Time Was (20 page)

“People like me. I'm touched.” Janus rubbed his eyes, groaned at the soreness in his body, then popped the lid off a bottle of pills and poured a glass of water from the pitcher on Annabelle's desk. “You mind?”

“Would it matter if I did?”

As Janus took his pill, he studied Annabelle's face. She had heavy-lidded, almost sad eyes, in a way, and the manner in which she was now sitting—head thrown back to stretch the muscles in her neck, ringlets of hair draped across one cheek to the corner of her mouth, thin trails of cigarette smoke weaving beyond her like incense before an altar—suddenly seemed so vulnerable. She grasped her cigarette holder like some torch singer clutching a microphone; she reminded Janus of those old black-and-white photos of Billie Holiday. He could easily imagine Annabelle letting go with a heartbreaking verse of some blues ballad.

She opened her eyes and caught him staring at her. “What?”

“I was just wondering what Robillard did to hurt you.”

Her eyes filled with ice. “If you're implying—”

“—that the two of you did the silk-sheet samba? No. But I've known you for a good many years, Annabelle, and I don't think I've ever seen anything get to you like this. It's more than pride, more than the cost, more than your reputation.”

She lit another cigarette. Her hands were shaking ever so slightly. “And what concern is it of yours? Not that I'm saying you're right.”

Janus thought about his words very carefully before he spoke. “I want out, Annabelle. From under all of it. I'm getting too old, too tired, too banged-up, and I've lost a little of my edge. We both know that. The reason I've put such a high price tag on the last two assignments I've taken from you is because I'm trying to get together enough money to just . . . disappear. I want to go somewhere and try to find a way to make the rest of my life mean something. I'm sick of the violence, the killing—and even sicker that I'm so damned
good
at it. I suspect that I've got more years behind me than ahead, and I'd like to leave behind something more than scars and dead bodies. That may sound trite to you, but it's something that's been on my mind for quite a while now. As you can see from the way I shuffled in here and this bandage on my hand, things didn't go quite as planned last time. Now—no bullshit, Annabelle. No word games. I'm getting bored with the way you and I circle each other like predators fighting for gnawing rights on carrion. I've been as open and honest with you in the last minute as I've ever been with anyone in my life. I
will
find Zac Robillard and your I-Bots for you. The price is double what you paid for last time, but I guarantee results. In return for that guarantee and my honesty, you have to be honest with me, then we'll never mention this conversation again. Tell me why you want him so desperately.”

She did. No evasions, no threats, no preambles; Annabelle Donohoe looked Janus directly in the eyes and told him what Zac Robillard had cost her in terms of personal emotional loss, and why she was willing to pay any price to get him and the I-Bots back.

Janus had not been prepared for what she told him.

He'd never have guessed the truth in a million years.

It took a few moments for him to absorb her words.

“I never knew,” he said to her.

“Besides you, only two other people know what I've just told you. Swear to me that you'll never—”

“—never. You have my word—and that's something I never give lightly.”

“Simmons is one of them, you know.”

“I figured,” he said.

“Please don't ask me who the other one is.”

“I won't.”

They stared at one another, neither of them sure what to do or say next. Maybe something passed between them, something of understanding or even tenderness, but both had trained themselves over the years to never let that guard down for too long, and it took only a few moments before both of them regrouped and activated all the old defenses that kept them forever distanced from most of the rest of humanity.

“So,” said Annabelle, finally, “you'll take the assignment?”

“Yes.”

She handed him the printout on the PTSI test. “Robillard has yet to operate beyond a fifty-mile radius. Wherever he and the I-Bots have headquartered themselves, it's within an hour's drive of PTSI. All you have to do is ask Sam Preston how he got in touch with them. I doubt he'll have an address or phone number—Robillard would never be that careless—but he might have an E-mail address or InfoBahn Site Number. Get it—I don't care how, short of killing him. Then contact me. We can decide what to do from there.”

“Fine.” Janus rose from his chair—a little more slowly than usual—and started toward the doors.

“Janus?”

He stopped, turned around. “Yeah?”

“I
can
trust you to keep our conversation confidential, can't I?”

“What conversation?”

She smiled at him.

For a moment, Janus didn't recognize her.

Simmons met him out in the hallway. “A pleasure to see you again, Mr. Janus.”

“Likewise, Simmons,” replied Janus, shaking the huge man's hand. He liked Simmons, always had . . . though he was damned if he could say why.

Simmons handed him a series of three thick brown envelopes. “For you, sir. The first is the rest of your money from the last assignment, plus the first half of your requested fee for the current one. This next envelope contains all the necessary papers you'll need—as per your instructions. And this last contains your plane tickets, two maps, a card key, and a key to a Mercedes that will be waiting for you in the airport parking lot. The claim stub is in there, as well.”

“What about hardware?”

“You'll find a rather generous selection of weaponry in the trunk. If you require anything more than what has been provided, Ms. Donohoe has instructed me to give you this.” He handed Janus a business card.

‘“R.D. Chase, Importers.'”

“He's an arms dealer with whom madam does much business. WorldTech has an account with him. He will provide you with anything else you may need.”

Janus laughed as he pocketed the card and envelopes. “You realize, don't you, Simmons, that someday this will all be yours?”

“I've no interest in running a corporation, sir.”

“Who's talking about a corporation? I was referring to the world.”

“Ah, yes, well. . . perhaps you're right there, sir.” Then: “I take it that you and Ms. Donohoe have worked out your differences?”

“Yes, we have.”

“That's good to hear, sir. She is, at heart, a fine lady.” Simmons
meant
it.

“I'm sure she is, Simmons.”

“I do hope that this assignment goes more smoothly than the last.”

