Cardenas, however, was not fooled. The blond was good, but not good enough to fool an intuit. The Inspector knew that once they had the information they sought, they would kill him as unhesitatingly as any Inzini.
"Okay then, I'll tell you." He indicated the younger man. The leader nodded, and his companion lowered the ominously gaping end of the didgeridoo. As he did so, Cardenas's tongue pressed against the other upper molar. Like its orthodontic counterpart, the tooth responded by bending slightly outward, in the direction of the Inspector's inner cheek. When both teeth were internally aligned, a circuit closed.
Imperceptibly woven into the substance of Cardenas's windbreaker were hundreds of highly conductive metal threads. These in turn were linked to a battery composed of similar material. Adjusting the two complementing composite teeth in his upper jaw allowed Cardenas to release the full charge stored in the flexible, woven storage cell.
The result was the invisible flaring of an electromagnetic pulse powerful enough to fry any unprotected electrical circuit within ten meters. Since every modern weapon relied on an electrical trigger coded to its owner's biochip, whether the latter was implanted or worn externally, this silent blast of energy rendered not only the pistols held by the men confronting Cardenas ineffectual, but also their musical instruments-cum-sonic thumpers. It also wrecked any communications devices they had on their person, right down to wrist chronometers, muse lenses, and even simpe watches. In addition, the lights on the buildings that weakly illuminated the service alley promptly crackled, sparked, and went dark. Only Cardenas's pistol and spinner, equipped with integrated police shielding, were spared the wave of electronic destruction. After the now-demised female Inzini had inserted her illusion gram in his spinner, she had slipped the neutralized device back in his inner jacket pocket. Unfortunately, his service pistol remained out of reach on her body.
The sudden onset of darkness within the alleyway, coupled with the actinic stink arising from their wave-fried weapons and other gear, distracted and disoriented the four Oozers just long enough for Cardenas to dash past them. He had to kick the last one standing between himself and the street hard on one patella in order to dash past. The man let out a groan and collapsed, clutching at his injured knee.
"Get 'im! Get the bloody cop!" Screaming imprecations, the blond raced in pursuit of the fleeing Inspector.
A glance back showed something in the foreigners hand catching the light. It was a very large, folding blade. Despite the desperation of the moment, the irony of it did not escape Cardenas. Here he was, an officer of the law operating in the midst of contemporary late-twenty-first-century surroundings, being chased by a man wielding a knife. Though he could not yet see for sure, he suspected that the blond man's companions were equipped with similar primitive supplements.
If he slowed even a moment to activate his spinner, he risked losing ground to his pursuers. What he really needed was a couple of minutes' respite. Otherwise they were likely to fall on him and cut him to pieces even as he was shouting into the vorec for backup. He had to lose them for at least a little while.
Now all the recreational jogging he indulged in along the artificial green belt that flanked his codo complex began to pay off. Despite his age, he was in excellent shape. If he could just stay out of reach for the duration of the sprint, he was reasonably confident he could outrun his pursuers over the long haul. If they had been somewhere like Olmec, strolling cleanies might call help for him. But this was a pleasure xone, stacked with gloomers and congals. Those citizens observing the chase moved to the other side of the street and concentrated on minding their own business.
Though he was breathing hard, he still felt good. A second look back showed that he was slowly but perceptibly increasing the distance between himself and the pursuing Ooze. Another three blocks would bring him in sight of the induction tube station. If he could reach it, a shout should be enough to alert transport security. The arrival of an armed guard or two might not be enough to discourage the dedicated professionals from abroad, but it should give them pause. At least Cardenas would have a uniformed ally. Realizing that the alarm had been raised with local authority might induce his pursuers to back off.
