Tek Net (16 page)

“Beth!” he called, grinning his familiar grin. “Thought for a while I wasn't going to make it.”

“Jake!” Her smile turned into a pleased laugh. She pulled free of the grip of Agent Griggs, ran the fifteen feet to where he stood. “My God, what happened to you?”

“Long story.”

A uniformed Berlin policeman was standing between Jake and the young woman, warning him back with his drawn stungun.

“It's all right, Officer,” she said. “He's okay. I know him. Please stand aside.”

“I'm sorry, Miss Kittridge.” He held out his free hand and gently pushed her back.

“Jake, I was so damned worried,” she said around the cop. “Where were you?”

“Gomez and I ran into some extra trouble. Tell you about it later. You okay?”

“I'm fine—now.” Using her elbow, she started to nudge the officer out of the way.

“Beth, wait a minute.” Agent Neal had come trotting over. He reached out to grab her.

“Oh, really, Emmett.” She eluded him, pushed around the policeman. She put her arms around Jake. “I'm so glad—”

There was an enormous explosion.

Then everything froze. Just as the explosives that had been inside the android simulacrum of Jake started to rip the body of the young woman to pieces. An immense silence filled the grey-morning street, the rain ceased falling.

Jake was there now. Himself, not a goddamned kamikaze android sent by the Teklords to destroy the woman he loved. They had to kill her, to keep her from testifying.

But maybe he had a chance to stop that.

He walked up to the two of them, to Beth and the sim.

“Oh, Jesus,” he said, starting to cry. “I'm too late. Too late again.”

Then everything started up again and he had to stand there and watch what happened to Beth. Blood splashed all over him.

Screaming. Cries of pain. Noise came rolling over him, the rain was falling again. But it didn't wash the blood off.

Jake dropped to his knees on the dark, wet sidewalk.

After a moment he stood up.

“You weren't really there,” said a soothing voice.

Jake sat up on the white cot, tugged off the Tek headgear. He didn't say anything to Dr. Weatherford.

“I want you to go back again now,” she said. “This time realize that you were nowhere near Berlin when Beth Kittridge was murdered.”

The Tek session had taken him to Berlin, convinced his brain that he was an on-the-spot witness to events he'd only seen on a vidwall newscast.

But it had done something else, something no one at The Institute had anticipated.

He had his memory back. He remembered now what had happened to him down in the NecroPlex. Jake also knew what he was supposed to be doing.

Leaning, he deposited the Brainbox on the floor. “I think maybe one session is enough for tonight, doctor,” he said quietly.

She studied his face for a moment. “Perhaps you're right, Jake,” she said finally. “We'll wait until tomorrow night to try Tek therapy again.”

“Thanks,” he said. But he knew damned well he wouldn't still be here by tomorrow night.

27

The large swimming pool was real, and the shimmering blue water in it. The palm trees and the flowering shrubs surrounding it were all holographic projections. The bright sunlight also wasn't real.

Marriner, wearing a three-piece white suit, was sitting in a slingchair beside the shallow end of the pool. “I'm wondering, Lana, if I made the right decision about Jake Cardigan.”

Lana Chen was a chubby Chinese woman. Wrapped in a large flowered plyotowel, she was sprawled in a lounge chair a few feet from him. “Should've killed him,” she said in a lazy murmur.

“No, that wouldn't be smart,” he said. “I don't want to annoy Walt Bascom and the whole damned Cosmos Detective Agency.”

“You exaggerate their astuteness and their abilities,” she told him, sitting up and rearranging the towel. “They'd never associate you with his death.”

“What I'm talking about is planting the guy at The Institute,” he said. “There were other options that might—”

“I didn't come up here to this rinky-dink satellite to talk strategy with you,” said Lana. “I'm a technician and, really, interested only in getting ready for the TekNet demonstration day after tomorrow.”

“Then why are you lolling around out here?”

“There's a time to work and a time to relax,” she explained.

“You damn well better be ready when Anzelmo and those other Teklords arrive Tuesday.”

“I'm just about set now,” she assured him. “They'll all be impressed.”

