Hopscotch (7 page)

11

Wearing his best suit
of clothes, Eduard went to the plush upper levels of offices that were inhabited by lawyers of all kinds. He made a cursory check of his appearance, straightened the conservative collar, brushed back his dark hair, and walked into the meeting with a tough expression on his face. When the negotiations started, he had to make sure he got off on the right foot. He'd never had an opportunity this big before, and he relished the prospect.

A crowd of expensive suits waited for him in the boardroom—representatives of the client, family members, and legal counsel. No face bore the slightest glimmer of a friendly expression. All business. No problem.

Eduard wondered if
he
should have contracted a legal advocate of his own, but he preferred to be independent, without relying on supposed “experts.” He'd made many swap agreements before, though never with such formality.

Behind the boardroom table hovered several go-fers, lower-echelon employees anxious for any job in a big firm. Their sole purpose was to be on call during long, arduous deliberations. Anytime one of the executives had a full bladder, a go-fer would swap bodies and walk out of the room to relieve him- or herself. No need to put an important meeting on hold to take care of bodily functions.

A cadaverous old woman sat propped at the end of the long table. She leaned forward, bracing herself on shriveled arms. Her skin hung like loose fabric on her bones, tinted a grayish-green from the bizarre medical treatments she had already endured. Her eyes were sharp and reptilian, her nose pinched. Eduard had never before met a person who seemed so altogether unpleasant.

“I am very happy to meet you, Madame Ruxton.” He pumped forced charm into his voice. Her lips compressed like a purse-string drawn tight.

The tallest lawyer stepped up, and others withdrew hardcopy documents from their folders, spreading them out on the table. “You are aware of the risks, Mr. Swan? Madame Ruxton's surgery is very serious, and you are being asked to undergo it for her. Your survival is not guaranteed. We estimate a twenty-five-percent probability that you won't live through the operation.”

“I'll survive, no problem. I'm strong, and I'll help the body through it. Madame Ruxton will get her money's worth.”

“Nevertheless, we must face reality,” another lawyer said. “You have been offered a very large sum. Madame Ruxton has guaranteed that such payment will be made—unless, of course, you don't survive the surgery.”

“Come on, she'll make the payment either way.” Without being asked, Eduard took a seat opposite the withered old woman. “If I'm going to die in her body, she can still pay the fee. And the amount is triple if I don't survive the operation.” He gave them all a harmless grin and shrugged his shoulders. “That decreases the incentive for any sort of medical mishap.”

The lawyers looked over at the old woman. She nodded sharply. They hadn't really expected to get away with a death disclaimer anyway. “Of course,” one lawyer said, not offended at all. “That's perfectly standard.”

“But I get to keep the body, by default,” the old woman said. “If you die.”

Eduard smiled at her. He had expected that part, too, and he knew this was a battle he couldn't win. “If I'm dead I won't have any more use for it, will I?”

“Quite correct,” the woman said.

The go-fers fidgeted, waiting for something to do. One of them, with a hopeful expression on her face, offered more coffee to all the parties.

“Have you chosen heirs or assigns for receiving such money, should you die on the operating table, Mr. Swan?” an attorney asked.

Eduard drew out papers naming both Garth and Teresa as his beneficiaries. He had thought about adding Daragon, but the BTL would take care of him. Eduard was more worried about his other two friends.

“Are you certain you don't want legal representation of your own?” one of Ruxton's lawyers said.

Eduard picked up one copy of the thick contract, leaned back in the chair, and began to skim the paragraphs. “Hey, I can be as suspicious as anyone else.” He had been through similar jobs before and was aware of the various ramifications.

Unexpectedly, the old woman made deep retching sounds, as if she had a gravel pit operating inside her lungs. Her family members flocked close by, attending her with the exaggerated concern of soon-to-be-heirs.

Eduard made the bevy of attorneys wait as he read through the entire document, knowing they were being paid by the hour. He flagged certain minor points that he insisted on changing, just for the sake of appearances. “When is your surgery scheduled?”

The lawyers glanced at him, and Madame Ruxton tried to sit up straight, holding her posture with great effort. “Tomorrow.” Her salamander eyes glittered. “My body won't last long without it.”

Though surprised that they had cut it so close, Eduard gave her his best charming smile. “Don't you worry about a thing. My calendar's open for you. Estimated time to full recovery?”

“Four weeks,” one of the lawyers said.

With a flourish of a pen that laid down glittering magnetic ink, he signed the contract. He did not relish the prospect of living in the old woman's body for the operation or the recovery period, but he could do it, and afterward he would have an importance and prestige he'd never had before. It would be the start of many good things to come.

