For Shelly, who saved me from the other kind of pizza delivery
A Del Rey Book Published by Ballantine Books
Copyright (0 1988 by Joe Clifford Faust
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States of America by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 88-91119
ISBN 0-345-35242-4
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition: October 1988
Cover Art by David B. Mattingly
THE GLASS HIGHWAY
Minneapolis, south to the gulf
A man was walking, face tucked into his coat against the cold winter wind. -
Martin Nello spotted him first. He had been fiddling with the radio and had stopped on a station broadcasting a popsong he liked, "No Coraz4n." He reached over and tapped his partner on the shoulder. "There he is, Andy."
Andrew Birch sat up in the driver's seat and squinted out the window. The man was wearing a canvas coat that he held shut with one hand. The other held a black briefcase, which rocked back and forth, banging occasionally against his knee. He had no hat, and the wind tossed his hair. Tiny, hard flakes of snow were lodging there, melting and freezing again, making it stiff in the face of the storm. "It looks like him," Birch said. He reached under his seat and pulled a long object into his lap. While he checked it over, Nello made some adjustments on the board in front of him and a small porthole opened in one of the windows.
Birch put the stock to his shoulder and placed the other end out the porthole. He peered into the scope, his left thumb feeling a line of buttons along the grip. Across the bottom of the oval-shaped field of view, the word ENHANcE appeared. Birch held the button, counted to three, and the man pulled into focus: dark hair, sunken eyes, hard stare, face flushed with cold. In the background, people passed him on the street, oblivious. To them he was just another businessman.
JOE CLIFFopw FAusT
Nello busied himself tapping on a small keyboard. On the screen that rested between them, an image appeared. "This him?" Nello asked. "Give it to me in color," Birch said.
Nello tapped again. The amber hues filled out, and the face became flesh. Birch studied the screen and then peered back into the scope, singing along with the tune on the radio. "Tinny no coraz6n pa'mi, " he hummed flatly. "What does that mean?" "You have no heart for me," Birch answered. "That's our
man, Nello. He's heading right into it." His left thumb struck another button, and liquid crystal cross hairs were superimposed over the field of view. Birch led the man, moving the cross hairs at whim, putting them over the head, the chest, and the throat. He moved his left thumb, and the field of view pulled back, giving him a head-to-toe view of the man fighting the wind. He moved the cross hairs back to the chest.
The man continued down the block, squinting as the wind drove stinging particles of snow into his face. It didn't distract him. He walked on, looking straight ahead, watching for his destination.
Birch watched, too. The cross hairs never left the man's chest. "He's closing in," Nello advised. "He won't get away," Birch said. "He's walking right into it." ,,Ten meters, Andy."
Birch counted down. At five he could see the lettering on
the building the man was headed for. The building was a coated granite affair with letters hewn into the rock above the main doors: "EDISON ELECTRONIC RESEARCH LIMITED . An Astradyne Company. Established C. Y. XUL "Two meters," Nello said, his voice rising in pitch. "No tengo coraz6n pa'usted," Birch sang. "I have no heart for you."
He pulled the trigger. The Pentax Turbo went into action. The film drive hummed, and the shutter wheel spun. Through the scope,
THE COMPANY MAN                             3
Birch saw each shot frozen for an instant, as it would look when developed. The man took a last step, and his hand came
away from his coat. He grabbed the handle of the door and walked through. There was glare, but Birch could see him waiting as he was vacuumed off. Then the man reached for the second set of doors, pulled, and was gone.
Birch's view of the building turned red, and the machine against his shoulder beeped. "Got him," Birch said triumphantly. He took the Turbo from his shoulder, opened it, and tossed the spent film cassette to Nello. "Mark it and give me another."
Nello handed his partner a 100-exposure cassette, which Birch slipped into the Turbo. "Now we're ready for him." "Hungry?" Nello asked. "Not really."
Nello rubbed his chin. He had short-cropped curly brown hair and two days worth of beard on his face. He patted his expanding waistline. "I could use something." "All right," Birch said. "You talked me into it. Give me a Hershey bar."
Nello looked at him with tired eyes. "I was thinking of something more substantial." "Such as what?" "There's a Burroughs Burger down the street." "I thought you wanted something substantial," Birch grumbled. "More substantial than chocolate." "Watch the building." Birch stabbed his finger at it. "We don't know how long he's going to be in there. We'll get something substantial when this is sewn up." "We could be on this another couple of days," Nello protested.
Birch scratched his chin. He needed a shave, too. "It won't be more than twenty-four hours. We've got to nail him and his contact at EdenCo before they realize we've set them up with dummy documents. Besides, we can cat when he does."
Nello started to say something relevant to the subject of
4
JOE CLIFFORD RusT
food but never finished his sentence. Over the sounds of the radio came a tapping on the cockpit window. Nello looked up over Birch's head. "Cop," he said.
Birch popped the hatch window open. Cold air blasted in. "Good afternoon, Officer," he said, talking loudly to be heard above the wind. "What can I do for you?"
The cop thumped the Mercedes logo on the hood of their STV. "Gentlemen, I'm going to have to ask you to move on.
This area has restricted-access parking. No HDVs allowed." "This isn't a heavy-duty-" "No large vehicles," the cop said sharply. "No POVs. Minneapolis is a restricted-access suburban area, and only ICVs are allowed in. This type of vehicle is prohibited unless licensed by a proper masstrans group."
Birch extended an open palm to Nello. "Wallet." A pseudo-leather packet slapped into his hand. He pulled out a
plastic card. "Officer, this area falls into the Astradyne corporate jurisdiction. This lot has certified clearance for Astradyne vehicles, and my partner and I are here on official Astradyne Company business." He handed the officer the card. "We should be out of the area soon," Nello added. "We're waiting to make a verification."
The cop looked at the card, his face sour. He pulled a small plastic tube from his pocket and ran it up and down the sides of the STV, listening to it click. "Well," he said, "your em@ission levels are well below limits." He pocketed the radbar. "But I still don't want this thing sitting and spewing radiation all over my beat." "Officer," Birch said, "you get more radiation from that granite building over there than-" "I don't want to hear about it," the cop snapped. "You'd better be out of here within the hour, or I'm going to have you ejected, corporate jurisdiction or not." He handed the card back. "Thank you, Mr. Birch." "Have a good day," Birch replied, sealing the window.
Nello sniffed. "Rent-a-cops." "Did you bring your Get Out of Jail Free Card?"
THE COMPANY MAN                              5
"He won't run us in." Nello chuckled. "Not for parking here. " "In Minneapolis they will," Birch told him. "This is one of the least radded cities in the country. They're really strict with plutonium-operated-vehicles." "A rad is a rad," Nello replied. "You sure you don't want a Burroughs Burger?" "Certain. Give me a Hershey bar."
Nello relented, handing his partner a paprin-wrapped bar. He ran his hand over his stomach as he did, expecting it to start growling at any moment. "If you pet that thing," Birch said, unwrapping the bar, "you'll only make it mean." "I don't know how you do it," Nello said. "I haven't eaten since 8a, and I'm dying."
Birch chewed his chocolate and thumped his stomach. "Deprivation. The stuff that all company men are made of." "You've just got a slow metabolism, and an incredibly tolerant one at that. If I ate the stuff I've seen you put in your mouth, I'd be on a cold slab by now."
Birch broke off a piece of the bar and offered it to Nello. "No. thanks. It'll only make things worse. Besides, it'll go straight to my gut."
Birch swallowed and smiled, "Nello, anything you eat goes straight to your gut. You're a fine one to be complaining about quality food. You're the one who wanted to go to Burrough's House of Soy." "I didn't say I liked them," Nello shot back. "I just wanted something more substantial than-" He looked at the waxy brown slab that Birch was holding out to him. "Oh," he sighed. "What the bell." He took the chocolate and popped it between his lips. "Attaboy," Birch encouraged him. "Tell you what. When this is over, we'll drive over to San Fran, and I'll buy Chinese. "We don't have to go that far," Nello said. "There's a great place in Cincy."
Birch gestured at the Edison building. "If he's going where
6                     JOE CLIFFORD FAusT
I think he's going, we'll be in the neighborhood. EdenCo's based in L.A." "What if he's not going to L.A.?"
Birch wiped his lips with two fingers. "Then you're buying the Chinese in Cincy."
Nello scrounged another Hershey from under the seat and tore the paprin from the top. As he bit the tip from the bar, he looked out the window. "Heads up," he said. "There's our man. 11
"Al eady?" Birch swore and opened the porthole. He put 'r the Pentax to his shoulder and drew a bead on the doors. The
man was standing outside the Edison building, studying his watch. "That didn't take long." "Suspicions confirmed. He's got an inside connection."
Birch flipped on the enhance circuit and zoomed in. He moved the field of view until he was focused on the maroon briefcase their target was holding with white knuckles. "Start the tracker," he told Nello. "Our man is hot."
Nello pivoted the seat to his left and turned on the screen. A series of concentric circles appeared, along with a flashing amber light and an accompanying electronic chirp. "You were right on top of that, Andy."
Birch didn't hear him. He had zoomed back and pulled the Turbo's trigger, tracking the man as he walked in front of the letters carved in granite. "Come to Poppa," he said as he zoomed in on the case. "Show us your pretty new briefcase." He took intermittent shots of the man over the next minute. Three seconds of him standing by the words "EDISON ELECTRONIC RESEARCH." Another five in sequence of him walking away. Close-ups of the hand and the briefcase. A full-length shot of him walking down the street, the briefcase swinging like a pendulum. After thirty seconds of pulling the trigger on the Turbo, he had burned up the 100 exposures. "More film?" "No," Birch said, breaking the camera down and packing it into a neofoam case. "He's going to be running, and we need to find who's on the other end." He clicked the case shut and slipped it into a compartment behind his seat.
THE COMPANY MAN                             7
"What about the insider at Edison?" "He's their problem right now. Ours is this courier's boss." Nello grunted and checked the tracking screen. "He's a hundred meters away, no longer moving parallel." "Strap in." Birch started the sequence for powering up the engines.
Nello hit the seat lock and pivoted forward. It clicked into place. He reached up and pulled straps down around his shoulders, locking them to the harness. "Ready." "Put us on independent vector and call up the Minneapolis metro grid."
Nello punched the orders into a keypad. The screen
changed to a topographic map of downtown Minneapolis. "You want silhouette IDT' "No. We'll be above the buildings in a minute." He took the control yoke in his hands and pulled back. The STV tilted back and then rose neatly from the parking lot, leaving behind a puddle of melted asphalt. "Ten meters," Nello said  . "Retracting landing struts."
Birch worked the foot pedals, and the vehicle rotated like a
top, affording them a view of the buildings they were rising past. "Put the compass on the window."
Nello fed the order into the STV's terminal. The cabin darkened, and pink lines appeared on the window, neatly superimposed over the skylines on the outside. A display at bottom center read out their compass heading in degrees. "Change it to green," Birch growled.
The pink lines and numerical display changed to fluorescent green. "Thank you. Target's heading?"
Nello looked at the tracker. "Looks like two two seven at two hundred meters."
Birch manipulated the foot pedals until the display on the window read 227, then locked the heading in and urged the machine forward. They were above the Minneapolis skyline. mingling with the other vehicles that were passing in a layer of smog. Birch checked his altitude and relative distance to
other vehicles, then passed over the city.
8
JOE CUFFoPD FAusT
"Whoa," Nello told him. "We're right over him, plus or minus. He's stopped." "In a building?" "I can't tell. He could very well be. There's no discernible movement. "
Birch swore. "He's up to something." He looked out the windows and into the angled mirrors that showed the city below. "We can't maintain this altitude much longer. Find a
place to set down." "Here?" "Right here. Any building will do."
Nello checked the metro grid. "There aren't many with a
POV-rated pad, and nothing nearby is within Astradyne jurisdiction." "It doesn't have to be in Astradyne jurisdiction. I just need to set down so I don't bum out the power plant." "Forget it, partner," Nello said, too loudly. "Our man is moving. Fast." "From where?"
Nello took deep breaths and read the screen. "He's above us. He must be in a standard travel vehicle. One five zero meters and clearing, heading one eight seven degrees." "One eight seven. Those are the cruise path coordinates. He's running." Birch put his hand on the forward thrusters and brought up the speed. Out the window, vehicles of different classes and makes dotted the thick air. "We'll clear Minneapolis metro in two minutes. Then you can drop to cruising altitude." "Thanks," Birch said. "Link the tracker in with the window display and give me a targeting halo."
As Minneapolis flashed below, Nello reprogrammed the STV's window. A fluorescent blue oval flickered onto the temperglass, marking a dark speck in the afternoon sky. "There he is."
As Birch and Nello watched, the dot in the halo lowered to the bottom part of their window. It moved in on a thin, silvery ribbon that cut a path through the barren winter forest.
THE COMPANY MAN
9
"He's dropping," Nello continued. "He's going for the path, all right."
Birch boosted the speed and eased the yoke forward. Their attitude dropped, and the cruising speed indicator showed they were moving in excess of 300 kilometers per hour. "I'm going to max out as soon as we get close enough to the ground to be safe. See if you can figure which travel vector he's reading."
Nello pointed out the window to a nearby landmark, two small strips of black running parallel to each other. It was
dotted with crawling specks of bright colors. "There's the old ICV highway, 1-35. This cruise path follows it all the way to the Gulf of Mexico." "Des Moines," Birch said sourly. "Maybe he's following the Des Moines vector." His voice changed to a threat. "Would you check it, please?"
Nello flushed and tapped his keyboard. As he worked, Birch brought the vehicle within twenty meters of the path's glass surface and kicked up the speed. The safety board lit with a series of amber flickers when he hit 400 kph. "He's following the Kansas City vector, Andy." "The Kansas City vector's along the same path as Des Moines." "With the way he's running? I don't think so. It'd be stupid to make such a short hop. Des Moines isn't a hub like Kansas City, and EdenCo sure as hell doesn't have a branch there." "So you think he's going to vector into Kansas City and head west from there?" "Why not? Kansas City to Oklacity, on to Albuquerque, Phoenix, and straight into L.A. Makes sense, doesn't it?" "Why wouldn't he vector into Denver?" "He could, but if it was me, I wouldn't. Denver's the only vector in the Winterland work district. He'd either go through Albuquerque and Phoenix or shoot straight into L.A. He's still going through the desert with my route, but it's not as rough a trip."
Birch smiled at his partner. "You're learning, Martin." Nello smiled and fed the Kansas City vector frequency to
10
JOE CLIFFop.D FAusT
the navigational computer. He told Birch that they were ready to switch to vector piloting and was informed that they needed to do some catching up first.
An irritating chirp filled the cabin, and the STV started to tremble. Red lights glowed on the safety board. "Are you out of your mind?" Nello yelped. "When we hit five hundred, this thing will shake apart." "We won't be there that long. Hang on." Birch pushed the thrust up, and they sank into their seats, the Mercedes rattling in protest at the excessive speed. He gripped the control yoke and wove in and out of the slower-moving cruise vehicles, watching the haloed image on the window grow in size.
Things were coming at Nello too quickly from the front window. He rolled his head and looked out across the silvery glass of the cruise path and at the old asphalt interstate. They were moving so fast that the internal combustion vehicles were blurs.
Just as he thought he was going to be shaken out of his straps, a buzzer sounded. Birch pulled back on the thrust, and the power plant whined in relief. The numbers on the speed display dropped to 300. "Cruising speed," Birch said. "Kansas City vector engaged. "
Nello looked at the window. What had been a speck was
now visible as a standard travel vehicle. The superimposed halo had grown to accommodate it.
Birch took his hands off the yoke and stretched them. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said in his best airline pilot voice. "For your entertainment, Mr. Andrew Birch will sing the immolation scene from G6tterdammerung." "Spare me," Nello sneered playfully. He unlocked his seat and pivoted, checking the cabinets behind him. He opened one and pulled out a pair of binoculars. "You don't like my singing?" "I don't like Wagner. Your singing I hate."
Birch shrugged. "Only trying to pass the time." "Don't you have a more profitable way to do it?" "As a matter of fact, I do." Birch shifted in his seat.
THE COMPANY MAN
11
"How'd you like to get in good with Kessler?" Nello scowled. "I don't have a good-looking wife he can
sleep with." "I'm serious, Nello. I've got an idea for a weapon that could buy points for us. There have been problems with hitting high-level meetings because it seems like the target you really want to take out is never there. So I started thinking about how to increase the odds a little. I think the answer is an infrared detonator."
His partner looked at him and rested the binoculars in his lap. "Infrared?"
Birch nodded. "I heard somewhere that ten people in a room will raise that room's temperature by one degree an
hour-or something Re that. So you make a component that reads heat and put in a little microchip that can be programmed for whatever level you need. If five guys are at your meeting, you tell it to activate when it gets an equivalent reading. " "And it detonates the explosive." "Or cuts the power. Or releases gas. Whatever you want it to do." "What if the heater is on or they've got an external heat source like a coffeepot?" "It'd have to be smart. It could only read and calculate heat sources that are stable within a small percentage of thirtyseven degrees."
Nello stared at him. "You like it?" Nello smiled. "If it works right, I'd say it'd be worth an
Elite rating. Work on it." "I will." Birch leaned back in his seat and folded his arms.
Nello trained the binoculars out the window and zoomed in on their prey. "That's what I thought. He's got a single-man steve. " "Bad news," Birch said. "He could probably outrun us if he catches wind that we're here." "No way," Nello said, squinting. "It looks like a General Motors. Probably a Glenn or a Yeager. It's a piece of junk."
12                  JOE CLIFFORD FAusT
"Nobody said EdenCo was smart." Birch smirked. "But don't let it fool you. We've got to be ready for anything." "Anything," Nello said, "except supper."
His stomach rumbled loudly.
2
Two hours later they were on the Kansas City approach. Birch took the vehicle off vector and slowed with the GM, letting it get ahead with the incoming traffic.
The target took the vehicle from the cruise path and up, high across outer Kansas City so that the vehicle's exhaust wouldn't damage the suburban lawns and homes below. Birch followed at a distance, hanging back, his target a fly speck on
the window.
At last their man went down into a suburb called Lawrence, the Steve lowering and vanishing behind a line of buildings. Nello brought up the tracking coordinates and re-
ported that it had stopped. They circled the suburb and closed in on the briefcase's signal, finding themselves over a large spread of paved glass three kilometers across. Etched into the glass were bright red lines that marked it into a grid, a series of resting places for plutonium-operated vehicles. To one side of the glass plain was a squat line of buildings that advertised in neon and liquid crystal a variety of services from HOTEL to BROTHEL to FREE RAD CHECKS WITH POWER PLANT SERVICE. "Oasis." Nello smiled. "Looks like he's down for a break."
Nello's stomach growled. "See if you can get an environmental report on the radio," Birch said. "If he's going to be breaking, we might as well feed that thing of yours."
Nello complied. As Andrew Birch took the vehicle into the landing zone and guided it into an open grid, he combed the Kansas City frequencies, stopping when he heard a voice giving the news. By the time his partner had the landing struts
THE COMPANY MAN
13
down and was cutting back on the engines, he was listening to the weather. "It's going to be another cool night in Kansas City," the announcer said. "Scattered clouds and a low of eight below, which means that all the snow that melted today will be a solid sheet of ice tomorrow morning for you IC travelers. Currently it's still nice at six above." "Our friend is right over there," Birch said, pointing across the field of POVs. "Give me those eyes."
Nello handed him the binoculars and put a finger to his lips. "Environmental conditions are tolerable," the radio continued. "Due to prevailing winds in the upper atmosphere, the pollution index is low. Unfortunately, these winds from the west have also brought the day's rad count up. Levels will be moderate tonight, so citizens are advised to dress appropriately. The count is expected to peak tomorrow. The pregnant, the elderly, those with blood disorders, and all children are
advised to stay indoors."
Nello snapped the radio off. "That's okay. We won't be here then." "I think you're right. I think he's here to eat and then dash on down to Oklacity." "Think he'll stay the night there? They've got this great steak house-"
Birch popped the lock on Nello's door and pointed at the line of buildings. "Go," he ordered. "Go and get something to eat. You're going to drive me crazy until you shut that stomach up."
Nello rolled the seat back and unbuckled. He opened a pouch on the left shoulder of his cruise suit and removed a tiny earpiece and throat mike. Once he had them installed, he jacked a small plug into the front pocket. "What'll you have?" "Depends on what they've got. Call me." He put on a
headset. "I'll be keeping an eye on the GM."
Nello flashed a thumbs-up and rose from his seat. "Cover up or glow," Birch reminded him. "Thanks." He pulled a hood from the back of the cruise
14                    JOE CUFFOPD FAusT
suit and fitted it over his head, tightening it with a pair of drawstrings. Then he climbed out of the Mercedes, sealing the hatch as he left. "How are you reading?" His voice came
through Birch's headset. "You're just fine." "The rad count can't be that high. I'm not getting much interference."
Birch looked out the passenger window. Nello was fifteen meters away. "You haven't gone very far, either. Call me from
the restaurant."
Nello waved and continued walking. Andy Birch yawned and stretched, unlocking his seat and sliding it all the way back. For a few minutes he studied the courier's steve through the binoculars. His partner had been right. It was a single-man vehicle, a Yeager. Its frame was
small, and it had only three landing struts. The body was
battered and scratched, and there was a crush of blood and feathers near the front part of the nose. After a few minutes he tired of his study and keyed his mike. "Hey, Nello. You there?" "You're hitting me clear," Nello answered. "I'm almost there. You decide?" "What've they got?" "Burgers, mostly. Some beefalo. I'm having a French dip because those are hard to screw up." "What kind of blend on the burgers? If it's sixty-forty or
better, I'll have one." "I can get you seventy-five percent beef." "Sounds good." "What kind do you want? They've got about a dozen different ones." "Let's hear." Birch brought the seat forward and locked it into place. Outside the window, there was movement.
"They've got one called the Alberta Clipper, which has a
white cheese and Canadian bacon," Nello reported. "One called the Garden, which has sprouts and mushrooms that they claim were grown in clean soil."
THE COMPANY MAN
15
Birch sat up in his chair and looked out across the parking lot. Something was moving his way. It was a man, walking, face tucked into his coat against the sweeping Kansas winds. "Nello," he said, trying to interrupt. ". . . and has some kind of hickory sauce. This one called the Caesar sounds good." "Nello!" he shouted. "You want the Caesar?" Nello asked. "It's got-" There was a snap in Birch's ear, and Nello's voice went out of phase, covered by static.
Outside, the man in the coat headed straight for the Yeager. It was the courier. "Forget the food, Nello. Get back here."
Nello's voice shifted back into phase. "Lettuce, tomato, and onion," it said before slipping back out.
The courier stopped at his steve, opened the hatch, and climbed in. Birch fumbled the frequency adjuster and tried to tune his partner back in. He caught the phrase "and it's not real bacon, of course" and lost it again.
He heard engines fire. "Nello, get your ass back here!" Birch hurriedly buckled in and engaged the cold start mechanism. "You bastard," he hissed. "You knew. You knew it all along. You set us up, didn't you?"
He turned on the tracking console as the GM lifted into the air. "Dammit!" he cried, pounding on the screen. He leaned over to Nello's console and powered up the navigational com-
puter, then opened a small compartment and took out a plasma bolt. He slipped it under his seat, then ignited the power plant. The inside of the cabin came to life. "Nello," he said calmly. "You have ten seconds to answer me in some way. Our man is leaving. I am doing the same
without you unless you signal.9'
He heard nothing but interference. "Good-bye, then," he said, stowing the communications gear.
16
JOE CLIFFORD FAUST
"In other news," the radio said, "the Corporate Budget Committee has denied any rumors that recent budget cuts would affect the Leadspray program, which provides radproof insulation for needy families. They also advised that no
cuts would be made in the Synthetic Fossil Fuels research program. In Kansas City today-"
Cursing, Birch leaned over and shut the radio off. He settled back in his seat and worked the foot pedals, and the STV lifted off the ground. At ten meters there was a chiming sound. "This is the voice of the Mercedes LRC 1100," said a pleasant but stem female. "This vehicle requires a two-man crew for optimal safe operation. Please discontinue operation until you are properly staffed. Failure to do so will result in an automatic waiver of the liability of the Mercedes Corporation." "Save it," Birch snapped. He activated the HOVER circuit and then, using Nello's console, tied the tracker in with the targeting display. When he sat back up, the Yeager was highlighted with the familiar halo. "This is the voice of the Mercedes LRC 1100," the woman repeated. "This vehicle requires-"
Birch grabbed a handle on the bottom of the safety display and pulled. A box pulled loose from its mounting. The display of lights went dead, and the voice cut off. "Thank you," he said, and pushed the vehicle forward.
He guided the vehicle manually, tapping the thrust controls for bursts of speed and keeping the halo in the center of his window. They went back toward Kansas City metro, then banked sharply south, overflying rows of suburbs at an almost too low level, then straightened out and settled down on a
cruise path that was starting to glow cathode-blue from the lights planted under it. As the sun set, the maneuver lights on the Yeager flickered on, flashing an alternating pattern of white, red, and green.
Birch pulled Nello's terminal out of its housing. He dropped it in his lap and started to type with a one-fingered peck, alternating watching the tracking halo with glimpses at
THE COMPANY MAN
17
the Dvorak keyboard. It took five minutes, but he finally fed compuTEtENTER VECTOR oKLAcrry to the nav computer. The corners of his mouth turned up with satisfaction. *ERROR*ERROR-ERROR*, it replied. ERROR IN VECTOR FEED.
He stared at the screen, numb. They were not going to Oklacity. In fact, they were so far off the vector path that the computer could not find it. Where the hell were they going?
LIST POSSIBLE VECFORS, he fumbled onto the keyboard.
NIERCEDES LRC I 100 ASTRADYNE UNIT NO. 251
POSSIBLE VECTORS:
DFW [OR] TULSA BYPASS [OR)
HOUSTON [OR) LITTLEROCK (OR] SHREVEPORT [OR) VERACRUZ [OR)
The targeting system bleated, telling him that he was no longer following the target vehicle. Birch put both hands on
the control yoke and steered back onto the cruise path. The halo reappeared in the upper right comer of the windshield. He steered straight for it, cursing, wondering how long it would be before the vector program would figure out which route they were taking.
Then he realized that something was wrong. The display on the windshield showed that he was following the GM at
375 kph. That did not seem right. The Yeager and other early GM designs had all been designed for price, not to set cruise path speed records. Three hundred twenty-five was the absolute fastest one was supposed to go, and even that was pushing it. Beyond that, they tended to disintegrate into a hail of metal parts and plutonium chips.
When was the last time I calibrated the flight computer in this thing? Birch thought.
The navigation computer signaled that it had found the vector. He glanced at the readout and memorized the string of
18
JOE CLIFFORD FAusT
numbers that would put him on-line and lead them into Houston.
Houston? The guy was taking the papers to Houston? What the hell did EdenCo have there?
He shook his head in dismay and fumbled the code onto the keyboard. The vehicle locked in, and he changed over to auto-
matic vector piloting.
After making sure that things on Nello's side of the Mercedes were in good order, Birch dug out the mission profile and leafed through it, trying to learn more about EdenCo's holdings. He read for a good half hour but couldn't find anything other than what was generally known.
EdenCo was a small electronics design firm based in Los Angeles, with offices in San Francisco, Phoenix, New Las Vegas, and Atlantic City. They were basically imitators, producing cheaper versions of designs perfected by other companies. Their one claim to fame was the Spider Trap Matrix, a
small component with a program in ROM that was used as a randomizer in gambling machines. What made the circuit so popular was that it kept cowboys from substituting their own, winning components by coding the machine's existing circuits with a random harmonic frequency. Replacing a circuit in a unit outfitted with the Spider Trap caused the machine to shut down.
It was nothing new to find them picking Astradyne's pocket by way of Edison Electronics, but the run to Houston baffled Birch. Even if the target was ultimately headed for corporate headquarters in L.A., he could find no reason to go as far south as the port city. None of it made sense.
By 9p that evening, the lights of Houston metro had appeared on the horizon. There was a low cover of clouds over the southern part of Texas, and the lights from the metroplex caused the sky to flicker in eerie shades of pink and amber.
Birch stretched in his seat, watching the halo centered in the windshield. He would know soon enough if there was a
contact, another bit of espionage, or merely a waiting lover. The only bad thing was that he was alone. Nello was probably on a rail into Pitt right now, wondering what admin would say
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and cursing the growling in his stomach that had caused them to be separated.
The thought of hunger stayed with Birch. He checked the remaining distance into the city, then came out of his seat in search of the cache of Hershey bars.
He had one in his hand when the tracking alarm sounded. He scrambled back into his seat and checked the windshield. The halo was veering off the pale blue cruise path and banking to the east, away from the lights of Houston.
Birch swore bitterly and dropped the bar. He pulled the Mercedes out of vector piloting and banked sharply to put the halo back in line. The Hershey bar slid across the floor and bumped his foot.
Over on Nello's side of the cabin, the readout screen was informing him that they had strayed from the Houston path and were suffering vector error. Birch wanted to reset the screen, but the keyboard was resting on Nello's seat. "Where's this guy headed?" Birch said aloud. He looked at
the compass reading on the window. They were racing in a
south-southeast direction, and there was no glide path below them. The man in the GM obviously knew what he was doing,
Coming out of the turn, Birch reached over and struck at keys until he got the desired result. A line of letters spilled down the screen.
POSSIBLE VECTORS:
CANCUN[ORI HAVANA(ORI MIAMI [OR] KINGSTON [OR] NASSAU [OR] CARACASJORI
Birch stared in disbelief. Six possible vectors and they were all out of range. Worse yet, they were all out over the water-
Over the waterHe realized it too late. He kicked on the infrared, and sure
20
JOE CLIFFORD FAUST
enough, the GM was doing the impossible. It was shooting out, straight over the Gulf of Mexico, keeping distance at twenty meters above the water. "Son of a bitch!" he cried, raising his hands to the harness.
He was locked in his seat as the Mercedes went over the gulf. Birch jammed the safety board back into place. The cabin filled with the din of a dozen warning alarms and blunt warnings from a synthetic female voice. Bright red letters scrolled across the top of the windshield, warning him: Loss
OF SURFACE CONTACT *** WATERBIND IMMINENT.
The Mercedes was losing altitude, and clouds of water va-
porized by the Steve's jets rolled up around it and coated the windshield with tiny droplets.
WATE"IND *** CRASH DRILL. Birch fought the control yoke, feet frantically working the pedals, but the water would not support the exhaust from the engines. Hot steam flowed from the back of the vehicle as it hit the water, then skipped into the air like a flat stone.
ENGINE BLOWOUT *** WATER CONTAMINATION OF ALTITUDE JETS.
The steve hit the water again and skimmed to a stop. Birch sat limply in his seat, stunned.
WATER CONTAMINATION OF FORWARD THRUST JETS Crawled across the windshield. WATER CONTAMINATION OF BLOWBACK TUBES *** WATER CONTAMINATION OF ENGINE HOUSING *** WATER CONTAMINATION OF POWER PLANT *** EVACUATE VEHI-
CLE *** EVACUATE VEHICLE.
Birch shook off the stun and looked helplessly around the cabin. The vehicle was sitting on the surface of the gulf, slowly sinking. He moved his feet, and the uniturf floor squished.
WATER CONTAMINATION OF FORWARD CABIN *** EVACUATE
VEHICLE IMMEDIATELY.
Somewhere in the background, the voice of the Mercedes LRC 1100 was advising him not to operate the vehicle alone.
Birch slumped over the environmental computer and toggled for a reading. The rad count outside was normal, but that was not his concern. He kept toggling until he had what he
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wanted. The waters of the gulf were a brisk eighteen degrees.
He unbuckled and went back between the seats to the evacuation port. He pulled the hood over his head and drew it tight, then undid a zipper around the sleeve cuff of his left hand. From inside he produced a small nipple that he plugged into a wall socket marked INSUFOAM. His suit slowly filled out around him, a centimeter in all directions.
Once that was done, he blew off the evac hatch, climbed up the ladder to the top of the vehicle, and looked around. The water was up to the top of the windshield and was climbing fast. Birch pulled a set of insufoam gloves from a hip pocket and put them on, then glanced around at the inky water.
Behind him and off to his left was a trail of shimmering lights that reflected from sea and sky. Birch guessed it to be Port Arthur, some three kilometers away.
Salt water lapped at his heels. Birch ran toward the rear of the sinking Mercedes and took a running dive. The coldness of the water shocked his face. He let the dive carry him under the surface until he needed air. Then he kicked and, buoyed by the filling in the suit, broke the surface of the water.
He blew salty liquid from his lips and gulped air. There was a discontented gurgling behind him. Treading water, he turned to see a large dark shape rise up and then slide under the waves, leaving in its wake a host of malevolent-sounding bubbles.
Birch cursed. Then he rolled over and started to swim.
From Port Arthur, Birch made his way to Houston, catching a fide on an old IC bus whose fumes and vapor made him sick. Once in Houston, he scrounged a monorail pass and went fight into the metroplex, eventually finding his way to the Astradyne corporate headquarters.
He checked in and was told to report to the eastern opera-
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JOE CLIFFOP.D FAusT
tions base as soon as possible. When he asked about Nello, he was told that his partner would meet him there for mission debriefing.
Early the next morning he was on a rail headed north out of Houston, a stack of joumals in his lap. Eighteen hours later he was getting off of a mono in downtown Pitt and walking into a
slick, dark building that welcomed him with "ASTRADYNE COMPANY ENFORCEMENT CENTER/OBE."
He entered with his company card and a thumbprint and checked in at the main desk. He was told that he was to meet Nello in the lounge and that they were to proceed immediately to the director's office.
As he walked into the darkness of the lounge, he was greeted with applause and catcalls. "There he is. Andrew V. Birch, gold medal swimmer!" "So hot to get to Cuba and get laid that he didn't look where he was going!"
A friendly figure approached him and threw an arm around his shoulder. "Hey, Andy, when Mama Houston told you to drop in for a drink, she didn't mean you should dump your steve in the gulf!" "How's that going to look on your expense account, Birch? Three million plus to decorate the bottom of the sea!"
Birch flipped them off and wandered to the bar, where a
heavyset figure sat, staring into a glass full of ice. He slapped him on the back. "All right, Nello, where the hell is my Caesar sandwich?"
Nello turned to him, his face a mask of worry. "Hey, Andy. Listen, I'm sorry all to hell about what happened in K.C. If I'd known. . . "
Birch took the stool next to him. "But you didn't know, Nello, and neither did 1. EdenCo slipped us a Level Three." "What?" Nello said, astonished. "You mean our steve? They meant to take it out?" "Let's take it to Kessler." "As soon as I finish my drink," Nello said glumly. "Cheer up," Birch said, shaking his partner. "It's not the end of the world, and it's certainly not our fault."
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Nello looked back into his drink. "I'm worried that this is going to screw up your shot at getting Elite status."
Birch laughed. "Listen, partner, they don't give you an
Elite status for successfully finishing a surveillance. If that was the case, I'd have had mine years ago." "But you're so damned good at it." "Elite doesn't come out of being good, and they don't give it to you like a gold-plated watch for years of faithful service. You have to earn it." "How?" "Don't ask me. If I knew, I'd have it." He laughed. "Well, they sure as hell don't give it to you for losing a vehicle." "Don't worry," Birch said urgently. "Nothing's going to happen. Now, enough of the subject. Let's hear something cheerful."
Nello straightened up and took a mouthful of ice. "Okay," he said, swallowing. "Did you hear about Vargas?" He pointed to a man drinking along at the far end of the bar. "He made Elite." "You're kidding!" Birch leaned around his partner and looked down the bar. "Hey, Vargas, congratulations!"
Vargas looked up from his drink. Birch gave him a thumbs-up. "Way to stick it out!" The man looked back down at the bar and took a long dfink. "He doesn't seem to be very happy about it," Nello said. "Give him a chance," Birch told him. "It's anticlimactic. Imagine killing yourself for years to get something and then have it suddenly fall into your lap. In the eyes of the company you've been made better, but inside you know You're the same old person. It takes some getting used to."
Nello sucked the last drops of liquid from the bottom of the glass. "Time for the guillotine."
They rose from their seats and started out of the lounge. As they neared Vargas, Birch reached out and shook his hand. Vargas's gfip was limp. "We're proud of you," Birch told him. "You deserve it."
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JOE CLIFFOPD FAusT
"Hey, hey," Nello said, patting him on the back. "Good work." "Hey, Vargas!" called someone from across the bar. "Who'd you have to screw to get your Elite badge?"
The lounge filled with laughter. Vargas turned back to his drink.
Birch and Nello stepped through a pair of smoked glass doors into a plushly carpeted office. The receptionist looked up at them. "He's waiting for you."
The pair walked around the desk and through a pneumatic door that sealed behind them. They stood in a darkened room
with a dimly lit desk at one end, where a figure sat writing. The walls were covered with writing boards and charts and maps of the Corporate States, and plush chairs were scattered throughout.
They ignored the chairs and went straight to the desk. "Nello and Birch reporting in," Nello said thinly. The man at the desk looked up. He had white hair and a
benevolent face, and he wore outdated prescription lenses that perched on his nose in a gold wire frame. "Hello, boys," Kessler said. "I understand we had a few problems with Eriksson." "Is that what his name was?" Birch asked sourly. "Mr. Birch, I understand that you ditched your vehicle in the Gulf of Mexico. That's not good." "Is that so? Well, I wasn't expecting the son of a bitch to change to the Havana vector once he got near Houston."
Kessler quit writing and pulled a sheaf of papers to the center of the desk. He leafed through them. "According to Mr. Nello, target Eriksson was operating an early GM model STV. When you got to Houston, did you instigate a search of the gulf waters for its wreckage?" "There was no need to," Birch said. "He didn't wreck."
Kessler sat back in his chair and studied them. "Explain." "We were set up. Our target knew that he was being fol- ]owed, and knew that we were in a two-operator vehicle. He stopped in Kansas City Just long enough to flush out Nello,
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knowing full well that the remaining man-me, in this case
-would attempt to finish the surveillance. "He hit the path hard and took a long ride that put me to
sleep, then headed out over the gulf to Havana. He knew that with only one man on board, loss of the steve was a certainty. They set us up for a Level Three disruption."
Kessler looked bored with it all. "Why do you insist on dragging me into this?" "Because you knew or should have known about it. If you'd adequately briefed us on EdenCo, we could have saved you the three million that it'll cost to replace that steve."
Kessler removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "Mr. Birch, are you going to start in on that again? You know full well that I dispense information on a need-to-know basis. I gave you and Mr. Nello exactly what you needed to complete your surveillance. There was no reason for things to turn out the way they did." "You're going to put loss of the vehicle off on me, is that it?" Birch said loudly. "And loss of the surveillance materials, since you didn't bring them when you evacuated."
Birch shook his head. "It's a good thing there was a
dummy of the Overlord circuit design in that briefcase, otherwise EdenCo's engineers would be cloning it and laughing their asses off right now. They had this whole thing figured from day one, and you played fight into it." "You're saying that they meant to go to Havana all along?" "That's exactly what I'm saying."
Kessler laughed. "Why not Miami'? Why not Nassau? Why not Cancun for that matter, if he's going to go and get some sun?" "You should know why," Birch said. He reached inside his suit coat and pulled out a folded, glossy magazine. He opened it and threw it down in front of Kessler. "The Corporate Times Weekl.vl" he said. "If you'll notice, it's from November of last year. On page sixty-one you'll find an article about a silicon plant going up in Havana. It's under the name of Plantation Industrial Electronics."
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JOE CLIFFORD FAUST
Kessler stared at the magazine but didn't touch it. "Plantation Industrial," Birch continued, "is a subdivision of Gulftide Mining and Minerals, a small raw materials concern that operates in the Desertland work district. They in turn are owned by Group Idlewild."
Kessler sighed. "EdenCo's sister corporation." "They drew us off," Birch stated. "They drew us off and buried the work, and if we hadn't already been suspicious, they would have taken us all the way down the line."
The old man put the glasses back on his head. "But what really pisses me off is that I had to find this out from a magazine. A magazine, Howard!" "What about the vehicle?" he asked. "How do you explain the fact that an STV could navigate over water, let alone make it all the way to Havana?" "It wasn't an STV," Nello said. "But you reported-" "I know what I said, but as we've just found out, looks can
be deceiving. It had to be an XRV." "Mr. Nello, there's no way that a Yeager could be an XRV. It's much too compact-" "Excuse me," Nello said, "but it occurs to me that Mitsubishi has been working on a compact version of the extendedrange drive for quite some time now. Since Astradyne isn't concerned with that area of commerce, they could very well have made the breakthrough and have a limited number of drives available without our knowing it."
Kessler put an elbow on the desk and cradled his head in his hand. "That makes sense except for one thing. How could a two-bit outfit like EdenCo end up with one of them?" "A swap," Birch suggested. "Maybe they've contracted with Mit to manufacture the control circuits. In exchange, Mit is installing the new drives into a few carefully selected EdenCo vehicles. " "That would explain why EdenCo has been trying to pinch the Overlord circuit design," Nello added.
Kessler rubbed his temples. "This isn't an easy thing to sit here and listen to."
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"Then do something about it," Birch said. "You've got to expand the information base down to the company men, or trtistakes are going to be made and people will die as a result." "You've made a most convincing argument, Mr. Birch," said Kessler. "That's because I almost got killed." "Is there anything else?" "Would you like my fon-nal report?" "That won't be necessary. Fill out the usual jobend forms and mark them to my attention. I'd also like you to fill out a
grievance form. That'll give me some ammunition to take before the committee." "Thank you," Birch said.
Kessler swiveled in his chair until he faced a computer terminal. His fingers clattered over the keyboard. "In the meantime, you'll be wanting to consider your next assignments." He moved his glasses down his nose and squinted at the screen. "Apparently the order is for a division of resources." "They're breaking us up?" Nello asked. "What for? You said yourself that Andy's charges were justified."
The old man smiled. "And they are. Martin, you're being sent to Operations School, where you will train for POV Cruise Certification."
Nello looked at Kessler in openmouthed astonishment. When the shock wore off, his lips split into a grin. "Congratulations," Birch said, slapping his partner on the back. "You can dunk the next one." "Thanks," Nello said. He leaned over and shook Kessler's hand. "You'll be leaving immediately for training at the Bonn Manufacturing Center. The best of luck." Kessler tapped on the keyboard. "Mr. Birch, I do hope you understand that your assignment is by no means punitive. We're currently suffering a paucity of solid single-man assignments, especially ones that would last the sixteen weeks that your partner is away. I regret that I'm having to send you on a pizza delivery." "You lucky bastard," Nello said.
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JOE CLIFFOPD FAusT
"You're familiar with the Seretex Corporation," Kessler continued. "We frequently clash over hardware patents and designs."
Birch nodded. "They've been quiet lately." "Well, we've found out why. They're preparing to diversify. They're working on a design for a limited-atmosphere life-support dome very similar to what we've been putting up on Luna City. We think they're gearing up to be in full-time production by the time that the Martian Fleet is ready to leave." "You want me to do a design lift?" "Not necessary," Kessler said, pushing his glasses back into place. "The information we have says that they're going to take our basic multifamily unit design and make enough changes so it won't step on our patent. A simple enough operation, but they're very nervous about it, judging from the way they've tried to bury it. "A couple of months ago their top designer was fired, and he soon found work with New Frontier Synthesis, supposedly to plan out a new work vat design. But if you follow New Frontier's family tree, you can trace it back to Seretex. He stayed right in the family. "What we want you to do is delay their work on the design as much as possible without damaging things." "So you want me to hit them with a few Level One disruptions." "You've been authorized up to Level Two. That way they won't be able to trace it back to us. It could be anyone with a
grudge against them. The minute you go over that limit, they'll know it's us. We're not quite ready to tip our hand." "Understood." "And while it's not priority, I want you to keep an eye on what they're doing. Get in immediate touch if you see anything unusual for a raw material synthesis company." "Raw material synthesis?" Nello said, appalled. "Andy, you've been screwed. They're sending you to Desertland." "Winteriand," Kessler corrected. "Wyoming. City of Casper. "
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"It might as well be the desert," Birch said. "Their water table is just as screwed up. The last I heard, Casper didn't even have a vector." "It still doesn't," Kessler said. "Understand, you're not being sent there as punishment. That's all we have open for a
man of your capabilities." "Careful," Nello warned. "You get west of the Missouri River and it's a whole different world." "I'm aware of that," Birch said. "I'd better renew my MVIS.11
"Do you have allergies to anything airborne?" Kessler asked. "They've got a dust problem out there." "No," Birch said. "How's your Mexican English9" Kessler's lip curled up on speaking.
Birch smiled. "Y'ablo ni'ybien. "You'll need to go to the armory and check out a projectile weapon," he continued. "They still use sixty-cycle electricity out there, and it won't keep the standard issues charged. They tend to misfire." "I'll handle it," Birch said.
Kessler wished him luck and turned back to his desk. The two company men walked out of the office and made their way back to the lounge, where they were greeted by another round of happy jeers. "Did you give him your notice, Birch? Did you tell him you're starting your own undersea salvage company?"
From his comer of the bar, Vargas turned toward them. "So how'd you come out of it?" he said.
The bar went silent. "That's the first thing he's said all day," Nello whispered. Birch put his arm around his partner. "We're both intact," he said. "They're sending this fat boy away to take swimming lessons."
There was laughter. "And he," Nello said, pointing, "gets to go deliver pizza." Their colleagues booed. Some threw wadded-up napkins. "If that's what it takes to get light duty," someone said,
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JOE CLIFFORD FAusT
"I'm ditching my steve in the canyon." "That's not light duty," another said. "That's a vacation." "That's right," Nello said. "A vacation. My partner here is getting a four-month vacation in hell."
4
At the armory they gave him everything he needed. They gave him a new identity and a Grade Four work permit and a
sealed packet hidden in the heel of one shoe that contained the materials he would need to leave when the time came.
They also gave him a Smith & Wesson 9-mm pistol and a
box of hydrogen-drive shells. Birch frowned as he turned the weapon over in his hands, examining the vapor ports in the barrel. For all its advantages, he did not like hardpoint plastic. "Something wrong?" the clerk asked. "Sixty-cycle electricity," Birch said. "I'm going to miss my plasma bolt." He slipped the Smith & Wesson into his ankle holster as the clerk laughed.
A company driver took him to the Kansas City railhead the next day. As Birch unloaded his duffel bag from the trunk, the driver handed him a sealed envelope. "This contains information on your contact in the Casper area," he said. "If things start going haywire and you need immediate feedback, he's the one to contact. But do it only if necessary-he's operating under deep cover." "Thanks." Birch stuck the unopened envelope in his bag. "Your rail pass is only good as far as Denver. You'll have to scrounge your way into Casper from there. You'll have a
tighter cover that way." "Thanks." Birch shook his hand. "Have fun," the driver said, then turned and left.
Andrew Birch boarded the rail and found a window seat. As it pulled out of the station, he took the Alphaband from under the seat and put it on his head, intending to plug in and
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31
blank out the trip. But as he looked out at the barren winter landscape, he changed his mind.
He put his forehead against the window, chewed a square of Hershey's chocolate, and watched. Perhaps by watching, he thought, perhaps by watching as the fertile browns slowly faded into a sterile gray, periiaps by watching the life run out of the land as he traveled, he would prepare himself for what was ahead.
And he did. But it wasn't enough.
THE PIZZA DELIVERY
beware of the dog
Andy Birch looked at his radbar and cursed. He was measuring the air trickling in from a vacuum
booth. Each time the inner door opened, the small bar came
alive in his hand, rattling so fiercely that he could feel the vibrations. While being outside would not kill him outright,
longed exposure would only add to the expected any prol cancers at the end of his life.
He clicked the radbar off and walked over to the desk. The clerk, a gaunt man with a weaffier-beaten face, looked up from his newsprint. "Do something for you, son?"
Birch motioned at the doors. "Is it always this bad out here, Monty'? I've been trying to get out of this place for three days." "Nothing's stopping you." "You know what I mean. When is this dust going to settle down?" "It's not dust," Monty said matter-of-factly. "It's gray snow. There's hot dust in it. That's why it's such a bitch to go out in weather like this. You can wear a radsuit, but the snow lands on it and melts so you're covered with little drops of water that the vacuums can't grab. Have to shower them off."
Birch looked out the window at the street. "How do you live out here?"
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"I actually don't mind it. It's a break from the dust. Damn dust gets everywhere. Humidifiers are supposed to yank it out, but they're never a hundred percent efficient." "Is there a store nearby that sells waterproofing spray?"
Monty scratched his beard. "Network Mine and Industrial might have some of that electrostatic stuff. Can't promise what it']] cost." "Would it be worth treating my radsuit?"
The old man clicked his teeth. "Depends on how long you're going to be in town." "A while," Birch said, "unless I can upgrade my Grade Four." He pulled some bills from an inside pocket and tossed them onto the counter. "Better give me a stripe." "Going to brave it, huh?" Monty pulled a length of maroon tape from a roll and cut off a few centimeters. "I've got to do something. You'll evict me." Birch peeled the adhesive backing from the stripe and stuck it to the chest of his suit. "Maroon to black?" he asked.
Monty shook his head and scooped up the money. "Maroon to white. Easier to read. If they're going to make me sell them, I'm going to do it right."
Birch gave a thumbs-up and walked out the door, pausing in the vacuum to pull up his hood and tighten it around his face. When the exit unlocked, he stepped out.
He turned right and hurried down the block. Looking up at the gray sky, he saw that the old man had been right. It was
snow that was coming down, flakes the color of fine ash that collected into slush on the street and made droplets of moisture on the surface of his slick brown suit.
Instinctively, he checked his stripe. It was still the reassuring shade of deep maroon. There was no real reason for him to check it so soon. It was habit.
He blinked against the hard crystals of snow and continued his fast pace. Casper was a city that had seen its share of rough times, and the streets showed it. They had fallen into disrepair at the beginning of the world oil glut, and though the city had been revitalized with the synthesis industry after
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JOE CLIFFOPD FAusT
World Breakup, it had never quite recovered. The sidewalks were cracked and littered with tins and wrappers and decaying stacks of old wood and brick. The stone buildings were
chipped and scarred, and the windows were stained to translucence by chemically tainted rains.
Birch ducked into a bar at the end of the block and waited to be vacuumed. He stared at the sleeve of his suit as the air swirled around him, noting how the melted snow clung to its surface.
The lock opened, and lie stepped inside. It was a dark, dingy place that smelled of disinfectant and rotting wood. A few scattered tables were occupied by the pre-happy-hour crowd, and the juke in the comer was playing hard-core ma-
riachi. He tried to shake off some of the drops and approached the bar. A dark face looked at him from behind the counter. "Qu@desian?" "Bendi bensefiior, " Birch answered. "Tenny stead un telephone?"
Without speaking, the man pointed to a small hallway at the back. "Gracias," Birch replied, tossing a bill on the bar. "U rompe es dinero, porfavor.
The bartender silently took the bill and replaced it with a
handful of coins. "Gracias, " Birch repeated. He walked to the back of the bar, passing a moribund game of cards. A Geiger in front of one of the players started to rattle, and he looked up at Birch. "Agua calor, " Birch said apologetically.
The Geiger owner laughed toothlessly and went back to his cards.
Birch found a bank of three pay telephones wedged between the rest rooms and went to the one farthest from the bar. It was silent when he put the handset to his ear. When he looked, he saw that the metal cable had been pulled out of the base of the phone.
The next phone worked. He pulled a microrecorder out of
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his pocket and put it on the shelf in front of him. After checking a notepad full of phone numbers, he pumped coins into the feed slot and punched in a number.
Waiting for the answer, Birch studied the wall, wondering about the phone numbers scrawled on the wood surface, One number was circled, and an arrow pointed to the inscription "Sefiorita Rhonda-para todo su cosas javoritas. " Madame Rhonda, he mused, must be an accommodating sort.
A voice came through the wire. "Pizzas Arribas." "Bendi," Birch said, thumbing the playback on the recorder. It issued the noise of a hundred conversations and a band in the background. "Necito veinte pizzas pa'un party grande a-" "Hold it," the voice said, annoyed. "I don't speak that shit. You speak English? U'bla Inglez?" "Sorry," Birch said, looking at the notes he had made. "Your listing said-" "The listing's wrong," the voice said. "Old man Gomez sold out. We don't do jalapefio pizzas anymore either." "I'll change them to something else. Do you still deliver?" "You live on the mountain?" "I'm in the West Casper Industrial Park." He increased the volume from the recorder. "We'll go there. What do you want?" "I'm sorry," Birch said, speaking loudly. "I can't hear you. " "What do you want?" the voice shouted. "We're having a little celebration here at New Frontier Synthesis," Birch said, "and I need to have you bring us about twenty pizzas."
Birch continued, giving the man the name of a New Frontier employee that was written in his notes. Then he went on to order the pizzas, all large. in varying combinations of crust thickness, sauce, and toppings. He asked how long the order would be and then checked his watch against the answer. As he had planned, the order would be arriving at the New Frontier offices about ten minutes before closing, in time enough
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JOE CLIFFORD FAUST
to create a problem. He promised a large tip for speedy ser-
vice, expressed his thanks, and hung up.
While he waited, he pulled a Synvox Box out of his pocket and checked the batteries. The toothless man staggered by, heading for the men's room. He pointed his Geiger at Birch, laughing as it rattled at him. "Agua calor, " the old man repeated, laughing with a thick wheeze.
The pay phone rang. Birch picked it up, held the Synvox to the mouthpiece, and thumbed a button. "Thank you for calling New Frontier Synthesis," it said. "Please state the department or personnel you need to speak with." "This is Lance at Pizzas Arribas," the phone said, "and I need to confirm an order for twenty pizzas-"
Lance obviously was not used to Al answering circuits. Birch clicked the button again. "Thank you for calling New Frontier Synthesis. Please state the department or personnel you need to speak with." "Shit," Lance said. "Just a minute. Lemme look it up."
Birch thumbed the button and let the message repeat a third time. "Hang on," the pizza man said. "I'm getting it."
Birch hung up. The toothless man emerged from the men's room. He pointed at Birch and laughed.
Birch clicked another button on the Synvox. "Thank you," it said.
The man laughed even more and shuffled back to his card game.
The phone rang again. Birch picked it up and let the Synvox speak. "I need to speak with Bob Culligan," said Lance of Pizzas Arribas.
Birch thumbed the "thank you" button and turned on the microrecorder. "Concepts," he said in a different voice. "Bob Culligan, please."
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"Can you speak up? I can't hear you over the band." "Bob Culligan," Lance shouted. "One moment." He let the party recording play back for a
moment, then said in a normal voice, "This is Bob." "Mr. Culligan? This is Lance at Pizzas Arribas, and I'm calling to confirm an order for-" "Twenty pizzas," Birch said, cutting him off. "Of course.
They ready yet?" "Ah, no, sir. I'm just calling to confirm that you ordered-" "Of course I ordered them," he snapped. "What did you think?" "It's standard procedure," Lance apologized. "Fine, fine. Just get them here, okay?" He hung up and pocketed his equipment. When he had sealed the pockets of his radsuit, he walked out of the bar, calling out his thanks to the bartender.
On the street again, he walked to the nearest mail drop. He produced two business reply cards which stated that Mr. Bob Culligan wanted subscriptions to Gay Blade and Leatherboys. When the magazines started to arrive, Culligan would throw them out, but by then it would not matter. Arriving in large paprin envelopes, they would be carefully screened by New Frontier's security people, who would open them because they lacked a return address. Then they would go upstairs through Culligan's secretary. By the time Culligan could stop the subscription, the rumors would be flying. He slipped the cards into the drop and walked away.
The top of the hour found him walking out of Network Mine and Industrial with a new watershed radsuit under his arm. He took it back to the hotel, stopping on the way to buy several liters of vinegar. Secluding himself in the bathroom down the hall from his room, he filled the tub with the liquid and immersed the suit in it. Within an hour the acid had streaked and faded the suit, giving it a used look. That would be his story to anyone who asked: He had bought it used.
The rest of the morning he spent at the library, going
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through back issues of the local paper and the Corporate Times Weekly. He copied dates and times and the names of contractors into his notebook, then headed for the Hall of Corporate Records. It was there that he located the blueprints to the New Frontier Synthesis plant and discreetly photographed them with a digicam. Once that was done, he headed for the hotel.
When he was a block away, his stomach rumbled. He stopped and looked around, spotting a small caf6 on the other side of the street. The traffic slowed, and he cut across, stopping as he pushed through the doors to be vacuumed off.
He stepped in, and the heavy scent of hot grease and coffee turned his empty stomach. Unzipping the radsuit, he sat at the counter.
A young waitress appeared from the kitchen, carrying an
empty tray, a menu, and a damp rag. She put the tray on a
shelf, wiped the counter in front of Birch, and handed him a menu. "Morning," she said curtly.
Birch looked at her. She was harried and was letting the name tag smile for her. It read "Good Morning!" and the "o" in "morning" was a happy, rising sun. Below that was her name, handwritten: "Lucy.,, "It's afternoon," he replied, opening the menu. "Does the sun ever shine in this town?" "It shines," Lucy said, laying down a napkin. "You here for coffee or lunch?" "Lunch."
She gave him silverware. "The sun shines all the time in the summer and most of the time in the winter. Something has to make the dust." "I've yet to see it." "You don't want to," she told him. "it gets everywhere. Not even the humidifiers get it all out." "I've heard." "Be thankful for the snow while it's here. Pretty soon it'll be dry and gray." She took a pad from her apron. "You want water? It costs extra."
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Birch ran his tongue across the front of his teeth. "Yes," he said. "Something to wash the dust out."
Lucy smiled. "You're new here." "It shows?" She nodded. "Don't worry. It's only supposed to be like this another thirteen years. Then the enviromental recovery companies will supposedly be caught up with all of the mining that was done out here."
Birch sipped the water she had set before him. "Thank heaven for the fuel farms." "It's a trade-off. We won't have dust, but we'll still have the stuff that corrodes windows." "So for now you're stuck with both." "And the place continues to disintegrate. What'll you have?"
He gave her his order, and she disappeared into the kitchen. Birch decided that the place was nicer than it looked. It was around 2p, and the afternoon lunch trade had long since parted. There were a couple of women chatting over coffee; someone in a business suit, obviously with his Grade One, reading a tabloid and slowly chewing a roll; and a stoner occupied a comer booth, trying to focus on his orange juice long enough to pour it down his throat.
The chimes from the vacuum sounded, and a man with a three-day beard stepped in. He dusted himself off and looked around the caf6. "Is this a beautiful day or what?" he proclaimed to everyone present.
Lucy rolled her eyes. The man walked to the counter and straddled the seat next to Birch. "Well, hello!" He smiled. "And how are you this fine day?"
Birch sipped water. "Fine." "That's great to hear. I feel pretty wonderful myself. Did you know that this is a wonderful place?" "Tell me about it." "He's new here, Jack," Lucy told the man. "He's not privy to your secrets."
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"Well, well." He extended a grubby hand. Birch shook it. "Jack Lime. Jack short for Jackson, not short for John. Doesn't make sense, does it? Jack short for John? Just as
many letters, takes as long to say. And what are you calling yourself today?"
Birch looked at him sourly. "Ivan," he said. "Ivan. Good corporate name. You'll go far with that one." "I'd be happy with a Grade Three." "Be happy with what you've got. That's the key to life, Ivan. I lived in City work district for thirty-four of the most miserable years of my life. Most days you couldn't walk down the street without an airmask. Old people would croak on the street, airmask or no."
