Apocalypse to Go (25 page)

Spare14 turned pale. “I’d not thought of that. Yes, what a tragedy that would be!”

“Quite,” Ari said. “A query. When we find the kidnappers, do we have the authority to make an arrest?”

“Oh, yes,” Spare14 said. “TWIXT has an arrangement with the Republic authorities. The California Republic, that is. The United States no longer exists here in any real sense.”

In some dim way I’d known that piece of information, a logical development from the disaster that had afflicted Interchange, but still, hearing it voiced brought tears to my eyes. My country. Gone. None of the three men noticed when I wiped my eyes on the sleeve of my hoodie. None of them were Americans.

“If we do make an arrest,” Hendriks told Ari, “we tell the local authorities that we’re removing the suspects to Sackamenna. It will be true in its way. It merely won’t be this particular Sacramento. Terra One holds jurisdiction over psychic crimes on spheres where such go unrecognized by the local legal codes.” He hesitated. “Or on deviant levels, I believe you call them in English.”

“Quite so,” Spare14 said. “Now, I don’t know if we can find a raw salmon, but we do need to acquire some human food. Hendriks, if you’ll come with me for a bodyguard, I have a supply of this world’s currency. We can leave Nathan here to protect O’Grady.”

“Of course.” Hendriks smiled and patted his shoulder holster. “My pleasure.”

As soon as Spare14 and Hendriks left, Ari drew the Beretta and returned to his position next to the north-facing window. His eyes turned cold and distant as he scanned the street below.

“Is someone out there?” I said.

“I’m not sure. A couple of loiterers. They may be legitimate. Then again, I think I saw one of them on Market. A tall bloke, potbelly, wearing a blue-and-white shirt under a gray jacket. Odd coincidence, if he merely happened to come this way.”

“Yeah, it sure would be. Let me run a scan.”

As soon as I tried the SM:D I felt the threat.

“I’m getting a general sense that something real wrong could happen real soon,” I said. “I can’t tell if it involves that guy outside or not.”

“He’s moving on now. So’s the other fellow.”

I waited, watching him wait, Beretta in hand. Finally he shrugged, let his shoulders relax, and lowered the gun.

“They’re gone,” he said.

“Good.” An idea occurred to me. “Hold on a minute.”

I brought up the memory of blue-violet and focused my mind on Miss Leopard-Thing. I received a trace impression of her, but faint, a hint, that somehow something connected her to this world rather than her actual presence. I shook my head in an improvised CEV.

“Receive anything?” Ari said.

“Not enough to draw any conclusions. I’ll try again later, when I’m not so tired.”

“I wish you weren’t here. If someone sees through your makeup and decides to sell the information that Nuala’s returned—”

He let the sentence dangle. I shuddered. “Oh, yeah! Bad news,” I said, “but you can’t find Mike and Sean without me, so don’t even think about sending me home.”

“H
AVING A TRUE PSYCHIC ALONG
is going to make it much easier to exchange details with Javert.” Hendriks paused to wipe his hands on a napkin. “I’ve always been able to communicate general thoughts, but this way we can plan.”

“Well, I’m no telepath,” I said. “I hope I can translate what he says.”

“Don’t worry. Javert is remarkably talented that way. In you, he’ll have the receiver he needs.”

Ari and Hendriks turned in their chairs and looked at Spare14, who was sitting at his desk and talking on his antique black landline phone. Although he was speaking English, he was using so much code that I had no idea what he was actually saying.

“Well, it’s a seventeen fifty four,” Spare14 said. “Yes, yes, and you’ll need a twelve and a sixteen.” He paused.

I noticed Ari and Hendriks exchange a glance and a small nod of understanding.

“Very good,” Spare14 resumed talking. “At oh thirteen, yes. I have a thirty-six here twice.” A long pause. “Good. I’ll consult with you later.” He hung up and smiled vaguely at us. “Running a numbers racket is quite convenient at times. If anyone were eavesdropping, they’d think I was speaking with a client.”

