Extinction Game (30 page)

Wallace swayed a little, but I felt confident he would stay upright so long as we remained on either side of him. We led him out through the front entrance and down the steps, Casey following
after us the whole way and wincing with each step he took. Regardless, he appeared determined to accompany us the whole way.

Wallace belched mightily, and I struggled not to gag at the awful vapours emerging from the depths of his gullet.

‘Leave me alone,’ he slurred.

‘C’mon, big boy,’ said Rozalia, her voice strained from her exertion. ‘We’re going for a walk.’

In all, it took us nearly half an hour to guide Wallace back to his own place. Casey seemed to decide it was his job to take the lead, as if we actually needed him to guide us
there. Soon he was barking orders, telling us which way to turn, and I started to realize why Nadia had had such a low opinion of him.

The interior of Wallace Deans’ home resembled nothing so much as a dumping ground for domestic waste. The mess was, frankly, unbelievable.

‘How the
hell
does anyone live like this?’ I muttered through clenched teeth, once we had manoeuvred Wallace in through his front door. Even the air inside his home made the
roof of my mouth itch. The furniture was nearly invisible beneath mounds of discarded clothing and pieces of dirt-stained machinery that sat on random oases of blackened carpet. I glanced through a
doorway and saw that every kitchen surface was almost entirely hidden beneath half-gutted computers and other, less familiar pieces of junked technology.

I looked up, seeing a bundle of cables duct-taped to the ceiling. I followed it with my eyes, seeing that it terminated at a cramped table in one corner that supported at least four flat-screen
monitors, arranged in haphazard fashion.

There was a constant faint but nonetheless discernible hum of electronics. I noticed that more cables ran across the floor, appearing to originate from several portable battery generators.

I looked at Rozalia, but she just shook her head, her mouth puckered up as if she’d eaten something bad.

By now, Wallace had recovered enough that he could just about put one foot in front of the other without immediately tipping over. We kept a tight grip on him anyway, and under Casey’s
droning guidance we guided him up a set of narrow steps and into his bedroom, where we found a mattress covered over with crumpled, greasy-looking sheets.

Wallace managed to get one knee up onto the mattress before tipping face-first onto it. After a moment he started to make a noise that sounded like an aeroplane’s engine cutting out in the
moments before it ploughs into the ground. The noise soon steadied, becoming more obviously the sound of a man snoring more loudly than I might otherwise have believed possible.

I looked over at Rozalia on the other side of the bed, and at Casey, who stood near the door. ‘That’s it,’ I said, moving past Casey and towards the door. I had a sudden,
desperate need for a shower. ‘I’ve had more than enough for one night.’

‘Not yet,’ said Rozalia. ‘Help me get him on his side. Last thing we need is him drowning in his own vomit.’

I suppressed a groan, and went back over, helping tip Wallace onto one side while Casey watched with an anxious expression whose meaning I couldn’t begin to fathom. I noticed that Wallace
had taped large sheets of black paper over the windows, and remembered it was much the same downstairs.

‘What the hell is it with this place?’ I gasped, stepping back from Wallace once more. ‘How the hell can
anyone
live like this?’

‘Thanks for all your help,’ said Casey, with clear insincerity. ‘I’ll keep an eye on him now.’

‘What is your fucking problem, exactly?’ Rozalia snapped at him. From the look on her face, she’d clearly had enough.

Wallace stopped snoring. ‘Imphhrrrerr,’ he said.

‘What did he say?’ I asked.

‘If we’re lucky,’ said Rozalia, ‘that was a death rattle.’

Wallace’s hand beat at the surface of the bed. ‘
Imphrurur
,’ he said, with greater urgency.

‘He wants his inhaler,’ said Casey, somewhat testily.

‘Oh.’ Rozalia nodded in comprehension. ‘Of course.’

Living in a shithole like this, I thought, it was hardly surprising he had trouble breathing. I looked over at Casey. ‘Any idea where it is?’

He stared back at me in apparent outrage. ‘How the fuck would
I
know?’

I gave up on asking him anything more, and looked around until I saw a set of drawers by the side of the bed, half-buried beneath a mound of unwashed clothing. I opened them one by one until I
found a shrink-wrapped inhaler. I reached in to get it, then noticed something gleaming dully at the back of the drawer. One half, I saw, of an I Ching coin.

