Tek Net (13 page)

“How do we get to the Cosmos Agency?”

They stopped and Gomez scanned the area. “I'm sure one of these rustic lads would allow us to borrow a skyvan.”

Back across the plaza the exit door flew free of its hinges, went hopping across the flagstones and smacked over with a clang. Sooty smoke gushed out into the morning and then a heavyset black man hefting a lazrifle lunged into view. Another bot hound, red eyes flashing, followed.

“The blue van,” said Gomez, starting to run.

They dodged an overalled robot who was setting plazcartons of hydroponic produce out on a neowood stand. Across the bib of his trousers were the words
Naturally Yours! From Worldwide Drugs & Food
.

A second man, a short blond fellow wearing a checked suit, came up from belowground to join in the pursuit.

Gomez and Jill reached the door of the blue skyvan. It had the familiar
Farmland Enterprises International
logo emblazoned on its side in yellow liteletters.

“In,
bonita
.” He gave the woman a boost and then joined her in the cabin.

“Hey there, feller,” called a rustic robot. “That there's my buggy.”

Paying him no mind, Gomez pulled out a small black tube. He bounded into the pilotseat and touched the tube to the start button.

The skyvan's engine came alive.

At that same instant the door of the cabin was cut clean in half, from top to bottom, by the beam of a lazrifle. The right-hand half fell away.

“We'll relocate,” said Gomez, rapidly punching out a takeoff pattern.

The van shook, then began to rise up from the plaza.

The robot hound leaped, caught the bottom edge of the doorframe with its metal paws.

Gomez passed his stungun to Jill. “Take care of that
perrito
while I concentrate on stealing this vehicle.”

She left the passenger seat, walked closer to the doorway of the cabin and aimed the stungun.

The dog had nearly succeeded in pulling itself into the van.

Jill fired.

The beam hit the robot hound in the forehead. The color faded from its gleaming red eyes. The eyes snapped shut, a faint disappointed whir came out of its skull and it let go. It fell three hundred feet into a wheelbarrow full of simulated corn.

21

Gomez, once again, left his chair to cross to one of the windows of Bascom's tower office and gaze out into the brightening morning. “
Muy malo
,” he said, mostly to himself. “Jake should've been here long since—or contacted us.”

Bascom was behind his desk. “Sid, your partner may be unorthodox, but he's capable as hell,” he told the uneasy operative. “Jake can take care of himself.”

Jill, who was occupying a client chair, reminded, “It's only been a little more than an hour.”

“Too long.” Gomez headed for the door. “
Jefe
, you can find out what Jill knows and fill us in later.”

“If you're going back to the NecroPlex,” said the agency chief, “you maybe want to take a couple of other—”

“Right now I'll try it alone.” Gomez opened the door. “You can trust Bascom, Jill. More or less.”

After he'd departed, Jill said, “You know, Walt, he was probably the best husband I've had so far. Too bad I futzed that up.”

“I quit giving advice to the lovelorn several years back,” Bascom told her. “Suppose you tell me what you know. That should help us keep you alive and aboveground.”

Nodding, Jill said, “By the way, I don't especially want to go home just yet. Is there someplace you can put me up—someplace safe?”

“Sure, safety is a specialty of Cosmos.”

She turned to glance again at the doorway Gomez had gone through. “And can you notify my husband? Tell him I'm okay but won't be coming home for a spell.”

“Later today I'll be sending Reinman a full report plus our bill,” Bascom said. “Your husband is our client.”

“Ernst actually hired you to find me?”

“He did indeed.”

“I wouldn't have thought I was that important to him anymore.”

“Did you happen to discuss what you found out from Ernie Shiboo with your husband?”

Her eyebrows rose a little. “Oh, you know about Ernie, huh?” she said. “Yes, I did tell Ernst about some of what I was finding out. It helps give the illusion that we still give a shit about each other and what we're up to.”

Bascom said, “Here's what I know about Shiboo. He once held an important position with the now defunct Hokori Tek cartel. He went into the android supplying business and has had frequent dealings with Leon Marriner, the media and communications tycoon from NorCal.” He paused. “I'm also pretty certain Shiboo's disappeared.”

