03. The Maze in the Mirror (36 page)

With a fake Brandy in place, the rest of the staff could also be replaced one by one, since she, as station master, had full access to the most secure areas and wouldn't be suspect. They would also give a less permanent nerve hold to her so that any lapses she might make during the early stages might be glossed over, and, bedridden, she could learn the little things so as to be a perfect duplicate.

The second Pandross, however, was put in by the computer. He came by car, not Labyrinth, having been gotten in through one of the more remote substations, and knowing all the passwords and clearances his job would be to see that I wasn't knocked out. The computer was convinced that if I recovered there was no way they could fool me for any length of time, and they might be right. That would mean killing me and there goes the substation, like I said.

But I wasn't there, thanks entirely to luck and a stubborn snowstorm, and that forced the ersatz Pandross, who the goons doing the raid had every reason to believe was their legitimate boss, to improvise. He wasn't the real Pandross, though, and that made him an amateur, an actor able to carry out a predetermined set of things but an amateur when a professional was needed. The goons knew the basic plan; he couldn't overrule
that without drawing suspicion on himself, so he let it go. But he had them kidnap Dash, in a real amateur night kidnapping without any plans for what they were going to do with the boy, hoping to blackmail me by threats against the boy with playing along with his game. After the raid, my Earth was pretty well sealed off by Company security, so it took a long time before even the imports could get out. They were, however, able to send a report out which included the fact that they'd missed me and kidnapped the kid.

And that's where the computer got the idea of both dealing with me and using me, as I'll explain in a moment.

I suspect that when Voorhes got that report he was furious, but he didn't really have any reason to be suspicious of the big man who'd come along and helped supervise. If he was more than mentioned, Voorhes and the rest probably just figured he was one of the drug lords they used to get the goons up and back. They had all seen Pandross's dead body, and my vague description later of Whispery Voice wouldn't have connected.

Voorhes and the others were pros, though. If they couldn't have me in the original way, they'd use Dash to make me come to them. The idea was to use me if they could, since the death of Pandross really had shaken them, but also to invoke my absence and perhaps later show evidence that I had turned traitor. I would register, now and again, on Company recorders during my Labyrinth trips, although they made certain my routing wouldn't give Company security any real opportunity to nab me. The computer also hired some good people, like Moran and Miss Blaise, to cover
me in shifts, making certain that not only as backups for Maria but also, and primarily, to protect me from Company agents just in case. That was why we were shadowed everywhere in the Labyrinth. This gave the computer some legs of its own, since Maria was tied to opposition security and therefore to the other seven. This independently hired force believed they were working security for a still-living but behind-the-scenes Pandross. They represented a mercenary third party who was devoted to stopping the plan but also to protecting the opposition.

The trouble was, nobody could really get to the farm to blow the operation. Hell, if the toughest sort to fool in all humanity, a five year old, can be conned into accepting a duplicate as his mother, why should the Company suspect? And if they are going to make certain that they close this threatening substation, who better than the station master to bring in crews so it can be done in an orderly manner? Hell, the Company would actually make certain nobody disturbed them!

The problem was, that made it next to impossible for the computer's mercenaries to get near it on the world side, and only station personnel's codes would be operative on the Labyrinth, or switch, side. Nobody could get in from the switch except Mancini's team, and nobody could threaten on the real world side because of the Company. Neat.

The only one whose code would automatically operate that switch who wasn't on either side was me, since there was no way to take me out of the coding at the switch level unless it was done by the station master-and this Brandy was perfect, but
she wouldn't have the real one's total I.D. coding so the moment she went into the security area of the switch to alter it the alarms would go off like the Fourth of July.

The computer had known that. That's why when the committee asked the computer to suggest who could best solve Pandross's murder, the computer strongly suggested me.

Voorhes was nervous about me-things hadn't gone right in the raid and he'd resisted the idea of using Dash to get at me-but when the computer suggested me and also the logic of making me seem a traitor and getting the threat out of the way-the plan I outlined already-it proved irresistible. Carlos, of course, saw the humor in it as well, and put someone under his control, Maria, over me although she didn't know it was him. Still, they accelerated operations in the siding, knowing that they couldn't maintain the enormous fiction there forever.

And now here was Moran telling me that their employer, Mister Pandross, whom I knew was a hulking mass well back down the Labyrinth there, now insisted that I carry out the last part of his plan for the sake not only of screwing things up but also in my own interest. If they were allowed to go ahead, God only knew what would eventually happen to Dash.

"All right," I told Moran and Blaise. "Just what is it I'm expected to do here, anyway?"

"We will provide what you need before you go," he told me. "It's not large or bulky and it breaks into little bricks. You just stick them in various spots as you travel towards your house through the siding. Once you are out and well away from the
substation, you will have a detonator that will blow them, and that, in turn, will blow the batteries. That's basically it. The Company will find the mess, their security people will figure out the plan, and steps will be taken to insure against it happening again. You, rather than Mister Pandross, we, or any of the opposition, including their security forces, will have been the instrument of their failure. They will have to regroup and try something else. It's as simple as that."

"Uh huh. And what happens to me then? I'll have everybody from the deadly Valintina to the unforgiving Voorhes after me with all their resources. Not to mention that they'll definitely blow that world they threaten and send me the gory details."

Moran sighed. "They will not blow that world. It is true that the threat is real, but we have already taken measures to insure that the death of a world is not going to be on your shoulders, and I believe you understand we can prevent similar attempts in the near future to repeat the threat. As for your personal safety-well, you're no worse off than you were, are you? The Company can certainly safeguard your son. If not, then there is no hope for any of us, is there? And we will provide you with all that you will need to find your wife. If that doesn't still kill both of you, then I think you are resourceful enough to find a hole big enough to hide in. You are, after all, a security expert."

