52
In the ranks of the Bureau, political scramblers fought to divide the pieces of Mordecai Ob’s empire. In the past several years, after his meteoric rise up the chain of command, Daragon could have been one of the contenders himself, the Chief’s heir apparent, his golden boy. But he would not give up the search for Eduard or delegate it to anyone else.
Back inside Headquarters, he sat in the Chief’s office, which had remained unclaimed in the turmoil surrounding Ob’s death. The newly appointed Acting Bureau Chief preferred his own offices on the mainland, and no one contested Daragon’s right to be there. As he worked at the expansive desk in silence, looking at the cold fireplace, the place struck him as very uncomfortable. Too quiet, too empty . . . too haunted. It was difficult to concentrate.
But this workspace was just a spot for him to pile papers and collate the hints and threads that might eventually lead him to Eduard.
Daragon spent his days pounding the streets, continuing the relentless search. He joined tracking teams at random, then he went out for hours alone, walking the nights, studying the ocean of people and looking inside for one familiar identity, one recognizable persona. . . .
Daragon ran his hands through his dark hair, staring at the discolored fiberceramic logs in the fireplace. Weariness descended upon him like a lead blanket. This manhunt had gone on for so long already.
Against his better judgment, he had poked into the wild stories Garth and Teresa had told about Ob’s alleged addiction to Rush-X. True, the Bureau Chief’s previous trainers had been dismissed under curious circumstances, and through some sort of COM glitch could no longer be found. True, Ob could have used his authority to divert confiscated shipments of the illegal drug for his own use.
If Daragon hadn’t known his mentor so well, he might have considered these possibilities, but he had no intention of tarnishing the memory of his martyred Chief. No one else in the Bureau was interested, either. It was an open-and-shut case, and Eduard had already been convicted in absentia. The sentence was set. If they ever caught him, the Bureau of Incarceration and Executions would terminate him.
Daragon brooded in front of the artificial fireplace, oblivious to the flickering shadows of fish overhead. He had once loved Eduard and now felt betrayed, more disappointed than he’d ever been. His friend had ruined everything, had even turned Garth and Teresa against him. Daragon was trapped, and only the Bureau could give him the strength and support he needed.
The private message signal on his COM screen startled him, and Daragon turned back toward Ob’s desk, feeling a sudden wariness and perplexity. Very few people knew his direct code here.
He was utterly shocked to watch Eduard’s familiar face appear in front of him. He grasped the edge of the desk until his knuckles turned white.
“Oh, Daragon, I need to see you,” Teresa said. “It’s very important.”
With no place else to turn, all of her other search options careening to dead ends, Teresa had finally decided to contact the Bureau of Tracing and Locations. With his much-vaunted BTL resources, Daragon could help her in a way no one else could.
“Teresa . . . I didn’t think you would ever speak to me again.” His formal composure seemed ready to crack.
“Can I meet with you in person, and in private?” She swallowed hard, trying to remain businesslike, but she found it difficult not to let her emotions seep through.
His face filled with boyish delight, and he jumped at the chance. “Stay right where you are—I’ll have escorts there in a few minutes.” He reached forward to terminate the transmission, then paused. “It’ll be good to see you, Teresa. You look . . . a lot better.”
After months, her body had grown gradually stronger. The awful Rush-X taste in her mouth had begun to fade . . . or maybe she’d just gotten used to it. During the first weeks, she had wondered if she would die from withdrawal. She woke up shivering, nauseated, dizzy. The body knew what it needed, but Teresa could not, would not get it. Each second stretched out, taut as a piano wire.
With surprising speed an official BTL hovercar dropped from the skylanes to land on the sidewalk. Pedestrians scattered out of the way as the door hissed open on pneumatic lifts, and a dark-clad officer gestured her inside. Shoppers and businessmen stared as she ducked her head and climbed into the back of the vehicle. From the pilot’s compartment, the BTL officer looked back at her with suspicion, remembering Eduard’s face from scores of emergency bulletins.
The dark vehicle shot through commuter traffic patterns in an override lane. She should have been nervous, should have been terrified, but she had already reached the point of desperation. She had to trust Daragon now.
COM authorized a crow’s-flight path out of the city and low across the green-blue waves to the superstructure of Bureau Headquarters. The hovercar dropped precisely onto a painted target circle, and Daragon strode forward to meet her as she climbed out. Rigid and waiting, he remained silent for a long moment, as if the breezes had snatched his words away, then his lips formed a sad smile. He took her in a stiff embrace, which she returned. “Come on, we’ll talk inside. I’ve got an office, of sorts.”
Daragon led her down yellow-lit halls and past aquarium windows. Bureau workers marched through database rooms while evidence technicians hunched over lab analysis equipment. Two junior Inspectors sat at a bare table in an empty room, comparing notes.
Inside Ob’s plush office, Teresa primly took one of the fine leather chairs, across from the broad desk where Daragon stationed himself. Looking at her, he shuddered with déjà vu, recalling when he’d first brought Eduard here to audition as the Bureau Chief’s personal caretaker. That had been the biggest mistake of his life. Daragon wished he had just let Eduard scrape by with his miserable body-selling practice. But he’d tried to do Eduard a favor, as a friend.
In the uneasy silence, he saw inside to the woman he had cared for so deeply. “Teresa, if you’ve come here to request clemency for Eduard, I can’t do it. You know I have to track him down, even if it means . . . sacrificing our friendship.”
“Do you really think Eduard’s a threat to anybody, even on the run?” Teresa shook her head. “No, I don’t want to talk about that. I need to request your help in something else. I want to enlist the Bureau to find someone—to find me. I need to track down my home-body. It’s . . . lost.”
Daragon was taken aback. “Right now our resources are mobilized on a manhunt. I’m not sure I can justify the time for a project like that.”
She wouldn’t let him off so easily. “You always told me the Bureau did good and important work, more than just tracking down criminals. You were so proud of how the BTL helped to locate family members and find missing people.” She leaned forward in the chair. “Now I need you to help find me—the original me.” She looked intently at him, using every coin she had. “The one who held you and talked with you in the night.”
“Teresa . . . I can’t—” He still refused to meet her eyes.
“Is it because I look like Eduard now?” She waited a beat. “This is important to me, Daragon.”
He looked at her, wishing he could see the real Teresa again, the woman he had touched and loved in a wistful younger way. This might partially heal the breach between them, though he realized nothing would make her forgive him. She had always been more devoted to Eduard. “All right. Give me whatever information you have, any leads I can use. I’ll keep my eyes open.”
It might be as easy as running a simple COM trace, but he doubted he’d get an answer with so little effort. It could take a long time. Teresa would continue her quest, wandering the city, talking to people, retracing her footsteps.
In the meantime, Daragon had his own quarry to catch.