Counting Heads (54 page)

Actually, Myr Londenstane, your time off is germane to the bylaw in question. Tell me, do you know the brotherhood’s policy on taking free-lance assignments?

Of course. We’re against it
.

Correct
.

The slug started creeping again. It made a looping U-turn and followed its own track back toward Fred.

Ordinarily
, continued the mentar,
I don’t intrude on member’s personal affairs, but given our recent discussions, I have the obligation to ask you, are you currently or recently engaged in free-lance security work for
—

Fred stepped backward into the gate. The slug paused, but the mentar kept talking—
for a Myr al-Hafir?

Fred inched even closer to the gate until his skin felt like it was on fire and Marcus’s transmission broke up. A narrow slot opened in the gate next to him, and he ducked into the gatehouse. The guard, Klem, was waiting for him. “Concierge has arranged a private tour, Myr Planc,” he said. “It’s sending someone down from North Gate. Go through and wait in In-Block.” He gestured to the pedestrian scanway.

Fred entered the scanway and surrendered the various prints, specimens, and samples it requested. When it was time to spit, he chomped on the spitball he had tucked in his cheek and broke it, releasing a sour wad of artificial saliva that was coded to Myr Planc and which he squirted into the collection bowl. Then he stood on the red X, his arms outstretched, facing the battery of emitters, and soaked up waves of radiation, ultrasound, and tomographic lasers. The TUG identikit seemed to be holding up under the scrutiny of the multipronged biometric inspection, and as he stood there, trying to keep the faith, trying to still his racing heart, it occurred to him that scanway technology and the countermeasures designed to defeat it, including blackmarket identikits, had been rendered obsolete by the HomCom’s new nitwork. The nitwork was a much more efficient and elegant system. Whole colonies of the little beggars took up permanent residence in burrows under the skin where they tapped the host body’s bloodstream and PNS. They sampled you continuously, knew who you were, where you were, what you ate for lunch, who you ate it with, how often you engaged in sex, drugs, basketball, or whatever, and with whom, and all in real time. And most people weren’t even aware of their presence. Until you have to purge them, like the russes in the null lock. The new nitwork was a boon to law enforcement that would make his job much easier. His former job, that is. At the moment he was standing in a scanner with his arms held out in the modern sign of the crucifixion. Good thing for him he was in Decatur with its obsolete slugs, and not in Chicago.

The lights came up, and the usher line pointed Fred to the scanner exit. He left the scanner and was confronted by another guard, another jerry, who was studying the scanway control panel, one hand scratching his chin and the other resting on the handle of his baton.

“What?” Fred said.

“Nothing,” the jerry replied. “Just stand down a sec, Myr Planc. The nitwork can’t get a fix on you.”

Fred experienced a spasm of fear and surprise. “You have the nitwork here too?”

“Not yet,” said the guard, “but the readers are already being installed, and we’re training to use them.”

Fred felt enormous relief—a jerry’s learning curve was rather steep. “Oh, is that all?” he said. “You want to know why, if I’m from Gary, I don’t have any nits yet, right?”

The jerry gave him a sour look and pointed at the
WAIT HERE
box. Fred went to stand on the “
A
” in “
WAIT
” and glanced around. He was in Mid-Block, as he had figured. The vehicle S-path was blocked with more pressure barriers, and even the scanway exit behind him was shut. Fred’s face itched deep under the skin, not from nits but from the keratochitin scabs on his cheekbones and chin.

“Got it,” the jerry said, pleased with himself. “Your cells are swimming in HALVENE, so the nits don’t like you yet. You’ve been dry-cleaned lately, haven’t you?”

“Bingo.”

“It was easy,” the jerry continued. “We got another russie from Chicago with the same problem.” He opened a barrier, and an usher line appeared at Fred’s feet. “You’ll have to wait in In-Block for your escort, Myr Planc. Have a nice day.”

Fred followed the usher line to the inner block with mounting dread. Another dry-cleaned russ on the premises? Fred stopped dead when he saw him. Reilly Dell stood at the far end of the inner pressure gate, which dazzled in the noontime sun. A john in clinic livery approached the shimmering gate from the plaza side, and Reilly opened a slot for him to pass. Reilly and the john chatted for a while, and when Reilly turned to glance at Fred, his russ jaw dropped.

