Xenopath (12 page)

It was the last
living movement he was to make.

The dazzling
laser vector lasted barely half a second. It lanced from off-screen,
hit Kormier, then vanished. That was all it took: Kormier lay on the
concrete, head, arms, and torso sliced into four neat sections.

Vaughan stilled
the image, sat back in his seat. He realised that he was sweating and
breathing hard. It was as if he had been there, had witnessed the
slaving in the flesh.

For the next
hour he accessed other cameras in the vicinity of the amusement park,
attempting to get an image of the killer. Half a dozen other cameras
gave partial views of the park, but none had captured the murderer.
He'd been either very lucky, or had known the surveillance cams'
blind spots and had planned accordingly.

Vaughan checked
all the cams in the vicinity of the park for anyone entering through
the boarded-up perimeter fence, but found nothing. The killer had
arrived and departed without allowing himself to be caught by a
single camera. Luck, it seemed, had had nothing to do with it. He was
obviously dealing with someone professional and meticulous.

He returned to
the original scene of the concourse. He viewed the killing again, and
again, and then the minutes leading up to it, and after.

At least he had
another valuable lead here: the girl cowering in the mouth of the
ghost had seen the killing. It was also possible that she had caught
sight of the killer.

He viewed the
scene in the minutes after the killing. He watched the girl jump from
the mouth of the ghost, turn, and run down a narrow alley between the
ghost train and the neighbouring attraction.

He rewound the
footage and looked for the best view of the girl. For the most part
she had her back to the camera. Only when she was emerging from the
ghost's mouth, preparatory to making her escape, did she present a
frontal image.

He magnified the
scene, homing in on the girl.

He
computer-enhanced the picture, cleaning up the granular pixels and
coming out with a sharp image of a young Thai girl, perhaps seven or
eight, in dirty red shorts and a white T-shirt.

He printed the
image and sat back with it in his hand, staring.

The legend
across the front of the kid's shirt was:
Tigers.

Years ago he had
known Sukara's kid sister, Tiger, before she'd overdosed on a
virulent off-world drug. Tiger, a big fan of the skyball team, had
worn a T-shirt just like this kid's.

It was a day, he
thought, haunted by spectres of the past.

He returned to
the screen and re-ran the minutes either side of Kormier's killing,
playing the images in slow motion to ensure he missed nothing.

The laser hit—in
slow motion, he could make out the vector's minimal waver that
created the grisly loop effect—and winked out of existence.

He played it
again, and again, and only on the third time did he notice something.

He sat forward,
wondering if the effect had been the result of tired eyes.

But there it was
again.

In the split
second after the laser's impact, a light seemed to rebound at right
angles to Kormier and lance off towards where the kid crouched in the
ghost's open mouth.

It hit her in
the centre of her forehead, sending her reeling backwards.

Which, he told
himself, was insane. Lasers didn't ricochet.

He replayed the
image perhaps twenty times. The rebounding light was not blue, like
the laser vector, but white. He wondered if it was some reflection of
the laser on the screen of the surveillance cam. But that was
ridiculous, and anyway the girl had clearly been affected, startled,
by the rebound.

Affected, he
thought, but evidently not harmed, as she had jumped from her place
of concealment and made her getaway. He ran the tape and watched as
she ran down the gap between the ghost train and another concession,
entering what looked like a toilet block. Seconds later she was
followed by a bright blue laser vector. It burned through the toilet
door, but too high to have hit the kid—and when the door swung
open it revealed an empty room.

Then Vaughan
made out a dark figure sprint down the alley after the girl, enter
the toilet block, and squirm down through a service hatch in the
floor.

He magnified the
image of the killer, but got nothing more than a vague, granular
outline.

He sat back and
considered his next move.

He made a dozen
printouts of the kid, wallet sized, then killed the screen and left
the ziggurat. He rode the elevator to the landing shelf and emerged
into bright sunlight.

He sat on a
bench, in the shade of a cedar tree, overlooking the sprawl of the
station as noisy air-! cars came and went.