Neither man smiled in return. Ari got up, tossed the waxed paper that had wrapped his sandwich into the paper garbage bag, and paced over to the window. He drew the Beretta again and eased the curtain back a few inches to keep watch.

Spare14 and Hendriks had returned with a small feast of Italian deli food, most of which the three men had eaten. I’d managed to avoid more than a handful of veggies.

“We need to consider how to proceed with this investigation,” Spare14 said. “When O’Grady ran a psychic scan for her brothers, it had very unfortunate results.”

“Tell me about that.” Hendriks turned my way. “Can you remember what happened?”

“Yeah. When I tried scanning for Sean—he’s the finder—I hit a wall. I felt it physically. I received no data. The aftereffect was a sound like the worst tinnitus in the world. It lasted for a good hour, maybe more.”

“Very odd.” Hendriks picked a bit of pepperoni off his shirtfront and delicately dropped it into the garbage. “I went over the files on the Axeman and his gang this morning. As far as we know, none of his gang members have more than the most rudimentary talents. The defense you describe requires major abilities.”

“That’s what I thought, yeah.” Now that my mind had mostly cleared, I could remember some significant details. “Some evidence indicates that the kidnappers put a StopCollar on Sean. Is it possible that they’d own one?”

Hendriks glanced at Spare14, who nodded a yes. “The black market here is quite robust. The Axeman would have the money to buy an item such as that.” Spare14 paused for a sigh. “Even the best police forces are vulnerable to corruption. And of course, the police force here is not one of the best. Some officer might well have stolen the equipment, in this case, if he had some desperate need for cash, and sold it to Chief Hafner’s rivals through a fence.”

“And could a StopCollar produce the effect I felt?”

“Possibly,” Hendriks said. “It depends on which type, the torus or the band. The flat band can amplify certain vibrations. Amplify them enough, and you’ll get distortions that the talented then perceive in various ways—sound,
light, or in one case that I investigated, a persistent smell of rotted meat.”

“These aren’t manifested phenomena, are they?”

“No, no, just an activation of the appropriate center in the brain. The distortions fool the appropriate neurons into seeing or hearing.”

I searched my memory and found Aunt Eileen’s dream of Sean wearing a “modern necklace.”

“I think this could be the flat band.”

“That would be a major setback,” Hendriks said. “Could the Axeman know that his hostages have a sister with talents?”

“It’s real likely. The entire gang knows about me—Mike’s gang, that is, the BGs. One of them’s been ratting out all sorts of data.”

“Then it’s likely the Axeman’s set up a defense against you. The BGs, hmm? Very small beer, that gang. Certainly not worth TWIXT’s time.”

“I’d always hoped so, considering my little brother runs with them now and then.”

“The world-walker? He’s a juvenile, correct?”

“Yeah, not quite seventeen. And out of control.”

“He’s not a bad kid.” Ari turned from the window. “Fatherless boys like Michael tend to go through a wild phase.”

“Oh, yeah,” I said, “but a wild phase with wild talents is a lot worse than some kid stealing a car or smoking dope.”

“True. He’s buggered things up good and proper this time.”

I winced in agreement. “Look, we know that a direct scan’s too dangerous, but I’m willing to try an LDRS.”

“No,” Ari said.

“Good idea,” Hendriks said simultaneously.

“It’s up to O’Grady, I should think.”

Spare14’s opinion won. While Ari glowered, I got out my crayons and a pad of paper from our luggage. I sat down on the floor near but not in front of the open window, put the pad in my lap, and spread the crayons out next to me. Spare14 and Hendriks moved out of my line of sight. Ari took a seat on the couch where he could keep an eye on me without being too distracting.

When I thought of Michael, I picked up nothing but darkness and the faint sense that he was still alive—reassuring, but not useful when it came to finding him.

“I think Mike’s asleep somewhere on this world level,” I said. “I’m concentrating on Sean now.”