He rubbed his lean black hands together. “We'll be able to grab at least forty percent of the entire Tek trade with this, Lana,” he said quietly.

“And you'll tick off just about every Tek cartel in the world.”

He shrugged. “That doesn't bother me.”

“Yet you're afraid of Bascom and the Cosmos Agency?”

“We're talking about somebody with tremendous influence on the one hand and the threat of physical violence on the other,” he told the technician. “I trust my security setup, but with Bascom you never know if—”

“A moment of your time, boss.” Miles/26 had come trotting out of the villa and into the bright sun of the satellite's endless noon.

Marriner left his chair, frowning, moving toward the chrome robot. “What?”

“I keep tabs, as you know, on everybody who visits the Movie Palace—tourists, tradesmen, the lot.”

Marriner eyed him. “Somebody suspicious show up today?”

The robot's chrome-plated head flashed sunlight as he nodded. “A young lady checked into the Hotel Cyrano a little over an hour ago,” he reported. “Her name is Natalie Dent and she's a reporter with Newz, Inc.”

“I don't think I know her. Is she dangerous for some reason?”

Miles said, “Her cover story is that she's here to do a travel report for the vidwall. But Miss Dent is one of Newz' crackerjack investigative reporters.”

“She can't know anything about our meeting with Anzelmo,” Marriner assured him.

“She knows about something,” said the robot. “And—I just double-checked on this when I spotted her name—this woman's a very close pal of Sid Gomez. And Gomez is, in turn, the—”

“Partner of Jake Cardigan.” Marriner sat down again. “All right, Miles, put a watch on her.”

“They've used Natalie Dent and Newz in the past to break a story and put pressure on somebody,” added Miles/26.

“We know where Cardigan is at the moment,” the black man said. “Better get me a fix on Gomez' whereabouts.”

“Already working on that, boss.” The robot's chrome head made a faint clanging noise when he gave his employer a lazy salute. He turned away, heading back to the villa.

Johnny Trocadero stared up at the ceiling of the nightclub. “How about that?” he remarked.

A gentle artificial snow was falling down from above. It spotted the jungle foliage of the main room with freckles of white, dropped snowflakes on the small man's platinum hair.

“It doesn't,” Yedra Cortez pointed out, “snow in the frigging jungle, midget.”

“Not usually, no,” the Teklord admitted. “Still and all, you know, it's an interesting effect.”

“In the wrong place.”

“I'll tell my technical people about it,” Trocadero promised as he walked over to a table and sat down. “How's Quadrill doing?”

She, unhappy, brushed snow off her crew-cut head. “Can't you turn the damn thing off?”

“It's only snow.” He beckoned to her, nodding at the chair opposite him.

Very reluctantly, Yedra went over and took the seat. “I don't like that asshole.”

“Quadrill?”

“He's the asshole we're talking about, isn't he?”

“Nobody likes him,” Trocadero told her.

“I'd feel a hell of a lot better if we weren't using him.”

Looking up at the ceiling again, the Teklord said, “Nobody much likes the guy, but he's efficient. He took care of the Hotel Santa Clara, remember?”

“But Gomez got away.”

“We didn't hire him to kill that Cosmos op,” the small man reminded her. “He was supposed to take care of Glendenny.”

“They found Jill Bernardino anyway.”

He spread his little hands wide. “That's fate, Yedra, not some fault of Quadrill's,” he said. “Don't worry, he'll remove Marriner and Anzelmo and the rest of them.”

“I want some backup on this,” she said, wiping snow off her bosom. “In case fate slips it to us again and Quadrill fails.”

“Up to you,” said Trocadero. “But let me know what you decide to do.”

“Maybe,” she said.

Smiling, Trocadero reached across and took hold of her hand. “Maybe doesn't work with me,” he said.

She yanked her hand free. “I'm getting damned tired of—Shit.”

The snow had turned to rain.

Trocadero stood up. “We better,” he suggested, “get outside where it's not raining.”

The young woman rose to follow him. But instead she stopped dead, brought her hand up to her temple, grimaced. “Jesus,” she murmured.

Trocadero turned, came back to her side. “What the heck's wrong?”