“Kidnapped like me, you mean?”

“Maybe kidnapped,” he answered. “Maybe killed.”

She took a deep breath. “I've gotten into a lot of messes in my life, Walt,” she said.

“I was aware of that, Jill.”

“But, Jesus, this is the worst one yet. People are getting killed apparently.”

“So tell me what you know about what's going on,” he urged, leaning forward and resting both elbows on his desktop.

“You can,” she said, “record what I'm going to say.”

Bascom smiled a narrow smile. “We've been recording, filming and taping ever since you and Gomez dropped in on me.”

She looked up at the ceiling, as though trying to spot concealed cameras and mikes. “Okay, this has to do with Leon Marriner,” she began, putting her hands together in her lap. “He … well, Marriner and a group of his best technicians have been working for over two years on a system for delivering the same sort of addictive fantasies and escapes that Tek does.” Jill twisted her fingers together, frowning. “They apparently perfected this method and they can now do everything Tek does for its addicts, but without any of the paraphernalia. No Brainbox, no headgear and, most importantly, no Tek chips.”

“How does he deliver the stuff then?”

“By way of computers,” Jill answered. “They call their systems, among themselves, TekNet. I was trying to get more details when I was grabbed—but what Marriner seems to have come up with is a simple attachment for your computer. You hook that up and you get your Tek fix that way.”

“What about side effects?”

“Far as I know, Walt, they're about the same as with Tek chips,” said Jill. “Addicts—and you're aware that I'm a reformed Tekhead myself—who use any sort of brainstim electronic drug run the risk of suffering some pretty scary side effects. Anytime you deliver a powerful stimulant directly to your brain, you're going to become an eventual candidate for brain damage, flashbacks, fits and seizures and, in some cases, a complete shutdown of your neural system. That happens and you're dead and done for.”

“If they plan to send their Tek dreams by way of computer networks,” speculated Bascom, “they're going to be traced and put out of business.”

Jill laughed. “C'mon, Walt, we're talking about Leon Marriner here. He used to be the boy genius of computers,” she said. “TekNet is going to set up an extremely sophisticated system of defense and diversions. They're figuring it'll take authorities like the International Drug Control Agency at least a year or more to even come anywhere near them.”

“I suppose Marriner can do that if anybody can.”

“And in two years, considering that there are a hell of a lot of Tek addicts all over the world—hell, Marriner and his group can pull in billions of dollars.”

The agency head murmured agreement. Then he said, “Apparently, to cover his backside, Marriner is planning to go into business with some of the Teklords themselves.”

“He is, yes.” Jill shifted in her chair, crossing her legs, then uncrossing them. “According to what Ernie Shiboo originally told me—and adding what I was able to dig up on my own—Marriner formed a partnership with Anzelmo.”

“The top Teklord in England.”

“Anzelmo formed a group of other imprint Tek cartel heads and they went in on TekNet,” Jill continued. “Anzelmo's group took care of about half the financing of the research.”

“If TekNet actually works and gets rolling,” speculated Bascom, “it could put most of the lads who deal in the traditional Tek chips out of business. Or at least cut their profits way down.”

“I suspect that the people who grabbed me may've been rivals of the Marriner/Anzelmo combine.”

“Johnny Trocadero is probably the fellow who had you kidnapped,” said the Cosmos chief. “Not to silence you, which is what the Anzelmo faction would want, but to find out all you know about the TekNet operation.”

“Anzelmo's people must be the ones who came after us down in the NecroPlex,” she said. “I got the feeling they weren't chasing me just to ask questions.” She rubbed, slowly, at the red splotches on her bare arm. “I'm still in a whole stewpot of trouble, Walt.”

“Yes.”

After a few silent seconds, Jill said, “On my own, following up on Shiboo's tip, I found out that Marriner and Anzelmo are going to have a meeting soon. They plan to get-together to work out the final details for launching TekNet.”

“Any specifics on that get-together?”

