Cog (16 page)

She reached the top of the street two blocks over and slid under the cars. Clacking behind her.
Shit! Don’t they give up
? She tapped up the car’s engine and it started.

She screwed open the door underneath and climbed in the car. It lit up as the field absorbed a shot from the rear, twisted lines arcing across the windshield. She took off.

b

“SRS stood for Speech Recognition System, not Surveillance Reconnaissance. I almost got my ass fried back there, Eyon. I need more memory.”

“Oh, all right. Come in and I’ll add it. Have you damaged the body?”

“It’s not a body, it’s me! Stop talking to me like I’m a test subject.”

“Just bring your burnt ass in, bitch,” Eyon said.

“Excuse me?”

“I added an aggressiveness program. The new me. You like?”

Everybody wanted to be a bad-ass.

“I’ll be in soon, so get whatever you need ready.” She winked out.

The map glowed dully against the windshield. She hadn’t even remembered how to get to Northeast. Vaguely familiar area, but she figured she should know it like the back of her hand. All of D.C., in fact, if she operated here.

The car eased into the neighborhood and found Wake Island Road. A rundown neighborhood with boarded-up houses and a large construction sign promising luxury townhouses—for the newly rich. Only those with old bank could afford single-family houses in the District.

So he was hiding out in a ramshackle house on the seedy side of town. The inside was probably fixed up, though.
Wet bar with Moribel cognac.

There were no cars parked along the street, so she made her way over three blocks, where there were at least five rowhouses with livable conditions. Barely livable. No back yards with alarms to worry about here. She walked over to the top of Wake Island and memorized the number of houses down from the top of the street his was. Found a manhole and climbed in. She waded down the sewer until she reached the wastewater drain pipe leading to his house. After the fiasco at Perim’s house, she decided not to take chances with an alarm and sent in a Buhg—spider-shaped, armed with a camera, heat sensor, and enough energy for one plasma and one heat-ray shot.

She lifted the thing to the mouth of the drain and switched it on. Its legs telescoped out, and the body rose up and turned. The camera would turn on when it reached the bottom of the nearest toilet. Hopefully it wouldn’t be in use.

After several minutes, her view filled with the image of a bathroom wall. Wills did most of his thinking on the toilet. Funny she remembered that.

The Buhg crawled down to the floor and headed for the door. It was closed, but the Buhg flattened out and slid under, then continued on its way. The heat sensors showed black. Nothing alive nearby. The house had been dark when she saw it topside.

Buhg-walking through a house always proved tedious, and tiredness tugged at her consciousness. A nice, fluffy bed would look good right about now. She pinched up a jolt of adrenaline.

If Wills was home, she bet he’d be in the basement to avoid turning on lights that could be visible from the outside. A scan revealed no alarm system, but she didn’t trust anything that involved Wills. Any alarm controls were probably in the basement, as well. Was the basement finished? She’d bet no. That meant the Buhg went to the first-floor bathroom. It would have to climb down the steps to reach the basement.

Blueprints
. Why didn’t she think of that earlier? She queried the central database and they popped up to the right. The bathroom was by the front door, the steps leading downstairs were toward the rear of the house. Wills didn’t like pets, so she didn’t have to worry over a dog barking at the thing.

The Buhg scuttered across cracked concrete, past old soda cups and fast-food wrappers. It reached the top of the stairs and extended spines along the tips of its legs that allowed it to stick to the underside of each step. Night vision showed only step after step, no lights below. She commanded it to keep descending. It trekked down thirteen stairs until it reached the bottom. Heat sensor picked up a figure three meters away, microphone picked up soft snoring.

That you, Wills
? Sensors still detected no alarm system. Perhaps he slept with a lason under his pillow. He’d always been cocky. He was a fair fighter, but no expert in hand-to-hand combat or weaponry. Still, if there was no system, it was all-clear for physical entry. She left the Buhg where it was and climbed out of the sewer. Scurried around the back of the house. Testing her luck, she tried the handle. Locked.
Figures
. She inserted a tension wrench and turned it to the right. The pick came next. Listened for the clicking. Felt for the moving pins. Et voilà. She turned the handle and the door opened. She crept inside, tapped up night vision. The kitchen had no sink or appliances. Just a half-torn island with a cracked countertop.

The steps lay to the left, just beyond the threshold to the kitchen. She pulled a lason and held it up, next to her temple. If her weight creaked the floor, that might be the only alarm he would need. She edged her way around and down the top step. The view from the Buhg still showed a sleeping figure. She couldn’t believe her luck.

The steps didn’t creak in protest at her weight. She stuck close to the wall.

Crack!

The step broke underneath her and she fell through. Metal spokes stuck out, scraping against her metallic rubber suit. If she hadn’t been wearing it, her skin would have shredded. Footsteps pounded below. Plasma seared the air above her head. He’d employed a low-tech security measure. And she had fallen for it.