Birch frowned. "That doesn't sound like the City I know. What part are you from?" "Madhattan," Lime said. He laughed at his own joke. "Get it?" ,,Manhattan's improved," Birch told him. "Well, it wasn't when I was there, and I had it good. I had a Grade Two, and I worked for the power company. Then one
day I realized we were putting the stuff in the air that was
killing people. "I decided I was committing suicide by working there, so I packed up and tried to lend-lease a steve. I couldn't get one, so I loaded into an old ICV and started out. I didn't get too far because I drove right into the Appalachian Uprising." "Careful." Birch smiled. "Your age is showing." "Age." Jack Lime laughed. A was your age then, and they tried to conscript me. Can you believe it? They put a gun in my hand and told me I was a soldier. I told them that I didn't blame the Appalachians for being tired of raping the ground to get coal. So they took my car. Some corporate general needed it for a command vehicle. "Well, I stayed around for a couple more months hoping that the situation would resolve, but the Appalachians had dug into the mountains, and nothing short of divine intervention was going to bring them out. I was about to lose my Grade
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Two because I hadn't worked in so long, and I still didn't have a car. Finally I told them what they could do with my Grade Two, and I got out of that place." "To where the dust is," Birch said. "So long as I'm not putting it in the air, I can deal with it," Lime explained. "It wasn't my idea to screw up the environment. I was for everyone knuckling down and suffering until the synthetics companies got the ball rolling. A little hardship makes you grow, gives you character. But people had gotten too soft. They wanted to travel, and they wanted their microwaves and holographic projection screens." "So now we've lost our character," Birch said. "Absolutely," Lime agreed.
Lucy appeared from the kitchen with two plates. She put one before Birch. "Damn, you're a cute little thing," Lime said. "She's taken," Birch said quickly. He picked up a fork and cut into an egg.
Lucy blushed. "You don't have to protect me from Jack," she explained. "We're old friends." She put the second plate in front of Lime. "The usual."
Lime thanked her and looked at Birch. "I should be protecting her from you," he said, "but I won't. It looks like your instincts are in the right place." "I hope so," Birch answered, sipping coffee. "Defense ,    Lime said, thoughtfully chewing potato. "Therein lies the problem that this world is in. We got hung up on looking out for number one. Not enough of us wanting to stick our necks out for friends." "Is this a history lesson?" Birch asked. "It should be. Something we should have learned a long time ago. Never let someone else fight battles for you." "Yup," Birch said, trying to ignore the soliloquy. "Just like the company men," Lime continued. "The reason
we got them is because nobody wanted to fight their own battles. " "Is that right." Birch tried to conceal his growing interest.
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Lime could be trying to feel him out. He might be a company man himself. "Believe it, Ivan. It all comes down to terrorism. You had terronsts blowing the hell out of innocent men, women, kids. Their only crime was that they pledged allegiance to a certain geographic boundary. Then the victim's family clamored for
justice, and the leaders wanted to strike at the bastards, but nobody wanted more bloodshed. Yeah, they all wanted it to stop, but not at the price of more killing. What the hell is a
person supposed to do under those circumstances?" "Dissolve territorial borders," Birch said. "You've read your history," Lime said. "That's exactly what you do. You turn everything over to the companies, and that hamstrings terrorists because they no longer have a na-
tionality to strike at. They're afraid that if they hit a company, it'll be the subsidiary of a friendly and they'll end up without telephone service." "But company men," Lucy said, "are no better than the terrorists they replaced."
Lime slid a sliver of meat into his mouth. "What makes you say that?" Birch asked. "They do the same things that terrorists did. They set off bombs, they kidnap, they steal. . ." "But," Lime said, "they only do that to their opposition. The innocent are left out. That's where they differ." "I disagree," Lucy said. "Look at how many years the world's been at peace since the breakup." "Every day at least one person dies because of a company action," Lucy said. "I don't call that peace." "I think Your friend is talking in terms of global warfare," Birch said. "Correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Lime, but it's your contention that as long as the companies fight among themselves, there's no need to worry about something on a global scale."
Lime nodded and asked for more coffee. "But at what price?" Lucy demanded. "Sure, what's a few
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lives a day? They still add up. And what about giving the companies carte blanche with running things? Sure, we don't have to worry about nuclear war because they dismantled everything, but we've still got leaky reactors and those awful machines that run on plutonium. We might as well have had a hot war, because we're getting the same effects, always having to be vacuumed and wearing special suits to keep the rads out of us. How much did we really give up?"
Birch looked at her solemnly. His lips hinted at a faint smile. "The lady has a conscience." "Indeed," Lime answered, chewing.
Embarrassed, Lucy smoothed her apron. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get on a soapbox." She looked out the window at the sleet. "I just get so frustrated here." "Lucy's waiting on her Grade Two," Lime told Birch. "Better job?" he asked. "College," she answered. "I've been waiting five years." "I understand." He yielded his fork and put some bills on the scarred countertop. "Will you forgive me if I break off this conversation?" "No need to," Lucy said. "I ramble sometimes." "I understand," Birch told her. "I'm due to discuss the prospect of getting an upgrade with some bureaucrat." "Good luck." She almost smiled. "Maybe we can continue this later." "Maybe." She picked up Birch's plate and silver and shuttled it into the kitchen.
Birch watched her exit. A nice girt, he thought. A little down, not exceptionally beautiful, but someone nice. A girl next door. Someone to pass the time with, perhaps.
He got off the stool and paid his bill. Then he went across
town, found a white van sitting in a new-car lot, and stole it.
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2
When Birch looked in the mirror two days later, he was a
changed man.
The allergens he had injected under his eyebrows, in the bridge of his nose, and in his chin and cheeks had caused a
swelling that had altered his appearance.
He now had a Neanderthallike ridge that ran over his eyes and across his face. When he combed his hair back, his forehead looked much longer than it was. The swelling had also given him a Roman nose, and the pinpricks to the nostrils had made them flare. He had high, prominent cheekbones and a
cleft chin. The look was further embellished by his three-day beard, contact lenses that had changed his eyes from blue to deep brown, and the yellow-gray streaks he had put in his hair.
He stepped back from the mirror and ran his hands over the Wingfoot Industries uniform he had tailored from a white jumpsuit. In his hand was a counterfeit Wingfoot ID card that had been made with a kit hidden in his duffel bag.
Birch studied his hands and rubbed his thumbs over the tips of his fingers. The polypaste that coated them lessened his tactile ability, but he would not leave fingerprints behind. He decided he was ready.
He went out the back exit, caught the Industrial Strip bus, and rode it to within a few blocks of the garage he had rented.
Inside, the van waited. He had transferred the Wingfoot Communications company logo to the back and sides, making it as near a copy of their fleet vehicles as he could. The finish of the wax had been chemically dulled, and a healthy coating of dust and dirt had been blown on.
In the back of the vehicle a host of drills, belts, and meters hung in organized precision. Anyone looking inside would be convinced it was the real thing.
At 9a he pulled up to a boxy seven-story building at the
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edge of a large fenced-off field. The sign at the gate read "NEW FRONTIER SYNTHESIS PLANT NO. 8-Research And Light Synthesis." Below that, another sign informed visitors that "Persons interested in touring actual synthesis facilities should contact our synthesis facilities in Midwest."
A guard sauntered out of the office and squinted at him. Birch obligingly rolled down the window. "What can I do for you this morning?"
Birch handed him the ID card and a crumpled paper. "I've got a work order to check the Mac 21 board in your telephone junction. Something's putting out a high-freq carrier pitch that's interfering with the area corn net."
The guard took the work order. "Just a moment, please." He returned to his office.
Birch turned on the radio and whistled along to mariachi. "I'm sorry," the guard said, returning with a clipboard, "but we're not showing anyone from Wingfoot due in today." Birch rolled his eyes. "Of course not. I've been working on
this thing all night." He stabbed two fingers at the building. "The source of the interference has to be coming from the telephone junction on the third floor of that building. I've checked every other business in this park, got a few managers out of bed, and they were plenty pissed. They're going to be really pissed if you don't let me take that circuit down."
The guard glared. "Our phones are working fine." "Of course they are. They're controlled by the malfunctioning circuit. The dogbrain's going to adapt. But the Als on
different junctions won't, and they'll misbehave."
The guard stared. "Of course," Birch sighed, "the choice is yours. That Mac
21 is costing your company about ten k's an hour in system fines. If your job is secure enough that you can tell them you turned me away, I'll leave."
His eyes rolled. "Go. Fix the damn thing." Birch tipped his hat. He parked the van and climbed into the back, arming himself with an assortment of equipment. Then he walked into the research center.
The receptionist had been told of his coming and let him
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pass without incident, giving him an official- looking visitor's pass. He thanked her in his blue-collar accent and continued on his way.
He located the stairs with little difficulty, having studied the center's blueprints until he knew the layout by heart. He trotted up the stairs to the third floor, heart pounding with excitement.
Before long he found a door marked "TELEPHONE JUNCTION-Limited Access Only." Taking his Judas Box, he placed the card into the lock slot and punched in the start freq for Wingfoot. He tuned the box until the door slid open, then stepped through and sealed himself in.
The room was small and hot. A vent forced in cool air to keep the temperature at twenty degrees, but it was a lost cause. He could smell the bitterness of hot plastic.
Most of the components were logic circuits and controllers, packed in metalplast cabinets sloppily stamped with the
Wingfoot logo. Some were mounted on the walls, and thin wires in every imaginable color combination ran from one to another and into the walls of the building. Most of the doors had been removed to help disperse the heat.
On a shelf, Birch found a handset with a pair of alligator clips dangling from the leads. He clipped them onto contacts in a box near the door and thumbed the uq-mRRUPr switch. "Excuse me," he said. "This is Wingfoot Industries, and in ten minutes I'm going to be working on your telephone system. Expect it to be down for about half an hour. Again, your telephone system will be going down in ten minutes and will stay down for half an hour. Thank you."
Birch disconnected and set about the task of locating the component that digitalized outgoing phone calls for transmission on service lines. Taking his meter, he peered into the transmission housing until he found the Mac 21 board. He connected his meter to a subcircuit and hit a switch, and a
wisp of smoke curled into the air. Having successfully burned the Mac 21, he removed it.
He moved to the encoder housing and disconnected the phone line from the digitalizing system. He plugged a new
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circuit board into an empty slave slot and connected it with the power supply, then rerouted the phone lines through it. From there he sent the signal back to the digitalizer. He powered up the box, made sure it was operating properly, and closed the housing.
Birch took one more circuit board from his box, a brandnew Mac 21. He installed it in the transmission housing and flipped a switch, and New Frontier's telephones were back on-line. He double-checked the installation in the encoder to make sure it worked with phone calls moving through it.         e
meter showed activity, and he was satisfied.
Birch packed his equipment and left the building. On the way out, he gave the burned Mac 21 to the guard, slipping in a comment about not being able to get good help since the breakup. He returned the van to the garage and caught the bus downtown.
Back in his room, it was a simple matter of connecting a
line receiver to the telephone and dialing New Frontier's main office. He keyed in a number string, and the phone quit ringing. A jumble of voices spilled from the receiver. To sort
them, Birch turned the line receiver until he could sort through the individual conversations at will.
He listened for a while, privy to any communications that used the phone net. He tuned through until he learned what subfrequencies his target used, then went off-line.
Weary, Birch swallowed a handful of pills and went down the hall for a bath. By the time he returned to his room, the drugs had made him drowsy,
He slept, and the swelling left his face.
3
A week went by. Andy Birch stayed in his room most of that time, listening to Bob Culligan. He was not as interested in the progress on
the life-support dome as he was in finding out Culligan's
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schedule and habits. He took notes on the man, filling two notebooks, and made posters of his schedule that he hung on the walls of the small room.
Birch chewed thoughtfully on a Hershey bar and studied the maps of Culligan's life, waiting for inspiration to strike. He had not made any disruptions since ordering the pizza, which was a generally aimed disruption that would not directly affect Culligan.
What he needed now was a direct strike, something to make his life uncomfortable.
Studying the chart, he realized that tonight was a prime opportunity. Every Tuesday right, Culligan's wife, Lorraine, left the house at 7p for the New States Bank of Casper, where she met with the Sorority of Corporate Women. Because of the schedule, her husband would stop on the way home from work and buy a carry-out dinner.
It was perfect. If Culligan knew that his wife was gone for three hours every Tuesday night, then he could possibly cultivate some interesting habits. Since there was no time to research that, Birch decided to invent the habits, along with a way for Lorraine to discover them.
Birch scribbled notes and ate another Hershey bar. He wanted an unlikely chain of events to converge, giving the aura that the event could not possibly have been planned. If he could get it worked out in time, he could do it tonight, which would give the disruption the spontaneous feel that it needed. After a few minutes he worked out the details and decided to do it. He pulled a few needed items out of a drawer, tucked them into his counterfeit Wingfoot uniform, then rolled it all in a towel.
The roll under his arm, Birch left the hotel and walked to the bar. The juke was blaring the usual fare of mariachi, and the bar-tender nodded at Birch's greeting. He went to the pay phone and copied down Sehorita Rhonda's number. He stuffed the pad in his pocket and walked out the side exit.
Several blocks down the street, a familiar sight caught his eye, and he stopped. He stared for a moment in disbelief, then in happy recognition.
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It was a steve, a Mercedes LRC I 1000-the standard-issue vehicle of the Astradyne Company.
He slowly approached it, apprehension spiking his stomach. He had not seen a steve since leaving Denver, but here one was, resting in a lot next to a multistory bank. The I I 00's were not exclusively used by Astradyne, but the company was
that model's largest buyer. It made him wonder.
He peered into the cockpit. It was almost identical to the one he had dumped in the gulf, customized with everything standard to Astradyne vehicles. He backed away from it, his mind racing.
What the hell was going on? There were no Astradyne branches or subsidiaries in Casper. They had no interest in the small city other than the fact that Seretex was using its isolated location to perform a little patent infringement.
Birch tried to calm himself. He had no proof that this was an Astradyne vehicle. Kessler had promised him that with the exception of the deep cover operative, Casper was clear of other Astradyne men.
He turned away from the vehicle, picking up his pace and stuffing his hands in his pockets. His right hand fell on his Judas Box.
He stopped again. There was a way to find out if it was an
Astradyne vehicle. All he would have to do was key in an
Astradyne frequency, and if the cockpit opened ...
Birch studied the vehicle. His thumb ran over the keys on
the surface of the box.
He turned away and started to walk. It was probably coincidence, and he had something important to do. Mercedes did make a quality product, and it was entirely possible that some-
one had bought the craft for himself because of its reputation. There were other ways of finding out if Astradyne had any other units in the area. He could call in or could open the packet taped to the bottom of the bureau drawer and get in touch with the Casper operative.
He decided it was not that important and hurried on his way, catching the crosstown bus to the garage. He changed into the Wingfoot uniform, tossed his equipment onto the pas-
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senger seat of the van, and pulled out.
At 5: 1 Op, he pulled into the parking lot of a pornographic video outlet, took a pair of binoculars from under the seat, and trained them on the front gates of the New Frontier Synthesis yard.
Culligan emerged from the building and climbed into his vehicle, a red Mitsubishi Scat!. He looked up from the eyepieces and cursed. The original plan had called for vandalizing Culligan's vehicle while he was in the restaurant, which would run out valuable time forcing him to call the police. By the time he got a new vehicle and made it home, things would be well under way. But the Scat! ran on plutonium-generated electricity and had a security system that was second to none. Birch would not be able to get near the vehicle, let alone touch it.
The small red vehicle pulled up to the gate. Birch fired the van's engine and rolled to the street, waiting for Culligan. As he did, Birch pulled onto the boulevard, keeping a safe distance between them.
He followed Culligan through downtown Casper, speeding up enough to clear the traffic lights that might separate them. The urban area thinned, as did the traffic. In front of Culligan, a light winked yellow. The designer shot through the intersection.
Birch bit his lip and slammed his foot on the gas. The van lurched toward the intersection. A car pulled out in front of him. He hit the brakes and the horn. The light changed to red.
Culligan's car went a quarter block ahead then moved into the left turn lane, signaling to pull into a place called In6z Fong's House of the Orient.
Birch pulled out when the light changed, passing Culligan's vehicle and driving down to the next light. He turned left, circled back to the block where Fong's was located, and took the van into an alley.
He turned on the high beams and eased down the passage, studying the backs of the buildings. The lights caught a large garbage dumpster with "I FONGS" sloppily spray painted
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across it, and he stopped. He hopped out of the van with a small satchel, checking the back of the restaurant until he found the main power line into the building. From the satchel he took a small blob of explosive and molded it around the conduit, stuck the contact leads of a microreceiver into the mass, then climbed back into the van.
Birch went back toward the boulevard, waited at a light, then passed Fong's again. One block down he found a pay phone. He overrode it with the Judas Box, flipped his note-
book open, and dialed Sehorita Rhonda's number. "'Bue'noche," a seductive voice answered. "Q'pue servirle?" "Tu'e S'ita Rhonda?" Birch asked. "Si," the voice said smoothly. "Mi sehorita regular es enferma," Birch told her. "Qu,@ histima," she answered. "Q'deseas?"
He described some services in sketchy detail, letting Rhonda fill in the gaps with suggestions of her own. After a few minutes, he had convinced her that he was a legitimate businessman with a kink that needed treatment.
They set a price that Birch thought high and a time and place: 7:15p at 6008 Green River Drive. The residence of Robert and Lorraine Culligan.
Now he had to make Bob Culligan late. He unplugged the box from the pay slot and punched in an emergency number. A dispatcher answered on the third ring. "Emergency Central, where are you calling from?" "Listen," Birch shouted excitedly, "there's something going down at In6z Fong's on Yellowstone. As I was coming out, some guy in a red car walked in and pulled a gun. Someone screamed, and I got the hell out of there." "Did you see what kind of a weapon it was?" "All I know is that it wasn't one of those plasma jobs. Ple's driving one of those red bombs, those little electric things." "Can you stay on the line with me, please?" "I've gotta get outta here!" Birch shrieked, and slammed the phone down. He waited, and it started to ring. Emergency
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JOE CLIFFoPD FAusT
Central had traced it back. While the phone rang, he pulled out a screwdriver and dismantled it.
As he watched, a police car silently glided into Fong's lot. In the distance a siren cut off and another vehicle pulled in, blocking Culligan's car. The first officer covered the entrance while the second officer met with him.
Birch turned on a small transmitter hanging from his belt and thumbed a button. There was a noise like a muffled shotgun blast, and the lights in the restaurant went out. The officers ducked for cover behind their molded metalpiast vehicles.
Someone wandered out the front door as a third vehicle rolled into the lot. It skidded to a stop, and an officer jumped out, brandishing a shotgun and shouting orders. Cartons of stir-fry and sweet and sour fell to the ground and exploded with steam in the cold air. The confused patron protested.
The first officer waved the customer to cover and ran over to confer with him as a fourth car appeared. The driver, a burly man with sergeant's stripes, stopped his car on the street to block traffic, then hurried to the impromptu barricade.
It was time to close the trap. Birch reassembled the telephone, jumped it with the Judas Box, and dialed one more number from his notebook. He watched the anarchic scene at the restaurant and counted the rings. "New States Bank of Casper, after hours line. May I help you?" "Corporate leech," Birch breathed, "  sucking life from the dirt and raping the land. Exploiting and poisoning the people while promising reform to appease those whose strings you pull." "Who's calling, please?" the voice asked earnestly. "This is PELA. Do you know what that means? We know the truth about you and your holdings. You take the people's savings and use it to pillage and pollute the countryside. You're contributing to the death of this once green land. "That will happen no more, because tonight we slit your
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industrialist throat. As of seven four five tonight, your brothel shall be no more." He cackled evilly and hung up.
Taking one last glance at the scene he had created--the squad cars there numbered seven, and one of them was a steve-Birch climbed into the van and turned away from the confusion. True, his vehicle had been spotted, but the pressure would fall on Win-foot, which would scour their ranks to find out who had been working when everything went down.
Birch knew that Culligan would eventually be cleared of wrongdoing, but it would be hours before the story was
straight. By that time his problems would only be starting. Within ten minutes his wife would receive a call announcing that her sorority meeting had been canceled because of a bomb threat. She would be sitting at home waiting for her husband when a painted woman carrying a bag of leather tricks appeared, offering her services to a man whose regular girl was ill.
Andy Birch rocked in his seat and laughed. It was time to celebrate.
Lucy was cleaning the grill when Birch walked in. Other than her, the caf6 was deserted. He planted himself at the counter and quicklv scanned the menu.
"Hello, Ivan," sho said. "I hope you weren't hungry." She motioned at the clock. It was almost 9p. "I'm getting ready to close." "Don't worry," Birch told her. "I can get coffee if you'd like." "No, thanks." He looked her over. Her brown hair was tied back and covered with a scarf, and she wore a blue flannel shirt with the sleeves cut short. She was pouring liquid onto the hot surface of the grill and scraping it with a large metal spatula. Her face glistened with sweat.
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"What do you need, then?" "Your company," he told her. "Unless you're occupied." Lucy looked up from her work. "What's the occasion?" "I'd like to take you to dinner. I thought it'd be a nice change if someone cooked for you. A place where they give you a menu and a wine list."
She picked up a rag and wiped her forehead. "I'm in no
shape to go out for dinner." "How long would it take you to get ready?"
Lucy took another rag and polished the surface of the grill. "I hardly know you." "I've been in here at least once a day for the last two weeks and you say that you hardly know me? That's a poor excuse."
She flushed. "That's not what I meant. What I mean is ... well, this is rather sudden." "I'll admit that it's impulse. I was listening to the radio in the car and decided-" "Wait a minute." She dropped the towel and came out from the kitchen. "When were you in a car?"
A rented one." Birch rose from the stool and walked to the fogged window. "Right out there. The steely green one." "How could you afford it? You've only got a Grade Four." "It doesn't cost an arm and a leg to stay at Monty's hotel. It's no fortune to eat here, either." "Seriously?" She was out from behind the counter, approaching the window. "A car?"
He pointed to the subcompact parked across the street. "Right there." "And you filled it with gas?" He shook his head. "It's an electric." She scowled. "How can you do this, Ivan9 You came here with nothing."
He shrugged. "Amazing what a few spot jobs can do." Lucy started back for the counters. "Spot jobs? You expect me to believe you made that kind of money doing manual labor for Project Employment?" "No."
She turned to him. "That's what I thought. What did you
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do, rob the New States Bank tonight?"
His stomach tightened. "What about the New States Bank?"
She smiled. "I thought you listened to the radio today. There was a bomb threat on the New States Bank, and while they were evacuating, someone tried to crack the vault." "Interesting." Birch laughed. "But not me. What do you say, kid? Let's eat."
She was thinking about it. "Come on. How often do you get to tell someone how to cook your food? You can even pick where you want to go." "Anywhere?" "Anywhere but Burgertiffic's. They put gastrocaine in their food." "You're asking for trouble," she said. "I haven't been out to dinner in ages." She clicked a switch on the cash register and entered numbers on the keypad. A light flickered, and the day's receipts transferred to the bank. Then she went to the breaker box, shut off the lights, and put on her radsuit. "Then this is your golden opportunity," he told her.
She smiled. "I'll do it on one condition. Let me get out of these clothes and take a quick shower." "You've got it."
Birch opened the front door and let her out. She thanked him, switched the sign in the door to CLOSED, and locked up with a thin plastic card. "Need a ride home?" "It'd be a waste of electricity, Ivan." "I bought it to waste. Really." "I only live five blocks from here." "You want me to meet you there?"
Lucy gave him a practical look, "Shouldn't I show you where I live? "Fine." He held his arm out. She took it, and they started down the street. "How long have you been working at the cafV" he asked. "Too long," she answered. "About three years. Before that I had little jobs, temporary things, because I thought I was
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going to get my Grade Two. After two years, things didn't look too bright, so I got into something a little more stable. Boss knows I'm still trying to get the Grade so I can go to college. We've got an understanding, no hard feelings if it comes along, But I don't see it happening anytime soon." "Why not?" "It's been too long. I've been pigeonholed. Somebody in some corporate office in City keeps getting my application and saying, 'She doesn't need to go to school, she's doing fine as
a waitress.' So I cook and wait tables. "It's my own fault, I guess. I was academically unexceptional in school. I passed everything, but I was such a dreamer. I did enough to get by because I had such big plans. Who knows, Ivan? Maybe I wouldn't have finished college if I'd gone, but I'd have liked to have had the chance." "What would you have studied?" "I don't know." She looked at him. Her eyes were bright, reflecting the shine from the streetlamps. "I had so many things I was interested in. Ocean environments, meteorology, law enforcement, art. Maybe I would have been a professional student. That would have been nice, too." "You sound like you've written the prospect off." "Really, now." Her voice was edged with sarcasm. "What gives you that impression?" "Sorry. Have you thought about other ways of getting a
Grade Two?" "What other ways are there?" She looked at him again, and her eyes dimmed. "Oh. Those." She sighed. "No, I haven't. I mean, for a while I considered doing something radical, but I couldn't bring myself to it. You need lots of money to cross
someone's palm, and with a Grade Three you don't have that kind of cash floating around. It would have taken forever." "Point." "I guess I could have used my physical charms, but there'd be no end to the Hail Marys. I don't want to hang around purgatory any longer than I have to." "Maybe this is purgatory," Birch said.
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Lucy shook her head. "Purgatory's nicer than this." He laughed. "Besides, I kept thinking that if I bought a Grade Two, then somebody who really deserved it would have to go without." "Nonsense," Birch said. "That's the reason you can't get one now. Somebody paid off a bureaucrat for a ticket to a better life." "I've heard this before. From Jack. This is the dog eat dog speech, right?" "Nope. This is the beware of the dog speech." "What does that mean?" "It means if you're going to be complacent, you're going to get bitten." "Want to see my scars?" she asked. She stopped before a
graying brick building. "Get a stick," Birch told her. "Be aggressive. You deserve better than to sit here until you glow."
Lucy plugged a key into the security system. There was a
grating, and the door popped loose from its housing. "You're a funny one to be giving a pep talk, Ivan. I don't see you hustling up a Grade Two."
He opened the door for her and let her pass through. "The thought of settling down frightens me. I'd rather keep mov-
ing." He followed her lead up a flight of stairs. "Whatever does it for you," she said cynically. "I'm serious," Birch said. "You don't belong here. If you hang around, you're going to get cancer and die like everyone else. That's what'll happen if you let your spirit break. Beware of the dog."
They walked onto a landing, and Lucy approached a battered wooden door that had a chipped coat of Leadspray. "And what about you, Ivan? Don't you listen to your own speeches? Or are you going to wander around the work district until you rot away, spending what money you make on rental cars and dinners for hopeless women?"
Birch took her by the shoulder and turned her to face him.
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Her eyes were moist. "You're not hopeless," he said quietly. "I'm sorry." She searched her purse for the key, a slender piece of cut brass that fit a mechanical lock. "I appreciate the attention. I really do." "Are you frustrated?" "Completely." "Would you like me to help you?"
She laughed bitterly. "What could you do for me, Ivan?" He shrugged. "Maybe I could find someone with paper to pass. "
She shook her head. "I couldn't do that." "They're doing it to you." "Two wrongs," she said, opening the door, "don't make a right."
Birch followed her into the apartment, studying it intently. It was a small place with a living room and kitchen and a short hallway near the back that led to the bedroom and bathroom. "Nice," he said. "A dive," she answered, pulling off her coat. "You should see where I'm living."
Lucy dropped her radsuit in the chair and untucked her shirt. "Make yourself at home. There's soda in the fridge, and the television works." She walked down the hall and stepped to the right. "You said quick," Birch reminded her.
She grinned. "I'll see what I can do." The door closed, and a moment later Birch heard the hiss of running water.
He paced the living room. There was space for little more than a couch, chair, coffee table, and television. In one comer was tucked a neatly filled book-rack, and shelves were nailed to the walls and filled with delicate blown-glass figures.
Every time his eyes stopped wandering, they fell on icons. On the wall was a crucifix and a painting of Christ wearing the crown of thorns. A small statue of the Holy Mother and a wom Bible rested on the coffee table. On the kitchen table were rosary beads and tracts with headlines about saving the lost in Soviet Asia.
Beware of the dog, Birch thought. Lucy had been taught to
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turn the other cheek and in doing so had let herself get slapped raw. He sighed. The apartment was so small, so crowded. It did not seem right that someone as young as Lucy should resign herself to spending the rest of her life tiptre.
The water stopped running in the bathroom. Birch turned on the television and watched. Showing was O'Malley, a popular series about a swashbuckling company man who raced around the world in a custoni-built XRV, rescuing kidnapped daughters of corporate heads and dispatching with reckless abandon the minions of an evil multinational intent on buying out the world.
Birch snickered. Rodger O'Malley would wither away and die if he had to work a pizza delivery.
From the comer of his eye, he saw the bathroom door open. Lucy peeked out, then darted across the hall. She was wrapped in a towel, her long, pale legs flashing smooth in the dark of the hall.
The television flashed. Three women in corporate dress were discussing the physical prowess and personalities of their lovers. The silent one drew pointed questions from her colleagues. "He's cruel," they said. "He's got a reputation for it." She shrugged it off. "Why do you hang around with that sadist?" asked the other. The quiet woman smiled. "Beats me," she said, taking a long sip of her draught. Diana Beer, flickered the letters. It'sfor you.
After commercials for the Mitsubishi Runabout and Genentech Antivenereal Vaccines, a newscaster introduced footage taken earlier that evening. The picture cut to a handcuffed man being taken from Inez Fong's House of the Orient.
It was Robert Culligan. The reporter gave quick details, including Culligan's release in light of the bomb threat and attempted robbery of the New States Bank, which had been attributed to the People's Environmental Liberation Army.
Birch laughed. Led away in handcuffs. It was too good. The broadcaster promised details at ten, and O'Malley resumed. "What's so funny?" Lucy appeared from the bedroom, running a brush through her wet hair.
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"O'Malley," Birch said. "No wonder you're laughing," she said in disgust. He looked at her. She was dressed in a pastel blouse and dark slacks. "Ready?" he asked, rising. "Just about." She slid pins in her hair to keep it in place. "I don't see how the networks get away with it. Do you realize every one of them is running a series about a company man?" "They're popular," Birch said. "But twelve? One is too many. You don't see them grinding out shows about serial killers." "Company men aren't serial killers." He took her radsuit from the chair and held it cut to her. "Thanks," she said, 'Uat I'm wearing a coat." She pulled a thick tweed from the c1c;set. "Company men," she announced, pulling the coat on, "are terrorists." "Company men," Birch replied, "are nothing like O'Malley. The majority of them have never killed anyone or blown anything up. Most of them steal garbage out of corporate disposal chutes and tap phont- lines." "But they still have this reputation," Lucy said. "The worldly, licensed-to-kill womanizer." "Consider the source." Birch hung her work coat in the closet. "How do you know so much about them?" Lucy 6allenged. "How does a man with a Grade Four come to have such profound knowledge?"
Birch opened the door for her. "If I tell you," he said, "will you still go out with me?"
She locked the door and started down the stairs. "You're not going to tell me that you're a company man, are you?" "Nope.11 "Good. Because I wouldn't believe you."
So much the better, Birch thought. "I thought about becoming one." "Really, now? And why did you decide against?" "I decided that I really didn't want to be a worldly, licensed-to-kill womanizer."
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She laughed, surprising him. They stopped on the street in front of the rental car. Birch unlocked the passenger door and held it open while she slid in. He studied her face as he got in the driver's seat. Pleasure was trying to surface on her face, but something was keeping it back. "What's wrong?" "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm not really in the mood for dinner. You're won't be offended if I change my mind and decide I don't want to go?" "No," he said softly. He reached for the door. Her hand touched his shoulder. "I'd still like to spend some time with you, Ivan. Is that crazy? Maybe we could go for a drive or something. If we get along, then we can do dinner another time." "That's fine." "I mean, I'd hate for you to go to all the trouble of buying me dinner, spending all that money if we don't like each other. . . " "I was willing," he said, "no matter what the outcome. A drive will be fine." "You don't mind?" "Not at all."
He started the motor and found his way to the interstate on-ramp. They sat at the intersection, listening to the vehicle's quiet hum. He pointed north. "What's up that way?" "More Casper. A couple of suburbs, Soda Lake and Bar Nunn. "
Birch laughed. "Bar Nunn?" "I didn't name them." "After that?" "What's left of the road. A lot of industrial traffic runs north to the oil synthesis plants, so the highway's in bad shape. Most people leave here by taking the rail south." "There much to see out that way?" "Concrete," she answered. "Sometimes stars." "Let's have a look."
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He aimed the car north, and they slid onto the interstate, passing the dull-finished Soda Lake condos and the industrial hard looks of Bar Nunn. "What's gastrocaine?" she asked as he steered.
Birch looked up from the instrument panel. "Gastrocaine," he repeated emptily.
She nodded. "You said that Burgerriffic's puts gastrocaine in their food. What is it?" "It's a food additive," he said, looking back at the road. Damn it to hell, he thought, I've got to watch what I say. "What does it do?"
He bit his lip. There had to be a graceful way out of this. "I thought everybody knew about that stuff," he said nonchalantly. Everybody, indeed. Only those who had seen the document that Astradyne had procured from the Burgerriffic chain, the one labeled "Class Security Clearance/Eyes Only." The one that Burgerriffic was paying Astradyne to keep suppressed.
She shook her head. "Tell me about it." "It's a preservative." "What does it do, put the stomach to sleep?" He froze. "You said that's why you wouldn't eat there. If Novacain, Benzocaine, and cocaine are all anesthetics, then logically so
is gastrocame. Judging from the name, it puts the stomach to sleep. Am I right?"
Birch stared at the road falling away before him. "This is something that turns up every few years," he said quietly. "Remember the one about the fireman who found the crates of dog food in the burning Burroughs Burger franchise? How about the woman who found a salamander in her bottle of Diana Beer? It's one of those bullshit things-pardon the ex-
pression-that another corporation put out to ruin them." "Every time I eat at Burgerriffic," Lucy said, "I never feel full. I always order extra. Then, about an hour later, I feel so stuffed that I'm almost sick."
She had described a textbook application of gastrocaine. it blocked stomach nerves from telling the brain that it was full.
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The customer would not feel satisfied and would go back to buy seconds, and sometimes thirds. When the additive wore off, the customer could feel how full he or she really was.
"If that's just a rumor," she asked, "then why won't you eat there?" "Because," he lied, "they cook their French fries in the same grease as their fish."
At last Casper metro was behind them, and the headlights threw shadows on the road ahead. It was not long before they passed the sign, painted in highglo red letters that caught and reflected the light from a kilometer away.
WARNING.
THE RESIDENT CORPORATIONS OF THE WYOMING DIS-
TRICT OIL FARMS CANNOT BE LIABLE FOR THOSE WHO DO
NOT FILE TRAVEL PLANS FOR POINTS NORT14 OF HERE.
DUE TO ROAD CONDITIONS, WILDSTOCK, INDUSTRIAL TRAFFIC, AND CONTAMINA110N, TRAVEL AT NIGHT AND/ OR IN VEHICLES OF LESS THAN 10,000 KILOGRAMS IS STRONGLY DISCOURAGED.
THE PETROCHEMICAL ALLIANCE
OF CORPORATE AMERICA.
They sped on, ignoring the sign, Birch working the wheel to avoid the craters and potholes in the road. The small vehicle rattled mercilessly when a tire hit the smallest of craters, and Birch wondered why Project Employment had not sent workers out to recondition the surface. Lucy told him that the heavy traffic bound for the farms would only ruin it again. A twenty-kiloton truck, after all, was far more capable of negotiating a rough road than a small electric passenger car was.
A sign announced a weigh station to the right. Birch guided the car onto the ramp that led to the dark complex of buildings and stopped in the vast parking lot. "Closed," he said.
Lucy smiled. "I thought you'd never been to Casper before." There was a tinge of nervousness in her voice. "I haven't," he told her. "Why?"
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"You brought me to the weigh station." "I did?" He looked at the buildings. Every one of them was boarded up. Even the tall lamps that dotted the parking lot were dark. "It looked like a good place to stop." "You mean you don't know about this place? Jack didn't mention it to you?"
He shook his head. "This is the weigh station, Ivan. The weigh station. It hasn't been open since the early days of fuel synthesis, when everyone wanted records to monitor consumption and product efficiency. It's been deserted for over a decade. The only thing it's used for. . ." She trailed off, embarrassed. "Is a lovers' lane.,,
Birch laughed. "Now you tell me. I hope this doesn't put me under any obligation."
Her lips smiled in thanks. "No." He popped his door open. "Good. Let's see if the stars are out. " "What about the rads, Ivan?" "We won't be that long."
What there was of the moon gave the snow-covered landscape an eerie, bluish glow. There was not a cloud in the sky. They could indeed see stars. They found the North Star through the alignment of the Big Dipper, and the bright stars of Orion's Belt.
He took her hand and they stared at the winter sky, gazing until lights from the highway appeared. A multikiloton truck rumbled south, carrying fuel synthate concentrate to Casper and points beyond. The roar from the vehicle died down.
Lucy lowered her head from the sky and studied his face. "Do we have a future, Ivan?" Birch opened his mouth to speak, but she gently laid a finger across his lips. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked. I should learn not to tempt fate. The less I know about you, the better things will be when the time comes for you to buy your way out of here."
He said nothing. He studied her features under the sparse light from the moon.
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"Are you okay?" she asked. -I'm sorry. I didn't realize I was staring." She put her hand on his cheek. "Don't worry about me. I know that's the only reason you're in town. You're going to buy a Grade Two and get out and forget all about the night you spent with a plain little Grade Three in Wyoming."
Birch's heart felt empty. Every word from her mouth was
true in one sense or another. Eventually he would return to LaCrosse, as he tried to do every summer when not desperately needed by Astradyne, and early in the morning he would sit by the river at Summer's Cauldron and watch the mist rise as ducks floated and fished for whatever food they could find. Maybe there would be a drink in his hand, an orange juice or a
beer, and he would lazily swat at the mosquito on the back of his neck and his mind would come back to this moment. "Your eyes," Lucy said, "betray you. They tell me that you know it's the truth."
Is it? he thought. What was it about the moment that told him it was already being burned into memory? Waves of emotion passed through him, his throat tightening because it wanted to open and tell this woman that it would not be as she had said, that on a summer's morning far from now, she would not be forgotten, that even if things ended here, this moment would always haunt him.
He leaned forward and kissed her. Her hand found his chest and slowly pushed him away. "We should be getting back," she said in a whisper. "We don't have radsuits, and there are feral dogs out here. Every now and then someone gets attacked."
I Beware of the dog, Birch thought. He took her by the arm
and led her to the car. Once they were buckled in, he took the access card and slid it into the ignition slot. The motor revved, and he put the car into gear, heading for the icy highway and guiding it back to the Casper streets, toward the decaying urban area and Lucy's cafd and Monty's hotel.
Cracked asphalt rumbled the little vehicle, vibrating them like the beds in a Hotel Blue, and the halogen lamps lit the decaying path before them.
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All the while, Birch's mind was racing. He had started the ruin of one man's life, yet justice had obliquely been served. He had been thrown a curve.
He wondered how in hell he could care so much for a woman who had no future.
"Lucy tells me you're a company man."
That was Jackson Lime talking. It was Friday, and he was
sitting with Birch at a table in a mariachi bar called Mamd D'Dio's. Birch had been at the pay telephone, arranging for an
encyclopedic -and prohibitively expensive-set of research materials to be sent to Culligan's purchase number at New Frontier. He had hung up and stopped for a beer when Lime flagged him to his table.
Lime looked pale in the dark of the bar, and he was drinking shots from an under-the-counter bottle of tequila. Birch could tell that the stuff was black market because of the worm at the bottom of the bottle-a long, gray radioactive worm.
"How are you?" he had asked, and Lime had made his statement. In responding, Birch said, "Lucy thinks a lot of things. Not all of them are accurate." "She had it on good authority," Lime said. "Lucy is self-deprecating," Birch replied. "If anything went right for her, she'd find some way to make it stop." "Are you saying that things went well for you two the other night?" "Well enough."
Jackson Lime drained the tequila and poured another shot. "How well?" "Well enough that she's come up with a story like that to keep from getting close to me. She's made me something she despises."
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"You're saying she's wrong?" "I know she's wrong." "Lucy says you're smart, Ivan. She says you've got knowledge of things that Grade Fours don't usually have." "She wouldn't have noticed unless she was smart herself. How do I know she's not a company man?"
Lime laughed and tilted the bottle. The worm lifelessly drifted to one side. "How do you feel about her?"
Birch scowled. "What the hell is this, Jack? Are you her self-appointed patron saint?" "You might say that." Lime brought the shot to his lips. A quiver ran through his hand, and he tossed the liquid into his mouth. "I watch out for her in my own way." "What's your interest?" "Strictly personal." He poured more liquid into the glass. Particles of dirt at the bottom of the bottle shifted. "I've supposedly got a daughter somewhere. About her age. I like to
think she turned out like Lucy." "You've adopted her." "Without her approval, of course. I guess I'm her surrogate father. " "You mean she's your surrogate daughter." "Something like that." The glass went up to Lime's mouth, came down empty, and hit the tabletop hard. "You sure you don't want some of this?" "This is fine, thanks." Birch thumped the beer bottle with his finger. "So you're giving me the third degree to see if I'm planning on leaving her with a broken heart." "Something like that," he repeated. He rubbed the end of his nose and sniffed. "She's got brains, she can use them, but she's naive. She needs someone to look after her." "Other than the Holy Roman Church." "Most definitely other than them. I've got faith in the Loord, Mr. Prescott, but I don't have faith in the human side of running His affairs. Not in any human doing that." "So how does a streetwise old bastard like yourself fit in?"
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Lime held his hand out and watched it shake. "I'm dying." "You've been out here too long," Birch told him. "The rads are getting to you."
He shook his head. "Nothing of the sort. I've got years left on my limits of exposure. Like you, I didn't always live here. I've got other problems, Ivan. I used to work for a company, between you and me and the worm in this bottle. Our waitress of mutual acquaintance doesn't need to know that." "I'm silent." "I was doing work in Johannesburg, trying to lift the patent on a cut pattern for industrial diamonds. I think I was sold by somebody at a higher rung on my ladder, but I can't prove it. I got taken in for questioning, and they asked me things that I didn't have answers for. Of course, they thought I was just holding back." "What happened?" "They shot me full of HIV. Of course, I'd had the MVIS, but that's only a safeguard against the usual order of transmission. It's not up to handling 25 cc of pure virus poked into your vein. So I've got it now, got it good. My lungs are turning to shit; every nickel and dime infection that passes through town I get for a month. The rads don't help things, either. " "Why are you telling me this?"
Lime waited for the trembling to stop, then poured another drink. "Personally, I don't give a rat's ass if you're a company man or not. If you are, so much the better. If you're not, you're still smart enough, and Lucy likes you enough that she'll trust you. "I want you to get her out of here, Ivan. Out of Casper, out of the Winterland work district. Before the rads make her irreparably sterile and she loses her hair and dies before her fiftieth birthday. She deserves better." "She deserves it more than I," Birch told him, "but you're talking to a man with a Grade Four work permit." "I had that figured," Lime said, "and that's what makes you perfect for what I've got in mind. If you're a company
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man-and I don't want to know if you are-you'll have no
qualms about what I'm going to offer you. If you're not, you might have reservations. But you've got to promise that you'll hear me out. It's important. 11
"I promise," He sipped his beer. "I mean it. You've got energy. I can see it in your eyes. You've hustled your ass this far, you can hustle it right out of here if you get the right breaks." "And you've got the right break." "You'd better believe it. For someone with the strength to hustle, it's a bonanza." "Let's hear it." "See," Lime said, wagging a finger. "Let's go and see it." He capped the tequila bottle and slipped it into his coat pocket. "It's in my apartment .
Birch drained the rest of his bottle and followed Lime out. It was snowing again, hard, and he pulled the hood up over
his head to protect himself. Lime, who was dressed in a cloth coat, did nothing, which convinced Birch all the more that he was telling the truth.
He followed Lime to a side street, where they stopped in front of a large rooming house. "Home," Lime said.
Birch followed him up the yellowed sidewalk and through the door. The place had a large living room off to the right, and a handful of older men were gathered around a large television, watching a series called The Replicant Twins. "Something's gone wrong at the lab," Bobby Replicant said from the screen. He opened his shirt to expose a fully developed pair of breasts. The old men hooted at his predicament. "Evening, boys," Lime announced, hanging his coat.
A few waved, but nobody spoke. They were too interested in the replicant's gender crisis.
Walking down a short hall, Lime handed the tequila to Birch. He winked a tired eye, and Birch slipped it inside his radsuit. As they passed the kitchen, a small, withered woman
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JOE CLIFFopw FAusT
turned from a sink full of dishes and pointed an accusing finger. "Oye," she barked. "Oye, Jack Lime. Tinny 'stead cer-
vezas?"
Lime stopped. "No, S'ita Lorenz," he said apologetically. "No tengo. " Accusations spouted from her lips, and she pushed Lime into the wall. Her hands darted up and down his frame, probing into pockets and checking the folds of his clothing. "Bueno," she announced. "No cervezas. Fere un santo, Jack Lime. Vive, senor. Vive. " "Gracias." Lime kissed her wrinkled cheek, and she returned to the kitchen. He continued down the hall and led the way up a flight of wooden stairs. "She thinks I drink too much," he explained.
Birch handed him the bottle. "Why was she telling you to live? Does she know-" "No," Lime interrupted. "She tells that to everyone with a
problem. 'Vive s'vida e'Dios quiere.' Live your life as God wants. In other words, he's got plans for you, so don't screw them up." He pulled a chain from around his neck and unlocked the door, letting Birch in first. "My workshop."
What they entered was a bedroom, although Lime had work space as well. A small twin bed was tucked in one corner, and an ancient refrigerator stood in another. The floor was covered with old paprin newssheets, and a card table held stained plastic buckets, sticks, cups, powders, and pages of notes. "How's your stripe?" Lime leaned in on Birch and squinted at the maroon tape on his chest. "No problem. You've got a
long way to go before you get your day's dose." He took the cap off the bottle and took a generous swallow. The worm disappeared. "What do you do in here?" Birch asked. "Repair POV drives?" "Not really," Lime said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "But I do have a plutonium core in the freezer."
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Birch swore and backed toward the door. He pulled the radbar out of his pocket and waved it in the air, listening to it click. There was nothing in the room but residual radiation. "You can't have it contained," he said. "The freezer in that thing isn't big enough." "But it is." Lime's eyes gleamed. "In here, I've got the most amazing thing." He capped the tequila and stowed it under the mattress of his bed, then turned his attention to the refrigerator. He wrapped his hand in a towel and pulled a
cylinder twenty centimeters long from the freezer. "There it is." "That's too big for a plutonium core." Birch held the radbar near it. "But something's in there. It's up, but it's not-" "Dangerous." Lime smiled.
Birch reached over and touched the crusty mass. It burned, and he jerked his finger away. There was a tearing sensation as he did. "Cold?" Lime asked.
Birch rubbed the end of his finger. Some skin had been taken off. "Dry ice?"
Lime nodded. "The colder the better." "What is it?" He returned the core to the freezer and pointed at a bucket on the card table. "It's in there."
Birch tipped the bucket and peered in. It was a quarter full of a milky white substance. "Is it safe?" "As long as it's warm."
He stuck in his hand and drew it out. A liquid the consistency of molasses slowly ran down his finger. He sniffed. It smelled strangely sweet. "What is it?"
Lime reached into the refrigerator compartment and pulled out a metal bowl. "Same as this stuff."
Birch took the bowl. He stuck his hand in again, and the material gave under his fingers. He dug in and pulled out a
glob, working it with his fingers. It was stiff and easy to shape but did not cling to his fingers. "Play with it," Lime said. "At refrigerator temperature-
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seven degrees-it becomes a non-Newtonian fluid. Solid but quite malleable. At minus twenty it becomes very solid and very stable. " "And at room temperature it's liquid," Birch said, "I un-
derstand it, but I don't see what you're getting at." "I call it neoparaffin." He laughed. "Wonderful, isn't it?" "It's wax?" Birch said, amazed. "Not really. It's got some properties of wax, but it isn't really." "How does it insulate against radiation?" "Same principle as radsuits and Leadspray. There's lead bonded into the formula at the molecular level. It's like both lead and wax, the advantages of both, the disadvantages of neither. "
Birch kneaded it between his fingers. It was beginning to warm into liquid. "This stuff could be worth a fortune," he said. "Why use it to insulate plutonium?" "Because it's the ultimate terrorist weapon."
Birch stopped kneading and looked into the man's eyes. Lime's expression was cold and steely. "Weapon?"
Lime nodded gravely. "Suppose you've got to deal with some ratfucker that you can't get near. He knows you, and there's no way in hell you can get close." He pulled the core out of the freezer and threw it on the table. On instinct, the radbar came out of Birch's pocket and he examined it. "You get a box about so big, with the return address of Mona Lisa's Sex Emporium on it, and send it to his office. He's going to think he's being pizza'd by some mealyshit company man and throw the box in the garbage. How's that lump doing, by the way?"
It was a puddle in the palm of Birch's hand. "Melts fast, doesn't it?" Birch poured the liquid into the bucket. "What are you saying, Jack? "I'm saying that when the cleaning people come to pitch that box, it's going to be too late. The neoparaffin will have
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melted off of the P-core, and the whole office will have to be shitcanned. And your target will wake up with his hair falling out and his blood turning to water." "That's evil," Birch said. He could not prevent a smile from forming on his lips. "That's really evil." "You can use the fuel from any plutonium-operated vehicle," Lime told him, "including those shitty little Mitsubishis. There's enough plutonium in one of those to make a body pretty sick."
Birch stared at the rough surface of the coated core. Cold vapor rolled off it. "Call me vindictive," Lime continued, "but I wouldn't have designed this if I wasn't running out of time. I've used time that I could have spent being cured." "You can still do it," Birch said. "You can take this to any company in the world and they'll hand you money on a plate. Enough to get you to Zurich or Beijing and get treatment."
He shook his head. "That's not important now. I've got other things that need attention." He waved his hand around the small room. "I'm offering this to you, Ivan Prescott. The coated core, the chemicals, the formula, instructions. . "For what?" "For your hustle," he said. "I don't have the strength anymore. I don't care who you deal with or how you get it done, I want the rights to this thing sold." "How much?" "That's up to you. You'll be using the proceeds to get Lucy out of here. Understand?" "Don't you want anything out of this?"
Lime nodded. "I do, as a matter of fact. I want one coated core and a one-way ticket to Johannesburg."
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On the outskirts of town, Birch found a pay telephone that was sheltered from the blowing snow and plugged in the Judas Box card. He keyed in the communications net frequency, adjusted it to compensate for district coding, and was given access to an open line. Leaning to keep the door shut against the cold gusts of wind, Birch dialed the Astradyne number. While waiting for the call to go through, he unscrewed the mouthpiece and replaced it with a scrambler. "Astradyne Company headquarters," a silicon voice said. "Please state which department you need to confer with."
Birch keyed in the code for the enforcement division. "Thank you." While the Al routed the call, he switched on the scrambler. "Security check-in. Vargas here." "Vargas? This is Birch. What the hell are you doing at a
desk? I thought you made Elite." "I did," Vargas answered. "I've been grounded until they get me a new partner." He did not sound convinced that it was
going to happen. "What happened to Hollinger?" "He's dead, Andy. Didn't you hear?" "I'm sorry," Birch said. "I didn't know." "What can I do for you?" "I'm working a pizza delivery in Wyoming, and some-
thing's come up." "Just a minute," Vargas said. Birch could hear tapping in the background. "Let me get the mission profile on the screen. Okay, go ahead."
The wind picked up, pushing cold air through the seal of the door. He stuck one finger in his ear so he could hear Vargas over the howl. "There's a guy here, an inventor," Birch told him, "and
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he's come up with something I think we can use. There's an obvious enforcement application, but it's got a lot of potential in other areas." "What is it?" Vargas asked.
Birch quickly went over the details. He told of Lime's character and how the neoparaffin worked. He described sitting in his hotel room watching a stick of it melt into a puddle after an hour at room temperature. "Interesting," said Vargas. "How much for it?" "Good question. He doesn't want the money for himself. These's a girl he wants taken out of the work district and put into a job back east. All he wants for himself is a passage to Johannesburg."
He could hear Vargas's fingers ratttling on the keyboard. "Johannesburg," he said. "That's going to be tough. A lot is going down there with the new diamond synthates and that carbon strike near Luna City. Access is really tight. Companies are pulling out of there faster than they were before the breakup. " "What are we looking at?" "He'll need a Grade One, and chances are slim that ever, that will get him in." "I don't suppose there's a spare Grade Null lying in some-
body's desk." "Don't even ask. A Null would bloat your budget and you wouldn't have money for anything else." "Thought I'd ask." "A Grade One and passage to Johannesburg. Is he wanting to take the shuttle?" "The Estee will be fine." "How about a boat?" Vargas said as an aside. "He won't live that long, pal."
There was more clattering. "There's twenty k's right there. What about this woman?" "Grade Two," Birch said. "Traveling money. A job." "A job?" Vargas sounded piqued. "Suppose I got to pat and burp her, too."
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"Just the paperwork, Vargas. If she flashes that, she'll be in wherever she wants to go." "Which is where?" "College." "Suppose she'll write once a month for money," he grumbled. "Hurry with the figures, pal. I'm standing in the hottest snowstorm in district history. My stripe is changing faster than a punkette in a brothel." "Calculating," Vargas said. "Give me another second ... there." He whistled. "Your budget is sucking wind, Andrew." "Give it to me." "The market on Twos is pinched in spite of the Johannesburg situation. Paris has dropped restrictions, so you can get into France on one, and Omsk is just begging for them because of the Siberian fossil fuel boom." "What's the bottom line?" "We're looking at fifty k's. 'Me papers are cheap enough, but two grades for an unproven acquisition will be a bitch to pull off."
Birch looked through the storm at his counterfeit Wingfoot van. It was no more than seven meters away, yet the headlights were barely visible though the driving snow.
"How long until the project budget is renewed?" he asked. "Two weeks." "All right. Give me a Grade Two and the papers."
More rattling. "All right." "And give me fifteen k's in cash. If he's lined up a way to get to Johannesburg, all he'll need is the cash." "Let's see if I can get it for you. I suppose at worst you could give her your Grade One." "Then do I get your Elite status?" "You don't want it," Vargas said. "Believe me." "There are worse things than jockeying a desk." "Oh, yes," Vargas answered. "Much worse." There was a
long pause. "Okay, it's authorized. There should be money enough to hold you until the new budget comes in. How do you want this sent?"
"By suitcase drop." Birch gave him the specifics on the
Casper bus depot. Vargas informed him that the setup would take about forty-eight hours and then started to sign off. Birch called his name in a hesitant voice. "What's wrong?" "Are we still on record?" Birch asked. "Nope. I've already down-loaded your request. I've never
been to Casper, though, so I don't know if there are any good whorehouses. . ." "That's not it," Birch said uncertainly. "I want you to check something for me."
There was no reply. "Vargas? You there?" "I'm here," he said flatly. None of it made sense. Here he was, standing in a blizzard, freezing, trying to pump confidential information from a man
thousands of kilometers away. "I want you," he said slowly, "to pull the Casper files and see who we've got operating here. " "Andy, do you know what you're saying?" "Besides myself," he continued, "and besides the deep cover man. I don't want to know about him." "Andrew-" "Just do it."
Twenty seconds passed. "All right." "Is there anyone else here?" he asked. "Anyone else from an Astradyne subsidiary?" "No.,, "One other thing, Vargas. This deep cover man. Would he have any reason to be running around in an approved STVT'
The answer was forever in coming. The long-distance transmission lines hissed. "No." "Fine," Birch said carefully. "Thank you, Vargas." "Are you sure you're all right, Andy?" Vargas asked. "Someone didn't Blue 21 your beer, did they?" "No," Birch replied. "This is natural paranoia." "You're sure?" "I insist. Thanks for the help." He banged the handset into
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the cradle, then slowly went about the task of retrieving the Judas Box and the scrambler.
Blue 21, he thought. If I were junking, I'd at least have an excuse.
On the way to the van, Birch could hear animal sounds over the wind. There was barking and yipping, and he could hear panting. As he neared the vehicle, shapes materialized from the snow, perhaps a half dozen of them, moving in a
tight pattern.
They were dogs without pedigree or master. Perhaps some had royal blood, but their genes had bowed to the dominance of necessity. Each dog in the pack might have had different lineage, but they all looked like brothers: short, sharp ears, an
otter tail that arched over the back, compact size, and a generic color scheme of browns, whites, and grays.
Birch climbed into the van. The dogs surrounded it and sniffed, and a dominant male marked one of the tires. Others stuck their muzzles into the footprints Birch had made, yelping at the heat and scent he had left behind. The winter had not been bad in Casper, but it must have been unforgiving out on the prairie. It was unusual to encounter such animals so close to civilization.
He fired the engine and headed back into town, feeling vaguely depressed about things, although there was no reason for it. Vargas had authorized payment for the neoparaffin, which would look good on his r6sum6, and he had nothing to fear from the Mercedes he had seen.
Somehow, he would have expected to feel better about the way things were going.
The object of the game, as Birch saw it, was to draw things out. He had to look as if he were hustling to move Lime's product, but he did not want to bring the money in too soon. If he did, Lime might suspect his true nature, which would corn-
promise the mission. Worst yet, Lime might ask for more than the fifteen k's available. The longer he played Lime out, the less money the man would settle for.
So he waited, staying busy by harassing Bob Culligan. While eavesdropping, Birch found Culligan's personal credit authorization number. Using that, he bought plastic exercise machines, Oriental cooking utensils, compact disks full of hit songs, and video collections of prebreakup television programming and had them all shipped to his office at New Frontier.
Next he tied up the balance of Culligan's money in mutual funds, certificates of deposit, and Gold Standard collections. When the time came for his regular creditors to remove
amounts due, there would be nothing to be had. Utilities and phone service would be cut off and would be restored only after Culligan paid new deposits and stiff penalties for early withdrawal of his funds.
Birch also had him make a charitable contribution to the People's Environmental Liberation Army and arranged to have their newsletter sent to New Frontier. Culligan was called into the supervisor's office the day the first issue arrived.
In a recording Birch made of a call to a Seretex official, Culligan said, "I know the dome design is all laid out and all I have to do is modify it, but I've got to be careful. The changes can't be superficial or we'll have a patent suit on our hands." "If it's so easy, then what's taking so long?" the Seretex official asked. "I'm blocked," Culligan said. "I've had other things on my mind." "You want me to take you off of this?" "No," Culligan replied. "I'm having a bad month, that's all. Things should be back to normal soon."
On hearing that, Birch took the credit number and signed Culligan up for a lifetime membership in the Midnight Leather Association, which would send him pornographic videos every month and make explicit telephone calls every two weeks.
Lorraine Culligan walked out. She was going, she said, to
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stay with her parents in Norfolk until the harassment or his lying-whichever it was-came to a halt.
For Andy Birch, the only thing that could have made the situation better would have been to be somewhere other than Casper. Other than that, things were going by the book.
But as a company man, Birch knew full well that things had a nasty way of turning on someone.
So when it happened, he was not totally surprised.
8
It was Friday night, and the hotel was dead. In the lobby a
stoner was crashed out on the couch before the ancient television set. Monty was behind the desk, his nose stuck inside a
sensationalist tabloid that heralded "SARCOPHAGUS FOUND ON LUNAR EXCAVATION SITE!" and below that in smaller but still urgent letters "Evidence That Man Was There 300,000,000 Years Ago!" "You're going to rot your brain reading that stuff," Birch warned him.
Monty grunted and checked Birch's mail slot. "Nothing today." "Thanks," Birch said. He walked out to the street. The happy hour traffic was thin, so he cut across the slushy boulevard to the caf&, hand rattling the change in his pocket. He stepped through the vacuum and found Jack Lime alone in a booth. He sauntered over and drummed his fingers on the table to get the old man's attention. "Mind if I join you?"
Lime glared. Lucy was off duty, so he had shelved his joyful persona, letting the burden of what his veins carried show in his face. His skin tone was ashen, and his eyes rested far back in his skull. The skin looked as if it were collapsing in on the bone. There was no question that Lime was ill, yet he looked so alive when Lucy was around. Birch was amazed
at how much could be done with an attitude. "Sit," Lime said. It sounded like a command to an animal. "I'll spare you the grief of answering a question about your health."