I stared at it, frozen, one knee on the floor, my hand still on the drawer’s handle.

It wasn’t possible.

‘Jerry?’

I glanced back at Rozalia and Casey, and felt a terrible tremor run through my muscles.

I looked again. The coin was still there. I wasn’t imagining it.

I reached in and took hold of it. The scuffed and tarnished metal felt cool and hard against the palm of my hand. My head swam as I pushed the drawer shut. I had the inhaler in one hand, the
coin in the other. I studied the latter in the sparse moonlight that somehow found its way past the sheets of card covering the windows.

It was identical in every respect to the half-coin I had worn around my neck for years in memory of my dead wife, and which I had lost in the river when Nadia died. How, then, could it possibly
be here, in a drawer in Wallace Deans’ home?

Assuming, I realized, that it was mine, and not the other Jerry’s.

I pushed myself back upright, my legs feeling as if they were about to fold under me. I turned to look at Rozalia, and from her expression guessed my shock must be evident.

‘What is it?’ she asked, her voice full of worry.

I stood there, the half-coin in my open palm. I saw her eyes dip down to see it nestled there.

‘I found his inhaler,’ I said numbly.

I looked back down at Wallace and saw he had woken up again. I watched as his eyes moved from the set of drawers to my hand, working it out. He looked suddenly a great deal more sober than just
a moment before.

I lowered my hand until he could clearly see the half-coin. ‘Wallace,’ I asked, forcing myself to remain calm, ‘can you tell me where you got this?’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and leaned to one side before noisily throwing up on the floor close to my feet. I stepped back quickly, just avoiding the flow of liquid as it hit.

‘
Fuck
,’ shouted Rozalia, her face twisted up in disgust.

Casey’s eyes were on the broken I Ching coin in my hand. His gaze moved up to meet mine, and he gave me a look I couldn’t decipher.

‘I’ll get some tissues,’ he said, his tone flat and emotionless, and stepped out of the room.

‘Jerry,’ said Rozalia, once Casey was gone, ‘will you
please
tell me what’s going on?’

Wallace made a moaning sound. I was just about to tell her when Casey returned, clutching an enormous wad of paper towels and carrying a bucket. He pushed past me, kneeling down carefully before
making an attempt at cleaning the mess up.

I stared again at the half-coin grasped in my hand and tried to think how it could possibly have come into Wallace’s possession. There had to be some rational explanation: something that
would make perfect sense and chase away all the paranoid fantasies yelling for attention in the back of my head.

Maybe. But somehow I doubted it.

Casey stood back up. ‘Maybe you should go now,’ he said, his tone wooden. ‘Thanks for your help and everything, but I think I’d better stick around and keep an eye on
him.’

I glanced down at Wallace, who had drifted off into a more peaceful sleep, snoring more quietly this time.

‘Does he still need his inhaler?’ I asked, handing the shrink-wrapped device over to Casey.

‘Mostly he just needs to dry out,’ the other man replied. He nodded curtly to me. ‘Thanks.’

There were so very many questions I wanted to ask Wallace, but I knew they would have to wait. Some instinct told me not to say anything while Casey was around.

Rozalia gave me one last, long questioning look before she followed me back outside.

We walked for maybe half a block before Rozalia stepped in front of me, a determined look on her face. ‘Spill,’ she said. ‘What the
hell
just
happened back there?’

I held the coin up so she could see it more clearly. Its Chinese characters glistened softly under the moonlight.

‘Do you know what that is?’ I asked. ‘Did the other Jerry ever tell you the story about it?’

She opened her mouth and closed it. ‘He always wore it around his neck.’ She paused. ‘I’ve seen you wearing it too, but I don’t recall seeing it
recently.’

I nodded. ‘I lost this when I was in the river with Nadia. It was
gone
, Rozalia.’

‘So how the hell did it get into Wallace Deans’ . . . ?’ Her eyes grew round and wide, and she stared at the coin as if seeing it for the first time. ‘Oh.’

By some unconscious agreement, we followed the scent of brine and seaweed towards the harbour, a short walk from Wallace’s home. ‘All I know concerning my predecessor’s death
is that it was some kind of stupid accident,’ I said. ‘Except later, of course, Nadia started wondering if maybe it wasn’t some stupid accident after all, but deliberate. There
must have been at least some kind of investigation into what happened to the other Jerry when he died, right?’

