Fuzzy Nation (25 page)

Holloway had to turn away.

But he turned his face back in time to see what happened next: something flinging itself out of the trees and onto the man’s face, tearing and biting into him through the eyeholes and mouth hole of the mask. The man howled, soundlessly on the video but no doubt loudly in real life, trying to fling off whatever it was attacking him.

It was Pinto.

Holloway let out a small cheer in spite of himself. Pinto, the reckless fuzzy, hadn’t hesitated a single moment to defend Baby—its sibling? Its friend? Its mate?—and was now wreaking holy Hell on the man, taking vengeance on the human for its inhuman act.

The man flailed and hit at the fuzzy, but Pinto danced and held fast, constantly tearing at the man’s head and face. There wasn’t any doubt that the little fuzzy was making the man pay for his actions.

The man finally got a grip on Pinto and lifted the fuzzy off his face. Pinto scratched and bit at the man’s hands. The man raised his hands and with full force hurled the fuzzy to the floor. Holloway felt the fuzzy’s impact in his gut.

Pinto scrambled up from the ground and prepared to attack the man again.

The man pulled a handgun out of his waistband and shot the fuzzy.

The little creature spun around from the impact and was flung across the compound floor. Alarmed and running on whatever was the fuzzy equivalent of adrenaline, Pinto sprinted away, running past the cabin to the spikewood behind, the man shooting after the fuzzy. One of the bullets punched through the window; it was possible it further ricocheted inside the cabin, setting up the conditions for the fire. Holloway found he was utterly unconcerned about any of that now.

The man dropped his handgun and then clutched his face, dancing in pain. He stopped when he saw Baby lying there, unmoving from his earlier attack. He stormed up to the fuzzy, brought his boot down on it twice more, then grabbed the handgun off the ground and shot it. Then he yelled at it, silent and furious.

Holloway realized he knew exactly who this man was.

By this time smoke from the cabin was beginning to obscure the camera feed. Nevertheless, Holloway saw the man reach down, grab the body of Baby, and stomp over toward the cabin door, once again going partially out of frame. The man’s body jerked spasmodically, and Holloway had a couple seconds of confusion before he realized what was happening: The man was kicking in the dog door. It must have given way, because the man’s body moved in a different way. He was flinging Baby’s body through the door, to burn up in the fire.

That accomplished, the man moved away from the door, holding his face, heading toward his skimmer. He got halfway there before the fire suppression foam kicked on, blasting out of its canisters to coat the landing pad and whatever was on it, including the man and his skimmer. The man jumped away from the foam, tripping over himself as he did so and falling to the floor, coating himself with more foam. It would have been comical, had the man not just killed two people. Eventually the man made it to his skimmer and launched off, going out of frame nearly simultaneous to the charred remains of Holloway’s law school hat draping themselves over the camera, obscuring its view just before it was destroyed in the heat.

*   *   *

Holloway set down the infopanel and burst out of the skimmer, seeing nothing but Pinto’s body. He knelt down next to the body and reached out to the fuzzy’s hands, looking at their very ends, to the nails there, sharper and more conical than human nails, probably the better to catch insects and pry open fruit.

There was blood on them, and tiny shreds of skin.

“Yes,”
Holloway said, holding Pinto’s hand. “I’ve
got
you, you son of a bitch. I’ve got you and you don’t even know it.”

Holloway looked up at Papa, Mama, and Grandpa Fuzzy, who were looking at him strangely, or at least in a way that Holloway thought was strange.

“I know you can’t understand me,” Holloway said to the three fuzzys. “But I know who did this. I know who did it and I am going to punish him for it. You have my word on it. I am going to get this son of a bitch. I promise you that.”

And then Jack Holloway let go of Pinto’s hand, collapsed on the floor on the skimmer pad, closed his eyes, and cried.

He cried because he knew, beyond certainty, that his maneuvering and plots had killed Pinto and Baby, two creatures who no matter what else they might or might not have been, were innocents. Sentient or not, it didn’t matter to Holloway. No one deserved the deaths they were given, by his actions. Jack lay there and cried, racking his body in his guilt and shame.

He knew the other fuzzys were watching him. He didn’t care. He lay there for a good long time.

Eventually, there was a touch on Holloway’s cheek. Holloway opened his eyes and saw Papa Fuzzy staring down at him. Holloway looked at him, curious.

