Behold a Dark Mirror (7 page)

Suddenly, air burned down her lungs.

Kebe hissed, drawing her hands to her throat without realizing her cage was gone.  She lay on the floor, twitching.

Nero in the hangar.

Her eyes blinked without seeing.  Her chest pumped up and down:  air.  More air!

Nero on the floor in the hangar.

While she was convulsing, her head hit a sharp corner, stabbing semi-conscious senses with a jab of pain.  Her eyes opened, seeing.

Nero bleeding on the floor in the hangar.

She tried to sit up.  A man lying on his back on a concrete floor, a trickle of blood under his head, burned her retina.  She rose, her legs unsteady.  Grabbing the table, leaning on the furniture, Kebe moved to the sink, opened the water, stuck her head under the stream.

Nero needs help.

She gulped once, twice, more.  Staggering to the table, Kebe sank onto a chair, head and torso collapsing to the flat surface.  Inhaling was a violent pleasure.  Death had been close to her in the past, but never so close physically.  Her body had a harder time recovering than her psyche.  She was trembling, not from fear now, but from shock.  That burning after-image was there each time she closed her eyes.

No harm.  Not dangerous.  Cheshire from Hell,
Kebe thought, still incapable of yelling.

As soon as she was strong enough she rummaged through her satchel for the microwave gun and holster, which she donned.  She adjusted the gun to high and fought the lust to test it on the furniture.

She tried the radio:  "Nero, do you copy?  Over."  "Can you hear me?  Nero, I
need
to talk to you.  Over."

"Now, how do I get to the hangar?"  she asked the wall.

CHAPTER 7

Jenus and Janet, mildly drunk, walked back towards their hotel after daylight had faded.  Their giggles were drowned in the bedlam of the evening.  Smells of people, food, garbage filled their noses;  the crowd in the street was thicker, even noisier than during daytime.

Jenus's attention snapped to alert when he noticed, still far away, a man wearing an incongruous business suit next to their aircar.  Mr. Suit appeared to be waiting for them.

"Jaya!"  Jenus said, prodding her with an awkward elbow.

She responded with a silent look of surprise.

"Trouble's awaiting.  Look."  He pointed to the man next to their vehicle and dragged her into a corner.

"Of course, Jenus.  The best way to ambush a fugitive is to park a watchman next to his chariot.  They want to talk."

"How did they find us so fast?"

"Well, you made yourself mighty enemies."

"So we should talk."

"That was the pla'an," she chanted.

"You wait here.  Come if I call you.  They might not know that we're together."

"Oh, get off your high horse."

Jenus wished for an icy head wash and a magic brush to scrub his skull from the inside.  Walking through the crowd toward the odd man, he stopped a few paces away from him.

"Hey," Jenus said and gestured.

The watchman looked perplexed:  "Who are you?  Did you bring this vehicle here?"

"Maybe.  Did I get a parking ticket?"

"Wait a minute."  The watchman pulled a phone from his coat, talked into it.  "Are you alone?"  he said.

"You can see for yourself."

"Your name is Jenus Dorato."

"My turn to ask questions:  How did you know I was here?  What do you want from me?"

"If you are Jenus Dorato, I have a message for you.  Otherwise, stay out of this.  Do you want the message?"

"It depends on the message–try me."

"We can do something to help you and your girlfriend."  He pulled a paper from his pocket.  He showed the note to Jenus, and then stuck it on the body of the aircar.  "Be here in 24 hours"–he tapped the note–"and wait for the phone to ring.  Don't ask questions. Don't follow me."  The watchman turned and walked off into the crowd.

Jenus fought the urge to run after him;  instead he snatched the note.  It was a street address in Mexico City, with the words:  "Be ready to relocate according to phone instructions."

He returned to Janet, showed her the paper.  "Here in 24 hours, honeybunch.  Do or die."

"So they did talk.  Plans?"

"Be there."

"That simple?"

"I don't think so," Jenus said.  "But we have time."

"Not much."

"No.  Let's go to sleep.  And call work, Jaya, tell them you won't be there for a few days.  Tomorrow is Monday at home.  Everybody seems to know where we are, so don't worry about traces."

"You want me in Mexico City?"

"I don't want you at home."

"And you plan to sleep now,"  Janet said, looking at him.

"Yes."  He thought it over.  "Or maybe not right away.  Let's go."  He winked.  "We'll think about tomorrow when tomorrow gets here."

"If it weren't dangerous, this could be fun," she said to nobody in particular, her enunciation a bit slurred.