“Fred?”

MEDTECH COBURN LIFTED a floor tile to reveal a collapsible hose. He stretched the hose and coupled it to a spigot at the base of the hernandez tank. With a wrench he opened the tap, and the amber-colored syrup began to drain through the hose.

At the controller, Hattie disengaged the waldo armature that was plucking Ellen’s skull, and all its prehensile fingers went limp.

“Don’t do that!” Coburn yelled and went to the controller, but Hattie blocked his way. “Move aside,” he said and tried to shove past her.

“You don’t want to be touching me, myr,” the jenny said evenly.

“You heard Concierge,” Coburn protested. “It wants this done like
now
.”

“I did hear it, but apparently I don’t work here anymore.”

The level of amniotic syrup was inching down the side of the tank. Mary went to the front of the tank and turned the wrench, closing the tap.

“Are you crazy?” Coburn yelled at her and grabbed for the wrench, but Mary tossed it to Cyndee. The other evangelines, as though awakening from a dream, joined in to help. Cyndee threw the wrench out the back window. Meanwhile, Renata and Alex uncoupled the hose from the tank and floor drain and flung it out of the same window.

Hattie, ignoring the medtech, put the controller through its paces, retrieving and comparing streams of brain state reports. “Something’s wrong,” she said. “I just know it. Mary, I need your help in the tank. Find a foil glove in Coburn’s medkit.”

Coburn loomed protectively over his open kit.

“Coburn, sweetheart,” Hattie said from the controller, “you’re slowing me down. I suggest you do the math.”

“What math?” said the young man.

“How many jennys are there in the world?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“About ten million, give or take, and we staff every clinic, hospital, spa, doctor’s office, and medical research center in the UD. This means that anywhere you’re liable to find employment, we’re there too. Now, tell me, my fair-faced boy, have you ever heard of the jenny bitch board?”

Apparently Coburn had, for the blood drained from his face.

“All I ask,” Hattie said, “is two lousy minutes.”

Without a word, Coburn stepped aside, and Mary found an elbow-length foil glove in his medkit. Hattie said, “Reach into the tank, Mary, and when I tell you to, squeeze our little mouse.”

Mary used the recessed tank steps to reach the top. She leaned over the rim and snaked her arm between the metal limbs of the armature. “Don’t nobody turn this thing on,” she said. The fumes of the amnio syrup were strong, and she breathed through her mouth, but it still made her dizzy.

Coburn stood next to Hattie at the controller, his arms crossed. “I think you’re all crazy.”

“You’re distracting me.”

Through Mary’s thin metal glove, the syrup felt warm and thick, and the skull was slick to the touch. Mary reached into the gauzy sling under it and found the fetus. “Oh!” she said in surprise. “I can feel its heartbeat.”

“That’s what we’re after, my girl,” Hattie said. She brought up a display of fetal vital signs. “All right, dear, give it a little squeeze.”

Mary was unsure. “How hard?”

“Just a gentle squeeze.”

Mary cupped her fingers around the pulsing lump and pressed it. “Like this?”

“Did you squeeze it?” Hattie said. “I couldn’t tell. Let go a second and do it again a little harder.”

Coburn said, “She’s not doing it right.”

“Yes, she is.”

“I’ll do it.” Coburn motioned Mary off the tank. “Raise the armature,” he told Hattie, and after donning a foil glove and climbing the steps, he plunged his arm into the tank. “Well?” he said.

Mary and the evangelines stood behind Hattie who pointed to the fetal heart bar that measured a rapid but normal pulse. “When you squeeze a heart,” she told them, “its pulse should spike in a purely reflexive response. It doesn’t involve higher brain functions. Even in a class three coma, it should react.”

“Well?” Coburn repeated.

“Nothing, darling. A steady one-eighteen.”

“That’s not possible,” he said, withdrawing his arm and peeling off the glove. “These controller units have triple confidence. They
cannot
be twigged. I
am not
believing this.”

“What’s wrong?” Mary said.

“False readings,” said Hattie. “The controller has been tampered with. We probably never had true readings. Someone didn’t want our patient to recover at all.”

The evangelines shared a collective shudder. They looked at each other with dismay. Mary turned to Hattie and said, “How can we help?”

Hattie began to say something but shut her mouth again.

