44
Eager to see her friends, Teresa came early to Club Masquerade, arriving even before Garth for a change. She sat in a comfortable floating chair, listening to her turmoil of thoughts. The pain of losing Arthur and his ideas was still fresh, but she determined to turn it into something positive.
She bought a wintergreen-flavored stim-stick and kept an eye on the various entrances. Music throbbed like a jogger’s heartbeat in the background.
The last time they’d met here in the Club, she had told Eduard and Garth about the wonderful things the old man had taught her, but now she needed more from them. Maybe the two men wouldn’t understand her quest to find her original body, but at least they would listen.
An enormously pregnant woman with curly brown hair waddled in. She scanned the faces until her eyes lit upon Teresa’s waifish form. The pregnant woman waved at her, then huffed up a small set of stairs to the raised table where Teresa sat.
“My back hurts.” He pulled one of the chairs out much farther from the table than he actually needed to and struggled to maneuver his body. Slowly, carefully, he sat down. “I asked for this, so I can’t complain. But the . . . unwieldiness is affecting my ability to work.”
“Garth, you look absolutely radiant,” she said with a smile. “Tell me, what does it feel like? Having a baby inside you, another life growing.”
“For one thing, it’s triggered my nesting instincts. I worry about things I never thought of before—and spend as much time cleaning the house as I do creating my art. I don’t know how much of it is biochemical and how much is mental.” He cradled his belly and ran an eye over her delicate form. “You should try it sometime. Or would you rather just swap with me for an hour? As long as you don’t tell anybody. I’ve got a very strict contract with the conception-mother.”
Teresa shook her head quickly. “No . . . I’m done with fast hopscotching, until I can find my own body again.”
He regarded her with curiosity, but respected her choice. When Bernard Rovin’s face appeared on the table filmscreen, Garth ordered a carbonated juice drink, forsaking his usual beer. He placed a hand on his abdomen as a flicker of pain traveled across his face.
Teresa leaned forward in alarm. “Oh, you’re not going to have the baby here, are you?”
“Don’t be melodramatic. It could be just gas.” Garth laughed. “These irregular contractions are coming more frequently, though. I’m due in only a few days.” His juice drink arrived from the dispenser, and he took a long sip.
“You going to name the baby after me, Garth?” the bartender asked from the screen, image grinning.
“It’s a girl, Bernard. Besides, that’s out of my hands. Within a day after delivery I swap back with the conception-mother.”
“It sounds like she’s getting the better end of the deal, don’t you think?” Teresa said.
Rovin’s face changed on the screen, this time speaking with a sharp tone. “Your friend Eduard’s coming through. He’s in a hurry, and he doesn’t look at all good.”
Teresa stood up, scanning the various entrances. She saw the haggard young man dash from the Arabian Nights room into the main bar. His face was drawn, his brow and hair misted with sweat, his dark eyes wide and frightened.
She waved. “Oh, Eduard! Over here!”
He flinched at the sound of his name above the pulsing music, then made eye contact with Teresa. Garth raised his hand in greeting, struggled briefly, then abandoned the effort to get up.
Eduard hunched down and averted his face as he moved through the crowd, but his furtive efforts only attracted more attention. Teresa met him halfway to the table, draped her arm across his shoulder. His clothes were drenched with sweat and smelled rank. Ravenous, he plucked one of Teresa’s wintergreen stim-sticks from a tray. “Can I have this? I really need it.”
He crunched down the stick, and Garth pushed his remaining half-glass of juice toward his friend. “Here, drink this, too. We’ll order another round, and some food. Did you hear that, Bernard?”
“Got it,” said the screen.
“Eduard, what is it? What’s happened?” Teresa asked.
He gulped Garth’s juice, then looked with hunted eyes first at Teresa, then at Garth. “I’m on the run, and I’m desperate. I need help. And money.” He sucked in a deep breath. He looked down at his ID patch with dismay. “I don’t dare use COM. The Beetles would trace any transaction, locate me anytime I try to log in.”
Garth and Teresa shifted their chairs closer, like covered wagons circling. Their new positions would keep anyone from spotting Eduard from the door.
“What happened, Eduard?” Garth said.
“You know you can tell us anything.” Teresa’s voice overlapped Garth’s.
Eduard looked at his hands, which clenched into gnarled fists. His hands trembled with inner quakings. “I was too damned impulsive.” Then he frowned more deeply. “The bastard deserved it, but I never meant for this to happen.”
“Who?” Garth persisted.
“Ob—I . . . I think I killed him.” As they sat stunned, he explained what the Bureau Chief had been doing to him, addicting him to Rush-X, destroying his body as he had done to his previous three body-caretakers.
Garth looked as if he couldn’t believe it, nor could he disbelieve anything Eduard said. He gasped as another labor spasm hit him, but he was just as astonished to think of what Mordecai Ob had been doing to his friend, even while he was acting as a patron for Garth’s struggling artistic career.
