The Process Server

  Chapter Four

  In essence, we allow ourselves to be deluded in order to “pick a side” in almost every social circumstance, from family, to politics, to faith, to work: you name it, your communal involvement is partly caused by brain chemistry. – from the Handbook of Joshua, Chapter 3, Section 2, Verse 2.

  Evgeny had a sweet cruiser, a rectangular hover class with a top-notch auto pilot, and he put us on a slow, gradual course for his departure point, floating just above street level, maneuvering carefully through the steam-and-neon maze.

  “Should give you a few minutes to talk,” he said.

  I smiled. “Cheers man.”

  He shrugged. “Eh. You threw business my way.”

  Hanna Dow looked tired, wan. Her green eyes flickered listlessly and she pushed a ginger bang out of their way. “What do you want?” she said wearily.

  Something about her was familiar. Just the way she moved her head when she spoke, the cadence?

  No. That’s not it. It’s her body language: defensive, anxious.

  I said, “Ms. Dow … is that your name? Hanna Dow?”

  She looked back at me, eyes narrowed. Tense. “You’re a Smith.”

  I nodded. “Process Server. Bob Smith. And Dow isn’t your birth name. I’m gonna go with “Doe”?

  She automatically curled her lips in slightly, feeling exposed and nervous. “Kind of irrelevant. Again, what do you want with me?”

  “I don’t know what Evgeny’s other clients want with you. But I want to know the nature of the package the Archivist was protecting here. Must have been something special to warrant two security teams – and to get him killed by a top-level hitter like that.”

  She shook her head slowly, but didn’t say anything at first, instead staring past her own reflection and out the tinted glass window, as the red, orange, pale blue, yellow lights of the upper city towers passed in a blur.

  Then she looked back at me. “I shouldn’t even talk to you. You’re not a cop.”

  I shook my head. “No. Just a process server.”

  “You were going to serve Archivist Dregba?”

  I nodded. “Some notice to appear, a civil case, engine design.”

  She rolled her eyes, markedly unimpressed. “Good timing, Mr. Smith.”

  The woman had a point – and it was nice that she called me ‘mister’. Nobody ever called a Smith ‘mister’, except maybe another Smith

  Or a Doe.

  “Who were you sitting on? We figure that out, maybe we figure out who killed him.”

  Her head dropped slightly, despondent. “Does it matter? He wasn’t the sort of man anyone will miss. Plus I’m out of a job.”

  Self-preservation, ever reliable.

  “If you can help us recover whatever copyright he was sitting on … could be worth a fortune if we can protect the registration.”

  It made her look up quizzically.

  “That’s just it. I can’t see this client being worth the hassle. The economic upside isn’t there, and the headaches would be enormous to the group that assassinated him.”

  Jayde asked, “Why? What’s so special about this guy?”

  Dow looked stern. “His name is Jasper March. He’s the newest prophet of the Followers, the new Prognosticator of the Handbook of Joshua.”

  This time, it was Jayde’s head that dropped slightly, with a sense of abject futility, as she whistled soft and low.

  “Bob….”

  I’m not a religious man. These days, with people living longer and longer, it hardly seems worth the time to hedge your bets for or against an afterlife.

  But the Followers took their beliefs seriously, and they held serious sway in the Freeverse. In New Tokyo alone there were probably 250,000 members. Out of a population of 26 million, it was still just a droplet – but it was droplet the size of a small army.

  Nonetheless, there were principles at stake. “We’re going after him,” I said.

  “Bob…”

  “Kid, we’re 12,500 creds in the hole on the ship. If we lose this job, it could take five more successful summons to make up for it, by which time the loan will have tripled, and Fesker Munch will basically own the ship.”

  Regardless of whether the Archivist’s men abandoned their posts at the first sign of trouble – not a certainty, but probable by now – they had doubtless stationed the Prognosticator in a building that was open to Followers only. And we’d seen the building; there were a hell of a lot of people living in it.

  The Prognosticator’s Role was to interpret the Handbook and its various “reinterpretations”, as handed down by his predecessors, adding his own to the list. These guides, combined with Joshua Cross’s original book The Human Program, defined the group’s core beliefs. That made him a pretty big deal.

  Hanna Dow shook her head. “You won’t get past the front door. The security team was instructed to stay in place even if they lost contact with the Archivist. And the top level is a private Scenario suite, locked out by VirtuTech unless the users want to log you in.”

  Something didn’t add up. Why would the Archivist have needed two teams online and a huge fireteam at his hotel if the Prognosticator had a quarter-million fervent protectors around?

  “What was the Prognosticator trying to copyright?”

  Hanna said, “The latest version of the Handbook, with extensive revisions.” The copyright on the Handbook was worth millions but it would be a renewal. Again, there would be no point in trying to prevent it, because the idea couldn’t be usurped.

  Jayde had a thought. “Would the revisions be extensive enough to anger any of the Followers? Is there any dissension there?”

  But Hanna couldn’t say. “I wish I knew, really. But the Archivist kept his most important operational details quite secret. I arranged whatever he wanted me to arrange, but…”

  That familiar look again. I said, “But he didn’t trust a Jane Doe with the reasons why?”

  She nodded again, once again looking out the passing window. “Something like that.”

  She was beautiful, in a lonely, haunted kind of way, and the night lights of the city shone in her eyes. I watched her for a moment then asked, “What are you going to do now?”

  She shrugged. “That’s up to someone else, as usual.” She was wistful, fragile.

  Evgeny leaned into the back seat from the pilot’s chair. “You got that one right. Just be cool and this will be done soon.”

  Hanna looked sullenly at me. “You have odd taste in friends.”

  “He’s not such a bad guy. Just doing a job.”

  “What if the person he’s taking me to kills me, or rapes me?”

  I paused and thought for a minute. How would Evgeny react? Probably leave her to it and stay out of someone else’s business. That’s not what she needs to hear right now. Besides, Evgeny was sitting four feet away in the front cab.

  “He’s a good guy. You don’t have anything to worry about.” But I pursed my lips as I said it and looked away from her gaze for a moment, then down, avoiding eye contact awkwardly.

  I looked at her again and she was smiling thinly, but her eyes said she knew I didn’t have any clue about her fate.

  “I hope that’s true,” she said.

  Evgeny leaned into the back cabin again. “You’re damn right it’s true. What kind of guy you think you’re dealing with. Shit…”

  He turned his head back to piloting the vessel, although he was leaving most of the work to the guide beams. “We got New Toyko Station coming up. Bob, Jayde prepare to get the fuck out.”

  He pulled up to the dropoff pads, the cruiser releasing a torrent of steam and pressure as it guided itself into the dock spot.

  “Loading and unloading only, everyone, which means move quickly.” The wing doors swung up slowly and Jayde got out.

  Hanna looked at me, her eyes frightened. I didn’t know what to say, so I just mumbled, “Good luck.”

  She smiled briefly again, but didn’t say anything.
A moment later, the gull-wing door swung down between us.