“I believe you’ve helped enough,” Concierge said from behind Mary. The mentar’s doctorish persona stood inside the open door. “Coburn, you disappoint me,” it went on. “And the rest of you should have left when you had the opportunity.” As the mentar spoke, the armature lowered into the tank again, and the waldoes resumed plucking leads and tubes from the skull. The tank spigot opened, and with no hose attached to it, the amnio syrup gushed out onto the floor of the lower room.

“Everyone,” Concierge said in a commanding tone, “go outside for your own safety. Wait in the garden. The amnio fumes in here will make the air unbreathable. That means you too, Coburn.” The mentar stood with a hand on the open door, but no one moved, except Coburn who dashed to the tank to gather his medkit.

“Fine,” Concierge said. “Stay. It’ll make it easier to collect you. Good-bye.”

“Wait for me,” Coburn said and rushed after the mentar through the door.

ON THE WAY from the Decatur station to the Roosevelt Clinic, the two children escorting the lifechair attracted the interest of more than one curious media bee. “I demand my privacy!” Kitty yelled at them, and the mechs quickly vacated her personal zone.

“Don’t,” Bogdan said. “We need witnesses.”

Kitty appraised the boy and didn’t reply.

“Belt Hubert,” Bogdan said to the chair, “when was the last time you tried to speak to Hubert?”

“Not since my connection was severed at 02:21 Tuesday.”

“Well, try now. Call the HomCom and demand to talk to him.”

“Done. They have no knowledge of him.”

“I see. Well, put this on your To-Do list. Call them every five minutes and demand to talk to him. Also, find some kind of lawyer domainware and incorporate it into yourself.”

Kitty said, “What are you doing?”

“Belt Hubert may not be much, but he’s something, and we need everything we got.”

A block away from the clinic, Bogdan stopped the chair and looked up at the half-dozen bees that were pacing them overhead. He motioned them to come down. One of them descended and opened a frame. A head identified its media affiliation and said, “Is this the Chicago Skytel Hacker Samson Harger Kodiak?”

“Yes, the one and only,” Bogdan said, “and we are his housemeets.”

“It looks like you’re heading for the Roosevelt Clinic. Are you, and if so, why?”

Kitty shoved her way in front of Bogdan and said in her best retrogirl manner, “Because they’re holding Ellen Starke there against her will. You heard me—
Ellen Starke
—and Samson is her
father
, and he’s going to
rescue
her.”

Immediately, the rest of the bees were on top of them, more heads peppering them with questions.

Bogdan had to yell to be heard, “And another thing, the HomCom has disappeared Samson’s mentar, Hubert. The same way they disappeared Samson last century and wouldn’t let him go till they seared him. Samson Paul Harger Kodiak is the last and first stinker. We demand his daughter and his mentar be released immediately!” Then he and Kitty climbed on the chair and sped down the last street. By the time they’d reached the iron arch, hundreds of more bees—media, witness, private, novella, and homcom—had joined them. The children and chair rolled through the arch and led the swarm down the red brick drive to the shimmering gate.

THE AMNIO SYRUP level in the tank fell below the crown of the skull. The thick syrup spewed from the open valve at the bottom of the tank, across the floor, and into the lower room, soaking rugs and furniture.

Hattie and the evangelines were standing next to open windows for air. Hattie drew a couple of deep breaths, then went to the hernandez tank and tried unsuccessfully to close the valve with her bare hands. She came away with pant legs and shoes saturated with the strong brew.

“I think this stuff is fully charged,” she said, kicking a spray of syrup as she returned to the window. “Even without a tank or controller, it ought to support brain tissue for an hour or so, I think. Our problem is that even if we had a medevac standing by, anywhere we took her we’d just have to face Concierge at another location.”

“What about a Longyear clinic?” Cyndee said.

“Fagan Health Group owns them,” Hattie replied.

“An emergency room?”

“Fagan Health Group.”

“What about a large animal veterinarian?” Renata said.

“Like one who does thoroughbred horses,” Alex added.

“Fagan’s got those too.”

“What about,” Mary said, “the Machete Death Grudge? I saw them in Millennium Park last night. They have severe trauma tanks.”

Hattie went to a shelf and upended a glass vase, adding its tulips and water to the mess on the floor. “Sounds like a plan to me,” she said and filled the vase with syrup from the open spigot.