Two blocks to go. A masked couple shouted in surprise as he barreled between them, then ducked into a doorway to avoid the men coming up from behind. Ahead, he could see the soft, welcoming overhead lights of the tube station. As luck would have it, a taxi was unloading passengers destined for the pleasure xone and boarding those already surfeited. If he could make it to the autocab before it closed its doors, his escape would be assured. He would not even have to alert security. The public transportation would whisk him to safety before the Oozers arrived. Once the vehicle was sealed, he could safely make faces at his pursuers as it boosted down the street. With their weapons rendered inoperational, they would not be able to touch him.
One more block. He was home free. And then he was falling, bouncing, banging against the hard ground as he instinctively tucked and rolled to absorb the force of the kick. Uncoiling into a sitting position, he saw the younger of the two Aborigines standing over him. The upraised blade in the dark man's fist caught the light from the tube station as it began to descend.
SEVEN
CARDENAS THREW UP AN ARM TO SHIELD HIS chest, but his was not the one that blocked the thrust. That limb was larger, thicker, and composed of more than a dozen elements, none of which were flesh. Shards of welded metal gleamed in the ambient light that poured down from stolid street lights and flamboyant signs. Plastic flashed rainbow hues, fragments of salvaged machinery clanked and rattled, reinforced ceramic tinkled, and bits of metallic glass sparkled like clusters of ambulatory diamonds.
What looked like a giant crab fashioned from street scrap and industrial throwaway had clambered out of the nearby storm drain. While one arm blocked the Oozer's potentially lethal blow, a second tossed the heavy plastic drain grate aside. Blinking, Cardenas rolled to his right, onto the sidewalk and away from the street. His startled assailant bent to recover the blade that had been jarred from his fingers. A third metal leg struck him across the back of his head, knocking him senseless to the ground.
Catching sight of the fantastic mechanical apparition that had emerged from beneath the street, the downed Oozer's three murderous companions slowed to a halt. Though the clanking contrivance did not have the slick, professionally finished exterior of a law enforcement device, they were strangers in Namerica and could be sure of nothing. What they did know was that it had intervened to rescue the downed federale. Taking it on in the absence of their own advanced weapons would be tantamount to trying to break into a tank with a can opener.
Leaving their unconscious associate to his fate, they backed off, whirled, and fled, flinging only impenetrable strine obscenities in their wake. Cardenas watched them go. Keeping an eye on the downed compatriot they had abandoned, he climbed slowly to his feet and began brushing himself off. As he did, the mechanism approached, whirring and clicking.
Though three times his size, its six folding legs allowed it to snug into a portal with a diameter even smaller than the storm drain from which it had emerged. LEDs flashed within its motorized depths, eclectic raspings and moans issued forth as cobbled-together parts scraped noisily against one another. Hanging in the center of the snarl of mechanical limbs was a basket of wishwire that wrapped several times around the singular figure ensconced at its core. With his scraggly long hair, deep-sunk red-rimmed eyes, dark stubble, and scarred arms, the half-naked man resembled a drunk who had just been swept up by the late-night patrol. Except he did not act drunk, and clearly he was in control of the embracing machine, not the other way around.
Responding to a twitch of the man's right arm, a powerful limb rose on hissing servos to dexterously flick grime from the Inspector's windbreaker.
"You okay, Officer?" It took Cardenas a moment to make certain the voice had come from the man and not the machine he was riding—or that was riding him. Gaz
ing at the fantastic plethora of parts and pieces, rubble and salvage, it was difficult to tell.
"I'm fine, thanks. And how do you know I'm with the police?"
"My friends and me been listening, I says." One eye suffered from a persistent twitch that was unnerving to look upon. Cardenas was equipped to handle the spectacle better than most. "Decided to jump in when you came free."
"Why not earlier?" Cardenas checked his spinner. It was still operating under the deading influence of the para-site gram that had been installed by the female Inzini. But if she had been telling the truth, the gram would expire in—he checked the chrono on his bracelet—forty minutes or so.