His next move
was to locate the street-kid—if she had succeeded in evading
the killer. She had seen the killing, maybe even the killer. If she
were still alive, then he knew exactly who might be able to help him
find her.

He tapped a code
into his handset and hoped it was still in use. It was a long time
since he'd contacted the doctor.

He smiled as the
ancient face—looking more than ever like the wrinkled headpiece
of a querulous turtle—peered out at him. Talk about ghosts from
the past...

"Dr Rao,"
he said.

Rao blinked. "My
word, my word indeed. If I'm not mistaken, if my eyes do not deceive,
I do believe it is Mr Vaughan."

"Your eyes
are working perfectly, Rao. How's things?"

"Mr
Vaughan, what can I say? Life, as ever, is hard for the likes of me—a
citizen who wants only to bring light into the dark lives of those
more unfortunate than himself."

Vaughan tried to
hide his smile. This was the Rao of old, as sanctimoniously
self-serving as ever. To listen to him, you'd think Rao was a saint,
not some Hindu Fagin out to line his own pocket.

Vaughan said, "I
think you might be able to help me, Rao."

The old man's
dull eyes took on a predatory gleam.

"Mr
Vaughan, you know that I am ever available to aid those I deem
worthy."

"I'm
looking for a street-kid. I know nothing about her. I have a pix,
that's all."

Rao gave a
lipless smile, increasing his resemblance to a turtle. "I have
been known to work miracles with less, for..." he went on,
"shall we say, certain considerations?"

"We'll talk
money when we meet, Rao. When can I see you?"

"Time
presses, and is valuable. I will be available in two hours, for
thirty minutes only, at four o'clock."

"Fine. I'll
see you then. How about Nazruddin's?"

"You are a
creature of habit, Mr Vaughan. Nazruddin's it is. Until then..."
And Rao tipped his head graciously and cut the connection.

He had two hours
to kill before meeting Rao. He hailed an air-taxi and told the pilot
to take him to the amusement park, Kandalay.

THE GIRL

The abandoned
park had the aspect of a ransacked city left to the elements.

Everywhere he
looked his eye met with dilapidated facades and the skeletal remains
of once exhilarating concessions. Mock voidships and air-cars sat
redundant, their once bright colours excoriated by the sun. An air of
sadness, almost tragedy, hung over the place.

He crossed the
concourse to where Kormier had died in front of the ghost train.
Nothing remained to indicate his passing, not a trace of blood or
laser scorch marks. Vaughan looked up at the garish facade of the
ghost train, the leering ghosts, blood-soaked vampires, and the
wailing ghoul like Munch's
Scream
where the boy and girl had
hidden two nights ago.

He climbed the
steps and peered into the ghost's mouth, then ducked inside. Shafts
of bright sunlight fell through the cracked weatherboard roof,
illuminating loose virtual relays, pneumatic stanchions, and the
luminous remains of green monsters.

He examined the
area where the kid had crouched, found nothing, as expected, and
climbed down again.

He sighted along
the trajectory of the laser vector and sourced it to a blocky
powerhouse beside the starship ride. He crossed to it and pulled open
the door. The powerhouse had been stripped of generators and
controls. Only an oily shell remained, and a trapdoor in the centre
of the floor.

He knelt, opened
the heavy cover, and peered into the semi-lit dropshaft. It was a
maintenance conduit, lined with wires and junction boxes, accessible
by a welded ladder. Was this how the killer had entered the park?

He squeezed
himself into the gap and climbed down, the confined area reeking of
burnt electrics and rusting metal, the temperature a punishing
hundred plus.

The Station was
riddled with a maze of secret shafts, passageways, and tunnels used
by engineers and mechanics in their bid to keep the place
functioning. Vaughan had used the service shafts before—in fact
two years ago, when being taken to Dr Rao's hidden lair between
Levels Eleven and Twelve—and he was sure that many of them had
been abandoned and forgotten decades ago.

Now, they were
the haunt of opportunists like the laser killer, and the homeless
street-kids who found refuge in the interstices between the populated
levels.