Lime didn't acknowledge the comment. "How's business?" "Slow."
Lime coughed. His lungs sounded thick with fluid. "A bit too slow, if you ask me. I thought you could move your ass faster than you've been." "I've got bills to pay," Birch said. "But you've got time," Lime replied. "You've got so much that you're wasting what's left of mine. If I didn't know better, I'd swear you were waiting for me to drop dead so you could cut yourself in for a full share. You wouldn't do that to me, would you, Prescott?" "Why should I? Our interests lie in the same place." "So what do you have for me, boy?" "I have an offer that's decent enough to mention without being insulting." "Let's hear it." "Thirty-five k's."
Lime jammed his fork into his slab of protein steak and let it stick in the air. "I'm insulted." "That's the most you'll get around here. Maybe in Denver or Houston you could get a better offer, but there's not a hell of a lot of action in this town." "Have you forgotten about Lucy? She's the reason for this deal."
Birch settled back in his seat. "That's the bad news, Jack. Lucy's paperwork has got to come out of that. You'll only walk off with about fifteen k's."
Lime nodded. "While you live off the profit of screwing an
old man out of his last vengeance. . .
Birch held up his hands. "Hang on, partner. Fm not getting one dime from this. Twenty k's is to buy Lucy's Grade Two and some papers to go with. The market's tight, and prices are dear."
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"How do I know you're not-" "Screwing you? How would I do that, Jack? Can I afford to have a research chemist analyze your compound? If I did, what would stop him from cutting himself in for a share? I'm playing straight with you. If you don't trust me, fine. I'll walk out right now and you can find someone else to do your legwork. But I guarantee you won't get fifteen k's out of it."
Lime pulled the fork from the mass on his plate. "You're serious." "Absolutely. Believe me, I want to see Lucy out of here as
much as you do."
Lime eased back and smiled at the company man. "She talks about you, Ivan. A lot."
Birch dropped his eyes to the table. "She does." "I come in here between rushes. She pours me coffee and we talk. For a month now it's Ivan Prescott this and Ivan Prescott that." He smiled. "If I didn't know you personally, I'd be sick to death of hearing about it." "We get along," Birch told him.
Lime squared his shoulders, and his expression went cold. "What the hell are you going to do after she's gone, Ivan? You want to tell me about that?"
Birch rubbed his chin. "I'll do what I came here to do. I'll work on buying a better grade." "Will you try to find her?" "That's up to her."
Lime laid his fork down and pulled the napkin from under his chin. "All right, I'm trusting you. When can you have the money?" "Sunday night."
Lime shook his head. "Tonight." "No way." "You'll do it. Time is money to you, but it's life to me. For fifteen k's, I'll have to take a boat. I may not live to see the equator, let alone Johannesburg." "That's impossible, Jack. I can have it for you tomorrow night at best."
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"Tomorrow noon." "Okay. I can handle that." Birch stood and shook Lime's hand. "Done," the old man confirmed. "I'll bring the cash to your door," Birch said. He walked out of the cafd, waiting as an incoming stoner was vacuumed. Once outside, he headed straight for Lucy's apartment. In ten minutes he was knocking on her door, announcing his presence and bidding her to make haste.
The door opened a crack, and a green eye peered at him. He could see one comer of her mouth turn up into a smile. "Come in," she said, opening the door.
Birch stepped in and kissed her on the cheek. "I wasn't sure what you had in mind," she said, "so I made a vegetable tray and some sandwiches. There's extra soda in the ftidge---2' She held up a thick magazine. "And I bought a
Cableweek. I thought we could watch television, and I could peel grapes. . ."
Birch took the guide and put his hands around her waist. "Make sure everything's wrapped and sealed in the refrigerator," he told her. "We'll save them for afters." "After what?"
He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a wedge of plastic. "Admission for two," he announced, "to the year's only Casper appearance of Alberto Guzman y los Tres Pdjaritos. " "You got what?" She pulled the plastic from his hand. "The best purveyors of mariachi pop this side of the Rio Grande. We're talking major here." "What's so major about a popstar coming through town? Just last week-- "It's major because Guzman rarely tours. And he won't set foot east of the Mississippi. He claims the east doesn't appreciate his work." "So he's got problems with his Grade One. You shouldn't have spent all of your money on this ticket." She turned it over in her hands. "It's only general admission." "They're all general admission. Guzman plays for people
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to dance, not sit around. All you're going to need is your coat and your dancing shoes."
She smiled sweetly. "I suppose you got another car." "It's outside waiting." Lucy ran a hand through her hair. "What am I going to do with you?" "Come and be decadent. You need to get out of this tiny little place and do some living." "You keep this up," she said, "and you'll never get out of here. " "I'm not worried about that right now. I'm worried about making you happy." "I'm happy now. You don't have to keep spending money on me."
Birch took her hand. "Indulge me, all right? We'll give it an hour, and if you're not having a good time we can come home, peel grapes, and watch O'Malley." "Anything but that." She scowled. "All right, you've talked me into it." She went to the closet. "What's it like outside? Are the rads falling?" "It's pretty clear," Birch told her. "And we shouldn't be exposed that long." "Alberto Guzman, huh?" Lucy said, pulling on a coat. "What was the name of his band again?" "Los Tres Pdjaritos. It means 'the three little birds."'
Lucy's shoulders slumped. "This isn't going to be an evening of love songs, is it? I'd rather watch O'Malley than-"
Birch put his arm around her waist and escorted her out the door. "I don't see how you can live here and not listen to mariachi. It's there every time you turn on the radio. The sun won't rise and the plants won't grow if it's not constantly playing. " "You're cute." Lucy smiled. "Has anyone ever told you that?" "I spend three days' wages to get you out of the apartment and all I get for it is 'cute'?"
She pecked him on the cheek.
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Birch took her to the car and let her in as a stoner wobbled by on unsteady legs. They went north to the suburb of Soda Lake, to a domed building coated with a layer of faded mar-
oon Leadspray. He parked and raced around to open the door for Lucy. "You're sure about this?" she asked, getting Out. "Of course. You'll love it. You might even recognize some of the songs." "Well," she said, somewhat resigned, "I haven't been dancing in a while."
They walked to the admissions booth, and Birch handed over the plastic tag for processing. From there, they walked into a great hall filled with milling people. Some were rushing, and others were taking their time, talking to hucksters pushing lyric books and T-shirts that read "Bailo con los muertos-Alberto Guzman y los Tres Pjjaritos." "Do you understand it?" Lucy asked, gesturing at the shirt.
Birch nodded. "It's no problem when it's written. You get into the spoken version and it's a whole different language." "It's not Spanish?"
He looked at her in disbelief. "You grew up here and you aren't bilingual?" "I was sent to a rather stodgy Catholic school," she said. "The Saint Agnes School for Girls. We were brought up to leave Casper and become important, so they didn't bother with a second language. The caWs clientele is mostly Grade One and Two businessmen who order in English." "Go figure," Birch said. "So this language isn't Spanish?" "Not proper Spanish. It comes from English speakers who are too lazy to formally learn the language. Call it Half Spanish, Bastard Spanish, Pidgin Spanish, Mexican English. The general rule is, if it's written, it's Spanish. If not, it's the Americanized version, full of linguistic shortcuts and informalities." "What did the shirt say?" "'I dance with the dead."'
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Lucy stopped. "You didn't tell me these guys were ThirdWavers." "They're not," Birch reassured her. "Their only connection to punk is that they play like madmen in front of a crowd. Trust me, Lucy. You're going to like this."
He led her to a window marked "Cervezas" and bought her a cup filled with Diana, although it was mostly foam as it came out of the tap. Birch got a large cup of Caballo Retinto and took Lucy to the auditorium. The main floor had been cleared of chairs, and a bandstand was set up at one end. A host of workers were putting the finishing touches on the stage.
Birch turned their coats over to a check stand, and they walked into a crowd that numbered at least two thousand. They wound their way through clusters of people who were talking, drinking, and lighting up Panama Reds in preparation for the festivities to come.
Lucy pointed to the cluttered stage. "If they're going to use all that stuff, they'll need more than three little birds." "Wait," Birch said.
The lights went down, and the crowd cheered, turning to face the bandstand. A spotlight followed a tuxedo-clad man to center stage, where he grabbed a microphone. "Greetings," he said. "On behalf of K-tech FM, The Lanthanide Company, the Hilton Inn of Casper, and Caballo Retinto beer, I'd like to welcome you here."
The crowd was less than enthusiastic until he repeated the greeting in Half Spanish. He introduced the band, which appeared from offstage. The audience greeted them with flared lighters. "Him," Birch said, pointing out a dumpy Latin man with an accordion slung over his shoulders. "That's Guzman."
They watched the procession. Nine other figures took the stage with their rotund leader. One person manned an acoustic drum kit, another the enormous string bass propped near it. Two dark, sultry women took their places behind a table laden with percussionry, and three men walked out with trumpets and trombone. Lastly, two pale figures came out lugging guitars. The one with the acoustic took a stool near the percus-
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sionists, and the other unslung his electric and stood behind a
row of keyboards. He hit the one in front of him, and it made a deep, grunting sound.
Beaming, Guzman took center stage and, in the fractured tongue of the crowd, told everyone to get ready to dance.
There was a fanfare from the brass section, the guitarist raced his fingers across the keys of the clavinet, and they were
underway, playing a charged-up version of "The Lonely Bull," a pop standard from before the breakup.
Instantly the crowd was moving. Lucy could not keep from staring. The music was loud and overpowering, yet it was bright and contagious. Birch laughed. "What's so funny?" she demanded. "You're like a kid at your first circus. Have you ever been
to one of these before?"
She shook her head. "Remind me to thank Saint Agnes," he said, taking her by the hand. He pulled her close, and they started to dance.
The night went on. Guzman was unstoppable. He took his nine Three Little Birds through a thirty-minute opening set that was nothing but traditional songs and old standards injected with hammering Latin rhythms. When it was over, Lucy fell into Birch's arrns, laughing. Guzman shed his accordion and walked over to a set
of marimbas. The guitarist on the stool traded the acoustic for an electric and struck a random chord. "What's he saying?" Lucy asked. "They're going to do a song from their new disk."
Music poured forth, a convulsive rhumba that had everyone in its spell.
Birch gently guided Lucy across the concrete floor of the Events Center.
Guzman pounded a melody on the marimbas, then pressed his lips to the microphone and began to sing in a thin, reedy tenor. "What's he saying?" Lucy asked. "'I move the cities,"' Birch said, trying to keep up with the
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song Is pace. "'I move the sky. I move the mountains, too."' It was a difficult task listening to the lyrics, trying to translate, and going through the motions of the dance at the same time. He caught Lucy by the waist and pulled her to a halt. "'I swim the oceans, I cross the desert sands, I do all these things . . He looked into her eyes. "Si no tengo tii. " "What?" She was smiling, but the moment caught up with her and she looked at him solemnly. "'If I don't have you,"' he said. "It rhymes," she said. "In English." "Of course. Half Spanish is spoken, not written." "But I thought he'd write it in Spanish."
Birch shook his head. "Guzman knows his audience too well." He pulled her close. She put her arms around his neck and kissed him. The rhumba pounded on, the crowd moving around them, ignoring them as they were being ignored.
She looked into his eyes. "What does he say now?" Birch cocked his head at the bandstand. "He's saying. . He strained to hear the lyrics. Guzman the lover was no longer making the idle promises of the lovesick, but the ugly threats of the spurned. Birch felt his throat start to close. "What's wrong?" Lucy asked. "Is something wrong?"
He looked back at her. Her face showed innocent concern. "No. Nothing's wrong." "What's he saying?" She smiled again. "Does it matter?" Birch asked, lifting her from the ground and turning.
The show went on, and it did not matter what they were playing. By the time Guzman crooned a slow ballad, the pieces had fallen into place. In less than an hour they were
sweaty and smelled of smoke. The heat in the auditorium was
stifling in spite of the fans and the open doors that were letting in cool winter air. Lucy had unbuttoned her flannel shirt, revealing a T beneath it that advertised the caf6. Birch's hair was damp and salty, and he had pushed it straight back to keep it out of his eyes.
They walked out of the auditorium and then outside when
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they could not get cool in the hall. They stood under the cold, clear sky, breath hanging in the night, until the cries from a wandering pack of dogs drove them back in.
Still hot, he bought her another Diana and threw down a
Caballo Retinto. They rested, walked around the hall that ringed the arena, and then went back in and danced.
Guzinan was plying them hard, playing close and fast and frantic. Then, almost too suddenly, he eased up. The band walked off the stage, except for the acoustic guitarist, who accompanied Guzman with nylon strings.
First he sang a decades-old pop standard in English and then another that neither Birch nor Lucy recognized. The third was a ballad that Birch said was a Guzman original. "What's it called?" Lucy asked, eyes growing heavy from the dancing and the beer. "Atontamos," Birch said. "We are thunderstruck." "Are we, now," she said lazily. Her head lolled back and studied the darkness of the hall. A single spotlight was on
Guzman, one hand holding the mike to his lips, the other outstretched above his public. In his cheap suit, he looked like a media evangelist. "It's an interesting thought," Birch said.
Slowly, the band returned. The percussionists took microphones and added their voices to the song. "Very interesting," Lucy said. "You know what I think I'd like?" "What?"
The other guitarist was back behind the keyboards, running accompaniment through a string synthesizer. The drummer re-
turned to make a hissing sound with a set of brushes. "I'd like you to hold me close and touch me."
He pulled her in. The horn section had returned to the stage, and the bassist was busy adding soft fills.
Birch caressed her back. She stepped away from him. "I want to be touched,      she said, and she untucked the T-shirt from her Levi 2000's.
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"Am I being seduced?" he asked. "No," she said. "But I think I've been." He let his hands drop. They found their way under her shirt and stroked the soft skin of her belly.
Her eyes closed. Birch slowly moved his hands up until they found the lower edge of her bra.
Guzman had abandoned his microphone and was now at the marimbas. He picked up the mallets and started on a melody. The effect was hypnotic. "How late does he play?" Lucy asked. "Four, sometimes five hours." He hooked his thumbs under the fabric and lifted. Her breasts slid into his hands. "Maybe," she said quickly, "we should leave." "Elsewhere?" "I think. . ." Her hand wrapped around his left arm and pushed the sleeve of his shirt back. "O'Malley?" "No.,, "Peel grapes?"
She smiled. Her fingers neared the crook of his arm and passed over two fing-shaped welts, one inside the other. Suddenly she tensed up.
From the bandstand came the pounding of a bass drum. The percussion was fight behind it. The ballad was over. "Lucy?"
Her fingers went over the welts again. "I'm. sorry. Mother Mary, it was so nice, I didn't mean.      She stepped away from him.
Birch took her by the shoulders.     "It's okay," he said calmly. "Those rings are supposed to be there. As long as I've got them I'm safe." "Safe?" There was panic on her face. "They're mild allergens. The outer ring means that my MVIS is still active. The Multi-Venereal Inoculation Series." "And that inner ring?" "That's my-" he choked.
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"You've had your shots," she said sharply. "You're fixed. As long as that ring's up-" "I'm sterile."
She backed away. "I'm sorry, Ivan. This has all been a
mistake. It was wrong for me to lead you on like this. It was
just too nice, and I'm sorry." "it doesn't have to be this way," he protested. "Not at all--2' "I don't care!" she shrieked. "This is wrong, Ivan, don't you understand? All of it, it shouldn't be, it should never
have. This is all my fault." "Lucy, listen to me."
Birch took a step toward her, but she was gone, turning and running out of the auditorium, bumping and weaving through the crowd. He was right behind her, but the closer they got to the doors, the wider the gap grew. He hit the auditorium doors as she scurried out of the building.
He grabbed their coats from the check stand and rushed out the door, trying to see where she had gone. The stoner from the lobby of the hotel was there, leaning against the side of the building. Birch locked eyes with him. The stoner waved.
Birch headed for the car, hoping Lucy would do the same.
She was nowhere to be seen. He stopped to see if he could hear her. Nothing. There were idle conversations from people who were out cooling off, and the distant pounding of music from the building.
Birch continued searching, listening. He was becoming less certain that she would have made for the car, but it was too late now. He had lost her and, with that, the chance to explain himself.
Then he heard her voice. It was soft and lilting, as if trying to soothe. He quietly followed it, thinking at first that she was praying but realizing as he neared that she was trying to coerce. "C'mere," she said. "That's a good boy. C'mon. I won't hurt you. What's wrong?"
She was nowhere to be seen.
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"Lucy?" he asked softly. There was a growl. She was at the open edge of the parking lot, crouching down with her hand out to a scraggly mongrel dog, speaking to it in gentle tones. "Lucy." He was walking faster now. The dog was being very cautious, circling and keeping its distance. His ears lowered when she spoke, but when she moved, they pricked up and he backed off. "Lucy."
She looked up. "Stay away from me." "Lucy, we need to talk." "You're like everyone else," she snapped. "You don't care
if you send me to hell so long as you get what you want."
He stopped. "That's not true and you know it." "You wouldn't have just gotten me for lust, either. There's touching you and thinking about you, and if we'd done it there's be that, too, and your damned birth control . . . "
Birch stuffed his hands in his pockets. The dog had gone over to a Mitsubishi and was trying to lick the undercarriage. "Why should you be any different?" she cried. "I've been putting up with this for five years. I was a fool to think it was going to stop now." "You're not a fool," Birch said. He kept his eye on the dog, which sniffed under another vehicle. "Why don't you take me?" she shouted at the sky. "Why don't you send me to hell now? That's what you want, isn't it? Why else did you put me here?" "Lucy," Birch said, taking a step. "Let me take you home. You're tired and you've had too much to drink." "That, too," she snapped, then addressed the sky again. "See, you've got that, too! What more do you want? You want me to give in to him, is that it? You want me to go to hell?"
The dog trotted to another vehicle and disappeared under it.
Lucy tossed up her hands in despair. "You might as well take me and do it, Ivan. I don't think I'm here for anything else."
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He took another step. "Let's be rational. I don't want to do anything to hurt you."
She retreated, pulling her flannel shirt closed. "You're cold, too." He held her coat at the end of his arm. "Take this. We'll talk." "No!" she said. "No! You want to. . ." She drifted off, her attention suddenly claimed by the wandering dog. "Look at that," she said. "That's the kind of place I have to live in. Who would do that to a poor dog?"
He followed her gaze to the mongrel. It was walking with a
wobble, and the hair seemed to have been stripped from its back. It wandered over to a large vehicle perched on landing struts. "Who would shave a dog like that?" she asked. "Lucy," he said urgently.
An STV. He broke into a run. A Mercedes. The dog neatly walked beneath the vehicle and poked its nose into an exhaust port. It licked.
Birch tackled Lucy as the steve exploded. The wave of heat caught them as they were carried off the pavement, and they fell hard into a line of dead hedges. He rolled on top of her, and there was a second concussion, followed by the cry of rending metal. Then it was still. He could hear shouts and the licking of fire. "I'm sorry," he said, climbing off her. "The dog," she said thinly. Her eyes were wide, and her face was devoid of color.
He took her hand and pulled her to her feet. "Come on. We have to get out of here." "Ivan, what's going on? Where's the dog?"
He started toward the parking lot. A lake of flame had spread ten meters from the Mercedes, and the ICVs were starting to bum. He jerked her arm hard. "We're going to your place," he ordered. "Is that all you think about?" she wailed, "Why didn't you take me when-"
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He slapped her. "That was an STV," he explained. "It was
full of plutonium. We have to go shower with radsoap because we've been contaminated."
She followed obediently, jaw trembling. Birch put her in the rented car and took her home, stopping to buy several bars of Radsaway. As he knuckled the wheel and guided it down the street, the mercury lamp light reflected on the windshield and made her face glow. She was silent. Then , when they stopped at her apartment, she turned to him
and spoke. "You're a company man, aren't you?"
9
Lucy put her clothes in a radsack and showered first. Then Birch followed suit, being careful to conceal the 9-mm, from her. While he showered, Lucy ran to the basement and ran
their garments through the decontan-tinator.
By the time Birch was out of the shower, his clothes were done and he climbed back into them. Still toweling his hair, he wandered into the living room, where Lucy sat wrapped in a thick robe. "You haven't answered my question," she said. "Are you a
company man?" "Why is it important, Luc? What would it change9' "A lot," she said. "Does trouble follow you like it does O'Malley? How many people have you killed, Ivan-if I can
still call you that." "I haven't killed anyone." "You'll forgive me if I don't believe you," she spit. "I have it on good authority that company men are liars." "What makes you so sure that I am one    * "You're too smart to be a Grade Four, and you have too much money for one." "I've spent under the mean income for a Grade Four." "Yeah, but you spent it in the wrong places. You used it to
romance people like me. And you've got your shots, the MVIS and the Male Sterility Series. Those are pretty expensive for a common man." "They were given to me-" "Yeah, I've heard it before, Ivan. Whatever sounds good, you tell me and I'll believe it. Okay?"
He didn't say anything. "What about the dog? How did you know it was going to explode? Did your sixth sense tell you it was limping funny?"
He shook his head. "Last century, when things were Balkanized. World War 11. One of the sides, Russia, was poor and survived by its wits. One of the things the Russians did was
train dogs to look under trucks for food, then wire them with explosives and send them across enemy lines."
She stood and shoved her hands in the robe's pockets. "And you wonder what I have against company men." "I had nothing to do with that," Birch protested. "It wasn't my hit, my dog, or my Steve." "So you are a company man."' "It won't make any difference whether I am or not. You've already written us off." "At least I won't be left waiting at the altar when you suddenly get reassigned to Sdo Paulo or Manila. When I make an investment, I try to make it long-term. It has to do with the way I was raised. I almost slipped tonight, but I like to think I've got some spiritual integrity. But you wouldn't understand that, would you? As a company man, you worship the com-
pany, which means you've got no morals."'
Lucy went to a shelf and pulled down a framed photograph. "Here," she said, handing it to Birch. "What's wrong with this picture?"
He looked at it. It was she in a pastel dress, her arm around
a young man in a black robe with a mortarboard on his head. "I think he's a little young for you," Birch said, and then wished he had not. "That's Gavin," she said. "My brother. You st4l haven't told me what's wrong."
He handed the picture back. "I really couldn't tell you."
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"That's it," she said. "That's my family, Ivan. My mother was a devout Catholic. She wanted a large family. After Gavin there were two miscarriages, and then doctors said the rads had made her sterile. So she got in the bathtub and cut her wrists. "My dad took it hard but handled it, prayed for her absolution. Then he died Of leukemia before his forty-fifth birthday. He was a design supervisor for an oil farm. He was outside a lot, around the synthesis chemicals and in the rads. If leukemia hadn't killed him, then his liver cancer would have. "Now Gavin's out of school, and he wants to be a company man. He's working security for some outfit now, hoping to up his grade and get out of here. Don't you see it, Ivan? The companies did this to my parents, and now my brother is signing up to be another victim. It's not right."
Birch looked away. "I don't know what to say." "You don't have to say anything to me. Talk to my brother and keep him from making a mistake. Talk him out of being a
company man before he loses his soul." "I can't," he said weakly. "Why not? Is your soul so far gone that you can't wish someone life for theirs?" "It would jeopardize my reason for being here." He drew a
deep breath. "You've got the same misconceptions that a lot of people have about my kind. When I said I'd never killed anyone, I meant it. Most of my work is surveillance, which I happen to be damned good at. I've still got soul enough not to sell myself short." "But what is it costing others?"
Birch looked at her blankly and picked his coat off the couch. "I can't answer that. Making the cost is my job. You're a waitress, but I don't think any less of you, because I know there's more to you than the job. If you can't see my other side, that's your problem." He put the coat on and started for the do.,)-. "What 'If'. broke your cover'? Would you have to kill me?" "You wouldn't blow my cover," he said. "You're just like Lime," she told him, face hard. "And
you're going to end up like him, too, you know that? You're going to end up in a dump like this, sick and with no friends because your company wouldn't let you have any." "You know about Lime?" "I only get fooled when I want to."
Birch nodded. "You're a very bright girl. I hope you get out of here some day." He opened the door and went down the stairs and onto the street. He looked back at Lucy's window. The residual effect of adrenaline was still with him, bringing a
buzz to his brain and alertness to his eyes. He looked up and down the street, wondering what to do next. It was after dark, and Casper was a dead city.
He looked at the empty street and sighed. There was nothing left to do but return home or go to Mamd D'Dio's.
He went home. Monty was nowhere to be seen, but Birch could hear the sound of his television, drifting out to the lobby from his apartment. He continued through and went up the stairs.
When he got to his room, the door was cracked open. The breath in his lungs stopped, and he flattened against the wall. He pulled the 9-mm from his ankle strap and attached the silencer, then eased the door open with the barrel.
Inside was a mess. The closet and dresser had been opened, and his clothes had been strewn across the small room. The bed had been turned over, and the television set dismantled. Whatever company equipment was not stored inside the van was gone.
Birch swore and searched the room for clues, finding nothing. Other than the fact that his room had been tossed, there was only a faint, farnfliar scent to tell him about the presence of the intruder.
He nodded. It all made sense. He slipped the silencer into his pocket and reholstered the gun, walking back down the stairs as if nothing had happened. In the lobby, someone was crashed out on the couch, the television set flickering a scene of a couple making love on a
beach, accompanied by a dull monologue about Freedom contraceptives.
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Birch headed toward Mamd's. At the end of the block he turned the comer and broke into a run. He ducked into the alley and hid behind a line of dumpsters, opening his switchblade and sliding the blade into a slushy puddle to make it cold.
The wait was not long. Birch's ears picked up a peculiar shuffling, and soon a shadow blocked light from the streetlamps. It hovered for a moment in the alley opening, then continued down the street.
Birch rose and shook the water from the blade. He eased back onto the street, falling into file behind a hunched figure in a tweed coat. He took long strides toward the man, and when he was close enough, he spoke. "Enjoy the concert?"
The man spun. Birch grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed him against the wall, pressing the cold metal against his throat. He looked at him and smiled. It was the stoner from the lobby of the hotel. "You've got a thing or two to learn about following people. You're conspicuous as hell. Were you the one who tossed my roo m'? ,
The stoner said nothing. Birch turned the knife so that the blade edge scraped the skin of his neck. "Better talk to me, amigo. My hand shakes when I get pissed."
The stoner grunted. "Is that a yes?" Very slightly, the stoner's head moved up and down. "Very good." Birch clamped his hand around his neck and dropped the blade. "Who sent you?" "Alone. Work alone."
He tightened his grip on the stoner's neck. "You and I both know what bullshit that is. Somebody has to be keeping you in Panama Reds."
The stoner shook his head. Birch put the knife to the man's groin and let it tear through the crotch of his denims. "How do you think you'll get along without your dos huevitos, amigo? I hear stoners got no use for them. Maybe I'll do
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you a favor real quick." He let the blade shred cloth for emphasis.
The stoner opened his mouth, and his story started to pour out, incoherent babble about a man in a bar who had given him a pack of Rocky Mountain Highs and offered him a roll of bills. Birch sliced his jeans to the top button to hurry things along, but it did not do much good.
Finally, when the stoner was close to giving a physical description, the squealing of tires came from one end of the block. Birch looked over his shoulder to see a black Mit Runabout fishtail around the comer and head straight for them at high speed, A figure in blackface leaned out the window, and globs of light spewed forth, accompanied by a soft spitting sound.
Birch threw the stoner down and ran for the alley. The air was filled with sharp cracks and the scent of ozone as the plasma bolts smacked into stone and released their charge. There was a burning in the back of his left leg, which suddenly became dead weight, pulling him to the ground. He tried to roll as he hit, and it did not work. His hand went for his pistol, but another bum started in his side, and his entire torso began to tingle. His hand flopped uselessly to the damp concrete, and he fought to keep breath in his lungs.
The Mit stopped at the opposite end of the block, and two men emerged and started toward him. The stoner got up from the sidewalk and ran to them, screaming that this guy was on
to them. When he neared them, one figure raised a stick and it flashed into the stoner's gut, knocking him down with a loud thunderclap. Then they continued toward Birch.
The company man was fighting for breath, trying desperately to get his hand to his ankle holster. Strangely, the tingle had already left his chest, although it still hurt to draw breath. His dead leg was now tingling, and he was filled with a sense of wonder. By all rights, a torso hit from a plasma bolt should have put him out. "Check out a projectile weapon," Kessler had told him. "They still use sixty-cycle electricity out there, and it won't keep the standard-issues charged. . ."
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Sweat stung his eyes as he worked the pistol out and unsteadily aimed it at the approaching figures. "Sorry, Luc," he said under his breath. "There's a first time for everything."
At ten meters they stopped and regarded him. One carried a pump-action shotgun, and the other a full auto plasma bolt. "We'll give you a choice," the one with the shotgun said. "How do you want to die?"
Birch shifted the pistol from one man to another, trying to keep them at bay. The shotgunner was right. At such close range, enough shots from even a malfunctioning plasma bolt would mean an agonizing death. "Might as well pack it in. You'll only kill one of us." "Bets?" The pistol bucked in Birch's hand.
The shot hit its target, the bolt gun. The plasma tank exploded with a crisp sizzle, filling its carrier full of shrapnel. Liquid electricity sprayed in all directions, spattering Birch with numbing streaks of lightning and effectively coating the man with the shotgun. He opened his mouth to scream, but the act was effectively short-circuited by the plasma. As he staggered back, trying to drop the weapon that had fused to his hands, Birch shot him in each leg. He went down hard and was still.
Birch pulled himself to his knees. He was trembling from fear and shock, and sour beer gushed from his lips as his stomach convulsed.
Sirens filled his ears. He holstered his gun and stood, managing an ill stagger into the alley. His left leg still burned from the initial shock, and he had a dozen painful tingles from where he had been hit with stray plasma. He would never make it back to the hotel, and his training told him that it was the worst place for him to be right now.
There was Lucy's apartment, but even if he could make it that far, he was sure he was not welcome there.
Halfway down the alley, he found a garbage bin filled with rags and papers from a nearby print shop. He climbed inside and, oblivious to the sticky-sweet scent of the ink, lay down and passed out.
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10
"It's a funny thing," the academy instructor had said just before he leveled his plasma bolt at Birch and shot him in the stomach. "You never know how these things are going to affect you when you recover. Everyone is different, and reac-
tions vary from person to person. It depends on how much of a charge you take, where you get hit, and so on."
Andy Birch remembered that as he woke. Every move he made hurt, and he was certain that he had been struck blind. He brought one hand up to his eyes and found that they were
held shut by a thick layer of mucus that had dried to a crust along the ridges of his eyelids. He gently rubbed it out and opened them. They felt thick and gluey, but he could see. A thin shaft of sunlight was filtering in from a crack in the dumpster's lid.
At first he panicked, realizing that he had spent the night outdoors. He checked his stripe, but the deep maroon had faded only to pale pink. There was still time before he had to get indoors.
He looked at his watch, but the crystal had blackened and blistered. He pried it off with his blade. The hands were frozen at 10:47, the time of the attack.
He pulled the watch off, and his wrist throbbed with pain. The skin had adhered to the metal band and then torn away, leaving a raw, oozing band around his wrist. He weeded through the inky rags, trying to find something to wrap around the pustulant wound, but nothing was clean enough.
When Birch overcame the initial nausea, he climbed out of the dumpster and wandered down the alley, checking the sky, trying to figure out the time. The sky was overcast, and the filtered gray light offered no clues to the hour.
He wandered onto the street and saw yellow outlines of two human figures chalked onto the asphalt. Plasma bums on
the sides of buildings had been circled and marked with waxy

JOE CLIFFOPD RusT
red arrows. At the far end of the street a third figure was outlined on the sidewalk, and a dark stain had leaked into the gutter.
Birch looked at the festering sore on his wrist. What the hell time was it? Slowly he walked two blocks and went into another alley. He shuffled through the corridor, fighting to control his breathing so the nausea would not return.
At last he found himself by a grease-stained door that read "Employees Entrance-Casper Downtowner CaM." He put his hand to the knob and turned. The door opened.
Birch walked in through a small hallway stocked with disinfectants and cleaning products and past doorways that led to an office and a pantry. The hall cut short, opening up into a
highly polished kitchen where meat was sizzling on the grill and a big kettle of soup simmered on the stove. He flopped in a chair, putting his head between his knees. "I'll have that burger up for you in a minute," said a familiar voice. Wood squeaked on metal hinges, and he looked up.
Lucy stared back at him. Her mouth fell open, and a dirty plate slipped from her hand, exploding into a hundred jagged ceramic shards.
He was in trouble. Lucy was not scheduled to go on duty until I la, just before the noontime rush. If she was busy cooking and busing dishes, then the rush was at its peak and he had missed his appointment with Lime. He smiled and tried to tell her all of that, but it only came out in two words. "I'm late." "Lucy, is everything okay back there?" a voice called from the front. "Sure," she replied, smoothing her apron. "I dropped a
dish. Be out in a minute." Cautiously she approached him, eyes flickering uncertainly. "You look surprised," Birch slurred.
She knelt and wiped ink from his face with the hem of her apron. "Three men were killed ... a couple blocks from here. One of them, his face was ... blown off. Some kind of explosion. I thought ... maybe. . ."
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"What time is it?" She blinked, holding back tears. A was so afraid that-' "What time?" he demanded. "One-thirty," she said absently. "Quarter to two." His head lolled back. "Shit." "There were police all over, asking people if they knew anyone-"
Birch sniffed. "Meat's burning,"
- She rushed to the grill and flipped the patties over.
"I need some bum cream. Fast-healing stuff if you've got it. "
Lucy turned, wiping her hands on the apron, and fumbled a
tube from a nearby cabinet. She brought it to Birch, who unscrewed the cap and squirted a line of it where his watch had been. "I thought maybe one of them was you. I thought I'd never
get a chance to say-" "Clean rag," Birch said, wincing as he rubbed the cream around his wrist. "White."
She pulled a dish towel from a drawer and gave it to him. He unfolded it and fashioned it into a crude wrap over the bum. "Thinking about it," she said, "after you left last night-" "Burgers are done," he told her.
She hurried to the grill and flipped the meat onto two plates with buns and condiments. "How about it?" said someone from the front. "Are you okay in there?" "Customers," Birch said.
She rushed the plates out. While she was gone, Birch stood and undid his shirt. His chest was covered with raised red welts, the trademark plasma bolt wound. He smeared the bluish cream on a finger and dabbed at some of the bigger bums.
Lucy returned with three empty plates. "More orders?" he asked. "Two for the special. It's soup and-" "Get to it," he ordered.
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"What about you?" She stacked the plates in the sink. "You got some aspirin back here?" "It's out front, by the counter." "I'll need some." "You should have a little food with it. Look in the fridge." She turned and walked out the swinging doors.
Birch checked his ankle holster to make sure it had not been compromised by plasma bums. The 9-mm was intact. He fastened his shirt and found two slices of bread. Opening the refrigerator, he piled on several slices of ham and spooned potato salad on top of that. He mashed it all together as a
sandwich and started to wolf it down, fighting his stomach's urge to push it all back up.
Lucy returned with a small box of aspirin and a can of soda. Birch opened the box and, before Lucy could protest, dumped the contents into his mouth and dry-swallowed the pills. Then he opened the soda and washed them down. "Is Lime out there?" he asked between gulps. "I haven't seen him." "I came close last night. Almost ended up like him. Almost ended up worse."
A don't want to hear about this, Ivan." "Two men, a hit team, killed a stoner in cold blood. I was
next, so I did them." He took another long swallow of soda. "Don't ask how my soul is, because I haven't had time to think about it. Is there a telephone I can use?"
She gestured behind him. "There's one in Boss's office." "It won't cost a thing." He limped to the office, sat at the desk, and opened the frame of the telephone. He pulled out the Judas Box and hit a few keys to see if it still worked, then connected it to the telephone's circuits and put through a call to Pitt.
The scrambler had not been as lucky. A stray bolt had made a mess of the component's circuits. Not having it caused an argument with an Astradyne operator, but she finally relented and patched him through to Vargas.
The first thing Birch said was, "What the hell is going on
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out here, Emil? It's getting hot, and I'm not talking about the rads. "
There was silence. "Vargas, are you there?" "Calling up your case," he replied. "I don't give a damn what the computer says         "I Birch snapped. "I want to know what you know. I've survived two hits, and only one of those was intentional. The other one smacked of being a Level Three disruption." "What was that?" Vargas asked. "Someone wired a dog and blew up a steve. Not an ordinary steve, mind you, but what looked like an Astradyne-issue Mercedes LRC 1100. Then some stoner tossed my apartment. I nabbed him, and a team showed up, outfitted by the book. I took them out, but I nearly lost my skin doing it." "Sounds like someone has breached your cover, Andrew." "No kidding," he replied sourly. "Have you crossed anyone or let your cover down? Has mission integrity been compromised at all?" "What do you think? Damn it, Vargas, I want some an-
swers. Nobody hits a steve like that unless it's company business. And when there's a company hit on a Mercedes, you can
bet your dos huevitos that it was aimed at Astradyne."
He could hear Vargas's keyboard rattle. "There's nothing here, Andy. I've nothing to tell you." "Can't you dig'? I'll be damned if I'm going to lose my life over a pizza delivery."
Another silence was followed by transmission hiss. "You're not going to die, Birch." "Is there something you're not telling me?" "If I had something, I'd tell," Vargas snapped bitterly. "What's the matter, don't you trust mel Lots of people lose their partners, Birch." "That's not what I meant," Birch said quickly. "I want to know if there's something out here that Kessler's been keeping dark, something I should know about before I get my ass in a sling."
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After a moment's silence, Vargas said, "There's nothing on
my screen, Andy. You're to proceed with the product buy if you haven't already."
Birch's eyes ached. He rubbed the bridge of his nose.
"Did you hear me? You're to proceed with the buy as scheduled." "I heard," he said softly. "In the meantime, calm down. The steve hit was probably coincidence." "What about the others?" Birch shouted. "Proceed with the product buy," Vargas said mechanically. "Call in when you've got it and we'll pull you out, since the mission has been compromised." "It hasn't been compromised," Birch hissed. "My cover
has been lifted. If you don't know the difference by now. . .
"Do as you're told," Vargas said sharply.
Birch slammed down the phone and jerked out the Judas Box. With a sigh he rose and went back to the kitchen. Lucy was there, filling the sink with hot water. "I'm out of here.,,
She turned to him. "Ivan, I don't know what's going on, but when it's over-"
There were shouts of protest from the front of the caf6. "You'd better get going, Lucy. You've got a job to do." "But when it's over. . "It's never over." "Will I see you again?" Birch turned and walked out the door. The sandwich sat heavily in his stomach, and the aspirin was giving him indigestion. His legs quivered, and his vision blurred. He flagged a taxi and had it take him to the garage.
On arrival he announced that he was closing his account, collected his deposit, and got the van. On the way across town he picked up a large cooler and stopped at an industrial supply center to fill it with dry ice. From there he hurried to the bus station, where he collected a briefcase that had been shipped to his nom de guerre.
Next he went to see Jack Lime, making no effort to conceal
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his movement. Since his cover had been lifted, it did not make any difference. Whoever had hired the stoner might have an-
other tail on him, and this time it would be a pro. He had no
moral reservations about leading someone to Lime. Once he collected the sample and formula for the neoparaffin, he could warn the old man off.
He braked the van hard, and it skidded to a stop on the slick street in front of the boardinghouse. Grabbing the briefcase and the cooler, he went to the door and knocked.
There was no answer. From inside, the television issued the sounds of a large crowd. He pounded on the wooden frame again, to no avail.
Birch slowly opened the door and stepped inside. The old men were glued in front of the set, shouting advice and en-
couragement to a pair of teams engaged in a round of tagball. "Oye," he shouted. "Es Jack Lime aqui?"
A couple of them looked up from the goings-on, but an
alarm sounded from the set and they snapped their heads back to the game. "Necito habla ca' Jack Lime. Sa' donny sta?"
The small woman, Sefiorita Lorenz, rose from the middle of the group and approached him, waving a wooden spoon. "No stockey," she told Birch. "Jack Lime no stockey." She rattled on, telling him that the tenant hadn't been seen since yesterday, concluding that "Jack Lime nadas en los cervezas."
Swimming in liquor, Birch thought. Just what I need. I missed the appointment, so he went out to get pissed.
He explained that he had money for Lime. Would she take him to his room? She pointed at the television with the spoon, rattling on about the contest between the Luna City Frontiersmen and the Sun City Icarii. Then she nudged him toward the door and told him to come back later.
Birch stepped out the door, swearing. He peeked through the window, watching the crowd through a chip in the Leadspray. When they were engrossed in the game, he quietly opened the door and slipped down the hall. "Oye!" It was Sefiorita Lorenz. She stood, bringing pro-
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tests because she was blocking the screen.
Not seen since yesterday. Birch's stomach knotted, and he hurried up the stairs. He did not like that any more than he liked the footfalls of the diminutive landlady coming from behind. He scrambled to Lime's room and pounded on the door. "Jack! Jack, it's Ivan! I've got your money!"
The only sound he could hear was Sefiorita Lorenz, tongue stringing unflattering epithets about Birch's mother. "Jack!" His hand fell to the knob and gripped it. The door waslocked.
Sefiorita Lorenz appeared at the top of the stairs, wielding the wooden spoon like a deadly weapon. She advanced slowly, words spurting from her lips. Birch suddenly realized that he could not understand a word she was saying. Apprehension seized him, and he tried to reason with her, but the language was gone. All he could get out was "Porfavor. . ."
She was less than a meter from him when he backed off. She stopped, and her scowl lightened. Birch twisted and put his shoulder to the door. It popped the lock from its housing, but the chain inside held fast.
Sefiorita Lorenz charged, poking and striking him with the spoon. He brought up the briefcase like a shield and pushed her away, then rammed the door again. There was a splintering, and the door flew open as the trampling of a dozen feet came from the stairs. Birch stepped in with the landlady fight behind him, her voice a high-pitched buzz of anger.
The buzz stopped flat, replaced by a soft whisper to the Holy Trinity. Then she screamed.
The cooler fell from Birch's hand. He turned to Sefiorita Lorenz and grabbed her shoulders, watching tears run from her eyes. "Call the police. Go downstairs, get the telephone, call the police."
Six men stepped onto the second floor landing. Birch turned the woman toward them and gave her a gentle nudge. His heart was hammering at his throat, and his linguistic skills had vanished with the onset of adrenaline shakes.
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"Do any of you speak English?" he asked helplessly. "I do." A toothless man with shoulder-length hair and a
graying beard stepped forward.
Birch ushered the small woman into the man's arms. "Take her downstairs," he said. "Call the police. There's been some
trouble here." "Trouble?" "Just do it," Birch snapped. "The sooner the better."
Sefiorita Lorenz sobbed. The toothless man jabbered at the others, and they went down the stairs.
Birch returned to Lime's room. The walls and floor were splattered with dark stains of drying blood, and the sheets of his bed were crisp with it. Lime was sprawled across the mattress, throat sawed open from ear to ear, head bent to open the arteries.
There were signs of a struggle in the room. The chair was overturned, the card table was smashed, and papers were scat-
tered everywhere. The window was open, and a cold radded breeze had turned the cheap stripe on Lime's tunic black.
There were scratches and pry marks on the windowsill. Seized with panic, Birch threw open the refrigerator and checked the freezer.
The plutonium core was still there, sitting patiently among wrapped bundles of dry ice. Birch grabbed the cooler from the hall and put the core inside, packing the ice around it.
He found an old tequila bottle under the bed, emptied the bucket of liquid formula into it, and capped it. When he was
sure that he had all the neoparaffin in the room, he put the bottle in the cooler.
Lime's papers were stuffed into a grocery sack. Many were
spattered or caked with blood, and it would take a lab to clean them up.
Birch gathered the briefcase, the sack, and the cooler and hurried downstairs. Things were in an uproar. The tenants of Casa Lorenz had forgotten the urgency of the tagball match that still issued from the living room at high volume. In the midst of the chaos, the toothless man found him.
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"Did you get the police?" Birch asked. "Si," he said. "They should be on the way." "How long before they're here?" The old man shrugged. "Soon." He laid a hand on Birch's shoulder. "Sefior, this Jack Lime, he was our amigo. It would be best if you were not the one who has done this to him."
Birch shook his head. The adrenaline was fading, and he had the shakes. The image of the blood-spattered room rushed back, and he felt dizzy. "No," he said, looking against the wall. He closed his eyes. "Jack Lime fue' mi amigo tambiM. "
The toothless one turned and went up the stairs. They were
all going upstairs now, including Sefiorita Lorenz.
Birch hurried out of the house, the memory of the hit team fresh in his mind. Had they been the ones? Had they had someone at the house watching Lime as well? For what reason?
He loaded the van and put it in gear, unable to prevent himself from replaying the night before.
Were they the ones who had done Lime? If they were, I sure as hell showed them, he thought. Jack Lime, wherever you are ,let the record stand. You have been avenged.
The auto bolt exploded in the assassin's hands, the jagged metal shearing off his face and hands and any immediate hope of a positive identification. His partner staggered as he was jolted and burned, skidding across the asphalt.
Andy Birch had done it by the book. Every last ounce of memory from the academy had come to him, and he had been cool and collected. With the instructor's words ringing in his head, he had taken aim and calmly put a bullet into each of the man's legs, trying to break the femur.
He hardened his throat to keep his stomach from heaving. Feeling weak, he pulled into an alley and fell against the wheel '
So this is what it's like, he thought. A pizza delivery goes to hell and you lose your cherry the hard way. He was looking the nightmare in the face and he did not like it. He swallowed hard, trying to keep his shattered nerves under control. They'll
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never bug me about losing that steve, not after they hear about this. From now on it'll be Andrew V. Birch, the man of steel.
He looked up from the dash, heart pounding, bowels in knots. It was just like Lucy had said. He had done the two men, done them clean, and saved his own life. And damned if he wasn't happy about it. He saw it again, Bolt exploding and Shotgun hitting the ground with a hole in each leg, and the comers of his lips turned up.
I'm sorry, Lucy, he thought. It's the training. Through the haze, Lucy gave way to Nello, sitting in his seat in their steve, talking about what would happen if the time ever came for him to do someone. "I imagine," he said, "that it'd be like getting it on with some Tijuana whore. You got the need and you got the duty, but she's dog ugly. So you cover herface with the Astradyne logo and do itfor the company. "
Birch slammed his head into the steering wheel, then flopped back in his seat, breathing hard. The images faded, and for a moment his mind was clear.
The important thing was not Lucy, nor was it Lime or the assassins in the street. It was Astradyne. The important thing was to keep their best surveillance man in one sane, functioning piece.
His head throbbed, but his stomach was calmer and he could reason with himself. The stoner and Lime both had connections to him, and now they were dead. Was he next on the list, or would that lot fall to Monty or Lucy? The best option was to lie low. The police would be looking for him, since he had left the scene of a crime in a very conspicuous vehicle. It was only a matter of time before the random events on some
sergeant's desk suddenly congealed and pointed to him.
Birch rubbed his head. With things escalating, Astradyne might want him to stay in Casper, even with the merchandise in hand. He could only hope that Vargas called him in. He would have to convince him somehow.
To hell with that, he thought. He knew what he was going to do.
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He raised his head and stared at the alley, understanding where his blind terror had brought him. He climbed out of the van, checking his holster.
Birch went in through the back door not two meters from where he had parked. He cut through the deserted kitchen and slipped up the back stairs to his room.
The maid had not touched a thing. Rather, she had probably told Monty, who would be waiting with a few choice questions. He went straight to the dresser, the drawers of which were still hanging open.
He pulled the middle drawer from the housing and turned it over. Fastened to the bottom with industrial tape was the thick paprin envelope that had been given to him at the Kansas railhead.
That's what you get for hiring a stoner, amigos, Birch thought wryly.
The deep cover man would know what to do. Birch stopped for a moment, wondering if he was playing into his assailants' hands by running to him. Were they really trying to kill him or merely using him to flush out the hidden Astradyne man? Panic was still deep in his brain, and he could not decide. He had to take the chance.
With trembling fingers, Birch tore the top of the envelope and pulled out the information. He slid the sheets of warning to one side, looking for one thing. He uncovered the photograph, and his legs lost their strength. He flopped into a chair, numb with disbelief.
He was looking at a picture of Jackson Lime.
I I
Birch stood in a phone booth. The wind howled around him.
The Astradyne operator could not be convinced. "Listen," he said. "This is Andrew V. Birch, enforcement
division. I'm stationed in Casper, Wyoming, on a pizza delivery. My contact is Emil Vargas." "Please install your class scrambler," she insisted. "I haven't got it!" he shouted. "I got shot with a plasma bolt, and it got fried. What the hell's the matter? I didn't have my scrambler last time." "Why do you need to speak with Mr. Vargas?" "I'd like to give the son of a bitch a piece of my mind. Put me through to him right now." "I'm afraid I can't honor that, Mr. Birch. We need a confirmation." "Then get on that keyboard of yours and look me up," he growled. "I'm showing an Andrew Birch in Wyoming, city of Casper, making a product buy. That doesn't seem to be the problem." "What is it? Is he at home? Patch me through. I'd like to share a few words with him." "Mr. Vargas is not available right now," the operator said. "Then let me talk to Kessler," Birch demanded. "That would be even better." "Mr. Kessler is busy at the moment." "Will you cut through the bullshit and let me talk to someone? If I'm not talking to someone of rank in two minutes, I'm going to have your job. I can't make it any plainer than that." "Let me see if I can find someone for you to talk to." The voice was cool and derogatory.
Birch exhaled and checked his stripe. The small booth afforded little protection from the elements, and he had to keep moving to stay warm.
There was a click, and a voice said, "Enforcement." Birch shuddered and kept his ear to the phone. It had sounded almost too familiar. "Enforcement," the voice repeated. "Nello?" he asked in shock. "What the hell are you doing there?"
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"Andy? It's war, partner. I got pulled from Bonn to fill in." Birch shuddered. That explained a lot, but it did not tell how his cover had been lifted. "Listen," he said, "I need to talk to Vargas. Can you patch me?"
Nothing came from the other end. "Dammit, Nello. Did you hear me? I need to talk to Vargas. " "Vargas is dead, Andy."
Birch's throat tightened, and he took the handset from his face. Nello's voice buzzed from the speaker. When he listened again, Nello was asking about his welfare. "I'm fine," he answered. "What's all this about war?" "Early this morning," Nello explained. "Seretex started hitting our people all over the world. Casualty figures are piling up faster than the snow. It's anarchy right now. We've got every available man handling phones and terminals until we can figure out what's happening." "What do I do out here?" "Contact your deep cover man. He'll tell you what to do." "I can't do that," Birch snapped.
Nello's fingers clattered on the terminal. "Your man there is Jackson Lime. He lives at-" "Jack Lime's shoes have been shined," Birch shouted. "What do I do, Nello?" "Oh," Nello answered. "I guess you should go ahead with your product buy and then ---- 2'
"Nello," Birch shouted. "Jack Lime was the man selling the product. He didn't know I was Astradyne because he tried to sell it to me, and I sure as hell wasn't told he was Astradyne. The question is, Did he know about the third Astradyne man?" "Third man?" "A standard-issue LRC 1100 was blown up out here. Now get on that terminal and tell me what the hell is happening out here. " "It's war, Andy." "This happened before the war, damn it. Since when does
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Astradyne put three people in the same city without telling them the others are there?" "Checking," Nello told him. "Give it to me straight, partner." "From what this screen says, Lime was retired. He hadn't done anything official for eighteen months and was acting as deep cover man for Casper. Recently he took sick and was
needing money." "I'll confirm that. What else?" "The Mercedes was assigned to a man named Williams. He's not with enforcement. He's an arbitrator. Apparently Lime was on to something good but felt no obligation to offer us the rights. Williams was sent out to talk to him. It looks Re Lime was holding out for more than Williams was authorized to pay." "Maybe he didn't want to share with Astradyne," Birch said. "What else?" His partner didn't answer. "What else, dammit?" "Apparently," he answered thinly, "he had orders to get the product from Lime at any cost."
The news made Birch's ears ring. "Was there a limit on it?" "No.,, That was how his cover had been lifted without the mission being compromised. If Williams had known that Lime was
trying to sell the core, he would have sent someone to prevent it. Since Lime seemed adamant about not giving neoparaffin to Astradyne, it was logical that he would give it to Ivan Prescott for less than the company was willing to pay. In turn, as Casper's Astradyne man, Lime would have fallen victim to Seretex. Their assassins had not recognized the value of Lime's notes or the substances he kept in his room.
"Andy, are you all right?" "Fine," he said. "Give me a minute to think about this." He cleared his throat. "You've got to call Williams off. I think he was the one who tried to kill me. Was he operating under high profile?" "Looks like."
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That explained the hit on the steve. If an Astradyne man had arrived in town, he would have been a sitting duck for any Seretex people in the area. "I hate to ask, but were you able to get the product?" "What?" he asked, trying to clear his head. "Were you able to get the product from Lime? Some sort of weapon, wasn't it?"
Weapon. He looked out at the failing snow.
"Did you get it9" Would I give Astradyne the keys to the kingdom right now? he thought. No, he decided. He would have to think about it. "No," he said. "I checked his room and there was nothing there. Not even a scrap of paper." "Well, if you didn't get it ... "Then Seretex did."
There was a long silence. "Kessler's not going to be happy about this." "It's Kessler's fault," Birch snapped. "if he'd told me there were problems with Lime, Williams and I could have scarnmed him. As it is, we wasted our time trying to kill each other. " "What do I tell him, then?" Nello asked quietly. "What they pounded into our heads at the academy," Birch replied. "Beware of the dog." "I don't know how he's going to take that." "Give it to him as a quote. Direct from me." "Aye, aye," Nello said thickly. "And while you're at it, get me some new orders. The pizza delivery has been screwed. Get me out of here if possible." "This'll take a couple of minutes."
Birch stamped his feet. "I've waited this long." "I'll see what I can get you." Birch cupped his hand over the mouthpiece and studied the outskirts of Casper, where the barren prairie met the city limits. He felt helpless with rage, angry that Kessler had let the situation degenerate. He could not understand, could not
comprehend what was going on. If he did not know better, he
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would swear that the whole thing was a setup by the administrator to silence his complaints.
What if he had been had? What if Kessler was on the way out and the Houston run had been the straw that broke the camel's back? What if he had sent Birch out to Winterland so he wouldn't come back, another victim of a pizza delivery gone bad?
The thought startled him. That was not possible. As petty as he felt his misgivings had been, was Kessler that insecure over his position at Astradyne? "Andrew." Nello's voice was grim. "You're not going to like this."
Birch swallowed. "Let's hear it." "They want you back in Pitt immediately." "That's what I wanted to hear." "Now the price. They want you to blow the New Frontier research center before you leave. You've been authorized all the way to Level Seven if needed."
Birch stared at the blowing snow in disbelief. "It's war, Andy. You gotta lose the cherry sometime." "For the company, right?" Nello stayed silent. "I'll see what I can do. A lot of the buildings around here still have boilers. Maybe I can arrange for a nice explosion." "That would do it." "Right." Birch turned back toward the phone, jaw quivering. "I'd better get on it, then." "Listen, Andy," Nello said quickly. "When you get back and this is all over, let's do something. We could get an XRV and cruise down to Havana for a week. Get some sun, some cigars. . ." "Some women?" "If you want." "You're a good man, Nello. Thanks." "Hang in there, partner." "I'll tell you when I'm coming in." He clicked the handset into the cradle and walked back to the van. If Kessler was trying to get rid of him, he had picked the best way to do it.
118                 JOE CLIFFOPD FAusT Blowing a building on short notice was always risky. Only the lucky ones got caught.
He tried to reassure himself that the job had come up because of the state of war and that the New Frontier center had to go because it was a branch of Seretex.
It did not help. Before he climbed in the van, he took a last took at the snowscape built by the winter winds. If he were to start walking right then, the cold and the rads would eventually knock him down and kill him. He wondered how long it would take.
12
That night he tried to find Lucy. She was not at home. She was not at the caf6. The only other place Birch thought she might be was at mass, perhaps lighting a candle for him. He thought about tracking her down, but when he saw how many Catholic churches were in the Casper metro area, he decided against it. He would have to find another way to get the papers to her. The mail service was out of the question. Perhaps a courier would do it, if she would accept the package. Under the circumstances, she might think it was a bomb and refuse service.
Eventually he found himself at the industrial park, staring at the New Frontier yard. The sooner he got the job over with, the sooner he could head back to Pitt.
What the hell, he thought. There's no time like the present. He pulled the van up to the gate, and a guard came out to
meet him. "May I help-"
Birch threw the door open, and it sent the guard flying. He bailed out of the vehicle, grabbed the plasma bolt from the
guard's belt, and shot him. Moving quickly, he dragged the guard into the small shack, dumped him in a corner, and threw the switches to open the gate. On the way out, Birch shot him again for good measure.
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He took the van straight up to the New Frontier building, stopping right in front of the door. A guard came rushing through the lobby and started to let himself out. Birch put two bolts into his chest and walked through the open door.
He scrambled across the lobby and ducked down a hall, trying desperately to remember the floor plan. After a few moments of hasty exploration, he figured out where he was. The staircase was just ahead.
Three meters from the stairwell, a young guard stepped out and shouted "Halt!" He was in a firing stance for combustion weapons, a small plasma bolt held less than confidently in his hands. When he saw that Birch had no intention of stopping, he raised the weapon to fire -
Birch hit him low with his shoulder. He was picked up by the blow, and Birch straightened, dumping him and starting down the stairs.
A plasma bolt shocked the wall in front of him. Electricity spattered his left shoulder, and it went numb, the burning spreading to his chest and neck. He leaned back, lost his footing, and slid down the remainder of the flight. At the landing, he rolled and pumped three blobs of electricity into the chest of the guard coming up the steps. The guard went down head over heels.
Jackass, he told himself. Why did you have to try a frontal assault? You'll never get out alive. He blinked against the burn that was crawling up his face and struggled to his feet. There was no time to debate his lack of wisdom. He had put the Astradyne logo over the face of the problem and was
doing it for the company.
He pushed through a door marked PHysicAL PLANT and came face to face with the New Frontier reactor. He found a lever near the console marked DAWER and muscled it open.
He heard a clamor from the stairs. Another guard came around the comer and tried to turn, but his shoes slipped on the damp concrete and he fell to the floor.
Birch put a bolt in his shoulder, but it did not stop him. His hand went for the weapon on his hip.
Birch shot him in the chest.
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The guard pulled the bolt from his holster. Birch gave a last jerk of the trigger, and a bolt blistered the man's forehead. He grunted, flopped back, and went into convulsions.
Cursing, Birch checked the stolen bolt. An LED glowed steadily red. Typical of standard law enforcement issues, there was not enough juice to do the job. He picked up the other bolt and returned to the console.
After further study, he increased the reactor's speed and all but shut down the power demand from the building. The power source whined in distress, and a junction box flashed red and amber warnings.
That was what he wanted-the Al governor, the dogbrain that regulated the reactor and kept it from overloading. He stood several meters away and shot the box with the bolt. There was a sharp crackle, and the warning lights went dead.
The reactor's speed picked up. That would do it. Birch started out, but someone was blocking his way. "Freeze," the young guard said. "You got it," Birch said. He relaxed his grip on the bolt, and it dangled uselessly from one finger. "Drop it," the guard ordered, licking his lips.
ne bolt clattered to the floor. "Would you like some advice?" Birch asked. "Lie down." The boy was trying to sound authoritative, but his voice cracked. "Do you hear that?" Birch asked, motioning with his hand. "That's the reactor. It's starting to run wild." "Lie down!"
Birch shook his head. "In about ten minutes this place will be blown to Luna City, you and me included if we're still playing company man." "GETDOWN." "Take my advice. Get out of here before things get ugly. You can still take me in and be a big hero." He took a step.