Teresa kept her voice low, remembering that she had talked with Eduard about this at the FRUSTRATION debut. “Why didn’t you come to us sooner? Either one of us would have helped you out—”
“I knew you two would be here. Maybe I’ll be safe for a few minutes, maybe not. It could be my last chance to see you both. From now on, the Beetles will be watching everyone, especially you two, and I don’t want to put you in danger.”
“Turn yourself in,” Garth said, surprised to find tears pouring down his cheeks. “You can’t just run.”
Eduard’s haggard face turned hard. “Don’t be ridiculous! I killed the head of the BTL, and then I ran. I couldn’t look more guilty if I tried. Ob wasn’t stupid, and look how he made everybody love him—you included, Garth. He wouldn’t have left any clues, and his previous caretakers have all disappeared. Since he was going to get rid of me, he probably even left evidence to set me up.”
“But what about Daragon?” Teresa suggested. “Why can’t you just explain what really happened? Talk to him—”
Eduard hung his head. “After . . . it happened, before I knew what to do, Daragon saw me. He’s probably called in BTL reinforcements by now.” He looked around, haunted. “By now, he believes I betrayed him in the worst possible way. He’ll never let me tarnish the image of his great mentor. None of the fanatical Beetles would. I’ll be ‘accidentally’ killed during my arrest.”
Teresa said in a firm voice, “Then we’ve got to do something for you—right now.”
With swollen fingers, Garth grabbed his hand. “If you’ve got the BTL after you, and you can’t use COM, what are you going to do? How are you going to get out of this?”
“Good question,” Eduard said. “Any ideas?”
Garth dug into the purse slung over his shoulder and hauled out his account card. He transferred a large balance onto a blank voucher. “Unmarked credits, same as cash, so don’t lose them. You can spend them without leaving a trail. Use them to go far, and be safe. Get away from the city.”
Eduard’s eyes widened at the amount. “Is this some of Ob’s money?”
“He cut off my stipend as soon as my first exhibition was successful. And another gallery paid me in advance for the rights to showcase my next work . . . if I ever get it finished, that is.”
“I can’t repay you.” Eduard’s red-rimmed eyes glistened, and he squeezed Garth’s shoulder with a shaky hand. “I can’t even thank you enough. Not for something like this.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, I can spare it.” Garth’s throat thickened with emotion, and the hormone storm in his pregnant body intensified the response. “You helped me out when I needed it. When I was struggling to be an artist, I survived because of your generosity whenever you got a big payoff. Now it’s my turn. And don’t you dare argue.”
Teresa fixed her large eyes on Eduard, and he saw something in her expression. “I don’t have any money for you, Eduard, but let me do something else. I’m offering you my body . . . literally. Swap with me, and run. Get away, use me as a disguise. It’ll throw them for a little while.”
Eduard flinched. “Teresa, you can’t! The Beetles have my ID, my fingerprints, my blood type, my COM accounts.”
She jabbed a finger toward his chest. “They’re looking for this home-body. For you. You saved me from Rhys and before that you rescued me from that fugitive in the flower market. Don’t argue now.” Arthur had not let her repay him before he died, and she needed to do this for Eduard.
“Teresa, you don’t want this mess.” Eduard held up a shaking hand. “My body might already be irreparably damaged, thanks to what Ob did to me. Even best-case, you’ll probably go through a horrendous withdrawal.”
But she would not be swayed. “Oh, this isn’t even my original body, Eduard. This body or that—it doesn’t matter to me, if it’s not the right one. But it may mean the difference between life and death for you. I’ll take care of yours, make it healthy again, if I can.” She grasped his hand with an iron grip. “Hopscotch now, Eduard. I insist.” He tried to back away, but she forced herself upon him. “You don’t have any other options. And you know you’d do it for me if our roles were reversed.”
They touched. Swapped.
After synching their ID patches, Teresa stared at herself across the table. She felt his strung-out body, the aches, the drug-induced damage to his nerves and reflexes. She reached for her tart drink, hoping it would burn the awful drug aftertaste from her mouth.
As he looked at her from behind what had been her wide eyes, Eduard’s expression changed to guilt and dismay. But Teresa, seeing him inside the waifish body she’d worn for so long, didn’t even feel a sense of loss. She only hoped her friend could get away.
Knowing this might be the last time she ever saw him, she embraced Eduard gently, wetting his bony shoulder with her tears. She knew how fragile this slight female form was. Rhys had already broken it once.
Garth also hugged Eduard, pulling him against his swollen belly. “You stay well, Eduard. Stay alive.”
“That’s what I intend to do,” he answered. “And no matter where I am, no matter how far down I fall, I will always remember that I have friends like you.”
Saying goodbye for what might well be forever, Eduard fled in his new identity across the crowded dance floor and ducked through one of the Club’s random exit arches.