Startled to discover that his host thought of him as anything other than a piece of human flotsam that had washed up on the shores of her office seeking repair, he was slow to respond. When he finally did reply, all his confounded thoughts would allow him to stammer was, “Curiosity killed the cat.”
“Except for the ones who manage to find the mice.”
He stared down at her. “This really has nothing to do with subsist for you, does it? You could care less about whether that filament of misery floss is worth a million bucks or a million cents. You just want to know the why and where and how of it.”
“That’s right, Whispr.” She nodded solemnly. “Knowledge for knowledge’s sake.”
“I wish I had a dozen credits for every supposedly smart friend who lived by that philosophy. If we happen to find out that it’s worth a lot of money, you won’t mind then if I get all hungry and aggrand some for myself?”
Her smile returned. “I wouldn’t expect you to do otherwise. Does that mean you’re going to stick with this?”
“Oh, you can bet your right-so, but not here. If whoever’s trying to claim the thread is close enough to it to hop all over your friend, then they’re too close to it and to us. Anyway, as far as the thread is concerned he pretty much told you to forget he exists. He’s right when he indicates that when the foul folk are getting that close to you, it’s time to get out of town.” He looked once more toward the front door. “My gut tells me it’s time we do like he do.”
She was tentative but agreeable. “If you think we should base ourselves elsewhere for a while, then I guess I should follow your lead. This kind of thing is your area of expertise, not mine. Any suggestions?”
It made him feel disproportionately good to know that in one area, at least, his thought processes were working ahead of hers.
“I’ve heard there are some especially knowledgeable linkies in the outer Miavana area, working out of the waterlands west of the city. Your creaky guy-friend made noises about taking vacation time. How do you fancy a holiday?”
She considered. “It wouldn’t be as if we were taking off for India. Miavana’s not far. I could still keep in touch with my office and oversee ongoing treatment of my regular patients and …”
“Forget that, Ingrid.” He caught himself, surprised at his unexpected presumption. “Can I call you Ingrid?”
“You just did. If we’re going to try and follow up with this anonymously, you constantly calling me Dr. Seastrom might be a little counterproductive.”
He nodded. “I’m sorry, but once we leave here you can’t have any contact with your office, your patients, this colleague of yours who got his face squared—no one. The Nasty who are after the thread have already shown themselves persistenters. You can bet wet that as soon as they’re onto you certain they’ll be monitoring every communications channel in Namerica that has your ident affixed to it.”
“I suppose you’re right. You’ll have to excuse me, Whispr. I’m kind of new to all this. Doctors are used to straightforwardness, not subterfuge.”
“Subterfuge is my life, or I wouldn’t have one.” He did not go into details. “We’ll go by rental. False names. I’ve got appropriate ident and I can fix you up with one fast. Money debited to new cards through double intermediaries so it can’t be traced.” His meld-slender form straightened. “See, there are all kinds of talent in this world, doc. Ingrid.”
“And plenty of operations of the nonsurgical kind, apparently.” She looked around the codo, wondering what kind of accommodations they would be able to manage surreptitiously. At least there would be no shortage of options in a tourist and vacation Mecca like the South Florida waterlands.
“When should we get started?” she asked him.
He did not smile. “We already have.”
She nodded and headed toward the bedroom, where he longed to follow but knew he could not. Certainly not until this business of the thread had been resolved. Only then would he feel free enough to push other matters. Until that time they would have to function closely together yet apart. And not only because he had found himself drawn to her from the first moment she had placed a gentle healing hand on his traktac-infested body. There was more to it than that. For one thing, as much as he was attracted to her, he didn’t trust her.
If she was half as intelligent as she appeared, she would treat him the same way.
