46
Even with a clearly defined goal for the first time in her life, Teresa still felt lost. Where to find her original female form, her home-body that she hadn’t seen in over a year? It seemed an impossible task even before she started. Without Garth’s sketch in his portrait spectrum, Teresa wasn’t sure she even remembered what she had looked like.
Logging onto COM, she used all the skills Soft Stone had taught her in the monastery library, but she found no trace of the woman named Jennika who had fled the enclave wearing Teresa’s home-body. She wondered if “Jennika” had even been the young woman’s real name.
As a start to her search, she knew she had to retrace her steps, go back to where her original body had disappeared. But asking the necessary questions meant returning to the Sharetakers. Teresa swallowed hard. It would be the most difficult thing she’d ever done.
With gray clouds blanketing the sky, she stood in Eduard’s aching and wasted form. She tried to put aside the discomfort, her reluctant need for more Rush-X, the awful taste in her mouth. For two days she’d been trying to rest, to eat nourishing food, doing what she could to restore her vitality.
Eduard’s body was weak and sore, maybe irreparably damaged. Even the fresh air smelled sour in her nostrils, and the constant headache wore her down. During the worst pain of withdrawal, though, she did not regret her choice for Eduard. He was still out there, somewhere. Alive, she hoped.
Now, her stomach in knots, Teresa stood outside the enclave from which she had fled, where Eduard had rescued her. The familiar building looked rundown. Inside, the open area now looked cluttered and unfinished. The Sharetakers had once owned most of the building, but many of the levels had been repossessed and rebuilt. She wondered what had happened here.
Where once she had worked joyously among a bustling crowd of fellow believers, now they all looked uneasy, stressed. Only a few Sharetakers remained, victims of disappointment and confusion. People moved with their heads down, carrying boxes, distraught.
Upon seeing her enter, unrecognizable in Eduard’s haggard body, two of the members ran out of the room, as if to fetch someone. “Maybe he wants to join,” suggested one woman, her voice doubtful.
Some doors were sealed, marked with new ownership tags. Construction workers moved about, measuring, marking, pounding. Support struts stood in the open rooms where the Sharetakers had knocked down walls to make their togetherments. Now the communal areas were being subdivided, new walls framed, individual living spaces mapped out once again.
She stepped uncertainly into the dusty open area, at a loss. “I . . . I’m trying to find someone. A person who used to be a member here. Her name was Jennika. Does anybody remember her?”
None of the remaining Sharetakers seemed to care. “Too late. She’s probably gone.”
“If she got out of here, then she’s definitely in a better place. The Sharetakers are bankrupt,” said a frowning older man. “I lost everything. We all did. We’re closing down.”
Teresa held on to a plaswood brace. She vaguely recognized this man’s weathered face, had no idea who lived in his body now. Names on ID patches meant nothing to her, and she knew they never kept any records. Steeling her nerves, she asked with dread, “Where’s Rhys?”
The middle-aged man sagged. “Who knows?” Then, bitterly, as if he too had been betrayed, “Who cares?”
A woman stopped, setting down a box full of miscellaneous items. “He ran away, actually. The Beetles kept sniffing around here, and one night Rhys just disappeared. He abandoned us, after all his talk about trusting and sharing, his compassion, his promises.” Her weathered face grew ruddy. “We trusted him.”
Teresa tried to hide her instinctive relief. “It sounds like just the kind of thing Rhys would do.”
The weary man snapped back to the situation at hand. “Sorry, can’t talk anymore. We’ve got work to do. Our group has been evicted from the building. No more togetherments, and we have to be out by today. I’ve still got some packing to do.” He sighed. “Well, not much to pack, really.”
Teresa realized that it would do no good to keep asking. Jennika was just a name in an unremembered body; her loss had been of no consequence to the Sharetakers, especially not now, when everything was gone.
She looked around, trying to recapture a single warm memory of this place where she had spent so much time, where she had once felt loved and at home. But she only felt as empty as the repossessed rooms.
Walking away from the enclave, Teresa tried to think of where else to search. She had not even returned home in a day. Restlessness kept her moving, searching. As always.
Now, though, she hadn’t gone more than a block before she heard shouts and running feet. Weapons sensors activated with a crackling zzippp.
“Eduard Swan! Freeze!”
A swarm of dark-uniformed Beetles converged from side streets, drawing heavy weapons. Overhead, with a loud whirring sound, an armored chopter cruised low. Long barrels of laser-tracking munitions protruded from the hull plates, all zeroing in on a target. On her. She was in Eduard’s body.
Teresa stood motionless. “I’m not Eduard.” Her hoarse voice was drowned out by the chaos of apprehension activities. She made no threatening move, no twitches or gestures. They wouldn’t bother to use stun projectiles this time.
The remaining Sharetakers who had slogged outside with packages and crates dropped their possessions and scrambled back inside, perhaps thinking that this was a raid on their enclave.
“I am not Eduard!” She held up her hand, turning the ID patch for all to see, but no one came close enough to read the code.
Orders were bellowed from loudspeakers. BTL troops surrounded her, but they maintained a substantial distance, as if her body might be wired with explosives. Teresa stood in the middle of it all, very slowly turning to show that she was no threat to anyone.