“Is that a hint of a threat I hear lurking somewhere behind that polished British courtesy?”

“Who's to say, sir?”

“Indeed. I may have to call on you, personally, for some help later.”

“I was hoping, sir.”

“So that wasn't a masked threat I heard?”

“Merely an inquiry as to your need of my services, sir.”

Janus tapped Simmons's shoulder with the envelopes. “You scare me sometimes, Simmons.”

“Thank you, sir. May I escort you to the lobby?”

“Would it hurt your feelings if I said no?”

“I would be devastated beyond healing.”

“Can't have that, can we?”

“It would be unwise, sir.”

“That
was a masked threat.”

“Yes, sir, it was.”

 

Zac Robillard lay on his shabby little bed, waiting out the pain and pills, wondering which of them would win out in the end.

Not that he cared today.

Not after the dreams of last night.

Not after what he'd had to do at the Scrapper Camp.

Bright lights flashed before his eyes whenever he dared open them, even a little, and each flash was a shard of pain that lanced through his retinas and tore through his brain.

He tried rolling onto his side, but any movement made his stomach lurch.

Of all the advances made in medical science since the beginning of the new millennium—successful treatments (no one had the guts to call them outright cures) for AIDS, the new strains of tuberculosis, even the common cold—a cure for migraines still eluded the world.

Think about something
, he willed himself.

Until either the pain or the pills won out, he'd found over the years that the best way to fall asleep when in the grip of a migraine was to concentrate on something, anything.

He thought about Killaine, about what he'd told her.

And suddenly he had it.

Something to think about.

The brain.

God, the wonders of it all. A three-pound bundle of wetware that in a normal human being packed a whopping twelve billion neurons, each capable of making up to fifty-thousand connections with other cells. One hundred trillion possible connections.

No wonder Grandpa had been so obsessed with it.

Ben Robillard had been smart. Instead of trying to map the human brain in order to duplicate its activities, he'd chosen to approach it in a way few neuroscientists in his day had thought of: as an intricate machine, taking it apart piece by piece and testing each component. Using such a reductionist strategy, he'd managed to identify over six dozen different types of neurotransmitters, chart the wiring scheme of all major nerve pathways, and record the myriad electrical impulses of a single neuron.

Imagine studying China by holding a microphone over Peking
, Ben Robillard had written in his notes.
You couldn't learn Chinese, but you would easily pick up daily or seasonal variations in the noise level which would tell you something about the gross pattern activity of a large urban population. I think this could well fit in with this new “chaos theory” that is causing such fuss. If, indeed, this chaos theory reveals variations in the rhythms of vast collections of neurons, then is it such a wild leap of the imagination to apply that theory to simple brain activity? These unsuspected patterns, long hidden in the irregular squiggle of the brain s electroencephalogram, are triggered by problem solving, memories, moods, and neurological conditions ranging from Parkinson's disease to classic schizophrenia. If one were to then apply chaos theory to this, it would be a simple matter to tell whether a subject is doing simple arithmetic or complex trigonometry from an analysis of his brain waves: Thus, what begins as a mad jumble of trajectories eventually forms a ghostly geometry.

Zac found himself smiling. He remembered the first time he'd run an EEG signal from a robotic brain through a computer to transform it into a geometric image. He'd expected something bewildering and ugly.

What he got was a dazzling filigreed structure slowly revolving in three-dimensional space. It had looked like a tulip with multicolored edges, and with each rotation another petal unfolded.

And each petal, magnified, revealed itself to be composed of thousands of microscopic yet
identical
petals.

Fractals.

That's when he realized that the true inner structure of the brain's activity stemmed from the fact that the behavior of the system was not totally random; it vacillated erratically within a particular range or norm.

And so he'd taken his grandfather's maverick concept of the mechanical brain to the next level and designed the I-Bots' brains in fractal-based consciousness.

There.

The pain was ebbing slowly away.

The pills were winning out.

“Better living through chemistry,” he muttered softly to himself.

Then fell quickly asleep, hoping that Jean didn't return to him in his dreams this time.

* * *

Satisfied that Zac was deeply asleep, Killaine slowly rose from his bedside and made her way out into the hall, closing the bedroom door behind her.

Downstairs, she found Singer in the large main living area, examining a camera and tripod set up in the middle of the room.

“That's an HIR system,” she said.

Never heard of it
, signed Singer.

“It stands for ‘Holographic Image Replication.' A little something Itazura whipped up in his spare time to amuse us with. Using that camera, you can record any image you want onto a compact video disk—Itzy tends to record old movies—then filter it through a portable projector so it's reproduced in three dimensions, fully. You can even add sound if you choose to.”

Sounds fun.

“It can be. Until you step out of the shower one night and find James Cagney trying to ram a grapefruit in your face. Itzy tends to play a lot of jokes with it. You should see the editing bay he's set up in his room.” She stood next to Singer and looked at the camera.

“I tolerate it by telling myself that it'll come in handy some day. For what, I haven't the slightest idea. But Itzy enjoys it. That's the important thing.”

You care very much for all of them, don't you?

“Of course. Why wouldn't I?” She was getting that feeling again of being too aware of the metal under her skin.

You don't care for me, do you?

“I don't know you well enough to give you an honest answer, Singer, I—could we not talk about this now? I need to find the others. I don't like it when they all vanish on me at the same time. It usually means they're up to something.”

Singer pointed toward the metal door at the far end of an adjoining hall.

Killaine sighed.

The control room.

“All of them are in there?”

Yes. Does that worry you?

“I'm not sure. It could mean that . . .” She looked at Singer, shook her head, and started toward the control room.

Singer tapped her shoulder from behind.