12
The codo was quiet, the codo was safe, and at three in the morning the codo was very dark. Because its lower floors were occupied by a hospital and associated medical offices, the tapering spire’s security was much tighter than that of the average codomercial tower. Additionally, each private residence boasted its own customized refuge arrangements. These ranged from extra locks, to simple alarms, to government-registered active deterrent systems. By law the latter could encompass and include everything from narcoleptizing misters to high-power small-caliber arms.
None of this mattered to the Natural who carefully opened the door, nor to the two Melds who crowded close behind her. Deactivating a lock required as much artfulness as disarming a weapons system. Given ample experience in all facets of entering residences and businesses uninvited, the leader of the trio of intruders had no difficulty utilizing the sophisticated instrumentation at her disposal to allow her and her cohorts to enter the darkened dwelling without making any noise.
Ahead of them a short hallway opened onto a pleasant, neatly laid-out living area. The dimly glimpsed fixtures and fittings that furnished the high-floor corner codo indicated that its owner had good taste as well as an ample income. Valuable pictures and marketable gimcracks were ignored, however. The three had come to rob, yes, but their sole interest lay in a single, tiny, easily pocketable device. Not expecting to find it lying loose on a table or in a cabinet, their intent was to save time by simply requesting it from the current owner. If all went well the one-sided transaction could be accomplished quickly and with a minimum of fuss. That it might take longer and necessitate other than verbal persuasion was a consideration the invading trio had come prepared to implement.
Stepping past the stout woman who had expertly bypassed both the tower and the codo’s integrated security, the replicant of a movie star from long ago gestured silently to her right and beckoned for her companions to follow. Pushing wide a half-open door revealed a dark bedroom, the light emanating from its walls muted almost to nonexistence. Blackout glass eliminated any glow from the tower across the street. There was just enough illumination to allow the intruders to see the single large bed with its aerogel pillows, yeast-float mattress, and scented floral-decorated coverlet that smelled fragrantly of bougainvillea.
Two of the women unsheathed simple weapons: a blade and a shocker. Having to bend to avoid scraping her crested skull against the ceiling, the third reached into a purse to bring out a roll of sonitape. Used for sealing small cracks and openings in enclosed spaces where recordings were to be made, the soft, stretchable material also made an excellent gag.
Gripping the shocker, the sturdy woman in the center directed the doppelganger of the ancient actress to go left. The taller woman half walked, half slithered around to the other side of the bed. At a signal from their leader the two Melds leaned forward simultaneously. As the coverlet was wrenched aside, fingers both bony and flexible reached down and forward. They closed around nothing. There was nothing for them to close around.
The bed was empty.
For the first time since she and her associates had broken into the codo, the chubby woman spoke. The curses she uttered were no less pungent than the fragrance that rose from the tropical bouquet–programmed coverlet.
Looking askance at her boss, the movie star Meld gestured in the direction of the main living area that they had noiselessly bypassed in order to get to the bedroom.
“Maybe she fell asleep in an entertainment bubble.”
“Maybe she’s voiding her bowels.” The plump woman whirled. Both her eyes and the blade she was wiel
ding flashed in the subdued light. “Find her!”
They barely had time to return to the codo’s largest room when the crested flex-armed Meld bent double, made a hushing sound, and pointed with one all but jointless arm. Her companions nodded understandingly. Without a word having to pass between them, all three melted back into the shadows.
Responding to an arrival the hall walls brightened with enough light to illumine the entrance to the codo. A single figure stood silhouetted in the doorway. Quietly, it closed the door behind it. No internal lights picked up the photonic slack. But then, the deceptively plump leader of the invasive trio thought, someone familiar with the codo’s layout would not need to activate its internal illumination.
She did not have to gesture or speak to her companions. They knew what to do. Figures that were scarcely specters edged off in opposite directions.
Moments later struggling noises scored by unreserved confusion filled the room with sound and motion. The trio’s leader frowned. The voice that now rose above those of her cohorts was not what one would expect from a youngish female physician startled by intruders in her own home. In truth, it was neither youngish nor female. Once again flicking to life the blade she held, she used its glow to locate a nonaural control switch. At her touch, gentle illumination flooded the codo.
