Accelerated (12 page)

“I’ve seen the cube,” I said. “Kay took it as insurance. She claimed having it would allow her to finish her work on Dave.”

“She lied to you. Now where is it? Tell me.”

I debated telling Cheng I had told Kay to return the cube, but I was beginning to believe the good doctor could tell when I was lying. Instead, I shook my head. “I’ve seen the cube, but I don’t have it now.”

Cheng’s eyes swirled strangely, and she sat perfectly still, no longer breathing. Then she took a deep breath and blinked several times, massaging her forehead. “You’re telling the truth, but there is a hidden truth you’re not speaking.”

Down here in the basement of Polarity Magnetics, Tina Cheng unnerved me. It was a supernatural thing, of a mutant I didn’t understand. For the first time, I had sympathy for the Chief. He must view all of us as dangerous predators, superior killers that might decide to devour humanity. What was Cheng doing with her eyes?

Cheng smiled, and it was an ugly, threatening gesture. “You are wise to fear me. I have gained abilities that dwarf your density. The Chief fears me, and he attempts to marshal evidence in order to bring the full force of the Shop against us. He is like a jackal daring to roam the killing fields of lions, but careful to stay out of my path. He realizes that his worst mistake was in letting us go. The State Department has yet to realize that, but they will in time. By then, however, it will be too late.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. My changes, they are not world-threatening.”

“Are you sure?” Cheng asked. “Have you tested yourself? Have you refined your new powers?”

“If we were that dangerous, the Chief would have never let us off the Reservation.”

“Our powers are latent,” Cheng said.

Was that true? “Why tell me this?” I asked.

“I want to convince you to tell me the secret you’re hiding. You do not own the cube, but I suspect you can take me to it.”

“Why is the cube important?” I asked.

Cheng drummed her fingers on the desk. Finally, she said in a soft voice, “It may be the only device that can stop Dave.”

“Stop him from what, from waking up?”

Cheng shook her head.

“What happens if Dave wakes up?” I asked.

“There are competing theories. Kay had hers, but no one else believed it.”

“What did she believe?”

“Kay is dead,” Cheng said, “so her thoughts no longer matter.”

“That’s a callous attitude,” I said.

“No. It is pragmatic. I suggest you adopt a similar attitude if you wish to survive. There are competing forces at play, and one or more of them has made attempts on your life or well-being.”

“Are you including Rita’s use of the neural whip?”

“That was a mistake.”

“Who else wants the cube?” I asked.

Doctor Cheng sat back, watching me as her faint smile reappeared. “Surely you must know. I can’t believe Kay didn’t mention his name to you.”

I frowned. What…oh, Kay had mentioned another name. It was how she claimed to have found me. “Do you mean Doctor Harris?” I asked.

“Interesting,” Cheng whispered. “Yes, yes, that makes sense. I should have seen it sooner.”

“Doctor Harris doesn’t work here?” I asked.

Cheng laughed sharply before shaking her head.

“Are you suggesting the needle man and the men on my boat—those were Doctor Harris’s people?”

Cheng spread her small hands.

“What—?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, “but I’ve grown weary of your questions. It is time for you to leave.”

Had this entire episode been for the sole purpose of her finding out about Doctor Harris? I didn’t like the idea of having given away more information than I’d received.

“What are you injecting into your people?” I asked.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You do, Ms. Cheng, because Stone spoke about it.”

“It is time for you to leave. Will you go willingly, or must I summon Mr. Stone and the others?”

I wondered if I should offer her the cube in order to pry more information from her. Then I decided I needed more facts before I tried to dicker with the good doctor. Besides, I didn’t like the idea that I was in the basement of her building in Polarity Magnetics, and without a weapon.

So I stood up. “They’d better have my Browning for me at the shack.”

“Good-bye, Mr. Kiel.”

-13-

“I’m wasting my time at the airport,” Blake said.

We sat on the
Alamo
as the sun sank into the ocean. Beautiful orange rays spread across the sky and water. Blake had been telling me about his day at the airport, and that he had been unable to discover where Kay’s body had landed.

“She’s vanished,” he said.

“She can’t have vanished,” I said.

“Do you think they altered her with injections?”

I’d told Blake about my adventure at Polarity Magnetics. Several things stood out for both of us. Rita had kept hold of the neural whip after I’d struck her wrist. That implied greater strength and harder bones than she should have. On my boat, Kay had spoken about possessing new abilities and Stone said she had received injections just like Rita.

“Why hide the body?” I asked.

“The obvious reason is because they don’t want anybody to see it,” Blake said.

I nodded in agreement.

“What kind of injections do you think they received?” Blake asked.

“Let’s start with what makes people stronger.”

“Steroids and testosterone shots,” he said.

“It’s something else,” I said, “something new. Something somebody could tell by looking at a corpse.”

“Or by doing an autopsy,” Blake said.

I stared at the ocean scenery, thinking about everything I’d learned. Doctor Harris was independent of Polarity Magnetics. According to Kay, he had found out where I lived. Cheng feared Dave waking up but not the Shop prowling around Long Beach. Cheng could tell, apparently, when someone was lying. I was not the one, whatever that meant. The Chief didn’t want me anywhere near his investigation. And men with tattoos had tried to inject me and had invaded my boat in San Francisco.