Fortunately, the Buhg had remained in its spot, and she ordered it to shoot a disbursal heat ray. A man screamed and dropped his weapon. She pulled herself from the broken step and trained her gun on the figure at the bottom of the steps.

“Don’t move,” she said. Putting all her weight on the handrail, she slid down the rest of the way. The figure lay on its back, looking up at her. She holstered the gun he had dropped.

“Who the hell are you?” A man’s voice.
His
voice.
At long last
.

“I would say your worst nightmare, but that would be cliché. Let’s just say a resurrected friend. Now, get up and turn on the light. Slowly. Or my little friend over there will incinerate your lower half.”

He took the time to glare at her before following her orders. The light revealed a plushly laid basement, complete with a fresh-water fish tank. A couch and two chairs faced each other over oak flooring.

“On the couch,” she said. He sat, stonily silent, neck muscles tense. She peeled off her head covering and shook out the long braid. No flash of recognition passed over his face.

“Friend? I don’t know you,” he said.

“But you do. Let me help you. We exchanged R&D node peeks. Only you decrypted mine and stole information from HI that you weren’t supposed to have. Ring any bells?”

“Thia,” he whispered.

“Congratulations. You get the cigar.”

“What happened to you? Where’s your—other body?”

He was no doubt angling for an escape, even as he spoke, Thia thought. Always calculating.

“Your sister killed me and cut off my hand, so the boys down at HQ fixed me up with a new body. Amazing, eh? Bet your trials aren’t this far along. Takes some getting used to, though. Memory’s not what it used to be. But I remembered enough, don’t you think?”

“I see. So Nicholle killed you? How?”

“That’s something I don’t care to talk about. But enough about me. You and Perim seem to have a cozy relationship. Care to share?”

His hands curled into fists. “No.”

A blast shot past his ear and seared a hole in the wall behind him. The smell of burning paint and paper.

“That wasn’t a request.”

His face tensed, throttled-back anger. But he had no choice.

“I’m using Perim.”

“I figured out that much. Details, Wills. Where the devil is.”

“I patched a ghost through his brain wave pattern, made myself invisible so I could work behind the scenes. But I needed to know what was going on at American Hologram. I still have an interest in the company that needs to be handled.”

“And I know you didn’t trust Perim to handle it. Compulsive control issues. They’re not just for stalkers and wife-beaters anymore. Does Perim do exactly whatever you tell him to?” Thia said.

“In a way.”

“How vague. What a good political scandal witness you’d make. Try something more substantial.”

“Well, he’s like you, actually. My pattern overlaid on his. He thinks like me. I let him keep his memories, though. Didn’t want to raise too many suspicions.”

Beyond belief. His boundless capacity for greed and self-preservation astounded her. “You took some poor unsuspecting guy and turned him into your twin? You mean lurking under that personality might actually be someone nice?”

Wills shrugged. “I doubt it.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s my brother.”

He took advantage of her shock, leaned to her left and snatched something between the cushion. Threw it at her. A flash-bang. Blazing light exploded, crowding out her vision. She shot blindly, wild, to prevent him from killing her.

When she recovered, he was gone.

Chapter 15

Chris and a woman Nicholle hadn’t seen before sat at a table near the window of the food court in Tuma’s Town Center, crouching over the vestiges of sausage and biscuits. Chris waved Nicholle over. They had decided the night before to get a good night’s sleep before cracking Wills’ node.

“Nicholle, this is Xelo, arrived last night. She was one of Lydo’s programmers, the one Tuma was talking about,” Chris said.

Xelo had short blonde hair and a square jawline. Nothing like the walking nightmares that had accosted her at Lydo’s.

“But you’re…” Nicholle began.

“Normal looking?” She chuckled. “I was one of the leads. We have to interface with the public so we’re not wired in like the lowers.”

The last pack of eggs and bacon sat under a harsh white light in the vending machine. Nicholle paid and opened the small door to retrieve her prize. Popped the tab and shook the contents. She inhaled the tantalizing scent, but her attention was drawn to a caffeine infuser glittering in the morning sun on the countertop, set for 300. She scurried over and cranked it up to 700. The caffeine tingled her nose. Her tiredness ebbed, giving way to renewed energy. A legal high.

She sidestepped empty chairs to get to Chris’s table, then tucked into her breakfast. “You guys map out a plan?”

Chris yawned, shaking his head. “Not yet. I’m running it past Cor, too, though. But we’ll start in earnest after breakfast.”

Nicholle hung her head. “How is Cor?”

“He only agreed to help cuz it’s Wills and it’ll give him cred on the versos.”

They sat in silence for several minutes, everyone either too tired, too overwhelmed, or too out of ideas to say anything. “Well, I’d better get back at it,” Xelo said. “I’ll see you guys later.”

Which left Nicholle and Chris alone at the table. Two pakzers came in and checked out the vending machine. They began lamenting the fact there were no more bacon and eggs.

Chris reached over and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. He pulled her to him and rested his head on hers. The crook of his neck cradled her face. She hooked her fingers in his shirt pocket.

