The Resurrected Man (46 page)

“Fine.”

Marylin sat down near Whitesmith. “Time-out without any inputs,” she mused aloud. “What's he up to now?”

“I dread to think.” Whitesmith looked up at Fassini. “Do
you
know?”

“No, sir. He didn't talk much, and it's not in the note.”

“Here's hoping he doesn't have a stroke or something while he's alone in there.”

“I'm sure QUALIA would let us know,” Marylin said, before realising how it contradicted what she'd said just seconds ago about the room having no inputs. Presumably the AI
was
still watching him. But she didn't want to ask while QUALIA was busy elsewhere. It wasn't that important, anyway. In ten minutes, though, if Jonah hadn't emerged from the room, she swore it would be.

And within hours, she hoped, it would all be over. The thought sent a quiver through her gut. Even if Jonah knew what he was talking about and everything went as he planned—if the Twinmaker didn't somehow screw things up—she didn't believe it could be a painless process. Nothing ever was.

Jonah closed his eyes on the interior of the d-mat booth and thought:
This is it. No turning back now.

Then he chided himself for being melodramatic. Once they arrived, there would be nothing to lose but pride if things went wrong. It was if things went
right
that most worried him.

He checked the time in Goliath: 0513. Marylin and Whitesmith had left several minutes before him.

Poor Marylin—

He added a silent prayer that the Twinmaker would take the bait as planned. It was, after all, his last chance.

—
and poor me
.

They arrived fifteen minutes early. He guided himself up the long path to the unit with Marylin and Whitesmith bringing up the rear, distant and official. Local time was 0945. Security was already tight. Drones flew overhead, silent specks circling lazily through the clear, blue sky, watching their every move like hawks. Guards had inspected them for unauthorised weapons upon emerging from the booths and more were in evidence at the unit itself. There was no one inside, however; the housekeeper had made certain of that.

“Feels like weeks,” said Whitesmith as they walked through the door. “Where do you want us?”

“Lounge.” Jonah parked the wheelchair in the dining room and walked the rest of the way. He felt fine but didn't know when he would have another seizure. “I'll be back in a second.”

He went into the study and locked the door behind him. Jago Trevaskis was due shortly, to be followed soon after by Geyten and Verstegen. Schumacher would arrive last of all, pleading limited time but more likely wanting to make an imposing entrance.

And why not? Jonah asked himself. He was hardly one to criticise grandiose gestures. He was overdoing it himself with the entire meeting.

But he had no choice. Although the thought was like crystal in his mind, and seemed to be flawless no matter which angle he examined it from, he knew how misleading that feeling could be. Too many
times something perfect in theory fell apart in practice. And if Fassini didn't come through in time…

He quashed that fear.

Taking a seat in front of his father's terminal, he spoke softly yet clearly for the benefit of the unit's housekeeper.

“House? I want you to relay certain sections of your security data to another site. Can you do that using Lindsay's node in the Pool?”

“Yes, Jonah.”

“Good.” The signal would be masked by the other data flowing through the node. If he was lucky, the MIU wouldn't notice the increase. “The address is—” He consulted his restored memory. “Lilith22. It's a blind feed, I think, so don't worry about a response. Just send the audiovisual data from the lounge for the next two hours, or until I instruct you to stop. Got that?”

“Yes, Jonah.”

“Also, I want to send a short message to the same address. Address it to Karoly Mancheff and mark it private. I don't care about the angle; just start recording now.” He paused for a split-second, then spoke more loudly:
“This is what you wanted to hear. Be ready to answer me when I ask for you.
Stop recording. Send it immediately.”

“Yes, Jonah. Marylin Blaylock is requesting entry to the room you are currently occupying.”

“Don't let her in yet. First, I want you to retract all security clearances. Don't talk to or obey any instructions from anyone else but me. Then shut and lock the door and disable the display on the d-mat booth, but keep it on and open to transmissions.”

“Yes, Jonah.”

“Lastly, shut down all external inputs except for those from the following people.” He listed two names.

“But these people are—”

“Don't argue. Just enter the order.”

“Yes, Jonah.”

“Okay.” He took a second to see if he had forgotten anything. Hopefully not. “You can let her in now.”

The door swung open. Marylin eyed him with suspicion and stepped into the room.

“We thought you'd disappeared.”

“Just testing my new memories,” he said, indicating the dead screen in front of him. “No luck. Someone must've erased it
after
I last got in.”

“Or your new memories are wrong.”

“That's sacrilege, Marylin.” He stood.

She didn't move out of the way. “I hope you know what you're doing, Jonah.”

“That makes two of us. Is anyone else here yet?”

“Indira Geyten and Jago Trevaskis. Herold Verstegen is—”

Click

—conscious, horribly so, as the gas-gun came up and fired again, this time delivering a stream of nanoware into his bloodstream. He could neither move nor make a sound. All he could do was hang limp, face-down, as he was dragged out of the lounge, along the hall and into the bathroom. He couldn't feel his body but could feel the cold of the tiles against his cheek and hands. Nothing happened for a long while, then he felt his clothes fall away—cut, he guessed. The world shifted underneath him. He was in the air, swinging. His hands flopped like dead rabbits as he was dumped unceremoniously into the bath.

He had time to think—
What the hell?
—then was embraced by chill porcelain and lying helpless on his back—

Click

—and Herold Verstegen was leaning over him, looking concerned.

The sight made him jump.

“Ah, you're back.” The Director of Information Security turned away. “It's okay. He's still with us.”

No thanks to you, you slippery fuck.