I thought it over and saw he was right. "Okay, then, I'll do it. But what happens if I get nailed in the siding by the opposition people or nailed up top by the Company before I can detonate?"

"Good point. You may find some small resistance in the siding, but you were prepared to deal
with far greater forces on fortified guard, weren't you? We trust your abilities there. If the Company or anyone else gets you once the devices are planted, we have backups. The power net is still functional, a signal can be beamed in if need be although we'd rather not do it since it would show the presence of a third force, as it were. And if anyone gets you, the first thing they will do is search you-or, pardon, your body, depending. Anyone else whose skin contacts that detonator except for you will cause the detonating signal to be sent. It will still look like an accident, you see."

I nodded. They had it pretty well worked out. "Let's just assume I survive this and am in a position to use your information to go after my wife," I said. "I know that's improbable, but you never know. I assume he's hooked her and is putting her through a humiliating hell just to get even and feed his psychotic ego. I know how those drugs work. She might eventually kill herself, but she'll never leave with me."

Moran sighed. "We thought of that. The same way Mister Pandross communicated with you is the way we eventually got a message through to her. She is assured that the drug can be duplicated if a sample is provided. She also has been thinking ahead, it appears. It must take tremendous willpower not to take the drug until you just can't stand it any more. I have seen opium and heroin addicts, and this must be far more solid a hold than that, and more terrible a withdrawal. We merely gave her a suggestion. If she is strong enough, as you and we think she is, and smart enough, she'll have seen the solution. The drug is dispensed every twenty-four hours. It wears off in twenty-six, and
we calculate the maximum point where it must be taken at thirty hours or so. If she's gotten the hint, which was all we could manage, and if she's up to it, she should have a surplus pill every four days. If she has a few as five extras sequestered, that would be more than enough with insurance. If she either hasn't gotten the idea, or has been unable to do it, then she is lost anyway."

I nodded. "I see. But-if she should have that many doses, then she must have gotten the hint pretty early. Long before I urged contact."

Moran nodded. "Oh, yes. We made certain shortly after she was made away with that someone, in threatening her, told her the exact time sequence. She would have known it almost from the start."

I sighed. "I'll be damned. Snookered from the beginning."

Moran shrugged. "Perhaps. But one thing has puzzled all of us, I must admit, right from the point where it became obvious that you knew your wife had been switched. You had your son back, which was to be our leverage to get you in here in the first place, so if you didn't know that your wife was a fake then you had no reason to enter here or play fair with Voorhes and the others. Ergo, you
did
know, right from the start."

I nodded. "That wasn't all that hard, although she
is
good. Even when I knew it wasn't my wife, I could believe it was. I was relieved she was so perfect-it meant I could leave Dash without a lot of trauma. I think it was something in her manner, her eyes, the way she interacted with Dash. I'm not sure she planned it that way, but unless she's the greatest actress that ever was I got the strong
impression she'd die before she'd let anything happen to the kid. Almost like, well-I know that most of Brandy's counterparts didn't turn out so right or so lucky. Like she saw Dash as her second chance."

"But if she was good enough to fool even your own son ..."

"How'd I know? Oh, that wasn't hard. This crew goes in a lot for duplicates, switches, and substitutions, so I was looking for that right away. Even so, she almost threw me by being so perfect, until I found a fairly large piece of optical glass on the downstairs rug, like glasses had been broken. It was large enough that I played a hunch and sent it downtown to the optician where she got her glasses to check against Brandy's prescription. It matched."

"Astounding! And that told you what?"

"Well, nobody, not even absolute duplicates, shares experience. There's always a little scar or a broken bone or a different filling in a tooth or something like that. Brandy's vision was always lousy, but it had really gone to hell during the wracking pain of withdrawal treatments from Carlos' organic drug. Her glasses looked like the bottom of Coke bottles, which is why the fragment was so noticeable. A duplicate would have the same genetic eye problems but wouldn't have undergone that extra treatment, and might have undergone other eye stress. The prescriptions were unlikely to be that close, even if the basic problems were the same. I got Brandy's spare pair from her bedroom and had them checked at the optician's as well. They didn't match the prescription. They were, in fact, way off. The only answer
was that the woman wasn't Brandy, and had substituted her glasses for Brandy's so she'd never have to cope with the wrong prescription. When I realized that, I knew they'd pulled the switch. I could blow her cover, but then what happens to my wife? I figured that if they took her, and didn't kill her, they'd eventually turn her over to Carlos. I think I had his measure from the start, which is why I was confident she wasn't dead. When I fed a description to Maria, she was able to check the security couriers who went to and from Carlos's world and got a confirmation."

"God, that's noble and sweet!" Blaise put in. "I hope you get through all this, I really do. I hope you get her back. I really do. And even if you don't, I may take a crack at plugging that drug-dealing bastard myself sometime. It might be fun to do one just for kicks."

I sighed and got to my feet. "Lead on, MacDuff, and Heaven knows if we dine with the angels or in Hell this night."

"That's not Shakespeare," Moran commented.

"Horowitz, Act Four, Scene One," I responded.

I had an escort all the way to the switch, some of whom I could see and some of whom I just inferred. We actually did run into two Company security people on the way-I guess some alarm went off in the main line-but they never got close to me. I hoped they weren't killed, but I didn't have much choice on this one.

There was, of course, somebody on the switch itself,
allegedly with the Company but almost certainly in the employ or under the control of the opposition. It was a typical Type Two, dog-faced character, and I remembered that Mancini had a number of Type Twos at our meeting place. He was, however, a tad confused.

"This switch is officially closed and in the process of being shut down," he told me officiously, "yet-that's strange. My board shows that you have highest security and priority entrance on the station mas ..."