When they crossed the lobby of the hotel, the woman at the desk looked at them and turned away.  Jenus supposed that someone, maybe the watchman, had asked her too many questions.  In front of their room Jenus dialed the code, opened the door, felt for the light switch in the dark but never reached it:  Powerful arms emerged from inside grabbed him, hit him.  He yielded to surprise, pain and darkness.  Perhaps Janet shrieked. 

*

When he woke up, his hotel room was dim in the penumbra from the shaded window.  He pulled himself to his feet and flexed.  Nothing broken.  His head was sore:  searching revealed an aching bruise.  After he reached for the switch, soft light flooded the room showing his searching hand stained with dry blood.  He squinted. 
How long have I been out?
  he thought, looking around the room;  his head throbbed. 

"Jaya?"  The room was silent.

"Jaya!"  he called.  He looked under the bed.  In the closet, in the bathroom.  Behind the curtains.  He let himself sink into the armchair.  A tear rolled down his cheek.  Another.  A whine rose up his windpipe, first quiet, then louder.

Life was upside down, nothing was working–but at least Jaya had still been with him.  What he always had taken for granted, all that his life was built around, had vanished overnight.  But Jaya had still believed in him.  And now she was gone:  They had taken her away.  His lips parted in a cramped fold, and he sobbed.

Dawn had painted a dash of lighter blue on the ocean when Jenus gathered himself.  All their belongings were there, including the cash.  He drove his body through the mechanics of washing, shaving, changing clothes.  The phone rang.

He dove across the bed to answer the jig.  The speaker crackled, a voice spoke.  "If you want your girl back, ask the hotel for your messages."  The dial tone returned right away.

Jenus hit the hotel operator.

"Operator 3, may I help you?"

"Messages for my room?"

"Sir, please hold."  Pause.  "Sir, there is an envelope for you.  You may collect it at the reception desk.  Is there..."

Jenus sped out of the room without closing the door.  He rushed through the hall, the lobby, and banged his fists on the reception desk.  The receptionist flinched and rushed to pull Jenus's message.  He tore the envelope, stared at the sheet.

"You have something that we want," it said.  "We have someone that you want.  Eat this paper to show your good will, do it in front of the person at the service desk–who knows nothing of this, so don't ask;  we'll find you."

The second band of hoodlums had found him.  Jenus walked to the service desk.  "Hey, see this?"  He showed the sheet to the clerk.  "Watch!"  And he munched it before the baffled concierge.

When Jenus returned to his room the sun was rising.  He needed to be in Mexico City at 7 PM, that is, 7 AM Mexico time.  Flying would take ten hours and would keep him busy.  He picked up his things, bought some food, loaded the aircar, and took off.

*

Getting to his appointment proved to be more difficult than expected.  He logged the aircar onto Mexico City's Traffic Dispatcher and keyed in his destination, but the system would not clear him for a thoroughfare.  So he wound up flying back-routes and barely made it on time.

The address was a pile of rubble in a deserted neighborhood.  A nearby phone booth was the only feature in sight;  it looked in perfect order.  Roads were narrow.  The aircar did not clear the debris, so Jenus had to park at a distance.  He could not hear the phone ring from the cockpit.  He pulled the vehicle's cellular plug and took it to the booth, where he inserted it in the line output of the phone station.  That would establish a remote link with the phone in the aircar.

He waited in the vehicle.  The phone rang.  He reached for it, halted. 
How badly do they want to help me?
  He thought.  The phone stopped ringing.  Ten minutes later, it rang again.  Stopped.  It rang again in ten more minutes.  This time, Jenus pressed the
connect
button.

The phone booth blew up with a roar, the shock wave from the blast rocking the aircar.

"Shit!"  Jenus said.  "Oh shit!"

He took off in a panic as fast as he could, missed an overhanging façade from a nearby ruin by a hair, and sped up into random headings until he managed to get a grip on himself.  As soon as he could keep a course, he drove downtown.  Still shaking, he parked in a long-term garage and headed for the public framepost, where he dialed Gus's condo.

Maybe I'll get him before he goes to the lab,
he thought.

*

Jenus rang the doorbell.  Gus's thick black beard showed at the door, hiding his face, enhancing his bald scalp.  The creases at the corners of his brown eyes deepened as he greeted Jenus good-naturedly.

"Jenus!  I've been looking for you since yesterday morning."

"Yesterday?"  Jenus said.

"Well?  It was Monday and nobody could get to work.  Do you have any idea what happened to the frameposts at the lab?"

"Monday... You 're right.  Today is Tuesday.  The frameposts?  Tell me:  What's going on at the lab?"

"Nobody could get there.  The frameposts were out of order."

"All three of them?"

"Yes."

"Did anybody try to make it there any other way?"

"Not that I know of."

"Did you call maintenance?"