Jonah sat up. He was in the lounge room with Marylin, Whitesmith, Geyten, Trevaskis in a wheelchair of his own, and, walking into the room as though he owned it, a spry but small old man who bore only a passing resemblance to his promotional images: Fabian Schumacher. He was holding a glass and looking frustrated.

“What sort of house doesn't have
beer?
”

It was time.

He stood.

“Marylin?” She was instantly by him, looking concerned. What the hell did his face look like? His heart was pounding. The three of them—he, Marylin and Verstegen—formed an equilateral triangle in the centre of the room.

What?

“Marylin, I want you to do me another favour. Don't question it, this time. Just
do
it.” He put every ounce of command he could muster into his voice. He couldn't afford her not to do what he said. “You did come armed, didn't you?”

“Of course, I—”

“I want you to take out your weapon and point it at Herold Verstegen. Do it now, before he has a chance to draw his own gun. Do it, Marylin, before he even moves. Point it at him as though you mean it because—I swear to god—if he even so much as
thinks
he's going to weasel out of this one, I'll grab your gun and shoot him myself!”

The room went horribly quiet.

For one crazy instant, Jonah thought no one had heard him, that he had imagined saying the whole thing—then he saw the weapon in Marylin's hands and the expression on Verstegen's face. There was no mistaking the look of murderous anger cast in Jonah's direction, but he
had
frozen, left hand on its way to the bulge under his right armpit.

The others were frozen too: Whitesmith with his mouth open on the other side of the room, Trevaskis to his left with his weapon already drawn but pointed at no one, Geyten on the right looking startled
and Schumacher in the entrance to the kitchen just holding a glass in stunned bafflement.

The instant seemed to stretch for minutes, but lasted probably no more than a second or two. And at the end of it Verstegen himself was the first to move.

The hand came down and clenched into a fist. He spaced his words evenly and loudly, as though speaking to someone with a hearing impairment.

“Are—you—
insane?
”

Whitesmith shut his mouth with a click. “You'd better have a good explanation for this, McEwen—”

“Does he, Herold?” Schumacher asked.
“You
tell us, eh?”

“The onus is on me to prove nothing,” said Verstegen. “I'm not the one pointing the finger.”

“Ha,” laughed Schumacher, but without a trace of humour. “And he's not the one with the gun pointed at him.”

“I can change that, sir,” said Whitesmith.

“No need,” said Trevaskis. “I already have.”

“So there we have it,” said Schumacher. “Stalemate. Who's going first?”

“I am.” Jonah's head ached. He hoped he would have enough time before the next memory seizure to do what he needed. “Marylin, keep that gun on Verstegen. Whitesmith, come with me. I'm going to get something from the kitchen.” He led the way out of the lounge with hands held high and pointed a toe at a cupboard. “Bottom shelf, black box. Shall I get it myself?”

“No.”

He backed away as Whitesmith opened the cupboard and produced the box. “This? It looks like a field medical kit.”

“Congo Marines, 2047. Lindsay helped design the software. Bring it with you.”

Back in the lounge, no one had moved.

“Officer Geyten?” The woman stepped forward. “Officer Whitesmith
is about to give you a medical kit. I want you to take a sample of blood from Herold Verstegen and run it through the kit's sequencer.”

“To what end?” Verstegen protested.

“I want to check your DNA. Isn't that obvious?”

“Yes, but why go to so much trouble? QUALIA can give you the data instantly.”

“I know. I want to double-check it, that's all. Are you watching this, QUALIA?”

“Yes, although I—”

“Just have that data ready for me when we ask for it, okay?”

Verstegen relaxed then, and submitted to Geyten's touch. The blood was drawn from a vein in his forearm into a thin tube which she carried back to the field kit.

“It'll take about ten minutes to process,” she said.

“And it will prove nothing.” Verstegen's lip curled in easy disdain. “You're bluffing, McEwen. Killing time and hoping for an inspiration.”

“Not this time.” The bulge under Verstegen's armpit caught his eye again. “Someone disarm him, please—and tell us all what sort of pistol he's carrying.”

Verstegen handed over the pistol with a scowl. “It's a .42 Holkenhill, of course. The same sort of gun you use. But if you think that's significant, you're wrong. The serial numbers are different.”

“He's right,” said Whitesmith, studying the engraved numerals.

“He could've changed it the same way the note Marylin left for me was changed,” Jonah said. “By d-med. That's what happens when you start screwing around with reality—eh, Schumacher?”

KTI's senior executive looked up, as though startled to have been addressed. “What was that? I thought I could sit back and ride this out.”

“Don't play the idiot, man. You're giving new life to a technique that started with altering photographic plates: tampering with evidence. Doesn't that worry you?”

“Not in the slightest. Why should it?” The old man did indeed sit. “I just make the tools. I don't tell people how to use them.”

“The oldest argument in the world.”

“Spare us the sermon, McEwen,” Verstegen said. “If you've got something to say, get on with it.”

“All right.” Jonah took a deep breath. “How about
blindsight?
Does that give you a hint where I'm heading?”

Verstegen's eyes widened slightly. “I don't know what the hell you—”

Then he stopped. His gaze turned inward for a second, then outward again.

“How—
”

“For the people who aren't keeping up,” Jonah said, “I've just shut down all electronic links from this building to Artsutanov Station—apart from mine and, through me, QUALIA's. Temporarily, I assure you,” he said, raising his voice over the immediate protest, “and without increasing anyone's danger. A visual feed is being relayed to the security teams outside, so they'll know you're all safe. I'm sorry about the inconvenience, but I wanted to make sure word didn't get somewhere in particular.”

He held Verstegen's stare a second longer, then turned away and sat down.