He descended for
two minutes before the drop-shaft terminated. Before him was a small
hatch, like the door in a submarine. He eased it open and found
himself on a walkway high above a teeming corridor on Level Three.

Sensing another
break, he looked around for a ubiquitous surveillance camera—and
found one not three metres from the hatch, and pointing directly at
it.

His joy was
short-lived. The lens of the cam had been sprayed over with black
paint.

He should have
known that the killer would have covered this angle, too.

In hope, he
moved along the walkway. Every cam covering the hatch to the service
shaft had been disabled.

Not for the
first time, Vaughan realised he was chasing a professional.

He retraced his
steps, squeezed back through the hatch, and began the arduous climb
up to the powerhouse.

Ten minutes
later he was standing in the sunlight, breathing hard. He crossed the
concourse to the ghost train and stepped down the narrow alley where
the girl had vanished the other night. He approached the toilet block
and made out the fist-sized entry hole punched through the plastic
swing door.

He pushed
through and entered the john, lifted the service hatch and peered
down, part of him expecting to see the butchered remains of the kid
at the foot of the shaft. He saw only a narrow ladder, welded to the
wall.

He inserted
himself into the narrow space, grunting with the unaccustomed effort.
He climbed down, and minutes later found himself on a walkway above a
busy thoroughfare. He looked right and left for surveillance cams...
but he was out of luck, again. This stretch of corridor was without
the luxury of watching cameras.

He turned to the
shaft and climbed, wondering as he did so if the killer had managed
to catch the kid somewhere in the corridors of Level Three. Or had
she, with the cunning of her kind, managed to evade pursuit and lose
herself in the crowds?

If the latter,
then the killer would still no doubt be trying to trace her.

He emerged from
the exit in the john, crossed the concourse, and called an air-taxi.

Five minutes
later he ducked from the taxi and pushed his way through the crowds
that thronged Chandi Road night and day. He ignored the importuning
cries of maimed beggars, the incessant sleeve tugging of pleading
street-kids, and eased himself into the air-conditioned calm of
Nazruddin's.

He found an
empty booth at the back of the restaurant, ordered a Blue Mountain
beer and waited for Dr Rao.

He was on his
second bottle, at the stroke of four, when the elderly doctor stepped
through the entrance, paused to scan the seated diners, then lofted
his walking stick in greeting.

He tottered
towards Vaughan, his turtle lips stretched in a rictus approximating
a smile.

"Mr
Vaughan, Mr Vaughan! It is a delight to make your acquaintance after
so long!" He seated himself and to a hovering waiter snapped an
order for salted lassi.

Vaughan smiled.
Rao, sitting bolt upright in his high-collared Nehru suit, arthritic
fingers clutching the head of his stick, appeared the very epitome of
Vaughan nodded and pulled out his wallet. From it he drew the
computer-enhanced pix of the Thai girl and slid it across the table
to Rao.

Rao tapped the
pix with a nicotine-stained forefinger. A light appeared in his eye,
and Vaughan guessed that Rao knew something about the kid.

He was tempted
to activate his implant and read what Rao knew, but at the same time
he was loath to immerse himself in Rao's self-serving righteousness,
and whatever else he might come across in the doctor's scheming
brain.

Rao sucked his
lips, shaking his head. "Ah, Mr Vaughan. So many children have
passed my gaze over the past week or so, so many tiny Thai girls with
pudding-bowl haircuts and beseeching eyes. One, I must admit, looks
very much like another."

"She was
wearing a Tigers' T-shirt," Vaughan prompted.

"Do you
know, I do think that I might have seen a child answering to her
description—seen very briefly, I must add—"

"When?"
Vaughan said.

Rao smiled. "I
said I
might
have seen the girl, Mr Vaughan. Of course, I
might have been mistaken. As I said, one child looks very much like
another. However, if I were to bend my efforts in order to locate
this child, it would be a costly procedure for me, I hope you
understand." He looked up. "Might I ask why you wish to
locate the girl?"