have doughnuts.”

“Just let me finish this, please.”

I went through my artifacts one more time.  I flapped the aero-fan for a minute before I gave up.  Tried to rip off the pink fur from around the cold cuffs . . . gave up on that too.  Checked another experimental design in my box but eventually put it back.  It was awesome . . . geo-anima like the SEM-DEW, but completely untested.  If I set it off it might start running around the room killing people.

That would be bad
. . .

Plus,
I figured there would be more guns before this was over and I wasn’t planning on doing product reviews while under fire.

Too bad I didn’t grab the Shaky Stick
.

In the moment it had seemed too dangerous.  Now, after the worry of being arrested had faded, a little bit of
too dangerous
seemed ideal.  It wasn’t the same artifact it had been when I’d first used it.  Hundreds of years on the shelf had been replaced by weekly siphonings into anima-vials.  It kept the Shaky Stick contained . . .
calm
.  Instead of an earthquake waiting to happen it was . . . a free pool, maybe an hour in size.

Large.  Powerful.  But something I had managed before.

An hour pool.

I
’d been experimenting with that too since Ceinwyn’s hints.  Never an hour though.  Ten minutes, fifteen minutes, occasionally a half hour.  Just how much had the Asylum lied?  Just what was the benefit of pooling to that size?  Power for one, but it seemed like the more I pooled the more of the pool would slip away when I let it go.

Next
I’d tried only releasing part of the pool.  Which is a lot like blowing up a dam and trying to hold the pieces together at the same time.  Impossible and . . .
painful
.  I almost shit my pants the first time.  Like all my muscles had instantly liquefied.  I managed to hold in the brown flow but my ass crumbled to the floor, all the anima escaping at once.  With anima it’s apparently all or nothing.

So far
.

What
I had accomplished was splitting the pool into pieces . . . using it towards multiples instead of at one target.  That—

“Done,”
T-Bone announced, closing up his laptop.  “Let’s get this over with.”

[CLICK]

The walk
across the parking lot and into the building seemed to take forever.  Most of this had to do with it being across a parking lot.  Is there anything more full of shit, more human than a parking lot?  All that asphalt, all those white lines and arrows ordering you around.
Go this way, you stupid idiot, this way
.

Some of forever
. . . came down to time.  Time was a ticking.  Geomancer I might be, but this wasn’t sand I could turn around.  While we’d goofed off in the car the March sun had woken itself up and put on a pot of coffee.  Quick little session of spooning-sex with a wife to finish off the morning-boner, a shower and a shave, then it would be off to work.

Sunrise
is never a thing of beauty in Fresno, like it is some other places.  The Asylum, I’m actually a fan of those sunrises . . . all the crisp mountain air and clear sight right out into eternity . . . but Fresno, the sunrise sucked ass like it did with everything else.  In summer it woke up to brown smog.  In winter it woke to gray and the Fog.  March was probably sunrise at its best . . . and it still looked hung over after too much time at the titty bar.

T-Bone
and I crossed the parking lot in pink light and heavy shadows.  I wore my usual . . . same from the day before.  Guess I should be thanking the Mancy I hadn’t gotten bloodied in my shop from all the glass flying around or this would have never went down.  Instead I just looked grungy.  Jeans dirty.  Geomancer’s coat dirty.  The March wind cut at my face and hands, but the rest wasn’t so bad.

Beside me
, T-Bone was so clean he squeaked.  Six-and-a-half-foot-tall black guy in black cords and a white polo shirt that went to his wrists, covered up with a woven sweat-vest.  The vest even had an Ultra pin on it.  He looked so damned respectable . . . it’s sickening.  There are country clubs in this world that would have giggled at him.  Tyson Bonnie: Security Consultant.  I’d have given the guy my computer passwords in a second . . . even the ones to my porn accounts . . .

. . .
What?

“You should wear a coat,” I said
to make the parking lot go by quicker.

He frowned down at me. 
I didn’t look so good in the reverse apparently.  “Mancer coat?”

“Yeah.  They’re warm
, you know.  Plus . . . lots of pockets.”

T-Bone
chuckled at that, lifting his computer bag.  “Plenty in here.  Besides, you know what electromancer colors look like.”

Blue and yellow. 
Right up there with spectromancers and corpusmancers on the ‘
holy shit, what’re they thinking?
’ list.  “Could always pass for a Chargers fan.”

“A what?”

“Chargers, going to make me do the Rivers face?”

“Huh?”

“
Football
. . . you know, those little guys you play with on Madden.”

“Oh
. . . I’m not a sports guy.”

I gave him a
nother look over, sneering at the vest.  “Bet that brings every football coach you meet to tears.”

“Besides,
you’re the only one I’ve ever seen who wears his colors around all the time.  Unless someone is heading to the Institution for a reunion or have been called in by the Learning Council they usually sit in the closet collecting dust.”

“Can’t beat the pockets
, man . . . can’t beat them then join ‘em.”