GEDDOWN!" He shouted feverishly. "You know what the synonym for 'hero' is?" He took an-
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other step. "'Fool. Dead fool.' The reactor---2'
The guard leveled the bolt at Birch's head. "The Al will handle it - "
"The Al is dead. I burned it. Let's step outside and talk about this. . ." He strained to look at the name silk-screened above the guard's right breast pocket. "Gavin." "No! You're in here-you've no right." He stopped and took a breath of air. "Get your ass on thatfloor, mister!" ,The reactor continued to whine. Birch could feel the floor vibrate. "Come on, Gavin," he said. "Shut up!" "What have you got to   - " Birch froze. He looked hard at the name tag. "Gavin," he repeated. "Gavin Harper." "I said shut up and get down!" The barrel of the bolt was quivering.
Birch shifted. "Do you have family, Gavin Harper? Someone to take care of) What would they say if you died?" "I'm not going to die," the boy countered. "We'll both die if we stay here."
Gavin swore and repeated the order to get down. "How would they feel, Gavin?" Birch asked, crouching. "What would they say if you never came back?" He looked him straight in the eye. "What would Lucy say?" "What?" Gavin hesitated, and the barrel of the weapon tipped down.
Birch sprang from his crouch and hit Gavin in the chest. The bolt tipped into the air and fired four shots in rapid suc-
cession, creating a storm of crackling particles of energy. The cavern filled with the din of an alarm.
They both fell to the floor, Gavin trying to put a come-
along hold on Birch's numb left arm. Birch rolled out of it, forced Gavin's head into the crook of his right arm, and closed it around the boy's neck, putting pressure on the carotid arteries. Gavin struggled to free himself, shuddered, and went limp. The company man rolled out from under the inert figure, found a bolt, and shot him.
Birch staggered to his feet and studied the boy. Gavin
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looked exactly like his graduation picture and could not be more than a few days over nineteen. Another kid who watched too much television and wanted to take the high road.
And he was Lucy's brother. "C'est la guerre," Birch said, and headed for the stairs, Nello's words about Tijuana whores ringing in his ears.
He looked back at the unconscious figure. What he was
was not a Tijuana whore. It was not a company man, either, not a surveillance expert like himself, nor a pizza pro, and certainly not the shotgun-wielding half of a hit team. What he saw was not even a security guard.
He saw a kid, one what probably had a great future in somebody's clerical corps.
If he had a future at all. The building had begun to tremble, and from the stairwell came the music of breaking glass. This was going to be a big disruption, something deluxe. A Level Seven with definite catastrophic loss of property and confirmed loss of more than
two lives.
What was one more notch on the butt of O'Malley's gun? He'd had so many the previous season that he'd had to get a
new weapon.
He's Lucy's brother. Hell, he's Lucy's whole family. Andrew Birch slapped the feeling back into his left arm.
Then he picked the boy up, threw him over his shoulder, and started out of the building.
13
They were in Colorado by the time  Gavin woke up.    looking The boy shook his head and opened his eyes, around in thorough confusion. Outside the window, snow was
blowing almost horizontally across the paved plain of 1-25, clinging to the road and drifting high.
The vehicle shuddered as it plowed thorugh a drift. Gavin's
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the feeling they had been on tb'Q@ road a long time. eHyeeshadent to the speedometer. Forty-ti
Finally, Gavin looked at the driver- 've kilometers per hour.
not slept in days; he wore a rumpled       He looked as if he had \Ivhite jumpsuit that was scuffed and dirty, and he was taking Pulls out of a pint bottle of Burning Sky whiskey.
Then memories of the basement Qame back. Gavin was filled with panic, and he started to look for his armament belt. "It's in the back," Andy Birch to'cl him. "Locked in a tool chest. if you can pick the lock, you're    welcome to shoot me."
Gavin calmed. His heart slowed, 4iid he relaxed. "Where are we?" "About a hundred kilometers out Ot Deriver." There was a shudder as the van plowed through z4lother
drift. "It's about
4:30a."
Tihrechbosyhrruugbgbeeddahnisdetoyoesk-'a'nWohthereer pLll from his bottle. "No-
arkl- you taking me?" where. You happened to be in the van when I started for Denver. "
Gavin checked himself. He was       not bound   or restrained in any manner except for the seat         -belt across his lap and shoulders. "Why?" he said through thiQk lips. "Your place of employment no lotiger exists. About six hours ago it blew off the face of the eal'th."
Gavin ran his tongue around the 'risi e of his
d         mouth. it was dry and cottony, and he detected a s4tle taste. Both ears were ringing, and blood throbbed painfully in      his temples. He put his thumbs over his eyes and pushQ(I, trying to relieve the pressure. "You ever been shot before?"
Gavin shook his head. "That's what I thought," Birch scofted     '"They get kids that want to be company men, stick them it)      a uniform, and expect cockiness to take the place of good tr4ining. if you'll look in the glove compartment, there's a bot1le of pills that should make you feel better. Stick two un(iQr your tongue and let them dissolve."
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The boy slumped forward and opened the hatch. A bottle was right in front. He fumbled it open and placed two tiny pellets under his tongue. When he went to replace it, he no-
ticed a small metalplast box with wires connected to what looked like a copper and zinc credit card. He pulled it out and studied it in wonder. "That's a Judas Box," Birch told him.
He looked up incredulously. "Then you're "A company man," Birch finished. "I was sent to perform a Level Six disruption on New Frontier Synthesis with full authorization to go to Level Seven."
Gavin blinked. The pills had turned to a mushy powder. "Why'd you save me?" "Because if I hadn't, your sister would never have forgiven me. "LucElien?" It was all coming back. The ache in his head was fading. "You're Ivan," he said. "For all intents and purposes, yes." "She told me about you." "I figured as much."
Gavin sat straight up in his seat. "And you're a company man. " "Kind of looks that way."
Gavin massaged his temples. Birch took another drink. "When we get to Denver, you're going to call your sister. She'll he worried sick about you. The destruction of the New Frontier research center is the top item on the regional news."
Gavin exhaled slowly. "That's fight." He peered out the window. "Where's the next town?" "Fort Collins," Birch said. "Ten minutes, judging from the weather. "You've got to let me off there. I've have to report in. I won't say anything about you, of course." "Wrong," Birch said bluntly. "I've got to," Gavin said, paling."The manual says-" "I can guess what the manual says. Let me tell you what'll
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really happen if you follow procedure. They'll send someone to pick you up, and the first question will be why the hell you were in their building before it exploded and then three hundred kilometers away six hours after the fact. You're not going to be able to explain that if you're intent on keeping my false name out of this. So they'll strap a high-resonance Alphaband to your head, and you'll spill your guts. Now, that's not going to affect me, but it'll be nasty on you. You'll be lucky if you resurface, and Lucy will be left a complete victim of the companies." "You're just saying that." Gavin snapped. "You're trying to keep me from talking." "You don't believe me? Fine. I'll drop you off in Fort Collins. Check in with your people. See if you don't come out of it with a disorder that'll take a trip to Zurich to cure. If you trust your people that much, tell me. I'll give you what you need to do your duty."
Gavin sat back and stared. "Why do you want to be a company man, kid?" "Has Lucy been talking to you about-" "Answer the question." He shrugged, "It sounds like something I'd like to do." "And what would you doing as a company man?" He grinned. "Sur-veil lances. I thought that would he interesting. Peeking into other people's lives. Maybe they'd start me off doing light harassments. . "Pizza deliveries?" "Right. Pizza deliveries. Doing that sounds like fun." "Fun," Birch echoed. "Haven't you done that, sent a prostitute to someone during a dinner party or something?" "I did a few weeks ago," Birch said, "but it wasn't fun. I ruined someone's marriage so he couldn't concentrate on his job. Only a sadist would do something like that for fun." lie looked at the boy. "I don't think you're a sadist." "Then why do you do it?"
Birch sighed. "It's my job. I do it for the company."
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"Well, if it hurts so much, then why do it at all?" Birch took a pull from the bottle. "It gives me something to be loyal to. I've got nothing else. That's what it all comes
down to, you know." "You don't think I've got company loyalty?" "You don't need it, Gavin. You've got family. You've got Lucy, and you don't know how damn lucky you are to have her. " "Did she put you up to this?"
Birch shook his head "I'm doing this because I think you could do better than waste your life in this profession." "I'd like to give it a try." "Have you ever killed anyone, Gavin? I know you're only nineteen, but in the course of your studies at Saint Uncle Albert Holy Ghost Catholic School for Boys, did you ever have occasion to put the tip of a blade against someone's neck and pop their carotid artery open?" "That's not a fair question." "Oh, yes, it is." He took a drink. "I get into this same argument with Lucy. Not all company men kill people. I said I wanted to do surveillance, harassment-" "I was on a harassment job," Birch said, too loudly. "That's why I was in Casper. You hear about those two guys downtown? Two guys killed in the street, right near where your sister works?" "There were three," Gavin said quietly. "Two of them were assassins," Birch told him, "and they were after me. The third guy fell in with the wrong crowd. They did him. And then I did them. That's our polite word for it, Gavin, so we don't have to say 'killed.' So we don't have to think about what we did. But I killed them like I'd been trained, even though I'd never done it before. And I was on a harassment case. Let me say that again in case you missed it. I killed those two guys, plus whoever died when the building blew up, over a fucking pizza delivery."
The boy was silent.
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"Hell," Birch said, drinking from the bottle. "You couldn't even shoot me with a plasma bolt." "I thought-" "Thought, nothing. SOP using plasma weapons is shoot first and interrogate later. You couldn't do it, Gavin. You expect to survive a situation where you have to kill someone?"
Gavin sank back in the seat. The van lumbered past a sign announcing the Fort Collins exit. "You still want me to drop you off?"
The boy shook his head. "It's nothing to be ashamed of. It's a very noble quality. You put the welfare of someone else ahead of your own.
That's something you lose in my line of work. I'd almost lost it. "
Gavin stared at the road, at the swirl of gray flakes illuminated by quartz light from the vehicle. "It's not the end of the world. The only problem in your life is that you're a shaved ape."
Gavin looked up at Birch, the question in his eyes. "That's what we call someone who has been marked, someone who can no longer function in security or enforcement. It's generally asociated with treachery, but more often than not a shaved ape is a security guard who got knocked out while doing his job. The company has no way of knowing if you cooperated with the intruders or not, so you get transferred or sacked." "So what do I do now?" "Down at your feet," Birch said, "is a briefcase. Open it up. "
Gavin pulled the case into his lap. He clicked the latches and brought the lid up, squinting at the contents in the darkness.
Birch turned on the cabin light. There were two manitin envelopes marked "Lucy Harper," and below that, bundles of wrapped corporate currency. "There's ten k's in there, and five more in that first envelope. The other has the papers she needs to get out of Winter-
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land work district and get into college or a good job. When you get back to Casper, you tell her about this little talk we had. Then give her those envelopes. Do that, and the ten k's is yours." "For what?" he choked. "To do with as you want. To squander, to help your sister, to buy yourself into a Grade Two school, whatever. You get an education, and maybe I can get you on with my people. Not as a company man, but as something more suited to you." "How will I find you?" "I hope your sister will know that." He tipped the bottle to his lips, and liquid burned down his throat.
Gavin closed the briefcase and laid it on the floor. "You're serious?" "Dead serious. I want your sister out of Winterland. She doesn't deserve it, and neither do you."
Gavin studied the man in the driver's seat. Birch was staring hard at the horizontal plane of falling flakes, eyes blinking and bloodshot from hours of fighting the storm. "You'd better pull over," Gavin said. "Let me drive."
Birch looked at him. "What?" Gavin pointed at the bottle. "You've had too much of that." Birch looked at the Burning Sky label. He had finished about a third of it. He slowly capped it, then tossed it into the back of the vehicle. "You're right." He pushed on to a clear spot in the road and stopped.
Gavin opened his door and hopped out, walking around the front of van. Birch lumbered out and circled around the back, stopping behind the vehicle when he heard the driver's door slam. The cold wind took the chemical warmth from his face and made him feel momentarily sober. "C'mon, kid," he said under his breath. "Go."
He stared at the back of the van. It idled, waiting. "Do it," he hissed. "Put the knife in." Nothing. Then Gavin honked. Birch shook his head. "Trusting little son of a bitch." He walked to the passenger door and climbed in.
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"Where to?" Gavin asked, buckling into his seat. "Denver." Birch pulled the strap across his shoulder. "Where in Denver?" "The Peila railhead. South metro area." Gavin put the van in gear and checked his watch. "It'll be a couple of hours yet. Why don't you rest?" "Thanks," Birch said, and the van lurched into the storm.
His head lolled back, and he stared out the window, the torrent of snow hypnotizing him. Then the alcohol closed his eyes.
14
"And what am I going to do with you, my friend?"
Birch was chewing aspirin as he said that, fighting a hangover that was preventing rational thought. Only a minute before Gavin had disappeared through the doors of the Pcfia railhead, the briefcase in his hand. "What about you?"
Birch was addressing the cooler full of dry ice. It sat on the seat next to him, a thin layer of frost spreading across its surface. He was trying to consider the prospect of transporting it.
The problem, it seemed, was checking it through the rail office. They would demand fight of search, which he did not want to risk, or he could take it as carry-on luggage. What kept him from doing either was the fact that the dry ice would dissipate, leaving the neoparaffin to thaw at its leisure. Even if the trainboard detectors did not detect the rise in radiation, it would be risky to carry such a hot package.
The third option was to turn it in to Astradyne Denver. That would be the easiest by far. They could clean up Lime's notes to discover the secret, and what they learned would rev-
olutionize corporate combat. It might bring a quick end to the war with Scretex. It would put Astradyne at the top of the
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ladder until the other companies figured out what was behind the sudden deaths of their top employees. It would last as long as it it took them to start opening packages and taking the contents to the labs. And it would not be much longer until such things started showing up at Astradyne.
Ah. This sword has two edges, he thought. Birch stared at the happy colors on the cooler. It was so easy. All he had to do was leave it somewhere. It was neat and clean. He would never even have to see the victims.
He remembered the yellow outlines on the Caeper street, the waxy red circles on the sides of the buildings. Perhaps it was a little too clean. Even Gavin could operate one of these. Was that what was needed to make a kid a killer?
The transport solution was easy enough. He started the van.
After an hour of driving around the Denver metro area, Birch found the tall fence and the guarded gate. He pulled into a line of inbound vehicles and before long passed under the sign: "Rocky Flats Toxic Waste Disposal Facility."
The guard routed him to a bunkerlike building near the center of the flats, and he took the cooler with him to check i.
"Whad'ya got?" asked a man in a heavy-duty radsuit.
Birch laid the cooler on the counter. "A P-core from a junked steve." Next to it he put a sealed radsack. "Contaminated paper, about two hundred loose pages."
The man's eyebrows turned up. "I hope to hell that core's shielded." "It is."
The man held a radbar to the cool surface. When he was satisfied that the leakage was normal, he picked up the cooler. His face registered surprise when he realized how light it was, but nonetheless he carried it to the conveyor belt. "Okay, we'll bury it for you. Sign here."
Ivan J. Prescott went onto the form. "Say," the man said, eyeing Birch's uniform. "You with Wingfoot?"
"That's what it reads," Birch said, turning. "No kidding? Well I've got a complaint. I bought one of
your phones for my ICV, and it doesn't work. Keeps draining the battery. And I'm told it'll be three months to get it looked at, or they'll give me credit toward buying a new one. What I want is the one I got to work now. You think you could look at it?"
Birch tried to smile politely. "That's really not my department." "Not your department," the man said indignantly. "Yeah. I've heard that. You guys are all alike, you know that?" "We are," Birch said tiredly, turning to leave. "Yeah. You guys that work for those big companies really think you got it made. You got a fun job, can go anywhere and do anything and live a good life. You oughta try moving plutonium for a week, pal, and then you'd learn what it's like to
have a job you hated."
Birch gave the man a cold stare. "Go fuck yourself," he said, and he walked out the door.
Three hours later he was on a rail, a bag of Hershey bars on the seat beside him. He sucked on a slab of chocolate and looked out the window, watching gray turn to brown.
JADE
the home invasion
It felt strange to be making a phone call without the Judas Box, but Andy Birch wanted the call to be completely legal. While computers routed his call the phone line sang, a hymn to the rads interfering with microwave links and transmission towers.
A click. Then distant ringing, followed by a woman's voice. "Downtowner CafV' It was Lucy. Her voice sounded tired and thin. "Hello. Downtowner Caf6. "
He wanted to say something but could not even force out a shy greeting. Lucy sounded stressed and hoarse, no doubt from the impact of recent events, and nothing he could say would smooth things over.
He admitted that he had called to hear her voice. She sounded bad, but not as bad as he had expected. She would recover when Gavin returned from Denver. Having done what he had set out to do, Birch hung up.
He walked toward baggage claim and pulled his duffel bag frZinthe conveyor belt, then started down the tiled halls of the te   al, passing a row of limo drivers holding cards bearing people's names. One card said "Birch the Elite."
He looked at the driver's face. It was Nello, who broke ranks and clapped him on the back. "Andy Birch, you old son of a bitch! Heard you had a terrible time!"
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"It was hell. What's with the sign, Nello? You know something that I don't?"
He shook his head. "I figured you were in line, given your fine performance in Casper." "They don't give you an Elite for killing people," Birch said sourly. "Well, they should. I want to hear about it, Birch. Tell me
about the big showdown."
Birch stopped. "I'm not in the mood to talk about it. It's not the sort of thing I'm proud of, understand?" "But Andy, we're at war. You're a hero to the entire enforcement wing."
Birch grabbed Nello's lapel and drew him close, speaking duough clenched teeth. "I didn't do it for the glory, or for an Elite badge. I did it because I was trained to do it, it was my job, and I had to save my own life. Got that?" He released him with a flick of the wrist.
Nello straightened his collar. "Sure. Sorry, Andy." Birch started walking again. "I suppose Kessler wants to see me as soon as we get in."
Nello led his partner around a comer, and they stepped onto a conveyor. "He does, but it probably won't be until tomorrow. The Seretex strike has everyone screwed in the head." "Anybody know why they did it?"
Nello shook his head. "Not yet. The holes punched in our
intelligence net haven't helped things. We're still pulling people to fill in the gaps."
They stayed on the belt until it emptied near a network of stairs and elevators. They took the nearest stairs to a paved glass lot, stopping by a steve resting in the Kansas sun.
"This is it," Nello said, handing Birch the magnetic key. "This is an 1101," Birch said, smiling. "It's from the admin pool. Like I said, the guys in Pitt are
impressed with you."
Birch circled to his seat. There was something in it, a flat, square box covered with gaudy wrapping. "What's this?"
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Nello buckled himself into his seat. "A welcome back present. " "You didn't need to do this." He tore the wrapping off to reveal a twenty-four-count box of Hershey bars. "Thanks.
Nello shook his hand. "Nice to have you back." They buckled in, and Birch took the POV out of the lot, listening to Nello's readings from the navigational computer. They overflew Kansas City, found the northeast cruise path, then programmed a route into Pitt. After half an hour, Nello cautiously looked at his partner. "Was it that bad in Casper?"
Birch nodded. "Kessler again. Things got confused, and I did a hit team that was probably carrying Astradyne chips." He crumpled the Hershey wrapper and tossed it on the floor, fishing a new bar out of the box. "Did you ever enjoy doing pizza deliveries?" "At first. I'd get cold sweats when I'd call stuff in and shake after I pulled it off. Then I got used to it." "I actually got the target's wife to walk out on him this time." He offered chocolate to Nello, who politely refused. "And it made me think-what did he do to deserve it?" "What do you mean? He was infringing on our patent!" "And Astradyne's never done that? Did our engineers deveiop the dogbrain through original research?"
Nello didn't answer. "Hell, this guy didn't do anything that you and I wouldn't under similar circumstances. For that, I ruined his marriage." "C'est la guerre, " Nello said. "We weren't at war," Birch replied. "We are now."
Birch sank into his seat. "It's probably my fault, too." He tossed another wrapper on the floor and reached for a third bar. "You reafly think they'll give me an EliteT
Nello shrugged. "Wouldn't surprise me." "Think they'll ground me like they did Vargas?" Nello smiled. "They will if you keep moping over a pizza delivery. "
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Birch sucked chocolate. "I won't take it, then." "You're not serious." "I won't take it for doing someone." He crushed empty paprin in his fist and listened to it crackle. "Do you know how Vargas got his Elite?"
Nello shook his head. "It didn't help him, did it?" Birch said. "When it came
down to the wire, his Elite rating was worthless." He tossed the crushed wrapper down with the others.
"Where should we begin?"
Two days had passed, and Birch and Nello were sitting in plush chairs before Kessler's desk. The very fact that he had asked them to sit had put them both on edge. By tradition, Kessler offered a seat only when the session would be long, and the longer the session, the worse the news would be.
Kessler removed his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and studied the men before him. "Well?" "You go first," Birch said loudly. Nello winced. The tone was an outright dare. "Very well. Mr. Nello, you were sent to learn POV operations and piloting at the facility in Bonn."
Nello straightened in his seat. "Yes, sir. I'd completed twenty-four days when I was pulled to come home." "How were you doing?" "It's hard to say. I was still in the review of navigational procedures."
Kessler noddeed. "We'll return you when this current un-
pleasantness is over." He made notes on a pad. "Especially since we are now short of qualified steve operators."
Nello thanked him. Kessler looked at Birch and replaced his glasses. "Andrew V Birch."
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"Yes." Nello shuddered. His partner had that "come and get me, you bastard" look in his eyes. "You were assigned to the Winterland work district, city of Casper, with authorization to perform Level One and Two harrassments against the design staff of New Frontier Synthesis. 11
"That's correct." "How did it go?"
Nello waited, but the explosion never came. Birch calmly said, "I was there slightly over a month, during which time I performed a number of disruptions which ultimately resulted in the departure of the design team leader's wife. During that month, I think it would he safe to say that Seretex's attempted infringement on our limited-atmosphere life-support domes came to a halt." "How about jobend?"
Birch cleared his throat. "I blew the building up." Kessler looked up from his notes, startled. "You what?" "I blew up the New Frontier building. I had called in and was told we were at war with Seretex. My new orders were to return to Pitt after destroying the New Frontier research center. "
Kessler was rising out of his seat. Nello stood and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Sir, I gave him those orders. I had been pulled from Bonn and was manning a board when he called. Those were the orders that came up." "And the computer gave him a Level Six against a building. "He was authorized up to Level Seven," Nello explained. it was the first day of the war. His was the first retaliation order given." He looked at Birch and beamed. "And if you don't mind my saying so, Andy Birch was the first company man to draw blood in the name of Astradyne. Intelligence reports that eleven people were killed when that place went up, which is a ninety-two percent casualty rate. That's not
counting the Seretex hit team from earlier."
Kessler eased into his seat. "You've been a busy man." Birch nodded. "You'll forgive me if I don't have all the particulars of your assignment. This war has put everyone into a state of confusion. " "That's nothing new," Birch said. "Before you start in-" Kessler's voice was sharp and commanding. Just as suddenly, it softened. '@-there's another matter we need to deal with."
Nello saw Birch smile and quickly sat. "It seems you have once again misplaced Astradyne property." He opened another file. "According to a report by the late Mr. Vargas, you were authorized to expend a Grade Two work permit, a set of papers for employment with Astradyne, and fifteen k's in cash for what was described as a 'terrorist weapon.", "That's correct." "While in Casper you dispersed these goods according to plan but have nothing to show for it. How do you explain that?" "But I do have something to show for it." Birch rose and approached Kessler's desk. He tossed something shiny and metallic, which landed on the wood synthate surface with a rattle.
Kessler poked it with his pen. "Is this it?" "What does it look like to you?" He turned it over. "It's a watch." "My watch," Birch said. He pulled up his left sleeve to show the oozing bum around his wrist. "This is what I got for my efforts. One of our arbitrators sold me to a hit team because we were both after the weapon that Jack Lime didn't want Astradyne to have."
He shook the sleeve down and turned away. "I don't know what's wrong with you, Kessler. Every time I come, you swear you're trying to expand the information base, but every time I go out into the field, I see that nothing has changed. A
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month ago I stood right here and told you that somebody was going to get killed if things didn't loosen up a little, and that's exactly what happened. I took out a hit team hired by that arbitrator, what's his name-" "Williams," Nello said. "Williams," Birch repeated. "I don't know if they were full Astradyne or not. This Seretex thing has drawn enough blood. I don't want to be associated with a death by friendly fire." "For the record," Kessler sighed, "Williams said they were free-lancers he'd hired to tail you. When his steve was blown up, he assumed you were Seretex and activated them."
Birch shook his head. "That's a sorry way to run an operation, Howard." "I agree. But that's the way it happened."
Birch slammed his hands on the desk. "And it could have been prevented! All it would have taken is five minutes of your time! But you never said a word, and look what it got you. " "You can't possibly understand all of this, Andy," Kessler said, removing his glasses and wiping his brow. "I don't expect you to appreciate things administrative since you've never worked there." "Try me," Birch snarled.
Kessler shook his head. "I can't. Not with this war." "Screw this war!" Birch shouted. "The fact remains that you had two of your own people trying to kill each other!" "Enforcement and arbitration are two separate wings---2' "It's the same company, Howard. We're all supposed to be working together. These constraints have you killing Peter to save Paul. It's not working." He shoved his hands in his pockets and started to pace. "We've been through this before, Andrew. As usual, I've told you all I can." Birch stopped. "No, you haven't. You've only been telling me what I want to hear. You've been keeping me pacified because I'm really damned good at surveillance. Is that it?" He closed in on the desk. "What are your goals, Howard?
What motivates you? What do you want out of this life before cancer sets in?" "I can't see where any of that is relevant to the topic of the missing weapon." "Well, it is," Birch said, his voice rising. "I've been asking myself a lot of questions, and I'm not too happy about the answers I've come up with." "Like what?" Kessler wiped the lenses of his glasses with a cloth. "How many complaints do you suppose I've filed during my career? A dozen? Two dozen? That'd make me look like a serious malcontent." "We had this discussion early on, son. If you can't stand the rads-" "Quit working at the power plant," Birch finished. "Yeah, I remember that. And I also remember thinking, 'Where else would I go?' I wondered how long I'd live if I hitched up with someone else. I even considered becoming a corporate blackmailer, but there's not a lot of longevity in that field. "So I stayed with Astradyne, first as survival and then because I'd grown to love the old girl, warts and all. It's pretty easy when you've got no surviving family and the company keeps you in friends and money and sends you to exotic places like Casper. I've had a good career, and it's nice to know that when the company has an important surveillance, I'm the one
they call. "There's only one problem. I'm never happy with the way things are run. I'm always filing complaints. Now, who do you suppose that's going to reflect on? The man who heads the enforcement wing, of course."
Kessler was fitting the glasses on his head as Birch spoke, and when he realized what was being said, he pulled them off again. "What are you implying?" "What do you think?" "Do you realize the seriousness of that charge?" "Who's making a charge? Did I point a finger?" "What are you saying, then?"
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"When I make these bitches, it's because I love the company and want to keep it worth working for. Screw-ups like this hurt because they make me think about the dark side of it all. I've been doing more than my share of that lately. "You know what else I've been thinking about? It wasn't that you might have sold me down the river. I've been thinking about a scared old man who was dying from AIDS in a pit of a city." "Lime," Kessler said. "Jackson Lime was one of us. He was an Astradyne company man. He was Elite. He put in his years and kept working even though some diamond synthate thugs shot him full of lethal virus. All of a sudden he ends up in Casper with a chip on his shoulder the size of Astradyne, and I can't for the life of me figure why. "Think about that, Howard. Jackson Lime had such a case for the company that he refused to give us a weapon design that we had exclusive first rights to. Administration would have paid him half a mil for it, but he was willing to let it go to a complete stranger for less than a tenth of that."
Kessler rubbed his temples. "Jack was a special case." "We're all special cases, aren't we? When I first signed on, that was what you told me. It took a special kind of person to be a company man. If I didn't have it in me, I'd wash out early in the program and could work for another part of Astradyne. I've been in for twelve years now, and I haven't paled yet. "
Kessler nodded. "You're right." "Then get administration to treat us right. Damn it, Kessler, it's getting difficult to accept assignments because of what's been going on. You do appreciate that, don't you? Or have you been behind a desk so long that you've forgotten what fieldwork is like?" "I haven't forgotten," Kessler said, his eyes becoming distant. "I came to this position with an Elite rating." "Then you'll realize the significance of what I'm about to tell you. I'm going to believe that you're up against a system
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that slaps you down when you kick. You signed my recruitment papers, and you're the closest thing I've got tor a father in this miserable organization. I'm going to trust you because I don't know what administration is like. But if things don't straighten out soon, I'm going to kick so hard, it'll be heard at the top floor of Astradyne Houston."
Kessler was stoic. "There's one last detail before we move on to other things. I need to know what you were going to buy from Lime." "It should be in the computer," Birch said. "Vargas took the information."
Kessler looked to a far comer of the room. "He didn't enter it.,,
Birch looked at the white-haired man in disbelief. "What the hell is going on around here? Has there been a mutiny?" "I don't know why Emil didn't record the information. All I know is that he didn't."
Could it be that he knew? Birch thought. Did he reach the same conclusion that I did? Did he realize what a clean weapon would do? "Well?" Kessler asked.
Birch sighed. "All right. I'll bail you out. It was an infrared optics detonation system for explosives. You wire it up, and it sits and reads the ambient level of heat in a room. As more people come in, the more heat it reads, until it gets to the level you've set. Then it sends a signal, and you get a
room full of punctured bodies. He called it a snake's tongue." "I'll make a note of that." He jotted on his pad.
Nello cocked his head at his partner. Birch winked. Kessler shuffled the files on his desk. "Gentlemen, because of the sudden shortage of manpower, I am forced to send you out on another assignment, commencing immediately. My apologies to both of you, but we have a line on something vital." He locked eyes with Birch. "It's a surveillance that we need done fight. You're to do a home invasion on the couple described in those packets and forward all relevant recordings here." Two manilin envelopes slid across the desk toward
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them. "You'll have a few days to outfit yourselves before you head to Toronto." "Are you out of your mind?" Nello protested. "That's the Seretex home city. We'll be eaten alive."
Kessler tried to assure Nello that they would not, but there was no consoling him. While they argued, Birch tore one of the packets open and slid the contents out.
The first page was an official letter from Kessler describing what they needed to do, along with carte blanche authorization to get whatever equipment was necessary.
Next were a few items about Toronto, along with a city map detailing the condo where the couple lived. Last came the photographs. The first showed a man with close-shorn, sandy brown hair. Like Kessler, he wore glasses. A strip posted across the bottom read AsTRADYNE INTELNET rrEm # 3018116SRTX. HEALOW, TRENTON (DOCTOR). Al RE-TEAM LEADER.
Birch slid the photograph back, expecting another environmental shot of Healow. It was not. "Holy Moses," he said.
Kessler looked up from his argument with Nello. "Ah, yes. that's Mrs. Healow." "Ethnic district?" Birch asked. "Brazil. 11
The picture was a head and shoulders shot of a woman with deep brown eyes and medium brown skin. Smooth black hair was brushed over her ears and down her shoulders, neatly framing a petite nose and a full set of lips. The strip told him ASTRADYNE 04TELNET ITEM # 3018117-SRTX. HEALOW, JADE, PHYANNE (NEE CONSTANZA). SPOUSE, DOCTOR TRENTON HEALOW (Q.V. UNITELNET ITEM # 3018116-SRTX) "Right," Birch scoffed. "How much of this is restructuring. "Not one stitch. There's no reengineering, either."
Birch's lips turned up in a smile. "I know why you want this guy watched. He's figured out the genetic code for the perfect woman and he's keeping it to himself." "I wish it was that simple," Kessler said. He turned back to
Nello and resumed his discussion of safety precautions for Toronto.
Birch studied her eyes. Their color was rich and moist, something a person could get lost in if he was not careful. Looking back at Kessler, he threw the packet to the floor, "This is bullshit, Howard!"
Kessler and Nello looked at him. "No, it's not," Kessler said. "We lifted their hospital records. What you see in that picture is the way God made her." "That's not what I'm talking about. There's nothing here that says what we're looking for." "You're not looking for anything," Kessler said bluntly. "You're to invade the home, make extensive recordings of the couple interacting, and forward them to us for analysis." "You're not even going to hint at what this is all about?" "That's not necessary. We're at war." "Haven't you heard a word I've said? You're about to send me out on another assignment where I'm to know nothing. Well, I'm tired of sticking my neck out. I'm optioning out of this one." "Seretex is the enemy," Kessler said loudly. "Convince me," Birch snapped. "We've given you carte blanche on equipment. What more
do you want?" "Information," Birch said calmly. "You're giving us run of
the armory to make us forget that we're going into Toronto with no idea of what to expect. "This Healow is a research team leader, right? What is he developing? A drone that'll target our pheromones and hunt us
to the edge of the earth? Some kind of tolerant virus that can
be darted into the company men he finds recording his private life? These things can turn on a person. I'm not going unless I know who I'm facing." "The information is only available on a need-to-know basis." "And Nello and I don't need to know, is that it?"
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Kessler nodded. "Then get another man to wire the house." He started to,the door. "Birch," Kessler said, desperation stressing his voice, "We need you. This has to be done right." "Then tell us what's going on." "I don't have the authority-" "Then you don't have me," Birch shouted. "My price has gone up. Love of the company won't do it anymore." "Won't you reconsider?" "Only if you'll give me information."
Kessler sat hard in his chair. His shoulders stumped. "All right, sit down." He watched Birch turn from the door. "Sit," Kessler urged. "This is going to take a few minutes."
Birch settled cautiously into a chair by Kessler's desk. "What I'm going to tell you is classified. Nobody outside of administration knows about this except for a few sclect operatives in intelligence. Understand?" "Yes," Nello said.
Birch gave a barely visible nod. "Understand, too, that your knowing this can get me into a good deal of trouble. Until you're given official clearance, you have no knowledge of it. Got that?"
They motioned in the affirmative. Kessler looked from Birch to Nello and back. "How much do you know about Als?" "Artificial intelligence?" Nello asked. "What's there to know? Computers that aren't merely programmed. They can actually think like you and 1; they can reason and learn and make a decision based on more than mere facts and logic." "What else?" "Astradyne's had a line on them for years," Birch said. "The steves all have them; your main computer systems are all Al-based."
Kessler shook his head. "But they're not true Als. It's as close as our R&D people could come, but it's not a true Al, not like the one that Mr. Nello described to you." "But these things think," Birch said.
"They're dogbrains," Nello said. "They can respond to
stimuli, which in this case is user input, and they can develop behaviors accordingly. But it's not a true thinking-learning process. There's no real learning going on inside a false Al." "The early models were patterned after the canine brain," Kessler said. "In fact, early prototypes used actual canine brain matter until we could make the circuitry do it on its own. Right to life groups had a field day when that leaked out." "What kept R&D from using primates?" "By that time," Kessler said, "they were nearly extinct. What specimens there were belonged to zoos, or were contaminated with AIDS, or worse. Our lab men had to work with what was available. Dogs." "Why not base the research on the human brain?" "The process involved serious studies of learning and emo-
tional development as well as the growth patterns of brain cells. There was quite a bit of hands-on medical work being done. " "Dissections," Birch said. "Vivisections. There was enough controversy over the dogs, and the right to life people ruined the Astradyne subsidiary that had been set up to front the dogbrain research. By the time the false Al was developed, R&D shut down because there was no way to measure development of an intelligent brain without extensive laboratory work." "Is that where Healow fits in?"
Kessler nodded. "He's on the verge of making a breakthrough that will put Seretex light-years ahead of anyone else in the artificial intelligence field." "But Scretex isn't even in the computer field," Nello said. "Why would they get into it now?" "The question," Kessler explained, "is not why they're going into it now but why didn't they do it sooner?" "We shut them down," Birch said. "Precisely. And if we didn't, then someone else in the field did. The entire marketplace is in the hands of a few companies, who are very protective of their holdings. If Seretex or
anyone else showed an inclination toward going into the Al
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field, company men were at the ready to discourage them. So. for the last two decades, nobody has wanted to risk corporate war over such a restricted field. Nobody had anything worth risking a war over until now. .,When Seretex hit us a few days ago, they had teams cill over the world that made an attack aimed solely at Astradync personnel. That's how Jack Lime was hit and why the Mevcedes was blown up in Casper. We lost over two hundrci operatives." "it was a preemptive strike," Nello said. "Exactly. They wanted us disrupted. The morning after t@-,strike, Seretex announced their entry into the artificial intelligence field, based on the research of Dr. Trenton Healow, wlho had been in their employ for some time. Ordinarily, this wou'd have resulted in a series of warning strikes, but with the si,6den loss of manpower we were helpless to do anything but watch their press conference." "What's Healow working on?" Birch asked. "And why didn't intelligence see this coming?" "That's the hell of it," Kessler said. "Healow's not into computer research, design, or programming. His research has been in neurology." "Go figure," Nello said. "He's been working in a Seretex medical subsidiary fo-@ years, designing neurological therapy equipment. You've. heard of the NEUREAL system?"
Birch shook his head. "It's short for Neurological Realignment and Healing System. It's used as therapy on people who have suffered physical trauma to the brain, as well as subjects with organic or psychological problems. It bombards the brain with microelectric currents and helps reestablish its regular patterns. It's a cross
between electroshock therapy and neuroclectric therapy, both of which were used extensively before breakup. The system. made a bundle of money for Seretex, both from legitimate medical users and joyriders. "Healow has recently been trying to develop a diagnostic device that would read and decode the microelectric currents
generated by the brain. There was a great deal of excitement over this, especially in the psychological sciences. Imagine being able to read the thoughts of another human being. But there was even more excitement once people saw where Healow's research was headed. "In order to translate what goes on in the brain, Healow had to record the signals he was getting. To do this, he turned to something else from the end of the last century, the digital recording process. He set up his equipment with an old Sony PCM system and started work with test subjects. "While they were analyzing the recordings, they realized that they were seeing distinct patterns. It was easy to spot because everything had been recorded in binary code. For the first time, the researchers were seeing the process of learning and its physiological effect on the human brain." "And once they know how people learn," Birch said, "you can teach a computer to do it." "More importantly," Nello responded, "once you get the pattern into binary code, you can design a machine that will emulate it. Like the Author Emulation Programs, only much more sophisticated." "You'll have artificial intelligence," Kessler said. "A true thinking, reasoning machine." "That would destroy the dogbrain trade," Birch said. "Especially if they can do it cheaply."
Kessler rubbed his chin. "Our marketing division found that people who would spend up to ten k's on a dogbrain would spend up to sixty-five percent more on something they knew would be a true Al system." "That's a hell of a threat," Nello, said. "No wonder they declared war. This conflict will pay for itself in a couple of years. " "A matter of months," Kessler said intently, "depending on
when the breakthrough comes. We're keeping careful track of the work through deep cover people at Seretex Toronto. We need you two on the Healows' home to see if any additional information leaks out." "Why didn't administration want us to know this?" Birch
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asked. "Now that we know what to look for, Nello can use his computer background to triage the tapes before sending them to intelligence." "That's exactly what they don't want happening," Kessler said. "We've got a staff of psychologists who will go over every nuance of the Healows' interactions for something that can be exploited. We're going to see if we can force a cornpromise or a mental breakdown." "What about Healow's Al system?" Nello asked. "We'll get it if we can." "And if not?" "Administration has calculated the economic damage a
breakthrough could do to our company. If Healow gets too close before we can duplicate the work, then a sacrifice is in order. "
Birch and Nello exchanged glances. "Another reason why I wasn't supposed to divulge any of this," Kessler said slowly. "They were afraid you would balk at the assignment. However, in light of Mr. Birch's expeniences in Casper, I don't think it would be too much of an imposition." "What are you trying to tell us?" Birch asked. "If Trenton Healow cannot be compromised," Kessler ex-
plained, "and if we can't duplicate his research at a sufficiently competitive rate, then his work is to be stopped using 'any possible means.
"If Healow gets too close, Andy, then you and Martin must kill him"
A few beers later, Nello looked at his partner as if something was bothering him. He sloshed liquid counterclockwise in the bottom of his mug and said, "Why did you lie to Kessler?"
"Did I lie to him?" Birch asked, sucking the foam from the
top of his glass.
Nello's head bobbed up and down. "About the thing that Jack Lime designed. The infrared detonator was your idea. I remember you telling me about it."
Birch shrugged. "I had to tell him something." "But that's not like you. You had him on the ropes and you let up."
Birch remembered his last glimpse of the cooler as it moved slowly up the belt at the disposal site. "Can you keep a
secret, partner?"
Nello nodded. "I got screwed. I have no earthly idea what Lime was working on. He led me on and made big promises, then got me in a put-up-or-shut-up position. If he had something, I never saw it. You expect me to tell Kessler that?" "I guess not." Nello drained his glass. "Now, what's your problem? You're usually insufferably happy before a surveillance." "You heard what Kessler said." His voice was thin. "Seretex isn't going to nab you for going to Toronto. There's an Astradyne branch there, and they function business as usual." "The problem," Nello explained, "is Kessler's final order." "What, terminating Healow? That's an if." "What if it comes down, Andy? How are we going to handle it?" "I guess we'll treat him like a Tijuana whore."
Nello slammed his glass down on the bar. "Damn it, I'm serious." "That was always your solution, Nello. Do it for the company. " "I've never had to do something like this before." "Well, neither have I," Birch snapped. "Casper was a different situation. Those two men were trying to kill me. They Weren't innocent bystanders." "Like Healow?"
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Birch nodded. "Like Healow." "So where does that leave us? What happens if the order comes through?"
Birch was silent. "Andy?" Birch set his mug down - "You know something, Nello?" he said, digging notes out of his billfold and tossing them on the bar. "I'm getting so I like this job less and less."
Nello's eyes narrowed. Darkness passed over his features. "Answer my question." "I don't think we should discuss it." "Well, I think we should. I get the feeling that you're making this my surveillance so when the time comes--2' "Will you shut up?" Birch ordered. "This isn't the time or place." "I think we should get a few things straight, like the roles you and I are going to play in this job."
Birch sat. "Martin, in the past we've shared the blame as well as the glory. I don't like the prospect of opening Healow's throat any more than you, but it's our job and our company, right or wrong. We've had this same situation before, and you never had a problem with it." "That's because it wasn't really a valid option. Face it, some of the stuff we've been doing has been strictly low level. You don't shine someone's shoes for lifting patent designs." "Not usually," Birch said. The barkeep offered another round, but it no longer sounded appealing. "So what are we going to do if the termination order comes through?"
4'There's a good chance that it won't," Birch said calmly. "If it does, we don't have to blow his head off in front of his wife. There's other ways of handling it."
Nello looked at him, face ashen. "Are you serious9" "In the meantime, I think it'd be best if we agreed not to discuss this any further. Not even a mention of it. Deal?" "Wait a minute-" "Are we in agreement, Nello?" Birch had his hand out to
shake with his partner, and the words had come through clenched teeth.
Nello took Birch's hand and pumped it. "Agreed." Birch could tell that Nello wasn't happy with the solution. "Sometimes you have to take what life hands you and work with it. If you're good, or lucky, or both, you'll come out with your ass intact." "That's easy for you to say," Nello said, voice loud. "You're good, and you've certainly got luck. Look how cleanly you came out of-"
Birch pointed. "Don't say it." Nello's shoulders stumped. "So what the hell do I do?" "It's the job, Nello. You've got to learn that. If something goes sour, you learn to deal with it up here." Birch tapped his right temple. "If you can't handle it, then you baii out." "You make it sound so simple." "It isn't," Birch said sternly. "Nothing in this world comes easy. "
It took a week to prepare for the Healow surveillance. Birch combed through the information intelligence had gathered while Nello railed to Toronto. Upon his return, the two company men sat down and compiled a list of the equipment they were going to need. Next, they got a steve from the vehicle pool and had their materials loaded. Having done that, they went over their final plans with Kessler, who signed the job papers and sent them on their way.
Over dinner that evening, Nello and Birch went over the
remaining details. "I've rented an unfurnished condo in the same building as the Healows," Nello said. "It's in the same wing, five floors below them, and is on the same circuit line as in-house security. All of their remote cameras are on a carrier current feed,
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which means we should be able to patch into their visuals with our receiver." :'Good," Birch said. "How do we get in for the invasion?" 'With a standard Judas Box entry. I slipped a can of aerosol roach eggs into the air duct system. Complaints should start in a couple of days. If you and I dress like exterminators, there'll be no problem moving around the building." :'What about the time factor?" 'I don't see that as a problem. If Jade Healow doesn't have a busy social schedule, we might be able to scare her away by telling her we're going in to bombard roaches."
Birch smiled at his partner. "It looks like you have everything under control."
Nello looked at him suspiciously. "Funny you should put it that way, Andy. You're making this sound like my surveillance again."
Birch shrugged. "It wasn't intentional. I meant that you're doing a good job of organizing things. You're learning. "That's all?" "I promise." He dabbed his lips with a napkin and set it on his empty plate. "if everything is set, then we'll leave in the morning," "Yeah," Nello said uncertainly. "I'll meet you at 7a. I'll have the steve running." He picked up the check and pulled an Astradyne card from his pocket. "You'll be ready?" "I'll be there."
Birch stepped away from the table. "Get some sleep, partner." He paid the bill, walked out of the restaurant, then stopped on the street, unsure of where to go. It would be easy enough to return to the Marriott, pick something off of the vid set, and stare at it until sleep set in. But that seemed like such a waste.
While he was thinking, a massive yellow ICV pulled up to the curb and stopped. With a shrug, Birch climbed in and sank into the Naugahyde synthate bench. "Where to?"
He thought of different places, close and far away. "You go to Manhattan?" he asked. "This ain't no Plutomobile," the driver complained. "But will you go there?" "Sure, but you're looking at six, seven hours, depending on traffic. And it's gonna cost." "Drive," Birch said. It would be a good waste of time, and he could always rail back.
The driver mumbled, and the taxi lurched into the street. The company man leaned back in the seat and lolled his head, staring at the tops of buildings as they passed. Manhattan. What in the world had sent him that way?
Obviously, it had to be Lime. Poor old Jack Lime and his joke about "Madhattan." He was an Astradyne long-termer, had been there during the bad old days, had seen the worst. It was better now, in spite of what Lucy had said. No one in NYC had needed airmasks for nearly two decades.
Then it clicked. That was how he wanted to spend his evening. He wanted to see Lucy. Thinking about the prospect excited him, but he realized there was no feasible way to do it on such limited time. He decided to call her instead.
Birch sat up straight, opened his eyes, and ordered the driver to stop at the nearest telephone. The driver gave a hopeless shrug, changed lanes, and took the nearest exit.
They were on the outermost loop of the Pittsburgh belt system, and the driver expertly wove through the early evening traffic, pulling to a stop at the gates of a large industrial complex. A uniformed woman at the gate waved him through, and he pulled the taxi into a large parking lot. Neon letters introduced it as "The Mill." "You been here before?" the driver asked.
Birch shook his head. "Used to make steel here, last century. Before breakup, Japan got the lead on making it, did it faster, cheaper. They closed up until someone turned it into a brothel."
Birch glared at the driver. "I asked for a phone and you brought me here?"
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The driver shrugged. "You had that look. Besides, they've got phones if you still need one." He stopped at the door.
Birch handed over some bills. "I'll be right back." "Sure you will." "Wait," Birch ordered. He walked up to the giant doors and stepped into the lobby. It was like being in a mail. He walked toward a bank of pay telephones, passing a fountain sculpted from old steel working equipment. Lining the walls on either side of him were large color photographs of the people who worked at the Mill.
He shoved his Astradyne card into the nearest phone and keyed in the access code. While waiting for the computer to process it, he pulled a frayed note from his wallet and consulted a number. When the tone sounded, he keyed it in.
In less than a minute the call was completed. In three rings, there was an answer, a harried-sounding female voice. "Casper Downtowner Cafd. "Lucy?" he asked. "Lucy who?" "Lucy Harper. Is she there?" "She supposed to be eating here?" "She works there." "She does' *? Just a minute." The phone was put aside and the woman called for Boss. After a conversation that he could not follow because of the hiss of grease, the woman returned. "She don't work here anymore." "When did she quit?"
The woman sighed. "I don't know. Couple days ago, I guess. I got to go now."
She cut the connection. Birch hit NEW CALL and fumbled Lucy's number onto the keypad. The computer thought about it, and the LCD screen flashed a message.
NUMBER DISCONNECTED. He cut the connection and hit REDiAL. The number appeared in black and then changed to the same message. He redialed one more time, and a lengthier message scrolled across the small screen.
WYOMING PHONE ACCESS (091            [3071 [1001 [231 [2921 (6011 HAS BEEN DISCONNECTED LISTING HARPER, L HAS TO DATE
INDICATED NO FORWARDING ACCESS NUMBER NO CHARGE
WELL BE MADE FOR THIS CALL SORRY UNIVERSAL TELE-
CONNECT ACCESS SERVICE (EOT)
Birch hung up. He tried Gavin's number. The computer gave him the same message, altering the content to reflect the boy's name and access number.
He stepped away from the phone. His efforts had paid off. Gavin had returned from Denver, and they had taken the papers and the money and left Casper.
Or had they? There was also the possibility that Seretex had caught up with them, asking if they knew anyone in Astradyne employ and showing them grisly photographs of Jack Lime. If they figured Gavin was alive, there would be trouble.
There was one way to find out. He stepped back to the phone and dialed the restaurant. The woman answered, and Birch asked for Boss.
After a moment, he heard "'sis Boss." "Boss, this is Ivan Prescott. I'm calling about Lucy--2' "Ivan Prescott? I ain't telling you shit about Lucy. Not after what you did to her, you su'bitch." "Listen, Boss. I've come into some money and I want to send for her, have her come out to meet me."
Boss snorted. "Lots of luck. Lucy came into some money of her own. She's out of here." "She what?" "She'd been saving, you knew that. Maybe you didn't know she lost her brother, last of her family. Got a big settlement check from New Frontier arbitrators over that; they were here the morning he exploded. Then there was some other money," he mumbled. "Came from somewhere, maybe she invested her savings. Forgot what she said, but there was a
shitload of it. She got right out of here."
Birch cleared his throat and tried to sound grim. "Where did she go?" "She didn't say. I didn't ask. So you can send for her all your horny heart desires, but she ain't coming. You can search
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the four comers of the world, but you won't find her, and I won't wish you shit in finding her. After the way you broke that girl's heart? Su'bitch like you doesn't deserve her." "Boss-" "Don't call again." The line went dead.
Birch pulled his card out of the phone and started out of the lobby, tom between elation and loss. Jack Lime's last wish had been granted. Lucy and Gavin had moved on to safer climes.
But where was she? If she had gotten a settlement from New Frontier, she would not need the employment papers he had sent. She could easily buy her way to a place where they would welcome a woman of her talents. Boss had been right about that. If she did not use those papers, no amount of searching would find her.
He sighed, and his shoulders slumped. His hands slipped into his pockets, and he dragged out of the lobby, stripped of motivation. At the doors, he looked at a smaller display of the women and men the Mill had to offer. A banner boasted OUR WORLD IS ALL AMERICAN!, a quaint thought in keeping with the prebreakup theme of the place. But when he looked at the international cast of characters, he saw that the sign was right. The eflinotypes he saw-the Orientals and Slavs and New Africaans-were all altered Caucasians. Even in those small photographs, he could see signs of restructuring and reengineering.
It gave him an eerie feeling. Why would a person pay for someone who had undergone R&R when he could go down to Mama Houston's?
Birch looked around, studying the clientele, and realized the answer. They were low-end professionals and high-end laborers, either starting near the bottom of their pay scales or topping them out. Neither type could afford the time or the money it would take to go to Houston or Havana. They put up with it simply because they could not afford the real thing.
Depressed, he walked out to the taxi. He stared at the driver, thinking about Manhattan. It no longer appealed, and
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he certainly did not feel like returning to his room at the Marriott.
He smiled at the driver who in his wisdom, had pegged Birch as the perfect client for the Mill. After all, Birch cer-
tainly was not going to spend time with the real thing tonight. At least here he would not be alone.
He waved the driver on. From inside the cab came a thumbs-up, and the vehicle pulled out of the lot. Back in the lobby he rented a room for the night, went up to it, and took a
hot shower.
Drying off with the holoset on for noise, he looked at the phone on the nightstand. A card attached to the keypad gave the in-house numbers to call for food and liquor. At the bottom, shimmering red velvet letters said "For Personal Service, Access 90."
He picked up the handset and reached for the keys, won-
dering what kind of treatment he should ask for. He was not used to asking for women by ethnotype. Usually a person asked for a certain kind of treatment.
Familiar noise came from the holoset: tagball. Luna City was defending the league championships against the up and coming Liverpool Islanders. Fourth quarter, third period, score of 9-9. Johnny DelAngelo of the Frontiersmen made a
beautiful steal and, with both hands on the ball, somersaulted to the top of the dome, crouched on the ceiling, and relayed in for a score. The Islanders moved in to prevent postscore, and DelAngelo was flying at them, his zero-g movements leaving no question of his place of birth. He blocked and saved, and in an instant it was 12-9. Then the Liverpudlians got the ball and began their plummet to the bottom of the dome. "Personal services." The androgynous voice was sexy.
Birch looked at the handset in surprise. He had not dialed the number, had he?
On the holoset, the score was now 12- 11. The Islanders had botched the postscore but had made a steal from the Frontiersmen and were struggling to get to the floor of the dome. The announcers were rabid.
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He hung up. There was the rest of the game to watch, and after that channel 521 had a theatrical production of a play written by the Sam Shepard emulator.
When Birch went to sleep, he dreamed of the real thing.
As usual, he was early. He would have been earlier had he stayed at the Marriott, but as it was he woke early, caught a cab across town to the Astradyne vehicle pool and was ready to go by 6:52.
Nello was less punctual than usual, showing up at 7:02. His demeanor had not changed from the night before, and his appearance did not offer any solace. His clothes looked as if they had been slept in, a cowlick had formed in his hair from the way he had slept, and he smelled of stale liquor and cigarette smoke.
Birch regarded his partner's crusty eyes and spoke in a
reproving tone. "Looks like you had a swell night."
Nello rubbed his face. A scratch rose from the day's growth of beard. "If I wanted a Dutch uncle, I'd ask." "As late as a hundred years ago, they shot animals that looked as bad as you do."
Nello pecked at the keyboard next to his seat. "Can we get on with it?" The coordinates for the Toronto vector flickered on a screen in front of him. "I'm ready for feed." "But are you ready for flight?"
Nello reached in his suit coat and produced a crinkled sack stamped with the Marriott logo and a sketch of an anxious poodle. Bright-eyed, the dog was captioned as saying "You Remembered!" "In case you get hungry?"
Nello shook his head. "In case I get airsick."
Birch cleared his throat. "This is going to be a really good time, I can tell that now." "You're just figuring that out? I thought maybe you did last night. You weren't anywhere to be found."
Birch ignored him and lifted the steve into the air. The vehicle rotated as the compass came up on the screen and quickly aligned-n6rth.
Nello looked at Birch and smiled. "All right. What's wrong?" Birch asked. "I forgot something. We've got to go in on the Buffalo vector, then over to Hamilton and up into Toronto via the seaway overpass. Otherwise we'd be going straight over a take. " "Straight into a take, you mean." Birch chuckled. "I swear, what would Kessler say if I dumped another one of these?"
The comers of Nello's mouth turned up. "I don't want to find out."
Birch pushed the dirust controls up, and the steve started moving across the city. "Neither do 1. Give me the Buffalo feed."
The steve arced out over the city, making its way to a
cruise path that cut through at ground level. Nello reported a
fifty-meter minimum altitude because of congestion in the area. Birch took the vehicle up, and when they were over the suburb of Butler, he locked onto Buffalo's vector.
With vector piloting engaged, there was nothing to do but wait out the hour before vector change. Birch looked at Nello, thinking he could irritate him with a flat rendition of a Puccini opera, but his partner had folded his arms and closed his eyes. The cabin lights were beginning to give way to the rising sun
in the east, giving Birch enough light to note Nello's gray complexion and the crust of dried saliva in the comers of his mouth.
Clearly his partner had suffered a jobshock, and the hangover he was nursing would do nothing for his disposition. Birch's best option was to stay out of the way until Nello was
out his misery and then be supportive.
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With nothing more to do, Birch powered up the pilot's console and laid a small keyboard in his lap. It had been over
a month since he had checked in with the Astradyne DataNet, and he wanted to see if he could find a casualty list from the opening days of the war with Seretex.
He tapped on-line and caught the satellite signal, then en-
tered the DataNet. He went into PERSONALS: DEATHS and combed through the information, skimming over names and stopping when he came to someone he knew.
After a few minutes it became too depressing to think about. The numbers of casualties were shocking. In ninety percent of the cases, the cause of death had been a slashed throat. Seretex, he was sure, had chosen that method of dispatch for a reason.
He ended by skimming names, checking the funeral dates for those he knew. With the job in Toronto there was no way he could get to any, but he could send consolation to those who had been left behind.
Yeah, he thought, that's great, Birch. What the hell do you say to the widow, the kids, the mother? "Really sorry your loved ones got their shoes shined, but that's war. Don't worry, though, we'll make the bastards pay for what they did. Give us a chance to sharpen our blades. . . "
He found himself wondering what Lucy would say. The companies had dissolved geopolitical boundaries and their as-
sociated problems, but they had not done a thing to settle their own differences. Things had changed yet remained the same.
He could almost hear her indignant tone of voice.
Birch scrolled down through the names, wondering when they would stop. Toward the end of the alphabet, he found Emil Vargas. He froze the screen. Something was wrong. Vargas had been found dead at his home, plugged into a hotwired plasma bolt charger. There were cleaner methods of assassination, but it did not seem too far out of line under the circumstances. The funeral details were vague compared with the other descriptions, and the wording struck Birch as being mild for wartime. Finally, he came to the last lines, and it all fell into place,
A BENEFIT AUCTION WILL BE HELD FOR THE DECEDENT'S WIDOW AT A YET UNDETERMINED DATE. ALL INTERESTED PERSONNEL ARE INVITED TO MAKE DONATIONS TOWARD THE SUCCESS OF THIS EVENT. IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN ASSISUNG, CONTACT THE SETTLEMENTS DEPARTMENT.
Birch reached over and shook Nello's shoulder. "What do you want?" Nello asked sourly. "They're having an auction for Vargas's widow." "I heard." He tried to settle back into his seat. "What for, Nello? What's wrong?" He shrugged. "She's having money problems, I guess." "Money problems? Didn't arbitration cut her a check?" Nello closed his eyes and scowled. "I don't know, did they? Beats the hell out of me." "What about his pension? He had twelve years in. That should be good for something." "She didn't get his pension," Nello said matter-offactly. He turned away in his seat, but Birch grabbed him. "Do you mind? I'm not feeling-" "'Why didn't Vargas's widow get his pension?"
Nello made a gun with his hand and put the forefinger barrel to his temple. He dropped the thumb trigger and made an explosive sound with his mouth. "Killed himself?" Birch said, stunned. "You didn't know?" "That's impossible. Do you know how he died?" "Doesn't matter. Dead is dead." "He hot-wired his plasma charger, Nello. That's a crazy way to do it." "There's a first time for everything."
Birch leaned back in his seat and bit his lip. "A guy's got to be hurting bad to do something like that."
His partner grunted. "What made him do that? He'd just become Elite. He had everything going for him." "Couldn't handle the rads," Nello said.
Birch tapped the screen. "What do you know about this?"
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"Only what I read on the DataNet. He plugged in, he's dead, his widow's strapped for cash. It doesn't get much simpler than that." "Nello, I've got twelve years in, and I never thought about doing anything like that."
Nello beamed. "Good thing, too. You're one of the few people who can put up with me." "Not funny, partner."
Nello gave him a hard look. "I know." It was coming again; Birch could feel it. The air in the cabin was thick with the specter of "termination order." Silently he looked out the window, down at the metropolitan area and out to where it thinned enough to maintain thick growths of trees. Even from that distance, he could see that the gray branches were thick with the light spring green of buds pushing out of the bark.