A figure struggled in the grasp of the two Melds, but it was not the one the intruders had been expecting. It was elderly, male, and utterly lacking in promise. Another professional acquaintance of their target? the Natural wondered. But if that was the case, what was he doing in the physician’s apartment at this time of the morning? Did Dr. Ingrid Seastrom have a thing for old men? Did she perhaps like to be surprised in the middle of the night? Was this unprepossessing soft-footed nocturnal visitor all part of some creepy fetish? She shrugged. In her time and professional life she had seen enough so that little surprised her. Oftentimes the more intelligent the individual, the more bizarre their private obsessions.
Well, she mused to herself, if this prowling white-haired oldster was in search of the codo’s owner, whether it be for reasons professional or perverse, he had been preceded in disappointment by her and her colleagues. On a more hopeful note, he might know where she was. Putting on her best matronly smile, she stepped forward out of the shadows and into the subdued light.
“Now what do we have here? A thief of hearts—or of the more mundane variety?”
Eyes wide and fearful, the oldster hung slack in the grip of the two Melds. “I don’t—who are you people? What are you doing in Dr. Seastrom’s home?”
The portly leader of the invading trio felt a twinge of disappointment at the mention of the mildly honorific “Dr. Seastrom.” The elder’s choice of words seemed to rule out any sort of perverted amorous rendezvous. Further questions would therefore be restricted to the ordinary.
“I might ask you the same question.” Sitting down on the arm of the woven free-form couch, she toyed with the slender blade that now shimmered with its own pointed internal illumination. “Are you a friend of Seastrom’s? If your answer is yes, we have questions for you. If your answer is no, then that raises an entirely new and unexpected suite of inquiry.” Her gaze narrowed. “How either proceeds is entirely up to you.”
The old man sighed. “Yes, I can see that. Please don’t hurt me. I will respond to the fullest extent of my ability to do so. What is it that you want to know?”
Still playing with the knife and making sure as she did so that the immobilized oldster had a clear view of the lustrous blade, the woman began organizing questions in her mind. Might as well begin with the obvious, she told herself.
“What’s your name, old man?”
His tone by turns pleading and deferential he responded softly and without hesitation. “My name is Napun Molé,” he said just before the middle finger of his left hand lengthened explosively into a meter-long shaft of pointed carbon-ceramic alloy that went right through the throat of the startled tattoo-crested Meld holding on to his left arm. Retracting almost as swiftly as it had extended, it left blood fountaining in its wake.
To her credit, the dead actress Meld gripping his other arm brought her shocker around and forward to slam into his ribs. A crackle of electricity filled the air, followed by pale smoke and the scent of ozone as the discharging weapon was shorted out by contact with the dissipation weave that had been melded into the Molé’s muscles. She ducked as he swung at her, the blade now protruding from the side of his left hand whistling through the air over her head.
Straightening as she recovered from the shock of the senior’s reactions, the trio’s leader took aim and threw the blade she was holding. Even as it left her fingers she was already reaching for her concealed sidearm. The sharp-edged metal tore through the back of the old man’s clothing to bounce off his reinforced flesh. As it did so, he fired his left index finger. The single pellet thus discharged detonated against the Marilyn Meld’s neck with enough explosive force to blow her head off. It landed near the kitchen area, ricocheted off a cabinet, and lay still, a macabre echo of a glamorous past framed by a spreading pool of blood. Spurting crimson from its open neck, the decapitated torso remained erect a moment longer before collapsing to the floor.
Uttering a fluid, energetic flow of expletives in several languages, the surviving woman leaped behind one curve of the couch and held down the trigger of her sidearm. A spray of small-caliber explosive shells tore up the workings of the other side of the living area and the kitchen. Faux upholstery, carbon-fiber framing, molded crystal, reinforced glass, and a wide assortment of other contemporary decorative materials were shredded like cardboard in a tornado.