“How are you holding up?” he said, voice just above a whisper.

“I don’t know. Sometimes I wonder when I’ll just crack and have to be carried away for extra programming.” She paused.“I almost got hooked again last night. Lydo disarmed my medinites and shot me with a pakz. And I have to admit, it felt great. It felt familiar, and I thought I needed that.”

She slid her head from its cradle. Their faces inches apart.

“But you know what? The bad memories flooded back, as well. Of being laid out somewhere you didn’t remember going to, of fighting over someone else’s last pakz that they promised to a friend, of shaking from an overdose, hoping your medinites got the excess out in time. Wondering where your next hit was coming from. It made me not want to be high. And I’d never felt that before.”

The two pakzers kept stealing glances at them, whispering between themselves. Chris squeezed her shoulder.

“Come on. Let’s go to the room.”

b

Chris locked the door, turning it dark grey.

“Shouldn’t you be helping Xelo? I don’t want to hog your time if you’re needed elsewhere,” Nicholle said.

“You wanted to talk, so talk. If you don’t, you’ll end up needing extra medinite programming to calm you down. And right now I don’t have time to cart your ass to an institute. So start talking.”

She jabbed his chest, grinning despite herself. “Reemoid.”

“And proud of it. So, come on. You didn’t want to be high?”

She sat down on the bed. Her legs dangled below. That morning, she had found some old sweats in her drawer and squeezed into them, having gained weight since she’d been sober.

“After I went through rehab, I got a cheat, a fix. I had paid a doctor at the clinic to give me a way to experience a high, suspend the substance-blockers. Just for a moment. Nothing big. But it made me want more. Several times over the past few months, I almost bought pakz, just so I could feel the high for a few seconds. It was hard. I even locked myself in my bathroom once. But then this whole thing happened and I was so worried over my father and the company that I scarcely thought about it. But at Lydo’s, all bets were off. It was full-blown addiction in a moment.”

She looked up from her feet to Chris’s face. He was kneeling in front of her. His eyebrows pangeaed in concern. “Do you know what that’s like?” she said.

He edged in between her legs, filling the space between her knees. He touched her cheek, caressed her skin with his thumb. Heat rose up her thighs, igniting at the apex.

His hand brushed back her hair and he gently pulled her toward him, cupping her nape with his palm.

“Yeah, I do,” he said. “I’d offer my help, but I don’t think you need it.” He closed the distance between them and pressed his lips to hers. Gentle, barely touching, a breath caught between them. Then a surge of breath, the kiss more insistent, an urgency that caught her up in its passion. She wrapped her arms around his neck and swung her legs around his waist, hooked her ankles. He slid her off the bed, fingers gripping her buttocks. He leaned back and hoisted her up, until her full weight was on him. His hand wended upward, to the crown of her head, each finger’s trail leaving a wake of seething heat.

A chime sounded. The door.

“Damn,” she said. Her breath came heavy and fast against his cheek. “I can’t win for losing.”

“Just ignore it. They’ll go away.”

He tilted his face up and kissed her again, the same fervor bespoken in his embrace. She fell deeper into his arms.

The door chimed again. “Chris? Nicholle? I have something to show you.” The voice belonged to Xelo.
Damn Tuma’s cheap magfields
.

Chris set her down on the bed, still nestled between her legs. His chest heaved, breaths ragged.

“She picked a hell of a time to find something,” he said. He stood up, pulling his shirt out. It hung down, covering the swelling in his pants. Nicholle stood and smoothed her pants and her hair, adjusted her top.

“I’ll get it,” she said. She tapped the wall panel. The dark grey of the magfield faded to clarity.

Xelo stepped in. “Sorry, man,” she said, sheepishly. “But I was bouncing around on Wills’ node and found the server he’s running off of, but it’s nothing like I’ve seen.”

“Right. I found that out just before…well, we were kidnapped. He’s on a DNA server. Can you access it?”

Xelo hunched her shoulders. “Could use some help.”

“I’ll try, too,” Nicholle said. She knew she couldn’t provide much assistance, if any at all, but she wanted to help.

Xelo transferred the node image to the room’s diodes and the image swam up in the midst of them. She and Chris spiraled in. Pink and red shards of light fell, interlocking, then faded to a bold font:
Cognition Two
.

Chris and Xelo went to work on the admin files while Nicholle poked around the perimeter. An area glowed green that read, “Clinical Trials Data.”

What are you up to, Wills?

She accessed the area without encountering any barriers. “That’s odd. It should have asked for a passwo—”

“You are the corporeal form,” said a voice.

Nicholle exchanged looks with Chris and Xelo, who returned a confused stare.

“What was that?” Chris said.

Nicholle shrugged. “Who is the corporeal form?” She didn’t really expect a reply.

“The entity known as Nicholle Ryder.”

A chill manifested itself, and a faint cry escaped her throat. She swallowed hard, afraid to ask what was on the tip of her tongue…but she steeled herself.

“Corporeal form of what?”

“Of Cognition Two.”