Nello saw it, too, and mentioned it. That almost made Birch smile. They were both anxious to get their minds off their job. "I can't believe it," Nello continued. "Spring already. Each winter I wonder if it's ever going to come back." "Then don't head west," Birch warned. "In Casper it's still winter."
It was still winter in Toronto, but not the harsh, cold gray that Birch had associated with Wyoming. While there was bitterness in the humid lake air, the season seemed more alive. Without enough rads to make it a threat, the winter was actually invigorating.
Birch and Nello arrived before noon, dropped the 1100 off at the Astradyne branch, and loaded their equipment into a moving van. Neither of them knew how to drive the monstrous thing, so they hired some dock workers to take it to the
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Stonebridge Heights adult living complex and see that the crates were taken to their apartment.
The next day they went up and unpacked, scattering neo-
foam chips across the empty living room as they pulled delicate components from their boxes. They set up on a series of long folding tables and sat in canvas director's chairs while they hooked everything up.
Toward dinner, retailmen brought a refrigerator and microwave oven and installed them in the kitchen. Birch found the carrier current and tuned in to Stonebridge security's video system, feeding the information to a line of monitors on one side of the room. Nello disappeared, returning after an hour with a case of locally brewed beer, several salamis that he left hanging from a doorknob, and packets of freeze-dried meals.
Birch stared at the envelopes his partner was showing him, the stroganoff and veal parn-tigiana and pork Oriental, and his stomach slowly rolled as he thought about ingesting the chalky-tasting contents. "Why can't we order out?" he complained. "We've been given an unlimited Foodnet card." "Emergencies," Nello said. "The pizza should be here soon. " "Pizza," Birch said flatly. "And something else." He reached into his bag and tossed a box into Birch's lap. "Canadian Nestle@,'s," he said proudly. "Made with real milk, not that strontium-removed American milk." "Thanks," Birch mumbled.
The doorbell rang. Birch started at the sound, but Nello strolled over and pulled the curtain they had installed to con-
ceal their equipment.
Birch sat immobile while his partner's voice wafted in, the words concerning a happy transaction. As he sat, an unmistakable odor followed: the thick, heavy scent of grease and over-
cooked meat. He went back to his wiring.
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With enough allergens under their skin to make them look like a pair of Slavic laborers, they walked through the halls and into the lift and soon stood at the Healows' door.
Nello smiled and rang the bell. Nothing happened. He called melodically and rang again. Still nothing. Next he knocked. When that gained no reply, he swore a blue streak and mumbled that management had promised that someone would be home. He nodded at Birch, who removed a Judas Box from his tool chest. The lock opened in a matter of seconds.
They walked in. Immediately they noticed the temperature and the green smell of the place. Nello removed his Ded-Bug cap and wiped the sweat beading on his forehead.
He laughed. "Bug city." The sunken living room was lined with thick plants, and the floor was covered with a rich loam from which grew a carpet of grass and clover. From diffuser panels in the ceiling came a healthy pink fluorescence, and from ducts in the very center flowed moist, warm air. Birch was sure he heard the sound of finches. "It's a meadow," he said, stunned.
Cap in his hand, Nello studied the place in awe. "I never saw anything like this before," he said, "not in my whole life. How do they maintain it?"
Birch knelt to examine a frosty-leafed plant growing thick in one corner. He pulled off a single leaf, crushed it, and held it under his nose. "Find something?" Nello asked.
Birch held it up. His partner sniffed it, his face meiting in disbelief.
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"Spearmint." "More importantly, it's real," Birch said. "All of this is real." He stuffed the leaf in his pocket and went across the upper lip of the arboreal room. "How do they maintain this?" Nello repeated. "Do they water the floor? Have a boy come in to mow the carpet?"
Birch shook his head. "I have no idea." "How do they even live here, Andy?" He wiped his brow. "It must be thirty degrees." "This must have cost them a fortune." He looked back at the entrance. They were leaving footprints in the grass.- "Should we take off our shoes?" Nello asked.
Birch shook his head. "We're exterminators, remember? We wouldn't think of something like that. They'll notice the tracks and call us louts, but the grass should recover."
They continued down the slope and into the pit. The shapes and contours of the landscape formed natural places to sit and recline. Incongruously, into one bank of the living room a holoset, video player, and sound system had been installed.
Nello cautiously approached the electronics. Finches fluttered in their bamboo cage. He powered up the system and started the disk packet that had been left in it.
Pounding surf filled the living room. He looked back at Birch and grinned wryly, then changed the selection.
Rain forest. Nello changed it again. Sunset, with birds. "Do you believe this?" he said, and dropped his satchel onto the grass. He knelt next to it and started in with his screwdriver. "Put an isolator in that quad system," Birch told him. "If they turn on music to drown out a conversation, we'll be able to filter it out." He continued through the Healow meadow, coming out of the central pit near the far wall. He passed through into a small dining area, separated from the kitchen by a wet bar. The grass stopped there, giving way to a floor of lacquered bamboo. Birch crouched down and felt it, running
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his fingers in the valleys formed by the neatly fitted shafts. He checked the tips of his fingers. Nothing. The floor was immaculately clean. How did they do it? The textured floor was an open invitation to dust and dirt. He shook his head in admiration, then crawled under the oak dining table and installed a microtransmitter. "Wonder if it rains in here," Nello 6afled from the living room. "Did you bring your umbrella?" Birch answered.
When he was done with the dining table, he moved into the kitchen. He found and tapped the telephone, then left behind another microtransmitter.
The bathroom was very modem, almost a contrast to the rest of the house. The ubiquitous plants were set into specially built slots along the walls, and pink fluorescents shone to support them. There was also a bidet, a large garden tub, and a pod shower. A mirrored autodispenser hung on one wall, listing the vitamins and medications the Healows took and the times it would give them. Birch carefully installed a transmitter behind it.
By the time he finished, Nello had completed his invasion of the living room electronics system. They met in the hallway, which was thick with grass. "What do you think, partner?" Nello asked. "Are they opting for coverage on the Wildlife Channel?"
Birch shook his head. "There's something about this that bothers me."
Nello slapped his neck in mock seriousness. "Mosquitoes," he said. "You're afraid of getting malaria." "That's not it. When you go into someone's home, you can look around and get an idea of what they're all about. You see magazines and journals and opened mail and you start to get some idea of who you're dealing with. There's nothing like that here, and I don't like it." "They like plants," Nello offered. "%at did you find in the bathroom?" "Herbal stuff," Birch answered. "Soaps and shampoos and megavitamin compounds but nothing that gives the residents
any personality. The old man doesn't even have hemorrhoids. " "Two rooms to go. You want door number one or door number twoT "Let's do it and leave, okay?"
Nello put his hand to the door in front of him. "Meet you in Jungleland."
Birch was opening the far door when Nello cried out. He spun down into a crouch, pulling the plasma bolt from his unzipped worksuit. He aimed it back toward his partner's doorway in a covering sweep. Nello was pinned against the opposite wall, hand over his chest. "Scared the hell out of me," he said. "What?" Birch snapped. "I thought someone was in here." He pushed off the wall and disappeared into the other room. Birch followed.
The room would have been a den for anyone else, but Trenton Healow had made it into a workshop. Nello made a
crack about the mad scientist's laboratory, but Birch ignored it. ,,This is a hell of a place for a neurologist to work."
Floor to ceiling, it was covered in white tile. A white Forrnica workbench was set into one wall and was cluttered with computer hardware, telephone lines, and recording equipment. Near the door was a video player, an ancient television, and a stack of tapes. Opposite those was a writeboard across which Healow had made maps and diagrams of brain and nerve cell structure in various colors of ink, and in one comer was a vertically aligned cage inhabited by a family of rats.
Nello pointed. "There's what scared me." The far wall was a photograph of white sand, shimmering sea, and blue sky. In the foreground was a palm tree, and against it leaned a life-size representation of lade Healow. She was looking directly into the camera, smiling, oblivious to the fact that she was naked. Droplets of seawater covered her body. Her nipples were standing straight out, and one foot rested against the side of the tree, her leg obscuring all but a
tease of pubic hair.
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"I don't know how he can work under conditions like this," Nello said. tu "Bug this place," Birch ordered, "and we'll find out.- He
med to leave but stopped when he saw the stack of tapes. What had caught his eye was a familiar logo, a black circle with a series of red blades pointing toward the center of the ring.
The symbol for toxic material. Below that were the stylized letters "U. V. " and below them the words "Unnatural Video." "I learned something," Birch said thinly. "Yeah," Nello said, grunting as he pulled the lid from Healow's mainframe computer. "The son of a bitch doesn't get any work done here. Not with that kind of distraction." "He's a pervert," Birch said. He read some of the titles from the tape cases. The Pikeaxe Sisters. Valerie in the Gallery. The Chandelier. Vigilante's Vengeance. Dragging Sally through the Alley,
Nello looked up from his wiring job. "Should I know any of them?" "Unnatural Video," Birch said. "It's Black Porn."
Nello stopped what he was doing. He looked back at the picture of Jade Healow, naked on a beach, smiling, happy, posing. "He doesn't deserve her."
-Let's get to work," Birch said quickly. "Aren't you going to do anything about it?" "Like what? Turn him in? That'd do a fat lot of good for Astradyne, wouldn't it?" He exited toward the bedroom.
It was black. When Birch turned on the lights, it was still black. Thick, black carpet covered the floor; the walls were painted flat black. In the center of the room, a large round bed with black sheets was surrounded by black mosquito netting suspended from the ceiling. The only color came from one wall, where photographs of Jade in various stages of undress were hung.
He opened the first closet he came to. The doctor's clothes. Suits. Casuals. Light colors, subdued earth tones. Professional.
Then he checked Jade's closet. The colors were rich and vibrant, blues and reds and greens and yellows, like the colors she almost wore in the photographs. He pulled out a silky blue dress and smelled it. It filled his head with an intoxicating feminine scent.
The first riiierotransmitter went into the mosquito netting. The divided personality of the apartment bothered him. He could not explain how a woman with a love of the green and growing could submit herself to a man with such clinical tastes. He had expected some form of compromise in the bedroom but had seen none. Perhaps it was her background. Kessler had said she was Brazilian, and quite clearly she was
a superb example of that ethnotype. Perhaps there was something cultural that bound her to Heaiow, something he could not understand.
He made a thorough sweep of the room and carefully went through their drawers in an attempt to learn more about them. It did not work. Everything he found only brought more questions. When he got to the curtains that covered an entire wall, Birch hesitated. He was afraid of finding something that would only blur things more.
Nonetheless, he pulled them back. He was blinded by sunlight. The heat coming from the other side was moist and stifling, like that in the living room.
When his eyes adjusted, he saw the compromise. He was looking at a gigantic bay window with a southern exposure. It jutted out from the face of the building another two meters, and the platforin it formed was at least four
meters across.
It was a platform of warm, bright sunshine and green grass and thick, sweet clover. To one side, by one of the fogged panes of glass, was a row of small bottles containing oils and lotions and perfumes and scents.
Birch understood. He planted another microtransmitter in the middle of the small meadow. "Hey, partner, I've got his lab all-"
Birch turned to see Nello lugging his satchel. "Mother of mercy, will you look at this."
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JOE CUFFOPD FAUST
"Are you done?" Birch asked. "I don't like being in a place w ere I can't get a feel for the people." one"I'd like to get a feel for this woman," Nello said. He had
of the pictures off the wall, a shot of Jade leaning back, hair in the water, waiting for the approach of Atlantic surf. "Do you have the spray?"
Nello looked up from Jade's breasts. "What?" "We're exterminators, Nello. It needs to smell like we were here. " "Right." He fished a can from his satchel and tossed it to Birch. "You think they actually use that spot of sun?"
Birch nodded as he closed the curtain. "It's outfitted. She might sunbathe, too."
Nello studied the picture again. "Double damn. I knew I should have gotten into that condo across the street." "You've been watching too much Hitchcock." He shook the can and sprayed some of the contents into the air. As the mist settled, Birch could detect the heavy smell of pesticide in the droplets. He tossed the can back to his partner, who sprayed in the hall and disappeared into Healow's office.
The company man took one last look around the bedroom and dug a small box with a telescoping antenna from his satchel. He thumbed it on and waved it in the air. A yellow LED winked when he pointed it in the direction of a microtransmitter. He kept his aim and pushed a button, and a green light came on.
Birch walked into the hall, the oily smell following him. In Healow's den, Nello was still staring at Jade Healow, whose eyes enticed them to join her. "Come on," Birch snapped. "I'm activating the transmitters. "
Nello turned to him. "Go figure," he said, wagging his thumb at the handsomely brown woman on the white sand. He shrugged hopelessly, and Birch knew what it meant. He was wondering the same thing about the Healows' relationship.
Nello moved back into the hall, filling the house with scent. Activating transmitters as he went, Birch started out.
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His eyes stopped on the stack of vidtapes. Go figure. He reflected on his partner's comment for a
moment and then remembered the commercial he had seen for Diana Beer, the one that said, "Why do you hang around with that sadist?"
He studied Jade's "come touch me" look and let his eyes drift down the curve of her body. There was not a mark on her. Not a bruise, not a scratch.
What's in it for her? he wondered. He could not answer that. He could not even begin. Never before had he learned so little from being in someone's home.
That's going to be a problem, he thought. How are you going to handle this surveillance if you don't know your targets?
But did he really want to know that man? Did he really want to know him on a personal basis, only to be ordered to kill him?
Let's worry about the immediate concern, the surveillance. If I don't know the man, I won't be able to supplement the materials I'll be sending back to Pitt. I was put on this to make sure it was done fight,
He needed something he could examine and study, some- thing that would help him understand Healow the man and his power over this beautiful woman.
As he turned to leave, his eyes fell on the tapes. Looking around, he pulled one from the middle of the stack and shoved it into his satchel. Then he went into the bathroom and started activating the transmitters hidden there.
8
When they returned to their apartment, the transcriber had already been at work recording input. Nello tore the sheet from the printer and showed it to his partner.
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ASTRADYNE JOBNO. 3018-sRTX  JOBTYP.OBSV, OPRS.BIRCHJNELLO
11:20:43.73a AC`nVAT1ONCYi97.03.lI
PLEASE WAIT
... STANDBY
AC`1TVAT1ON:MTRANS# I ACTTVATION:MTRANS#2 ACTIVATION:MTRANS#3 ACTIVATION:MTRANS#3a (SLAVE) AC-nVATION:MTRANS#4 ACIVAITON:MT'RANS#4a (SLAVE) SOUND DETECTED 01:34:21.86p SOUNDTY: Motion, rustling sOuNDTY: metallic SOUNDTY: hissing, Spray SOUNDTY: human, Voices [VpOaXus#e]l: Come on[J I'm activating the transmitters[. [pause] [pau VOX#2:  Go figure [.1 SOUNDTY: motion, rustling SOUNDTY: hissing, spray SOUNDTY: metallic SOUNDTY: plastic, rattling SOUNDTY: Motion, rustling The transcription continued, tracing their movements through the house, cataloging where they went and the transmitters as they were activated. "Good," he told Nello. "Erase our voices from memory and we'll teach it about the Healows."
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His partner smiled. "I can teach it sounds, too. I asked for a dogbrain that can tell what the sounds are, not just list a
general pattern." He pointed to one of the lines that read "hissing, spray." "That's the can of scent. I can teach the Al to mark that down as 'spray can."' "Excellent." Birch smiled. "Let's get to it."
As'rRADYNEJOBNO.3018-sRTx JOBTYP.OBSV. OPRS.BIRCH/NELLO
11:33:21.02p cy/97.03.11
SOUNDTY: electronic
"They're home," Birch said, jumping from his chair. "That's the lock disengaging." Nello threw down the magazine he was reading and put his fingers to the keyboard. "I'll teach it that," he said. "Wait. There's no time."
SOUNDTY: human, voices vox#l: (garbled) ... (garbled) ... went fairly well [.1 vox#2:     But it's all the same [.11 still think if they're
going to do opera they should get someone with talent [.1
"That's them," Birch said, words catching in his throat.
vox#1: 0 [sic] Trent [sic] you are such a stickler [.1
This is an amateur group (.1
Birch listened to the voice, concerned, stem, but still me-
lodic. Her words carried an accent almost buried by years of
174                  JOE CUFFOPD FAUST living in the northern hemisphere.
Amazing," he said, and set N"Th1lat'wsaser,a"khee tboy1chNerevilooice"Teach it. Jade Healow." about typing.
V0X#2: Well if they're a bunch of amateurs then they
shouldn't be doing [UNABLE TO IDENTIFY) [, I "Damned Italian!" Nello shouted. "It's confusing the dogbrain. " "Don't worry about it," Birch snapped. "It's an opera. I'll tell you about it later. Get the names in."
SOUNDTY: rushing V0X#2: What is that smell [j SOUNDTY: rushing HEALOWJADE: I don't know [.I it seems I ike SOUNDTY: motion, rustling REALOWJADE: It smells like petrol SOUNDTY: metallic, clatter HEALOWJADE: 0 [sic] I know f.1 There were supposed
to be exterminators in the building today J. ] HEALOWTREN: Exterminators [.1 What do they need
them in here for [j HEALOWJADE: Judea [sic] told me that someone found
roaches on one of the lower leveJs [.I "What are you doing?" Birch asked as Nello's fingers clattered on the keyboard. "Trying to teach this thing semantics," Nello said bitterly. "No punctuation, no context; that last name was 'Judy,' not 'Judea.' It's driving me crazy." "Let's get the basics first. We have all the time in the world for the hard stuff." "Do we, now?" Nello asked. But the comment was lost. His partner had plugged in a headset and was busy listening to the melody in Jade Healow's voice.
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ASTRADYNE JOBNO.3018-SRTX JOBTYP.OBSV.
OPRS. BIRCIVNELLO
01:47:12.93a cy/97.03.12
SOUND DETECTED:LIVING ROOM AREA souNDTY: music standby
id'd as Tchaikovsky, Symphony #5 recording filter engaged out. souNDTY: voices, human HEALA)wTREN: (missing)-ch better. I need to get that
horridness out of my system. HEALA)wjADE: Stop being so sour. HEALowTREN: It was bad, Jade. Opera is bad, but this
one reached new lows. souNDTY: sucking, air rush mEALOwTREN: Here, take some of this. SOUNDTY: sucking, air rush (pause) (pause) (pause) (p HEAwvrrREN: It's really nice. Drexell brought it back
from Havana. A new formula. HEM.OWJADE: Oh. HEALOWTREN: Want to test the side effects? souNDTY: moistness souNDTY: laughter, mascu me
HEALOWJADE: Interesting, I guess. (pause) (pause) HEAWWJADE: But not here.
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JOE CUFFORD FAUST
"EALOWTREN: What? HEALOWJADE: Not here. The exterminators were here.
We are Probably absorbing Poison through our skin. SOUNDTY: motion, rustling                              word
one of them "EALOW"rREN: Well speaking of, I need to have a with management about them. I think stole one of my tapes. HEALOWJADE: Are you sure? Maybe you loaned it out. HEALOWTREN: It's not one I'd loan out. (pause) (pau HEALOW"TREN: I'll take care of it through the office. It']]
be more impressive that way. SOUNDT-Y: moisture HEALOWTREN: Let's go to bed. SOUNDTY: motion, rustling DETECTION CARRIED THROUGH:HALLWAY:BATHROOM: BEDROOM TRANSCRIPT CONTINUES.
Andy Birch sat with his hands on the keyboard, staring blankly at the screen, wishing for the fight words to come out He was preparing an assessment of the first week's worth Of* tape and transcripts, but there was not a lot that he could comment on.
He bad already made note of Trenton Healow's substance abuse, the only thing he and Nello had discovered so far. While it would not make their case, the circumstances were interesting. It usually happened late at night, and ten to fortyfive rniDUtes later, Healow would go to the bedroom and wake his wife for intercourse.
Birch and Nello had searched the couple's garbage in the hopes Of finding out what he was using, but it was to no avaii-not even a liquor bottle or crumpled cannabis packet was found.
Maybe the stuff was coming out of their bathroom dispenser. Birch wished he had thought to check.
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No matter. The Healows were frequently away, which gave him a chance to listen to the recordings, eyes following the computer's transcript. Occasionally it would throw in a non
sequitur, and Nello would have to run the tape back and teach the Al.
Shaking his head, Birch noted the time. 5:54p. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, massaging his temples to push those stubborn words out of his head. He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate. Why wouldn't the words appear on the screen? He usually had no problem padding the report out to regulation length.
He stared at what he had already written. For all their worth, the characters might as well have been in Cyrillic.
Why is this so hard? he wondered. Is it that damned termination order?
He looked at the time again. 6p exactly. Nello would return soon, bearing typically inedible food.
In desperation, he put his fingers to the keys and typed the first thing that came into his head.
I'VE HAD BETTER SURVEILLANCES, AND I'VE HAD WORSE. He could not disagree with that. I WISH TO HELL I COULD FIGURE OUT JADE HEALOW. His lips turned up. Another sad truth. He deleted the com-
ment from the screen, thinking that the exercise had been a
good waste of-
Forty-five minutes? It had taken forty-five minutes to write two worthless sen-
tences on the screen? It seemed impossible, yet the clock on
the terminal confirmed it. It was 6:47p.
Had he been concentrating that hard on such a rninor problem? Birch knew that stress had undesirable effects on a person, but to be blinded to the minutes passing on the screen
seemed obscene.
In the end, the blank terminal won and he powered down. The report was not due for another couple of days. Perhaps waiting would bring more insights.
Birch checked the printer. The apartment was silent. He
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grabbed a tape labeled cy/97.03.15 and shoved it into a playback deck. He put on his headphones and ordered the computer to find a certain section. Trenton Healow fought for air and self-control as he made love to his otherwise silent wife.
If Birch let it, that section would run for over an hour. He stopped it when Nello showed up carrying cartons of Chinese food.
ASTRADYNE JOBNO.3018-SRT-X JOBTYP.OBSV. OPRS. BIRCH/NELLO
06:51:11.44a cy/97.03.21
DETECTION CARRIED FROM HALLWAY: SOUND DETECTED IN BATHROOM SOUNDTY: zipper disengage, nylon SOuNDTY: rustling, cloth souNDTY: metallic squeak sOUNDTY: water rushing souNDTY: metallic, unidentified SOuNDTy: water rushing, shower head SOUNDTY: voice, human HEALOWJADE: Sss [sic]. Teal [sic]. Me. [sic]
(please wait)
UNABLE TO TRANSCRIBE. SUBJECT HEALOWJADE: IS ENGAGING IN VOCAL ACTIVITY UNABLE TO PROPERLY TRANSCRIBE. SOUND IDENTMCATION CONTINUES.
J.H. was singing. The song was called 'Steal Me.' From an operetta called The Old Maid and the Thief.
Think it was written by Menotti, but not sure.
-A. Birch.
Now he was playing back that song, listening to Jade's voice as it resonated from the tiled walls of the bathroom. Her soprano was sweet yet uncertain, but in that smallest room of her apartment it sounded oddly sincere.
Nello looked at him from a splash of color resting in his lap. "What do you think, Andrew?" "About the singing?" "About the woman." "You said it yourself. She's just a woman." "That's all you've got to say about her?" "What were you expecting?"
Nello pulled the rectangle from his lap. "I don't know. It seems to me that if someone like this was-"
Birch came out of his seat and grabbed the object from his partner's hands. "Where the hell did you get this?" It was a
photograph of Jade Healow on the b@ach, back to the surf, hair down in the water. Her breasts were drying in the sun, one foot pushing a tangle of pastel red down her leg.
Nello shrugged. "It was on the wall in the bedroom." "You had no right to take this," he snapped. "This is their private property." "You took one of the doctor's tapes."
Birch realized that he was staring at the picture. He set it down on the console. 1 did it to try and understand him, that's all." "Maybe I was trying to understand her." "Like hell you were. You took it because you're a voyeur, Nello." "Then what does that make you? How many times have you watched that videotape, Andrew?"
Birch stared him down. "I haven't." "Then why the hell did you take it?" Nello stared in disbelief. "Don't tell me about the evils of being a voyeur, Andy. And if you're going to steal from them, then I can, too. We can't have a double standard."
Birch held up a finger. "One item," he said. "Something that he wouldn't dare report missing to standard law enforce-
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ment." He picked up the picture. "This is different. It's the kind of personal property someone's husband would get righteously pissed over the disappearance of. "What happens when he calls the exterminators to get the picture back and nobody admits to even being in that apartment? There can only be one conclusion." He threw the frame down for emphasis. "The mission's been compromised."
Nello wiped sweat from his upper lip. "You want me to return it?"
Birch shook his head. "There'll be more suspicion if it suddenly reappears." He propped the picture against the wall, smiling. "Besides, we need something to brighten up the place." "I agree," Nello said.
The woman on the beach waited patiently for the next wave of blue tide.
ASTRADYNE joBNo.3018-sm JOBTYP.OBSV. OPRS.BIRCH/NELLO 11:09:01.83a cy/97.03.30
DETECMON CARRIED FROM HALLWAY: SOUND DETEC`TED IN KITCHEN SOUNDTY: clatter, metal and glass souNDTY: sipping souNDTY: rustling, paprin HEALOWJADE:   Will you be home for dinner? HEALOWTREN:   I'll have to see how it goes. HEALOWJADE:   Do you know or will you just not tell? HEALOWTREN:   What do you think, dearest? HEALOWJADE:   Why do you have to be so sarcastic? HEALOWMEN:    Who was getting sarcastic? I was reiter-
ating the facts. souNDTY: clatter, metal and glass HEALOW717REN: Would you mind telling me what's going
on? HEALOWJADE: Nothing. You leave early. You come back
late. You pop a few tabs and take me to bed and the next morning you leave again.
HEALowTREN: That's my business, Jade. HLA,L0WJADE: Business again. When I got into this, I
thought I was separate from the business. HEALowTREN: You're part of the business. You should
know that by now. HEALOWJADE: I have tried to make this work, Trenton.
Could you do the same for me? HEALowTREN: I don't have to. HEALOWJADE: Will you try? (pause) HEALOWTREN: No. souNDTY: clatter, metal and glass HEALOWJADE: Bastard. souNDTY: motion, quick footfalls DETECTION CARRIED THROUGH:HALLWAY:BEDROOM TRANSCRIPT CONTINUES
Nello said, "Listen to these two. It's like watching The Honeymooners." "What's that?" Birch asked. "An old prebreakup television series, considered a classic. Some of the cablenets still run it." "What's it about?" "This guy who drives an IC bus and his wife. They argue a lot.,, "What else?" "nat's it." "How can that be it, Nello? You said he drives a bus.
Where does he go'  *I Cleveland? Daflas? Old Las Vegas?" "He drives people around Manhattan." ",@knd?" "And that's it." "How can that be it? You said he drives a bus." "But it's not about him driving a bus. It's about him arguing with his wife over money and paying the bills." "You mean you never get to see this guy's customers?" "Yeah. In fact, the show hardly ever leaves his apartment." "What kind of program is that, Nello? You're telling me
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that people used to sit around and watch this bus driver fight with his wife? That's crazy.- "It's sort of like doing a surveillance, you know?" "But it's not normal. Not everyone thinks it's fun to do this. You can't tell me you don't get bored." "But The Honeymooners isn't boring, Andy. There's this big, fat guy who plays the bus driver, Jackie Gleason. Funnier than hell." "You're out of your mind." "You'd like it, Andy. You really would."
Birch looked at the equipment, noting the voices coming over the wire. Their tone was harsh, and from the volume it sounded as if the Healows were headed toward confrontation. "Nobody gets into this stuff for entertainment." "Really, now," Nello chided.
ne sound of impact snapped through the speakers. The two company men froze, their eyes locked on their equipment. "What the hell was that?" Birch asked, crossing to the main monitor.
Nello rolled his chair to the printer. "The Al couldn't identify it."
Birch grabbed the transcript and started to read. He had not gotten far into the situation when the sound came again, a fleshy report.
That time they had no trouble identifying it. "That son of a bitch," Nello said loudly. The dogbrain struggled to identify the new sounds, but its work was in vain. The gasps and sobs told Birch and Nello more than they wanted to know.
There was another report, then a thump as Jade went to the floor.
Shaking, Nello went to the telephone. "What are you doing?" He picked up the handset. "I'm going to call security. We can't let him work her over like that."
Birch looked helplessly at the equipment. "You can't tell me she's enjoying that. She n-fight enjoy some of the other stuff, but she isn't enjoying this."
"Don't do it," Birch warned. "Why not?" Nello shouted. "Don't you see, the case is falling together. The drugs, the
Black Pom, now this. If we keep getting this kind of hard data, we're going to be able to compromise the bastard." "You're going to let him kill her, is that it?" "He's not going to kill her. She won't make any public appearances for a few days, but he won't kill her."
Another slap echoed in the sparsely furnished room. Nello shook his head. "No," he said, punching numbers. "I can't let this happen." "Dammit, you'll compromise the inission!" "No, I won't! I'll be anony-" He cut short and spoke into the handset. "I'd like to report a domestic disturbance." "Hang it up," Birch ordered. "Yes. I'll hold. Hurry, please!" "Nello, drop the phone." Birch stepped over and yanked the handset from Nello's grasp. "It's a job, partner. And like any other job, we've got to take the bad with the good."
A tinny voice leaked from the phone. Birch laid the handset in the cradle.
There was another slap from the equipment. "I thought I knew you, Andy." "Teach the Al," Birch said. "Teach it the difference between an open-handed slap and a blow with a fist. Teach it how to identify a woman's sobs. We'll be ready next time." "What the hell is happening? Things shouldn't be like this. " "Start teaching the Al. Now."
Slowly, Martin Nello turned to his console. "I swear I don't know you anymore. I thought a woman in distress would be right up your alley." "I already had one of those," Birch answered quietly. "In Casper. "
Nello continued keying information in, cursing under his breath and calling Trenton Healow and Andrew V. Birch every vulgar name he could think of.
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ASTRADYNE JOBNO. 3018-sRTx JOBTYP. OBSV. OPRS.BtRCH/NELLo
06:22:02.6 1 a CY/97.04.04
TRANSCRWr CONTINUES
HEALOWIADE: I am not handling this isolation, Trenton.
I want you to do something. HEALOWTREN: Don't start in with that again. You have
the run of Toronto [J HEALOWJADE: IS that your answer to everything? I
should not have to put up with this. HEALOWTREN: No. Of course you shouldn't. SOUNDTY: laughter, masculine HEALOWTREN: That's right, Jade. You just pack up and
go anytime you want. SOUNDTY: laughter, masculine (pause) (pause) (pause) (pause) (paus SOUNDTY: metallic rattling SOUNDTY: door lock disengage SOUNDTY: door open SOUNDTY: door closing (slam) (pause) (pause) (pause) SOUNDTY: sobbing, feminine
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TRANSCRIPT CONTINUES
There was no end to it. There was no longer joy to the job. Jade and Trenton Healow made sure of that by making their home a battleground. No doubt someone in Pitt was having a good time going over the tapes, arranging exactly how Healow would be compromised.
That did not mean Birch had to like it, and he didn't. Since Casper, he had developed a true distaste for violence, and listening to the Healows' marital combat was becoming painful. He forced himself to believe that the compromise order would come any day, and while he had mixed emotions about bringing Trenton Healow to Astradyne, at least it would bring about the end of the surveillance.
But if the order was coming, it was taking its time, and nothing Birch could do would hurry the process. None of the usual distractions helped, either. He had given up singing operas to irritate Nello because it reminded them both of a
sore point between the Healows. He thought about covering Steve operations for the day when Nello would be sent back to Bonn, but his partner seemed indifferent. The only thing Nello showed interest in was the pursuit and consumption of the different ethnic foods available in Toronto.
Well, Birch thought, we all deal with stress differently. Nello eats himself into a stupor, and I become hell to get along with.
He had even lost his taste for chocolate. His last few Hershey3 had seemed bitter and unsatisfying. Even the Canadian chocolate Nello had given him was waxy and insubstantial.
Birch wandered through the empty apartment, checking the event clock and looking in on Nello, who was sleeping on a
cot in the bedroom. Likewise, it was quiet at the Healows, where the good doctor was at work, driving his team closer to the dawn of a new era in artificial intelligence.
In the silence, Birch realized what he wanted. It was Lucy. Where was she now? he wondered. What was she doing? Where had she gone with all that money?
He wondered if she had taken him for a fool. Perhaps she and Lime had plotted to take a lonesome company man and his corporate sponsors for money enough to get to another run-down city where they could pull the con all over again.
He seriously doubted that. Idly, he picked up the telephone and dialed her number. It was still disconnected. Likewise Gavin's. He called the
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Downtowner, and when he heard Boss's gruff voice, he hung up without saying a word.
Where had she gone? Where would she go with such a windfall? Would she be in college or on a company payroli? Perhaps she had taken the money and disappeared to a place where she could live in safe concealment.
He looked hard at the terminals. There was a way to find out if she had gone into Astradyne's employ.
Nello was using a one-meter dish to relay daily progress reports to Pitt. If Birch could retune it, he could patch into the Astradyne DataNet and get a list of new employees.
With Jade sleeping off the effects of her last fight, the realignment would cause no immediate problems. Birch went back to ask Neilo if the dish was currently in use. When he looked in the bedroom, his partner was gone.
His stomach knotted. He had looked in only moments ago. Birch checked the other bedroom, which was a clutter of empty crates. And the bathroom was empty, as were the kitchen and living room.
Where the hell had Nello gone, and how had he gotten by when only moments before ...
Birch saw the event clock and stared in disbelief. It had been over an hour since he had checked on Nello.
It was not possible. His phone calls had not taken more than ten or fifteen minutes at the most. There was no way so much time could have passed without his knowing it.
Birch rubbed his hands nervously. He was not dreaming, or at least he did not feel the nondescript haziness that accompanied a dream. Except for a slight sensation of fogginess behind his eyes, he felt completely lucid.
Then something came over the speakers that confirmed that he was awake. The microtransmitter had picked up Jade's rise from sleep and was tracking her. Birch watched the Al print her changing location, and he shivered when he realized what was happening.
Microtransmitter 3a, the unit he had buried in the grassy meadow of the bay window, was finally picking up sound.
Jade Healow was stepping into the window for the first time since the invasion.
From the speaker came a nylon zip and the rustle of clothing. Sunbathing.
Suddenly he panicked. In the lapse of time, he might have n-&sed something-or someone. Was someone there with Jade, silently waiting?
A rattle came from the speakers. The first thing Birch thought of were the oils and lotions near the window. He grabbed the transcript and scanned for opening doors or muted conversations. There was nothing.
There were more moist sounds as Jade coated herself and rustling as she eased down in the grass. The Al coolly cataloged them with minimal effort. Andy Birch could picture the scene. He saw the photograph of her lying in the surf and imagined her in a green meadow, with warm sun pouting in through the windows.
But the sounds did not stop. There was another squirt of liquid, more rustling in the grass. The dogbrain had not caught it yet, but there was a slight rushing sound. Jade's breathing was picking up.
The printer rattled, cataloging the different textures of moist noises and rustling greenery. It noted that Jade had drawn a sharp breath.
Then a slight moan. Then another, longer one and grass rustling and a rhythmic, climbing breath rate.
Birch sank into his seat. Jade moaned again. Ordinarily there would have been nothing unusual about her actions, but in light of the circumstances there was a biting truth to it. Jade was clearly out of her element. She had been brought away from sun and sand and was trapped in a cold
stone city with an equally cold man.
And in order to feel pleasure, she felt compelled to get as close to her background as possible.
Any other time Birch would have laughed or shown embar-
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JOE CLIFFOPD FAUST
rassment for the person and the act. Now he had only t-he horror of insight and the ill feeling that came from witnessine something one was helpless to stop.
Jade's moans became cries. When they reached a crescendo, Birch turned off the speaker and sat alone in silence.
11
Birch stabbed his runcible spoon into the waxed bowl of refried beans. "So then what happened?"
Nello shrugged and chewed on his taco. "That's it," he said, swallowing. "I thought you were busy watching the monitors and that you'd complain if you didn't want Mexican. You didn't, and I left." "And I sat there." "Staring at the monitors." He took another bite.
Birch chewed and swallowed. "I must have been lost in thought. "
Nello smiled. "Dangerous stuff." He picked up a beer and drank.
Birch decided it was time to change the subject. "Anything new from the corn net?" "The usual interagency b.s. 'Dear Messieurs Nello and Birch, thank you for the daily report. We assure you that your service to Astradyne will make a significant contribution toward bringing the current difficulties to a quick end."'
Birch wiped off his spoon and pitched the beans in the garbage. "You didn't finish your burrito, either," Nello said. "You off Mexican?" "I,m fine, Mom," Birch reassured. "It tasted like someone added ginger to the mix."
Nello sniffed his food suspiciously. "They must be downwind from that Szechwan place." "No." Birch laughed. "You've been bringing so much Oriental food that my ethnotype is changing. If it doesn't have
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water chestnuts in it, it doesn't taste right." He went to examine what was coming out of the printer. The Al was transcribing another silent meal between the Healows. "I wish you'd let me turn on the sound. What if something good comes up?" "Then we'll read about it after the fact."
Nello approached the terminals, working a toothpick between his teeth. "What happened that has you too spooked to listen to them? It's not the--2' "No," Birch said, not wanting to hear the words. "It's not that. Not even close." He closed his eyes, thinking of the empty crate where he had hidden the tape and transcript of
Jade Healow's afternoon in the bay window. "What is it, then? You usually want to absorb every detail of someone's life." "It doesn't feel right. I can't get a firm grip on Healow, and it bothers me. He's got no relationship with Jade other than sex, and that bothers me more." "We've seen that before." "Not like this. We've seen sexual relationships, but both parties were profiting from it. What we're seeing here is definitely one-sided." "Why does she hang around with that sadist?" Nello asked. "Exactly. There's no reason on earth for her to stay with him, yet she does. Now, why the hell do you suppose that is?"
Nello looked at the sheets rolling out of the printer. "See what I mean? They're both eating dinner, and he's not saying a word." "Then it shouldn't matter if I turn the sound up."
Birch glared. "Come on," Nello said. "We'll do something to take your mind off things." He turned up the volume. They heard metal on porcelain. "What would take your mind off what that son
of a bitch is doing to that poor wornan?" "Very funny." Birch rummaged through a stack of looseleaf manuals and found one stamped with the Mercedes logo. "How about if I drill you over steve operations? You'll be ready to solo when you go back to Bonn."
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JOE CLIFFOPD FAusT
Nello shrugged. ,I'd rather not. Maybe if I'd been ther@@ longer. . ."
Birch waved the manual. "You don't want to forget it, dO you?" "There's nothing to forget, Andy. I was only there nineteen days. We hadn't even finished the review when I got called.back. " "You mean twenty-four days," Birch corrected. "What?" "You told me you were in Bonn for twenty-four days." "I was there nineteen days," Nello insisted. "But you told Kessler and me that-" "You dreamed it, Birch," Nello snapped. "I was in Bonn nineteen days. All right?"
Birch shrugged and tossed the manual aside. The scrape of a chair across tile issued from the speaker. Jade Healow said, "Is that it? You walk away from this table like nothing happened?" "I ate," Trenton Healow said. "Yes, you ate," Jade replied, voice rising. "And that is all." "Let me guess. You can't live like this, right?" "That does it," Birch said. "I'm out of here."
Nello cocked his head. "What's wrong, partner?" "Don't you get tired of it, Nelio? Every night after dinner, this same fight, over and over. The words change, but it's the same hurt. I'm sick of it." "It's that girl you met in Casper, isn't it?" Nelio asked. "You're worried about her." "No. " "Then what happened to you out there? You haven't been in your right mind since you got back."
Birch looked at his partner. He was tight, of course. The problem was Lucy, but Birch had not realized that she was affecting his work. Was it her memory that was keeping him from understanding Trenton Healow?
Whatever the answer, he could not yet admit the problem to Nello. His thoughts were too jumbled for a clean confes-
THF_ COMPANY MAN
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sion. If he could only rid himself of that dark confusion. "I'm tired," he said, "that's all. I'll bet everyone else in the company feels the same way." "Maybe we can put in for relief. Have some floaters come
in to baby-sit while we go down to Havana."
Birch sighed. Cuba did not sound good. "In the mean-
time," he said, picking up Healow's tape, "I'm going to see if
I can figure these folks out." "Have fun."
He went to the bedroom and sat down on the cot. Nello had set up a small television and vid player to kill time. Birch plugged in Healow's tape, then settled back to watch.
The sharp-toothed logo appeared on the screen with the words "Unnatural Video." That faded from view, and music started, an ancient recording from the public domain. Birch noticed that the sound seemed dull and attributed it to the vid set's small speaker.
The Chandelier a film by Arvis Stapledon
Birch recognized the name immediately. Stapledon was a mass murderer from the last days of Balkanization who had openly defied law enforcement and had terrorized the North American continent. He had ultimately been captured by an
angry mob that took him to a nearby stadium and interrupted a
sporting event to lynch him. Birch sat forward, afraid of what the film would bring.
It was not much different from the standard porn he had seen. A shot looking up at a chandelier pivoted downward, affording a look at a room furnished in colonial American style. It ended looking down at the floor directly below the chandelier, at a man making love to a woman. Letters appeared on the screen: Boston. 1772.
The woman was bored. She was petting a cat. One of the later shots showed the house full of them.
The man was her husband, a minuteman during the colonial wars. She, from what Birch could tell from the stilted
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dialogue, was directly descended from British nobility and thought the idea of a war over tea taxes rather silly.
When her husband went off to fight, she stayed busy by entertaining. The entire film took place in the sitting room, where the woman granted sexual favors to another patriot, a black servant, an obese old man whom Birch thought resembled Benjamin Franklin, and in one especially graphic scene, half a squad of Tory soldiers.
The whole time, Birch's mind wandered. The vid showed no inclination of being anything other than straight porn. There was nothing special about the acting or the script or even the sexual acts. The only remarkable thing was that colonial sitting room. Birch wondered where they had filmed it.
It was about over when the woman fell under the spell of a turncoat who promised to take her home to England. The scenes of them together dragged on forever. Rather, it seemed like forever until the husband returned to find them in an unusual act of congress.
While the turncoat was driving the woman to ecstasy, the patriot went to one comer of the wall and untied a rope from a brass hook. Then he let go.
The chandelier fell with a glittering crash, lacerating the umcoat's back and leaving him crushed on top of the woman. She started to scream, not in a put-upon colonial accent but in a voice that sounded more like someone from the midwest.
The minuteman drew his cutlass and approached the trapped couple, kicking away the chandelier. "And so, ye treacherous Tory bastard, ye seek to besmirch my good name, eh9" His accent had changed to a Long John Silver drawl. "I shafl see my vengeance and ye shall have a taste of yer own Sheffield steel!"
With a swipe of the blade, he drew an oozing line down the turncoat's face from forehead to chin. "See how many lasses ye might pollute when they see your true nature, foul Janus!"
Birch moved away from the vid set, horrified. The film was no longer following the action with a series of careful edits. Rather, it was done in documentary style, moving in for
crude close-ups as if the camera was being run toward a cornbatzone. "This tempered blade will see that you will sin no more!"
Birch looked away. When it fell silent, he looked up. The blade pulled out of the victim's chest with a bright spurt of blood. The shot lingered on the turncoat's face. It was livid with shock. The eyes rolled back, and the body collapsed over
the still-prone figure of the woman. Her face was spattered with drying blood. Tears flooded black lines of mascara down
her upper torso.
The patriot kicked the body aside and unfastened some-
thing at the top of the chandelier. "And now, you trait'rous wench. .
He had a small iron collar that had fastened the chandelier to the rope. Calling his wife an adulterous bitch, he fastened the collar around one of her ankles and then hoisted her up, tying the rope so her hands were mere centimeters off the floor. "No," she was sobbing. "This isn't in the script. Please." She shook with tears. "It's not in the script!"
With a flash of his blade, the patriot cut an A into her belly, then slashed her throat. He went back to the rope and pulled her to the ceiling.
Trembling, Birch crawled to the vid set and tried to shut it off. His hand was shaking so badly that he could not hit the controls. He turned away and covered his ears until the tape machine had stopped.
When he recovered, he put the tape back in its case, then walked out to the living room. Nello heard him and turned. He looked at his partner's face and let out a string of oaths. "You took like you've seen a ghost." "How could anyone-" Birch started. "That bad?"
He was still shaking, and tears were running out of his eyes. "In the end," he choked, "she was dead and her blood was dripping on the floor." He went to a chair and sat, putting his face in his hands. "That's okay," Nello said softly. "You don't-"
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"And the camera comes down and shows it. It's making a puddle on this varnished hardwood floor. And this woman's cats-" Birch's whole body was convulsing now, fighting to get it out. "There's five or six of them, and they come over, and they're lapping up this blood. This woman's dead, and they're drinking her blood off the floor."
Nello was numb. He sat and watched Birch cry. "I'm sorryI didn't know that they were so-" "if the order comes," Birch said, "I'll kill him. I'd have no problem doing that. He doesn't deserve her, Nello. He deserves. . ." He drifted off into a bout of sobbing.
Nello took Birch by the shoulders. "Andy, listen to me. We need to get off of this thing, understand? It's going to break us if we hang around."
Birch nodded. "While you were watching that piece of shit, an order came in. Atlanta needs some equipment for a surveillance, and we have what they're looking for. I thought we could run it down ourselves, maybe take a couple of days in Cuba." "Sure," Birch said uncertainly. "As long as it gets me out of here." "I know how you feel," Nello said. "I sincerely hope they let us terminate that bastard."
12
Less than thirty hours later they were on their way, three crates of equipment stowed in the rear compartment of an STV. Nello kept them on vector, and they moved across western New York to the kilometer-wide cruise path that cut through the metropolitan axis of the eastern seaboard.
Birch fidgeted nervously, tinkering with small things on the control console. He ran the window compass through all the available colors, tested the alarm circuits twice, recalibrated the deck equipment through the Al, and changed the position
of his seat once every ten minutes over the course of an hour and a half.
Nello offered him a chocolate bar. He turned it down. Finally, Nello cracked. "Andy, you've got to calm down. You're going to get jobshock."
Birch's eyes flashed a message that they both knew: I've already got jobshock. "Honest, partner. I've got to do something with you." "Like what?" He was fiddling with the suit radio, plugging it into the body antenna and adjusting the frequencies. "I don't know. Maybe you need to get laid." "I don't want to get laid." "A suggestion," Nello replied. "Honest," Birch said, voice rising, "I don't." "Fine." Nello put his hands up defensively. "I've no beef with that. Save yourself for that woman." "What woman?" Birch snapped.
Nello shrugged helplessly. "The one you're saving yourself for." He sighed. "Maybe you're right," Birch said. "Maybe I should clear my head of everything that's jammed it." He pivoted the cen-
tral terminal to face him and plugged a keyboard into it. "What're you doing?" "Going into the DataNet. I'm going to prove once and for all that I'm making myself suffer needlessly. " "Great." Nello busied himself with another screen.
Birch set the Steve's microantenna to track the Astradyne satellite and keyed in. He found PERSONALS and skimmed through ANNouNcEmEws, BIRTHS, and coNvERsioNs, looking for NEW EMPLOYEES. His eye caught the word DEATHS, and he froze, held by some strange magnetism. He tried to go on, but his eyes were drawn back to the obituaries.
At the head of the recent casualties list was ABERNATHY,
LELAND J. [ELITE]. SCREEN 4. "Abernathy," Birch said. "Lee Abernathy?" Nello asked. "What about him?"
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Birch punched to screen four. "He's dead." "Seretex?" He shook his head. "He shined his own shoes. It says here, 'died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head."' "That doesn't mean a thing," Nello said. "It could have been a setup."
Birch continued reading. "I don't think so. He took medical adhesive tape and fastened the gun in his mouth."
Nello looked up from his program. "Why'd he do that?" "So he wouldn't miss? And get this, partner: He'd gotten his Elite a week ago." "Go figure." "Why is that, Nello? What's the story with the Elite status?" "Is there a story?" "Vargas was Elite, and he plugged himself in. You re-
member Salinger?" "He the one that put the P-core under his bed?" "He was Elite. Then there was Dallas." "Dallas died in his steve." "Get real, Nello. Nobody dies in a steve. It was ruled an accident, but there were a lot of unanswered questions." "What about grief? Had they lost their partners?"
Birch gave him a cold look. "Would you kill yourself if something happened to me?"
He gave his head a slight shake. "I'd miss you, but not that much. Sorry." "There's no need to be sorry. Vargas and Dallas lost their partners, but Abernathy's was only hospitalized. Salinger didn't lose his partner, either." "What's your point, Andrew?" "It's not a point. It's a question. What's the big trauma with Elites that makes them fold?" "Maybe it's like you said. There are all sorts of changes when you get that badge, and it takes some getting used to." "Yeah, but it shouldn't make a man blow his own brains out. "
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Nello looked at his navigational board. "We're there." Birch rolled his seat forward and locked it. He cut off vec-
tor piloting and eased away from the cruise path. The steve
banked around the northern part of the city. "Think of it." Nello beamed. "By midnight we'll be in Havana, a cold mug of Revoluci6n beer in one hand and a Cuban ethnotype in the other, watching a pig turn on a spit." "Where did they want this stuff taken?" Birch asked.
Nello produced a rumpled printout. "The Astradyne mainframe building in the downtown MZ." "Downtown? For surveillance equipment? They don't want it taken to a physical plant?"
Nello showed him the sheet. "This is how it came in." Birch shrugged. "If that's what they want. . ." He banked the steve east-southeast and raised the altitude, heading straight for the Atlanta metro zone. Nello got on the corn net and received landing clearance as they approached. They set down on a flat plain of glass, buildings towering over
them as they descended. The surface gave under the struts, and the vehicle was down. Hatches on either side of the cockpit opened, and they started their inspection. "Where are they?" Nello asked. "The struts sank into the glass," Birch said. "We'll have to exhaust-warm the surface before we clear."
Nello spread his arms helplessly. "They promised their dock workers would carry this in. Where are they?"
Birch moved to the rear of the steve and opened the storage compartment. "Screw it, Nello. Let's carry them in and get out of here." He grabbed two of the boxes and maneuvered them out. "You're right," Nello said, taking the last box. They walked toward the building, squinting as the sunlight reflected off its polished surface. "It's going to be a hot summer."
Doors hissed, and they walked into the cool of air-conditioning. At the control desk, they sat the crates down.
A man in a dirty Astradyne worksuit appeared. He saw the
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two well-dressed men at his post and asked if he could help them. "My name's Birch, this is Nello. We're with the enforcement wing. We had a request to bring in three vehicular transponders on an equipment transfer."
The man sneered. "Honest," Nello said. "We got them to track our target in his car, but the guy is a masstrans freak. We didn't need them."
The worksuited man went to a terminal and entered information with a two-fingered peck. "I don't see any orders for three incoming transponders." "It's an equipment transfer," Birch said. "They're not officially coming in," Nello embellished. "We're supposed to leave them here, and the others will pick them up." He handed the man the printout. "Here's our orders. "
The man squinted at the sheet cynically. "I can't take responsibility for this." "For heaven's sake," Birch said, "we're not going to blow up this silly building of yours." He threw his wallet on the desk, the copper badge glinting in the artificial light. "I'm one of you guys."
The man examined the badge. "Besides, if I wanted to blow up this building, there's a hundred better ways to do it, Any fool knows that the receiving centers are paneled with metalplast to protect the rest of the building from explosions. Nobody would try to put a bomb through here." "You might be official," the man said, "but I can't be responsible for sensitive equipment left sitting around. I won't take it."
Birch swore. "Your tenninal. Look on your terminal. There's got to be some notice." "Not for an indirect transfer." "Can't you let it sit in a vacant corner?" Nello asked.
The man shook his head.
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-All right, then," Birch said. "Check it in." "I can't. I don't have a receiving order for these items." "Well, we can't let them sit there." "Nor can U' Nello sighed in exasperation. "Is there someone else we can talk to?" "It won't do you any good. I've got as much authority as ... 11
"That's not a request," Birch said, tapping the badge with his index finger. "That's an order."
The jumpsuited man smacked his lips. "All fight," he said indignantly. "I can let you talk to the comptroller, but I doubt that she can help you." "Get her," Birch said quietly.
He turned and left. The two company men exchanged glances, laughing and rolling their eyes. "Cuba," Birch said. "I wonder how long this is going to take." "Forever. This is administrative territory." "Figures. I'm going to visit the necessary room." "Don't let me stop you."
Nello turned and departed in the direction of a twin set of doors. Birch watched him step through the one with the male silhouette, then turned back to the desk. Down a long hallway came a thin figure in a freshly pressed Astradyne jumpsuit, hair tucked under a similarly logoed cap. The worksuited man
was a step behind, giving information in a stage whisper. The thin figure ordered him away, then came around the desk, clipboard in hand. "Mr. Birch, is it? What seems to be the problem?"
His gaze met hers. He recognized the eyes. The nose, the lips, and the chin only confirmed it. "Lucy. " "Informalities don't impress me-" She looked up from the clipboard and froze. Her mouth parted in shock, and the color drained from her face. She took a step back. "Ivan?"
Birch gently laid a finger over her lips. "Don't call me
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that," he said in a low tone. "Don't call me that ever again. My name is Andrew. Say it." He removed his finger. "Andrew." Tears welled up in her eyes. "I didn't think I'd see you again." She reached out and fell into him, grabbing his neck as if she would never let go. "I owe you so much." "Not a thing," Birch said, embracing her. "You don't owe
me a thing."
Lucy spoke about money and escape and a job, but her words were muffled in his shoulder. At last she pushed away and looked at his face, wiping her tears with both hands. "And my brother, my baby brother. He was dead, but you gave him back to me. Gavin told me what you did, I-Andrew. And you made an impression on him, you changed him. He's in Portland now, in school." She sniffed and smiled. "He's studying environmental surveying. If he makes it, there'll be a Grade Two in it for him, and he'll get to travel." She fell into him again. Her cap tipped off, and brown hair cascaded down her shoulders. "I don't think a day's gone by that I haven't thought about you."
Nello appeared from the men's room and slowly approached them, head bent with curiosity. "I knew you could handle it," he said, "but I've never seen it done this way."
They broke their embrace, embarrassed. "This is her," Birch told Nello. "The girl from Casper. Lucy Harper."
Nello took her hand. "Nice to see you in good working order." "Lucy, this is my partner, Martin Nello. We've brought some things in for a direct transfer."
She nodded. "You'll have to forgive John," she said. "He's missed a few promotions and is resentful that I was hired as his boss." "Then there should be no problem with storing the equipment here?" "None whatsoever."
Nello looked at the two of them in their smiles and tears. "Well," he said, "there goes the Revoluci6n."
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13
At the restaurant, Lucy told Birch over dinner, after she saw him swallowing aspirin and binding his plasma bums, there was a moment of panic. She thought she had thrown it all away and felt profound despair. Unable to face the customers who were still demanding soup and salad and sandwiches, she called Boss, told him that she was ill, and went home.
Once there, she sat down and cried. When she was cried out, she started to clean and found the plastic ticket to the Guzman concert. The tears started all over again. So she did the only thing she could.
She called Jack Lime. The person who answered the phone was very interested in the fact that she knew Lime, and he took her name and address. Inside of twenty minutes, a Casper metro police officer was at her door with dozens of questions.
That was when she found that Jack was dead not from the viruses but from something more sinister that the officer re-
fused to discuss. The subject, and the officer's line of questioning, all came back to one thing: the man in his mid-thirties who had been seen in the company of both her and Lime.
Was he a suspect? Lucy had asked. The officer made no
formal accusations but did mention that the man was the one who had discovered Lime's body.
Her narrative trailed off, and she looked into Birch's eyes. The question was there; he could see it. "I didn't do it," he told her. "I couldn't have done it. He was Astradyne."
Lucy was surprised. "How much have you learned since you came to work for us?" "Some," she replied, sipping wine. "Then you know about the war with Seretex."
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She put the glass down fast. She was not happy about that subject, especially since she had been hired by one of the participants. "Seretex killed him," Birch said. "Like they tried to kill me. 11
"Is that why you blew up New Frontier?"
Birch licked his lips. "No. I did it because we were at war and I was ordered to do it." "And were you under orders to save Gavin?" "Don't say that again," he threatened softly, "not even in jest. If Astradyne even suspects that I saved him, I'll end up with a Grade Four working salvage in Old Las Vegas."
Lucy's eyes grew moist. "Did you tell that to Gavin?" He shook his head - "He was scared enough as it was." "That's exactly what he told me would happen," she said. "That you didn't have to save him, that you shouldn't have ... 11 She choked. "Gavin's a smart kid."
Lucy swallowed hard. "And you did that for me?" "In a way." "To get to me?" He shook his head. "When I pulled Gavin out of that building, I wasn't expecting to see you again. I did it so you wouldn't lose everything to a company." "Do you think it was easy waiting, Andy? I woke up when the complex exploded. I went to the window and could see the orange glow and the flames at the edge of town. Then I put on my bathrobe and joined the crowd in the street. We watched the glow and listened to the sirens, and then someone said it was the New Frontier Synthesis plant. That was the worst thing I could have heard. I'd lost you, I'd lost Jack, and then I'd lost Gavin. I had to be carried back up to the apartment." "I'm sorry you had to go through that," Birch said. "Very sorry. "
Lucy took more wine from the cut crystal glass. "When I finally calmed down, the fire was under control. Reports said that there were no survivors. I'd lost everything to the companies.
',Then the arbitrator showed up, not two hours after the
explosion. He was very polite, but he had that air of push that they all have. 'I know you're grieving the loss of your brother right now, but there are things we must discuss'-that sort of approach. I asked to have someone with me, but he refused. "He started at twenty-five thousand, and I started crying again. It was obscene. My life was shattered, and this guy was trying to put a price on it. The next thing I knew, he was
walking out of my apartment, and I had a check for a quarter mil. I couldn't deal with that. "I went back to sleep, and then Gavin called. He was talking about money and papers for a job, and I kept trying to hang up because I thought it was a dream." She laughed. "He said something about fifteen k's, and I remembered thinking, 'What do I need that for? I'm an heiress now."' "I guess it paled compared to what you got out of Seretex.-
Lucy's eyes became dark and serious. "I still haven't cashed that Seretex check, Andy. The money and papers meant so much to me, coming from you like they did. I had my brother back and I had a way out. It was like you pulled me from the middle of my worst nightmare." "Let's say I was returning the favor."
She grinned wryly. "Why, Andy Birch, the only thing I did for you was say no."
Birch took a sip of wine. "You made it possible for me to
carry Gavin out of that building." "Would you have done it if he hadn't been my brother?"
He put his glass down. "I can't honestly answer that." "Then why was it so important?" "I don't know if I can explain it. Even if I could, I'm not sure you'd understand. Believe me when I tell you that it was
very important for me to do something like that. Suffice it to say that I restored your life and you gave me a soul in return." "Whatever you say."
The night dissolved, fading into small talk and a walk
through downtown. The air was warm and humid enough to be pleasant, and the light from the street gave everything a
healthy hue. There was a timeless quality to it all, and the
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world seemed as if it were turning a little bit slower on its axis.
Birch walked Lucy to her apartment and was happy to see
that the building was in much sounder shape than her last place of residence. He went to kiss her good night, but she only pecked him on the cheek. "You're not going to get off that easily," she told him. "You need to come up and see my new place."
He followed her. They took an elevator to the eleventh floor, and Lucy led him down a clean hall to a sturdy metal door. The lock opened with a magnetic card, and they went inside.
Birch smiled. "Coming up in the world, I see." The new place was twice the size of her Casper apartment and much brighter. Rounded walls were painted eggshell white. Chrome lighting fixtures dangled from wall slots and ceiling. The kitchen was streamlined and concealed from view by a sliding set of panels, and an optic reflector cast the image of a wall across the entrance to the hallway. ,,I've got an extra bedroom for all my books," she said. "I've got crates and crates of them that I've collected over the years. "
Birch was happy and amused. Her old furniture provided a
sharp contrast to the apartment's contemporary architecture. "One thing at a time," she said, walking across the room and switching on the vid set. "I'm happy for you. This is much more what you deserve." "Are you patting yourself on the back?" She vanished into the kitchen. "If I pat anyone, it should be Jack Lime, rest his soul. He's the brains behind all of this." He noticed a gray ocEAmc UNIVERSITY OF PORTLAND sweatshirt draped across one comer
of the couch. "It can only get better for you, Lucy." He started toward the door.