He would have extra credits to give to his friends, since Teresa had recently lost her job, and Garth still hadn't made any money with his artwork. For himself, Eduard didn't need the extra creature comforts he could buy, but he did like to feel the sense of getting away with something.

Smiling warmly, Eduard handed the contracts over while the attorneys swarmed about making copies, certifying documents, and no doubt charging the old crone an exorbitant fee for their ministrations.

After swapping into the aching and withered form, Eduard lay back on the surgery table. Madame Ruxton's body was a collapsing ancient structure held together by cobwebs. The deep agony in his bones spoke of age, and his heartbeat stuttered like the slow drumbeat of a dirge. It was an effort just to endure the heavy weight of sheets around him.

The surgery would repair her deteriorating vascular system, but Madame Ruxton would never feel young and healthy again. Eduard saw her standing there in his home-body, and a calculating expression pinched his familiar face.

For the first time Eduard felt uneasy. He had covered himself with every clause he could imagine, added every legal caveat, but Madame Ruxton was a wily and desperate woman. What if he had forgotten something? What if he had been incredibly naïve?

He ached so badly that he welcomed the anesthetic when the surgeons arrived. His vision blurred. He watched his own physique—Ruxton's, for the time being—through rheumy eyes that no longer saw the world clearly.

Eduard felt the symphony of pain in his sunken chest and lungs, then drifted downward into chemically induced blackness. . . .

12

“Don't forget,
Daragon, we're not just police.” Mordecai Ob raised the COM screen on his desk and punched in a request. “The Bureau of Tracing and Locations finds missing people, uncovers the identity of parents or their children.” He printed out the results, handing the hardcopy to Daragon with an expectant smile. “Since you want to do something so badly, let me give you your first official Bureau assignment. You're ready for it.”

Daragon flushed with pride as he took the paper and scanned the words.

“You need to track down a lost family member. This woman needs a vital medical treatment, something that can only be cured through parallel DNA-matching therapy. And that can only be done if she finds the home-body of her brother. Unfortunately, he hopscotched out of his original body long ago in a long-term lease, which was transferred to another person, who died outside of the swapped body. Through a record-keeping snafu, the sibling's body then went onto the open market for permanent sale.”

Daragon read the particulars, making a special effort not to smile or frown or show any sort of emotion whatsoever. That would have been bad form.

“Thus, the family needs to recover the brother's lost home-body. It's a matter of life and death, and they came to the BTL for help. The brother himself has kept in touch, but he's hopscotched from one body to another as he took job after job. The sister needs the original body to do her any good.”

Daragon folded the printout and stuffed it into one of his pockets. “I'll find him for you, sir.”

“Don't find the body for
me,”
Ob said. “Do it for them.”

Daragon ran into dead ends at every turn, no doubt exactly as the Chief had anticipated. But he'd given his word, and he refused to abandon the quest so easily. He would not disappoint the man who had helped him so much.

In windowless chambers filled with bubbling coolants and life-support systems, the Bureau's mutated Data Hunters hung in limbo, living a surreal life with virtual bodies, lost inside the computer/organic matrix. Daragon went into the airlocked chambers and stood inside the dank-smelling room.

As his eyes adjusted, he gazed up at where hairless, stunted bodies hung suspended in harnesses, wired to the vast cosmos of COM. Data Hunters looked like hideous embryos with flaccid arms that had atrophied through lack of use. Their spines were curved, their heads overlarge, their eyes blind, seeing only through neural inputs that linked them into the sea of information.

He waited in silence, not certain of the protocol he was supposed to follow, until finally he said in a loud, firm voice, “I need some help.” Bubbles continued to jet into the coolant and recirculation tubes. He saw no motion, no reaction.

One of the embryos drifted in its floating restraints and turned a sightless face toward him. A voice that oozed sarcasm came out of a small speaker on the far side of the room. “Ahh, somebody's come to give my life purpose! What is it you seek? Wait, forgive my lack of social graces . . . we get no practice in here.” The body stirred as if a breeze had wafted through the room. Now, the voice came from a different place, closer to the floating creature. “My name is Jax, and you must introduce yourself properly before you make a request. I'm not just a genie in a bottle who's required to give you three wishes, you know.”

Daragon had anticipated Data Hunters to be alien and incomprehensible, not talkative. “My name is Daragon. I need to find someone in order to help a person who requires medical treatment. Can I call your attention to a case file?”