"Not yet–I was going to if I couldn’t find you today."

"Thanks, Gus."  Jenus turned away.

"Hey, Jenus!  Wait!  What am I supposed—"

Jenus cut him off, he
needed
to go to the lab.  The closest neighbor was maybe four kilometers away.  He dialed Montgomery Data Acquisition Systems's framepost.  Ray Montgomery's kernel was not part of the main facility, so Jenus exchanged just a few words with security personnel there.  There was no aircar to borrow, nor any road to his lab, which was sitting on the top of a nearby hill.  The lab was clearly visible–the only remaining unshakable reference in his life was only a short walk away.

*

Mud squished around Jenus's shoes.  The undergrowth bent and snapped against his jacket.  The lab sat across a stretch of grounds with no marked paths, on the top of the ridge named after his family.  The exercise would have been  pleasant under other circumstances;  yet now, he still refused to admit the possibility of becoming a pariah.  The thought always bounced off an armor of denial.

Janet had been kidnapped–that had to have an easy solution, but what solution?  Jenus hadn't yet allowed himself to speculate on the attempt to his own life.  And what happened to the frameposts at the lab was a mystery.  Adrenaline kept him going.  He didn't feel tired, although he thought he should–there would be time for that later.  His head ached, the pain was dull and persistent, but the wound didn't bleed any more.

Step by step he negotiated the thicket leading to the lawn around his property;  he could see the lab through the trees, unblemished.  Jenus approached the phantom fence marking the property line and clenched his jaws as he sprinted through it.  A sharp fit of pain ran through his muscles, rippled up his spine, flashed into his brain until it wavered and disappeared.  Momentum, not his muscles, had carried him through.  He collapsed on the well-groomed lawn as a dead weight though fully conscious.  The purpose of the fence was to keep wildlife off the property, or so he was told:  wild animals, and all people without a compelling reason.

He pushed himself up, sat on the ground, crossed his legs.  His nerves transmitted the raw feeling of a mild burn, even if the fence was allegedly innocuous.  His dull headache had become a sharp pang, almost unbearable:  He held his head in his hands, waiting for it to recede.  Jenus wondered whether crossing the fence had been another unnecessary sacrifice;  he should've tried the main entrance first.

Birds chirped, leaves rustled;  all was normal, even the smell of mowed grass.  The back lobby was straight ahead.  Jenus stood up and rested with his hands on his thighs before setting off to the rear entrance.

"Voice tag:  Jenus Dorato," he said to the microphone.

The lock opened with a clank.  When he shut the door behind him the noises of life disappeared, silence took over.  The trash basket in the lobby was turned upside down;  a lazy janitor's fault?  Wait–he heard a whisper, like a moan;  or maybe he didn't.  His imagination was playing tricks, ears still roaring from crossing the fence.

He didn't want to enter the lab;  he knew that was silly, but couldn't help it.  So he checked the restrooms, flushed a toilet just to do something, and then felt very stupid.  Now he knew that the toilet worked, and anybody in the building would know that someone was here. 

He stepped into the canteen.  The room was a total mess:  Tables, chairs and broken china lay all over.

In the warehouse bottled chemicals, thrown off their shelves, lay scattered on the floor amid a large spill of blue powder.  A canister of acid dumped in a drain left an acrid smell in the air, which the ventilation system was still fighting.  All packages of stored equipment had been opened, all gear vandalized as if with malicious intent.  Fragile machinery tossed on the floor was shattered and wasted, electronics disemboweled.  From a ripped bag, a heavy mound of sandy material spilled onto three sets of feather-like analytical scales.  Jenus looked away.

The rest of the lab was in the same condition.  Cabinets had been opened and emptied onto the floor.  Drawers searched.  Equipment and supplies vandalized.  Years of work were splattered on the floor and the walls.

The moan.  This time he heard it.

The sound came from behind a bench.  Jenus pulled his electrogun and strode through the main corridor, stepping on crackling glass and kicking empty boxes.

He found the bastard, but his gun didn't raise for the kill.  Rather, his arms fell.  He stood and watched.

A powerful sensation gathered strength underneath his stomach.  It mulled, grew, stretched to his limbs, then started pushing upwards against his diaphragm.  Once.  Twice.  The third irresistible time Jenus leaned over a sink and threw up.

He could not have thought of a worse punishment.  A naked body lay on the floor, hands tied behind the back.  The skin had been so burnt by chemicals that Jenus had to guess the body was a man's.  The head was covered with a black sack that stunk mightily.  The poor bastard was blind and deaf by now.

Jenus gargled with water from a bench faucet, rinsed his mouth, gulped a clear fresh mouthful, washed his face, and approached the almost-corpse.