“I only know it's scheduled to take place within a few days,” Jill replied. “The reason I was stupid enough to let myself get lured to the old Hollywood Starwalk Park the other night was because an informant had promised me more information on the damned meet.”

Bascom leaned back in his chair. “In addition to your husband—you also told Professor Monkwood about TekNet, didn't you?”

“Yes, and Jeff decided to do some digging on his own.”

“A dangerous idea.”

“He's almost always in need of money,” she explained. “I think he was hoping to find out something he could sell to somebody—or use for blackmail purposes.” She looked up, directly at the agency chief. “Has something happened to Jeff?”

“Nobody is clear as yet what the professor's fate is,” he said. “But he was grabbed while he was shacking up with one of his lady students.”

“Poor Jeff.”

Bascom eyed her. “Doesn't sound as though you're too concerned. I note a certain lack of sympathy and empathy both.”

“I tend to get tired of people fairly fast, Walt, and lose interest in them,” Jill admitted. “Didn't Sid tell you that?”

22

Dan Cardigan went hurrying along the second-level corridor of the SoCal State Police Academy. When he was still three paces from the metal door marked
Background & ID
, it whispered open.

“C'mon in, kiddo.” The large, wide copper-plated robot who managed the setup was rising up out of his wicker rocker. “Got some deepdish trouble, huh?”

“How'd you know about—”

“I told him.” Molly Fine was standing just to the rear of the big robot's chair. She was a slim, dark-haired girl, a year older than Dan.

“So you're cutting our Field Forensics 6B class, too?” The door hissed shut behind him.

“This is more important,” she told him. “And you keep forgetting that we're a team.”

“So far I haven't been able to come up with anything useful about your pop,” said Rex/GK30. One wall of the big room was filled with rows of infoscreens, and the coppery bot gestured at it now. “Nothing's come up from any of the conventional sources as to where the heck he might be.”

“We don't want just
conventional
sources, Rex,” the young man told him. “Something's happened to my dad and—”

“Why not contact Bascom at Cosmos again?” suggested Molly.

“Did that on my palmphone ten minutes ago,” he told her, shaking his head. “There's still no word.”

“It could be,” she said, putting a hand on his shoulder, “that Jake's just following up on something and—”

“Nope, we've already gone over that possibility, Molly,” said Dan. “It's two-eleven in the afternoon. He would've gotten in touch with somebody by now.”

“Jake Cardigan is one tough bozo,” reminded the bot. “He can take care of himself. Maybe you ought to relax and—”

“I want to try Gomez again,” said Dan, impatient. “I haven't been able to contact him all day.”

“He's supposed to be out hunting for your father, isn't he?” asked Molly.

“Yeah, and if anybody can find him, it'll be Gomez.”

The robot lumbered over to a bank of vidphones, punched out a number on one of them with a thick coppery forefinger.

The phonescreen remained blank for nearly half a minute.

Then Gomez's face appeared. “
Sí?
”

Dan ran over to the phone. “Sid, it's me.”

“
Buenos días
,” said the curly-haired detective. Behind him you could see a stretch of bright-afternoon Pacific and the tops of a few imitation palm trees.

“Have you found my dad?”

“Not yet,
niño
,” answered Gomez. “However, I did manage to unearth some information on my return trip to the NecroPlex. I'm in the process of following up on that.”

“Is he alive? Is he okay?”

“Let's assume he is,” said Gomez. “What I found out is how those
pendejos
got into that underground complex. Unlike Jake and me, they bribed their way inside. I located the guard they utilized and persuaded him to provide me the name of the
cabrón
who sent them to him with cash in hand.”

“Who is it?”

“A
gordito
who calls himself Sir Denis Rowley,” replied the detective. “Took me this long to track him down to his current hangout—a ragtag bistro here in the Hermosa Beach Sector of Greater LA. Dump known as the Khyber Pass Pub and Dance Pavilion.”

“I could come down there and help you to—”

“No.” Gomez held up his hand, shaking it negatively. “We're dealing with some very dangerous
hombres
, Dan.”