She nodded. ‘There was a short inquiry, yes.’

‘So what do you know about the circumstances of his death? Was he alone, or was there anyone else with him at the time?’

‘The way I heard it,’ said Rozalia, ‘he’d headed off to explore some ruins on an alternate, and climbed up high inside the remains of some building. He lost his footing
and fell.’

‘But there’s always at least a two-man team, isn’t there? So who was the other guy?’

‘Haden,’ she said. She nodded as if remembering something. ‘He was first on the scene. But by the time he got there, well . . . your other self was already dead.’

‘Could Haden have . . . ?’

She shook her head. ‘I know what you’re thinking, but no. They had a couple of wheeled drones with them at the time, and Haden was visible in the camera of one of them when your
predecessor died. He was nowhere near Jerry and didn’t manage to get to him for some minutes. By the time he did, it was too late.’

‘Wallace Deans is supposed to be some kind of computer wizard,’ I said. ‘Given what I just found in his house, isn’t it at least possible he had something to do with
it?’

She nodded. ‘It’s possible, in theory at least. As a matter of fact, I was on that expedition along with Wallace as well – but we were both back at the staging area, maybe a
hundred kilometres from where your predecessor was when he had his fatal fall. I’d say that puts Wallace in the clear.’ She frowned. ‘Or at least, I think it does.’

‘Nadia told me once that Wallace has a reputation for sticky fingers.’

Rozalia chuckled. ‘Yeah. The man’s a full-blooded kleptomaniac, which gives credence to the idea he maybe stole it from your predecessor.’

‘Except it still doesn’t explain how the hell the damn thing wound up in his bedroom drawer, if he was a hundred kilometres away. Could Wallace have stolen the coin from the other
Jerry’s body after they brought it back?’

Rozalia glanced back towards Wallace’s place. ‘I guess it’s possible. But if you want to be sure one way or the other, your only real course of action is just to go back there
and ask him while you have the chance.’

‘No.’ I shook my head.

‘Why not?’

I glanced at her.

‘Because of Casey?’ she asked.

‘He started acting weird from the moment he walked into the bar. Didn’t you notice how he was trying to get rid of us the whole time?’

‘Under any other circumstances, I’d have said that was just Casey being an asshole. He’s antediluvian enough to think looking weak in front of a woman is about the worst thing
that could happen to him. He’s always strutting around with that damn gun strapped to his leg like he’s the fucking Lone Ranger.’

I’m sorry
, Wallace had said. He might just have been apologizing for nearly throwing up on my shoes, but I felt sure it was because of the coin he’d seen in my hand.
Sorry for what?

I came to a decision. ‘I’m going to tell you something,’ I said to Rozalia.

She listened while I detailed everything I had learned about my predecessor’s final diary entries, and why I was beginning to suspect they had been deliberately fabricated.

‘I’ll have to be honest,’ Rozalia said drily once I’d finished, ‘Chloe’s not the kind of girl who’d ever put up with that kind of shit. Anyone who did
try something like that, I guarantee they’d find themselves relieved of their balls in a second flat.’

‘There has to be some reason,’ I said, ‘for him to have fabricated those entries.’ I pounded one fist into the other. ‘It’s a message of some kind, and it has
to do with those statues, I’m
sure
of it.’

‘Well?’ asked Rozalia, leaning against the sea wall by the harbour and studying me, ‘what’s stopping you?’

‘I tried to get Chloe to go and take a look at them with me, but she was insistent about getting some rest. She’s just back from a mission and, to be fair, she was asleep on her
feet.’

Rozalia shook her head. ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ she said, ‘but why’s it so important to have her along?’

‘My predecessor didn’t write those entries and draw those pictures for my benefit. He did them for Chloe’s, and he must have believed she could work something out from clues he
left. Unless she comes with me, I can’t be sure I can work out whatever it is he intended.’

‘Well,’ said Rozalia, looking around the deserted harbour. ‘The night’s still young. I knew him, though certainly not as well as Chloe. How about I go out there with you
and we can take a look ourselves first? And if we don’t find anything, we head out again in the morning with Chloe.’