There were rummaging sounds from the kitchen. "You re-
alize that this will all be worthless if I can't share it with someone. "
His view of the kitchen was blocked. He put his hand to
the doorknob. "When will Gavin be back? June?" "He's going to school through the summer. They have a
study cruise that runs from May until September. But that's not what I meant." She appeared from behind the barrier, a
bowl of grapes in her hand. "Are you going somewhere, Andy Birch?" "I need to get going. I've already overindulged in grapes tonight."
She motioned at the living room. The vid set was tuned to a late show. "I never did get to peel grapes for you." "Really," he protested. "I need to go. Nello will be expecting me. "Nello has my address." She put the bowl on the coffee table and moved in on him. She put her arms around his waist. "Will you be back?" "Of course." "When?" "I don't know. Soon, I hope." "You'll call?" "Definitely. From wherever I am." "Very well." She kissed him softly on the lips. "Thank you," Birch said, hand seeking the door. She backed away. The door opened, and he started to move out. "Andy.,,
The door started to close. "Andy?" The door's movement stopped. Birch peered through. "Yes?" "I know we didn't get off to a great start, but I didn't want you to get the wrong idea." "About what?"
She looked around the room helplessly. Her jaw worked as
if trying to formulate the right set of words. "Lucy?"
Her shoulders slumped. "I guess I'll have to be blunt. I'm not ready for you to make love to me, but I would like you to stay. " "Here?"
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She nodded. "Come and hold me." He looked at her in disbelief. "Please?" Birch slowly moved back into the apartment and secured the door. He kissed her lips, her nose, and her forehead. She led him to the couch and sat him down, then settled into his lap, stroking his face and nuzzling against him. He held her in his arms, kissed her, and stroked her hair. She nestled against him and closed her eyes. Birch held her until she was asleep. Then he carried her to the bedroom and tucked her in.
He felt tired as he stepped through the illusion of the wall. He had to get back to the hotel, but it was several kilometers from where he was, and he thought the odds of finding a taxi at that hour were thin. The wine was trying to close his eyes, and it had severely slowed his thought processes.
He looked back at the couch. It looked inviting to his clouded mind.
Oh, well, he thought. She won't mind if I have a brief sit-down. Just perch right here and close my eyes for a minute, get the cobwebs out of my head-
There was a loud pounding. Birch started. His eyes popped open, and he felt dizzy and disoriented.
He was in Lucy's apartment. On the couch. The sun was shining through the windows, and from the back of the apartment came the hiss of running water. He ran his tongue around the inside of a gritty mouth and brought his hand up to check the time. What he saw instead was a stained wrap of gauze. He tiled his head back and closed his eyes.
The pounding came again, from the front door. Birch gasped and looked at the far wall of the living room, from behind which came the sound of Lucy's shower. All he needed was to get caught by a jealous suitor or a member of the vehicle pool. As a third volley of knocks came, Birch slipped the plasma bolt from his ankle holster and crept to the door.
He flattened against it and put his eye to the peephole. On the other side was the distorted image of a familiar face. Birch lowered the gun and opened the door.
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Nello stepped inside. "Come on, Mr. Montague. We've got to get moving."
Birch tilted his head toward the hallway, forgetting that his partner couldn't see it because of the optical screen. "Can you give me a few minutes? I need to say good-bye."
Nello reached into his breast pocket and handed Birch a
folded letter. "Fine. While you're waiting, you can read this."
Birch unfolded the sheet. It was printed on official Astradyne enforcement wing stationery.
Howard Kessler, operations chief The As,radyne Company/Enforcement Branch
10000 Potomac Boulevard "E" Pittsburgh Pennsylvania WD/City
C/North America
57 84 61.J
07 April Corporate Year 97 To: OPERATIVES BIRCH, ANDREW V., AND NELLO, MARTIN D. RE: ALTERATION OF EXISTING ORDERS
Our staff, in conjunction with the Psychological wing of the Administrative branch, has concurred that Astradyne now possesses sufficient information and evidence to successfully compromise surveillance subject HEALOW, TRENTON (DR.).
At the first convenient opportunity after receipt of this letter, you are to approach Dr. Healow and confront him with the following:
[I I Healow is known to engage in the physical abuse of his wife JADE on a regular basis. Although she has not sought to press charges through corporate or con-
ventional law enforcement, we are in possession of evidence which would certainly result in a minimum jail scntence of 5 years.
08                  JOE CLIFFORD FAusT
[21 Healow is in possession of numerous copies of pornographic videotapes which feature the actual violent death of the participants in the sex act ("Black Porn"). These have been deemed illegal by the McGuire Act of C.Y. 28, and prescribed punishment to those found to own said videotapes is a jail sentence of no less than 25 years.
[3] Healow is currently engaged in a sadomasochistic affair with another Seretex worker, RIGGS, DELILAH. While there is nothing expressly illicit about this fact, in the light of other circumstances, this information could prove quite damaging. Photographs of specific acts have been taken by Astradyne operatives WELLER and GANTZ and are listed on the confidential DataNet. Specific photographs may be requested via the Lasersat.
[4J On 01/12 C.Y. 96, Healow provided drugs to Seretex colleague HACKETT, JAYLEEN for the purposes of spontaneous fetal abortion. Discreet abortions were outlawed in the Parameters of Human Life Act, C.Y. 13. To cause such through other than legal means
is punishable by a jail sentence of no less than 25 years and suspension of the license holder's certification. As Healow's field of specialty is neurology and not the gynecological/obstetric/embryologicaI field, additional fines of up to 500,000 c.t.u.'s may be levied, as well as n additional jail sentence of up to 10 years.
[51 The Seretex Corporation of Toronto, Ontario, North America, may be held liable for any or all of these acts under the Base Concealment Act of C.Y. 55. Should Healow remain in their jurisdiction, extensive fines and penalties will be inflicted at the corporate level, effectively blackballing him from further work in the field.
Terms of the compromise are non-negotiable. Healow is to admit himself to the protective jurisdiction of the As-
THE COMPANY MAN                         2(
tradyne Company, bringing with him copies of all notes, information, and speculative matter he holds on the ElectroEncephalic Digitalizing Recorder and the Pattern Analytical Thought Emulating Replicator (PATER) artificial intelligence system.
Because his work on the PATER Al is incomplete, he has 48 (forty-eight) hours in which to render his decision. If, at the end of this time, he does not decide in the affirmative, or renders no decision, or fails to meet for a scheduled rendezvous, it will be considered a decline and documents will be rendered to the proper au-
thorities in order that justice might be served. Healow will also be considered a prime candidate for termination should he refuse a shift of allegiance.
As always with a compromise order, the name ASTRADYNE, and any of its subsidiary companies, shall not be mentioned when compromising the subject. This is an all or nothing proposition, and while Seretex will initially suspect Astradyne of a compromise attempt should Healow maintain his loyalty, it cannot at this point be proved, and other corporations will certainly become suspect.
Should Healow accept, he will be given 12 (twelve) hours in which to reconstruct his work or obtain copies for our jurisdiction files. Because of his status, it is recommended that he be controlled with a locking electroconvulsant box.
Reports will be expected at eight-hour intervals, com-
mencing from the shift prior to the initial approach of this subject. To remind you, THIS COMPROMISE IS NONNEGOTIABLE, and any reduction of expected services made by the approaching operatives will be dealt with harshly.
Yours for a quick end to the war,
H. Kessler
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Birch studied the page, trembling with relief.He looked at Nello. "We did it, Andrew. We stuck it out. By sundown tomorrow, this man is going to be ours." "This is great," Birch said. "We'll wrap this up and bring this thing to a quick end."
Nello elbowed his partner. "You sure you don't want me to
rail up and do this on my own?"
Birch sloppily folded the compromise order to pocket size. "This is going to be worth the trip because of the terms." "You can't be happy about bringing Healow to our side." "No. I'm happy because of the additional assigned terms." Nello grabbed the letter. "You can't be serious. This order is nonnegotiable. You read it." "I'm not reducing anything, partner. I'm going to use my accumulated knowledge of the situation to add terms whic will make things flow a little smoother. He's going to divorce Jade and give her a stipend of fifty percent of his income." "You can't do that, Andy. What if he won't buy it?" "He'll buy it. He'll buy anything we tell him to." "What if Jade won't?" "She'll accept it. Believe me, partner. She will." "You can't do this," Nello said, his voice rising. "You can't take advantage of the situation." "Don't give me that, Nello. It's done all the time." "Not on something this big." "This isn't blackmail, dammit! It's a professional compromise. And in this case, it's going to do everyone involved a
hell of a lot of good. Got that?"
Nello nodded. Lucy's voice drifted to them from behind the false wall. "Andy, is that you?" "Still here," he reported. "Who are you talking to?" "My partner came to pick me up." Lucy stepped through, fastening her hair behind her. "Good thing. I've got to catch the IC to work. I hate to abandon you."
"Need a ride?" Nello asked. Birch looked at him, puzzled. "We're going fight there."
She smiled at them. "If you don't mind." "Not at all," Birch said. He opened the door for her. "Are you ready?"
She stepped out and locked the door. Nello took the lead down to the street, where they all piled into an Astradyne pool vehicle. "Where are you going?" Lucy asked as Birch pulled onto the street. "When you leave here, I mean." "Away," Nello said. "Nowhere important." "North," Birch said. "I should be back soon." He knuckled the wheel confidently. "This war is about over." "I wouldn't be too sure of that, partner," Nello said. "What if our deal gets turned down?" "If that happens, the war will still end. And I'll be back." "How do you know?" Lucy asked. "Are you negotiating?" "In a manner of speaking," Birch said. "Something to do with the new AI system?" "Smart girl," Nello commented. "Everybody knows that the war is over a new Al," she replied matter-offactly. "Of course, not everyone understands why it came to blows." "It's part of a long, rich tradition," Birch said. "Men love to fight over things. It might as well be over commerce as bearskins." "You sound awfully sure of yourself." "We're going to end this war, Andy and I," Nello said. "May I ask how?" "No," Birch said. "Let's say we're negotiating and leave it at that." "And what if negotiations break down?"
There was silence in the car. "it does happen. You ought to be ready for it." Birch cleared his throat. "I'm sorry. Did I hit a nerve?" He turned the wheel and parked across from the Astradyne building. When the car was out of gear, he turned to Lucy and
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kissed her. "It's hard swallowing pessimism in my line of work. Other than that, nothing's wrong." He got out of the car
and opened the passenger door. Lucy gracefully stepped out, trying to avoid his gaze. "Uh, Nello and I have to take this car back to the pool. From there we've got leave."
She sighed. "And you'll be back this way?" "Soon. Providing-" "Look," she said quickly. "I didn't mean what I said about things going wrong. I'm sure everything will fall into place."
Birch smiled. "Hopefully." Lucy stuck her hands in her pockets and glanced up at the buildings. "I'm not very good at things like this, Andy. In a
way I don't know what's worse, losing you like I did in Casper or getting you back and sending you off again."
He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her. "Back soon. "Right." She hugged him and started across the street. "Soon," Birch said.
Nello folded the passenger seat forward and struggled to get out of the back. Birch grabbed his hand and helped hirn out, and they stood on the sidewalk, watching her step up to the opposite curb. "There she goes," Nello said. "Sweet kid." "I suppose." He looked across the street as Lucy crossed the empty plaza to the doors of the Astradyne building. She turned and waved.
He waved back. She turned and disappeared behind the glass doors. "Let's get going," he told Nello. He started for the driver's side, waiting to climb in while a car passed. "Let's bring in Healow," Nello said.
Birch took one last glance at the Astradyne building. There was a flash from inside. The doors exploded outward, followed by a roar and a dark, rolling ball of flame.
Another concussion knocked Birch to the ground. Pieces of glass from the first floor sprayed out across the plaza, and heat and smoke billowed into the street. The windows of the next
three floors shattered and rained to the ground in jagged shards, their smashes making an eerie glissando against the low rumble of destruction.
When Birch looked again, the street front of the building was a ruin of twisted metal and dark smoke. He picked himself up from the asphalt, put his fingers to his temples, and squeezed. "Seretex," Nello said from behind.
Birch squeezed his eyes shut, and the stun faded. He looked again at the wrecked facade, and it suddenly sank in: the smoke, the holes, the glass on the sidewalk glittering in the morning sun. "Lucy. "
He started across the street, walking between ICVs that had stopped to survey the damage. "Lucy!"
He was running, glass crunching under the soles of his shoes. People were bailing out of their vehicles and queuing up to the wreckage. Birch muscled through them, hissing and calling them vultures. "Andy!"
As he made the sidewalk, Nello grabbed his arm and tried to stop him. "It's no good, partner. It's already happened."
He pointed numbly at the building. "Lucy's in there." Nello's jaw trembled. There was a small gash across the top of his forehead. "I know," he said. "You can't know how sorry I am about it, Andy, but we can't let it stop us. We've got to keep moving."
The wail of sirens came in over the rumble of flames. "I've got to know, Nello."
His partner shook him. "No, dammit! We've got to get back to Toronto and take Healow. We've got to shut it down before things get worse."
Birch's face was blank. "I killed her. Do you realize that? I got her on with a company, they put her here, and she died." "I'm sorry, Andrew." He started to pull Birch across the street, but Birch seemed to be rooted to the concrete. "Andy.
214                  JOE CLIFFORD FALIsT Before someone else gets caught up in this?"
The message sank in, and Birch fell into step. They got t. the car as Emergency Services arrived. Nello took the driver's seat and gunned the engine, pulling into a tight U-turn. He found his way down an alley and eventually located the Astradyne receiving station; he parked near the vehicle pool office.
His partner was still staring out the windshield. Neflo reached over and gently shook him. "I've got to check this ca7,.-
in. You need to get exit clearance for the steve."
Birch nodded. "Meet you there." Nello watched him go, wandering like a zombie between scrambling security personnel.
With all the confusion, it took fifteen minutes to get the. ICV checked in. Nello returned to the steve and found Birclh sorting something in the cockpit. "Andy?"
Birch's face was frightening. The shock was no longer there. Color had returned, and his eyes burned with hatred.
Nello looked down at his partner's lap. Birch had a box of
9-mrn shells and was methodically loading them into a line of
extra clips.
Birch pointed to the navigator's seat. In it was another box of shells, several ammo clips, and a dark blue box branded with the Smith & Wesson logo. "I checked out one for you, too," he said, ramming a clip into the pistol. "I suggest you throw your bolt away." "We're not going to need those," Nello said softly. "Not for a compromise." "Like hell we won't," Birch said coldly. "These bastards are playing for keeps. It's time we did, too."
14
The return trip to Toronto was a nightmare. Birch refused to go on vector. He kept his eyes out the window, hands on the control yoke, feet on the pedals. He
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held the speed at 398 kph, just below the steve's harmonic frequency. He did not stop for food or drink, and he overflew Pitt, where Nello thought they would stop to check in.
Birch checked the nav computer long enough to get the coordinates of the Pitt/Buffalo path and then killed it, weaving in and changing altitudes violently enough to make his partner ill.
Finally, on the Toronto approach, Nello could stand it no
more. He ate a chocolate bar without offering one to Birch and switched on the FM. He combed through the stations, conspicuously avoiding classical music, and stopped at a station broadcasting a bright popsong. He licked flecks of Canadian chocolate from his fingers and listened to the tinny piano and punchy percussion through the vehicle's speakers. "What's that?" Birch asked suspiciously. "NestlCs milk chocolate." He showed the wrapper as proof. "Not that. The radio."
Nello shrugged. "It's one of those mariachi people from the west." "It's garbage," Birch snarled. "It's not Madame Butterfly, but it's not bad." "No!" Birch looked at Nello, and the steve banked to the right. He turned back to the window and corrected. "Have you ever listened to that song, Nello? Do you know what it's about?" "I don't speak Mexican English." "Has anyone told you about it?" "Supposedly this guy wants this girl, and he's telling her all those bullshit things that men tell women about moving mountains and changing the color of the sky." "You're partly right, Nello. It is bullshit." "Lighten up. If it offends you, I'll change the station." He reached for the tuner, but Birch slaped his hand away. "That was only the first verse, partner. What about the others?"
Nello shrugged. A familiar voice rattled out of the speakers.
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"'I'll kill your family,"' Birch translated. "'I'll cut your mother's throat. I'll rape your sisters, too. I'll bum your house down, I'll skin your dog alive. I'll do all these things si no
tengo tu.'" "If I don't have you," Nello said thinly. "Isn't that great?" Birch said bitterly. "Isn't that a greal song to have on the radio, playing for kids to dance to?" "They don't know what it means," Nello said. "It's the neopunk influence. That's their way of-" "Of what, Nello? What are you going to tell me?" "Having fun." Nello cleared his throat. "Nothing's fun anymore. Who cares about consequences i it brings in money? Lucy was right about that."
Nello held his breath. "She tried to tell me about that when we were in Casper." His eyes filled with tears. "She tried to warn me about it. I thought I'd learned, but-" "But what?" Nello whispered. "Never mind. You wouldn't understand."
Reaching Toronto, they returned the Mercedes and mass-
transed to Stonebridge Heights. Their appearance was greeted with great joy by the Toronto operatives who had been sitting in for them. "We're glad you're here," said the one called Exidine, rising from his seat behind the computer terminal. "This couple is about to make us crazy."
Birch looked over the stacks of paper that had accumulated in his absence. "Anything interesting happen while we were gone?" ,,The good doctor beat his lady up before going to work
this morning." That was Rudolph, who was emerging from the kitchen, peeling the foil from the top of a beer bottle. "It's like I told my partner, if I wanted to see this kind of behavior, I'd watch channel 621. They've been replaying the career of
Muhammad Ali." "Myself," Exidine said, "I'd like five minutes alone in a
room with him."
"You might get your wish," Birch said. "We got a compro-
mise order on him while we were in Atlanta." "But you'll have to get in line behind Birch and me," Nello added.
Rudolph's head bobbed up and down. "Wouldn't you know, the sickies are the ones we always end up protecting." He took a long pull from the sweaty green bottle. "Pay the babysitters and send them home, Nello. We've got work to do."
Nello clapped Rudolph on the back and exchanged pleasantries until they had gathered their gear and were on their way out the door. Suddenly Exidine's face lit up. He stepped back around the curtain and looked at Birch. "There was one other thing that you might find interesting. You know that bay window you told us about, the one with the southern exposure?"
Birch nodded. "The old lady waited until hubby was out of the house, then she went in there and masturbated. At least we think that's what she was doing. Couldn't have been much of anything else." "The tape is in the file if you want to check for yourself," Rudolph said. "The Al went nuts trying to transcribe it. Of course, Exidine had to make a couple of copies of that for the next letdown party." "This is a top-priority case," Birch said in low tones, "and involves a compromised client. What do you suppose would happen if he got wind that a personal tape of his wife's sexual activity was making the rounds at company parties?"
Rudolph held his hands up. "Hey, I was joking." "Get out," Nello said. "Now." The door slammed. He brought one hand up and massaged the bridge of his nose. "It's time to end this one, Birch."
Birch stabbed a key on the computer, and the printer began to spew out paper. He struck at other keys until it stopped. "Agreed. Why don't you help me access the Lasersat?" "The sooner, the better," Nello replied.
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in a matter of hours they had gone through the descriptions and chose what they thought would be the most explicit photographs of Healow's infidelities. When the prints came througli the Lasersat, they were astonished at how the capsule descriptions had understated the graphic impact and quality of the shots. Birch praised Weller's prowess with the camera, sayim, that he was a true artist, the best photographer Astradyne ha@t. Each of the half dozen pictures had a studio look to it. Film had carefully been matched to lighting conditions, cameratic enhancement had not been overused, and Weller had carefully waited for the right moment in each shot, masterfully combining the physical event with a strong sense of what was happening in the minds of his subjects. As always, it was Nello
who was able to put it as succinctly as possible. "If a picture is worth a thousand words," he told his partner, "then these shots are worth a hundred thousand 0. word. "
They carefully decided on how they would handle theif client. The plan called for them to approach Healow while he walked to the train station, one on either side of him. They would take him to a car, put him in the back seat, and sit on
either side of him. Then they would lay photographs and copies of Jayleen Hackett's medical records in his lap and play the recording they had made of Jade's first beating. "And of course," Birch would say, "this is nothing com-
pared to what you did to her yesterday morning. We've preserved that little moment as well." He rehearsed the line until he could deliver it with such calm malevolence that it chilled even Nello. "if he doesn't knuckle under after listening to you," he said, "then he's got no heart." "I'm not trying to reach his heart," Birch answered. "I'm going right to his reptilian brain."
Late that night they reported in, saying that the compromise attempt would take place in six hours. Nello disappeared into the back bedroom. Birch moved a cot near the window in the dining room but never lay down. He wandered around the
apartment, listening to the Healows' breathing, urging them to dream on. Tomorrow morning their world would change.
He checked the refrigerator. Rudolph had left three beers. He drank them one by one, slowly so as to appreciate their taste, leaning against the wall, staring at the lights of Toronto.
Dawn came as the beer was well on its way to being purged from Birch's system. The company man found that he had dozed off in a surveillance chair. He got up and stretched, then started gathering his materials and organizing them into the pockets of his briefcase.
A shower did not do much for his appearance. He had not shaved since Lucy had died, and he preferred to think that the faint scratchings of a beard inade him look unbalanced and dangerous. That was exactly how he wanted to come across. Mercifully, being clean made him feel better, although he knew that the sensation would be short-lived.
Nello was up by 6 a and went through a routine of his own. By the time he was ready and conferring over last minute details with his partner, the Heaiows were having another of their silent breakfasts. "It's unnatural," Nello said, listening to the sounds of knife and fork on china plates. "It's about to come to an end."
Healow was out the door at 6:3 1. Nello tuned through the Stonebridge security camera frequencies and tracked him as he left, watching as the doctor started down the stairs.
As Healow passed their floor, Nello said, "if we take the elevator down, he should be walking out of the lobby by the time we get down there."
Birch grabbed his briefcase. "Let's do it, then." In the lobby, Healow was nowhere to be seen. They continued out the door, eyes darting for a glimpse of their quarry. He was fifty meters in front of thern, walking down the block at a brisk pace.
Birch and Nello moved quickly. The gap closed. Healow's pace slowed. Birch checked his watch. It was
6:54. Eleven minutes until the masstrans arrived, and he was
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going to be early. He was taking it easy now, slowing.
The company men kept their pace, and the distance tightened. Twenty-five meters.
Healow had slowed to a casual stroll now, enjoying the morning.
Birch's hand slid into the pocket of the cruise jacket and touched the cool metal of the 9-mm.
Fifteen meters. Healow stopped at the masstrans wait and stuck his hands in his pockets. He looked up at the sky, surveying the clouds of Canadian spring.
They were a block past where they had hidden the car.
Ten meters. Birch's hand came out of his pocket, and the other hand brought the briefcase up.
Down the street, tires squealed and a black van cut across two lanes of traffic and stopped in the intersection right by the wait.
Birch's throat tightened. "No," he whispered. The impulse to run sparked in his brain. It almost made it to his legs.
The back doors of the van flew open, and two figures leaned out. "Dr. Healow!" called one. "Oh, Dr. Healow!"
Healow pushed the glasses up his nose and turned toward the vehicle.
Birch's hand jammed into his coat pocket, seeking metal. "No!" The man who had called brought up a shotgun. It roared and spit flame, and the lower back of Healow's canvas coat
blew out with a gush of blood.
Birch yanked out his pistol and tried to aim. The others who were queued at the wait turned toward the noise.
Healow staggered back. The figure pumped the weapon and fired again, blowing another hole through his target, fight above the first.
The crowd was reacting with screams of panic and swarm-
ing away from the scene. Birch was trying to aim through them, trying to get a clean shot.
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"Duck! Duck!" There was one more blast, and Healow's upper back ex-
ploded. He hit the sidewalk 'in a wet collapse. Birch shouted at the van. His left hand braced the right, and he looked down the barrel of his weapon as the door closed. "Andy! No!"
He pulled the trigger. The bullet hit the assassin's abdomen, and he bent into the impact, the shotgun falling from his hands. The van pitched forward, and the assassin rolled headfirst out of the back of the vehicle, sprawling across the asphalt. Traffic screeched to a halt, and Birch squeezed off two more shots that sank into the van's frame.
The assassin staggered to his feet, bent double and stumbling toward the retreating van. Birch took a step toward Healow and was stopped by his partner. "What do you think you're doing?" Nello shouted. "We're in the middle of the damn street!"
Birch smiled at the figure trying to move past the traffic clogging around him. "He won't get far." He checked Healow's body. From neck to groin his chest was a mass of shredded canvas and blood. A soft gurgling came from inside the body cavity.
Nello knelt down. "He's gone, Andy." He pushed Healow's eyeglasses back into place. One lens was shattered. "What's that?" Birch's eyes had fallen on Healow's forehead. There were eight rows of umforrn pockmarks running down it, twenty across, about a half centimeter apart. He started to kneel, but there was a squeal of tires from the street. "Oh, son of a bitch!"
The wounded assassin had made it through the intersection and was stumbling down an open stretch of street toward the van, which had turned around and stopped. Its engine revvt--d, and someone leaned out the passenger window. "Come on! You can do it!"
Birch muscled through the crowd to the street and started in their direction.
The passenger door on the van opened, and a man leaned out, shouting encouragement and holding his arrn out to his
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wounded partner. The van screeched into gear and headed his way. "Come on... come on ... come on, damn you!"
Birch's legs were pumping, trying to close the distance. The assassin stretched a bloody hand to his partner. The partner ducked back in, the door slammed shut, and the van
swerved into the assassin's path, striking him from head to knee, picking him up and rolling him under the speeding ve-
hicle. It continued to race down the street, right past an openmouthed Andy Birch.
Nello came up from behind, panting. "Bad news, partner. We've got to get out of here. It wouldn't do for us to get caught at a crime scene." "They killed him," Birch said astonished. "They should have pulled him out. Who the hell are we dealing with?"
Nello tugged on Birch's arm. "I don't know, but it sure wasn't Seretex. Our dispute with them ended about two minutes ago."
Numb, he turned and, for the second time in recent days, departed moments before the sirens arrived.
15
By Birch and Nello's estimation, the surveillance should have ended there. With Trenton Healow dead, there was no
reason to continue monitoring Jade's activities. Nonetheless, an order came specifically stating that they were to wait ten days before disbanding the operation.
They continued, but they were not happy about it. They were unhappier about having to catalog the tapes of Jade's reaction to her husband's death. A Seretex arbitrator broke the news and wrote her a check for three million c.t.u's. She thanked him for his sympathy, then showed him the door.
Once they were gone, she was silent. There was no hint of grief or tears. All they could detect was motion from one part
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of the house to another. She never stayed in one room for more than five minutes at a time-until she ended up in the bay window. Birch recognized the sound of lotions being opened and poured, and he looked over at Nello. "Do we really need to have a record of this?" he asked.
Nello looked around the room, embarrassed. "You know what'll happen if these go to the archives now that Healow's dead. It'll get in the hands of people like Rudolph."
Birch switched off the recorder as Jade's breathing began to quicken. The transcription stopped dead, and Nello purged the last few minutes from memory. "I'll go erase that tape that the others made," Birch said. "I already did," Nello said sheepishly. "Thanks." Birch made a mental note to destroy the recording he had hidden.
Jade's session went on for two hours. After that, there was nothing. During the rest of the time they recorded her actions, she made no further trips to the private meadow. She stayed in the apartment and refused to answer the door, even when those on the other side identified themselves as bringing flowers.
She would not answer the telephone. Once, while Nello was out getting food, Birch had tried to call her and had let the line fing forty-one times. After a few days, she pulled the phone out of the wall. "That's it," Nello pronounced. "The war is over."
There were three days left when Seretex buried Trenton Healow. Jade finally left her apartment when friends arrived to take her to the funeral. Birch listened to the strained conversation at the door, drumming his fingers on the table-top. "Do you want to go?" Nello asked. "What? To the funeral?"
Nello nodded. "No way. I'd have to sit through a eulogy on how Healow was resting easy in Abraham's bosom. That would only piss me off."
Nello shrugged.
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"We might as well unplug some of this stuff and get it ready to ship out," Birch said.
Nello liked the idea. They hauled the boxes to the living room, spreading pieces across the floor while they got organized. "When this is over," Nello said, "we have to go to L.A. for Chinese. You owe me that." "I do?" "You certainly do. From the EdenCo run."
Birch thought about it for a moment. "Yeah, I suppose I do. What happened to Cincinnati?" "That was before you lost our steve in the gulf." "Okay." Birch laughed. "That should work out well. I
should go up to Portland once we're done in L.A." "Recreation?"
He shook his head. "Friend of the family." Methodically, he started to assemble one of the crates.
A grating sound came over the wire. Nello looked up from the parts he was sorting. "What the hell was that?"
The sound came again. They stopped what they were doing and went to the con-
sole, looking at the printout. The dogbrain had labeled the sound as "metallic, unidentified." "Play it back," Birch said.
Nello stopped the tape. Before he could rewind it, there was another sound, one they both knew. It was the low sound of servos protesting an opposing force. Somebody was
breaching the Healows' door. "Close it up," said a voice. "Close it up."
The servos groaned again as the door was pushed back into place. "Anyone home?" another voice called.
There was laughter. "Of course not," said a third. "She's at her old man's funeral. "
Then came the sounds of chaos. Things were yanked from
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walls and thrown out of drawers. The Al strained to categorize it all, mostly as "unidentified." "Burglars," Nello spit. "The sons of bitches." He reached for the telephone. "What are you doing?" "Shouldn't I call security?" "For once you're right," Birch said. "Make it anonymous."
Nello started to dial. "Find anything?" The Al told them that the speaker was
Unidentified Voice Number Three.
There was a plastic clatter. "I think this is them. It has to be," Number Two said. "File them," Number Three ordered.
Birch ran his finger up the printout until he found the location of the voices. They were coming from Healow's lab. "I'd like to report a burglary in progress," Nello said. "Stow it!" Birch hissed, waving frantically. "Stow it!"
Nello's face wrinkled, and he held out the handset. Birch yanked it away and slammed it into the cradle. "What's wrong?" "This is company business, Nello. Look at this." He showed him the printout of the conversation in the lab. "This is a cover for something else. Stuff has been tossed, but this third man didn't say anything about filing until he got to Healow's workroom. They're looking for something specific." "That's it," Voice Number One said. It was coming from the living room. "I think we've got what we needed." "Not quite," Number Three said. "There's the matter of the missus. By mission profile, it's to look like she walked in on a burglar." "Oh, no," Nello said.
Birch fell into a seat. "Not her, too." Birch started to tremble. "Why didn't I see it? Why didn't I see it, Nello?" He rose from the chair and looked helplessly at the event clock. "The funeral's over. She'll be here any minute."
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Nello reached over and pulled a power cord out of the wall. The sound went dead.
Birch shuddered. "Why did you do that?" he said, voice cracking. "Why did you do that, Nello? "
Nello looked up at Birch, shivering. "I can't listen, Andy. Not after what we've been through." He gestured at the video feed from Stonebridge security. Jade was walking in the lobby door. There were two people with her, and they had stopped to talk. "You bastard," Birch hissed. "You're going to turn your back on this?" "I can't help it," Nello replied. "We've got to. It's like you said, Andy, it's the war. There's going to be stuff we're not going to like, and we're going to have to close our eyes and do it for the company." "Fuck the company!" Birch shouted. He looked at the earnera; Jade had turned her escorts away and was walking toward the elevators. "How many people are going to be killed before it's officially over?" "Don't talk like that," Nello choked. "I've had it! Do you hear me, fat boy? Killing people like you and me is one thing, but people like Jade and Lucy. . ." He looked around the room helplessly, trying to catch his breath. "Somebody has to put their foot down."
Nello shook his head. "Fine." His voice was strangely calm. "I understand, Nello. All I ask is that you give me two minutes."
On the screen, Jade stepped into the elevator. Birch started for the door. "Stop," Nello said firmly. Birch turned to see the plasma bolt in Nello's hand. "You kept me from making the same mistake once. It's only right I do it for you." "I shouldn't have stopped you," Birch said. "That was the mistake. If I'd let you do that, maybe Lucy and Healow would be alive right now." "And maybe Astradyne would have gone down the tubes in
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twenty-four months," Nello said. "And you'd have ended up in Desertland with a Grade Four, shuttling drums of plutonium. Forget it, Andy."
Birch put his hand to his head. His legs started to buckle. "Andy?" Birch took a step toward the table, stumbling badly. "Andy!" Nello came out of his chair, and Birch jumped him. He drove his elbow into Nellos solar plexus and put his weight into him until they both fell to the floor. Rolling clear, he grabbed the plasma bolt from the carpet and shot Nello in the chest. His partner convulsed, then was still.
Birch jumped to his feet, scanning the room. He aimed the bolt at the rows of electronics, firing into the video monitor, the dogbrain housing, and the telephone. He threw Nello's bolt down, pulled his own from the ankle holster, and ran out the door.
He sprinted to the stairs and started up. By the time he reached the Healows' floor, he was winded. He caught his breath and stepped into the corridor.
The first thing he saw was a man in a business suit, waiting by the elevator. Of course, he thought. The advance guard. The man started to move backward, hand reaching beneath his coat. Birch snapped off a shot, and it cracked into his neck. The picket dropped to the floor.
Birch ran to the collapsed figure and pulled his hand from the coat. It came away clutching a double-barreled derringer. He opened it and checked the load. Two shotgun shells rested inside. He pocketed his bolt, then kicked the man in the temple, hard.
The elevator door opened, and Jade Healow stepped out. Birch froze. She was almost as tall as he, and the photographs had not done justice to the smooth texture of her skin and the darkness of her hair and eyes. He caught her scent as she slowed, something sharp and sweet that drove rivets into his skull.
And then she screamed. She stepped back fast, but the elevator door was already
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She screamed again. "Jade," he said plainly. "Get away from me," she said, voice quivering. Birch spread his arms wide and stood still. "Jade, I'm her-, to help you. This man was sent to kill you." He held the derringer with two fingers. "Others are waiting in your apariment. Let me take you to where it's safe."
She relaxed, but ihere was still uncertainty in her eyes. She held up her hands, palms out.
Birch took one step toward her. "I'm not coming any closer. You come to me." "Throw the gun down," she said quickly.
He let it drop. She took a step. "Why should I believe you?" "You have no reason to. But I dropped the gun, so you should hear me out."
She took another step his way. "That man wanted to kill me, is that correct?"
Birch nodded. "That man was my husband's colleague." The shock registered on his face. "What?" The palm of Jade's right hand shot straight for his face. The heel connected with his nose and compressed it with a sickening crunch. Birch's face felt as if it had caught fire. He staggered back from the impact, and a foot smashed his testicles. The air left his lungs, and he hit the floor.
Jade ran screaming for her apartment. "No!" he shouted. The words sounded flat and nasal in his ears. "Jade! No!"
He staggered to his feet and grabbed the derringer, limping down the hall after her. Jade was flying, all legs and arms as she ran. Damn, he thought, that woman can run. He looked over his shoulder and saw her high-heeled shoes lying by the elevator door. I'm tangling with a pro.
Birch pushed against the weakness in his legs and the pain across his face, closing the distance. Jade was at her door, fumbling in her purse for the key. "Wait," Birch croaked.
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The door slid partway open. Jade smiled in relief. "Alex! Thank heaven! There's a man-"
A large hand reached out and grabbed her by the throat. A squeak of panic slipped from her lips, and she dug her feet into the carpet, trying to resist the pull. She grunted and looked back at Birch.
Stumbling badly, he aimed the derringer. Jade leaned back. At four meters, he fired. F16chettes tore through muscle and nerve and stuck in the condo wall. There was a spurt of arterial brightness, and the hand released Jade, sending her reeling into the opposite wall. The door slammed shut.
Jade looked at Birch in alann. Blood had splattered her face, and there were wet stains across her black dress. "You-" Her eyes looked up at the door, "Oh!"
Birch turned. The door was opening again, and someone
was waiting on the other side. He raised the derringer and fired the bottom barrel. Tiny darts pulverized the man's face.
The door closed. Jade looked at Birch and put her hand to her mouth. It occurred to him then that he must be a bloody mess too, with what she had done to his face. "I had no idea. . ."
He took her hand and pulled her from the floor. "Come on.
There's one more person to deal with." "I am not going in there," she said emphatically. "He's coming to us."
Birch led her to the stairwell and opened the door. She looked at him nervously. "I still have trouble believing-" "You can trust me?" He tried to smile. It hurt. "If you can't trust your husband's colleagues, who can you trust?" She did not laugh. He steered her down two flights of stairs, then stopped. "What are we doing here?"
He laid a finger across her lips. "Quiet. Catch your breath. The third man is on the phone reporting failure. He'll be here in a minute." "He-" "Shhh." He pressed his finger into her soft lips.
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Their breathing quieted. Birch pocketed the derringer anki palmed the bolt. Jade's eyes brightened. "Is that one of those electric-" "Shhh."
Their echoes died down, and from above them came the squeak of an opening door. It was followed by quick footfalls, increasing in loudness.
Birch mouthed the words: "That's him." The footfalls became a clatter, and a man appeared at the top of the stairs. He saw Jade and Birch and tried to stop, but, his momentum carried him down one, two, three more steps.
Then Birch shot him. He convulsed and snapped back, th,@ bolt cracking as it transferred the charge. The man flopped against the steps and rolled down to the landing.
Jade looked at him, caught between horror and admiration, Birch squatted and removed the man's shoes and socks- "Here," he said, giving them to her. "Go out in the hall and put these on. If they're too big, pad the front with the socks."
She smiled weakly and slipped out. When the door closed, he raised the man's chin with the tip of his toe, leaned against the wall, and brought his foot down hard on his throat.
To his amazement, Jade was waiting outside the door. "How's the fit?" "Men's shoes," she complained. "They don't clash with your dress." She still didn't laugh. "Those men," she said, "were Seretex. " "Maybe they weren't. Keep your shoes on and we'll find out. "
"Why did they want to kill me?" "I can't answer that yet." He laid a hand on her arm. "Is there a back way out of this place?"
She stood still. "Who are you?" "I'll explain that on the way." "On the way to where?" "We're going to go sornewhere safe. A place where nobody can find us."
THE TIJUANA WHORE si no tengo W
Gray with moisture, the sky was churning. The trees were full and green with early spring. The river cut a path between the green and gray, and birds floated near the banks, putting their heads in the water and foraging for food. The air was
thick with humidity and white mist.
It was quiet but not silent. The birds in the water made ripples. Insects sang. The river stirred softly as it moved.
Above that came the sound of bare feet in the grass. They moved toward the flowing water and stopped near the muddy edge.
Jade Healow said, "It's beautiful." Birch stepped out of the ICV and opened a rear door. "I'm not surprised, judging from your apartment."
She looked at him. "How did you know about that?" "I read about it in Century One Architecture," he lied. That pleased her. "We got a lot of mail from that." She turned back to the river. "Have you ever been to the Mississippi before?" "Not this far north. I saw it at St. Louis once and was disappointed. It was so dirty and industrial. I paid no attention
after that." "It's relatively clean here. Wisconsin has tough environmental laws that are a holdover from before the breakup. You won't find a cleaner place unless you go into Canada."
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"The water is so quiet," she said. "At the ocean you can feel the power." "It's out there, too." Birch gathered the trash out of the vehicle's back seat-crumpled road maps, soiled napkins, and fast-food wrappers-and deposited them into a barre@ near the stone driveway.
Jade saw the scene as a picture. A cabin set under the trees in the misty green of summer. A blue ICV, dusty and battered from days on the road, sat in the driveway, engine ticking. A tired man was on the porch unlocking the front door. Above him was a wooden sign with letters burned into it. "Why 'Summer's Cauldron'?"
Birch shrugged. "This place has been in my family for a century and a half. It was called that when my grandfather brought me here, and he didn't know, either. All I can tell you is that some people used to name their properties."
Jade walked to the cabin, swinging her arms. "Sounds like a popsong. "
He laughed. The door to the cabin swung open and let out the musty scent of disuse. "What's wrong with you, Andrew Birch?" "I'm sorry. I didn't think you liked popsongs. Not with your love of opera."
She stopped. "How do you know so much about me? You said you would explain when we got here. Well, here we are." "Keep your shoes on," he said, studying her. She was dressed in clothes they had bought on the road: a pair of Levi
2000's, a T-shirt, and a blue flannel workshirt with the sleeves rolled up past her elbows. He realized that he had dressed her like his best memories of Lucy. "Why do you keep saying that?" Jade asked, stepping onto the porch. "Where are your shoes?" he asked. "The men's shoes." "In the trunk." She shrugged. "With my dress."
He held out the keys to the ICV. "Would you get them for me please?"
iade looked confused but started toward the car. "You continually change the subject," she complained.
"But I am on the subject. The oracle will reveal all soon." "You are a curious person, Andrew." She opened the trunk
and retrieved the clothes. She returned to the cabin and found Birch at a large desk covered with a drop cloth.
He threw the cloth back, sending dust into the air. "Behold, the oracle.7 It was a small computer terminal and mainframe. "I never thought you a collector of antiques," Jade said. "Sometimes antiques work better than newer equipment. Als might be able to run circles around this machine, but when coupled with the satellite dish in the backyard, this be-
comes a very important tool."
She looked at him, face blank. "My grandfather put this in before the breakup," he ex-
plained, "to keep track of his checking account, utility bills, and grocery lists. He also put in that satellite dish, much to
Grandma Birch's chagrin. I was happy to have this equipment pass into my hands." He patted the display screen affectionately. "This equipment does not have a signature."
Jade's face showed that she was beyond understanding the signficance of the fact. "All'computers and Als now have harmonic processors. When they're in dialogue with another computer, they make a
frequency of a million different parts, which gives that com-
puter a unique signature." "Like a retina print," Jade said. "Exactly. Corporate mainframes keep data banks full of signatures which are denied access to their DataNets. The Als learn which computers are taking them for information and blackball them.
-"When I go on-line with this, I have no signature. Since the host mainframe can't find it listed, it gives me free run of
the system." "Nice," she said. "That's as far as my knowledge goes. You could probably tell me more about Als than I want to know."
Jade looked at him, eyes cold. "My husband did not talk
about his work."
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"I'm sorry," Birch said. He cursed himself for saying that, He knew that from the surveillance. He was trying too h@,,rd not to reveal his true identity. "So what is the importance of this pair of shoes?" "I'll show you in a minute." He reached to the back of C mainframe and opened the power switch. Nothing happeinxi. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the empty screen. "Go figure," he said.
Jade idly flipped a light switch. "Nothing else works, Andrew." "Of course!" Birch jumped up from his chair and disappeared to another part of the house. "Circuit breakers. I forgot." Momentarily, the overhead lights came on and the mainframe started to hum.
When he did not come right back, Jade wandered through the cabin, noting its layout. Through the kitchen window she saw Birch untying rope and pulling the tarpaulin off a receiving dish three meters across. "Antiques," she said as Birch marched back through to the computer. "You laugh now. Watch." He started to type. From behind the cabin, Jade could hear rotors and saw the edge of the eart@., station move. ,, I always wanted to show this to Nello," he said. "He was more up on computers than I was. He would have loved this." "Who is Nello?" "My-" He was about to say "partner." "My friend." "He is your friend and you never showed him this place?" "I didn't want-" I didn't want anyone to know about this place for the very reason I'm sitting here now. Nello's probably in Pitt, trying to figure out where we are. "I didn't want to force him. He's very urban oriented." "You," she said, "are a damned liar. And not a good damned liar at all." "Give me a chance," he said. "I haven't known you that long." The mainframe beeped, and Birch locked the dish into place. He changed modes and sent a signal up the wire. Let-
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ters appeared on the screen in response.
UNICOM 11 INFOSAT BRIDGING... ACKNOWLEDGED. ACCESS GRANTED; SERETEX DATANET GATEWAY. "You, she said, "are a pirate," "What's wrong with being a pirate?" ENTER CODEX FOR ENTRANCE. "Give me the shoes," he asked. Jade handed them over. "Do you have a fetish?" Birch slarnmed a shoe against the edge of the desk until the heel popped off. He pulled a bone handle from this pocket, flicked out the blade, and began to peel around the heel's edge. When he had exposed the seam between the two layers, he worked the blade in and split them. "What are you looking for?" "Nothing. It's not here." He knocked the heel from the other shoe and repeated the procedure, gently scraping the surface of each half. A small flap of rubber pulled against the blade to reveal a cloth-lined compartment. Inside was a silicon chip. "Another surprise," Jade said.
Birch took the chip and plugged it into a plate resting above the mainframe.
DATANET ACCESS GRANTED.
GUNDERSON, GLENN A. ENFORCEMENT BUREAU/LEVEL &GRADE 2.
BASE/SERETEX TORONTO. STATUS/CLASSIFIED. "Now you have a real problem," Birch said. "Those people in your apartment were Seretex." "I told you they were." "But they could have been infiltrators. They were really with Seretex. Why do you suppose they wanted to kill you?"
Jade stared into his eyes. "Which company are you with?" Birch started to answer with another lie, but the mainframe beeped. The words on the screen had changed.
SECURITY BREACH.
GUNDERSON, GLENN A IS STATUS/DECEASED.
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LOCK AND IDENTI17Y SIGNATURE. Birch turned off the computer. "What did you do that for? I thought you had no signature. "
"I don't," he answered, "but I don't want them getting suspicious. The question remains: Why does your husband's company want you dead?"
Jade knelt beside the chair and ran a hand through Birch's hair. It was dirty and tangled, and he was sprouting the thin beginnings of a beard. His nose was swollen and bruised, and there were dark circles under his eyes. "Now that we are somewhere safe, you should lie down and take a rest. You need to catch up on your sleep." ,,I slept at the motel." "Liar. You sat in a chair and stared out the window all night. Go get cleaned up, let me fix you some decent food."
He shook his head and moved away from her. "I don't need that, either." "But you need to eat." "I know." He went to the picture window and leaned against the wall, opening the blinds. His mind raced, and he stared out at the calm Mississippi, hoping it would bring peace.
Where was this all going to end? It was like some dark nightmare he had been thrust into the middle of. Lime dead, Vargas dead, Healow dead. And Lucy, who had given him some purpose, dead. Birch could feel himself changing, and he was not sure that he liked what he was becoming. "I'm not a killer," he told Jade. "I never said you were." She removed the drop cloth from an overstuffed chair and seated herself. "But I killed those men." He shuddered as the memory faded in: his toe sinking into the man's skull, the fldchettes severing the arm and erasing the face, the snapping of bone and cartilage under his heel. "I killed them hard, Jade. I was like an animal." ,,You saved me." she replied. "That has to be worth something."
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"If I'd let them kill you," Birch said, "then all of this might be over." "Do you believe that? Could you have let them do it?" "Those were my orders."
Jade slid out of the chair and came up behind him. She turned Birch to face her and studied his eyes. "I see someone who is confused," she said. "I see someone who has suffered a great loss. I see someone looking for answers." She took his hand and led him to the couch. "Talk to me, Andrew."
He pulled the cover off and sat down. Jade glided down next to him. "Let me ask you a question first. How do you feel about your husband's death?"
She looked off in the distance. "So many questions, Andrew. " "It's part of my job," he said softly. "And what was your job. I know you are a company man, but who are you with? How do you know so much about me?" "I'm a company man, yes," he said. "But it's not like you've heard. We're not all hired guns and maniacs with gelignite detonators. My job was to run a surveillance on you and your husband. My company thought he could be compromised over to our side."
He watched her carefully. She swallowed and continued to look out the window. "So you know all about. . "Your domestic situation," he said diplomatically. "Then why do you ask me how I feel now that my husband is dead?"
He looked at her, breath catching in his throat. "Because I have the feeling that you were a prisoner."
Jade looked solemn, then her lips curled up in a smile. "I was not a prisoner, Andrew. I was a commodity. I was very valuable to Seretex." "Don't tell me that you're an insider."
She laughed. "Nothing like that." She settled back on the couch, and her eyes found the window. "If your job was
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watching people, then you have been inside our apartment, correct? , "Correct. "Then you saw the photographs on the walls." "Yes.,, "You recognized them? Perhaps you recognized me?" "No."
This made her smile more. "Then I have admiration for you, Andrew. You don't follow the skin trade." "I'm not that kind of voyeur." "If you were, then you would have recognized me. I did all right in Brazil, but that was modeling clothing, swim wear. Then I was discovered in North America, where the men ate mad for exotic ethnotypes. Then I did very, very well here by not modeling clothes." "Those pictures on the walls weren't taken by your husband, then." "Very correct. When it came to camera operations, Trenton was a and of thumbs. Early in what you could call our relationship, he tried taking pictures of me. They were terrible. Fuzzy, out of balance, badly composed ... and unmotivated." "I understand. How did the two of you meet?" "Trenton requested me." She turned to him and propped her legs up on the couch. "He was a real voyeur, you see. He spent a lot of money collecting magazmes, and he spent a lot of time holding my picture with one hand."
Birch laughed. "Are you embarrassed?" "No. Go on." "I was doing model work here, and Trenton. accumulated pictures. He buys multiple copies of magazines and has me pinned up everywhere. Soon his bosses notice that his work is not progressing. They want the thinking, learning computer so they can rule the world, but all their big brain wants is these photographs. They did the only thing they could, then. They bought me." "Literally?"
She smiled again. Birch was surprised how Healow could
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fall for the body but not the face. "Not quite. I came very expensive to them, Andrew. At the time I had an exclusive Contract with a magazine called Notorious. I was happy with them, they with me. Seretex, offered to buy my contract, and we refused. They offered big money, but we said no. Offers got bigger. I did not want to live in Toronto. They offered to buy Notorious from the parent company. They refused to sell their top money-maker. In the end, they bought the parent company. They reorganized it and folded Notorious, which effectively terminated my contract."
Birch was stunned but not surprised. Seretex felt confident enough in Healow's work to organize a preemptive strike against Astradyne, which in itself had to have cost. For them to buy out a publisher to keep their chief designer happy was a
sign that they were desperate to have Healow get on with his work. "Isn't Notorious still around?" "Of course," Jade said. "Seretex. only held on to the pubfisher long enough to get me. A few months later, they sold everything back to the original owners at great loss. "I resisted them for a while. I moved around, but they always found me. Dirty little Seretex quislings were bringing flowers and candy and drugs and toting these revolting marriage proposals from their horny doctor. I tried to work for other magazines, but after Notorious, nobody would touch me. "I went home to Brazil, but that was worse. Word had gotten out; I was poison. And there was Seretex, waiting, sending things to my place, twice a week." "So you gave in." "Not without a fight, Andrew. I used up my savings. I sold off expensive things I was given by other men who wanted to marry me. I even tried to marry someone else." Her eyes grew dim. "We never made it to the altar." "Trenton wanted a virgin." "Of course he did. But you can probably guess that in my line of work, that was one of the things I had long since shed." "It comes with the territory," he said.
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"When I had used everything up, I gave in. But I fought them, let that be known. Even after I went to Toronto with Trenton, I made sure I was the pain in the ass to them. It was no accident that our apartment looked like that. The Century One article said that Trenton built it for me out of love, because he knew I liked the outdoors." She laughed. "The truth is, I made him do it. His architecture, his choice of furnishings, they were bad. Very bad taste. I demanded the design because I knew it would cost them. For them to put in the support system for that place, they had to buy the apartment below us, reinforce it, and put in a drainage system. We were ,after all, watering the carpet. They moved us for six months while the work was done, and I refused to stay anywhere but a suite at the Hilton. ',I gave in to them, and I married their faggot doctor. I put up with his insults and his buggery and his lack of faith to me, and Seretex paid for it. I decided that if I was going to be their whore, then I would be well paid. ,,You asked me how I felt about Trenton's death, Andrew. I felt relief. I was free from him, yet I worried about where to go and what to do. Seretex gave me three million c.t.u.'s. That more that made up for what I had spent fighting them, but there were other things lost. My career. My old friends. Well-being. That bastard Trenton gave me chlamydia, which left me sterile. For that, three million was not enough." ,,And now they're trying to kill you." "Maybe they want to save their three million. They spent so much on keeping Trenton happy that they have to be frugal now.
Birch stood and stretched. "I wish it were that simple. If it was, then A we'd have to do is leak the story to a sensationalist tabloid and it would be all over the world in a matter of hours. Unfortunately, three million is a pittance compared to what's at stake with the new Al design. There's got to be another reason. Whatever it is, it'll keep until morning." "Andrew." Jade reached up and took one of his hands. "You promised me something."
Birch held his breath. The last few days had been a blur of
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high-speed driving, fast food, and amphetamines. He had suffered moments of almost uncontrollable rage and had fought hard not to direct it at Jade. Indeed, when he returned to the Astradyne condo to pack a satchel and his 9-mm, it was all he could do to keep from emptying a clip into his partner's unconscious form. Somewhere in that haze, had he said some-
thing that he was about to regret?
Jade locked eyes with him. "You knew about me before, and now you know everything. I know nothing about you except that you did not deserve to have your nose broken." "All right." He smiled. She was hard to resist. "What do you want to know?" "What are you running from, Andrew?"
He told her the story of his life, starting with Lucy.
2
Early the next morning, Birch tapped into the Astradyne DataNet and searched for information on Nello and Lucy. He could not find anything on his partner, which was a good sign. That meant Nello had probably returned to Pitt with a hangover from being shot, turned in a jobend report, and been reassigned.
Lucy was another matter. When the time came for him to search the index for her name, he closed his eyes and sat before the terminal, unsure of what to do. His heart was banging wildly in his chest, telling him what he already knew. The key to Lucy's mortality hinged on his next action. If he were to shut down and leave the net now, she would eventually return to him. Should he pursue the matter, he would surely find her obituary, effectively bringing about her end.
He gave the system an order and left the index. The screen flickered, and he found himself at the exit, a keystroke from being off-line. There was a moment of hesitation, and he stabbed the keys, bringing him to DEATHS.
I have to know.
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Birch scrolled into the H's and stopped. The need to know left him, and his eyes fell down the screen. They caught on a terse item at midscreen.
HARPER, LUCELLEN, 23. NEW EMPLOYEE TO ASTRADYNE (Q.V. NEW EMPLOYEES). MERCHANDISE AND EQUIPMENT COMP_ TROLLER. KILLED L.O.D. IN EXPLOSION AT ATLANTA FACELITY (Q.V. RELATED STORY ON SAME). AT THIS INFORMATION WAD, ARBITRATORS ARE STILL TRYING TO LOCATE NEXT OF KIN.
He choked. The guilt he had carried for so long surfaced, and at last he cried for Lucy. With the tears came a fundamental truth: He had not killed her when his eyes fell on the obituary notice, nor had he killed her by accepting Nello's offer to take her to work. He realized that Lucy Harper had been dead from the moment he had laid eyes on her at the Downtowner Caf6.
Eventually he read the obit, noting the last line: "Arbitrators are still trying to locate next of kin." Since her death was considered as being in the line of duty, there would be money involved.
He thought about Gavin. Surely the boy could contact Astradyne Portland and work out a deal with them. The problem was that Lucy had not listed Gavin as surviving next of kin. The reason was obvious. A Seretex infiltrator on an Astradyne line might find his name in the data file and load it as a matter of routine. When the program matched that name with one of their deceased employees, Gavin would be flagged for investigation. At a time of company war, that would not be the best thing to have happen.
So Lucy's life had ended, leaving behind an uncollected legacy. Her only other accomplishment was that she had given Birch something to trust and respect other than a company logo. "At the machine again? Andrew Birch!"
He swiveled in his chair. Jade, wrapped in one of his old bathrobes, was emerging from the kitchen.
"Unless you have been working all night. I hope that is not
the case."
He shook his head. "I went to bed like I promised." "At what time, Andrew? You promised you would turn in early."
Birch entered a command, and the screen went blank. "Give me a break. At least I slept." "What is it that keeps you at the screen?" He stuffed his hands in his pockets. "I've been going in through different company information banks trying to get different accounts of this war. I thought I might find why your former owners are trying to kill you."
She cocked her head. "And you, Andrew. Are you not trying to kill me as well?"
He was not sure what kind of look he gave her, but it was certainly a product of exhaustion and exasperation. Understanding registered on her face immediately, and he could tell that she regretted making the statement. "I am teasing you, of course. Come." She took his elbow and steered him into the kitchen, opening the refrigerator, the pantry door, and two cupboards.    "We have half a tin of oatmeal mix and three cans of soup. We also have tap water and two bottles of beer. What would you like me to make breakfast with?"
Birch raised his hands. "All right," he said, "you've got me. You can't expect me to think of everything."
Jade patted his cheek. For a moment Birch felt patronized, and his anger started to rise. He could see himself slapping Jade, kicking her to the ground. "Nobody is perfect," she said. "You got me this far. I should contribute to the cause."
His flesh started to crawl from the violence he had wished on her. "Are you finished working at your machine?"
He shook his head sheepishly. He was not sure where to turn or what to do next. Certainly there must be something he could do to put things into perspective.
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"That's fine. You work. I will be responsible for the food." Birch pulled a roll of bills from his pocket and handed them to her. "This should get you started."
She slung her purse over one shoulder and shook her head. "I need to contribute, too. You rented the car and paid for the fuel and motel. Hiding from your company as well as mine means your next paycheck may be a while in coming."
He dug the keys out of his pocket. "You drive, I hope." "No one lives in Rio without an ICV." He tossed the keys. Jade grabbed them out of the air. "Go out to State Route 93. Whichever town strikes your fancy should have what you're looking for." "You trust me, Andrew?"
Birch scratched his thin beard. "You trusted me." Jade studied him. "Do me a favor," he said. "if you're going to run out or defect, keep me out of it. I've got problems enough without becoming known as a rescuer of oppressed women." "Back soon," she promised. "Is there anything you want special?" "Chocolate," he said. "Hershey's chocolate." "What else?" "Surprise me.
Jade walked out the cabin door. After a moment, the engine on the ICV fired, and Birch could hear it pull out of the drive.
Then it was quiet. Birch walked to the door and looked out at the river. The sky was still cloudy and the air damp. He thought he could feel the chill of approaching rain. From across the water, he could hear the sounds of a passing barge, concealed from view by the green island that divided the river.
He felt violent apprehension on realizing that Jade had left alone. If she was going to betray him, then so be it. If he was sold, then the war would be over for him one way or another. That would be just as well. There had been too much bloodshed in his recent life, and he had participated in more than his share.
Birch closed the door and went back to the console. Odds were that Jade would return with an armload of groceries and wait patiently for whatever decision he needed to make. A]most maddeningly, she perceived him as a person who would do her no injustice. "You're getting soft," he told himself aloud. There was a
time when he would have left her to Seretex or snapped her spine in retaliation for the kick in the groin. He could almost taste the sweetness of that revenge, the soft skin of her neck under the tightening grip of his fingers ... "No!"
Birch shivered and tried to purge the impulse from his mind. He suddenly felt cold and saw that his arms were thick with gooseflesh. What the hell is wrong with me? He picked up a blanket and wrapped it around his shoulders. Taking long, slow breaths, he tried to understand.
It was useless. He could not explain his own thoughts. There was too much interference, too much noise. Too many other questions were weighing on his mind.
In desperation, he sought out the only thing that might help him understand violence. He unzipped the satchel and pulled out a plastic cartridge. "Unnatural Video presents: The Chandelier."
He carried it to the living room and pulled the sheet from a
rack that took up a good portion of one wall. He tripped a
switch, and electronic equipment lit up, lights flickering, waiting for his orders. While it warmed up, he pulled covers
from the large speakers that sat in each comer of the room.
The system was ready. Birch slid the cassette into the player, routed its signal through the processors, then sat on the couch with the remote control. "Well, here goes nothing."