It was his turn to give me a
second look over, noticing my added static ring most likely.  “How many weapons do you have on you right now?”

“Not enough.
  You can never have too many artifacts.”

There was a sheriff deputy at the front desk.

We’ve already covered that the important thing to know about the Fresno Police Department is that they are very happy to shoot you and very good when it comes down to it.  The Fresno County Sheriff’s Department, on the other hand, has a reputation passed down from the days before camera phones as being very happy to beat your asshole in.  If you give them any crap at all . . .
at all
. . . they are likely to start smashing face.

Which
. . . is kind of right up my alley.

In an alternate reality
world, King Henry Price is probably a sheriff’s deputy.

Yeah, that’s the scar
y thought, ain’t it?

This deputy was
as un-King Henry Price as you get.  Tall, skinny, old, balding, and frankly . . . pleasant.  We’ll call him . . . Deputy.

T-Bone
showed off his security badge right away.  “I just received an alert that someone penetrated through your firewall.”

Don’t know about Deputy,
but hearing that phrase I had an epiphany for how computer nerds talked dirty once they finally got some. 
I’m gonna penetrate your firewall, you dirty girl . . .

“Is that bad?” Deputy asked.

“Bad enough to get us down here at this hour,” I pointed out.  T-Bone had given me his supply bag to carry.  From what I could tell it had tools for computers in it but the only one I recognized was the screwdriver.

“It’s
. . . ‘
a problem
’ I guess you could say,” T-Bone
did
say.  “Sometimes it does happen by accident or it might have been some college freshman drunk-hacking on a bet.  I just want to make sure whoever it was didn’t leave a computer virus or a trojan behind.”

D
eputy shrugged at us.  “You’re talking over my head.  You have clearance, you can go in.” He pointed at me.  “He don’t have clearance though, so he has to stay in the visitation area.”

“I’m new,” I explained.

Pleasant faded a bit.  “No clearance tag: 
no go.
”

T-Bone
started to get nervous again, his hands balling up into fists.  “You sure I can’t sign for him?”

“This isn’t Fresno PD, we stick by regulations or we get suspended,” Deputy said, “and I
really
like my job, boys.  Get him a tag for next time and we won’t have any problems, but for now . . .”

In a day of plans getting shot to shit, it was the first but far from the last. 
Definitely not the biggest either.  I handed over T-Bone’s second bag.  “You have to fix it alone then.”

“
Alone?
”

“Only way looks like
. . .”  I motioned at some empty seats.  “I can stay here at least, right?”

“Sure thing,” Deputy said.

“Use my phone?  Go to the bathroom?  Stuff like that?”

“Just don’t try to cross the line right over there.”  Deputy pointed to a yellow line on the linoleum floor.

I shrugged at T-Bone.  Wasn’t anything I could do besides knocking Deputy out and that wasn’t exactly the best of ideas.  I figured someone would notice the knocked-out guy right at the entrance sooner or later.  “Give me a call if you need a second opinion on . . . the viruses, or whatever.”

T-Bone
gulped.  “Right, second opinion.”

“Just fix it and check what we came for and we can get out,” I told him
, trying to calm him down.  “Got better places to be, right?”

“Right,
better places to be . . .”

Times li
ke this I wish I could make what happens in these tapes up . . . just add some action into the story.  Have a fucking terminator come into the place and start blowing people away . . . have Annie B stop by and say hello.  Me sitting my ass on a plastic chair, occasionally giving Deputy a smile, watching the people coming in for work or some janitors leaving work?  Not very exciting is it?

Pretty damned boring.

Terminators, why don’t they exist?  I mean . . . I could be pretty badass against some all metal enemies.  Movie would have lasted five minutes if I’d been there.  Wouldn’t have needed no machine press or home-made explosives neither.

The story I got
. . .

I could tell you about the few minutes I spent in the bathroom stall
. . . what?  Not interested in that?  Don’t want the color and shape and size?  I could guess a weight for it if you like.  No?

How about the can of soda and the bag of chips I bought? 
Want to know what kinds?  Funyuns and a coke.  Well . . . shit, that wasn’t very exciting was it?

Oh
. . .

My phone rang again
. . . this time I answered it.

“International House of Pancakes.”

“King Henry . . . when I call you, answering the phone is not optional.” Man, Ceinwyn was
pissed
.  I can’t accurately describe the tone of voice but let’s just say if my cell-phone had balls . . . they would have shriveled up.

“I’ve been a little busy.”

“Not too busy for me.”

“Even you this time, Ceinwyn.  I’m in DEFCON whatever-the-fuck here.”

“Tell me what happened.”

I rolled my eyes.  Too bad I didn’t have a better
phone plan with video chat or she could have seen it.  “You already know what happened.  You talked with T-Bone, probably called up a few other Intras in town that you haven’t filled me in on too, maybe even the vamp embassy, right?”