Broken Mirror (50 page)

Ozie asked, “Laws, Victor, what is on your face?”

“A gas mask. Long story. Did you
—
”

“Look, can’t talk long. I don’t trust my programs to secure the feed. The King of Las Vegas didn’t like me messing with his MeshSats, and he traced me back to the café. Pearl and I are on the move.”

“Ozie, did you steal the MRS gene sequence from Gene-Us last year?”

Ozie laughed. It sounded genuine to Victor. “Of course not,” Ozie said. “If I had it already, why would I have had you steal it from BioScan?”

Victor said, “Someone broke into Gene-Us. Someone also stole an early version of the XSCT formula from Oak Knoll. That’s what Karine told me, at least.”

“And you believe her?” Ozie asked.

“I don’t know what to think.”

Ozie stroked his chin. “If she didn’t do it, I’ll give you one guess who else might be involved.”

“The King?” Victor said.

Ozie said, “Correct. We’ll get to the bottom of it. Meanwhile, Pearl and I are going to set up somewhere quiet. Private. What are you going to do?”

“Search the kennel. ”

“Let me know what you find. And let us know where you’ll be. Pearl’s got some herbs for you.” Ozie terminated the feed.

Victor sat watching the sleeping-gas eddies curl gently in the lodge room’s still air. He had to find out what had happened to the XSCT compound, and the kennel was the key. Without Karine’s help, though, it would be tough to get past the Corps.

Victor got up, leaned over Tosh’s unconscious body, unzipped his pocket, and took back the data egg. Then he opened the door and stepped outside, leaving it open a crack. He removed the bulky mask from his face and threw it on the ground.

Elena tried to peek inside, but Victor blocked her view. “What the shocks did you do?” she asked.

Victor brushed his sleeves and wondered how much of the sleeping substance had accumulated there. “I bought us some time. I couldn’t think with everyone yelling at me.”

She grabbed his arm. “Did you
—
”

“No.” Victor shrugged her off. “If I didn’t shut them up, though, I might have killed them.”

Elena looked relieved.

“They’ll be fine,” he said.

She nodded, biting back whatever she really wanted to say. Her eyes were sickly green; even in the fading light, he could see how hard a day it had been for her. He could blame stimsmoke’s effects for running her down or her own bad judgment. He probably looked awful, too. His gaze flicked toward the motel window, but he turned away quickly. He didn’t want to see his reflection.

Victor paced the parking lot and then stopped and looked up at the stars. Only a few dozen peeked through the evening’s dusty veil: Sirius, Betelgeuse, and the more prominent nodes of familiar constellations. Mars and Jupiter bracketed the moon, deceptively equidistant from each other in the sky, but so far apart. Time and distance obscured the rest of the universe.

He turned to Elena. “You wanted me to kill them.”

She flinched as if he’d slapped her. “I didn’t
—
”

“How could you even suggest it? Ever since I was little, people who hate what I am have attacked me, treated me like I’m a bomb about to explode. You tried to light the fuse.”

She shook her head and backed away. Only a car width separated them, but it could have been a wall of radiation. “I can’t imagine what that’s like. I know you’re a good person, I do,” she said, “but sometimes we have to do a wrong thing for the right reason.”

Victor hung his head. He couldn’t believe what she was saying. “What happened to you?” he asked. “When you joined the Puros, it’s like you gave up the good part of yourself.”

Tears streaked down her cheeks like meteors, catching the lightpole’s glare and sparkling. Her voice was ragged. “I lost that a long time ago.” She wiped her cheeks with her sleeve. “They saved me. I . . . They gave me a reason to keep going.”

Could the Puros and their cause have replaced him in her heart? They were something for her to take care of, a reason to put her needs and problems second.

He saw her clearly now, and kept his mouth shut. There were so many things he might say. He loved her, but they weren’t good for each other. She had to feel complete without him. She had to be happy by herself.

Victor peered in the lodge room. They would probably be unconscious for hours. He nudged the door open to allow the remaining gas to escape. A breeze kicked up, and the air chilled his skin.

“I have to let them go,” Victor said.

Elena said, “But that means they
win
.”

He sighed. He hated that she argued when his choice had been made. “No, if I kill them, that’s when I lose. There’s no other option.”