"Wasn't interested, I declares." The wishwire-cloaked recluse was marvelously indifferent to the Inspector's possible reaction. "It was only after you broke free. That I decided to help. Andale, hey, me hablas. Reconned you done did your part. 'Sides, four against one ain't fair odds." Behind and beneath the wire, he grinned, exposing teeth that were yellow, blackened, or absent. "Feral Dick's the name, avoiding taxes me game." The grin, unfortunately, widened. "You can call me Feral, suggests I."
"You said you and your friends had been listening." Cardenas cast a meaningful glance behind the crab mount. "I don't see anyone else."
"Tacka-tack—who said a thing about anyone? What's in a name, but a thing to be named?"
They came swarming out of the open storm drain. Ten, twenty, thirty—a bona fide multitude. Only once before had Cardenas ever seen as many, and the panic they had induced in the surprised soccer players and their fans who had been the recipients of the manifestation had been real enough, if ultimately unjustified.
Wugs.
Offspring of what had ultimately been designated, for lack of a better definition and in the throes of official bewilderment, wireless underground gofer systems, the wugs were tiny, exquisitely engineered, self-reproducing robotic lifeforms whose actions suggested but did not confirm that they were components of a communal mechanized lifeform directed by some kind of rogue artificial intelligence gram. Expecting the first true AI to arise from a confluence of mammoth research projects and profound university conferences, humans had been startled to see AI, when it finally manifested itself, take the form of mechanicals that were fist-sized and smaller. Initial fear and panic at the appearance of the wugs soon gave way to concern, then uncertainty, and finally to annoyance when the thousands of tiny devices exhibited nothing in the way of purpose, much less hostility.
Most of the time the wugs avoided people, hiding themselves in the enormous circulatory system of the Strip: air-conditioning vents, water and sewer pipes, transport tunnels, fiber optic conduits, and induction tubes. Like mechanical cockroaches, they shunned the daylight. Unlike their arthropodic counterparts, they were clean and did not carry disease. Nor did they often enter private residences or disturb human food. They simply reproduced. As the engineers who struggled for several years to devise a means of exterminating them finally conceded, people might as well get used to them. Short of dismantling and shutting down every mechanism and machine in the Strip, the wugs were here to stay.
After a while citizens grew used to, if not entirely familiar with, their presence. As one wag put it early on in the course of the "invasion," irregardless of what anyone wanted, the wugs was. While no wug had ever injured a human being, humans were constantly squashing, smashing, dismembering, and otherwise demolishing the elegant little automatons. Even children soon lost their fear of them. The assaults by humans engendered no retribution, provoked no retaliation. Those paranoicos convinced the wugs were out to take over the world quickly found themselves shorn of their followings, especially when it became clear that the wugs were nothing more than an irritation.
Virtually the only thing about the wugs that continued to bother people was that nobody could manage to figure out where the heck they were coming from.
They certainly appeared to thrive in the congenial presence of Feral Dick, Cardenas observed. He held his ground while a couple dozen of the minuscule machines swarmed up his legs. They poked and prodded him for a few minutes, gently and with what could only be termed respect for his nonmetallic person. Sensors and wires caressed and tickled, taking measurements for what purposes the Inspector could not imagine. Then, as if in response to a signal unseen and unheard, they scampered as one back down to the pavement to disappear into the open storm drain. No two of the diminutive wonders had been alike.
Feral Dick gazed fondly at the cavity in the street. "I likes the wugs, and the wugs likes me."
Cardenas was genuinely intrigued. "Is that why you decided to intervene and save me? Because the wugs wanted to examine me?"
Within the sessile whorl of wishwire, Feral guffawed. "A funny cop, laughs I! I don't know what the wugs want. Nobody does. How many wiggles will a wishing wug want?" He giggled as he recited the common children's rhyme. "But they seem to enjoy veteing around with me, and I kind of like the company. You live beneath the street instead of above it, you take any company you can get, sombers I. At least they don't nag." He spat something off to one side. Cardenas was mildly surprised it didn't clang when it hit the pavement.
"That still doesn't explain why you decided to help me."