Papa Fuzzy pointed up.

Holloway looked up.

Above him, the spikewoods were filled with fuzzys. Dozens of them.

“Holy God,” Holloway said, and sat up.

The fuzzys started climbing down from the trees, dropping down into the landing pad until it was packed with the creatures. Holloway looked at them all, partly amused at the convention of creatures, and partly apprehensive. A human had just killed two of their number. It was entirely possible the fuzzys were planning to take it out on him. He couldn’t say that he would blame them.

On the periphery of the landing pad, one of the smaller fuzzys caught his eye. Holloway stared at it for a few seconds, wondering why this particular fuzzy was so interesting, when it occurred to him that it wasn’t a fuzzy at all.

Holloway peered at it intently.

It was a capuchin monkey.

“You have
got
to be shitting me,” Holloway said.

Papa Fuzzy looked at Holloway curiously. Holloway pointed at the monkey. “I know that monkey,” he said. “Damn thing stole my wallet once. I can’t believe it’s still alive. I can’t believe it’s been with you guys.”

Papa Fuzzy followed Holloway’s pointing finger toward the monkey, and then looked back at Holloway with what for all intents and purposes was a noncommittal shrug.
Yes, so, it’s a monkey,
it seemed to be saying.
What about it?

“This has become a very strange day,” Holloway said.

An object was moving forward through the crowd to Holloway, carried by a single fuzzy who held its arms outstretched, and sort of wobbled its way through the group, other fuzzys parting to let it through. The fuzzy came up to Papa Fuzzy, who squeaked something at it. The other fuzzy offered the object to Holloway, who took it.

It was an infopanel.

Holloway wondered for a second if it wasn’t his spare panel, saved from the cabin fire, when he realized that it was a different make and model. This one was a lower-end model than any of Holloway’s, but featured one high-end feature: solar panels on the non-display side. Leave it out in the sunlight for an hour, it’d be charged up for a week. Useful, actually, for people who spent most of their time out surveying.

Holloway turned on the display.

Andy Alpaca, the mascot of the Super Reading Adventures line of skill-adaptive electronic reading primers, beamed back at him, making eye contact with Holloway by way of facial identification software tied into the infopanel’s camera.

“Hi there!” it said. “I’m Andy Alpaca! Would you like to go on a reading adventure with me?”

It was Sam Hamilton’s infopanel, all right. Poor, semi-literate Sam, whose skimmer went down years ago. The monkey quite obviously survived. It didn’t seem too likely Sam did.

“Should have bought that emergency fence, Sam,” Holloway said.

He looked down at the infopanel again, where Andy Alpaca waited for him to respond. Then he looked out at the fuzzys, who stared up at him, patiently.

For the third time that day, the gears in his brain engaged, hard.

Chapter Twenty-one        

Joe DeLise was mightily displeased when he walked through the door of Warren’s Warren and found someone occupying his favorite stool. He was even more displeased when the man turned toward him and DeLise recognized who he was.

“I don’t care what that son of a bitch lawyer said,” DeLise said, from the door. “If you’re not off of my stool by the time I get over there, I’m breaking your face.”

“You should know that son of a bitch lawyer is right over there,” Holloway said, pointing to Sullivan, who was shooting pool by himself.

DeLise paused. “Can’t go anywhere without your protection, Jack?” he said, after a second. He started walking toward his stool again. “I guess I got you that scared, don’t I.”

Holloway peered at DeLise. “Jesus, Joe, what happened to your face?” he asked. “You look like you tried to tongue-kiss a cat and the cat objected.”

“None of your damn business,” DeLise said.

“Mind you, I don’t blame the cat,” Holloway said, and looked again. “How long ago did that happen, anyway? Looks like maybe four, five days ago.”

“Kiss my ass,” DeLise said. He was hovering over Holloway now. “And get off my stool.”

“I was planning to,” Holloway said. “It smells bad. All those years of you farting into it, I suppose.”

“That’s right,” DeLise said. “Keep it up.”

“But before I do that, I’ve got something for you,” Holloway said.

“What?” DeLise said.

“This,” Sullivan said, slapping a court notice against his shoulder. He had walked up behind DeLise while the man had been threatening Holloway. “You’ve got a court date. Preliminary hearing.”