He aimed the remote at the rack, finger frozen above the PLAY switch.
Come on, he urged himself. Let's do it@ Birch hesitated, still not certain if he wanted to put himself through the experience again.
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You're not going to turn into a monster. Now that you know Jade, you might even figure out Healow-not that it still matters.
His finger hit the switch. The vid machine hummed, and the title appeared in the center of his holoset screen. The first thing he noted about the tape was that it had no encoding for the tri-D process.
The Arvis Stapledon credit appeared next, then faded to black. Fade in to the shot of the chandelier.
Boston. 1772. With that came a loud hum that startled Birch and sent him flying toward the rack to cut the power to the speakers. He checked them to see if any damage had been done. Everythigg looked intact. Mouth dry and trembling, he eased the volume back up.
He could not get it very high. The low hum throbbcd through the speakers, oscillating between two set tones. "What the hell?"
Birch brought the sound up as loud as he could stand it. Indicators on the amplifier showed that the speakers were in danger of blowing. He turned toward the nearest speaker and closed his eyes, trying to pick up a trace of the production's unremarkable dialogue. All he could hear was the throb.
Then there was nothing. The amplifier flashed the word sAFETY, indicating that it had cut the power to spare the speakers. He turned the volume off, and the amp reset.
He tried the tape again at lower volume, kneeling before the speaker, trying to hear a trace of the minuteman's illwritten speech to his wife about patriotism.
Nothing at all. Birch cut the volume again, then reached up and broughi up the sound from the holoset's small speaker. "But on this eve, I must resist your affections, for as we speak, the destinities of two great continents are about to collide. . ."
The sound was as he had heard it on the portable set in the apartment.
He tried the amplifier again. The thrum continued. Quickly, he popped The Chandelier out of the vid player and inserted a tape of his own. A pretty black woman in a faded C()tton dress appeared on the screen, and lush music rolled from the speakers. She was singing about summertime.
Birch tried another tape. Rimsky-Korsakov filled the room
with Scheherazade's tale of Sinbad's ship. A third tape re-
sulted in a monophonic signal that came from all four speakers. "Dear Wheeler," said Orson Welles. "You provide the prose poems, and I'll supply the war."
The Chandelier produced nothing but noise. He cut the sound to the speakers and listened to the holoset. The minuteman's wife cried out in ecstasy as she was
serviced by the local blacksmith.
Birch pulled the tape from the machine and examined the brown film that carried the magnetic signal. It did not look damaged. Still, something was wrong. Even such a cheap tape would have something on the hi-fi audio track, even if it was a monophonic version of the vid's original sound. Of course, the kind of people who bought Black Porn might not worry about sound quality.
The penny dropped. Suddenly he knew why Healow had kept the tapes in his workshop. And he knew what the Seretex assassins had been after in his workshop and why the tapes were kept there instead of near the vid set in the living room.
He listened to the sound again at the highest volume he could. There were two distinct bass frequencies a half step apart, alternating at seemingly random intervals or briefly stopping altogether.
Two notes. Two positions. On and off. And if the gaps between notes were intended as breaks in the recording, that could mean only one thing. "Binary code," Birch said, trembling. "You clever bastard. You hid your notes where nobody in their right mind would want to look for them."
He paced circles around the living room and ran his hands through his hair, trying to sort out his confused tangle of
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thoughts. The code was right there, playing for him to hear, If he could decipher it, he might find information to ensure the survival of both himself and Jade.
He looked at the screen. The blacksmith and the lady had changed positions and were still going at it. The bass tones vibrated out of the speakers, strangely out of sync with the visuals.
He knew how to break the code. Cutting the power to the equipment, he went to the utility room and hauled out his toolbox. He returned to the rack and removed the vid player with a Phillips head screwdriver.   -nal
Reaching behind to disconnect the power line and si, cables, he pulled it away from the other components and brought it to the computer desk.
After studying the backs of the player and the mainframe, Birch determined that the binary code could be run into the mainframe through the CD/ROM input. With a knife and a set of wire cutters, he rewired a cable to suit the task.
In the space of a few minutes he had turned his desk into a maze of wires, shredded bits of plastic, and copper shavings. The computer manuals had been tossed on the floor, and tools were precariously balanced in odd comers.
It was time to begin. Birch cautiously started the mainframe. When it was running with no problem, he pulled the keyboard into hislap and set the machine to receive information from the input. The computer indicated READY. He turned on the vid player.
Nothing happened. Birch clenched his teeth and grabbed the keyboard, ready to fling it across the room. Then it happened.
1101101011111010110101101101011111
010101101000110111110ililoooololoo
0000000100000001010110001000011010
0100001100101110111010110011111011
0101011110011100110010011001001101
0001110010011011000110001110011000
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0000000000000111110101011001101011
0011011000011011001100100100100111 iiiiiooiooiiooolooiio0101010111111 iiiooiiiioioiioooilii1010011111101
The code started to scroll up the screen at a steady pace. Birch cried out. When he recovered, he fed the code to the text translator and came away with a screen full of gibberish that included Greek letters and machine symbols. Conversion into numbers came next but the results were similarly random. Birch put the signal through other inboard systems as quickly as he could, and each time the results were frustrating. It was
random, disjointed information that had no real rhyme or reason.
As a last resort, Birch put the code through the graphics processor. The mainframe disgested it, and an image appeared on the screen. It was hazy and shifted from one set of flickering objects to another.
At first he thought he was getting feedback from the video. To check that, he strung wires across the room to the holoset, and inputted the video signal.
The Benjamin Franklin sequence appeared on the holoset. It was nothing at all like what was on the monitor. What he was seeing there was different. It was flowing and abstract.
Birch tried for an hour to enhance the signal, but to no
avail. He rewound the tape and started over, but that only made things worse. Sitting helplessly in his chair, he watched the strange images taunt him.
The novelty faded, and the desperation cleared from his head. He rose from the tangle of wire and cable and powered down. Again he walked to the door and stared at the river.
When he started to think that Jade had abandoned him, she returned. He helped carry the groceries into the house, letting her organize the kitchen.
Over dinner Birch found that questioning Jade about her late husband's work was useless. Healow had allowed her to have friends and had accompanied her to the opera, but for all
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intents and purposes he had kept her like a pet. She had been given the run of Toronto, yet she was not allowed to leave it. She shared her home and her bed with the doctor, yet he never spoke to her about his friends or his work.
In short, Jade knew nothing about what had gone on in Healow's home laboratory and had no idea what was coded on the hi-fi track of The Chandelier. "I admire him," Jade said, biting a nail. "As you said, it was a clever thing to do, a good place to hide his information. I tried never to go in his lab at home. That was his place. He never offered to tell me what was going on, and I never felt enough for him to ask." "So you don't know what kind of software he had," Birch said. "No idea of what kind of encoding programs or processors he may have kept?" "If it had to do with his work," Jade told him, "then I had no business knowing about it. He made that clear to me."
Birch carried his plate to the sink. "I've got to crack it. I've got to read what's on there." "I wish I was of more help," Andrew." "Nonsense. You're doing fine." He walked out of the kitchen and sat at the console. Reaching under the bottom of the desk, he produced a loose-leaf binder filled with plastic pockets that held disks. He looked carefully at the names and functions of the software, hoping to find something to put the information through.
There was nothing that could possibly help. He ran the tape through again, watching the zeros and ones as they shifted positions. He tried to imagine the connections between the numbers and the images the monitor had given him earlier.
What had Healow been up to? "Andrew." He turned at Jade's call. "The dishes are.drying," she said. "I want to take a walk in your Wisconsin woods." "Don't go too far," he advised.
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"How will I know if I've done that?" "If you come to the LaCrosse city limits, you're too far south. "
Jade disappeared out the back door. Birch sat in silence, watching the monitor. Damn you, he thought. The code was not influenced. Damn you for what you did to her. Number strings paraded up the screen.
Damn you for what you've done to me, to Lucy, the cornpany-
The screen went blank. The vid player went into rewind. He felt cold again. He picked the blanket off the floor and wrapped up. His eyes stared at the empty screen.
C'mon Healow. Talk to me. I'm on to some of your disgusting little secrets. Can't you give me one more?
Birch's eyes closed. He opened them quickly. The screen
was still blank.
One more little bit, Healow. That's all. The player stopped rewinding, then started playing again. The Unnatural Video logo flashed on the holoset screen, and the monitor waited patiently.
Birch's eyes grew heavy. Numbers marched up the monitor screen.
How did you do it? How did you load the code, Healow? His eyes closed. As the holoscreen and the monitor had been moments before, Andy Birch's mind went blank.
It was quiet, and he slid. The tape rolled; the numbers flickered. The river flowed, and Jade walked in the woods. Birch missed it all.
He slept. There was nothing there, no defiant shadows or disjointed voices to torment him, nothing but pure, blissful emptiness. He stayed there, hidden from it all, until the collision.
Andrew Birch, age ten, at the Philadelphia railhead for the very first time. There with Mom and Dad to catch the line
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back to Chicago, waiting with the others, watching the rail from afar as it approached the station.
Half a kilometer from the station, something happened. The coupling collar that held the machine to the rail disengaged, and the engine came off it with a shower of sparks. The safety was gone then, the turbines raced wildly, and the engine dragged its line of cars with it, hitting the ancient brick wall of the Philly station with a loud-
click. Birch sat up straight in his chair, sweat running from his face. The player switched to rewind.
He stretched, and Jade's meal shifted in his stomach. Coming out of sleep that fast had nauseated him. He wiped sweat on the blanket and tossed it on the couch.
Jade was nowhere to be seen. Birch rubbed his eyes, trying to become reoriented.
The woods, he remembered. She had gone for a walk right as he had sat down, right as The Chandelier had started.
Birch suddenly turned to the living room. The Chandelier's running time was ten minutes shy of two hours.
Jade had been gone two hours. Birch felt as if his heart were stopping. He ran to the back door and listened. Nothing came to him through the thick, humid air. Even the insects and birds seemed quiet. It was the eerie silence of lying awake on a workday morning, listening as the ti king of the alarm clock abruptly stopped. "Jade."
He grabbed his satchel and fished out the Seretex derringer. Checking to make sure the weapon was loaded, he filled his pocket with extra fl6chette shells and quietly walked out the door.
Surveying the area, he walked at an angle from the house to the river, trying to move quickly yet quietly. When he reached the slow water of the Mississippi, he started north, moving parallel to the marshy banks.
Birch kept the barrel of the derringer moving, covering himself with a 120-degree arc. With the river to his left, afl he
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needed to worry about was what was ahead and to the right.
After a kilometer, he no longer worried about what was ahead. He stopped ten meters from a large houseboat that was
secured to a wooden dock. The dock ran back from the river toward another cabin.
He looked across the yard and determined that the place was in its typical state of midweek abandonment. Birch moved up along the property line, then went into the woods toward his place. Moving slowly through the undergrowth, he fought the urge to swat at biting insects and kept his ears
pricked for sounds of motion. One foot moved ahead-of the other, and he advanced, searching.
A branch cracked under his foot, and he froze. The eerie silence was back.
Then, from off to his left, he heard a cry. Adrenaline dumped, and his legs moved ahead. He tried to make a slow approach, but another cry came, this time with the sound of thrashing against the forest floor. He was off like a shot, plowing through trees and low branches, trying to track the sounds of struggle above his own noises of movement.
Ahead was a meadow. Birch could see the shadows moving beyond the last line of trees and could hear the crackle of weight on dead leaves. He tried to stop, but it was too late. He was moving too fast, and there was too much organic heroism in his veins to remain calm. With a shout, he broke through the trees, dived, and hit the carpet of grass in a roll. He came
up in a kneeling position, both hands aiming the derringer. "Andrew!"
Breath was leaving his lungs in short bursts, and his mouth was dry with panic. Dirt and sweat tried to close his eyes, but he kept the bead on his target until he had worked through the confusion. "You scared me to death." Jade slowly rose to her knees, hand seeking a garment to cover herself. "Is something wrong?"
Birch looked around the meadow. It was bright and green
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and sunlit. He let the barrel of his weapon fall, and his left hand came up to wipe his forehead. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to interrupt."
Jade did not move. "Really," Birch said. He uncocked the derringer and sat back on his haunches, trying to catch his breath. "I thought you were in trouble."
She gathered her clothes. Her eyes never left Birch's face. He apologized again, realizing that he had been staring at her. "I'll close my eyes," he said. "Better yet, I'll go back to the house. You follow when you're ready." He got to his feet and turned away. "And then what?"
He turned back and read the fear in her eyes. "What do you mean?" He took a step forward. She crouched defensively. "What will you do with me once I come back?"
Birch realized that the derringer was still in his hand. He stuck it in one of his hip pockets. "Nothing," he said. "Why should I? Look, I'm son-y if I embarrassed you-" "Will you want to straighten me out?" "Straighten you out? Why should I-" "When I come back, do you intend to teach me what a woman should crave? Are you going to ... to . . ." Jade sputtered, waving her arms, to get the words out.
Birch shook his head. "No," he said softly. "Whatever you do is your business. The only thing I'm going to do is make sure you stay alive." "Trenton told me that only the males can masturbate," Jade said. "They had to, it was biological. He said that women were not to have anything to do with themselves, that they were made for men, and if American men knew what I did, I would never get my career back." She was choking on the words, fighting to keep her train of thought in English. "That's not true," Birch said. "You know what kind of person Trenton Healow was. He was lying." "He forced me," she said. "He said he was ashamed of me. He told his friends."
He moved toward her. "He was a liar. You did what you
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had to do in order to survive. Don't you see that? Look around, Jade. You're in a real meadow, not in Toronto in some artificial-2' "You knew." She looked at him hard.
He nodded. "Yes." "Did you make tapes, company man?" He nodded again "Automatically." Her voice started to rise. "And you made copies and transcripts and gave them to friends to listen to?" Tears ran down her face. "I destroyed them. I realized what you were going through, and I destroyed them without company authorization. If that gets out, I could lose my job."
She looked at him in disbelief. "You confuse me." "I am male," Birch said, "but that doesn't mean that I have to approve of what my brothers do." He continued to move in on her. "I've seen men do things that disgust me, things that made them behave like some damned, rutting animal. That's all that separates us from animals. Did you know that?" He reached out and touched her cheek. "Control."
She hit him hard, knocking him to the ground. After a moment, he realized that she had thrown her arms around him and was crying. He pulled her blouse from the grass and draped it around her shoulders. "This is confusing, Andrew," she said between sobs. "You make me feel so strange." "It's not me. It's having survived."
Jade pulled away from him. The blouse slipped off her back, and sunlight fell on her bare shoulders. "And how do you feel, Andrew? Do you want me?"
He looked into her eyes. "No," he said. "And yes." She blinked back tears. "It's not my place to want you, Jade. It wouldn't be in our
best interest. When this is over, we'll have lives to run. I'll have to go back to invading homes, and you. . ." With a
finger he wiped tears from her cheeks. "You'll go back to Notorious." "You are ... moved by me, Andrew?"
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"Very much. That's the part of me that wants you, that could take you. But I control it."
Jade cupped his face in her hands. "You are not like Trenton." She wrapped herself around him again. "I did not understand him. He was such an intelligent man. He had so much in his brain to share with everyone, yet he couldn't control. . .
Birch hugged her, his free hand fishing for her blouse. "He was so rabid about things, Andrew. Like he wanted me, so he took me. He was never careful with his other women   .He brought things home, made us both sick. He even killed a woman once, by accident, with some special collar he made her wear." "Shbb." "The same with his drags. There was always something, Andrew." "You don't have to talk about it, Jade." "He could never stimulate himself enough, did you know that? One time he was on the machine so long that he lost control of his bowels. I had to clean him up. After that, I fixed the machine, I opened it and disconnected wires. He never used it at home after that."
Birch's muscles tensed. He sat up, spilling Jade into the tall grass.
She sat up, making no effort to cover herself. "Andrew?" "What did you say about Healow?" "That he never used the machine at home after I-" "Machine," he said loudly. "What kind of machine, Jade?" "One of his inventions." He took her by the shoulders. "How did it work? What did it do'?"
Jade made a sweeping gesture across her forehead. "He put a band on his head, set this timer on the machine, and then. . ." She turned away. "Tell me."
Her skin went cold and raised in gooseflesh. "He would turn it on," she said in a thin whisper, "and his eyes would roll back in his head, and he would lie there and ejaculate." "That's all?"
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Her head moved in a barely perceptible shake. "This would go on ten minutes, fifteen minutes, however long he wanted. And afterward, he did not want me, not for weeks." "This band," Birch asked, "was it smooth like they have on the rail?" "No," she said. "It had tiny needles that poked into the skin. "
He could see Healow now, lying dead on the Toronto sidewalk, the uniform series of pockmarks on his forehead. "Electroencephalic conductors," he said. "He was joyriding."
A breeze came through the trees, and Jade crawled to Birch's side, huddling in his lap while she struggled to put on her blouse. When she was fully dressed, she kissed him softly on the cheek. "For listening," she told him. "I'm afraid I was being too emotional. I feel bad that I wasted your time." "You didn't waste it," Birch said. "On the contrary, I think you've just told me how to get the code off of that tape."
3
Early the next morning, Birch left Jade at the cabin with strict instructions to stay inside until his return. He made provisions that should he not return within twenty-four hours, she was to make her way to the neighbors' and take their houseboat downstream. By the time they showed up to report the craft missing, Jade would have had three days to ditch it and find another mode of transport.
Having made those arrangements, he climbed into the ICV and went to the LaCrosse hospital district. One kilometer from a large mental health chnic he found a store called "LaCrosse Mental Health Electronics." He parked the car and walked up to the glass storefront, a sticker in the window informing him, "We are authorized dealers for Patterson, Seretex, and Skinner brands of electrotherapeutic equipment.,,
A bell chimed as he walked in, and he looked at the shelves full of equipment. He was exarnining them when a
clerk approached him.
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"May I help you, sir?" "Yes," Birch said. "My wife is having trouble sleeping, and her doctor suggested. . ." He rolled his hand, pretending to look for the right word. "What's it called?" "Neuroelectric realignment therapy?" "That's it. He suggested we try that before going to drugs." "A smart man," the clerk replied. She led Birch to a shelf lined with display models. "Chemicals can solve one thing and cause an imbalance somewhere else." She picked up a neoplast box ten centimeters long. Dangling from it were two leads that connected it with a set of electronic pads. "This is our most basic sleep aid. It can be used two hours before bedtime. One of these pads goes on each mastoid hone, through which it conducts a very relaxing signal." "She can't use those," Birch said. "They affect her inner ear and give her dizzy spells."
The clerk politely moved down the shelf. "What you might want is something more in this line." She picked up a much larger box, wired to an Alphaband that she fit around her forehead. "This is a dual-purpose unit. It can teach relaxation by motivating self-inducement of alpha wave states and can be us   to directly induce sleep. This particular model is made by the same people who outfitted the rail system with sleep circuitry. " "I guess I should have explained myself," Birch said. "We're not looking for something that will induce sleep. We want something that will retrain her brain to induce sleep on its own."
The clerk took the band from her head and set the box on the shelf. "I see. Is she suffering from an organic problem?"
He nodded. "She had a severe concussion eighteen months ago. Except for sleep patterns, things are just now getting back to normal."
She led Birch back through the store. The equipment on the shelves got more elaborate, and the price tags grew accordingly. "You're not looking for inductive stimulation, then. " "Right. I want something flexible, in case we solve the
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sleep problem and something else comes up. I understand Seretex has a good line." "Seretex," the clerk said, "wrote the book on NEUREAL systems." "NEUREAL." Birch smiled. "That's it." "Of course, if you want the Seretex equipment, it'll cost. We have similar models by Skinner and Patterson that do the same with comparable efficiency. . ." "Comparable. Sounds like a buzzword."
The clerk stopped and blushed. "You know how the companies are. It means that not all the machines work in quite the same way." "With Seretex," Birch asked, "will I get my money's worth?" "It depends on what you're looking for." "I have a colleague who swears by Seretex equipment." "Very well." She showed him a large console with a foldout keyboard attached to one side. "This is the top of the line model. It's got ninety-seven of the most used medical realignment texts in memory, so there's no need to purchase anything else. Seretex puts out new memory chips once every year or two with new texts and updates on the old. You can get them for a nominal fee and install them yourself, but otherwise the machine cannot be modified."
Birch looked for a rrason to refuse the machine. It was much more than he needed, and if it could not be modified, he would not be able to use it. He picked up the price tag. "It's a
bit much, don't you think?"
The clerk patted the top of the component. "This is the one
that most rehab centers use." "It's an industrial model," Birch said. "At an industrial price. Got anything cheaper?"
She moved down the row of machines. "What did you have in mind?" "I have no use for ninety-seven rehab programs unless I'm going to invite friends. How about something that cae read
separate texts?" "This one is the 903." She pushed a button, and a small
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door opened on one side. "It takes texts on CD/ROM. You load them here, close the door, and let it play through according to text prescription." "You sell the texts here?"
She nodded. "If you'll take this one, I'll throw in two of them, free."
Birch looked the machine over carefully It did not appear that this one could be modified either, and the clerk had not volunteered the information. "Price?" he asked. "Fourteen hundred." "That's high."
She pushed a button, and the small door opened again. "You're getting the ROM reader with that." That was it. "I already have a reader at home. Do you have something with an input?"
What she pulled from the shelf next was more what Birch was looking for. There was a small processor about half the size of a standard briefcase with a simple control panel on the front and a CD/ROM IN jack on the back. "Is this more your speed? It goes for seven-fifty." "This is more like it." He fingered the Alphaband. "Except for this. I need the other kind of Alphaband, the one with the pins." "The high-resonance Alphaband? This doesn't come with one. You'd have to go with the 903 or an industrial model." "I don't want the 903. 1 want this one." "I could get you an HRA, but it'll cost extra." "Will you throw in a text if I do?"
Inside of an hour he was back at the cabin and had the living room reduced to a mess of packing foam and electrical cables. He took the new component from its box and hastily skimmed the instructions, looking for the way to install the high-resonance Alphaband. Once that was connected, it was a simple matter to slave a signal from the computer's digital output into the NEUREAL system.
He finished and lunched with Jade, then showed her what
he was up to. When she saw the pronged Alphaband, she tensed up and looked at Birch uncertainly. "Are you serious, Andrew?" "It's not what you think," he explained. "Your husband was joyriding. He'd modified his machine to stimulate the pleasure center of his brain. That's what he was doing when he made you assist him." "Then what are you doing with this?"
Birch showed her The Chandelier. "Does this look familiar?" He gave it to her and let her examine it. "Videotape," she said. "Have you seen it?"
She shook her head. "Should I have?" "It belonged to your husband. When Nello and I went into your house to plant the transmitters, I stole it because I wanted to understand your relationship."
Jade handed the tape back. "He made me watch one with him," she said. "It gave me nightmares for a month. I punished him for it, Andrew. No matter how badly he treated me, I refused to let him use me. I did that until the nightmares stopped. After that, he never bothered me with them, although he continued to collect them." "I think he did that on purpose, Jade. I think he did that to keep you from messing with them." "Why would he put me through something like that?"
Birch slid the tape into the machine and started it. He gestured at the collection of zeros and ones that flickered on the monitor. "That's a code," he told her. "These tapes are very cheaply made. They have no code for three-dimensional imaging and none for high-fidelity sound. That means there's a lot of space on the tape where things can be stored."
Jade looked at the screen, fascinated. "What does it say, Andrew?" "I don't know. That's why I got all this equipment together. "
She turned to him.
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"Your husband had discovered a way to record human thoughts. He found a way to electronically measure them, have a computer encode them, and then put them onto some
kind of storage medium." "'Me tapes," she said. "Exactly. I found the binary code format and ran it through all of the decoding programs I had, but I couldn't make any sense of it. That's because I didn't have the right type of information processor. I needed a human brain." "What makes you sure that what is on this tape is-" She choked on the word. "Trenton?" ,,I saw your husband after he had been killed. His forehead was covered with pockmarks, tiny little holes in a uniform pattern." He pick@d the Alphaband and showed it to her. The band itself was twelve centimeters across and six down. Across the middle of the headpiece were rows of chrome pins a half centimeter in length. They were placed half a centimeter apart and ran eight by twenty. "This pattern," he said, running his finger across the blunt-ended pins. "The marks," she said, fingering it nervously, "were from him being on the machine so much." "That's what he wanted you to think. That's why he brought the machine home and made you watch him use it. So you'd be repulsed and not want anything to do with it. So you wouldn't be suspicious when he developed a pattern of holes in the skin of his forehead. "He wanted you to think he was joyriding when in all truth he was using this same equipment to record information onto these tapes."
She looked at the screen again. "I know it's a lot to ask of you, Jade, but you've got to run
the machine for me." He started the rewind. "You've got to watch me, and if anything goes wrong, you need to get me off of the system fast."
Jade shuddered and looked out the window. "No, Andrew." "You have to." She whirled on him, face stretched with worry. "You are
the only friend I have right now. What if something bad happens?" "That's why you'll be watching. To make sure that nothing does."
She reached up to the sides of his head and grabbed handfuls of his hair. "You said Trenton is on that tape. What if he contaminates you, invades you?" "That won't happen." His hand found a compact disk, and he brought it up to show it to her. "The information can't be altered by what I'm doing. It's permanent, like this disk. The information on this one helps the brain to sleep. It doesn't make any permanent changes." "But the brain learns to sleep from the disk, Andrew. If this is a new process, perhaps Trenton has stored a bit of himself on that tape. What will you learn from him? What will you become?"
He removed her grip on his head and went to the computer desk. He dug through the tangle of wires until he had the derringer. He broke the breech and pulled the loads out one at
a time, showing them to Jade. "You know how to use this? Don't try to aim at the head. Point at something big, the chest or the gut. Squeeze the whole gun like you're squeezing a sponge." He put the weapon on the edge of the desk. "I'll leave it right here in case
something goes wrong." "What if I miss?" "You won't. Not at the range you'll be firing from."
Birch went to an overstuffed chair and pulled it close to the equipment. He sat down with a tube of conductive gel, pulled off the cap, and squirted a small amount onto the Alphaband. "Put it on your forehead first," Jade said.
He looked up. "What?" She came over to the chair and gently tilted his head back. "You put it on your forehead first, then sit for a minute. It numbs the skin so you can put on the headband." Jade squeezed the blue gelatin onto the tips of her fingers and mas-
saged it into Birch's forehead.
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"Thank you," he said. "Don't make me kill you." He started to sit up, but the gel ran down his forehead. He brought the Alphaband up, and Jade helped guide it down, a
patch of brown leather that covered him from eyebrow to hairline. "Is it in place?" he asked. "Yes."
Birch put both hands over the band and pushed. Jad(,@ gasped. The pins saqk into his skin until they hit bone. "I hate that part "I she said.
He tried to flex the muscles in his forehead. They felt thick and unresponsive, as if they had been locked into place. He felt no paiTi, only discomfort from 160 cold spots pushing into his head. "That's the way it's got to be. The manual said. fo, proper resonance to take place, the pins had to be resting against the skull plate." "So be it," she pronounced.
Birch reached back and pulled an elastic cord behind his head, then tightened it so it held the band in place. He sat up and looked around through eyes that were squinting from the extra weight above them. "It's time, Jade. Power everything up."
She obediently powered up the NEURAL box. "Now the vid player." She gave him a forlorn look. "Come on. This is the only way we're going to find some-
thing out."
She knelt and took his hand. "What can I do to keep you from going through with this?" "Nothing," he said flatly. "i have to know what's on this tape.
Jade leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. "Thank you, then, Andrew, for saving me when I didn't deserve it." "But you did, Jade."
She hit the PLAY button. Nothing happened at first. Birch sat motionless. Then his
eyes rolled to become two blanks of white, and his fingers knotted, sinking into the synthetic upholstery. His lips curled out in a sneer, and his chest heaved and convulsed, as if trying to draw breath. His face went gray, then filled in with blue at the extremities. He snapped in the chair, backbone arching, legs and arms convulsing.
In panic, Jade looked at the monitor. Nothing was coming over. She jerked the NEUREALs power feed out of the wall and turned off the tape drive. Birch went limp, and his chest started heaving. Hands relaxed and trembled, and the color in his face slowly hued to a look of challenged health. Grabbing a rag, she peeled the Alphaband from his forehead, wiping the gel and the blood oozing from some of the pin marks. Then she caeressed his head, repeating his name.
"It's you," Birch said, hoarsely.
Jade pushed the hair away from his forehead. "Who were
you expecting?" "I'm not sure," he lied. "I thought for a moment that I'd died and gone to heaven." He tried to sit up, but she held him down. "What happened?" "Something went wrong," she said. "I guessed that." He brought up his hand and massaged the back of his neck. "What did the machine do?" "It was Uling you," she said. "You stopped breathing. It looked like your heart stopped as well." "How long?" "A minute. Maybe two."
Birch tried to rub his forehead, but Jade pushed his hand away. "I felt like I was out for hours. He must have some kind of defense mechanism on the tape." "You will not try it again, Andrew."
He moved to sit up, but Jade held him down. "There's got to be a way around it." "No." Her voice was cold and stem. "I forbid it." "Jade-" "Seducing me with fancy words will not help. Did you see
yourself lying there, helpless, dying? You got nothing out of
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that tape, and the tape almost took you. I will not allow you to try it again."
He tried to stare her down, but there was too much convi,,.-
tion on her face. "Promise me that this experiment is done."
His eyes wandered over to the NEUREAL box. She grabbed him by the hair and shook his head. "Promi@;e me, Andrew Birch." "I promise," he said reluctantly.
Jade kissed him again, then left him sprawled in the chair. "You rest," she ordered, and departed for the kitchen. He lay there and watched her go, noting the motion of her hips and buttocks and legs. Under better conditions, he would have been aroused. And under ideal conditions, he would have done something about it. He thought about that whilt Jade made tea and brought it to him and then tended to him als he vomited it all back up. Shaking from the experience, hi@: head pressed against Jade's breast, he fought to sort thin,p out.
If I didn't know better, I'd swear I was in love, he thought. I did a danined stupid thing by bringing her here. He admitted to himself that even without the recent rash of violence he had been through, he still could not have let her die. She was
much too beautiful, much too fascinating.
He tried to surrender to sleep. Jade was rocking him, softly singing a Portuguese lullaby. Occasionally she would kiss his ear.
Birch no longer knew how he felt-about Astradyne, about Kessler, about Nello or Lucy or Healow or even Jade. And if this feeling he had for Jade was love, ther. the statuesque model from Brazil was doing her damnedest to retum the favor.
Birch found himself wide awake, listening to the songs of insects. He took a deep breath. His stomach had settled, and there was no longer an ache in his lungs.
He tried to get out of bed but could not move. On looking around, he saw that Jade was in the bed with him, her arm around his chest, his legs pinned between hers. Her breath drifted across his chest at regular intervals as if trying to give him a measure of her own health.
Slowly, he worked his legs free, their fiery tingle telling him how lucid he really was. As he rolled from her grip, Jade stirred and her fingers clutched his shirt. He pried them loose and scooted away. She mumbled in Portuguese, and her brow furrowed. He kissed her cheek, which settled her.
He sat up. When the dizziness had passed, he stood and wobbled out to the living room. The only thing that had changed since their experiment was the time on the clock. It was three in the morning.
Birch turned on a lamp, grabbed the instruction book for the NEUREAL, and sat down to read. Hopefully, the conclusion that Healow had put a defensive program on the tape would prove to be premature. The instructions might shed some light on what had gone wrong.
When all else fails, read the directions, he thought. It sounded like something Lucy would have said. He swallowed the lump in his throat and started reading.
There were immediate problems. He was never the sort of person who prospered from instruction manuals, and in his weakened state the printed words insulted his intelligence. Everything his eyes fell upon told him that he had been doing things right. He wanted to turn the guide into a crumpled wad, but he lacked the strength.
He continued to read, grumbling at the patronizing tone used to explain simple things like the function of the oN/oFF
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switch. When it got to be too much, he closed his eyes and dozed, waking again when his weariness had subsided.
Warning, he thought as he drifted off again. His eyes fluttered; there was an incomprehensible dream that came from being too tired in a still-alert state.
Warning. He was awake again, looking at words on a page. The subject heading was "Procedure for Playback of Prerecorded Information," and what he read was set apart from the other words by a box:
WARNING
When using texts in CD/ROM or from other outside sources, make certain that they are certified for bioseysustaimnent. These programs allow the brain to maintain normal bodily functions while the program is in use.
If using a text not so marked, then it contains signals designed to regulate involuntary brain functions during the course of the text. For these programs, the user
should wait until the SIGNAL PROCFSS light becomes ac-
tive before going "on-line." If this precaution is not taken, the brain will be given a null signal-the cessation of all brain functions-which cae result in the ill-
ness, injury, or death of the user.
Birch stared at the words, their meaning, turning over and over in his brain. He looked over at the vid player.
If Healow was making recordings of the brain, how would he know which signals were thought and which were the language of the autonomic systems? Perhaps that was what the
research team had been working on when he had died-a way to differentiate between the voluntary and the involuntary.
If that was the case, then Birch's box-induced illness was simple enough to explain. He had rewound the tape to the beginning and started it. The code did not appear until the movie was in progress, meaning that there was nothing for the NEUREAL to reference to. Thus, it had created a null signal and stopped his heart.
Birch rose and stumbled to the equipment. Jade had gone through while he had slept and disconnected every wire that she could find. He struggled to reconnect. From the vid player, different signals were sent to the holoset and the NEUREAL. The NEUREAL in turn sent copies of the code to the Alphaband and through the computer, where it would appear on the monitor.
To check the final hookup, he started the tape. The holoset showed the Unnatural Video logo. The monitor showed nothing. On the NEUREAL, the signal process lamp was dark. He waited.
Boston. 1772. Binary started its crawl up the monitor screen. The signal process lamp flickered, showing a welcome shade of green.
Triumph surged in Birch's veins. Healow had waited to put the signal on the tape as a last effort to discourage someone from getting the information. It was indeed a protective measure, relying simply upon the intended function of the NEUREAL system.
Birch stopped the tape and rewound it. He cut the power to the NEUREAL box, then reclined on the floor with the tube of gel. He smeared it over his forehead, then picked up the Alphaband and pressed it into his head. "Sleep, Jade," he said, fastening the strap around his head. "Sleep. "
He clicked the video machine from AUTOREWIND to AUToEmer, and started the tape again. He waited. Doubts assailed him. What if Jade was right and I become Healow? He looked quickly where the derringer rested. if that happens,
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Lord grant me presence of mind enough to stick that thing in MY mouth and pull the trigger.
The code showed on the monitor. Boston. 1772. "Okay, PATER," Birch said, "let's see what you look like." He hit the power switch on the NEUREAL. In his last flicker of awareness, he hallucinated. As the signal process lamp jumped to life, the black box began to emit blue electric fire. It traveled slowly up the wires of the Alphaband while his terrified eyes watched, his arms unable to respond and tear it from his head. When it reached the band, it spread evenly into the 160 tiny pins Testing against his skull plate. Then they all fired simultaneously into his brain.
His limbs vanished, swallowed by the machine. He had been lobotomized and electrostimmed until only a small fragment of his brain remained. That fragment was memory and presence enough to be left dimly aware that the events before him were only a recording on a scrap of magnetic tape.
Otherwise, he was helpless to react. He could only watch.
Heat. Heat, and he could not sweat. Not through his shaggy skin. He was standing with all fours flat on a cool, smooth floor. He was seeing in murky shades of black and white. When something moved, his heart jumped wildly and he wanted to give chase, but something else made him remain in place.
He opened his mouth. That made him feel cooler. He ex-
haled, then inhaled. Cooler still. He did it rapidly, and could feel the heat leaving his body. He licked his lips and swallowed, and that made him hot all over again. He started the breathing again and stuck his tongue out. It was a happy sensation. The faster he breathed and the farther his tongue
was out of his mouth, the cooler he was. He could tell he was drooling, saliva dripping from his mouth and tongue, but it did not matter. He was cooling off fast, becoming wonderfully Cool. "Sssss!"
He looked around, suddenly nervous, stomach jumping. The skin along his spine from his coccyx to the base of his skull suddenly raised into gooseflesh, and the skin along his upper lip peeled back to reveal his teeth. 'IT!"
Something took over, and he folded his rear legs, plopping his bare buttocks down. It was strange that the s1t noise had made him do that. The action seemed almost involuntary. And once he had done that, he heard things that made him feel calm and proud, as if he had done well. "Ooor. 11
Suddenly his belly itched. "Ooor!19 His muscles pulled him down to the floor and rolled him over onto his back, limbs spread. A gray figure towered over him, and he knew this to be the One. He must submit to the One, though something made him vaguely nervous about it. He trusted because his belly itched. And when he was down came the delicious Scratch, all over his belly and chest, getting the places that he never could quite reach. His left hind leg quivered with delight, and more soothing sounds same forth.
s1t came, and he bounced back up. The One moved back and forth. He cocked his head for a better view, trying to figure out the One's motions.
There was a familiar rattle, and his stomach growled. The air was alive with a chorus of scents. He could smell the boxy object, the one that smelled like the rolled-up wad the Intruder brought every morning before the One left. The One liked him to take that wad in his mouth and bring it, and the One would take it and soothe him and make him feel good -
Yet the boxy object carried another easy scent with it,
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the one that was making his stomach jump. It was one of the smells that filled the belly. It was a smell that calmed the teeth. Understanding that, he leapt into the air with joy.
s1t came again and again, and he calmed and waited. His front feet worked up and down with the excitement that the smells were putting in his brain. It was so wonderful. He could not help it. Yet the One was taking so long.
The Shape appeared before his eyes, and with it soothing sounds. His teeth were wild, itching, fuzzy, waiting for the comfort that the Shape would bring. It clattered to the floor in front of him, and he pounced, grabbing it in his mouth, almost missing the sounds of comfort. He held it in his feet and put his mouth to it, chomping down hard, pleasure feeding his tongue. He grated his teeth against the side of the object, scratching his tongue against it, grating hard, hard, hard, until the violence left his mouth.
Then the Shape was gone. He put his nose to the floor and could still see bits of it when he inhaled. He put his tongue down and lapped the scents up. There was loudness from the floor, and he shied away from it. Looking back, there was
another Shape on the floor. He happily took it and started working it against his teeth.
As he ate, there came another sss, this one raising his hackles more than the first time. He stopped in mid-chew and looked around for the Danger that came with the sss.
He saw nothing. But there was fire in his genitals. He had an erection. His teeth and his stomach no longer seemed important. His mouth opened, and the Shape fell to the floor.
He sniffed the air and became intoxicated. He could smell ready, now. Nothing else mattered, not the One, not the Shape, not the sss of warning. What mattered was the ready, now, and his burning genitals told him exactly how urgent it was that he find the source.
He wandered about the den, shifting, aimless, nose to the floor. There were the smells that had been put on the floor to take away his marks, the smell the One marked his territory
with. There was the Shape on the floor, and crumbs of food from the One, and there was the Coolwet.
He looked around, nervous, urgent. He took a halfhearted lap of the Coolwet, eyes checking the room. He wandered the room again, the ready, now driving his brain to madness. He sniffed the Marking Place of the One to make certain it was not from him.
And not having found the source of the ready, now, he sat down by the Hole to Other Places, threw back his head, and started to cry ...
The cry caught in Birch's throat. Something was wrong. His mind was alive with blue fire. His heart seized up, his lungs stopped, and he knew he was dying. He tried to put his hands out to the NEUREAL to stop it, but he could not move.
And then the gap on the tape closed.
The universe opened. His mind was vast, huge. He had a memory of a first time. The wretching in his gut the first time he put the tip of the drill to a living human skull and bored through it, and how he nearly wet himself when there was a sudden issue of blood and cerebrospinal fluid.
But the patient had lived. His mouth opened, and his voice came forth in the darkness over the fluorescent phosphors of the memory. "I hope you do not mind this demonstration," it said, "but in its own way, I hope it will show you the basic differences in what the marketplace gives us now and what we are working toward. "
There were more blobs of shape and light and memories of things long ago, a convulsing German shepherd on a sterile table, head opened, test probes in each hand, and the vivid thought "Is this how they did it?" "What you have just been through is the best way I could think of to show you how a dogbrain truly works. Hopefully, you can now see how truly limited the current artificial intelli-
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gences are. Action and reaction. Command. and response, They develop, but they don't learn. I hope you can understand this."
Of course, cried Birch's fragment of reason. I understand that now. I can see it so clearly. More than even Nello could understand. And he reached back through the swirling of memory before him and plucked from what was there. Of course he could understand it all now. He was thinking with a mind totally different from that of Andrew Birch. He was thinking from a totally different background, a different perspective. He could no longer fire a gun, but he could rewire a human mind. "I have allowed enough access to my private thoughts. It is time for me to explain how all this works."
He opened his eyes. He was looking into a mirror at an intense face with an Alphaband on its forehead. Sandy hair, still wore glasses, needed a shave. Bottom row of teeth crooked: "My parents couldn't afford the orthodontic restructuring" flashed in memory.
Birch looked hard and long in the mirror. Yes, that's us. There was a gap in his thoughts, and he 'Uted to inject "Remember Jade. Explain Jade." But Healov,,'s mind was going in another direction, one in which no fragment of the woman could be found. "Since before the breakup, we had studied the brain and mapped it. In later years we could stimulate it with electronics or chemicals and thereby get it to slowly yield the secrets of its processes. More recently, we have been able to influence it from the outside, to heal organic disorders, restore physical damage, and erase psychological traumas. We have learned to maintain and repair the brain without yet understanding it. "All of that, however, is about to change. Witness this."
He closed their eyes, and an image of a large laboratory appeared before them. Images flickered in and out of reality, and time seemed strangely bent. There were floods of information into Birch's fragment. Of course, he realized. Seretex
Toronto, where the work is being done.
A German shepherd was standing by the door, looking anxiously at it, wanting to get out. They walked to it and removed an Alphaband from the back of its head, then opened the door. "Are you done, Dr. Healow?" asked a man whom they immediately recognized as Tommy, the livestock handler. "Yes," they said. "He'll be a little horny yet. I sprayed some mating pheromones into the air to test his reaction." "We'll take care of him." Tommy laughed, and he took the dog-they remembered that Tommy had called him Hudson -back to the kennels.
Healow opened their eyes, and they were looking in the mirror again. "That was a memory of something that happened not thirty minutes ago, across town from here. Tomorrow, it will be gone from my brain, processed out of short-term memory, having been deemed as unimportant. All that will remain is the recollection of my having turned the dog over to its handler. "What if we could teach a computer to do that? What if a computer could develop on its own, deciding what was important and what could be stored as a summary, a brief recollection? What if a computer could learn? "Then, my unseen friend, you'd have artificial intelligence. "
They looked away from the mirror, their eyes passing a large image of Jade on the wall. It was ignored in Healow's mind, but Birch's fragment remembered it and cried out. It was the full-sized picture of her leaning against the tree. And when the recognition wore off, Birch realized that they were in Healow's home laboratory at Stonebridge. "The prior and decidedly uncomfortable sequence before this was meant to show you in no uncertain terms the differences that exist between today's so-called artificial intelligences and the ones that my colleagues and I are working toward at Seretex. The ones that, I might add, we are close to
completing work on."
Birch caught a cipher, a random fragment of a Healow
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stray thought. It said, Reallyfucking close. "Just by tapping into my own thoughts and recollections, you know that the fine specimen of a dog I remembered was named Hudson."
A quaint Canadianism, fired another cipher, after the explorer, the bay, the department store- "I arranged for you to share Hudson's thoughts so you could experience firsthand why the so-called Als of today are called dogbrains. If you will recall your experience, you may remember that very little of your time was actually spent learning. What you experienced was the canine method of processing the environment. Dogs are very good at that. "If a dog licks an electric fence, he will not do it again. We say that he has 'learned' not to do it. What actually happened was that the dog, in processing its environment, coded itself with an avoidance mechanism based on the visual and olfactory stimuli provided by that fence. It is a simple series of 'If -go to' statements done by a simple part of the brain, not in what we would consider 'the learning bits.' "As you felt, there was no real thinking going on when I gave the command to 'sit,' to 'roll over,' or when I brought out the dog biscuits. Any rationalization that you may have experienced took place in whatever part of your brain remained lucid enough to understand what was happening. And, as you remember, all of that calmness went right out the window when I filled the air with the scent of a bitch in heat."
Then Birch caught it for a brief instant. It was a cipher tagged "Jade." "So on its own, the dog is merely a self-programming computer. In our hands, it can carry out simple orders based on our resourcefulness in manipulating its environment. Dogs have been programmed to do such noble things as act as the eyes and ears of the handicapped and such damnable things as
to attack people of a certain ethnotype. In short, like a com-
puter, a dog is only as intelligent as its handlers. "Likewise the dogbrain AI, my friend. A dogbrain will perform a given task, but it will never innovate. A dogbrain
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will learn from its mistakes, but it will never profit from them. it will produce but not create. "Lastly, and most importantly, a dogbrain cannot do this."
Birch's fragment could not comprehend how it happened. He did not know if Healow was consciously holding back or if he was under the timed effects of a drug. As if a switch had been thrown, Healow's thoughts began to race through brightly lit corridors of memory and information, processing and correlating with dizzying speed.
And suddenly Birch understood. He understood what Nello had been trying to explain during the countless dull stretches of surveillances, how the circuits and softwares of the false Als worked. He understood the miracles of the silicon chip and how it could process raw information infinitely faster than human tissue could. He could see, in spite of this, how cold and soulless the computer was.
Now Birch was flying over a plain of knowledge, absorbing as much as his eyes could take in. Far off in the distance was the goal, the true artificial intelligence, and the road to it was paved with neurotransmitters and pheromones. A finger held over a candle flame jerked back before the first sensation of pain. An infant, comprehending its mother yet unable to master the complexities of the tongue in order to communicate back. Chemically induced bolts of lightning hidden beneath the skull, transcending their microscopic size to move moun-
tains, to pitch tents on the moon, to unite the shattered planet and send out feelers to another.
In his overcome state, he was certain that somewhere there was a tear rolling down his cheek. "Trenton?"
The images crashed to a halt. They smeared and blurred, hit an invisible wall, and vanished.
Their eyes were open, and they were back in the Stonebridge apartment. Birch noticed two videotapes, The Pikeaxe Sisters and Valerie in the Galler@y, sitting next to an operating video recorder. Then their head turned quickly toward the door and saw Jade.
278                 JOE CUFFORD FAusT Her eyes were heavy with sleep. The hallway was dark. She was wearing dark panties and a T-shirt advertising the Toronto Opera Company, which Healow remembered paying a
full k for at a charity auction.
Birch could feel their heart rate picking up and the blood filling their face. "I told you not to interrupt me when I'm in here." "I had not intended it," Jade explained. "But the late hour-2'
Birch felt tremors. Get out of here, Jade, he thought. Get out of here and leave him alone. Don't you know what's coming? "I know it's late, damn you  "I Healow barked. "Hasn't it occurred to you that I'm doing important work?"
Jade's eyes flickered to the Alphaband. Of course the bitch doesn't know what I'm doing, betrayed a cipher. She thinks I'm jazzing myself. "But Trenton, Knobby is on the phone and-"
But Jade's explanation was lost, becoming a cipher itself as
rage boiled up from nowhere.
I buy her away from having to lie spread-eagled on silk sheets for money, and this is how the bitch repays me.
Birch fought for control, but the tape rolled on. Helplessly, he careened toward Jade, grabbed her by the throat, and tossed her to the workshop floor. His lips turned up in satisfaction, and he slowly closed the door.
A cipher fired: Damn, that tasted good. Jade started to pick herself up off the floor, and he backhanded her down, her tan legs contrasting against the white tile. He followed their curve up to her waist, and suddenly he was aroused. He bent down, following her as she tried to
crawl away.
Nothing else mattered. Those brightly lighted corridors and teeming plains were gone, shrunken to the point where they no longer existed.
He grabbed Jade's ankles and gave a violent tug. Her knees came out from under her, and she flopped belly down. She tried to get up, and he grabbed the back of her neck with one
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hand, forcing her face to the floor. With his free hand, he knotted her panties around his fist and jerked them down to her ankles.
Birch's fragment tried to turn away, tried to escape, but he was trapped, moving with Healow as he held Jade's head down and forced himself on top of her.
They raged over her, reaching down to grab at her breasts, forehead locked against the small of her neck to keep her from moving her head.
Healow closed his eyes, and the ciphers were thick, carrying fragments of tedious pornographic scenes and memories of past encounters. There were flashes of rushing to the newsstand for the latest copy of Notorious, knowing who would be featured on the cover, and random words strung in close succession like "bitch" and "lesson."
Finally, Healow put his hands to her shoulders and pushed up, dug his fingernails into her skin, shuddered, then collapsed with a grunt. Birch was dizzy and sick. He had a strong urge to vomit, and he feared that if his physical body tried to deal with that in its paralyzed state, he might choke to death.
Healow himself was panting with exhaustion, arms and legs weak. His eyes opened for a brief view of the underside of one of his lab tables and then closed. 'Me left side of his face was against the right side of Jade's, and her perfume and the sweat of panic were filling his nostrils. Sleep welled up and swirled around his brain. "Don't move," he warned.
He fought to catch his breath, and the room started to spin with the onset of sleep. Ciphers were triggering in quick procession, and it was not until several had fired that Birch realized he was witnessing an actual chain of thought, slowed by the coming sleep.
Wonderful, said the first one. Taught the bitch a lesson. It'll be wonderful. It'll be wonderful to be away. Out of here. Away from the cold.
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Always cold here. I'll have her there with me. Like this if I want it. Wonderful. Then Healow's thoughts flipped, lapsed, and he was
asleep. Birch saw what was coming and braced himself. When the sleep signal came up the wire and through the pins, he slept, too.
6
There was a clatter, and Birch's eyes snapped open. In panic, he looked around.
He was in his cabin. The Chandelier had just ejected from the vid player.
Laying his head back, he panted. He was sprawled on the floor, groggy and faint. Blood oozed from both nostrils. The Inside of his head throbbed, and his forehead was riddled with dozens of points of discomfort and pain. As he brought his breathing under control, he realized that there was a sticky warmth in the crotch of his jeans.
Reaching up with a trembling hand, he tried to pull the Alphaband from his head. His fingers kept tangling and slipping on the elastic, which was slick with sweat. His hands flopped uselessly to the floor.
Then he heard the sound. At first he thought it was an aural hallucination, his ears nnging from Healow's high blood pressure. But it persisted. It was the slow crackle of gravel from the driveway.
Birch turned to the window. There were no lights, but something blocked the moonlight and threw shadows into the disarrayed living room. His eyes fell on the computer desk. The derringer was sitting where he had left it for Jade.
He tried to sit up. His back muscles would not support him.
There was a soft metallic clatter from outside. An image formed in Birch's mind, an ICV door opening. Shadows con-
verged on the living room door, and the knob rattled.
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He heard unhappy whispers. Someone was not expecting to find the door secured with an antique mechanical lock.
Birch swallowed. His throat was dry and raw. He tried to shout a warning to Jade, but there was not enough voice. He tried again to sit up. He could raise up only a few centimeters from the floor.
There was a click, and the lock disengaged. Birch closed his eyes and let his mouth hang open.
Soft footfalls approached. "What a mess," someone whispered. "You're sure this is the place?"
The reply was a hushing sound. Birch could feel the floorboards give from the approaching weight. He concentrated on his breathing, keeping it slow and steady. "Look at this," the voice blurted, almost at full volume. There was another hush. "Look," it repeated. There was a slide of metal on metal and a familiar click.
Shotgun, Birch thought. Hit team. "A joyrider. Sitting duck." "The woman first," another voice whispered, lighter in tone. "When we leave, we wire that thing to jazz him to death. It'll look like an accident."
The creeping started again, moving toward the center of the house. Birch opened one eye. There were two radsuited figures. One, a gangling man with a mop of blond hair, held a shotgun as if he were marching in formation. He followed a
-smaller figure that carried an autobolt. The small one peered around the comer and looked back at the shotgun. "Kitchen." It was a woman.
Her partner flattened himself by the next door in a covering position. With the tip of the bolt, the woman pushed the door open. She stopped to listen, then turned. "She's in here."
Birch tried to pull up again, but the man made a sudden
move. He eased back down. "Get me the kit," the woman said.
Her partner put his shotgun on the couch and fished a black
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roll out of his tunic. She took it and pulled out a small hypodermic, twisting a cork off the tip of the needle. "By the numbers," she said. "You get the trunk open, and we'll dose the objective. After we carry her out, we'll wire the Joyboy. "
He grabbed his shotgun and walked out the door. She watched him go, then turned back to watch Jade sleep.
Birch gritted his teeth and pushed. He came up into a sitting position and lunged for the computer desk. His fingers touched the synthate surface of the weapon's handle, and there was a violent, painful tug on his head. The fine from the Alphaband to the NEUREAL went taut, and the component clattered to the floor.
The woman spun out of the doorway, flattened against the wall, and locked eyes with Birch. "Richard!" she cried.
Birch lunged again and grabbed the derringer, throwing himself back to the floor. The hypodermic fell from the woman's hand, and she jerked the autobolt to her side. Birch rolled from his original position as she cocked the power bolt, fumbling the small weapon into his hand. "Richard!" she shouted again, spraying the living room with electricity.
Pushing his  burning muscles, Birch came up two meters right of where he had been, raised the weapon with both hands, and gave both triggers a sloppy jerk. The two loads fired in quick succession. The first impacted the woman's shoulder and slammed her hard into the cabin wall. The second made a fist-sized hole in the center of her torso, flinging her arms back and sending the bolt across the room.
From the bedroom, Jade screamed. Birch jerked the band from his head and scrambled over the couch as the picture window exploded. A second shot came right behind it, splintering the wall.
Jade's silhouette appeared in the door of the bedroom. "Andrew!" "Get down," he ordered in a coarse whisper. "Andrew, where are you?"
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"Shut up and hide." Two more blasts tore jagged holes in the surface of the closed door. By the numbers, Birch thought, and he crawled toward the woman's body, bright phosphors burning his eyes from the derringer's muzzle flash. I should've closed my eyes. That'll make all the difference in the next few seconds.
A loud blow came from the door, and it flew open. Moonfight streamed in. The frame of the door was empty.
Birch continued to grope until something pricked the index finger of his left hand. He jerked it away and then sent it back out, carefully this time. The hand wrapped around a cylinder. He looked at it in the dim light. It was the hypodermic. Judging from the way the tip of his finger burned, it was something he could use. He put his hands on the floor and crawled to the far edge of the couch. "Karen?" a voice called from outside. "Karen, are you all right?"
Birch took the hypo in his right hand and shifted into a crouch. "Karen?"
After a moment, a shadow appeared in the doorway. The barrel of the shotgun came up, and Birch closed his eyes. There was an explosion, and wood shards and paprin and bits of metal and plastic were blown into the air from the computer desk.
The shotgunner advanced, his panting and the snapping of glass under his shoes the only sounds in the room. Birch opened his eyes and watched the man approach, blinking his eyes and squinting at the odd shadows created by the room's conflision.
He looked right over the couch at the body of his partner. "I got the joyrider. Did you get the objective drugged?" Jade's voice drifted from the bedroom. "Yes." The shotgunner turned and followed the sound. He stopped in the doorway. "Where are you?"
In two steps Birch was on the shotgunner's back. His left arm slipped around the mail's neck and cranked his head into the air. The shotgunner kicked, and they staggered back into
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the living room. His arms worked the action on the shotgun furiously, producing only the sound of a hollow chamber. "Standard issue," Birch whispered in the man's ear. "Five shots. "
The shotgun fell to the floor, and the man grabbed Birch. Birch stepped back, putting him off balance, and cranked the man's head to one side. His right hand came up, jabbed the hypo into the thick of the assassin's neck, and his thumb pushed the plunger home.
ne assassin yelped and flailed, trying to break the hold around his neck. After a moment, the struggling ceased, and the shotgunner became dead weight in Birch's arms. Birch let him drop to the floor.
Birch caught his breath and gave Jade the all-clear. There
was a rustling sound, and she appeared in the living room. She saw Birch standing at the cabin door. "Are you all right, Andrew?"
He nodded. "Don't turn on the light. It won't be pretty." Her hand dropped from the switch, and she picked her way across the wreckage to stand by his side. "Rented car," he said, gesturing to a Ford/Nippon that sat, trunk open, behind their own rented ICV. "How do you know?" "It's standard operating procedure for a hit team," he explained. "You hide your identity by stealing or renting everything but basic equipment." "How do we find out who sent them?" "Simple enough. We can pull the ID chip out of their shoes. " "Did you-" She hesitated. "Kill him?" "Depends on what was in the needle. I think they were going to drug you and dump you in their car." "But Trenton is dead. What did they want with me, Andrew?" "I was hoping you could explain that." He stepped into the light, and her mouth dropped in horror at the blood oozing from his forehead. She reached up to check the wounds, but
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he knocked her hand away. "You've been holding out on me, Jade."
She looked alarmed. "No." "Yes. I played 'that tape while you were asleep. My brain decoded it. Trenton was defecting, wasn't he?" "What are you talking about?" She tried to pull her hand loose, but he tightened his grip. "He was planning on leaving Seretex before he finished work on the PATER system. You knew that, didn't you?" ,She nodded.
He pushed her inside the cabin and forced her into a chair. "Then why didn't you tell me that? Why did you keep it to yourself?"
She shrugged. "I thought that since Trenton was dead, so was the issue of moving. I had every intention of returning to Brazil after the funeral." "That's all?"
Her head bobbed up and down. "What was the name of the company he was moving to?" "It was Oriental. Chang. Something Ue that." "Chang.,, "I think, yes." "Never heard of it." "I speak the truth," she said loudly. "You know that Trenton never talked to me. All I know is that one day, when we
were out of the apartment, he said that he was thinking of going to work for another company, this place called Chang."
He gave her a stare, the coldness of which was amplified by the darkness in the room.
"Now you know what I know, Andrew. I swear it." "Now it fits," Birch said. "I understand now why you've become such a hot property. Ordinarily, the rights to the PATER system would have reverted to Seretex on your husband's death. Had that happened, the settlement check from their arbitrators would have been substantially larger than the one you received. "Unfortunately, since your husband was changing compa-
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nies at the time of his death, a whole legal nightmare has been unleashed. The PATER may have been your husband's idea and may have been a direct offshoot of his previous work, but it was work done for Seretex, who footed the bill. Do you know if Trenton had signed papers with Chang?"
She shook her head. "I don't suppose it matters. Whatever the state of the research, there are still going to be a lot of ill feelings between Seretex and Chang. That's where you come in, Jade. As the widow of the researcher whose work is going before the arbitration boards, you are put into a very precarious position. On one hand, you have the power to dispense the rights to PATER in any way you see fit. You can sell them to one company or the other or put them on the open market. You could set up a licensing company and have every @:omputer manufacturer in the world paying royalties to markc :he thing. Or you could do nothing with them at all. "On the other hand, since the question of rights is currently up in the air, a lot is going to hinge on the state you're in at the arbitration hearing. If you show up as a death certificate, the rights will fall to Seretex. If you show up in a druginduced stupor to testify on behalf of Chang-or any other company, for that matter-odds will be that the decision will fall in their favor. And if you make it there as your old, lucid self, there won't be a person on the face of the earth who won't envy you. Until that happens, you're poison." "Is that why Seretex tried to kill me?" "Exactly. And it's why these two dropped in for a visit."
Jade rose from the chair. "Andrew, something bothers me. Why did this fall to me?" "The marriage license," Birch answered. "Not that. Why was Trenton killed? If he owned the rights to begin with, why was he killed?"
Birch looked through the remaining shards of glass at the river. "I don't know. There's still a lot of this that doesn't make sense." "And what about you, Andrew? Are you going to take me to your leader or become an agent of fortune?"
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He turned back to her. "What do you mean by that?" "I mean, if I am worth all of this money, would it not be in your best interests to turn me in to your corporate headquarters so I can be drugged and testify in their behalf?"