The mechanical crab-shape began to scuttle sideways, in the direction of the gaping storm drain. "There's times now and then, observes me, when a feral might have needs of a little federale goodwill. Believes in banking official amity, shrewds I. Besides, I wasn't doing anything else at the time." A metal-plastic-glass claw rose in casual salute. "Fondly remember me to your files, Officer." The wishwire made it difficult to see those sunken, but not haunted, eyes.
Then, as swiftly as they had appeared, mechanical and riding master were gone, disappeared down the aperture. Walking to the edge, Cardenas could hear the tinny clattering of the cobbled-together vehicle's metal feet as the homemade transport ensemble skittered away under the street. Not a true antisoc, was Feral Dick. By choice he stood, or rather scuttled along, outside both belief systems.
The Inspector checked his spinner. It was still comatose, but not dead. A few minutes more or less and he would be back on line opto, with full access to the NFP box. If, he reminded himself, the dead Inzini had not been lying. There was no real reason for her to have done so, since she and her equally demised partner had intended for the spinner's owner to be far deader than his apparatus prior to its return to service.
A glance down the street disclosed only wandering citizens. There was no sign of the routed Ooze from Oz. He knew he ought to use a public comm to report in, to at least relate what had happened to him. But without the spinner he could not impart a true picture of his assailants. And if he waited too long, the woman he sought might go off shift—or worse, be visited by Inzini, Ooze, or some hypothetical other who shared in this sudden and unexpectedly irresistible interest in the whereabouts of Surtsey Mockerkin and her daughter.
Who were the Amerind assassins working for? The Mock, or themselves, or some other as yet unidentified group with an intense interest in Surtsey Mockerkin and her daughter? The same speculation applied to the Ooze. The more antisoc outfits that expressed a lethal interest in the pair, the more anxious Cardenas was to find them—first.
If he had to wait for a chance to talk with Coy Joy, he could do so just as effectively while simultaneously checking out her visitors. Turning, he headed back down the street in the direction of the Cocktale. This time he stayed close to groups of slumming cleanies. He also made a point of taking the measure of his surroundings every few steps, to ensure their reality. He had no intention of wandering mindlessly into another deceptive, misleading miragoo.
The Cocktale was easy to find. Located on the main street, right where Mashupo Mingas had indicated, it was squeezed in between the Featherdome and California Nights. Unlike some of the personnel hard at work within, all three establishments boasted fronts that were models of restraint. Their external lighting was subdued, signage was static rather than animat
ed, and no lascivious adverts came barreling out of Madison ejectors to carny casual passersby. Though it had been a long time since he had worked a pleasure xone, Cardenas knew that not all sextels were alike. Based on what he remembered, these three neighboring businesses occupied a niche designed to appeal to upper-middle-class, or possibly lower-upper-class, clients.
Across the street, the enormous Rara Aves took up the better part of several city blocks. A joint Asakusa-Chubasco N.A. operation, it flaunted its wares as brazenly as it did its staff. Cheaper, less discreet, and downright Vegasian in its appeal, it boasted a steady stream of customers anxious to partake of its offerings, both hard and wet. In addition to satisfying one's lust of the moment, a patron of the Rara Aves could also spend the night alone, gamble, and consume in-house subsidized food and nonsexual entertainment. A one-stop international chain discount entertainment center for the employees of the maquiladoras, it enjoyed a solid reputation and was especially favored by blue-collar workers. There were franchised Rara Aves throughout the Strip, each virtually indistinguishable from the next. The merchandise on the shelves in Agua Pri was the same as that on offer in Elpaso Juarez, or Sanjuana, or Brownsville.
Although the sex trade had been legal in the Strip for more than half a century, there remained those citizens who for a great variety of reasons favored anonymity, not to mention a more personal style of service. This was to be found in confidential enterprises such as the Cocktale and its neighbors, as well as in those exclusive establishments that catered to the very rich. What was advertised on the outside was frequently supplanted by what a prospective consumer was offered within.