The Process Server

  ***

  Harrison let us stay at his place overnight while we waited to get Sector Police clearance to leave the NTC.

  I was going to have to check in with both the prognosticator – whose money I was spending – and Robert Cardale, my actual employer, at some point to fill them in on the escalating violence.

  Cardale’s place had been something else, and thinking about it for just a moment brought back the image of Hanna Dow walking into the house, her beautiful porcelain skin a picture of concern and worry.

  She was an outcast, like me, and even though we’d only spoken a few times, I felt a kinship there, a tangible connection. I didn’t want the complication, the pressure of a relationship. But I couldn’t get her out of my head.

  I was still brooding about it the next morning over a synth omelet, sipping on Harrison’s excellent Barrowman coffee, when Jayde sighed. “Geez, boss, I know that look. Are you swooning over that Dow girl again?”

  I shot her a mildly irritated look. “She’s the biggest victim in this of anybody. She gets off the treadmill of being a Jane Doe and lands herself the best corporate gig she could have imagined. Then all of a sudden she’s a few thousand miles away on the NTC, being questioned by the Millennium Man.”

  “So let’s help her.”

  Brave, but foolhardy. “Come on, Jayde…”

  “You’re assuming Cardale is going to be a dick about it.”

  She had me there. I said, “I have to contact him anyway, fill him in on Vega and the drive.”

  “Want me to hold your hand while we explain why we can’t retrieve it? Maybe he’ll take pity and give us the 100,000 creds anyway.”

  Harrison looked up from the news holo he was watching in the living room. “How much did you say?”

  We filled him in on Cardale’s request. He didn’t look happy. “I thought I taught you better than that.”

  “Better than what, pops?”

  “Better than to go back on an agreement. You had a deal with the Prognosticator.”

  I’d like to have been able to argue that it was just Harrison’s faith talking, but this wasn’t a matter of irrational beliefs.

  “Everyone has a price, pops,” I said, doubtless disappointing him to no end. “But if it makes you feel any better, we’d have turned it down if it wasn’t Cardale. I mean, come on…”

  He thought about it, but Harrison’s perspective on these things tended to be skewed by years of being a gangster, being one of the few operating outside of the system. To him, there was great honor in standing up to authority.

  “You could have tried. Did you even make an issue of it?”

  Now he had me feeling bad about it.

  Dammit.

  “Look, pops, just because he claims some kind of holiness, it doesn’t make it true. You should see the place he lives in. The entire apartment has been converted into a VirtuTech Life Chamber. Seriously. He spends his followers creds like they were paper.”

  He shook his head. “That ain’t what I mean, and you know it. You made a deal.”

  I could sit and argue relative morality until the day they raised old Mexico City and it still wouldn’t change the fact that he was right.

  “So maybe we’ll figure that out as it goes,” I said. “Maybe there’s a way we can keep both parties happy.”

  “Sure kid,” Harrison said, turning back to the news holo. “Sure.”

  Still, all that conciliatory discussion didn’t change the fact that Cardale was expecting us to check in. His intel was too good for us to go traipsing after Vance Vega without letting him know about it first.

  Jayde’s suggestion had been nice, but I didn’t expect him to take pity. That wasn’t Cardale’s style. I knew exactly what I expected him to say, and a half-hour later, on the Sat Com, he proved me right.

  “So why are you telling me this, Process Server Smith? Our agreement was that you would obtain the drive for me, not that you would try and fail. Beyond the obvious lack of payment for services that have yet to be rendered, I would fully expect a bad reference which, from when it comes from me, can have disastrous consequences professionally speaking.”

  “Sir…”

  “Please, Process Server Smith. My time is invaluable. Let’s not waste it with face-saving. Your ego is of no concern to me.”

  I filled him in on Vega’s attempted hit.

  “And?”

  “Sorry, sir… Mr. Cardale. I don’t…”

  “And why is this any of my concern, Smith? If you believe Mr. Vega was behind the Archivist’s death, I suggest you talk to Mr. Vega and find out why he thinks you had the drive. But then… you know this. So why are you wasting my time?”

  Past all the bureaucratic double-talk, what Cardale was saying was simple: if I didn’t somehow get the drive, from Vance Vega or otherwise, he was going to blackball me. Maybe Vance had it, maybe he didn’t. But there was only one way we were going to find out for sure.

  “What about the girl? What about Hanna Dow?” I said, almost feeling Jayde’s derisive glance on my back, and knowing full what she’d think of me pushing my luck.

  OK…our luck.

  Cardale looked annoyed. “Her visit ended this morning. One of my crew is taking her back to Earth this afternoon.”

  “She wanted to go back to Earth? Not G’Farg Station?”

  He said, “Yes, she said she something about finishing up in New Tokyo. I rather imagine she had to settle up the Archivist’s accounts there before she finds new employment.”

  “Hmmm,” I said. “But that won’t be with the Cardale Group?”

  He shook his head, a faint glow under the skin below his eye socket betraying the metal works beneath.

  “She has an air of trouble about her, Process Server. I’d suggest you stick to our business and steer clear.”

  It was probably wise advice.

  But I never claimed to be a wise guy.