“Ah, a humanitarian gesture. How wonderful!”

He punched in the file, and the hovering Data Hunter scanned it in a millisecond. “Ahh, it'll keep me occupied for a while,” Jax said through the speaker. “That's what we're here for, after all. But first, you must promise to meet my payment request.”

Not knowing what to say, Daragon smoothed his trainee Inspector uniform. “But you work for the Bureau. We're part of the same team.”

Jax's body did not stir, but the voice coming from the speaker had an interesting lilt. “We all have our price. Do you want me to help you or not?”

Daragon sighed. “All right, then. What is your price?”

“I want you to come and talk to me. We don't get much company, and I can find anything else I need through COM. But the network can't provide plain, faulty human companionship.”

“If that's all you want, then I agree to your terms.”

“Good. Come back in an hour and I'll have the information you need. After you use the information, I want you to come and tell me what you did.”

Daragon tracked down the business offices of the person who now owned the brother's original home-body. The current inhabitant was a public relations specialist who dealt with celebrities. His name was Stradley, and he called himself a “hype-meister.”

As Daragon waited in Stradley's lobby, he tried to appear properly ominous in his clean BTL uniform. He glanced at the receptionist, who shrugged toward the door where Stradley sat “in consultation” with one of his clients.

Finally, the exuberant hype-meister burst out of his office wearing a grin, and Daragon immediately recognized the missing brother's home-body from the file images. Stradley's false smile transformed into a scowl. “So, what does a Beetle want in my office? You guys certainly don't need
my
help with publicity. Of course, the Bureau could use a bit more favorable coverage.”

Daragon didn't rise to the bait. “That's not why I'm here, sir.”

Stradley crossed his arms over his chest. The hype-meister wasn't taking good care of his physique. His neck and face seemed slack, a bit jowly, and he had begun to grow a potbelly. The eyes were bloodshot, the movements frenetic, as if he sampled too many stimulants. Daragon hoped the body remained in good enough condition for the necessary medical treatment.

“State your purpose, then. I'm a busy man and I command high hourly rates. I'll start charging if you waste my time.” Daragon wondered how the man would ever get a bill through the BTL's bureaucratic accounting systems, but he did not press the matter.

“We've come for your body, sir. Someone needs the loan of it—the sister of its original owner.”

The hype-meister narrowed his eyes, trying to figure out Daragon's angle. “Say again? Why on earth is the BTL messing around with personal problems? Is she your mistress, maybe?”

“She needs DNA-matching therapy. Your body is the only one they can use for the procedure. You have the appropriate genes, and they need to extract some samples.”

“Not from my body they won't.” Stradley raised his arms. “I've got a burgeoning business here. Check your records—this is
my
body now. I acquired it free and clear, permanent lease, a year and a half ago. And even then, that wasn't from its original owner. This body has been bounced and bounced. Who knows how many other people have lived inside it?”

“Mr. Stradley.” Daragon tried again. “The only thing I care about is who
presently
owns the body. That is you. You have the precise genetic match required. Can you find it in your heart to save someone's life?”

“I need this body. I use it every day. I can't find it in my heart to give up what I'm doing here to endure any excruciating medical work. I've heard about this kind of treatment.” Stradley made no move to invite him into the office.

Daragon mentally searched through what he had studied. The law remained murky in this area: Stradley was the legitimate current owner of that body, and even former family members couldn't force him to undergo a medical procedure he didn't want to have.

As an idea dawned, Daragon folded his hands in front of him. “Since you bought that body anyway, sir, and you've been in it for a year and a half, perhaps you would consider switching with someone else?”

“I can't afford a new body just at the drop of a hat—that's quite an investment. Besides, I'm working here.”

Daragon continued. “Perhaps, sir, I should put you in touch with the family. The parents and the sister may offer enough credits for a replacement body. A better one. That way you can be someone new, and they'll have access to the DNA they need, while you continue your work uninterrupted.”

Stradley blew air through his lips. “Might be acceptable. Okay, I could do that—as long as it's a trade
up.”

Daragon nodded brusquely. “I won't take up any more of your time today, sir. I will provide the family with your contact information. I'm sure they'll be able to resolve this matter to your satisfaction.”

“No promises,” Stradley warned.

As he traveled back to BTL Headquarters, Daragon mulled over the different ways he could have handled the problem, but he could think of no better solution. He had done well, and he knew it. He would tell the Data Hunter Jax all about it, as he had promised.

Then, smiling, he decided to check up on Eduard, Garth, and Teresa. It had been so long since he'd seen them.