He shook his head. "My company isn't interested in cornputers- 11
"That is bullshit," Jade said emphatically. "Your company would never have sent you to spy on Trenton if they hadn't been interested in the PATER system. Even if they produced toilet bowls, the rights to that system would make them very powerful." "Correct," Birch said. "On both counts." "So where do I stand with you? I am indebted to you for saving my life. How am I to repay you? By giving allegiance to your company?" "You don't owe me a damned thing," he replied. "How should I expect you to behave, then? What are you going to do with me?" "I'm going to see," Birch said, "that you get to your arbitration hearing in one piece so you can testify on behalf of yourself." "I do not understand you, Andrew." "It's because of Lucy. I owe her so much more than saving someone's life. She made me feel more than loyalty to a company. She gave me the power to feel, damn what the company thinks. She gave me a soul, and that soul is useless if I don't do something to prove that it's still there." "So saving me," Jade said, "you save yourself." "And the debt is paid. That's what you can do for me, Jade. Trust me. Let me be the one person who gives you what you deserve."
She moved next to Birch and kissed his neck. "What do we
do first?"
From the east, the sky was beginning to lighten over the trees that lined the river. Birch looked back into the living room. He could see the broken glass and the scar on the wall from the shotgun blast. Likewise, his desk and the equipment on it were also darnaged. On the wall were smears of blood
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that led to a crumpled female body. "We've got to get out of here," he said. "Then we can worry about who they are and how they found us here." ,,Their car," Jade suggested. "No," Birch answered. "The houseboat."
It was noon by the time Birch cut the lines to the houseboat, causing it to slide down the launch ramp into the river. With a small hatchet, Jade cut one last line, and the craft moved out into the current, moving south.
The morning had been a flurry of activity. The first order of business was to bind and gag the drugged assassin and stake him down in the damp crawl space beneath the cabin. Then Birch found a tarpaulin, wrapped up the body of the partner, and stowed it in the trunk of the newcomers' vehicle.
With pieces of scrap lumber, Birch boarded over the picture window and barricaded the door so that the holes no longer showed. Jade policed the living room, washed the blood from the walls, and swept the floor.
Next she stripped the cabin of food, packing it into boxes for a quick move. Birch put the components back into the entertainment center and determined how much of the computer he could salvage. The keyboard, monitor, and NEUREAL box could not be saved, but the mainframe was still functional. He placed it next to the boxes of food.
Just after ten they checked their prisoner in the crawlspace. There was a large, red swelling on his neck from where he had been injected, and Birch determined that he would be unconscious for a while yet.
Then they went into LaCrosse, Birch driving the Ford/Nippon, Jade following in the other vehicle. They found a rental service and returned the vehicle Birch had rented, then returned to the cabin in the assassin's vehicle. They loaded the
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back seat with the things they were taking and dumped their prisoner into the trunk with his partner. Birch secured the cabin and took the vehicle to the houseboat.
Birch pulled the cover from the craft and picked the locks. Jade loaded the things from the car while Birch broke into the cabin to complete the illusion of a burglary. He hastily tossed the place, filling a pillowcase with valuables and navigational charts of the river. The charts went onto the boat, and the pillowcase into the ICV's trunk. Then he pulled out his prisoner, tossed him onto the boat, and climbed aboard.
After casting off, Birch secured the man in a comer of the engine room. He remained there long enough to prime the en-
gine and start it, then returned topside. Jade was at the wheel, grin-fly steering down the middle of the waterway. "I'm glad to see you," she said. "You can take over."
Birch dangled a pair of shoes from each hand. "You're doing fine." "Andrew, I have never done this before." "Neither have 1. The best I can tell you is to pass on the right and be on the lookout because there are no intersections on the river. A boat could come across your path at any time." "Andrew!    she said, exasperated. "You're taking the first shift. We've got until Saturday morning before the neighbors show up and report their boat missing." "I thought that was why we left that car at their place." "That was so they would think our friend in the engine room stole the boat. When they find his partner dead in the trunk, it'll be a whole different story. They'll be looking for this boat in connection with a murder."
She gave him an incredulous look. "That's why we have to keep moving. I want you to pilot this while I pull the ID chips out of these shoes. Then you can
rest while I handle things."
Jade sighed. "If you insist." "Trust me," Birch said. "Remember, we're in this together." He left her at the wheel, going into a small living
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room that doubled as a dining area. He rummaged through closets until he found a receiving dish and the parts to install it. Then it was up to the roof.
Within fifteen minutes he was back in the living room. He turned on the boat's terminal and brought up the volume. He could hear a hum as the dish looked for a satellite, and before long a voice issued from the speaker. ". . . Ohio River valley area is partly cloudy with light rains in the north. Waters are calm, with a rad count well below the seasonal norms. This is the voice of GeneSYS 11. Great Lakes forecast. Lake Ontario waters are calm, with waves up to one meter in the west-"
Birch pulled the weather terminal out of the wall and wired his mainframe into the satellite feed. Making certain that everything was adapted to the new addition, he sent the signal to the monitor.
A STORM OVER LAKE ERIE HAS BROUGHT THE SMALL BOAT FLAG UP, WITH REPORTS OF TWO-METER WAVES scrolled up the screen. He overrode the signal, typed in orders, and the antenna scanned. As it did, he knocked the heels off the shoes and opened them up.
The computer told him ASTRANET VII DATASAT LOCATED. Birch poised his fingers over the keyboard and started a conversation with the Astradyne DataNet. Before long he was in security and asked it to give what information it could from the chips.
After a few seconds of thought, the dogbrain on the other end of the line had something for him.
IDENTHqED.
JANISCH, KAREN R. WORKPLACE/CHIANG INDUSTRIES. ENFORCEMENT BUREAUISHOETEAM LEADER.GRADE 2. BASE/CHIANG INDUSTRIES; MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA. WORK DISTRICF/AGRISOUTH.
STATUS/ONASSIGN; CAPTURE AND HOLD. FILEfBLANK.
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"What the hell?" Birch leaned forward as he studiud the screen. The DataNet had given him much more information than he thought he could get from a simple ;deptity chip. He knew now that the company was Chiang and that Karen Janisch had been assigned to a hit team.
What puzzled Birch was the fact that the compv-@er had developed a file on her, even though its staius war blank- The only explanation was that Astradyne had encountered her in the past and had somehow put a mole into Chiang's Al to track her.
He plugged in the man's chip. The computer obliged with an equally full screen of information, giving his Panic as Richard M. Craig, also of Chiang Industries. He was designated as
a shoetearr. member, Grade Two, same assignm(nit, with an
equally blank file. "What the hell is this?"
Birch staxed at the screen, the wor& FILE/BLANK taunting him. This team had clearly met with Astradyne before. He needed to find the circumstances.
He cleared from identification and went into the index, typing an order to cross reference the name of Janisch, Karen R., with that of Craig, Richard M.
ACCESS LISTING INCOMPLETE, the dogbram said. RENDER, Birch ordered.
THIS LISTING IS THE RESULT OF AN INCOMPLETE INVESTIGATION AND HENCEFORTH HAS NO OFFICIAL FILE STATUS. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES ARE ANY ASTRADYNE PERSONNEL TO ACT UPON THIS INFORMATION UNTIL
IT IS OFFICIALLY FILED.
RENDER, Birch repeated.
ASTRADYNE INDEX. JANISCH, KAREN R.- CRAIG, RICHARD M. ADYNE INTELLIGENCE LISTS SUBJECTS AS FUNC-
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TIONING SHOETEAM FROM CHIANG INDUSTRIES, MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA,
ADYNE R,1TEL SUSPECTS TEAM HAS BEEN ACTIvATED AGAINST ADYNE DUE TO CHIANG's INTEREST IN SERETEX PATER SYSTEM. SUSPECTS THAT JANISCH AND CRAIG ARE PART OF A DIVERSIONARY FORCE INTENDED TO ESCALATE ADYNE/SERETEX WAR. AS CHIANG HAS PERIPHERAL INTEREST IN DOGBRAIN Al SYSTEMS THIS WOULD INDICATE THEIR WILLINGNESS TO SEE PATER SYSTEM FAIL. ADYNE STAT TEAM RANKS THIS POSSIBILITY AS 74.4%.
JANISCH AND CRAIG MAIN SUSPECTS (89.2%) IN BOMBING OF ASTRADYNE ATT-ANTA BUILDING USING LIFTED SERETEX DESIGN. DUE TO MAIN MANUFACTURING INFLUENCE OF CIUANG, PROBABI ILITY IS 93.8% TMAT THEY WERE ABLE TO DEVELOP INFRARED DETONATOR, CODE NAME SNAKE'S TONGUE, WITH EXISTING TECHNOLOGY.
"Impossible!" Birch shouted. From above, Jade called his name. "Just a minute," he shouted, trying to suppress his rage. She called again, sounding urgent. "Hang on dammit!" He looked back at the screen.
CIRCUMSTANCES OF EXPLA)SION AND REMAINS FOUND BY FIRE TEAM SUPPORT THIS BUT AS YET ADYNE INTEL HAS YET TO CONFIRM
There was a loud scrape across the top of the boat, followed by a metaffic bang. The letters scrambled, and then the monitor went blank. "An-drew!"
Birch bolted up the stairs. When he, reached the hatch, something damp struck him full in the face, knocking him down the steps. The clamor continued. He felt an object in his mouth and spit. Something green hit the floor.
He went back up, hands gripping the rail. As he stepped onto the deck, Jade made a desperate cry, and there was a violent lurch. Birch pushed against the rail to keep from fall-
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ing, overcorrected, and rolled across the deck. He struck the safety rail and grabbed it. "Jade!" he called. "Jade, are you all right?"
She answered from the other side of the boat. Birch scrambled to his feet. The boat was still. He sprinted to the bow and found the nose of the craft jammed into the muddy riverbank. "Jade!" What's going on?"
She appeared from behind him, disgruntled, scratched, and picking leaves from her hair and clothes. "The steering quit."
His face flushed, and he started to shake. "What the hell do you mean by that? How easy do you want me to make it, Jade? You keep the wheel steady and you guide the boat down the middle of the damned river."
Her eyes narrowed into slits. "I meant," she said icily, "that the wheel would not turn. Perhaps something caused it to stick. "
Birch caught his breath and tried to slow his racing heart. "Yes," he said quietly. "Of course. I'm sorry." He walked to the edge of the boat and jumped off onto the bank. "I tried to wam you," she explained. "I know. I'm sorry." He bent over to look at the boat's hull. "You were doing something important?"
His reappeared, face streaked with mud. "It doesn't look too bad. I think we can back out of it." "What about the steering?" "That's next." He made his way around the boat, sliding into the cool river water. Jade followed on the deck. When he reached the stem, he took a deep breath and pushed under the water. After about a minute, he broke the surface, a thick line of hemp in one hand. "Here's the problem. Something's snagged the rudder."
Jade put her hand to her mouth and laughed. "What's so funny?" "This reminds me of that movie about the boat-The Aftican Queen."
Birch shook his head, "Not you, too. You're as bad as Nello." He took another breath and went under. He was gone
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longer than before, and Jade started to panic. She knelt on the wooden deck and shouted his name.
He popped up between the starboard side and the riverbank, coughing and sputtering.
11 Andrew?" "Almost." He was gone again. Jade took deep breaths and tried to stay calm. Birch surfaced on the port side, gripping a tangled mass in his right hand. He tossed it onto the deck. "Try it now."
Jade picked up the wad of hemp and let it unfurl. It was a e ayed net. "What is this?" "A catfish trap or something," he said, treading water. "I don't know for sure. Go see if the wheel turns."
Jade uncrouched and disappeared on the starboard side, ducking tree limbs. Birch swam to the side and climbed onto the deck. He let the water run off, then checked the damage to the receiving dish. All he could find was the mounting bracket, twisted and half-torn from its support. A handful of colored leads protruded from the opening, their coating split and showing frayed copper wire. He cursed.
Jade's head popped up, and she grinned. "You are one hell of a mechanic, Jack."
Birch gave a sad grin. "Great. It's too bad I can't cast bonded metal forms." He pointed to the drag marks made by the receiving dish. "We lost our link."
Jade looked stricken. "Andrew, I'm sorry." "Don't be. It was an accident. But I've got to get somewhere where I can access a receiving station. Do you think you can start the engine?"
She shrugged. "You never showed me." "No problem." He jumped down to the deck, and water squished from his shoes. Jade followed him to the bridge. "You ready for lesson one?"
She looked puzzled. "I thought you had to go below to do that."
Birch tapped a mechanical key in a slot near the wheel, then turned it. There was a mechanical burp, something fired, and a bass nimble grew beneath their feet. "That was to prime
it. Now that it's warm, it should behave."
He geared into reverse and gunned the engine. The craft sank into the water and inched away from the bank. Birch cut the throttle back, then cranked it up. The boat dipped down again but made no further progress. He tried one more time and got the same result. "One of us is going to have to get out and push."
Jade put her hand to his chest and nudged him away from the wheel. "You have volunteered." "Me?" he protested. "You are the one who is dripping all over the floor." "I got wet, Jade." "Then getting wet again will not bother you." "All right." He smiled. "But I won't tolerate any unseemly comparisons to Humphrey Bogart." He left the bridge and jumped off the bow. Stepping down into the mud, he put his back to the boat. "Ready?" he called. "Ready," she answered. "Give her the gun, then."
The boat shifted behind him, and he pushed. An hour later, the two of them were caked with mud. Arms crossed, Birch studied the situation, including the two splintered timbers he had used as levers. "I think we are officially stuck," Jade announced. "Damn it," Birch snapped. "Damn it to hell. We were getting close. I guess we'll have to walk out of here. The two of us just cae't free the boat."
He started up the bank, grabbing tree limbs for support. Jade was still standing where he had left her, staring at the boat. "Are you coming?"
She remained in place. "Let me think." "Do it fast. We're losing daylight." He watched her      'for a
moment. "All right, I give up, What are you thinking about?" "Something that you said. About the two of us not being able to free the boat." "I know it's a tragedy, but if this is your idea of a tantrum,
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I'd appreciate it if you'd get it over with so-"
She turned to face him. "What about three of us?" He let go of the tree to which he was clinging. "Three?" Jade pointed as if she were supervising the construction of a monument. "Two people could almost move the boat using levers. The boat's engine can almost pull itself out. What if we had two people up front and one to run the engine?"
Birch came down the bank and stood beside her. "Three people?"
She nodded. "You have a mouse in your pocket?" She shook her head and pointed at the boat. "Our third party is in there." "Craig? Are you kidding? He'll try to escape the first chance he gets." "He wants to  escape anyway. We could kill him, but we would still be stuck. I am no company man, but I see how senseless that would be."
He looked at her. She was right and she knew it. "Could you persuade him?" she asked. "You want me to torture him?" "Of course not. Use your head. He is a company man, too. What would persuade you if you were in his position?"
He thought about it. At that point in his career, there was not a lot that did frighten him. All he had going against Craig was the young man's apparent newness to the job. What, he thought, have I seen that scared the hell out of me?
Jade noted his sudden smile. "You have something so fast?" "I'll need your help," he said.
She smiled. "Anything." He closed on her and hooked a finger in the suspenders that held up her pants. "Take these off," he said.
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8
As dawn broke the next morning, Andrew Birch took a
bucket of water and heaved it into Richard Craig's face. Craig shook his head slowly, like a lethargic dog. "Another."
Jade handed him a second bucket. Birch heaved it. Craig coughed and sputtered and blew water from his lips. He tried to move forward but quickly realized that he was
trussed in an uncomfortable position. He was on his knees, torso bent forward, parallel to the floor. His hands were wired together behind him and were tied to something above him so
that they supported the weight of his upper body. His hands tingled slowly, as if they were going to sleep.
Birch picked up the last bucket of water. "No more," Craig cried in panic. "No more water. Please." "Welcome to the world," Birch announced, "What happened?" Craig asked, groggy. "You screwed up," Birch told him. Craig twisted his face, searching for the memory. After a
moment of searching, he found it, dim and murky. "So you're going to rad me to death with river water." "You are now what we call a shaved ape," Birch said. "You do have that term at Chiang, don't you?"
Craig nodded. "You know what it means?" The young man nodded again. "Then you might as well tell me what you were doing when you invaded our privacy."
Craig's brow furrowed, and he looked as if he was concentrating. His jaw muscles tightened, and his Adam's apple bobbed as he worked his tongue in his mouth. "Looking for this?" Birch produced a pair of long-nosed pliers. Clenched firmly in their jaws was a crown of white porcelain molded to took like a molar. "Perfectly harmless. It
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won't crack or chip even if you bite down on a rock. But wit-h a little tongue work you can get it loose and swallow it, an(". the stomach's acid makes it release a nasty little neurotoxin that kills in a matter of seconds." He used the pliers to crush the artificial tooth. "You screwed with the wrong man this time." "What do you want?" Craig grunted. "I want you to talk to me." "Go to hell," he said emphatically.
Birch shook his head. "That's a bad attitude to have." He turned to Jade. "Let him down."
Jade walked out of Craig's field of view and slid a stool under his head and neck. Then she untied a knot of rope and slowly lowered it until Craig's face was resting on the stool, facing Birch. His hands lowered slightly, and he immediately began to flex them. "You should thank the nice lady for doing that," Birch said.
Craig did not answer. "Getting your circulation back? I hope so, because Fin going to need it." "I can take a lot of pain," Craig threatened,
Birch laughed. "Don't be passd. I'm not going to screw with torture." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small bottle. "All I'm going to do is make your worst nightmare come true." "I'm conditioned," Craig said, too loudly. "I'm conditioned against shit like that."
Birch laughed. "You didn't listen. I said I wasn't going to torture you. This isn't a psycho-haflucinogenic. It's a suspension of HIV." "I've had-" "Your shots? Sure, we've all had them. But the Multi Venereal Inoculation Series is only designed to handle things passed through, shall we say, casual contact. What I've got in this bottle is twenty-five cc's of pure virus. Your system will never get it all."
Craig grunted.
"This is rather insidious stuff, you know. Might take you a
decade to get it. Night after night, lying awake, wondering when the first symptom will strike, wondering if your next infection will be the beginning." "You bastard."
Birch knelt at Craig's side. "It's not like I'm asking you to do something vulgar or disgusting. I merely want to talk about who sent you." "You know that," Craig wheezed. "Chiang." "Why?"
Craig rolled his eyes, exasperated. "Give me a break." Birch turned to Jade. "Give me a syringe." She handed him a paprin-wrapped tube. "Do we need to go through with this?"
The younger man shook his head. "Then speak up. Time is wasting." "I was sent because of the war." "The Astradyne-Seretex war." Craig nodded. "Your orders?" Craig sighed. "Kill you. Drug the woman and bring her in. " "Why did they want her?" "Because of her husband's Al system." "Tell me about Atlanta." Craig looked alarmed. Birch tore one end from the wrapper and pulled out a syringe. "Atlanta."
Craig shrugged. "Simple enough. Vie planted a bomb so it would look like a Level Six disruption." "Tell me about the components."
Craig seemed to be trying to smile. "New thing. Detonator reads infrared levels-" "That's a lie!" Birch shouted, moving inches from Craig7s face. "That's a lie and you know it!"
-snake's tongue." "No!" Birch screamed "You're lying! There's no such thing as a snake's tongue! That was a figment of my imagination! I made t@at up to kez@p Kessler from getting in trouble!"
Craig's eyes went wide with alarm. A whine broke from
his throat.
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"What's wrong?" Birch demanded. "You're not-" he gurgled. Birch grabbed him by the hair and turned his face up. "Not what? I'm not what?"
Craig's lower lip trembled. "Seretex. You aren't Seretex." Birch shook his head. "I'm with Astradyne." "You don't understand," Craig said thinly. "I'm Astradyne. My partner and I were on loan to Chiang." "Kessler." The word caught in his throat, and he could taste venom on it. "He told us you were a top Seretex company man. He told us you were going to kill Mrs. Healow so the rights to her husband's Al system would stay with them. We had the option of taking you alive, but Karen wasn't sure about thatKessler had said that you were expendable."
Birch paced the room frantically. "Let him loose, Jade." "But-" "But nothing. Leave his hands tied. If he tries anything, I'll give him AIDS."
She walked over to the prisoner and untied the rope that ran
from his hands to the ceiling beam. Then, lifting him by the shoulders, she pulled him off the stool and laid him on the floor. "So Atlanta was supposed to look like a Seretex hit." "Yeah," Craig slurred. "What did you use?" Birch asked, setting the bottle and syringe on the shelf. "A detonator and receiver?"
Craig's arms flexed behind his back, and he rubbed his hands together. "Not even that. We used some gelignite and det cord." "You were in the building when it blew? You're crazy."
Craig stretched out his legs and wiggled his feet. "We decided that would be the best way to do it." "Then you should have killed me," Birch shouted. "You don't screw up a hit like that when you can get eyeball identification."
Craig looked at Birch incredulously. "We weren't after you. We were grabbing a girl."
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Birch grabbed him by the lapels and pulled him off the floor. "Which girl?" "It was a girl. Brown hair, plain-looking. We grabbed her
0 as soon as she came into the building and then set off the bomb. Those were our orders."
Birch released his arip. "Lucy," he said. "She's alive." "I don't know what her name was," Craig said. "All we
had to do was grab her." "What else?" Birch demanded. "Did Kessler give you a reason?" "No. He gave us a photo of who to get and a time when she'd be at the building. We were to get her and touch off the explosion so it would look like she was killed." "Of course," Birch said calmly. "Of course he wouldn't give you any details." "The only other thing was that we were to be operating with Chiang identity chips," Craig offered. "What became of the girl?"
He shrugged. "We turned her over to security, and that was
the last we saw of her." "Kessler," B;rch ston-ried. "You bastard. .
Jade laid a hand on Birch's shoulder. "Andrew-" "Leave me alone." "How do we know this is the truth? He might be trying to change your company loyalty." "But it has to be," Birch said. "It makes too much sense. If he was loaned to Chiang, then they must have cut some kind of deal with Astradyne. They've got something worked out between them, and they need you to cement it. That's why they took Lucy. Kessler thought that kidnapping you might fail, so he took her as a trump card." "Andrew, this is crazy."
Birch grabbed the syringe and pulled the seal from the nee-
die. He jabbed it into the bottle and turned to Craig. "All right, pal, you've got thirty seconds to prove to me that you're really with Astradyne." "The enforcement chief is Howard Kessler," Craig said quickly. "The OBE is in Pittsburgh."
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"Not good enough." He tipped the bottle up and drew the plunger back. "Jade, find a vein."
Jade put her foot on Craig's shoulder and pushed him to the floor. She pulled the suspenders from her pocket and wrapped them around Craig's arm. "The standard enforcement vehicle of the Astradyne Company is the Mercedes LRC 1100." "Not good enough. Twenty seconds." Birch checked the amount in the syringe. Jade pulled the suspenders tight. Veins bulged.
Craig was trembling. "Astradyne is based in Houston, Texas, and-" "Fifteen seconds. You know what I want to hear, Craig." He thumped the side of the hypo to bring out the bubbles. Jade palpated the crook of Craig's arm with three fingers, then suddenly stopped. "Here's one," she said. "I pledge my life to Astradyne," Craig sang, "forsake the women and the wine..." "That's not it." Birch thumbed the plunger until liquid squirted from the tip of the needle. "Careful with that," Jade advised.
Birch turned to Craig and took a step his way. "Your time is up. "It's in my ear!" Craig cried. "The lobe of my right ear." "What year did you enter service?" "Ninety-five."
Birch put the needle down. "Check it, Jade." She looked at him. "Feel the lobe of his right ear. See if there's something in it. -
She approached Craig, took the flesh between thumb and forefinger, and kneaded it. "Something is in there," she said. "Feels square. What is it?" "Astradyne surgically implants an identity chip on their enforcement agents," Birch said. "They change the location once every three years. The last year for the right earlobe-" He glared at Craig. "-was ninety-five."
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"You want to check it?" Craig asked weakly. Birch shook his head. "I'm satisfied if the lady is. If she's not. . ." He produced his handle and flicked the blade out of it.
Jade's face soured at the prospect. "I believe him." She unwrapped the suspenders from Craig's arm. He sighed in relief. "You're not off the hook yet," Birch told him, folding the blade and slipping it in his pocket. "The point remains that one of us was considered expendable. Was it you or me?" "Kessler told us-" "It doesn't matter what Kessler told you. I'm convinced that he's crazy. Maybe he's trying to dispose of me because I'm a thorn in his side. Maybe he's trying to dispose of you. Have you sinned lately, Craig? Perhaps that's why he sent the two of you against me, because he knew I was capable of shining your respective shoes. That would explain why he had you grab Lucy." He grinned. "He expected me to live."
Craig was silent. "How does it feel to be sold, brother?" Birch stepped over his prisoner and untied his hands. "Kessler set you up, didn't he? You pissed him off, and he sent you and your partner out to die. And if you returned, so much the better. He could bump up your status and buy you off that way." "Where does that leave us?" Jade asked.
Birch looked at his prisoner. "Will you excuse us for a moment?"
Craig laughed bitterly. "I'm not going anywhere." He tugged at the ropes binding his knees.
The couple walked out of the engine room and up the stairs to the deck. "I don't know about you," Birch said, "but I have to get Lucy out."
She smiled. "You do what you have to, Andrew." "Jade," he said. "Do you trust me?" "I have this far." "I could probably find Lucy and maybe get her out, but it'd be difficult. Kessler might have her killed if he gets spooked."
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He looked out over the water. "I need you, Jade."
She nodded. "I wouldn't ask you if I didn't think I could pull it off." "I owe you, Andrew," Jade said softly. "I would go even if you knew you would fail. I would go even if you did not want me. "
He kissed her. "Come," she said. "We need to free the boat." Birch went down to the engine room and started to rummage through the tool chest. Craig watched him with a cocked head. "What happens now?"
Birch grabbed an ax and regarded his prisoner with a certain curiosity. "I turned my back on you. Why didn't you take me when you had the chance?"
Craig shrugged. "I was more interested in something else." He held up the bottle that Birch had left on the shelf. "This isn't HIV. It's AntiShok."
Birch nodded. "I know. I took it from the First-Aid kit." "You never had any HIV suspension." "What do I look like, a biochemist?" "What would you have done with this if I hadn't talked?" Birch shrugged. "I would have injected you." Craig threw the bottle to the floor. "You son of a bitch." Birch slapped him on the back. "Richard, you've learned a
key lesson in surviving as a company man. Resourcefulness." "What are you going to do with me now that I've outlived my usefulness?" "Come with me," Birch said, tossing him a pair of shoes without heels, "and you'll find out."
Craig slipped the shoes onto his feet and started up the steps ahead of Birch. They went across the deck and down onto the bank. Not knowing where to go, Craig lagged behind while Birch scrambled up the bank, looking at trees. He shook a young maple. "We'll take this one."
Birch started in with the ax, chopping at the base of the
tree. He knew he lacked style and form, but he still made definite progress. Craig moved his way up to assess the situation, and after a few minutes Birch stopped and handed him the ax. "Your turn."
Craig looked at him, astonished. "What's wrong?"
111. . @ you. . ." "It's simple. You take this in both hands, and you swing the sharp part into the tree. When we get about three-quarters of the way through the base, we can probably push it down."
Craig took the ax and stood firm, waiting. "Well, chop the tree or split my skull. Do something." Craig brought the ax around in a clumsy swing, and it connected with the base of the tree. "What you lack in experience, you make up for in heart," Birch told him. "Keep going."
They soon felled the tree. They cut a five-meter length of it, stfipped off the branches and twigs, and wedged the narrow end of it under the houseboat. Having done that, Birch summoned Jade to the bridge. She started the engine, geared into reverse, and they started.
Using the engine, Jade rocked the boat back and forth while the two men wedged the tree trunk farther into the mire. "I think that's as good as it's going to get," Craig said. "All right, then."
Birch shouted instructions to Jade, and they started. While the boat idled, they crouched under the log and locked their hands around it. After another shout, the engine revved. The small craft inched back.
Birch and Craig pushed up on the trunk, which rasped an-
grily against the hull of the boat. Legs flexed, they worked it up and down, Jade trying to match their rhythm with the engine.
There was a wet suck from below them. "It's going!" Birch shifted closer to the boat, "Gun it, Jade!" The motor started to race, and the men straightened their
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backs perpendicular to the wood. Shuddering, the boat backed into the river, murky water swirling to fill in the gouge left by the hull. "There it goes!"
They gave a final heave, and the log tipped up into the air and fell to the right. The boat drifted into the river, and Craig made a flying leap for the bow, hooking his fingers into the edge and letting it pull him away.
Birch ducked the falling log and waved frantic signals for Jade to shut down. They went unheeded. The boat continued out, with Craig clinging to the front for dear life. Birch launched himself into the water and pumped his arms and legs, trying to close the distance.
The engine stopped. The current caught the boat and started to pull it south, taking the stem first. "Come on, Andrew! Come on!"
He was choking and blowing water from his lips, arms and legs driving him toward the voice. "You can do it! Move your ass!"
His left arm came out of the water, and something grabbed it. Startled, he ceased his struggle and started to sink. The grip dropped. In panic, Birch kicked and buoyed back up to the surface, reaching with both hands.
A hand clasped his and pulled him halfway out of the Mississippi. He flailed out and grabbed the railing, then opened
eyes. "Good job, brother," a voice said. To his amazement, he was looking into Craig's face. "Are you all fight?" Jade called. "We're fine," Craig yelled. "Take us out of here." A thrum filled the air and gave them forward motion. Craig swung one leg on to the deck and pulled himself up. Then he reached down and grabbed Birch by the armpits and hauled him out as well. "Thanks," Birch said, winded. "Unada." Craig smiled.
It took Birch a moment to realize what had been said. Half
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Spanish; think nothing of it. He felt like he was home. "Why?" "Why not? What good would it have done to leave you behind?" "What good did it do you to save me?" "Are you going in?" Craig asked. "Are you going to bring out the girl?" "I'm going to try."
Craig nodded toward the bridge. "You going to sell the property to do it?" "I don't know," Birch answered. "I honestly don't know." "I'd like to go with you."
A laugh spilled from Birch's tired lips. "Are you out of your mind? You want to get killed?" "I'd like to see you do it," he answered. "I'd like to see
you at work. When we took the girl out of the building-what did you say her name was?" "Lucy.,, "Yeah." He smiled at the memory. "You should have heard her. She called your name down on Karen and me like it was the wrath of God. It was 'Andy won't stand for it' this and 'Andy will do this to you' that." "What did you do?"
He shrugged. "The only thing we could. We sedated her." Birch pushed the hair back on his head, wringing water from it as he did. "Yeah," he said dryly. "Doing that has crossed my mind, too." "So am I in?"
He looked at Richard Craig, hunched forward, arms
propped on his upbent knees. The kid was young and sure of himself, and he had the training. He could be used. "No," Birch said.
There was disappointment on Craig's face. "You've helped me, but I can't trust you. I'm sorry, but you'll have to understand that. Besides there's something else
you can do for me. Something important." "What's that?" Craig's expression was almost a pout.
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"I want you to take a message to Kessler for me." The young man's lips turned up. "What's that?" Birch slowly got to his feet. "This mud might be hot. We should shower it off. Then I'll tell you."
9
They stopped once for gas and food. They paid cash. Much later, about two o'clock the next morning, they passed through the Quad Cities. Armed with information and wearing a life jacket over his radsuit, Richard Craig shook Andrew Birch's hand, collected a peck on the cheek from Jade Healow, and jumped overboard. He swam toward Davenport, Iowa, where he was to go to the nearest telephone and call Kessler.
Birch and Jade kept moving. Farther down the river, they stopped for fuel again. Birch bought a box of shells for Richard's shotgun and radsuits for himself and Jade.
By four-thirty that afternoon, they were in St. Louis. They put in to a small but accommodating marina. As Birch paid the docking fee, he asked where they could rent an ICV. Then he and Jade walked to the AvisCo and drove back to the docks in a small GM.
Over dinner Birch went over his plan with her. Noon the next day. An Astradyne warehouse on the outskirts of St. L, one that held parts for discontinued products. If Craig had kept his promise, Kessler would be there with Lucy. "I won't sell you out," Birch promised Jade. "No matter what happens, I won't sacrifice you to them." "Don't make promises," Jade advised back. "Do what is necessary. Get Lucy back. Things will work out."
That was what worried Birch. He went to bed at 8:30, dead tired from the work on the boat and plotting with Craig and sleeping in shifts to share the piloting of the boat with Jade.
Jade went to bed, too. Two hours later she was still awake.
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She slipped from her bed in to where Birch lay snoring and crawled in next to him. She wrapped herself around him and was asleep by eleven.
Birch was up with the first rays of dawn. He worked himself out from Jade's grasp and went to the living room, where he changed clothes. He loaded the shotgun and the derringer and concealed extra shells for them in his jacket and pants. He put a full clip into the 9-mm and strapped it to his leg. He checked the charge on his plasma bolt and put it into another ankle holster, trimming its size to fit Jade.
After scrounging breakfast, he woke her. She picked at Birch's scrambled egg synthate, and he encouraged her to eat a big meal. She did the best she could under the circumstances, and he went over the plan with her one more time. Then he gave her the plasma bolt and helped attach it to her leg.
She changed clothes, into something cool and loose-fitting. At 7: 10 they suited up and left the marina in the GM. By a
little after eight they had found the warehouse. Using the Judas Box, Birch opened the door. They went in and started to explore.
They were in position by 9:15.
10
Jade peeled off her radsuit and draped it on a crate next to Birch's. "What now?" she asked.
Birch answered, "We wait." She looked at her watch. "You plan to wait two an a a
hours for your friends to show up?" "You don't know my friends," Birch said. "The minute Kessler heard where I wanted to meet him, he would've had people swarming all over. The minute we walked in, we
would've been taken, no questions asked. It would have been the drug program for you and heaven knows what for me."
"But that didn't happen."
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Birch smiled. "There aren't any Astradyne operatives in St. Louis fight now. The deep cover man assigned to check on this place was killed at the beginning of the war."
Jade shifted, bringing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them. "Have you thought much about what happens next?"
He shook his head. "My immediate concern is surviving until noon." "What are you going to do when this is all over, Andrew?" "I haven't given it much thought." He looked toward the center of the warehouse. The floor was clear all the way to the main entrance and loading dock and was covered with a layer of dust. Lining the building on three sides were hundreds of crates that contained replacement parts to products that had long since died. He shifted his position so that he was sheltered behind one of them. "That's a minor problem compared to this." "You seem confident that it is going to go your way." "I'm not," he said. "What you're seeing is the company man mind-set. Always up, always winning. I don't know what Kessler's going to walk in with. The only thing I could do is buy the advantage of being here first." "And what if you fail to get Lucy back? Have you given that much thought?" "If I lose Lucy," Birch said, "then I will quit living."
Jade put her knees down and leaned on them. "You don't mean that." "It's not like you're thinking. This is crazy, but I've started to believe that Lucy has been keeping me going through all of this." "Her memory," Jade said. "Her. If she had actually been killed, then I would have been taken out somehow. Maybe the people in your apartment would have gotten me, or it might have been Richard and his partner. There's no way I would have gotten this far." "Prayer?" "Perhaps." "If," Jade said, her eyes moist. "If things go wrong for
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you, Andrew ... will you let me try to save you?"
Birch lifted his hands and touched her cheek. She leaned forward, and he took her head in his hands and kissed her. She inched onto him and wrapped her arms around his neck. His hands gently fell to her waist. Their lips never parted.
Outside, wind kicked up and motes of dust blew through the cracks in the warehouse's ancient frame. The rafters creaked, and they broke their embrace, looking up. The wind was coming from above. "Steves," Birch said. "They're here." He pulled the ankle holster off and carefully laid it on top of a small crate, then crept to the window. Peering out, he saw a Mercedes 1100 rotate like a top and set down on the ground, followed immediately by a larger, boxier vehicle. "A 1300," he said. "They hold up to five passengers. It may turn into a party."
Jade looked at him solemnly. "I never gave you the option before, but if you want out now, tell me. I'll understand." "This is my game, too," she said. "You know what to do?"
She nodded. Birch scrambled over to his vantage point and picked up the shotgun. "Two getting out of the small vehicle," Jade whispered.
He gave her a thumbs-up. "Both heading to the front." Crouching down, he glued his eyes to the front entrance. The door rattled and flew open, light streaming in to form two
dark silhouettes who walked to the center of the clearing with familiar gaits.
The gaunt shadow pulled the hood of the radsuit from his head. "I want the support team to cover these two side entrances. The merchandise will stay covered until we've cut the
deal." It stopped and surveyed the building. "Damn his eyes. I wish we'd had time to pull more people in. If you can't talk some sense into him, then it's your ass, understand?"
Birch pumped a round into the chamber of the shotgun.
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The sound reverberated through the cavernous structure, freezing the two figures where they stood. "Andrew," Jade whispered.
He scrambled over the crate and trained the weapon on the two figures. "Kessler," he announced. "You old son of a bitch. Glad you could make it. Nice to see you too, Nello." He stopped twenty meters from them. "I wanted to come," Nello said quietly. "You're sick, And .11 "You got that fight," Birch said, too loudly. "I'm sick of working for Astradyne." He advanced another meter and trained the shotgun on Kessler. "Where's the girl?" Kessler asked flatly. "No," Birch said. "First we've got some talking to do. How did you find us, Howard? Nobody knew about LaCrosse, not even Nello."
Kessler took a passive stance, hands away from his body. "You should listen to your partner," he said. "You are ill." "Andy," Nello said, taking a step. Birch jerked back and brought the gun to bear on him. Rage boiled up inside, and at long last it was finding a righteous outlet. "I'll blow you away, partner!" The words cleared his lips, and he felt the buried feelings give. "I mean it, I'll cut you in half! Talk to me!" The anger ebbed slightly, and he smiled maniacally. "Jade-" Nello choked. "Mrs. Healow-she made a purchase at a grocery store in LaCrosse with a credit card that was fronted by Scretex." "Go on." "Their Al flagged it to the hot list, and they went insane. They didn't know where to look. One of our insiders leaked the information to us. Naturally, we knew who she was with. All it took was a search of old records." "Thank you." He shifted the weapon to Kessler. "Chiang." "This was something that has been in the works a long time, Andy," Kessler said. "I want you to understand that." "Tell me!" He took another step, and Kessler flinched.
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Birch's face was warm with rushing blood, and he could taste power on the back of his tongue. "Trenton Healow was going to defect to Chiang Industries when he was on the verge of completing the PATER system. Thus, Seretex would have footed the bill and the controversy for most of the research. After the transition, he would halt work until Astradyne completed a takeover of Chiang's holdings. We never expected Seretex to make a preemptive strike." "The girl." "She's fine, Andrew. She's waiting to see you." "Go get her. Bring her in now." "I can't do that yet." "Do it!" "Don't you have something you owe us, Mr. Birch? Aren't you going to introduce us to your guest?"
Birch licked his lips. "No drugs," he said. "She's promised to cooperate if you don't use any drugs." "No promises."
He started to tremble. "Damn you!" Kessler held his hands up, palms out. "I need to hear it from her."
Birch shook sweat from his face. "All right. Fine." He backed up and called for Jade. There was a rustle from behind him, and she appeared from behind the back line of crates.
Kessler beamed. "Mrs. Healow," he said, opening his arms. "May I say that you're more lovely in person than-" "Stow it," Birch ordered. "Where's Lucy?"
Kessler frowned. "Aren't you going to allow me-" "I allow nothing," be spit. "She's alive and in one piece, you can see that. Bring Lucy in." "Andrew-" "Bring her!" "Before I can do that, I need to explain something." "Explain nothing. Bring her in, then we talk." "Andrew-" "Bullshit." "Andrew-"
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"Bullshit!" "Andy," Nello said. "Hear him out. You're sick.', "Will you stop with this 'sick' bullshit? You bring Lucy out fight this minute!"
A figure appeared in the doorway. "What's going on?" it shouted. "Nothing," Kessler said, inching toward Jade. "Freeze," Birch threatened.
The figure moved into the warehouse. "Where's Jade?" "Stop him," Kessler hissed to Nello. Obediently, Nello started back. Birch shifted the gun and told him to freeze. "Don't come in!" Kessler shouted "You'll ruin-" "No," Jade shrieked, and she moved back behind Birch. "What have you done to her?" Trenton Healow demanded. "What have you done to my wife?"
He started to barge past Nello, but Kessler grabbed him and pushed him back. "I told you not to come in here!" "What have you done to my wife?" Healow shouted. "She's mine, damn you!" He tried to break Kessler's grip. Nello stepped in and pulled him away in a full nelson.
Birch's control was gone. He grabbed Jade and yanked her in front of him. One arm snaked around her throat, and the other pushed the barrel of the shotgun into her temple. "ALL RIGHT!" he shouted. It amplified and clamored in their ears, and the sound cleansed him even more. "No more games." He stepped back to put his captive off balance. "As of right now, this woman is a piece of meat, and it's up to you to get her with her brains intact." "Don't let him-" Healow started. He tried to lunge out of Nello's grip, but the company man tossed him to the ground and kicked him in the solar plexus. "Easy," Kessler ordered. "Deal with it," Nello snapped back. "Dr. Healow was very difficult to deal with," Kessler said. "He was a very demanding individual. In most defection cases, the person coming in will divorce the spouse prior to
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the attempt. It's much cleaner that way. Not so for Dr. Healow. He's, uh, rather attached to-" "Get on with it." Birch said. Jade's hands came up and grabbed his arm, fingernails sinking into his skin. "He refused to work without her," Kessler said, punctuating with broad gestures. "And we had to have the PATER system. You understand why." "So you faked his death in front of Nello and me." "Yes "That was an Astradyne man I shot." "Yes.,, "Why?"
Kessler swallowed and looked back at Nello. "Would you please have the support team bring in Miss Harper? I think it'll be easier that way." "May I go?" Nello asked Birch.
Birch gave a nod. After Nello was out the door, Kessler continued. "With Healow supposedly dead, the Seretex attentions were focused on Jade and her survival. They believed that she now held the rights to the system design, so Healow was easily written off." "A diversion?" "Of sorts. All that remained was for someone to bring her in. We needed a loyal company man to do it. You, Andrew." "What in the hell led you to expect that I would risk my neck to do that?" "The fact that you did is testimony enough. Barring that, we took some precautions. We arranged for you to fall in love with her."
Birch laughed. "You're insane." Kessler shook his head. "No, Andrew. You are. You're suffering from drug addiction and withdrawal." "Will you stop with that?" "I can prove it. For the past few weeks you've had a nagging feeling of confusion. You've been unable to concentrate,
and you may have even suffered from blackouts. Those are the early symptoms, side effects."
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"Shut up!" Birch screamed at him. "Shut it off!" "Listen to yourself. You're raging. That's a sign. Your face is burning; you feel like you're going to explode if you don't hurt someone. With every violent act you perform, you feel calm, vindicated. You feel rage at insignificant things. Those are the signs of withdrawal. "It's something the lab came up with, Andrew. A treatment using pheromones and ingested chemicals. They make you feel something, although you're not certain of what, and the brain has to make a decision. Since you were working so close to such a lovely woman, the conclusion should have been obvious."
Birch gritted his teeth. "But I don't love her," he said. "I don't!"
Kessler nodded. "We realize now that the experiment was a failure. What we hadn't counted on was your meeting Miss Harper. We realized that she was interfering with the experiment, and we removed her." "Experiment? You bastard." He shifted position and threw
balance again. "Why did you have to put me through this? All you had to do was ask and I'd have brought her in." "It's more complicated than that," Kessler explained. "I know you would have brought her in, Andrew, and you would have done a fine job of it. But that wouldn't have done anything about the morale problem."
Jade felt Birch's skin go clammy. She struggled for breath. "Morale," Birch echoed. He stared right into Kessler's face. He could see it there, written in lines on the tired old face. "The suicides," he said. "We thought the Elite program would shore people up," Kessler said emptily. "But there are certain things you have to ask them to do ... well, loyalty won't sustain them." "Chemicals," Birch said. His mind began to clear and open; it was like being back inside Healow's skull. "Chemical loyalty. You son of a bitch!" He slung the barrel of the shotgun to point at Kessler's head. "Why did I have to be the guinea pig?" "It's simple enough, Andrew. You were the toughest possi-
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ble case. You wouldn't let your company loyalty blind you to its flaws. We knew that if the program worked on you, it would work on anyone. You'd strayed from the fold, so to speak. "But now you're back. You can come in, and we'll take care of you. You'll get over the treatment in time, but we have a way to spee t e process a ong.         e oysattea are waiting to see you. And there's an Elite card with your name on it-" "You can't buy me!" Birch shouted. "You can't buy me
after trying to kill me!" "I never-" "What about the hit team you sent to the cabin?" "Precautions. We'd rnade you insane, Andrew. You were dangerous." "No!" He jammed the barrel against Jade's head and dragged her back. "I won't buy that."
Trenton Healow stood. "You can't let him do this," he warned.
Kessler waved. and a line of people came in the door. "Wait," he told Birch. "You've done your part, soldier. Now the company does it's part."
A procession stopped on Kessler's left. There was a man carrying an autobolt and Richard Craig, cradling a new shotgun. Sandwiched between them was Lucy. Birch felt his knees give. "Andy," she said, reaching. The hit team held her back. "I can't," he told her. "I can't sell Jade." "Don't put up with this, Howard!" Healow said shrilly. "We have a pact!" "Indeed we do." He reached into his coat and pulled out a
9-mm. He aimed it at Jade. "Mr. Craig."
Craig put the shotgun to Lucy's ear.
"This is what it comes down to," Kessler explained. "Jade dies, you die." "You'd like that," Birch taunted. "I'm not going to force the issue. I am merely going to start counting. If you have not surrendered Mrs. Healow by
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the time I reach ten, Mr. Craig is going to get his revenge."
Birch looked at Craig. "One.,, You bastard, he thought. You bastard ... "Two." An image came to him, a hand pulling him from the water. "Three. " Lucy tried to look away. The autobolt turned her head back to face Birch. "Four."
There was that moment, almost of passion, kissing Jade and pressing against her, right before the steves came- "Five.,,
Dancing with Lucy at the Guzman show, her lips saying 'touch me.' "Six. He would surely die without her. "Seven. " There was no choice, not really. "Eight." How many of them could he kill before- "Nine." He locked eyes with Craig and then broke. "I'm sorry!" he cried and his hand came away from Jade's throat. She fell back against him, and he stepped out of the way, letting her hit the ground. "No, Andrew," she said, scrambling to her feet. "I'm sorry, Jade," he sobbed. "I'm really sorry."
Kessler nodded, and Craig lowered the shotgun. The man with the autobolt loosed his grip, and Lucy ran to Birch, trembling with fear. She tried to embrace him, but he sidestepped her, keeping his gun on Kessler. "Go," he said. "No," she cried. "Look in the dust. Follow my footprints to behind the crates. Do it now."
Lucy shook her head. "I want to stay."
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"Dammit, Lucy!" His voice was suddenly harsh and ugly. "Do it!" She backed away and then turned, her feet shuffling against the concrete. "You've done the right thing." Kessler smiled, bolstering his pistol.
Healow came forward and grabbed Jade's hand. He jerked her to her feet, putting forth a smile that revolted Birch. "Nice to have you back, my Brazilian piece of ass." His head bent down with open mouth to kiss her. Jade's palm came up fast and with a crack impacted his nose into his face. Craig jacked a round into the chamber and brought it to bear on her. "No!" Kessler shouted. "No!"
Healow took a step back, his hands bloody. "What did you do to her?" "Manning, check her," Kessler ordered.
The man with the autobolt put his weapon down and produced a chrome loop fixed in a black box. He went to Jade and ran it up and down her body, stopping when it came to her right ankle. "Don't move," he warned her, then knelt and pulled the electric pistol from her leg. "Could've jazzed me good with that," Healow said bitterly. "That's all right. I'll straighten you out when you get home." He started toward her. She broke and ran to Birch, throwing her arms around him, thrusting her hands into his pockets in a
desperate attempt to attach herself to him. "I want to stay with you, Andrew. Remember what I said? We could work, the three of us. . ."
Healow came up from behind and, to Birch's surprise, gently pulled her away. Her hands slid from his pockets, and he turned his head. "I'm Sony, Jade," he said sheepishly.
Her hands were clasped as Healow led her to a line of crates. "What about your promise?" she cried to Birch.      "Remember that? What about your promise, you bastard?
Birch hung his head. "You're going to like it in Houston," Healow said, voice
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fading. "I have a ranch for us, some acreage. You'll have real outdoors, under a rad-proof dome." "You've done the right thing," Kessler told Birch. "You've come out of this with flying colors. You truly deserve the rank of an Elite-"
There was a blast from where the Healows had gone. Kessler looked at him, furious. "Birch. . " Birch held his hands away from his body, shotgun dangling in one hand. "You didn't say he'd kill her, Howard," he cried. "You didn't say he'd kill her!" "Craig," Kessler barked. "Go find out what the hell's going on!" "Sir. . "Do it!" He whirled on Birch. "If this is any of your doing. . ."
Manning picked up the autobolt and covered Craig to the crates. Craig checked the lanes of traffic and then dropped down behind a crate.
Birch lowered his hands. "Well?" Kessler called. "What is it?" "It's Healow, sir," came the reply. "He's been shot." The rage came. Birch brought the shotgun up and fired. Manning's shoulder exploded, and he spun around, the autobolt failing to the ground. Birch jacked another round into the chamber and fired again. The concussion caught Manning in the chest, blowing his radsuit open on both sides.
Kessler feinted back, hand darting to his shoulder holster. Birch yanked the pump back to chamber the next round. The expended shell came halfway out of the port and jammed. The mechanism froze. "Damn you, Craig!"
He shifted his grip on the weapon as Kessler's hand cleared the holster. Birch swung the gun like a bat, and it connected hard with the side of Kessler's head, sending him sprawling. "Andy!"
It was Lucy. He grabbed the autobolt and ran. Reaching the crates, he jumped up to where he had left the pistol. It was on
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the floor. From his left came the sounds of a scuffle. Birch climbed across the crates, eyes searching in the dark, trembling hard from the drugs leaving his system. "Andy!"
A woman had Lucy by the waist and throat and was dragging her to a side entrance. He closed the distance and jumped to the floor two meters behind them. The woman spun violently and flung Lucy around as a shield. "Come on," Birch said, dripping sweat. "Let's see what you're made of."
She inched back. "I've had Astradyne training, too. I know what you're thinking, bitch. "
The woman stepped back, and Lucy kicked against the floor, propelling them both away. They plowed into a stack of crates, which toppled as they rolled to the floor.
The assassin was the first one to stand. Birch jerked the trigger of the autobolt, and a single bead of plasma struck her squarely in the chest. She convulsed and fell.
He looked down at the weapon, wondering if it had misfired. The setting was on single fire. Birch jammed the lever up to STREAm and aimed at the inert figure. "Andy, don't."
He dropped his aim. "There's been enough killing," Lucy said. Trembling, Birch let the weapon drop. His legs were weak, and he felt tired and drained. The past few moments had purged him, and his sustaining rage was gone. "You're right." He made an empty motion with one hand. "Take that woman's radsuit and put it on."
Lucy bent to the task. Noting that Jade's radsuit was gone, Birch numbly picked his off the crate and squeezed into it. When he was suited, he draped the holstered pistol over one
shoulder and picked up the autobolt.
He turned to see if Lucy was ready. She was, but her gaze was going over his shoulder, showing alan-n. Before she could scream, he whirled and brought the bolt to bear. A river of plasma gushed from the weapon's nozzle and splattered walls
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and crates, covering a shotgunner in mid-aim. There was not even a scream. He jerked straight back, sizzling, and toppled a stack of crates, spilling out great heaps of excelsior.
Panic-stricken, Birch let up on the trigger. It was too late. Something in one of the crates had ignited.
He grabbed Lucy's hand. "How many were with you?" "Three men," she answered. "One woman." "Plus pilot and navigator?" "No. Two of the men did that." "That's what Kessler meant." He started to pull her toward the fire. "Where are we going?" "There's one man left. Craig. He's probably going after Jade."
Lucy balked. "I can't." "You've got to. She bought you out of this mess." She said nothing but followed Birch as he eased his way past the burning crates. He discarded the bolt, took the pistol from the holster, and covered their route.
They turned a comer and made for the front of the building, eyes darting in all directions. They were halfway to the exit when the voice stopped them. "Help me," it said.
Birch eased forward. A figure was lying on the concrete ahead of them, sprawled and blocking the narrow path between the walls and the crates. It propped itself up on one elbow and held out a bloody hand. "Is that you, Birch? You've got to help me."
Birch moved forward, squinting against the sparse light. "Healow?" The figure fell back to the floor, gasping for breath. "Yes." Birch signaled Lucy to stay still. "I thought Jade would have killed you."
He shook his head. The movement agonized him. "She didn't. She could have, but she didn't aim to kill."
Birch took another step and saw what he meant. Healow's groin and thighs were sticky shreds from the fl6chettes, and
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what remained of the lower part of his radsuit was seared by powder bums. "Help me," Healow said, "and she's yours." "She's not yours to give." Birch backed away. "Don't leave," Healow said. "Don't leave, don't. . ." He put his hands over his face and wailed.
Birch continued moving back, looking for a gap in the crates. "We're going back," he told Lucy.
There was no answer. He spun, and something grabbed the back of his jacket and yanked him off balance. His feet were kicked out from under him, and the pistol snapped from his hand. Rolling across
concrete, he splayed out his arms and stopped. He had landed near Lucy.
Kessler aimed his pistol and put his foot on Birch's weapon. His gray hair was stained red from where he had been hit. "This is grand," he said. "Really grand. You've made a
royal muck of things, you know that, Andy? You're unable to
keep your nose out of things, and now you've gone and screwed your own company."
Birch started to rise, but Kessler ordered him to stay down. "That was really a great trick you pulled. I should have seen it coming. You have Jade belt her husband so we check her for weapons and pronounce her clean. Then she pulls the love-struck act and takes another weapon right out of your pocket. Brilliant. "Of course Healow will never work for us now, not after what's happened here." He laughed bitterly. "Not after what's happened to him. But I won't be without my moment of glory." He kicked the weapon. It spun to within a meter of Birch. "Pick it up."
Birch looked at the pistol blankly. "Pick it up," Kessler barked. Lucy crawled to his side and he put his arm around her.
"No," he said. "What's the matter, son? Your fix wearing off? You've got your woman, so your fighting instinct is gone? What if I took
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her out of the way, what would you feel then?"
Birch pulled Lucy into his lap. "You want it," he said flatly. "Do it."
Kessler pulled back the hammer and held the weapon at Is length. 'Wessler!" Richard Craig appeared from behind a crate. "I told you I wanted to handle this." The old man lowered his gun and laughed. "See there'? I've already got someone to take your place." He stepped to one side. "I understand that Richard wants to settle something between the two of you, something about his partner. I'm going to let him. Astradyne could use more men who keep their mouths shut and do what they're told. You never could do that, could you, Birch?"
Birch did not answer. "Of course." Kessler laughed. "Now, at the eleventh hour, the malcontent chooses to be silent." He made a sweeping gesture at the two figures on the floor. "Kill them."
Craig raised the shotgun to his shoulder as a scream broke from Lucy's throat. It was obliterated by the weapon's roar. She spasmed violently against Birch's body and then went limp. Birch clamped his eyes shut. "Look at me!" Craig shouted. "Look at me, damn you!"
Birch's mouth fell open. "Come on, you bastard! Do it!" His eyes flickered open. His head pivoted toward Craig. Something was wrong. His eyes traced the aim of Craig's weapon, but it did not-
Lucy shivered in his arms. Birch snapped his head to look at Kessler. He had stumbled back into a line of crates, hands over his belly, trying to keep thick fluid from leaking out of his radsuit. His mouth was open in astonishment, and his face was lit by wild flickering from the growing flames. He looked at Craig in disbelief. "That's what I wanted to see." Craig smfled. "That was for Karen. The rest of these are on me."
Birch covered Lucy's ears as Craig chambered the next
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round. She jerked with each shot fired, four times in rapid succession, as if trying to bury herself inside him.
The pump action clattered from an empty chamber. "Standard issue," Craig said. "Five shots." He threw the empty gun at Kessler's feet and walked out the front door.
Birch kept his arms around Lucy, feeling her tremble. Then he stood and gently pulled her to her feet, aching at the gray pallor on her face. "Don't look." With an arm around her waist he led her around the oozing mass that had been Howard Kessler and toward the side exit. Jade was waiting for them outside. She hugged Birch and then turned with a smile. "So this is the famous Lucy."
Lucy did nothing. The humor was a little more than she could bear. "You had him," Birch told Jade. "You could have had the rights to the PATER system." "No," she replied, putting the derringer in his hand. "Better to teach him a lesson. I have the settlement check from Seretex. That is more than I need." "Take the car," he said. "Astradyne's going to provide our transportation."
Jade planted a kiss on his cheek. "God bless." He ran his hand through her hair. "See you in Notorious." "You wish." She turned to Lucy and cupped her face with her hands. "And you, little one. You take good care of my Andrew, do you hear?"
Lucy nodded. "Jade." Birch held out the derringer. "No." "What if Trenton comes calling?" "Then he will have to kill me," she said. "But he will not
own me again."
She pulled on the radhood, then started her sweeping, leggy run. Birch turned away and took Lucy around the comer
to where the steves waited. As they approached, a man
snapped to attention and brandished a shotgun. "Put it away, Nello. It's all over."
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Nello's shoulders slumped with relief. "Andy. You scared the hell out of me." "The feeling's mutual." He pointed to the I 100. "Lucy and I are taking that steve."
Nello threw the shotgun in the dirt. "Be my guest." "Healow's still in there, wounded. There's an Astradyne woman, too. You'd better pull them out before they roast." "Right," Nello grunted. He popped the passenger hatch open and helped ease Lucy into the seat. Birch snapped the harness around her. "One more thing," he said, closing the door. "You never went to Bonn, did you?" "How did you know?" "Kessler said the drugs I was given were ingested. I ate them. There was only one person around who could possibly have spiked my food."
Nello looked down. "The stuff had a gingerlike aftertaste," he said. "That's why we ate Chinese so much." "You sold me, partner." "I'm sorry," Nello said, locking eyes with Birch. "I didn't think it would lead to this. I guess I had my eyes closed and was thinking of the company." "You're wrong, Martin. We're not the guys at the brothel. We're the Tijuana whores. And we lie on our backs and let ourselves get screwed because there's always someone waiting in the next room with a fistful of money."
He walked around the front of the vehicle and opened the driver's hatch. "I understand Vargas now, and some of the others. The Elites are the ones who have been used up by the company. They had to do the one thing that made them think. They sold their partners." "Or survived being sold," Nello said. "Well, then," Birch announced. "I guess that makes us both Elite now." He ruffled Nello's hair. "Don't go killing yourself, all fight?" He climbed into the vehicle.
Nello shook his head. "I'm sorry, Andy. Damned sorry." "Don't be, partner. I probably would've done the same thing to you."
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He put his hand down and shook with Nello, then sealed the hatch. Nello opened a side door and vanished into the building as Birch put the engines through cold start. "Where to, m'lady? How about Portland?"
Birch took the control yoke in his hands, and the vehicle lifted off the ground. It went high into the air, then pivoted out on a northwest heading. He plotted no course and followed no vector, flying instead until the day became a memory.
About the Author
Once upon a time there was a young advertising major named Joe Clifford Faust. While sitting in class one day, he decided that writing novels would be infinitely more fun than writing toilet paper commercials. Rather foolishly, he left college and started to write.
Along the way he got married, started a family, and was confronted with handfuls of bills that arrived on a monthly basis. He paid them by working as a disc jockey, a newsletter editor, a salesman of wire and cable, and a film critic. He also worked as a
sheriff's dispatcher and was certified to teach law enforcement officers in the state of Wyoming.
Mr. Faust currently makes a precarious living by writing the novels he dropped out of college to write. Against the advice of his lawyer, he now resides in the state of Ohio.