Propelled by a pair of superior-grade military spec leg melds, the Molé kicked off the floor, bounced off the ceiling, and was grazed by shells as he slammed headfirst into the woman who had nearly emptied her weapon. The air went out of her lungs as the impact cracked her sternum. Bright red pain threatened to overwhelm her vision as she staggered backward. With her free hand she drew her other sidearm. In lieu of a multiplicity of smaller ammo, this one was defined by the size of its barrel. It only held four shells, each one of which was capable of demolishing a vehicle of considerable size. Its employment would bring building security (if they weren’t already on their way) and municipal police running, but at this point she didn’t care. She knew now she probably had only one chance to put her deceptive assailant down. If that meant razing the codo above or below this one along with their respective inhabitants, that was the kind of collateral damage she would gladly rationalize later.
She did not get the one chance.
Before she could fire, the Molé had picked up the nearest section of couch, spun around twice to give it added momentum, and flung it in her direction. Melds that had replaced his lower spine with powerful rechargeable organic servos gave the segment of flung furniture tremendous kinetic force. It slammed into the fleshy woman with enough impact to lift her off the floor. By the time her finger contracted reflexively on the trigger of her larger-caliber handgun, the resultant shot went harmlessly wild. Harmlessly, because she was already outside the building, having been smashed through one of the tough but not indestructible reinforced floor-to-ceiling glass panels.
Wishing for a sudden airfoil Meld did not make it a reality. In confirmation of one in a long line of thousands of demonstrations proving the truth of Galileo’s original experiment, both she and the portion of couch hit the sidewalk eighty-five floors below at the same time.
Surrounded by the wreckage of the codo, Napun Molé took stock of his surroundings. He was not pleased. He had arrived in silence and, he had believed, in secrecy, only to be grabbed and confronted by three women about whom he had immediately been certain of one thing: they were not members of the same profession as Dr. Ingrid Seastrom. He had not needed to wait for their questions to divine their purpose in invading the good doctor’s living quarters. Self-evidently not representatives of the local police, their presence and attitude could o
nly point to an objective similar to his own. They were also after the thread.
Very disturbing, he thought as he walked into the kitchen to get himself a drink of water. He was careful to step around the spigot of blood that continued to pump in steadily decreasing volume from the neck of the tall, bony-headed, already dead Meld whose throat he had pierced. For one thing, the appearance on the scene and attempted intervention of outside interests was a most unwelcome infringement on the claim to the thread that had been staked by his employers. For another, in the course of the preceding squabble his suit jacket had been torn in at least two places. It was all most disconcerting.
Word was slipping out where knowledge of the thread should be inviolate, he mused. Too many people were learning of its importance, if not what was on it or what it signified. Unlike what those lying dead on the codo floor and the now carmine-blotched street outside believed, a great deal more was at stake than the mere abstraction of wealth. A great deal more. Everything tonight had happened too fast. There had been no time for assimilation; only reaction. As a consequence he had been forced to make a mess. Those who had charged him with the recovery of the thread would not be pleased.
He was none too happy himself. Downing the last of the water he initiated a swift, methodical, and professional search of the rooms. Even a basic residence would boast at least one basic box outlet. Someone of Seastrom’s persuasion was likely to have access and a projector in every room.
The main living area and the kitchen having been largely destroyed, he had to go into the bedroom before he found an intact vorec. That was all he needed. Utilizing the usual omnidirectional pickup it would enable a resident to command access from anywhere in the codo.
Removing a special and highly illegal convertor from a pocket, he started speaking softly into the tiny but sensitive diaphragm. There was no immediate response from the codo’s box. That was to be expected. It would take time for the ware inside the convertor to detect and decipher the codes and tonalities that were specific to the codo’s owner. Only when that had been compiled could he then proceed to the next step of having himself recognized as an accepted user by the doctor’s residential programming.