My hand darted into the spread of crayons and picked out burnt sienna. It sketched in what appeared to be part of a wooden wall, then tossed the burnt sienna back in favor of marigold. It scribbled over the wall, dropped the yellow, grabbed the black, and drew black spots on the yellow smears. I stopped the procedure, but I smiled. Oh, yes. Something—or rather someone—very directly connected to Miss Leopard-Thing was here on Interchange.

“No go,” I said. “Someone is interfering.”

I heard Spare14 sigh. He got up and walked into my field of view.

“Do you have any idea who?” he said.

“What do you know about leopard people?” I said. “Sapients evolved from leopards the way we are from apes, that is. Fairly civilized with metal tech and developed talents.”

I thought Spare14 might choke. He stared at me openmouthed and narrow-eyed, made an odd couple of guttural sounds, then covered them with a cough. Hendriks laughed, one whoop of high amusement.

“Very sharp, this psychic, so you might as well tell her.” Hendriks paused for a grin. “Sneak.”

Spare14 pursed his lips and scowled at him, then smoothed out his expression.

“He’s right, I’m afraid,” Spare14 said. “Very well. They exist on one of the rather more puzzling world levels, Terra Two.”

“Puzzling how?”

“Two should be very close to One, according to the formula our scientists have developed. But it’s extraordinarily different. The solar system there—Venus is quite pleasant, with large oceans, not the hellhole it is in every other version we know. It has a large moon like Earth’s, which I gather does partly explain the better climate.”

“Oceans, huh? Warm? Covering a large part of the planet?”

“I see that I might as well admit that it’s Javert’s home world.”

I smiled; he smiled.

“Now, as to your question,” Spare14 continued, “the leopard people dominate the Earth on Terra Two. Their actual species name is
pardus sapiens
. Some people call them ‘Spotties,’ but that’s a racial slur, really. The proper common name for them is Maculates.”

“As opposed to Immaculate, huh? But then there was only one of those, and she lived a long time ago.”

The men stared at me in bewilderment.

“It’s a joke,” I said. “Never mind. Do go on.”

“Very well.” Spare14 paused to clear his throat with what I considered unnecessary drama. “Terra Two is the only world level of our local cluster in which they exist. There are other anomalies in that solar system, but I’d really prefer not to go into those.”

“Fine with me,” I said. “But I have need to know about the Maculates. They’ve contacted me several times now.”

Spare14 shut his eyes for a moment, as if he were engaging in silent prayer. “You might have mentioned them before this.”

“You made it clear that certain kinds of information were off-limits. I saw no reason to share intel one-way.”

“My apologies. I should have been more forthcoming.”

“Especially since she knew about them all along, eh?” Hendriks said.

Spare14 shot him an evil glance, then walked back to his desk to sit down. While I told him about my contacts with the Maculates—I left out the effect on my love life—I put away the crayons and the pad of paper, then sat down next to Ari.

“So,” I finished up. “I wonder if the guy is working with Storm Blue. I’m pretty sure he’s the person I saw in the visions. I don’t see why he’d interfere with my LDRS if he weren’t hiding the gang’s HQ.”

Hendriks and Ari nodded.

“So,” I said, “we can conclude that he must have some psychic talents.”

“Most Maculates do.” Spare14 drummed his fingers on
his desktop and thought for several minutes before he went on. “Well, if you can’t find your brother by psychic means, then I suppose we’ll have to fall back on gathering information in more usual ways.”

“How far away is Major Grace’s mission?” Ari said. “I suspect she knows a great deal about what goes on in this city.”

“You could well be right.” Spare14 drummed his fingers on the desk again while he thought. “It’s not far at all, just down on Sackamenna Street. Eight or nine blocks, perhaps. O’Grady, are you well enough to make the walk?”

“Sure, if it’s safe.”

“It should be. We’re on the edge of the respectable districts, where the Chief’s mistress was never well known.”

“You know,” I said, “who could really help us is the BGs, but their camp is way away from here, over in the Excelsior district—well, whatever it’s called here. Southeast side of town.”

“We really can’t risk that. Transportation is such a problem with the lack of vehicles.”