“She killed him!”

“She very well could have. But nothing I can do will bring him back, Elena. I refuse to become a killer.”

“I don’t think I could be so forgiving.”

“I’m not forgiving. I’m going to find out the truth and if she did kill him I’m going to make her life a living hell. Or who knows?” Victor raised a hand in priest-like benevolence and met Elena’s gaze. “Someday I may pardon her sins.”

One sole laugh escaped Elena’s lips. Then she wrapped her arms around her chest, looking young, like her life clock had wound backward.

He hugged her.

She pulled away and looked at him with narrowed eyes. “You’re not thinking about going back to SeCa, are you?”

Every minute of his life in SeCa had been contingent on the mercy of people who didn’t understand him. His family had formed an oasis of support, beyond which only suspicion, hostility, and contempt existed. And then they’d hired thugs to keep him under surveillance. No, he would never go back to SeCa, even if he wasn’t reclassified. Life for him there would always be circumscribed by the radius of his family’s wealth, power, and ability to carve out a safe place for him, which would be another kind of prison.

“No. I need to go someplace safe and civilized. SeCa’s off limits, and it’s too dangerous here.” He smiled at her. “I’ve been thinking about moving to an island in the Mediterranean.”

She gaped, then laughed. “Stop joking around.”

Insects began singing all around them. They might have been buzzing the whole time. A slight breeze rustled his hair. Trajectories of dirt painted the pavement, eroding the boundary between city and desert.

Elena said, “Stay here. Please. You’d never have to worry about the Carmichael stuff again.” She looked as if she wanted to reach out and touch him, only she wasn’t sure of herself.

Winds buffeted Victor and Elena with dust and shards of gravel. What to do? The few clothes and supplies he had brought with him could all fit in a small sack. He hadn’t prepared for a journey longer than a week or so. He’d have to find a new source of herbs, a new regime for managing his condition. It would be like starting over again.

That doesn’t sound so bad
, he realized
.

Amarillo wouldn’t be his final destination. He was sure of that. For a brief time, though, it wouldn’t hurt as a stopover, while he sorted out where to go next.

Elena cocked her head. “Why the goofy smile?”

“It’s nothing. I just
—
I’ll stay. For a little while, at least.”

***

Inside the room, the haze had dissipated. Victor untied Karine and gently slipped her body down to the floor. Elena brandished Tosh’s bloody knife and cut the ropes that tied Bandit and Lucky to the bed. Searching around the room, she and Victor found the freelancers’ clothes and confiscated belongings and placed them on the beds.

Elena pulled out a wad of cash and placed it next to Bandit.

“What’s that for?” Victor asked.

“He needs to get his foot sewn up.”

“Keep the cash. It’s not enough.” Victor transferred ten thousand AUD to Bandit’s paystick with a note: “For your troubles. Let’s hope this is the last time we meet.” He did the same for Lucky.

“Now for Tosh.” Victor started the Handy 1000’s sonorecorder. “Tosh, no hard feelings, I hope. When the data egg opens, I’m willing to make a trade. Information for Jeff’s tongue. That seems fair to me.”

He sent the message to Tosh’s feed queue.

“What about her?” Elena nodded to Karine.

“Now I make a devil’s bargain. Any more wake-up juice in Tosh’s bag?” Victor asked.

Victor paced along a paved riverside promenade, aware that he was dreaming and expecting to wake at any moment. Usually his dreams could not continue for long once he became aware of them
—
especially without a bitter grass supplement
—
but somehow this dream went on.

A fog rose, encasing him in a cool, gray void. The suspicion that he had forgotten a vital clue to his grandfather’s murder crept over him. He needed to act, but he couldn’t remember what he was supposed to do.

Waves lapped nearby, invisible in the mist, lulling him into a trance. This was a peaceful place. Victor sank to his knees, sitting on his heels, content. He pressed his hands on the promenade’s smooth, cool stones, and a little joy sparked in his chest.

Wind played in his hair, and the mist receded, its tatters blown into thin filaments. The sky cleared. The waterfront was bright as day, though the sun still hid behind a rocky hill covered in elm trees.