DeLise looked back at his shoulder but didn’t touch the notice. “What for?” he said.

“For burning down my house, you asshole,” Holloway said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” DeLise said. “I’ve been here or I’ve been working. And I have people who will tell you that in both places.”

“Well then, you have nothing to worry about, do you?” Sullivan said. “You can show up in three days with some of your witnesses and let them chat with Judge Soltan and then you’ll be free to go.”

“I don’t recall you calling in your little fire to security,” DeLise said.

“Funny about that,” Holloway said.

“Considering the possible involvement of a ZaraCorp security officer, Mr. Holloway asked the judge to allow him to file a request for a preliminary hearing directly,” Sullivan said. “And I, as legal representative of ZaraCorp, indicated to her that the company wouldn’t have a problem with that. And here we are.”

“Surprise,” Holloway said, to DeLise.

DeLise sneered at Holloway and looked back to Sullivan. “Even if it’s true, which it’s not, what do you care?” he asked Sullivan. “You’re ZaraCorp’s lawyer, not his. He’s not a ZaraCorp employee. His house isn’t ZaraCorp property. Shit, I’m the one who works for ZaraCorp, not this schmuck.”

“You’re not working for ZaraCorp when you’re allegedly burning down someone’s house, now, are you, Mr. DeLise?” Sullivan said. “That’s on your own time.”

DeLise smirked at that. “I don’t think you really want to serve that notice to me, Counselor,” he said.

“A tip for you, Mr. DeLise,” Sullivan said. “Just because you haven’t touched the notice with your fingers doesn’t mean it hasn’t been served to you.”

DeLise snorted, took the notice, and set it on the bar. He turned to Sullivan. “This is going to be a waste of everybody’s time,” he said. “And I don’t take very kindly to being made to look like an asshole, Counselor.” He jerked a thumb at Holloway. “You think you’re doing yourself a favor latching on to this piece of shit, but between you and me, Sullivan, I think you’ve picked the wrong horse this time. I don’t think you’re going to like where he’s going to end up taking you.”

“Well, Mr. DeLise, coming from a man I once had to stop from killing Mr. Holloway in a ZaraCorp holding cell, that’s certainly an ironic slice of food for thought,” Sullivan said. “You can be assured I’ll give it the consideration it deserves.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you will,” DeLise said. “But he’s not in the holding tank this time. He’s not the untouchable you made him out to be. And when this is all done, we’ll just see who the asshole is, won’t we.” He turned toward Holloway, who blinded him with a flash.

“What the hell?” DeLise said.

“Just taking a picture,” Holloway said, lowering the camera. “Your scratched-up face amuses the crap out of me, Joe.”

“Get off my stool, asshole,” DeLise said.
“Now.”

“All yours,” Holloway said, getting up. “Enjoy it while you can.”

DeLise grunted and sat.

*   *   *

“Have I told you today how much I hate you?” Chad Bourne said, to Holloway. The two of them were walking Carl, who snuffled happily down one of the side streets of Aubreytown. Bourne had called Holloway to meet with him in his cubicle, but Holloway refused. A little bit of yelling later and they were walking down the street with a dog. It was muggy and hot. Bourne was not dressed for a walk and was already sweating profusely.

“I haven’t done anything today to make you hate me,” Holloway said.

“You made me walk your dog with you,” Bourne said.

“That’s not hate worthy,” Holloway said. “And anyway, you like Carl.”

“My cubicle is air-conditioned,” Bourne said.

“Your cubicle is probably bugged,” Holloway said.

“So now in addition to being annoying, you’re paranoid,” Bourne said.

“In the last few weeks I’ve had my skimmer sabotaged and my house burned down to its floor panels,” Holloway said. “I’ve earned a little paranoia, I think. And anyway, I have things I need to say to you that I don’t want anyone else to hear.”

“Aside from your voices,” Bourne said.

“Cute,” Holloway said. He stopped while Carl examined a particularly interesting sapling. “Chad, look. We have our problems, you and I. And I’m willing to admit lots of those problems are my fault. And I know that there have been times when you’ve gone out of your way to make a little bit of trouble for me, because I’ve gone out of my way to make a lot of trouble for you. Fair to say?”

“Fair to say,” Bourne said, after a minute. Carl had finished his examination of the sapling and left behind a note for future dogs. The three of them started walking again.