That injection, the blue solution, was it the same substance put into Rita and Kay? If so, it would imply that Polarity Magnetics had sent the men. Neither Stone nor Rita had sported tattoos, however. But I didn’t know if that was significant or not.

“I’m going to lie down,” I said.

“It’s pretty early still,” Blake said.

“My head is hurting, a byproduct of the neural whip, I think.”

“Do you want me to speak to the laundry truck driver tomorrow?”

“I’ll do that,” I said. “You keep poking around the airport, or wherever you have to in order to find out where the body went.”

“Okay,” Blake said glumly.

I left him staring at the ocean as I headed for my tiny shower stall near my cabin. I let the shower’s needle spray cleanse me of sweat and then heat my head. After a time, it made the dull throb go away.

I munched on a bag of Doritos in bed and despite the early hour found myself yawning. I stretched out, fell asleep and woke around eleven at night. The red numbers of my clock said 11:12.

Something had disturbed my sleep. I rubbed my face and realized I’d thought someone had called my name. That had been happening more often in my sleep. It was a strange feeling. I’d wake up and feel I knew what someone had been saying about me, that somewhere nearby people were talking about me.

I got up, turned on the faucet, scrubbed my face with cold water and shuffled up the stairs into the galley. I opened the refrigerator, disturbed by the lack of choices. I nuked a big Polish dog, heaped on relish and squeezed a thick line of mustard. I washed it down with a Budweiser.

I found Blake sitting in the dark before the glow of the computer. He had headphones on. He’d cock his head and then clack keys. Then he’d rewind his pocket recorder, cock his head again and type some more.

I flicked on the lights. He swiveled around fast, with a look of fright on his face.

I didn’t laugh. I’d done it this way so I wouldn’t scare him.

He ripped off the earphones. “Thanks,” he said. “Now my concentration is shot.”

“You’re just listening to your recorder,” I said.

“I edit as I go along.” He must have been working on one of his articles. Blake stretched, yawned and stood unsteadily. “I’m going to bed.”

“Think of anything new?”

He turned thoughtful. “This Doctor Harris might have murdered Kay, but we know nothing about him. The Chief could have ordered Kay killed. Stone could have done it or Cheng might have given the order.”

“Cheng might have done it herself,” I said.

“Doubtful from what you told me about her. She sounds like someone who would keep her hands clean. Let one of the underlings do it.”

“Rita?”

Blake shrugged. “You told me Rita warned Stone to keep quiet about whatever was going on with injections. If she and Kay were both undergoing a similar treatment, wouldn’t that build camaraderie?”

“With most people it would,” I said. “But…” There it was again, a whisper in my mind. Somebody was talking about me, somebody nearby. I—

The feeling vanished. I blinked several times and noticed Blake giving me a funny look.

“What?” I asked.

“Your expression just changed. It was like you were trying to listen to someone who is not here.”

That decided it for me. “I’m going into town,” I said.

“Lock up if you would,” Blake said. “I don’t trust the neighborhood.”

I nodded absently, leaving Blake at the computer. Soon, I hooked on my gun harness and chose some clean clothes, dark ones. Then I went outside, feeling like I’d meet someone waiting for me.

I jumped onto the pier and felt the sensation again. It wasn’t quite like crosshairs on my back, but it was close enough so I scanned everywhere, trying to pinpoint the feeling. It didn’t come from the nearby boats. It came from inland, from the concrete jungle of Long Beach, the land of dirty sodium lamps shining in the night.

I put my hands in my pockets and began walking. I didn’t need sunglasses now. I didn’t need streetlights. My vision shared the spectrum range with housecats. Blake had told me before how my pupils widened to fill almost my entire eye. How the exposure could have caused that, I hadn’t the slightest idea.

I left the marina and soon reached cityscape, eating up the distance with my long stride. I spotted cats slinking in the dark. The rats they stalked twitched their narrow noses as they eased toward abandoned McDonald’s wrappers. Bats winged overhead, no doubt eying or using bat-sonar to watch both the cats and the rats. I saw them as gray creatures, but very distinct. Occasionally, I had to squint as I strode down a street, as car headlights were blinding.

The sensation of someone calling my name grew. I wondered if I’d entered a waking dream, as there was a sense of unreality to this. I mentally warned myself that bullets could kill here and no matter how hard I flapped my arms, I couldn’t fly.

Did Polarity Magnetics own futuristic ray devices or short wave beams? Could they be beaming me and giving my mind these fantasies? The idea sounded paranoid. But my thoughts bothered me. I’d read how near the end of the Cold War the Russians had fired low frequency beams at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. The Soviets had learned such invisible beams could cause irritation. Probably, it had just heightened the incidence of cancer among the Marine guards. The idea that someone was beaming me shook me enough to make me stop and consider carefully what I was doing.

When had this feeling begun that I could hear people in my dreams—no, in my sleep? It was hard to pinpoint, maybe a week ago. Maybe—

Around the time Kay came to see me
.

