The Process Server

  ***

  When I came to, a bright light was shining directly down into my eyes, and my head felt like one of Jayde’s hangovers.

  “Geez, would someone please turn that off?”

  The light was pushed out of the way and a man’s voice said. “Process Server Smith; the doctors didn’t expect you to regain consciousness quite so quickly.”

  Robert Cardale sat back down in the armchair beside my hospital bed, his head and neck whirring gently as the microscopic servos allowed him a facsimile of natural movement.

  I turned my head slowly. The next two beds were occupied by Jayde and Hanna, both with oxygen masks over their faces.

  He said, “You’re probably wondering what happened. As you might have guessed you were exposed to gas. It was toxic, an assassination attempt. They simply piped it under the front door of the suite then blocked the crack under the door with a towel from the outside. I imagine Ms. Dow was supposed to just fall asleep and never wake up. Your presence seems to have been an unfortunate coincidence.”

  My head pounded. “They did a pretty damn good job, judging by how I feel.”

  “And yet it could be infinitely worse, Mr. Smith,” he said. “I’ve learned over the years to be an optimist, whenever a second chance comes along.”

  “My friends…?”

  “Ms. Chen is in a coma, unfortunately. My doctors don’t know yet how serious it is, or if it’s simply one of those cases where the body shuts down for a while to heal itself properly, but we’re monitoring her by the minute.”

  “And Hanna?”

  He nodded towards her bed, where she was coming around. She tried to talk groggily through the mask, but Cardale called her off. “Save your strength my dear.”

  I felt awful, to be sure, but it wasn’t just the hangover from the gas.

  “I thought maybe she had the drive,” I told him. “Now look at her.”

  Cardale smiled sympathetically.

  “I imagine she would understand. Given how many people seem to have double-crossed one another in connection with this whole sordid thing, I imagine she thought the same about you.”

  He was right; I wouldn’t have blamed her. “When can I get out of here? I’ve got some business to take care of,” I said.

  “In what sense?”

  I gestured towards my friends. “In the sense that someone needs to pay for this.”

  “Is that all? Really?” Cardale shook his head slowly. “You’re sure you don’t have anything else to tell me about your plans, Mr. Smith?”

  What was he getting at? “I’m sorry, you’ve lost me,” I said.

  “Your stepfather is Harrison Peel, correct?”

  “It’s not a secret. Sure.”

  “And Harrison Peel is Fesker Munch’s lieutenant. So if you really needed to sell the drive to someone other than me, you would have the connections to be able to do so.”

  I squinted at him. I wanted to ask him if he’d gone off his nut, considering my current position lying on a hospital bed. But I got where he was coming from.

  “So you figured maybe I set this up and want to backdoor the drive to someone else for the billions? Then … what, set up a fake assassination attempt upon myself at Hanna’s suite? That last bit doesn’t make sense.”

  He was unconvinced. “I’ve seen a hell of a lot more devious behavior in a hell of a lot less important a circumstance,” he said. “That’s business. You’ve met several times lately with Resko G’Deevar, after all, and there are companies in K’Laar System that could meet the fee.”

  “You do recall that the last time we met with Resko, Gutman Breck almost turned us all into splotches on the wall, right?” I took a deep, stressed breath.

  Cardale held up both mechanical hands with a pronounced-but-soft whirring sound. “OK, OK. I had to ask the question, Mr. Smith. Right? After all, I AM your boss.”

  “You know, you haven’t actually paid me anything yet.”

  “But you did sign a contract.”

  Huh? What was he talking about? “No I didn’t. The deal for the holo drive was verbal.”

  He smiled knowingly. “Not that, Mr. Smith. Tell me, did you ever actually read the summons you were contracted to deliver to the Archivist, the contract that brought you to Earth in the first place?”

  I closed my eyes. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I’d forgotten about it, and once he’d died, it had been out of sight, out of mind. I looked under the bed sheet to see if I was wearing my own underwear. “Am I still hooked up?” I said. “Is that Wear Tech?”

  He nodded. “By all means…”

  I said, “Do you have a visor?”

  He slid his out of his collar and handed it to me. “Go right ahead.”

  I logged in. The connection was slow, like someone was trying to data mine me, and I checked my security. Sure enough, there were a handful of pieces of bad code trying to break into my Sat Com signal. “Damn. Give me a second.”

  Cardale nodded and crossed his legs, looking awkward in the silence as I concentrated on my account. I opened a visual of the original summons. The company was identified as NTC Co. 133445. “It’s just a numbered company,” I said.

  Cardale said, “I own thousands of them, Mr. Smith. Everyone knows that.”

  “So you were trying to sue the archivist to get the information.”

  He gestured absentmindedly. “A legal maneuver. Not one we expected to be successful but one worth trying. Nonetheless, if you read the fine print in the services contract, it is not terminated until I sign off on it, which means that legally, you most definitely DO work for me.”

  I had an idea. “Maybe I can get you the holo drive after all,” I said.

  He peered at me dubiously as the life-support machines continued their pacy drone. “What haven’t you told me, Mr. Smith?

  “Mr. Cardale, all will be revealed. But we need to get out of here and across town, to the other side of New Tokyo. I need some help with something.”

  He looked perturbed. “I don’t do ‘cryptic,’ Mr. Smith. I hope this is going somewhere.”

  He called for the doctor, and after a few minutes, a man in a white coat appeared, along with a big, bulky guy who looked like a security guard.

  The doctor came over to my bedside. He pulled out a small penlight and asked me to open my eyes wide, so that he could check my pupils. “How do you feel?” he asked.

  “Hung over.”

  “But you’re breathing OK without the extra oxygen?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  He turned to Cardale. “Then, OK. I think he can get up.”

  The doctor left the room.

  I said, “How much did you have to tip him for that?”

  He chuckled. “Now what?”

  I called up my virtual keys. “Well, right now we’re at New Tokyo Kotaishihi Masako Memorial, so … we’re going to walk a few blocks west.”

  He squinted. “You have them, don’t you? I don’t know how, but somehow, you’ve got the plans.”

  I smiled back but said nothing. “Lead on, Mr. Cardale,” I said.

  We headed out to street level, which was its typically depressing self, deathly quiet, just the sound of the odd shambling drunk or Freeverser trying to get safely home.

  We headed west down the concrete sidewalk, past rows of office buildings, until we were across from the security office at Kikunae Ikeda Sector Police Station.

  “Come on,” I said, motioning for the three of us to cross the street.

  Puzzled, Cardale and the guard joined me. We checked both ways then used the white-striped crosswalk.

  And on the other side, we waited. After a minute, Cardale asked what was going on.

  “A little patience sir. I’m waiting for someone.”

  He shook his head, but said nothing. The half-quiet drone of New Tokyo ran on in the background as a giant advertising holo across the road lit up the side of the opposite building.

  After about two minutes, a police officer wa
lked by. I reached down, grabbed his pistol, and turned it on Cardale before the guard could react. The policeman also froze in place, his hand instinctively going for the very same weapon I’d just stolen.

  “For God’s sake, Mr. Smith, don’t!” Cardale screamed.

  My first bullet hit the oldest man who’d ever lived right between the eyes.