Gritting her teeth, Yedra bent at the middle, fisted her hands, groaned in pain.

He put an arm around her shoulders. “Hey, what is it?”

After a moment, she straightened up and jerked away from the little Teklord. “I don't know. Some sort of headache I guess,” she said in a choked voice. “Gone now.”

“It's that s-mail dingus you got planted in your sconce.”

“No, the skull-mail implant is guaranteed not to cause any pain whatsoever.” She looked up, briefly, into the falling rain. “It's probably an allergic reaction to this stupid artificial weather contraption. Let's get out of here, huh?”

“You sure you're okay?”

“I'm fine. Forget about it.” She went running through the simulated jungle toward the nearest doorway.

28

Bascom said, “Nothing. Not a thing.”

“Not even from Gomez?” asked Dan.

On the phonescreen the chief of the Cosmos Detective Agency shook his head. “Sid hasn't reported in for several hours.”

Dan took a step back from the deck phone. “We haven't been able to find out anything about what's happened to my dad either,” he admitted forlornly.

“Be of good cheer,” advised Bascom. “I'll get back to you soon as I hear anything.”

Signing off, Dan walked across the deck to join Molly at the railing. The day was fading, the Pacific was darkening.

“No news, huh?”

“Nothing beyond what we already know, nope.”

“It'll be okay.” She took his hand.

“I keep feeling that there ought to be something else I can do to—”

A silver landcycle was coming, loudly, along the beach. It roared to a stop a few yards from the deck and a lean Chinese in a long flapping overcoat hopped clear of the rear seat. “See you in twenty-nine minutes and eighteen seconds, kid.”

The young woman in the driveseat gave him a casual wave and then sped off into the gathering dusk.

“This is the Cardigan residence, isn't it?” inquired Timecheck as he came trudging through the sand toward them.

“Sure, but my father isn't—”

“I know Jake's not here.” He rolled up his coat sleeve to consult the array of watch dials built into his metal arm. “I've got an appointment with another client in twenty-eight minutes and thirteen seconds, Daniel, so what say we get down to—”

“You must be Timecheck,” realized Dan. “My dad has told me about—”

“I'm world-renowned as an informant and tipster,” admitted the Chinese. “The point is—Oh, good evening, Miss Fine. Excuse me for seeming to ignore you.” He consulted his watches again. “Twenty-seven minutes and nine seconds to go.”

“Do you know something about where my father is?”

Timecheck gave an affirmative nod. “Yes, and I've been trying to contact Gomez to pass the information along, but he's not returning my calls,” he explained. “Bascom's not too kindly disposed toward me. So I decided to come to you. Three hundred dollars.”

“You're trying to
sell
us information?” asked Molly.

The informant climbed up onto the deck. “That's my profession, remember?”

“Seems to me,” she said, “if you're such a good friend of Jake Cardigan's, that you wouldn't—”

“Jake's a pal
and
a customer,” he amplified.

Dan said, “That's all right, Molly. We'll pay you, Timecheck. You may, though, have to wait until—”

“I trust you, Dan.” He held out his flesh hand and they shook. Timecheck boosted himself up onto the railing and sat with his back to the twilight ocean.

“Well?” said Dan.

“In the course of digging up some information for your father,” he began, pausing to consult his arm, “I came across something about his current whereabouts.”

“You know where he is?”

Timecheck replied, “Let us say, rather, that I know where Jake is supposed to be.”

The skinny red-haired girl shook her head. “Naw, I don't need a damn thing, greaser,” she assured Gomez.

They were standing beside his skycar and the day was ending all around them. “You helped me get clear of those goons,
chiquita
, and—”

“Hey, I was saving my ass as well as yours.”

Gomez nodded. “Maybe you'd like to shake the Tek habit and—”

“You're not cut out to be a preacher.” Snooky laughed.

“
Sí
, but it's a shame to see you tangled up with—”

“My life, not yours.”

“
Es verdad
.” Gomez reached out, put a hand on her thin shoulder. “My name's Sid Gomez and I work for the Cosmos Detective Agency. If you ever need any—”