The apprehension commander came forward without lowering his weapon. He glared at her through a face-protective shield. “Prepare to be taken into custody. Be advised that we will show no tolerance for resistance.”
“My name is Teresa.” She quietly repeated it, like a mantra. “Run an ID scan, and we’ll clear this up.” At any instant she expected the weapons to fire, the first shot taken by an enforcer who imagined a threatening motion, or even sneezed at the wrong moment.
The heavily armed chopter cast a shadow over the prisoner. Another BTL hovercar streaked down the street, coasting to ground level with a blast of exhaust. The door swung up on glide pistons, and an Inspector leaped out.
Teresa saw him, and her heart swelled. “Daragon!” The name came out in Eduard’s familiar voice.
Daragon marched forward, face grim. He snapped at the other Beetles. “Lower your weapons! I want no shooting.” He pushed two of the armed hunters aside. “Absolutely none.”
“But, sir—” the apprehension commander said.
“If you believe one unarmed man can break through your entire cordon, Sergeant, then the Bureau needs to train its troops better.”
“We haven’t ascertained yet that he’s unarmed—”
“Of course he’s unarmed. I know Eduard—” Then his face paled as he got his first real glance at her. “Teresa!”
She tentatively lowered her arms. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell them.”
Daragon slapped the apprehension commander’s weapon away. “Back off! This isn’t Eduard—he’s already hopscotched into a new body. We knew this would probably happen.” He stared long and hard at her. “I just didn’t think the red herring would be you.”
“Eduard has done the same for me, whenever I needed it. Whenever.”
The Beetles grumbled at each other, disgusted. Daragon ordered them to fall into ranks. “This person is in my custody for now, until we get the matter straightened out.” He took Teresa’s arm, walking boldly through the encircling ring of troops, getting her away from all the weapons. The uniformed men parted with a rattle of boots and firearms.
Daragon looked into her eyes with disappointment and saw only Eduard there. “How could you help him like this? Where did he go? Tell me. You must tell me—it’s your duty.”
“To let you kill my friend?” Teresa yanked her arm away. “How can you side with a monster like Ob? He addicted Eduard’s body to illegal drugs—oh, just look at me!” She plucked at her shirt, touched Eduard’s scarecrow chest.
Daragon shook his head. “So you believe that crazy story, too? I knew Chief Ob as well as I knew Eduard.”
“Have you tried to check his story at all? Did you find Ob’s other caretakers?”
“I have teams working on it. All three are still missing.”
Teresa’s body trembled, aching from Rush-X withdrawal. “Doesn’t that make you at all suspicious?”
“Chief Ob dismissed his caretakers because they were unreliable. I didn’t really expect to find them working comfortable jobs.”
“So, all four were dismissed for being unreliable? A coincidence, don’t you think? And what about the gardener? He saw it all. He was the one who warned Eduard.”
“He didn’t have proof of anything. But even if it were true, that changes nothing in the eyes of the law. If a hungry man steals from a store, he is still a thief. If a disgruntled employee kills an abusive employer, he is still a murderer. Eduard murdered a man, a powerful man, and he fled.”
“It was an accident,” Teresa said, setting her jaw stubbornly. “Deep down inside you know Eduard isn’t a killer.”
Exasperated, Daragon forced himself not to shout, not at Teresa. “I could arrest you for aiding and abetting a wanted murderer. How can I protect you from this? Do you know how much I’ve already done for you and Garth—and, yes, dammit, Eduard, too! Why didn’t he trust me?”
“You aren’t exactly giving him the benefit of the doubt right now, either. This is Eduard we’re talking about!”
A cascade of emotions flowed across his face, and he tried a different approach. “Teresa, aside from Soft Stone, I was the only one who ever listened to you talk about the mysteries of life. When Eduard was sneaking out of the monastery, and when Garth was painting the walls of the basement, I was the one who sat next to you. I listened to you.”
Her expression remained torn. She had once cared deeply for him, but the Bureau had turned him into a stranger. “Oh, Daragon, you only came to listen to me back then because you wanted to be my friend. You didn’t care about those questions any more than Garth or Eduard did.”
Daragon nodded slowly as if she were his confessor. “No, but you three had a different, closer bond. I wanted to be friends like—”
She shook her head, frowning at him. “Friendship like that was only possible because we would have done anything for each other. Anything. You tried to be close to me, but you always kept a piece of yourself hidden. And now that uniform has made the wall even thicker. Until you realize that, and as long as you keep trying to kill Eduard, we’ll have nothing to talk about.”
Teresa shook her head, feeling the stiffness in her neck, the pounding in her skull. “Eduard’s probably swapped out of my old body by now anyway. I honestly don’t know where he might be.”
Daragon’s voice lost all compassion. “Are you telling me the truth now, Teresa?”
“I would never lie to you.” She turned back to him, her face rigid. “I thought you knew that.”
“But you wouldn’t do anything to harm Eduard, either, would you?”
Teresa didn’t even hesitate before answering. “Of course not.”
Frustrated and hurt, Daragon didn’t press the issue. He knew the other Beetles would be disappointed, even outraged, but he couldn’t ask her more. He longed for the closeness they had shared in the past.
But before he could say anything, she walked away in Eduard’s drug-ravaged body, leaving the Beetles behind. She didn’t even glance back at him. The priorities of the Bureau meant nothing to her.