I bared my teeth. I hoped Stone was out here, trying one of his new devices. Or maybe I’d find Jagiello trying to be cute. Just because Cheng said the Shop was on a leash didn’t make me believe it.

The buildings were older where I walked. There was a rundown coffee shop, a Cindy’s restaurant with a few cars in the parking lot, and some other places, too, among them a surfer’s rental and a bar called Neil’s Grill. It had too many big Harley motorcycles with chopper handlebars parked in front. There was a bright neon Budweiser sign in a barred window. I didn’t know if it was inviting me or warning me to say away.

I nodded. The sensation came from the bar.

Gavin Kiel
, I seemed to hear in my mind. I was certain someone in there had just said my name.

Could this be a side effect from the neural whip? It seemed more than possible, except I’d been having these sensations for about a week. Would Jagiello shoot me in there? Would Stone? I decided to find out.

There was heavy metal music, bikers and the clack of billiard balls ricocheting off each other. The two waitresses were young, busty and swayed their lovely butts as they brought bottled Budweiser and whiskey shots to drunken OUTLAWS bikers. The logo was stenciled on their leathers, with skull and crossbones similar to the Raider’s football logo.

A loud caw of a woman’s laughter caused several hairy, Viking-like bruisers to glance at me.

I ignored them and headed for the bar. Then I noticed a guy in back at a stall and I knew I’d found my man. He wore an old-style gray, Savile Row suit, complete with a gray waistcoat, white shirt and tie. He was badly out of place here. He had a gray bowler hat on the table, with a long umbrella lying beside it.

In San Francisco, I’d seen a man with a cane—which could have been a closed umbrella—on the day I’d followed Kay. Could this be the same man?

I headed for his table. Before I reached it, a huge biker with a red beard, a sleeveless denim jacket and prison tattoos on his exposed skin stood up and barred my path.

“No one bothers him, brother,” the biker said, spewing alcoholic breath into my face.

“Let him pass, Red,” the suited man said. He spoke with an English accent and never bothered turning around.

Red glowered at me and slunk back to his chair like an angry junkyard dog.

Over a dozen bikers gave me hostile stares. More than ever this was feeling like a bad dream.

It was Doctor Harris. I remembered him from CERN. He nursed a shot glass of Scotch. He was tall, lanky and obviously guarded by these bikers. Some of them had similar tattoos as the men I’d killed on my boat. Why Harris wore his strange attire and how he’d found himself biker bodyguards was only a little less disturbing than that I’d felt him calling me in my mind.

“Mind if I sit down?” I asked.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said with a smile. He poured Scotch from a bottle into an unused glass. “Be a good fellow, join me, eh?”

I glanced around. The bikers had returned to their cards, fondling their tattooed girls and downing shots and beers.

I slid across from Doctor Harris and into the booth. “Nice umbrella,” I said.

He had long-fingered hands with big knuckles and joints. He picked up the umbrella, holding the black wooden handle. He twisted, and I heard a click. Then he showed me a few inches of steel blade. I could tell there were more inches in there. If the whole umbrella hid a blade, he was carrying a sword.

“Is it sharp?” I asked.

“Do you load your gun?”

I grunted.

He grinned. “Did I ever tell you my dying wish, Gavin?”

I shook my head.

His grin intensified. “When I’m an old man, tottering down a rubbish-strewn street, I want my umbrella-sword with me. Ruffians such as this trash around us will slink to me. They have noses for weakness, just as they sense physical superiority. They’ll jostle among themselves and finally the herd bull will plant his bulk before me, demanding every pound and pence I own.

“I plan to snivel and scrape: all in order to whet his appetite and to make him laugh about the easy pickings. Many predators enjoy playing with their food. Then I shall unsheathe my sword and run the swine through his belly. I image old age shall have dulled my abilities. One of them will pull out a dagger or perhaps a pistol. He’ll shoot. But I shall have taken at least one of them with me. That, my dear Gavin, will be a simply glorious way to leave dreary old age, don’t you agree?”

I nodded, wondering if the exposure could have warped his mind as well as his body.

What caught my attention was his use of the word “abilities.” Kay had used that word. I wondered if that was a coincidence or not.

“You’re somber this evening,” Harris said, snapping the blade back into concealment.

“I’d like to know how you called me here.”

Harris smiled even wider, showing off his whitened molars in the back of his mouth. “Gavin, my dear Gavin, you’re always such a delight. How I’ve missed you.”

“Likewise,” I said.

“Others would know it’s impossible for a man to ‘call’ another with his mind. You, however, lack formal training in the sciences and are therefore unencumbered with preconceived notions of what can and can’t be done. You’re a simple man of action and trust your senses. If you smell it, it’s there. No thought of having hallucinations for such a direct fellow like you.”

“You’re making me blush.”

Harris laughed loudly. I’d never liked him. I doubt I ever would. He looked down his large nose at just about everyone, but he saved his smuggest superiority for ‘physical fellows’ like me. ‘Boys of action’ must have mercilessly teased and bullied him in his youth and he’d never been able to get over it. How Harris must love his acceleration.