On the other side of the water, marshes and low hills extended to the horizon, and an earthen levee upstream walled off his view. The locale seemed familiar but altered. He couldn’t place it at first, but then he knew.
This is New Venice.
In the distance, he spotted the town’s tightly clustered buildings, aligned to the stone-lined canals.

A figure scrambled onto a boulder at the promenade’s edge. Shadows cloaked its form, light draining from its surroundings.

The figure bounded toward him like an enraged bear, moving impossibly fast and flickering.

Closer now, the figure resolved into a naked man-monster with bloodshot eyes. He leapt on top of Victor, pressing him against the promenade. Jagged teeth descended and pierced Victor’s neck, tearing flesh and tendons. The creature’s fists slammed down, caving Victor’s chest. He opened his mouth to scream, but his lungs no longer worked
—
they oozed through the beast’s upheld fingers.

The monster-man’s fists smashed down again, crushing Victor’s nose and blinding him. Wet warmth flowed across his face. A final slam shattered his skull, the pieces rammed into his brain, and he died, his spirit propelled out of the world into the void.

Victor jerked awake. His heart thumped in his chest, yet his limbs were cold and almost numb. The world was bathed in violet predawn light.

He must have fallen asleep in his car outside the kennel.

Negotiations with Karine had taken a few hours. Eventually, she’d agreed to his terms. She ordered the Corps guarding the kennel to allow him inside. She provided him with classified research on MRS, which he’d been reading when he fell asleep. And she’d agreed to intercede on his behalf with the Health Board and try to keep him a Class Three. In exchange, he’d untied her and agreed to her demands: to give up his “fantasy” that Jefferson Eastmore had been murdered and to tell her who was supplying him with tech. He planned to double-cross her, of course. For now, though, his path was fixed. Nothing save a meteor strike could keep him from searching the kennel.

A tap on the window made Victor jump. Hector rapped on the glass again.

Victor opened the car door, swung his legs around, and hoisted himself out.

Hector held out a steaming mug. Victor accepted it silently, trying not to shake. His neck ached where the dream monster had torn into it.

Hector took another cup from its temporary perch on the car’s roof. They stood a few steps apart, taking tentative sips. Faux-café, and not a very convincing brand. A few Corps stood guard in front of the kennel.

“I could have convinced Mamá to let you sleep at our house,” Hector said.

“I was fine,” he said. The words sounded hoarse in his mouth.

Hector took another sip. “I won’t have time to show you around today.”

“That’s okay. I just need to speak with the logistics manager. If you introduce me
—
”

“We don’t have one of those.”

Victor’s gaze followed Hector’s as it shifted to the stubby bushes fronting the kennel. They looked dead, but then, so did most of the vegetation Texans had imported to the semi-arid desert. In parts of SeCa, people adapted to the changing climate with succulents and other drought-resistant plants. Here they tried and failed to nurture the iconic garden varieties of the East.

Victor waved his cup toward Hector to get his attention. “Someone in charge of the records then.”

Hector rubbed his nose and sniffled. “Maybe Leroy, our sort-of accountant. Usually he’s the one who unloads the trucks and oversees the warehouse. But what are you looking for?”

Victor said, “It’s something my grandfather asked me to take care of a while ago.” He felt Hector’s scrutiny as a tingling on his face. He had to get more fumewort. It had been about eighteen hours since his last dose. Hopefully, Pearl could send some soon.

“Do you know why he came here in September?”

Hector flinched and took another sip from his chipped cup.

“What’s wrong?” Victor asked.

“Nothing. Hot coffee,” Hector said, but it was a lie, an obvious one. His look askance, quavering voice, and a false boldness in his stature gave him away. “I didn’t work that day.”

“Please, Hector, it’s important to me.”

Hector looked at him for a long moment. Then he shrugged. “Better get going.”

As they walked to the entrance, Hector summarized the layout of the kennel complex for Victor: cotton fields on one side and a golf course on the other. An administrative building welcomed new arrivals. Nearby, another large building housed the animals. A service road led beyond an automated gate around the back of the complex to a set of smaller buildings, where supplies were stored and the on-staff veterinarian worked.

“Is the vet here today?” Victor asked.

“No, she isn’t.”